Slavery Ordained of God

by F. A. Ross

Sir, that paragraph is an excrescence on the tree of our liberty. I pray you take it away. Worship it if you will, and in a manner imitate the Druid. He gave reverence to the mistletoe, but first he removed the parasite from the noble tree. Do you the same. Cut away this mistletoe with golden knife, as did the Druid; enshrine its imaginary divinity in a grove or cave; then retire there, and leave our oak to stand in its glory in the light of heaven. Men have been afraid to say all this for years, just as they have been timid to assert that God has placed master and slave in the same relation as husband and wife. Public sentiment, which you once had and have lost, suppressed this utterance as the other. But now, men speak out; and I, for one, will tell you what the Bible reveals as to that part of the Declaration of Independence, as fearlessly as I tell you what it says of the system of slavery.

How Men are made Infidels.

I agree with you that some men have been, are, and will be, made infidels by hearing that God has ordained slavery as one form of his government over depraved mankind. But how does this fact prove that the Bible does not sanction slavery? Why, sir, you have been all your life teaching that some men are made infidels by hearing any truth of the Bible;--that some men are made infidels by hearing the Trinity, Depravity, Atonement, Divinity of Christ, Resurrection, Eternal Punishment. True: and these men find "great laws of their nature,--instinctive feelings"--just such as you find against slavery, and not more perverted in them than in you, condemning all this Bible. And they hold now, with your sanction, that a book affirming such facts "cannot be from God."

Sir, some men are made infidels by hearing the Ten Commandments, and they find "great laws of their nature," as strong in them as yours in you against slavery, warring against every one of these commandments. And they declare now, with your authority, that a book imposing such restraints upon human nature, "cannot be from God" Sir, what is it makes infidels? You have been wont to answer, "They will not have God to rule over them. They will not have the BIBLE to control the great laws of their nature." Sir, that is the true answer. And you know that the great instinct of liberty is only one of three great laws, needing special teaching and government:--that is to say, the instinct to rule; the instinct to submit to be ruled; and the instinct for liberty. You know, too, that the instinct to submit is the strongest, the instinct to rule is next, and that the aspiration for liberty is the weakest. Hence you know the overwhelming majority of men have ever been willing to be slaves; masters have been next in number; while the few have struggled for freedom.

The Bible, then, in proclaiming God's will as to these three great impulses, will be rejected by men, exactly as they have yielded forbidden control to the one or the other of them. The Bible will make infidels of masters, when God calls to them to rule right, or to give up rule, if they have allowed the instinct of power to make them hate God's authority. Pharaoh spoke for all infidel rulers when he said, "Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice?"

The Bible will make infidels of slaves, when God calls to them to aspire to be free, if they have permitted the instinct of submission to make them hate his commands. The Israelites in the wilderness revealed ten times, in their murmuring, the slave-instinct in all ages:--"Would to God we had died in the wilderness!"

You know all this, and you condemn these infidels. Good.

But, sir, you know equally well that the Bible will make infidels of men affirming the instinct of liberty, when God calls them to learn of him how much liberty he gives, and how he gives it, and when he gives it, if they have so yielded to this law of their nature as to make them despise the word of the Lord. Sir, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram spoke out just what the liberty-and-equality men have said in all time:--"Ye, Moses and Aaron, take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them: wherefore, then, lift ye up yourselves above the congregation?" Verily, sir, these men were intensely excited by "the great law of our nature,--the great instinct of freedom." Yea, they told God to his face they had looked within, and found the higher law of liberty and equality--the eternal right--in their intuitional consciousness; and that they would not submit to his will in the elevation of Moses and Aaron above them.

Verily, sir, you, in the spirit of Korah, now proclaim and say, "Ye masters, and ye white men who are not masters, North and South, ye take too much upon you, seeing the negro is created your equal, and, by unalienable right, is as free as you, and entitled to all your political and social life. Ye take, then, too much upon you in excluding him from your positions of wealth and honor, from your halls of legislation, and from your palace of the nation, and from your splendid couch, and from your fair women with long hair on that couch and in that gilded chariot: wherefore, then, lift ye up yourselves above the negro?"

Verily, sir, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram said all we have ever heard from abolition-platforms or now listen to from you. But the Lord made the earth swallow up Korah, Dathan, and Abiram!