In this, I will test your views by Scripture more directly. "To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." (Isaiah viii. 20).
The abolitionist charges the slave-holder with being a man-stealer. He makes this allegation in two affirmations. First, that the slave-holder is thus guilty, because, the negro having been kidnapped in Africa, therefore those who now hold him, or his children, in bondage, lie under the guilt of that first act. Secondly, that the slave-holder, by the very fact that he is such, is guilty of stealing from the negro his unalienable right to freedom.
This is the charge. It covers the whole subject. I will meet it in all its parts.
The Difference between Man-Stealing and Slave-Holding, as set forth in the Bible.
The Bible reads thus: (Exodus xxi. 16:)--"He that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death."
What, then, is it to kidnap or steal a man? Webster informs us--To kidnap is "to steal a human being, a man, woman, or child; or to seize and forcibly carry away any person whatever, from his own country or state into another." The idea of "seizing and forcibly carrying away" enters into the meaning of the word in all the definitions of law.
The crime, then, set forth in the Bible was not selling a man: but selling a stolen man. The crime was not having a man in his hand as a slave; but......in his hand, as a slave, a stolen man. And hence, the penalty of death was affixed, not to selling, buying, or holding man, as a slave, but to the specific offence of stealing and selling, or holding a man thus stolen, contrary to this law. Yea, it was this law, and this law only, which made it wrong. For, under some circumstances, God sanctioned the seizing and forcibly carrying away a man, woman, or child from country or state, into slavery or other condition. He sanctioned the utter destruction of every male and every married woman, and child, of Jabez-Gilead, and the seizure, and forcibly carrying away, four hundred virgins, unto the camp to Shiloh, and there, being given as wives to the remnant of the slaughtered tribe of Benjamin, in the rock Rimmon. Sir, how did that destruction of Jabez-Gilead, and the kidnapping of those young women, differ from the razing of an African village, and forcibly seizing, and carrying away, those not put to the sword? The difference is in this:--God commanded the Israelites to seize and bear off those young women. But he forbids the slaver to kidnap the African. Therefore, the Israelites did right; therefore, the trader does wrong. The Israelites, it seems, gave wives, in that way, to the spared Benjamites, because they had sworn not to give their daughters. But there were six hundred of these Benjamites. Two hundred were therefore still without wives. What was done for them? Why, God authorized the elders of the congregation to tell the two hundred Benjamites to catch every man his wife, of the daughters of Shiloh, when they came out to dance, in the feast of the Lord, on the north side of Bethel. And the children of Benjamin did so, and took them wives, "whom they caught:" (Judges xxi.) God made it right for those Benjamites to catch every man his wife, of the daughters of Shiloh. But he makes it wrong for the trader to catch his slaves of the sons or daughters of Africa. Lest you should try to deny that God authorized this act of the children of Israel, although I believe he did order it, let me remind you of another such case, the authority for which you will not question.
Moses, by direct command from God, destroyed the Midianites. He slew all the males, and carried away all the women and children. He then had all the married women and male children killed; but all the virgins, thirty-two thousand, were divided as spoil among the people. And thirty-two of these virgins, the Lord's tribute, were given unto Eleazar, the priest, "as the Lord commanded Moses." (Numbers xxxi.)
Sir, Thomas Paine rejected the Bible on this fact among his other objections. Yea, his reason, his sensibilities, his great law of humanity, his intuitional and eternal sense of right, made it impossible for him to honor such a God. And, sir, on your now avowed principles of interpretation, which are those of Paine, you sustain him in his rejection of the books of Moses and all the word of God.
God's command made it right for Moses to destroy the Midianites and make slaves of their daughters; and I have dwelt upon these facts, to reiterate what I hold to be THE FIRST TRUTH IN MORALS:--that a thing is right, not because it is ever so per se, but because God makes it right; and, of course, a thing is wrong, not because it is so in the nature of things, but because God makes it wrong. I distinctly have taken, and do take, that ground in its widest sense, and am prepared to maintain it against all comers. He made it right for the sons of Adam to marry their sisters. He made it right for Abraham to marry his half-sister. He made it right for the patriarchs, and David and Solomon, to have more wives than one. He made it right when he gave command to kill whole nations, sparing none. He made it right when he ordered that nations, or such part as he pleased, should be spared and enslaved. He made it right that the patriarchs and the Israelites should hold slaves in harmony with the system of servile labor which had long been in the world. He merely modified that system to suit his views of good among his people. So, then, when he saw fit, they might capture men. So, then, when he forbade the individual Israelite to steal a man, he made it crime, and the penalty death. So, then, that crime was not the mere stealing a man, nor the selling a man, nor the holding a man,--but the stealing and selling, or holding, a man under circumstances thus forbidden of God.