It seems to me that our demonstration is complete. What would it be if I should add that American slavery, which its friends so strangely claim to place under the protection of the Apostles, has nothing in common with that of which the Apostles had cognizance. The thing, however, is certain. Slavery, in the United States, is founded on color, it is negro slavery. Now, this is a fact wholly new in the history of mankind, a monstrous fact, which profoundly modifies the nature of slavery. Before Las Casas, that virtuous creator of the slave trade, the name of which comprises to him alone a whole commentary on the maxim "Do evil that good may come," before Las Casas, no one had thought of connecting slavery with race. Now, the slavery connected with race is that of all others most difficult to uproot, for it bears an indelible sign of inequality, a sign which the law did not create, and which it cannot destroy.
Such was not the slavery that offered itself to the eyes of the Prophets and Apostles; a normal servitude, of right, based upon a native and indestructible inferiority was not then in question, but an accidental servitude among equals, to which the chances of war had given birth, and which emancipation suppressed entire. Quite different is the slavery which depends on race, and which, it may be said, supposes a malediction; do what one will, this latter will subsist, it will, in a manner, survive itself; it will find, besides, in the idea of a providential dispensation, the natural excuse for its excesses. This slavery the Bible condemns in the most explicit manner. If its champions dare suppose two species, the book of Genesis shows them all mankind springing from one man, and the Gospel recounts to them the redemption wrought in behalf of all the descendants of Adam; if they argue from the curse pronounced against Canaan, the Old Testament presents to them the detailed enumeration of the Canaanites, a vast family, in which the whites figure as well as the blacks.
In short, there is a deadly struggle between the Gospel and slavery under all its forms, and particularly under the odious form which the African slave trade has given it in modern times. The Gospel has been, is, and will be, at the head of every earnest movement directed against slavery. It is important that it should be so; it is the only means of avoiding the acts of violence, the revolts, the extreme calamities from which the whites and the blacks would equally suffer. The Gospel is admirable, inasmuch as by the side of the duties of masters, it proclaims those of slaves; as in the time of the Apostles, it does not hesitate to recommend to them gentleness, submission, scrupulous fidelity, love for those who maltreat them, the practice of difficult virtues; it makes them free within, in order to render them capable of becoming free without.
To judge of this method, we have only to compare the miserable population of St. Domingo with the beautiful free villages which cover the English islands. How true the saying: "The wrath of man never accomplishes the justice of God." Wherever the wrath of man has had full sway, even to chastise abominable abuses, it has remained a curse. I tremble when I think of the revolts which may break out at any moment in the Southern States. Bloodshed, let us not forget, would sully our banner; to the right of the slaves, such a crisis would be forever opposed, and who knows whether a terrible return might not burst upon them?
The mind becomes troubled at the mere image of the horrors that would ensue from civil war. May the Christians of America comprehend, at length, in a more perfect manner, the greatness of the part that God reserves for them, and the extent of the responsibilities that are weighing upon them. To take a stand frankly against slavery; to remove their last pretexts from sincere men who seek to reconcile it with the Gospel; to organize in the North the action of a vast moral power; to address to the South words breathing forth truth and charity; to appeal without wearying to the hearts of masters and slaves; to prepare for trying moments that guarantee which nothing can replace, the common faith of the blacks and the whites; to keep courage even when all seems lost; to practise the Christian vocation, which consists in pursuing and realizing the impossible; to show once more to the world the power that resides in justice—this is to accomplish a noble task.
FOOTNOTES:
[B] These provisory and imperfect regulations appear none the less admirable when compared, not only with the systems of legislation of other nations of antiquity, but with those which prevail to-day even in the Southern States. According to the law of Moses, the Jewish slave always becomes free in seven years; the foreign slave also becomes free when his master wounds him in chastising him; he has the right to testify in law; he has the right to acquire and to possess.