•F*V A* «* /W' rfi
.r, rn-
ment treated in all countries as the crime of crimes ?
34. Does not this denial strike at the security of life, of prop-
erty, and of all that men hold dear ?
35. Can there be any government in a country but the exist-
ing government, if men have no power to overthrow it and es-
tablish another ?
3G. If the existing government is a military despotism, tyran-
nically administered, and men have no power to overthrow it
and establish a better in its place, is it no1 their duly to ac-
knowledge its authority, and to pay their money to support it '!
37. Was it not to a people living under the government of
Nero, an absolute despot and a cruel tyrant, that Paul said,
"The powers that be are ordained of God?"
38. Did not Paul direct the Homans [Rom., xiii., (», 7], and did
not Christ direct the Jews [Mark, xii., 17] to pay tribute to ab-
solute military despots, who were also cruel tyrants ?
39. Docs not common sense make a broad distinction bei we< o
the right to rule and the right to rule tyrannically ?
40. While the power of Nero was the gift of God, and while
this power invested him by God's decree with the right to rule,
was not every violation of the law of love in the exercise of his
authority a sin against God ?
41. May not a good man sometimes innocently hold and es
ercise authority under a tyrant ?
8 PREMIUM QUESTIONS ON SLAVERY.
42. Was not the best man that Christ met while He was on
earth a centurion slaveholder in the army of Tiberius Caesar ?
[Luke, vii., 9.]
43. Did not Tiberius Caesar, by the army in which that centuri-
on was an officer, hold all the Jews subject to his absolute will?
44. While the Jews hated Caesar, and were oppressed by Cae-
sar, did not their own good require that Caesar's government
should be supported ?
45. Could Caesar's government have been supported without
an army, and could the army have existed without officers ?
46. Did not Christ clearly look upon the centurion as engaged
in supporting government — an institution absolutely necessary
to the good of the Jews ?
47. Did not the centurion love the Jews ? [Luke, vii., 5.]
48. Must it not have been a great comfort to the Jews to
know that some of the officers in Caesar's army loved them ?
49. Would it not have made the Jews sad if Christ had told
the centurion that he must resign his military commission ?
50. Was it not a blessed thing for these Jews that the law of
Christ did not require his resignation ?
51. Did not the centurion love his slave?* [Luke, vii., 2.]
52. As Christ did not require the centurion to emancipate his
slave, is it not reasonable to infer that love did not require it ?
53. May it not have been a blessed thing for this poor slave
that Christ was not an Abolitionist ?
The Right and Duty of Private Judgment.
54. Does not the Bible regard all the property, talent, influ-
ence, or, in one word, all the power of every man, as " of God"
—the gift of God?
55. Does not every man hold his power from God as a trust,
to be used in love, not for his merely selfish good, but for the
good of all, for the highest good ?
5C. Does not the Bible say that every man must "give ac-
count of himself to God ?" [Rom., xiv., 1 2.]
57. Will not God "require every man to account to Him for
the use of all the power which He has given him ?
58. Is it not the right and duty of every man to judge and
decide for himself what God requires him to do ?
* The Greek word here translated servant means slave.
PREMIUM QUESTIONS OX SLAVEKY. '.)
59. Can any man transfer this duty from himself to the Pope,
to a priest, to the Church, to the state, to his master, to the ma-
jority of the people, to public sentiment, to any body?
GO. Is not every slave a man ?
Gl. Must not every slave give account of himself to God?
[Rom., xiv., 12.]
62. If a slave is a real Christian, will he not, from a sense of
duty to God and to the community, be a quiet, faithful, sub-
missive slave, with good-will doing service, even to a tyrannical
master ? [1 Pet., ii., 18-20 ; Eph., vi., 5, 7 ; Titus, ii., 9, 10 ; Col.,
iii., 22; 1 Tim., vi., 1,2.]
63. Will not a Christian slave endeavor to obey all the law-
ful commands of his master ?
G4. If a master require a slave to do what God forbids him to
do, has not the slave always power to refuse obedience ?
Go. If a master requires a Christian slave to do what God for-
bids him to do, will not the Christian slave respectfully but firm-
ly decline to obey ?
GG. If death is the penalty of disobedience, will not the Chris-
tian slave choose to die? [Luke, xii., 4, 5.]
07. Is not the slave who chooses to die rather than to violat<
the law of God a man, in the highest and noblest sense vi' the
word ?
68. Is not such a slave "the Lord's freeman?" [1 Cor.,
vii, 22.]
