The small bigotry which finds comfort in these texts has been exalted lately by the voice of Science, undertaking to suggest that the different races of men are not derived from a single pair, but from several distinct stocks, according to their several distinct characteristics; and it is haughtily argued, that the African is so far inferior as to lose all title to that liberty which is the birthright of the lordly white. Now I have neither time nor disposition, on this occasion, to discuss the question of the unity of races; nor is it necessary to my present purpose. It may be that the different races of men proceeded from different stocks; but there is but one great Human Family, in which Caucasian and African, Chinese and Indian, are all brothers, children of one Father, and heirs to one happiness,—alike on earth and in heaven. “Star-eyed Science” cannot shake this everlasting truth. It may exhibit peculiarities in the African, by which he is distinguishable from the Caucasian. In his physical form and intellectual character it may presume to find the stamp of permanent inferiority. But by no reach of learning, no torture of fact, no effrontery of dogma, can any science show that he is not a man. And as a man he stands before you an unquestionable member of the Human Family, entitled to all the rights of man. You can claim nothing for yourself, as man, which you must not accord to him. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which you proudly declare to be your own inalienable, God-given rights, and to the support of which your fathers pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor, are his by the same immortal title that they are yours.
2. From the objection founded on alleged distinction of race, I pass to that other founded on alleged sanction of Slavery by Christianity. Striving to be brief, I shall not undertake to reconcile texts often quoted from the Old Testament, which, whatever their import, are all absorbed in the New; nor shall I stop to consider the precise interpretation of the familiar phrase, Servants, obey your masters, nor seek to weigh any such imperfect injunction in the scales against those grand commandments on which hang all the Law and the Prophets. Surely, in the example and teachings of the Saviour, who lifted up the down-trodden, who enjoined purity of life, and overflowed with tenderness even to little children, human ingenuity can find no apology for an institution which tramples on man, which defiles woman, and sweeps little children beneath the hammer of the auctioneer. If to any one these things seem to have the license of Christianity, it is only because they have first secured a license in his own soul. Men are prone in uncertain, disconnected texts to find confirmation of their own personal prejudices or prepossessions. And I—who am no theologian, but only a simple layman—make bold to say, that whoever finds in the Gospel any sanction of Slavery finds there merely a reflection of himself. On a matter so irresistibly clear authority is superfluous; but an eminent character, who as poet makes us forget his high place as philosopher, and as philosopher makes us forget his high place as theologian, exposes the essential antagonism between Christianity and Slavery in a few pregnant words, which, by recalling the spirit of our Faith, are more satisfactory than whole volumes of ingenious discussion. “By a principle essential to Christianity,” says Coleridge, “a person is eternally differenced from a thing; so that the idea of a Human Being necessarily excludes the idea of property in that Being.”[8]
With regret, though not with astonishment, I learn that a Boston divine has sought to throw the seamless garment of Christ over this shocking wrong. But I am patient, and see clearly how vain is his effort, when I call to mind, that, within this very century, other divines in another country sought to throw the same sacred vesture over the more shocking slave-trade,—and that, among many publications, a little book was then put forth by a reverend clergyman, with the title, “The African Trade for Negro Slaves shewn to be consistent with Principles of Humanity and with the Laws of Revealed Religion.”[9] Thinking of these things, I am ready to say, with Shakespeare,—
“In religion,
What damnèd error, but some sober brow
Will bless it, and approve it with a text?”
In support of Slavery, it is the habit to pervert texts and to invent authority. Even St. Paul is vouched for a wrong which his Christian life rebukes. Much stress is now laid on his example, as it appears in the Epistle to Philemon, written at Rome, and sent by Onesimus, a servant. From the single chapter constituting the entire epistle I take the following ten verses, most strangely invoked for Slavery.
“I beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds; which in time past was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee and to me; whom I have sent again. Thou, therefore, receive him, that is, mine own bowels: whom I would have retained with me, that in thy stead he might have ministered unto me in the bonds of the gospel; but without thy mind would I do nothing; that thy benefit should not be as it were of necessity, but willingly. For perhaps he therefore departed for a season that thou shouldest receive him forever; not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved, specially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord! If thou count me, therefore, a partner, receive him as myself. If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee aught, put that on mine account: I Paul have written it with mine own hand, I will repay it: albeit I do not say to thee how thou owest unto me even thine own self besides.”[10]
Out of this affectionate epistle, where St. Paul calls the converted servant, Onesimus, his son, precisely as in another epistle he calls Timothy his son, Slavery is elaborately vindicated, and the great Apostle to the Gentiles made the very tutelary saint of the Slave-Hunter. Now, without invoking his real judgment of Slavery from his condemnation on another occasion of “men-stealers,” or what I prefer to call slave-hunters, in company with “murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers,” and without undertaking to show that the present epistle, when truly interpreted, is a protest against Slavery and a voice for Freedom,—all of which might be done,—I content myself with calling attention to two things, apparent on its face, and in themselves an all-sufficient response. First, while it appears that Onesimus had been in some way the servant of Philemon, it does not appear that he was ever held as chattel; and how gross and monstrous is the effort to derive such a wrong out of words, whether in the Constitution of our country or in the Bible, which do not explicitly, unequivocally, and exclusively define this wrong! Secondly, in charging Onesimus with this epistle to Philemon, the Apostle recommends him as “not now a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved,” and he enjoins upon his correspondent the hospitality due to a freeman, saying expressly, “If thou count me, therefore, a partner, receive him as myself”: ay, Sir, not as slave, not even as servant, but as brother beloved, even as the Apostle himself. Thus, with apostolic pen, wrote Paul to his disciple, Philemon. In these words of gentleness, benediction, and equal rights, dropping with celestial, soul-awakening power, there can be no justification for a conspiracy, which, beginning with the treachery of Iscariot and the temptation of pieces of silver, seeks, by fraud, brutality, and violence, through officers of the law armed to the teeth, like pirates, and amidst soldiers who degrade their uniform, to hurl a fellow-man back into the lash-resounding den of American Slavery; and when any one thus perverts this beneficent example, allow me to say that he gives too much occasion to doubt his intelligence or his sincerity.