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

by Charles Fitch

Perhaps there is a mother here, who has a pious daughter, and I would like to come into her heart, and ask what would be her feelings, if that daughter were placed in such circumstances as these; or what would be the feelings of that daughter, if she were thus bound down, to a condition so much worse than death. I do solemnly believe that there is no adulterer under heaven, no fornicator, covered with a guilt so deep and damning, as the wretch that will pursue such a course of conduct as that. Even the victim of seduction is but decoyed from the paths of virtue, but here is a disciple of Christ, bound, and that too, by the laws of the land, and laid, a helpless victim, on the altar of prostitution.

Here then, is a crime punishable, under most Governments, with death, and the victim has power of redress, and certainly of escape from a repetition of the outrage; but slavery places its victims where there is no redress, and no deliverance; and gives the slaveholder full power, to roll, and riot, upon the virtue and innocence of as many defenceless females as he pleases, with no power under heaven to call him to account. I say again, if they had made their laws for the express purpose, of securing to themselves this power, they could not have done the thing more effectually; and no man, who has ever seen or heard much of southern practices, is ignorant of the truth, that such things as I have been relating, are the common occurrences of every day. O, when I reflect on this subject, I could almost pray for a voice like a volcano; and for words that would scorch and burn like drops of melted lava, that I might thunder the guilt of the slaveholder in his ears, and talk to him in language which he would feel. Who will say, that this system of slavery, under which no female, who has a drop of African blood in her veins, has any defence for her virtue, against any white man, even for an hour, and no possibility of escaping from pollution, is not unspeakably worse than fornication and adultery, or even the violation of purity by force, where there are laws to apprehend and punish for such a crime? Do not suspect me of a wish to palliate these vices. They were never painted, in colorings too foul and loathsome; nor was their guilt ever portrayed in a blackness deeper than the reality—but I say, the system of slavery is a thing fouler, blacker, guiltier still.

7. But let us look again, and compare slavery with treason. Benedict Arnold was a traitor. At a time, when his country was in great distress and difficulties, he formed the mad purpose, of delivering her over to the will of her enemies; and did what he could, to accomplish his end. Every breast in the land, burned with indignation against him—and, but for his flight, he would have ended his days on a gallows.

But suppose he had accomplished his end, and the unjust laws against which our fathers fought and bled, had remained in full force upon us until now? I am bold to say, that we should not have suffered wrongs, that ought to be mentioned, in comparison with the wrongs of the slave. There was a heavy and unjust taxation, but it was not stripping us of all our earnings for life. There was a refusal, to give us a just representation, in framing the laws, by which we were to be governed; but it was not stripping us from all protection of law, and reducing us in that respect, to the condition of cattle or swine. It was not stripping us of all our rights, and robbing us of our children, and subjecting our wives, our sisters and our daughters, to wanton and promiscuous violation, with no power to lift a hand in self defence, and depriving us of the power of giving them protection. The husband or father, if he be a slave, may look on, and see his wife or daughter polluted before his eyes, and all the laws of the land, are against his lifting a finger for their deliverance. He may toil ever so hard, during his whole life, and he cannot be worth a farthing. The treason of Arnold, had it prospered, would never have subjected us to such evils as these. Besides, had we remained until this time British Colonies, other things being as they now are, this evil of slavery would now have been done away, and perhaps years ago. When I think of this, if I had not confidence in the overruling Providence of God, I could almost weep, that it did not seem best to the God of armies, to leave us under the control of a power, that would have uprooted this destructive Bohon Upas, which is still throwing its broad branches of death and desolation, over such wide spreading portions of our otherwise happy land. Sure I am, that Arnold's treason would never have made our land groan under such woes, and send up to heaven such cries of distress, as are wrung daily from the breasts of the helpless millions whom our nation now enslaves. I say again, therefore, that the system of slavery, is unspeakably worse than treason. But I cannot pursue this parallel farther. I have glanced at what men regard as the worst of evils and crimes; but when weighing the guilt of slavery, we find that everything which we can place in the opposite scale, at once kicks the beam. It has a weight of guilt attached to it, that can be balanced by the guilt of no other crime.

There is one more point to the thing, which I wish to name, as giving blackness and aggravation to its guilt, and then I have done. It is, that multitudes of the professed disciples of Christ, come forward to justify the system of slavery, and to claim for it the sanctions of the word of God. Yes, this system of slavery, red as it is with crime, black as it is with guilt, and foul as it is with impurity, is called, even by professed Christians and Ministers, an institution of the Bible. Oh, it seems to me, that if the long suffering patience of a forbearing God, was ever insulted beyond endurance, it must be, when the protection of his authority is claimed, for the perpetuity of such a system as this. There is no crime which it does not legalize—no sin which it does not protect—no depth of impurity which it does not dig, and in which it does not permit vile men to wallow. And yet there are not wanting men, Christian men, and ministers who wait at the altar of God, who call this an institution of Heaven, and claim for it the authority of the Most High. I know that they would plead for slavery, without the abominations which I have named, and claim to look upon such crimes, and vices, with as deep an abhorrence as we.

But who cannot see, that slavery is the common mother of all this brood of hellish ills; in whose frightfully prolific womb they are conceived, and by whom they are brought forth. Slavery itself is the thing to be reprobated? You must put the odious dam to death, or she will continue to multiply her infernal progeny, and send them abroad among us, prolific in woes. You cannot have slavery without its concomitant evils. I know men may be found, whose hearts have felt the power of the religion of Christ, but whose moral sensibilities are not sufficiently awake, to lead them to obey God on this subject, to break every yoke and let the oppressed go free, who claim that they treat their slaves kindly, and that under such circumstances, slavery is justifiable; and that moreover, they are not accountable for the crimes which other men commit among their slaves, or for the wrongs which they practice upon them. Kindness to an enslaved man! It is a contradiction in terms. You might as well rob him of his all on earth, cut off his hands and feet, and bore out his eyes, and then take him into your house, and treat him kindly to make up for the wrong.

The slave, under the best circumstances, is the victim of robbery every day. Day by day, all his life, he is robbed of the fruits of his labor, that it may go to enrich another. He has hands indeed, but he may not use them for his own benefit. Feet he has, but they may not bear him where he would go. They must go and come at the master's bidding, and not his. He has eyes, but he may not look on the light of science, or on the clearer, purer light of God's revealed truth. Even the sun shines not for him, as it only serves to light him to his unwilling and unrequited toil. Of what use then, are hands, and feet, and eyes, to him? He can no more use them for his own benefit, than if he had none—and yet you think to make up to him by kindness what you have taken away; and call yourself a disciple of Christ, and think that Heaven will reward you for being so kind to your poor oppressed, down trodden victim, whom you compel to labor unrewarded, for your good. Is that the religion of Christ? Is that loving your neighbor as yourself?

But, the most kind hearted, and upright, and pious slaveholder in the land, so far as he approves of the system of slavery, and pleads for its perpetuity, is at best, accessory to all the evils to which the system gives rise. He is therefore a partaker in its guilt, and will hereafter find his hands stained and polluted with its vices and its crimes. He who has said in his Bible, Be not partaker of other men's sins, has also said, Come out from among them, and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing, and no man can be guiltless who refuses to do this.