69. Is he not free with a liberty, beyond all comparison, more
joyous than any which human law can give ?
70. Did not Christ and his apostles seek to make all men the
Lord's freemen ?
Right of Revolution.
71. When the Lord's freemen are sufficiently multiplied in
any country suffering under a tyrannical government, may they
not regard themselves as "the power ordained of God" to over-
throw it, and to establish a better government in its place?
72. Does God require passive obedience ami non-resistance to
tyrants from men to whom JTe has given ]^oioer to overthrow
their bad government and establish a better ?
73. Was not government instituted by God for the gooel of
the governed ? [Pom., xiii., 4.]
10 PREMIUM QUESTIONS ON SLAVERY.
74. When the good of the governed clearly caUs for a change
in the administration, or in the form of a government, and God
has given the power to make the change, is it not reasonable to
infer that it is His will that the change should be made ?
75. In interpreting God's laws, did not Christ teach us to re-
gard the spirit rather than the letter ?
70. Was not the Sabbath instituted by God for the good of
man
77. Does not the good of man require a rest from labor one
day in seven ?
78. In a rare case, in which a great good could be accomplish-
ed by labor on the Sabbath, did not Christ teach that labor was
lawful, because in that case the good of man required it — be-
cause the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sab-
bath? [Mark, ii., 27.]
79. Was not the American Revolution justifiable on the prin-
ciples of the New Testament system of ethics ?
Declaration of American Independence.
80. Is it not to be lamented that our fathers, in the Declara-
tion of American Independence, did not justify their overthrow
of British tyranny hi this country on the Protestant Christian
principle, of the right and duty of all men to use the power given
them by God to change their form of government, whenever the
highest good, taking every thing into the account, clearly re-
quires the change ?
81. Is not the assertion in the Declaration of American Inde-
pendence, that all men have a right to liberty, interpreted by
Abolitionists, and by superficial thinkers generally throughout
Christendom, as implying that all slavery is morally wrong, and
that every slaveholder who retains his fellow-man in bondage
against his will is a violator of his sacred rights ?
82. Were not many of the signers of the Declaration of Amer-
ican Independence themselves slaveholders, both before and
after they signed it ; and when they died, did they not leave
their slaves to be held as property by their heirs and legatees?
83. If Thomas Jefferson, Charles Carroll, and the other slave-
holders who signed the Declaration of American Independence,
intended to assert the right of all men to liberty, in the Aboli-
PREMIUM QUESTIONS ON SLAVERY. 11
tion sense of the assertion, were the}- nol detestable hypocrites;
making bitter complaints to the whole world of the King of
Great Britain for violating their own rights in matters of com-
paratively trivial importance, while! they were themselves per
sistently robbing poor helpless men, women, and children of their
acknowledged, sacred, God-given, inalienable rights?
84. At the date of the Declaration of American Independence,
did not the people of every state in the Union maintain by law
a system of slavery within its own borders? And did nol the
people in each of these slates, except Massachusetts, continue to
maintain slavery by law within its own borders Cor many years
alter that date? And when the Avar for independence had ter-
minated, did not the people of all the states in the Union, not
excepting Massachusetts, in State Conventions called for the
purpose, deliberately ami solemnly ratify the Constitution of the
United States, by which they bound themselves and their pos-
terity to deliver up fugitive slaves, and thus to aid and abel in
the support of slavery so long as there is a slave state or a slave-
holder in the land ?
85. If the signers and supporters of the Declaration of Amer-
ican Independence intended in that document to declare thai
every negro slave has a God-given, unqualified right to liberty,
is it not strange that, after a long and bloody Avar to maintain
that declaration, they should deliberately enter into a solemn
covenant to re-enslave every negro Avho should escape from his
master?
86. Is it not passing strange that, so far as is known, not a sin-
gle member of any one of the thirteen State Conventions that
ratified the Constitution of the United States ever protested
against, or even objected to, the article requiring the surrender
of the fugitive slave to his master?
87. Does not this fact strikingly illustrate the difien :
tAveen the anti-slavery sentiment and feeling of the patriots << , not to
England, hat Aim rica.
120. Is not the abolition, of the African slave-trade regarded
throughout Christendom, and especially in England, as "the
greatest philanthropic movement of modern times?"
121. Does not the honor of originating that movement belong
to America, and in America does it not belong pre-eminently to
Virginia slaveholders ?
122. Is not the article in the Constitution of the United States
1G PREMIUM QUESTIONS ON SLAVERY.
giving Congress the power to abolish the slave-trade in 180S the
first provision ever made by any nation for the abolition of its
African slave-trade ?
