The following lines from the will of this eccentric man show
that this clear sense of justice, which is a gift of superior
natures, at last produced some appropriate fruits in practice:--
I give to my slaves their freedom, to which my conscience tells me they are
ustly entitled. It has a long time been a matter of the deepest regret to me, that
the circumstances under which I inherited them, and the obstacles thrown in the
way by the laws of the land, have prevented my emancipating them in my life-
time, which it is my full intention to do in case I can accomplish it.
The influence on such minds as these of that kind of theologi-
cal teaching which prevails in the majority of the pulpits at the
South, and which justifies slavery directly from the Bible, cannot
be sufficiently regretted. Such men are shocked to find their
spiritual teachers less conscientious than themselves; and if the
Biblical argument succeeds in bewildering them, it produces
scepticism with regard to the Bible itself. Professor Stowe
states that, during his residence in Ohio, he visited at the house
of a gentleman who had once been a Virginian planter, and
during the first years of his life was an avowed sceptic. He
stated that his scepticism was entirely referable to this one cause
--that his minister had constructed a scriptural argument in
defence of slavery which he was unable to answer, and that his
moral sense was so shocked by the idea that the Bible defended
such an atrocious system, that he became an entire unbeliever,
and so continued until he came under the ministration of a
clergyman in Ohio, who succeeded in presenting to him the
true scriptural view of the subject. He immediately threw aside
his scepticism and became a member of a Christian church.
So we hear the Baltimore Sun, a paper in a slave State, and
no way suspected of leaning towards abolitionism, thus scornfully
disposing of the scriptural argument:--
Messrs. Burgess, Taylor, and Co., Sun Iron Building, send us a copy of a work
of imposing exterior, a handsome work of nearly six hundred pages, from the pen
of the Rev. Josiah Priest, A.M., and published by Rev. W. S. Brown, M.D., at
Glasgow, Kentucky, the copy before us conveying the assurance that it is the
“fifth edition, stereotyped.” And we have no doubt it is; and the fiftieth edition
may be published, but it will amount to nothing, for there is nothing in it. The
book comprises the usually quoted facts associated with the history of slavery, as
recorded in the Scriptures, accompanied by the opinions and arguments of another man in relation thereto. And this sort of thing may go on to the end of time.
It can accomplish nothing towards the perpetuation of slavery. The book is
called “Bible Defence of Slavery; and Origin, Fortunes, and History of the Negro
Race.” Bible defence of slavery! There is no such thing as a Bible defence of
slavery at the present day. Slavery in the United States is a social institution,
originating in the convenience and cupidity of our ancestors, existing by State
laws, and recognised to a certain extent--for the recovery of slave property--by
the constitution. And nobody would pretend that, if it were inexpedient and
unprofitable for any man or any State to continue to hold slaves, they would be
bound to do so on the ground of a “Bible defence” of it. Slavery is recorded in
the Bible, and approved, with many degrading characteristics. War is recorded
in the Bible, and approved, under what seems to us the extreme of cruelty. But
are slavery and war to endure for ever because we find them in the Bible? or are
they to cease at once and for ever because the Bible inculcates peace and brother-
hood?
The book before us exhibits great research, but is obnoxious to severe criticism,
on account of its gratuitous assumptions. The writer is constantly assuming
this, that, and the other. In a work of this sort a “doubtless” this, and “no
doubt” the other, and “such is our belief,” with respect to important premises,
will not be acceptable to the intelligent reader. Many of the positions assumed
are ludicrous; and the fancy of the writer runs to exuberance in putting words
and speeches into the mouths of the ancients, predicated upon the brief record of
Scripture history. The argument from the curse of Ham is not worth the paper
it is written upon. It is just equivalent to that of Blackwood's Magazine, we
remember examining some years since, in reference to the admission of Rothschild
to Parliament. The writer maintained the religious obligation of the Christian public to perpetuate the political disabilities of the Jews because it would be re-
sisting the Divine will to remove them, in view of the “curse” which the afore-
said Christian Pharisee understood to be levelled against the sons of Abraham.
Admitting that God has cursed both the Jewish race and the descendants of Ham,
He is able to fulfil His purpose, though the “rest of mankind” should in all things
act up to the benevolent precepts of the “Divine law.” Man may very safely
cultivate the highest principles of the Christian dispensation, and leave God to
work out the fulfilment of His curse.
