Slaveholding Weighed in the Balance of Truth, and Its Comparative Guilt Illustrated

by Charles Fitch

'A law of South Carolina, passed in 1800, authorizes the infliction of twenty lashes, on every slave, found in an assembly, convened for mental instruction, held in a confined or secret place, although in presence of a white.' That this cuts them off, and was designed to cut them off from all means of mental instruction, nobody doubts; for who in that State is permitted to give slaves mental instruction in a public place? 'Another law, imposes a fine of a hundred pounds, on any person who may teach a slave to write.' 'In North Carolina, to teach a slave to read or write, or to sell or give him any book, [the Bible not excepted,] or pamphlet, is punished with thirty-nine lashes, or imprisonment if the offender be a free negro, but if a white, then with a fine of three hundred dollars. In Georgia, if a white teach a free negro or a slave to read or write, he is fined five hundred dollars, and imprisoned at the discretion of the Court. If the offender be a colored man, bond or free, he may be fined, or whipped, at the discretion of the Court. A father therefore, may not teach his own children, on penalty of being flogged.' 'This was enacted in 1829.' 'In Louisiana, the penalty for teaching slaves to read or write, is one year's imprisonment. In Georgia also, any justice may, at his discretion, break up any religious assembly of slaves, and may order each slave present to be corrected, without trial, by receiving on the bare back, twenty-five stripes with a whip, switch, or cowskin.' 'In South Carolina, slaves may not meet together, before sunrise or after sunset, for the purpose of religious instruction, unless a majority of the meeting be of whites, on penalty of twenty lashes well laid on. In Virginia, all evening meetings of slaves, at any meeting-house, are unequivocally forbidden.' Of course they may not meet in the day time, for then they must labor. Possibly they may on the Sabbath, but their opportunities of doing it even then, are few and far between.

You see, therefore, the strenuous efforts which are made by legislative enactments, to shut out all light from the mind of the slave, and surround him with a thick impenetrable darkness, in the midst of which he must live and die; and from which his eye never can open, till death frees him from the grasp of his oppressor. I am aware, that the privilege of giving oral religious instruction to slaves is, to some extent, granted, and that some slave masters do pretend to teach their slaves the truths of religion. But what is the amount of all this? A writer for the New York Evangelist has, some months since, given us what he terms 'sketches of slavery from a year's residence in Florida,' in one number of which, he speaks on this very point. He had conversed with slaveholders on the subject. One man thought it a very fine thing to give slaves religious instruction. 'I called my slaves together,' said he, 'one Sabbath day, the only time which I have been able to get this season!!! and read to them the account of Abraham's servant going to seek a wife for Isaac. I took occasion from this, to speak to them of the integrity of this servant—what an amount of property was committed to his care, how faithfully he watched over it, how careful not to purloin any of the rich jewels to himself, how anxious to return at the appointed time.' 'I think,' said this slaveholder, 'that religious instruction must be decidedly beneficial.' Another master with whom I conversed, continues the writer, believed nothing about giving religious instruction to slaves. He regarded it as all a farce. 'There is no man,' said this slaveholder, 'who will read the whole Bible to his slaves. If I recollect right, there is something in the Bible which speaks of breaking every yoke, and letting the oppressed go free; and there is no master,' continued he, 'who will read that to his slaves, not even your good Methodists; and if we must not read the whole Bible, we may as well read none at all.' Such were the views of slaveholders.

I have somewhere read the following. Whether authentic, or not, it illustrates my point, and expresses, I am fully persuaded, very much of truth. It was the remark of a slave, after the master had been reading the Bible to him and his companion. 'Massa bery good Christian; him bery good Christian indeed. Read de Bible to us; but him always read de same chapter, what says, servants, obey your massas in all tings.'

Here, unquestionably, we have just about the truth, on the subject of giving religious instruction to slaves. Multitudes never attempt it, and those who do, are sure to do it for their own interest, rather than for the good of the slave. That there are exceptions, I am willing to admit; but all that I have said, exists unquestionably, to a wide extent, and to an extent provided for by law. I am aware that the gospel is preached to some extent, and that some truly embrace it; but these are the exceptions, and not the general rule. My claim is, that slavery destroys more souls among the slaves by keeping the Bible away from them, than infidelity could do in its place, if they were permitted to have the Bible and read for themselves; and it seems to me that this is a position which no honest man will dispute.—Slavery also destroys souls by force, when infidelity could only decoy, and therefore leave an opportunity for escape.

3. Let us compare slavery with the making and vending of ardent spirits. Do not suspect me of a wish to palliate, or extenuate the evils, or the guilt of this abominable business. I have often dwelt on these, until my soul has been pained within me, and until I am well persuaded that all, and far more than all which has ever been said or dreamed on that subject, is strictly true. I am aware too, that a highly gifted mind, has, some years since, drawn a parallel between intemperance and the slave-trade, in which he has endeavored to show, that the latter is an evil of the least magnitude. But I am comparing now the business of making and vending ardent spirits, with slavery as it exists at this time in our country.