123. Was not the Constitution of the United States, with its
provision for the abolition of the African slave-trade, formed by
a convention of the thirteen original states in 1787?
124. In 1787 were not all the maritime powers of Europe,
with Great Britain at their head, actively engaged in the African
slave-trade, with no remonstrances from any considerable num-
ber of their people ?
125. In 1787 were not ten of the thirteen American States,
and more than four fifths of the American people, ripe for the
immediate abolition of the African slave-trade, the two Carolinas
and Georgia being the only states that desired its continuance ?
126. Did it not require the efforts of Clarkson, Wilberforce,
and their associates, with all the power of the British press, ex-
erted constantly for twenty years, to bring the British people up
to the point of demanding from their Parliament in 1808 what
the American people spontaneously and almost unanimously de-
manded in 1787?
In America the Honor of the Abolition of the Slave-trade due
to Virginia.
127. And in America does not the honor of the most earnest
and efficient action in this work of philanthropy belong to the
slaveholders of Virginia f
128. In the Convention of 1787, was it not after delegates
from New England had expressed their willingness to insert in
the United States Constitution, if the Carolinas and Georgia
should insist upon it, an article withholding from Congress for-
ever the power to abolish the African slave-trade, that Virginia,
by her earnestness and firmness, with the steady support of Penn-
sylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, procured the article giv-
ing Congress the power to abolish it after a limited period.
120. If New England had voted with Virginia on the 25th of
August, 1787, would not Congress have been invested with
power to abolish the African slave-trade in 1800 instead of
1808?
130. Did not New England vote with the Carolinas and
PREMIUM QUESTIOXS OX SLAVERY. 17
Georgia to extend the slave-trade from 1800 to 1808, for the
purpose of securing, in return, the votes of the Carolinas and
Georgia for a navigation act which would give the carrying
trade of all the slave states to New England ship-owners?
131. Was not the carrying trade of the slave stales, which
New England secured by the sacrifice of her anti-slavery prin-
ciples, a great source, if not the great source, of the capital which
is now invested in her railways, cotton-mills, woolen-mills, and
all branches of her business ?
132. Does not the census of the United Slates, and other offi-
cial records, show that, between the years 1800 and 1808 (i.e.
between the year in which the African slave-trade would have
ceased, if New England had voted in the Convention of 1787
with Virginia, and the year to which it was extended by the
union of New England with Georgia and the Carolinas), nearly,
or quite, 100,000 negroes must have been imported into the
Southern States'?
133. Has not the whole negro population of the United States
more than trebled by natural increase since the importation of
negroes ceased in 1808 ?
134. Are there not, then, in our Southern States at this mo-
ment 300,000 negro slaves who are there in consequence of the
vote of New England, in opposition to the vote of Virginia ; and
was not that vote of New England given immediately alter a
faithful representation by Virginia slaveholders of the greal evils,
moral and political, arising from an increase of the negro popula-
tion of the country ?
135. Is it not true, then, that to Virginia, the leading slave
state of the American Union, the honor is due from the whole
world of the earliest and most efficient action for the abolition
of the African slave-trade ?
13G. And is not New England, the fountain-head tif abolition-
ism in this country, justly chargeable with voting, from merce-
nary motives, for the prolongation of that trade for eighl years,
and thus adding hundreds of thousands to the present negro -lave
population of the South?
Limiting the Spread of Slavery over American Soil.
137. Is it not to Virginia, also, that Ave are indebted for the
18 PREMIUM QUESTIONS ON SLAVEEY.
most efficient action in limiting the extension of slavery on
American soil?
138. Are not five of our largest and most populous free states,
viz., Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, formed out
of the territory which Virginia, more than seventy years ago,
ceded to the Union ?
139. In ceding that vast territory, might not Virginia, like
Connecticut, have reserved a portion of the proceeds of the sale
of the lands ; and, if the reservation had been in proportion to
that of Connecticut, would it not have added $100,000,000 or
more to the treasury of Virginia ?
140. While ceding both the right of sovereignty and the right
of soil, might not Virginia, at least, have reserved for her own
slaveholders the right of migrating to that territory with their
slaves ; and would not the reservation of such a right have add-
ed to the value of slave property remaining in Virginia?
141. Instead of this, did not the leading statesman of Vir-
ginia, Thomas Jefferson, in 1784, propose to cut off the Virginia
slaveholders, with all other slaveholders, from the right of car-
rying their slaves to that territory ; and did not Virginia, by
her vote for the ordinance of 1787, actually vote to cut them off,
thus, by a surrender and sacrifice of her own interests, giving
the whole land to the Union, and dedicating it forever to free-
dom?