According to the same book and the same logic, all mankind being under a
“curse,” none of us ought to work out any alleviation for ourselves, and we are
sinning heinously in harnessing steam to the performance of manual labour, cut-
ting wheat by McCormick's diablerie, and laying hold of the lightning to carry
our messages for us, instead of footing it ourselves, as our father Adam did. With
a little more common sense, and much less of the uncommon sort, we should
better understand Scripture, the institutions under which we live, the several
rights of our fellow-citizens in all sections of the country, and the good, sound,
practical, social relations which ought to contribute infinitely more than they do
to the happiness of mankind.
If the reader wishes to know what kind of preaching it is
that St. Clare alludes to, when he says he can learn what is
quite as much to the purpose from the Picayune, and that such
scriptural expositions of their peculiar relations don't edify him
much, he is referred to the following extract from a sermon
preached in New Orleans, by the Rev. Theophilus Clapp. Let
our reader now imagine that he sees St. Clare seated in the front
slip, waggishly taking notes of the following specimen of ethics
and humanity:--
Let all Christian teachers show our servants the importance of being submissive,
obedient, industrious, honest, and faithful to the interests of their masters. Let
their minds be filled with sweet anticipations of rest eternal beyond the grave.
Let them be trained to direct their views to that fascinating and glorious futurity
where the sins, sorrows, and troubles of earth will be contemplated under the
aspect of means indispensable to our everlasting progress in knowledge, virtue, and
happiness. I would say to every slave in the United States, “You should realise
that a wise, kind, and merciful Providence has appointed for you your condition
in life; and, all things cons
idered, you could not be more eligibly situated. The
burden of your care, toils, and responsibilities is much lighter than that which
God has imposed on your master. The most enlightened philanthropists, with
unlimited resources, could not place you in a situation more favourable to your
present and everlasting welfare than that which you now occupy. You have
your troubles; so have all. Remember how evaneseent are the pleasures and
joys of human life.
But, as Mr. Clapp will not, perhaps, be accepted as a repre-
sentation of orthodoxy, let him be supposed to listen to the
following declarations of the Rev. James Smylie, a clergyman of
great influence in the Presbyterian Church, in a tract upon
slavery, which he states in the introduction to have been written
with particular reference to removing the conscientious scruples
of religious people in Mississippi and Louisiana with regard to
its propriety.
If I believed, or was of opinion, that it was the legitimate tendency of the
gospel to abolish slavery, how would I approach a man, possessing as many slaves
as Abraham had, and tell him I wished to obtain his permission to preach to his
slaves?
Suppose the man to be ignorant of the gospel, and that he would inquire of
me what was my object; I would tell him candidly (and every minister ought to
be candid) that I wished to preach the gospel, because its legitimate tendency is
to make his slaves honest, trusty, and faithful; not serving “with eye-service, as
men-pleasers,” “not purloining, but showing all good fidelity.” “And is this,”
he would ask, “really the tendency of the gospel?” I would answer, “Yes.”
Then I might expect that a man who had a thousand slaves, if he believed me,
would not only permit me to preach to his slaves, but would do more. He would
be willing to build me a house, furnish me a garden, and ample provision for a
support; because he would conclude, verily that this preacher would be worth more
to him than a dozen overseers. But suppose, them, he would tell me that he under-
stood the tendency of the gospel was to abolish slavery, and inquire of me if that
was the fact. Ah! this is the rub. He has now cornered me. What shall I
say? Shall I, like a dishonest man, twist and dodge, and shift and turn, to evade
an answer? No; I must, Kentuckian like, come out broad, flat-footed, and tell
him that abolition is the tendency of the gospel. What am I now to calculate
upon? I have told the man that it is the tendency of the gospel to make him so
poor as to oblige him to take hold of the maul and wedge himself; he must
catch, curry, and saddle his own horse; he must black his own brogans (for he
will not be able to buy boots). His wife must go herself to the wash-tub, take
hold of the scrubbing-broom, wash the pots, and cook all that she and her rail-
mauler will eat.
Query.--Is it to be expected that a master, ignorant heretofore of the tendency
of the gospel, would fall so desperately in love with it, from knowledge of its ten-
dency, that he would encourage the preaching of it among his slaves? Verily,
NO.
But suppose, when he put the last question to me as to its tendency, I could and would, without a twist or quibble, tell him plainly and candidly that it was a
slander on the gospel to say that emancipation or abolition was its legitimate ten-
dency. I would tell him that the commandments of some men, and not the com-
mandments of God, made slavery a sin.--Smylie on Slavery, p. 71.
