F. A. Ross.
No. II.
Government Over Man a Divine Institute.
This letter is the examination and refutation of the infidel theory of human government foisted into the Declaration of Independence.
I had written this criticism in different form for publication, before Mr. Barnes's had appeared. I wrote it to vindicate my affirmation in the General Assembly which met in New York, May last, on this part of the Declaration. My views were maturely formed, after years of reflection, and weeks--nay months--of carefully-penned writing.
And thus these truths, from the Bible, Providence, and common sense, were like rich freight, in goodly ship, waiting for the wind to sail; when lo, Mr. Barnes's abolition-breath filled the canvas, and carried it out of port into the wide, the free, the open sea of American public thought. There it sails. If pirate or other hostile craft comes alongside, the good ship has guns.
I ask that this paper be carefully read more than once, twice, or three times. Mr. Barnes, I presume, will not so read it. He is committed. Greeley may notice it with his sparkling wit, albeit he has too much sense to grapple with its argument. The Evangelist-man will say of it, what he would say if Christ were casting out devils in New York,--"He casteth out devils through Beelzebub the chief of the devils." Yea, this Evangelist-man says that my version of the golden rule is "diabolical;" when truly that version is the word of the Spirit, as Christ's casting out devils was the work of the Holy Ghost.
Gerrett Smith, Garrison, Giddings, do already agree with me, that they are right if Jefferson spoke the truth. Yea, whether the Bible be true, is no question with them no more than with him. Yea, they hold, as he did, that whether there be one God or twenty, it matters not: the fact either way, in men's minds, neither breaks the leg nor picks the pocket. (See Jefferson's Notes on Virginia.) Messrs. Beecher and Cheever will find nothing in me to aid them in speaking to the mobs of Ephesus and Antioch. They are making shrines, and crying, Great is Diana. Mrs. Stowe is on the Dismal Swamp, with Dred for her Charon, to paddle her light canoe, by the fire-fly lamps, to the Limbo of Vanity, of which she is the queen. None of these will read with attention or honesty, if at all, this examination of what Randolph long ago said was a fanfaronade of nonsense. These are all wiser "than seven men that can render a reason."
But there are thousands, North and South, who will read this refutation, and will feel and acknowledge that in the light of God's truth the notion of created equality and unalienable right is falsehood and infidelity.
Rev. A. Barnes:--