Voluntary Emancipation of Slaves by Individuals.
142. After these efforts to stop the importation of negro slaves
from Africa, and to prevent the extension of slavery to new ter-
ritory at home, did not slaveholders of Virginia and the adjoining
slave states begin the work of the voluntary emancipation of
their own slaves on a large scale ; and did not that work go on
until it was stopped by the deep conviction of the emancipators
that all their sacrifices were worse than useless ; for that, in a pop-
ulation composed of whites and negroes in nearly equal numbers,
and under all the circumstances of their situation in our slave
states, the liberty of the negroes is not consistent with the high-
est good of either of the races, so long as they remain intermix-
ed with each other in the same community?
143. Does not the United States census of 1850 show that, as
PREMIUM QUESTIONS OX SLAVEBY. 19
the fruits of the voluntary emancipation of their slaves by Amer-
ican slaveholders, there were then in our slave Btates 235,916
free blacks, whose value as slaves, at $500 each, would be nearly
$120,000,000?
Colonization of JYec/rocs in Africa.
144. After the failure of their experiment of voluntary eman-
cipation, because of the frightful evils, foreseen as inevital
an intermixture of whites and free blacks in large Dumb
the same country, did not the statesmen of Virginia anxiously
labor to establish a home for emancipated negroes in Africa,
where they might be really free, and might exhibit to the world
what a community of negro freemen could be and do, when
placed under the most favorable circumstances for developing
all their capacities for good?
115. Did not these anxious labors end in founding ih< Rt pub-
lic of Liberia in Africa^ the only free country on t/u ,<<
which the negro rules?
140. Has it not recently come to light (see C. F. Mercer's
Address to the American Colonization Society, on January is,
1853) that, long before the formation of the American Coloniza-
tion Society in 1817, the Legislature of Virginia, in secret ses-
sions, in the years 1800, 1801, 1804, and 1805, prepared the way
for the establishment, of a free negro republic?
147. Does not Mr. Mercer show clearly, in the address refer-
red to above, that the Republic of Liberia is indebted for its
prosperity and for its very existence to statesmen of Virginia?
lis. Does he not show that Virginia statesmen framed, and
by their assiduous efforts carried through Congress, the act of
1819, "which authorized the return of Africans captured by our
vessels to their native land at the expense of the United 6
149. Does he not show that under that act of 1S1!) more than
$300,000 have been expended; and that without the first
$100,000 of that sum "the colony of Liberia would never have
existed ?"
150. Is not the establishment of colonies of negro freemen on
the African coast the wisest and surest mode of breaking up the
slave-trade in Africa, and of spreading the light of civilization
and Christianity over that benighted continent ?
20 g PREMIUM QUESTIONS ON SLAVERY.
Mecapitulation of the Action of American Slaveholders.
151. Considering what Virginia did in the Convention of 1787
for the abolition of the African slave-trade ; what she did at the
same time for limiting the extension of slavery on American
soil ; what she did for the establishment and support of the Re-
public of Liberia ; what sacrifices her slaveholders made, in con-
nection with slaveholders of the adjoining states, in the voluntary
emancipation of their slaves; and what her slaveholders, in con-
nection with American slaveholders generally, have done by kind
treatment and Christian efforts for the temporal and spiritual
welfare of their slaves, is it not true that Africa, and the negro
race, and the cause of Christianizing the heathen, and the true
Christian anti-slavery cause, are more deeply indebted to Amer-
ican slaveholders, and especially to the slaveholders of Virginia,
than to all the rest of the world ?
Effect of JSTeio England Abolitionism on Anti-slavery Action
at the South.
152. Did not fmfo'-slavery action of Southern slaveholders
cease when the action of the New England Anti-slavery Society
commenced, in 1833 ?
153. Did not the proclamation by the New England Anti-
slavery Society of its untenable, unscriptural doctrine, " Slavery
is morally wrong, a heinous sin in the sight of God," convert the
action of the South from «/^'-slavery action into jwo-slavery ac-
tion?
154. Prior to the formation of the New England Anti-slavery
Society in 1833, were there not anti-slavery societies scattered
over Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina,
and Tennessee ?
155. At an Abolition Convention (called Abolition, the name
then giving no offense at the South) held in Philadelphia in
1827, was it not reported that there were then in the United
States 130 anti-slavery societies, of which number 10G were in
those six slave states ?
