The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus

by American Anti-Slavery Society

[Footnote [84]: The same, p. 12.]

[Footnote [85]: Supra, p. 58.]

A few questions, briefly put, may not here be inappropriate.

• 1. Was the form of slavery which our professor pronounces innocent the form witnessed by our Savior "in Judea?" That, he will by no means admit. The slavery there was, he affirms, of the "worst" kind. How then does he account for the alleged silence of the Savior?—a silence covering the essence and the form—the institution and its "worst" abuses?
• 2. Is the slaveholding, which, according to the Princeton professor, Christianity justifies, the same as that which the abolitionists so earnestly wish to see abolished? Let us see.
• Christianity in supporting Slavery, according to Professor Hodge:
• The American system for supporting Slavery:
• "Enjoins a fair compensation for labor"
• Makes compensation impossible by reducing the laborer to a chattel.
• "It insists on the moral and intellectual improvement of all classes of men"
• It sternly forbids its victim to learn to read even the name of his Creator and Redeemer.
• "It condemns all infractions of marital or parental rights."
• It outlaws the conjugal and parental relations.
• "It requires that free scope should be allowed to human improvement."
• It forbids any effort, on the part of myriads of the human family, to improve their character, condition, and prospects.
• "It requires that all suitable means should be employed to improve mankind"
• It inflicts heavy penalties for teaching letters to the poorest of the poor.
• "Wherever it has had free scope, it has abolished domestic bondage."
• Wherever it has free scope, it perpetuates domestic bondage.
• Now it is slavery according to the American system that the abolitionists are set against. Of the existence of any such form of slavery as is consistent with Professor Hodge's account of the requisitions of Christianity, they know nothing. It has never met their notice, and of course, has never roused their feelings or called forth their exertions. What, then, have they to do with the censures and reproaches which the Princeton professor deals around? Let those who have leisure and good nature protect the man of straw he is so hot against. The abolitionists have other business. It is not the figment of some sickly brain; but that system of oppression which in theory is corrupting, and in practice destroying both Church and State;—it is this that they feel pledged to do battle upon, till by the just judgment of Almighty God it is thrown, dead and damned, into the bottomless abyss.
• 3. How can the South feel itself protected by any shield which may be thrown over SUCH SLAVERY, as may be consistent with what the Princeton professor describes as the requisitions of Christianity? Is this THE slavery which their laws describe, and their hands maintain? "Fair compensation for labor"—"marital and parental rights"—"free scope" and "all suitable means" for the "improvement, moral and intellectual, of all classes of men;"—are these, according to the statutes of the South, among the objects of slaveholding legislation? Every body knows that any such requisitions and American slavery are flatly opposed to and directly subversive of each other. What service, then, has the Princeton professor, with all his ingenuity and all his zeal, rendered the "peculiar institution?" Their gratitude must be of a stamp and complexion quite peculiar, if they can thank him for throwing their "domestic system" under the weight of such Christian requisitions as must at once crush its snaky head "and grind it to powder."

Christianity in supporting Slavery, according to Professor Hodge:	The American system for supporting Slavery:
"Enjoins a fair compensation for labor"	Makes compensation impossible by reducing the laborer to a chattel.
"It insists on the moral and intellectual improvement of all classes of men"	It sternly forbids its victim to learn to read even the name of his Creator and Redeemer.
"It condemns all infractions of marital or parental rights."	It outlaws the conjugal and parental relations.
"It requires that free scope should be allowed to human improvement."	It forbids any effort, on the part of myriads of the human family, to improve their character, condition, and prospects.
"It requires that all suitable means should be employed to improve mankind"	It inflicts heavy penalties for teaching letters to the poorest of the poor.
"Wherever it has had free scope, it has abolished domestic bondage."	Wherever it has free scope, it perpetuates domestic bondage.

And what, moreover, is the bearing of the Christian requisitions, which Professor Hodge quotes, upon the definition of slavery which he has elaborated? "All the ideas which necessarily enter into the definition of slavery are, deprivation of personal liberty, obligation of service at the discretion of another, and the transferable character of the authority and claim of service of the master."[[86]]

[Footnote [86]: Pittsburg pamphlet p. 12.]

According to Professor Hodge's account of the requisitions of Christianity,	According to Professor Hodge's definition of Slavery,
The spring of effort in the laborer is a fair compensation.	The laborer must serve at the discretion of another.
Free scope must be given for his moral and intellectual improvement.	He is deprived of personal liberty—the necessary condition, and living soul of improvement, without which he has no control of either intellect or morals.
His rights as a husband and a father are to be protected.	The authority and claims of the master may throw an ocean between him and his family, and separate them from each other's presence at any moment and forever.

Christianity, then, requires such slavery as Professor Hodge so cunningly defines, to be abolished. It was well provided for the peace of the respective parties, that he placed his definition so far from the requisitions of Christianity. Had he brought them into each other's presence, their natural and invincible antipathy to each other would have broken out into open and exterminating warfare. But why should we delay longer upon an argument which is based on gross and monstrous sophistry? It can mislead only such as wish to be misled. The lovers of sunlight are in little danger of rushing into the professor's dungeon. Those who, having something to conceal, covet darkness, can find it there, to their heart's content. The hour cannot be far away, when upright and reflective minds at the South will be astonished at the blindness which could welcome such protection as the Princeton argument offers to the slaveholder.

But Professor Stuart must not be forgotten. In his celebrated letter to Dr. Fisk, he affirms that "Paul did not expect slavery to be ousted in a day."[[87]] Did not EXPECT! What then! Are the requisitions of Christianity adapted to any EXPECTATIONS which in any quarter and on any ground might have risen to human consciousness? And are we to interpret the precepts of the gospel by the expectations of Paul? The Savior commanded all men every where to repent, and this, though "Paul did not expect" that human wickedness, in its ten thousand forms would in any community "be ousted in a day." Expectations are one thing; requisitions quite another.