One can imagine the expression of countenance and tone of
voice with which St. Clare would receive such expositions of the
gospel. It is to be remarked that this tract does not contain
the opinions of one man only, but that it has in its appendix a
letter from two ecclesiastical bodies of the Presbyterian Church,
substantially endorsing its sentiments.
Can any one wonder that a man like St. Clare should put
such questions as these?
“Is what you hear at church religion? Is that which can
bend and turn, and descend and ascend, to fit every crooked
phase of selfish, worldly society, religion? Is that religion
which is less scrupulous, less generous, less just, less considerate
for man, than even my own ungodly, worldly, blinded nature?
No! When I look for a religion, I must look for something
above me, and not something beneath.”
The character of St. Clare was drawn by the writer with
enthusiasm and with hope. Will this hope never be realised?
Will those men at the South, to whom God has given the power
to perceive and the heart to feel the unutterable wrong and
injustice of slavery, always remain silent and inactive? What
nobler ambition to a Southern man than to deliver his country
from this disgrace? From the South must the deliverer arise.
How long shall he delay? There is a crown brighter than any
earthly ambition has ever worn--there is a laurel which will not
fade: it is prepared and waiting for that hero who shall rise up
for liberty at the South, and free that noble and beautiful
country from the burden and disgrace of slavery.
CHAPTER X.
LEGREE.
As St. Clare and the Shelbys are the representatives of one class
of masters, so Legree is the representative of another; and, as
all good masters are not as enlightened, as generous, and as
considerate, as St. Clare and Mr. Shelby, or as careful and
successful in religious training as Mrs. Shelby, so all bad mas-
ters do not unite the personal ugliness, the coarseness and
profaneness, of Legree.
Legree is introduced not for the sake of vilifying masters as a
class, but for the sake of bringing to the minds of honourable
system of slavery, upon which, perhaps, they have never re-
flected. It is this: that no Southern law requires any test of CHARACTER from the man to whom the absolute power of master
is granted.
In the second part of this book it will be shown that the legal
power of the master amounts to an absolute despotism over
body and soul, and that there is no protection for the slave's life
or limb, his family relations, his conscience, nay, more, his
eternal interests, but the CHARACTER of the master.
Rev. Charles C. Jones, of Georgia, in addressing masters,
tells them that they have the power to open the kingdom of
heaven, or to shut it, to their slaves (Religious Instruction of the
Negroes, p. 158); and a South Carolinian, in a recent article in
Frazer's Magazine, apparently in a very serious spirit, thus
acknowledges the fact of this awful power: “Yes, we would
have the whole South to feel that the soul of the slave is in some
sense in the master's keeping, and to be charged against him
hereafter.”
Now, it is respectfully submitted to men of this high class,
who are the law-makers, whether this awful power to bind and
to loose, to open and to shut the kingdom of heaven, ought
to be intrusted to every man in the community, without any
other qualification than t
hat of property to buy. Let this
gentleman of South Carolina cast his eyes around the world.
Let him travel for one week through any district of country
either in the South or the North, and ask himself how many of
the men whom he meets are fit to be trusted with this power,--
how many are fit to be trusted with their own souls, much less
with those of others?
Now, in all the theory of government as it is managed in our
country, just in proportion to the extent of power is the strict-
ness with which qualification for the proper exercise of it is
demanded. The physician may not meddle with the body, to
prescribe for its ailments, without a certificate that he is properly
qualified. The judge may not decide on the laws which relate
to property, without a long course of training, and most
abundant preparation. It is only this office of MASTER, which
contains the power to bind and to loose, and to open and shut
the kingdom of heaven, and involves responsibility for the soul
as well as the body, that is thrown out to every hand, and com-
mitted without inquiry to any man of any character. A man
may have made all his property by piracy upon the high seas,
as we have represented in the case of Legree, and there is no
law whatever to prevent his investing that property in acquiring
this absolute control over the souls and bodies of his fellow-
beings. To the half-maniac drunkard, to the man notorious
for hardness and cruelty, to the man sunk entirely below public
opinion, to the bitter infidel and blasphemer, the law confides
this power, just as freely as to the most honourable and religious
man on earth. And yet, men who make and uphold these laws
think they are guiltless before God, because, individually, they
do not perpetrate the wrongs which they allow others to per-
petrate!
To the Pirate Legree the law gives a power which no
man of woman born, save One, ever was good enough to
exercise.
Are there such men as Legree? Let any one go into the
low districts and dens of New York, let them go into some of
the lanes and alleys of London, and will they not there see
many Legrees? Nay, take the purest district of New England,