156. Were not the Southern anti-slavery societies composed,
to a great extent, of slaveholders, and did they not aim at amel-
iorating the condition of the slaves, and preparing the way for
their ultimate emancipation and removal to Africa V
PREMIUM QUESTIONS ON SI.AYKKY. 2]
157. Did not the anti-slavery action of the South culminate in
1832, in the presentation of numerous memorials to the Virginia
Legislature, praying for a law for the gradual abolition of slav-
ery in that state, the emancipation of the negroes to be :
panied by their removal to Africa ?
158. Did not Messrs. Randolph, Rives, M'Dowell, and other
distinguished Virginia slaveholders strenuously advocate such a
law ?
159. After an earnest debate in the Virginia Legislature, con-
tinued through thirteen days, was not a resolution adopted, by a
vote of 64 to 59, declaring it "inexpedient for the present Legis-
lature to make any legislative enactment for the abolition of slav-
ery," while a preamble, which, its mover said, was designed L - to
show to the world that we (the Virginians) look forward to the
time when the abolition of slavery shall take place, and that we
will go on step by step to that great end" was approved by a
separate vote of 07 to GO?
100. In 1832, when Virginia slaveholders came so near enact-
ing a law for the total abolition of slavery in that state, did not
Virginia contain nearly a fourth part of all the slaves in the
United States (409,757 out of 2,009,043) ?
161. Was it not when anti-slavery feeling and anti-slavery ac-
tion were in this hopeful state at the South, that the New En-
gland Anti-Slavery Society proclaimed its doctrine that all slav-
ery is morally wrong — a heinous sin in the sight of God V
102. Does not the doctrine that slavery is morally wrong-
strike at the root of law, order, and the security of life and prop-
erty in a slave state?
103. Is not the assertion that slavery is morally wrong a de-
nial of the authority of the slaveholder — a denial of his right to
rule his slave — a denial, not merely of his right to rule his slave
tyrannically, but of his right to rule him at all?
104. Does not the slaveholder derive his authority, his right
to rule his slave, from the law and government of the state ; and
does not the government of the state derive its authority from
God?
105. Is not the right of the slaveholder to rule his slave as
truly a God-given right as the right of the husband to rule his
wife, or the right of the father to rule his child?
22 PREMIUM QUESTIONS ON SLAVERY.
166. While the government, the slaveholder, the husband, and
the father have, each of them, a God-given right to ride, is not
every violation of the law of love by either of them in the exer-
cise of the right morally wrong — a sin against God ?
167. Has not the doctrine that slavery is morally wrong, a
heinous sin in the sight of God, been extensively and success-
fully inculcated, during the last thirty years, in England and
New England, and is it not now industriously taught in the
Middle and Northwestern States of the American Union ?
168. If this doctrine should corrupt the people of the Middle
and Northwestern States as thoroughly as it has corrupted the
people of Old England and New England, will there not then be
truly an " irrepressible conflict" between the free states and the
slave states of the American Union ?
169. Can the free states and the slave states of this Union re-
main under one government after the people of the free states
shall have embraced the doctrine that the authority which the
law of the slave states gives to the slaveholder to rule his slave
is null and void — a violation of the higher law of God, and en-
titled to no respect from the slave or the community ?
170. Did not the proclamation of this pernicious doctrine at
the North in 1833, and the attempt, by the circulation of tracts,
to teach it to Southern slaves, lead at once to the abandonment
of all the anti-slavery societies in the South, and to the enact-
ment of laws restricting the right of teaching the slaves to read,
and restricting, also, to some extent, the liberty of the slaves to
meet together even for public worship ?
171. Did not the feeling of insecurity of slave property on the
border, which the spread of this doctrine created, lead also to
the removal of thousands and tens of thousands of slaves from
Virginia and the adjoining states, where they were worked mod-
ern toly, and lived happily in the prospect of emancipation, to the
hopeless slavery of the cotton and sugar jilantations in the ex-
treme South?
172. Did not the proclamation of this doctrine lead also South-
ern politicians to make strenuous efforts to add new territory to
their section of the Union, and to extend slavery as far as pos-
sible over the old territories, that by the multiplication of slave
states they might retain the control of the government of the
PREMIUM QUESTIONS <>\ SLAVERY. 23
United States, as indispensable to the protection of their other-
wise weak communities from the ruin and utter desolation ap-
prehended from the prevalence of anti-slavery fanaticism in the
North?
173. Was not Texas admitted into the Union in 1836 under a
pledge of Congress to allow it to be divided at a future period
into four or five slave states, and were not vast territories after-
ward conquered or purchased from Mexico, with the expectation
of forming them also into slave states ?