It has often been said with unquestionable truth, that from three to five hundred thousand miserable men in our nation, are confirmed drunkards, and that from thirty to fifty thousand go down every year to a drunkard's grave; and inasmuch, as the drunkard cannot inherit the kingdom of God, they must go down to the depths of hell. A most fearful destruction this indeed. But instead of five hundred thousand, there are not less than two millions two hundred forty-five thousand in our country, held in the darkness of slavery. How many of these, think you, have sufficient light to guide their feet to heaven? Shall we say one half? Who can believe it? But if this be admitted, there are still more than twice the number shut up by slavery, in a state of darkness that leads to hell, than have ever, by any man, been estimated in the ranks of intemperance. Is it not most clearly a truth, then, that slavery destroys more souls, than the making and vending of ardent spirit? When we consider, too, that slavery seizes its victims by force, and binds and rivets chains upon them which they cannot throw off, and thus leaves their souls unprovided with any of the means of grace, to die without hope; and that strong drink leaves men abundant opportunities to escape if they will; who will not say that slavery is unspeakably more to be dreaded: that it is an evil of far greater magnitude than the other? The intemperate man may at any time, break away from his bondage, give up his cups, enjoy the means of grace, embrace the truth and live. But the victim of slavery, shut out from all true knowledge of God, deprived by law of all opportunity of learning his Maker's will, or of studying the way of salvation by Christ; what can he do, but remain in his darkness and sin, until the darkness of eternal night closes in upon his benighted soul, and he is left for eternity to suffer the consequences of unpardoned sin. True, the guilt of him who dies the willing victim of intempesance, must be greater than that of the poor benighted slave, and his future punishment consequently more severe, but if slavery holds twice the number of victims exposed to hopeless reprobation, then it destroys twice the number of souls, and is therefore the greatest evil.

4. Let us compare slavery with theft and robbery. Let me give a case for illustration. You are a husband and a father. You commenced the world a poor man, but by hard labor and economy, you have collected together a sum of money, which, you believe, if well invested, will place you and your family in circumstances of respectability and comfort. From statements made to you, or from your own observation, by going upon the ground, you come to the conclusion that your money can be more profitably appropriated, by removing to the West. Accordingly you convert every thing you possess into cash, and make all the necessary arrangements for a removal with your family. On the night previous to your intended departure, a thief enters your house, takes possession of all you have, and makes off, and you never hear of it more. Or suppose you are already on your journey, and after many days of fatiguing travel, find yourself near the place of your destination; when you are met by the highwayman, who, with a pistol at your breast, robs you of your last farthing.—Now I suppose this would be a case, where theft and robbery would stand out in their worst features. It would be a trying case indeed. After years of toil, to gain something for yourself and household, you are in a moment pennyless, with your destitute, needy family upon your hands. All you can do, is again to betake yourself to hard labor, to provide for those you love.

But suppose after all this, you were doomed to see your children torn from you, one after another, and sold under the hammer, to go you know not where; to be subjected to the cruelty, and abuse, and outrage, of any monster into whose hands they might chance to fall; where you could never see or hear from them more; and you left with no means of redress, to sit down beside your broken hearted wife, and mingle your tears and sighs and sobs with hers, with no prospect of relief until death. But in the midst of it all, even the wife of your bosom, dear as your own heart's blood, is sundered from you, and sold forever from your embrace, and you at last go off under the hammer, to the highest bidder, and are driven by the lash, to groan, and sweat, under long, long days of unrequited toil, with no relief till you die. This is slavery. It robs a man of all his earnings during his whole life. Labor as he may, sweat as he may, he can never have a farthing to call his own. Just hear the laws on this subject. 'In South Carolina a slave is not permitted to keep a boat, or raise and breed for his own benefit, any horses, cattle, sheep or hogs, under pain of forfeiture, and any person may take them from him.' I ask, what is that but robbery—except it is unspeakably worse, because it is legalized—and the poor man has no means of redress? It is made lawful for any person to rob him, by the letter of the statute.

'In Georgia, the master is fined thirty dollars for suffering a slave to hire himself to another, for his own benefit. In Maryland, the master forfeits thirteen dollars for each month that his slave is permitted to receive wages on his own account. In Virginia, every master is finable, who permits a slave to work for himself at wages. In North Carolina, all horses, cattle, hogs, or sheep, that shall belong to any slave, or be of any slave's mark in this State, shall be seized and sold by the county Wardens. In Mississippi, the master is forbidden under the penalty of fifty dollars, to let a slave raise cotton for himself, or to keep stock of any description.' Now where is the man under heaven, who would not say, that such a system of legalized oppression, was infinitely worse than theft or robbery, when practiced toward himself? And what, I ask, makes the crime any less heinous, when practiced toward a colored man, than it would be if practiced toward either of us? The poor slave feels such wrongs as deeply as we could, and groans under them as loudly, and sheds tears as profusely as we would do; but there he is, without means of redress. And in addition to all this robbery of everything in the shape of property; the poor slave is robbed of his children, and his wife, and robbed of himself—and has nothing left him, but a miserable existence, subjected to the most cruel, heart-withering tyranny, that was ever practiced by man on his fellow man, since this world has borne the curse of its God. When the thief, or the robber, takes your property, you can repossess it whenever you can find it; or if not, you can acquire more, and your wife, and children, and yourself, are still your own. Theft and robbery are nothing compared with the wickedness of slavery. Make them as bad as you please, and they do not deserve to be named the same week. The difference between them is too great to be described, too wide to be measured, too deep to be fathomed. The slaveholder who goes impenitent to hell, will find himself loaded down with a weight of guilt and damnation, that will sink him out of sight of the worst high-way robber that ever walked the earth. But you will say the high-way robber is often guilty of murder. Well, and so is the slaveholder often guilty of murder—and this brings me to my next point.