The "Social Compact" not recognised in the Divine Institute.
Here I pause. So, then, God gives no sanction to the notion of a SOCIAL COMPACT. He never gave to man individual, isolated, natural rights, unalienably in his keeping. He never made him a Caspar Hauser, in the forest, without name or home,--a Melchisedek, in the wilderness, without father, without mother, without descent,--a Robinson Crusoe, on his island, in skins and barefooted, waiting, among goats and parrots, the coming of the canoes and the savages, to enable him to "consent" if he would, to the relations of social life. And, therefore, those five sentences in that second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence are not the truth; so, then, it is not self-evident truth that all men are created equal. So, then, it is not the truth, in fact, that they are created equal. So, then, it is not the truth that God has endowed all men with unalienable right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. So, then, it is not the truth that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. So, then, it is not the truth that the people have right to alter or abolish their government, and institute a new form, whenever to them it shall seem likely to effect their safety and happiness.
The manner in which these unscriptural dogmas have been modified or developed in the United States, I will examine in another paper.
I merely add, that the opinions of revered ancestors, on these questions of right and their application to American slavery, must now, as never before, be brought to the test of the light of the Bible. F.A. Ross.
Huntsville, Ala., Jan. 1857.
Man-Stealing.
This argument on the abolition charge, against the slave-holder,--that he is a man-stealer,--covers the whole question of slavery, especially as it is seen in the Old Testament. The headings in the letter make the subject sufficiently clear.
No. III.
Rev. Albert Barnes:--
Dear Sir:--In my first letter, I merely touched some points in your tract, intending to notice them more fully in subsequent communications. I have, in my second paper, sufficiently examined the imaginary maxims of created equality and unalienable rights.