174. Do not all men at the South feel that, if the abolition
doctrine prevails, all which they hold dear in this world, life, lib-
erty, property, the prospects of their children, the very <•• i
of their race in the country of their birth, are in iimniin >
ger; and has not this danger sometimes made even good nun
there blind to the means to which politicians have resorted to
avert it ?
175. Have not these good men seen the press, the rostrum,
and the pulpit in England and New England steadily en
for many years, in making American slavery and American slave-
holders odious, and exciting the whole Avorld to war against 1 hem ;
and have they not felt that they must be prepared to contend
with the whole world, and to this end must strengthen them-
selves in every way to resist the general onslaught?
170. To quiet the well-grounded fears of good men at the
South, and to revive the rational anti-slavery action of Southern
Christian slaveholders, so long suspended, is it not of thi
importance that the unseriptural abolition doctrine that slavery
is a sin should everywhere be publicly disavowed, and its advo-
cates boldly rebuked throughout the North, in the pulpit, by the
press, on the platform, and at the polls?
177. If slavery is not morally wrong, if the Southern slave-
holder has a God-given right to rule his slave, and is only bound
to rule him in love, ought not the editors of the Nev.
Evangelist and New York Independent, if they are true Chris-
tian anti-slavery men, and real American patriots, to be willing
and anxious to say it and to proclaim it?
/•>//.s' of a mixed "White "/el X< Population.
178. Is not such a mixture of negroes with whites as
24 PREMIUM QUESTIONS ON SLAVEUY.
in the slave states of the American Union a great evil, where
the climate admits of free white labor ?
179. Would $200,000,000 tempt New England or New York,
or any of our great Northwestern States, to exchange 1,000,000
of their free white laborers for 1,000,000 free negroes, the negroes
to remain free, and intermixed with the whites as in the Southern
States ?
180. Would not the introduction of 1,000,000 free negroes
into New England depreciate the value of property there to
more than the amount of $200,000,000 ?
181. And would not the depreciation in the value of their
property be one of the least of the evils that calculating New
Englanders would anticipate from such a policy ?
182. Would not the virtuous of both races, in a population so
constituted, instinctively revolt at the idea of amalgamation ?
183. Do not medical statistics show that the progeny of whites
and negroes, when they intermarry, after a few generations ceases
to be prolific ?
184. Is not this fact to be interpreted as an indication of the
will of God, and as binding as if it were a Bible prohibition of
marriage between whites and negroes ?
185. Did not the people of Massachusetts in 1705, when they
regarded the will of God as binding upon men, forbid by statute
white persons to contract marriage with negroes or mulattoes?
18G. If extinction would be the final result of intermarriage
between whites and negroes, ought not the virtuous of both
races to discourage all such social intercourse as naturally leads
to intermarriage ?
187. If in Massachusetts the population should hereafter be
composed of the two races, in nearly equal numbers, every where
intermixed, but not living together on terms of social equality,
would it be safe for them to live together on terms of political
equality ?
188. Are not men depraved creatures, easily excited to hate
each other ; and does not all history show that the antipathy of
races leads to wars which end only in the extirpation or lasting
subjugation of the weaker party?
189. However much a statesman may lament, and condemn
as a sin, the antipathy of races, would he be a wise statesman,
PREMIUM QUESTIONS ON SI. A V Eli Y. 25
would ho be doing his duty to his country, it', in his plan- ofgo^
ernmenfc, lie should ignore the fact, and fail to guard against the
dangers arising from it?
190. If a Congress of Christian statesmen were commissioned
by God to form the political institutions of a large community,
composed in nearly equal numbers of whites and uegroes, would
they not be compelled, for the safety of all concerned, to place
them in the relation of the ruling and the subject race ? and is
not a well-regulated system of domestic slavery the mildi st and
most appropriate form of this relation ?
191. If all slavery is morally wrong, is it not morally wrong,
is it not a crime of the deepest dye, to bring men together in
large communities under circumstances in which the good of all
concerned will require that one half of the community shall hold
the other half in slavery so long as they continue to occupy the
country together ?
192. Is not this the crime which England and New England
committed against the Southern States of the American Union,
when they obtruded upon those states a negro population, in
opposition to the prayers and remonstrances of their wise and
good men ?
JResjyonsibilit)/ of England for American Slavery.
193. Were not the wise and good men of the Southern State-.
from an early period in their colonial history, and, in th
important case, from the very earliest period, earnestly opposed
to the introduction of a negro population into their country?
