The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus

by American Anti-Slavery Society

The atrociousness of a crime, depends greatly upon the nature, character, and condition of the victim. To steal is a crime, whoever the thief, or whatever the plunder. To steal bread from a full man, is theft; to steal it from a starving man, is both theft and murder. If I steal my neighbor's property, the crime consists not in the nature of the article, but in shifting its external relation from him to me. But when I take my neighbor himself, and first make him property, and then my property, the latter act, which was the sole crime in the former case, dwindles to a mere appendage. The sin in stealing a man does not consist in transferring, from its owner to another, that which is already property, but in turning personality into property. True, the attributes of man still remain, but the rights and immunities which grow out of them are annihilated. It is the first law of reason and revelation to regard things and beings as they are; and the sum of religion, to feel and act toward them according to their nature and value. Knowingly to treat them otherwise, is sin; and the degree of violence done to their nature, relations, and value, measures its guilt. When things are sundered which God has indissolubly joined, or confounded in one, which he has separated by infinite extremes; when sacred and eternal distinctions, which he has garnished with glory, are derided and set at nought, then, if ever, sin reddens in its "scarlet dye." The sin specified in the passage, is that of doing violence to the nature of a man—his intrinsic value and relations as a rational being, and blotting out the exalted distinction stamped upon him by his Maker. In the verse preceding, and in that which follows, the same principle is laid down. Verse 15, "He then smiteth his father or his mother shall surely be put to death." Verse 17, "He that curseth his father or his mother, shall surely be put to death." If a Jew smote his neighbor, the law merely smote him in return. But if that same blow were given to a parent, the law struck the smiter dead. Why this difference in the punishment of the same act, inflicted on different persons? Answer—God guards the parental relation with peculiar care. It is the centre of human relations. To violate that, is to violate all. Whoever trampled on that, showed that no relation had any sacredness in his eyes—that he was unfit to move among human relations who had violated one so sacred and tender.—Therefore, the Mosaic law uplifted his bleeding corpse, and brandished the ghastly terror around the parental relation to guard it from impious inroads.

But why the difference in the penalty since the act was the same? The sin had divers aggravations.

1. The relation violated was obvious—the distinction between parents and others, manifest, dictated by natural affection—a law of the constitution.

2. The act was violence to nature—a suicide on constitutional susceptibilities.

3. The parental relation then, as now, was the centre of the social system, and required powerful safe-guards. "Honor thy father and thy mother," stands at the head of those commands which prescribe the duties of man to man; and, throughout the Bible, the parental relation is God's favorite illustration, of his own relations to the whole family of man. In this case, death is inflicted not at all for the act of smiting, nor for smiting a man, but a parent—for violating a vital and sacred relation—a distinction cherished by God, and around which, both in the moral and ceremonial law, He threw up a bulwark of defence. In the next verse, "He that stealeth a man," &c., the SAME PRINCIPLE is wrought out in still stronger relief. The crime here punished with death, is not the mere act of taking property from its owner, but the disregarding of fundamental relations, doing violence to an immortal nature, making war on a sacred distinction of priceless worth. That distinction which is cast headlong by the principle of American slavery; which makes MEN "chattels."

The incessant pains-taking throughout the old Testament, in the separation of human beings from brutes and things, shows God's regard for the sacredness of his own distinction.

"In the beginning" the Lord uttered it in heaven, and proclaimed it to the universe as it rose into being. He arrayed creation at the instant of its birth, to do it reverent homage. It paused in adoration while He ushered forth its crowning work. Why that dread pause, and that creating arm held back in mid career, and that high conference in the godhead? "Let us make man in OUR IMAGE, after OUR LIKENESS, AND LET HIM HAVE DOMINION over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."

Then while every living thing, with land, and sea, and firmament, and marshalled worlds, waited to catch and swell the shout of morning stars—THEN "GOD CREATED MAN IN HIS OWN IMAGE. IN THE IMAGE OF GOD CREATED HE HIM." This solves the problem, IN THE IMAGE OF GOD CREATED HE HIM. Well might the sons of God cry all together, "Amen, alleluia"—"Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive blessing and honor"—"For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet. O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth." Psalms viii. 5, 6, 9. The frequent and solemn repetition of this distinction by God proclaims his infinite regard. The 26th, 27th, and 28th verses of the 1st chapter of Genesis are little else than the repetition of it in various forms. In the 5th chapter, 1st verse, we find it again—"In the day that God created man, IN THE LIKENESS of GOD MADE HE MAN." In the 9th chapter, 6th verse, we find it again. After giving license to shed the blood of "every moving thing that liveth," it is added, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for IN THE IMAGE OF GOD MADE HE MAN." As though he had said, "All these other creatures are your property, designed for your use—they have the likeness of earth, they perish with the using, and their spirits go downward; but this other being, MAN, has my own likeness; IN THE IMAGE OF GOD made I man; an intelligent, moral, immortal agent, invited to all that I can give and he can be." So in Levit. xxiv. 17, 18, "He that killeth any MAN shall surely be put to death; and he, that killeth a beast shall make it good, beast for beast; and he that killeth a MAN shall be put to death." So in the passage quoted above, Ps. viii. 5, 6. What an enumeration of particulars, each separating infinitely, MEN from brutes and things!

1. "Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels." Slavery drags him down among brutes.

2. "And hast crowned him with glory and honor." Slavery tears off his crown, and puts on a yoke.