194. Did not Georgia, when a colony, include within her char-
tered limits the present States of Georgia, Alabama, and Missis-
sippi, i. e.., the largest part of what is now the cotton-growing
district of the United States ?
195. Were not the majority of the first settlers of this vast
country pious, persecuted Moravians from Southern Germany,
and hardy, industrious Protestants from the Scottish Highlands ?
19G. Were not these Germans and Scotchmen invited by Gen-
eral Oglethorpe and his company to plant the colony of Georgia,
under a charter in which the British government gave to the
company, and to the colonists, a pledge that no slaves should be
introduced into the colony ?
26 PREMIUM QUESTIONS ON SLAVERY.
197. Were not the words of the charter, "All and every person
or persons who shall at any time hereafter inhabit or reside
within our said province shall be, and are hereby declared to be,
free?"
198. Were not these good men, the company and the colonists,
avowedly opposed, on political grounds and on religious grounds,
to the institution of slavery ?
199. After these Germans and Scotchmen had removed to
Georgia, and while they were uncomplainingly and successfully
laboring with their own hands to support themselves, did not the
British government, at the instance of British slave-traders, take
away the charter and let in negro slaves ?
200. When the Scotchmen and Germans (constituting at the
time a majority of the colonists) first heard that a plan was on
foot to introduce negro slaves into Georgia, did they not cry out
against it ? Did they not beg for themselves, for their wives,
for their children, and for their distant posterity, that such a
great wickedness might not be consummated ?
201. Were not the ideas of a " negro population" and " perpet-
ual slavery" inseparably associated in the minds of these good
men? As their most powerful argument against the introduc-
tion of negroes into the colony, did they not say, " It is shocking
to human nature that any race of mankind and their posterity
should be sentenced to perpetual slavery ?"
202. Did they not "laugh" at the assertion that white men
can not cultivate the soil in Georgia; and, in refutation of it, did
they not triumphantly appeal to the fact that they had them-
selves enjoyed health for years, while laboring with their own
hands in the cultivation of rice, corn, etc. ? And did they not
say that their labors in the field were so successful that, after
amply supplying their own wants, they had a large surplus of
food fit for man which they were compelled to give to their cat-
tle and hogs ?
203. Heedless of the duty of a mother country to plant only
good institutions in her infant colonies ; heedless of her pledge
to the trustees of Georgia ; heedless of the prayers of the wisest
and best men among the colonists ; heedless of the policy of pro-
tecting the slave colony of South Carolina from the Spaniards by
building up a free white labor colony between the Savannah Riv-
PREMIUM QUESTIONS ON SLAVERY. 27
er and the Florida line ; heedless of every thing but the profits
of her slave-traders, did not England, by taking away the
charter of Georgia, doom the great cotton-growing district of
the United States to be cultivated, perhaps forever, by negro
slaves f
204. If the British government had performed its promise to
the first settlers of Georgia, the progenitors of the present cot-
ton-planters of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, -would not
every man in the vast country between the Savannah River on
the east and the Mississippi on the west now be a freeman ?
205. What Georgia did at the very earliest period of her co-
lonial history to oppose the introduction of a negro population
into her territory, did not Virginia and the other states of the
American Union do at a subsequent period ?
20G. Did not Virginia especially, again, and again, and again,
beg the British government for permission to prohibit the im-
portation of negroes into that colony ?
207. Did not Thomas Jefferson, in the original draft of the
Declaration of American Independence, assign as a justification
of that declaration, that the King of Great Britain, from mer-
cenary motives, had always refused to permit his American col-
onies to prohibit the African slave-trade ?
208. Is not God a just God?
209. Is he not just in his dealings with communities of men
as well as with individual men ?
210. If one community of men wrongs another community,
has not the community which does the wrong reason to fear the
vengeance of God ?
211. Did not Britain wrong America when, from mercenary
motives, she introduced negro slaves into the colonies in oppo-
sition to the wishes of the best men among the colonists ?
212. Was not the African slave-trade for about 200 years one
of the most lucrative, if not the most lucrative, branch of British
commerce ?
213. During that long period did not England seek, in her
treaties with other European powers, to secure to her merchanl a
as large a share as possible of the enormous profits of the guilty
traffic ?
214. Between the years 1G18 and 1GV2 were not four compa-
28 PREMIUM QUESTIONS ON SLAVERY.
nies formed in England, and chartered by the British govern-
ment with the privilege of dealing in slaves ?
215. Did not the last of these, called the Royal African Com-
pany, embrace among its subscribers the King of England and
many of the English nobility ?
216. Does not Governor Seward, in his Introduction to the
Natural History of New York, tell us that Queen Anne direct-
ed the colonial governor of New York "to take care that the
Almighty be devoutly and duly served, according to the rights
of the Church of England, and to give all possible encourage-
ment to trade and traders, particularly to the Royal African
Company of England, which company was expressly desired
by the queen to take especial care that the colony should always
have a constant and sufficient supply of merchantable negroes at
moderate rates ?"
2 IT. Did not Lord Brougham say, in his speech in the British
House of Commons on the 16th of June, 1812, "By the treaty
of Utrecht, what the execrations of ages have left inadequately
censured, Great Britain was content to obtain, as the whole price
of Ramillies and Blenheim, an additional share of the accursed
slave-trade ?"
218. Did not Britain barter the blood of her soldiers, spilt in
obtaining the splendid victories under the Duke of Marlborough,
for the privilege of supplying the markets of the Spanish colo-
nies with 120,000 negro slaves?
219. Do not the profits of the African slave-trade lie at the
foundation of the present immense wealth of Great Britain ?
220. Did not a considerable portion of those profits accrue
from slaves obtruded by her government on her helpless Amer-
ican colonies ?
England not truly penitent for the Sin of forcing Slavery upon
America.
221. Does not England now profess to be penitent for the
wrong she did during the long period in which she was so zeal-
ously engaged in the slave-trade ?
222. Does not every true penitent desire to do works meet
for repentance ?
223. Is it not meet that a truly penitent wrong-doer should
make compensation, if he can, to those whom he has wronged?
TREMIUM QUESTIONS ON SLAVEUY. 29
224. Has the British government ever made, or offered to
make, compensation to the American States for the wrong done
them, -while they were colonies, in obtruding upon them a negro
population ?
225. Have the rich men of England, who inherit the money
their fathers received for the negroes obtruded upon America,
ever proposed to send back that money to America?
226. Have the good men of England, have English " evangel-
ical Christians" ever manifested Christian sympathy and sorrow
for the American Christian slaveholder, under the trials and
wrongs which he inherits as the fruits of the avarice of their
fathers ?
227. If British evangelical Christians had truly repented of
the sin of their country in forcing slavery upon America, would
they not, when, in 1S40, they invited all evangelical Christiana
throughout the world to meet them in London to form a grand
Evangelical Alliance — would they not have been impelled by
that true Christian penitent feeling to send a special invitation
to the American Christian slaveholder, that they might humble
themselves before him, in the presence of the assembled repre-
sentatives of the Christian world, and beg his forgiveness for
the wrong done by England to him and to his country ?
228. If such a course had been pursued, and a lair representa-
tive of American Christian slaveholders had been present, might
he not have responded in language similar to that which Joseph
addressed to his brethren, "Be ye not grieved nor angry with
yourselves for this, for God has turned your wrong to us into the
greatest of blessings to the poor negroes and to Africa?"
229. If such a course had been pursued by the British mem-
bers of the Evangelical Alliance, would it not have bound to-
gether, with a true Christian bond, the hearts of all evangelical
Christians in the two great Protestant countries of the world?
230. Instead of this, did not our British brethren, after send-
ing their invitation to all evangelical Christians throughout the
world; after the acceptance of that invitation by Americans of
the different ovangelical denominations, and after many of the
Americans who accepted it were on their way across the Atlan-
tic — did not our British " evangelical Christian" brethren pass a
resolution declaring that no slaveholder was invited to the con-
30 PEEMIUM QUESTIONS ON SLAVERY.
ference ; and was not this resolution followed by another — that
when Americans presented themselves for admission to the con-
ference their attention should be specially directed to this reso-
lution of exclusion ?
231. Did not the British members of the Evangelical Alliance
profess to regard these resolutions as a Christian mode of ex-
pressing their sense of the sin of slaveholding, and the most ap-
propriate form which they could devise of administering rebuke
to Americans for continuing to tolerate slavery after Britain had
abolished it in her colonies ?
232. If, in the parable of the tares (Matt., xiii., 24-30, and
37-39), he who sowed the tares had truly repented of the wrong
he did to the householder, would he have taken a Christian
mode of expressing his sense of the wrong if he had invited the
householder to a great entertainment, and there, in the presence
of all bis guests, had announced that he (the great Sower of tares)
now hated tares, and to show all the world how much he hated
them, he had resolved that no man who had tares in his field
should sit at his table ?
New York, October 27th, 1S60.
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