Was Abraham a Man-Stealer?
Sir, what is the common sense of these Scriptures? Why, that the slave-trade existed in Abraham's day, as it had long before, and has ever since, in all the regions of Syria, Palestine, Arabia, and Egypt, in which criminals and prisoners of war were sold,--in which parents sold their children. Abraham, then, it is plain, bought, of the sellers in this traffic, men-servants and maid-servants; he had them born in his house; he received them as presents.
Do you tell me that Abraham, by divine authority, made these servants part of his family, social and religious? Very good. But still he regarded them as his slaves. He took Hagar as a wife, but he treated her as his slave,--yea, as Sarah's slave; and as such he gave her to be chastised, for misconduct, by her mistress. Yea, he never placed Ishmael, the son of the bondwoman, on a level with Isaac, the son of the freewoman. If, then, he so regarded Hagar and Ishmael, of course he never considered his other slaves on an equality with himself. True, had he been childless, he would have given his estate to Eliezer: but he would have given it to his slave. True, had Isaac not been born, he would have given his wealth to Ishmael; but he would nave given it to the son of his bondwoman. Sir, every Southern planter is not more truly a slave-holder than Abraham. And the Southern master, by divine authority, may, to-day, consider his slaves part of his social and religious family, just as Abraham did. His relation is just that of Abraham. He has slaves of an inferior type of mankind from Abraham's bondmen; and he therefore, for that reason, as well as from the fact that they are his slaves, holds them lower than himself. But, nevertheless, he is a slave-holder in no other sense than was Abraham. Did Abraham have his slave-household circumcised? Every Southern planter may have his slave-household baptized. I baptized, not long since, a slave-child,--the master and mistress offering it to God. What was done in the parlor might be done with divine approbation on every plantation.
So, then, Abraham lived in the midst of a system of slave-holding exactly the same in nature with that in the South,--a system ordained of God as really as the other forms of government round about him. He, then, with the divine blessing, made himself the master of slaves, men, women, and children, by buying them,--by receiving them in gifts,--by having them born in his house; and he controlled them as property, just as really as the Southern master in the present day. I ask now, was Abraham a man-stealer? Oh, no, you reiterate: but the Southern master is. Why?
Is the Southern Master a Man-Stealer?
Do you, sir, or anybody, contend that the Southern master seized his slave in Africa, and forcibly brought him away to America, contrary to law? That, and that alone, was and is kidnapping in divine and human statute. No. What then? Why, the abolitionist responds, The African man-stealer sold his victim to the slave-holder; he, to the planter; and the negro has been ever since in bondage: therefore the guilt of the man-stealer has cleaved to sellers, buyers, and inheritors, to this time, and will through all generations to come. That is the charge.
And it brings up the question so often and triumphantly asked by the abolitionist; i.e. "You," he says to the slave-holder,--"you admit it was wrong to steal the negro in Africa. Can the slave-holder, then, throw off wrong so long as he holds the slave at any time or anywhere thereafter?" I answer, yes; and my reply shall be short, yet conclusive. It is this:--Guilt, or criminality, is that state of a moral agent which results from his actual commission of a crime or offence knowing it to be crime or violation of law. That is the received definition of guilt, and you, I know, do accept it. The guilt, then, of kidnapping terminated with the man-stealer, the seller, the buyer, and holders, who, knowingly and intentionally, carried on the traffic contrary to the divine law. THAT GUILT attaches in no sense whatever, as a personal, moral responsibility, to the present slave-holder. Observe, I am here discussing, not the question of mere slave-holding, but whether the master, who has had nothing to do with the slave-trade, can now hold the slave without the moral guilt of the man-stealer? I have said that that guilt, in no sense whatever, rests upon him; for he neither stole the man, nor bought him from the kidnapper, nor had any complicity in the traffic. Here, I know, the abolitionist insists that the master is guilty of this complicity, unless he will at once emancipate the slave; because, so long as he holds him, he thereby, personally and voluntarily, assumes the same relation which the original kidnapper or buyer held to the African.
This is Dr. Cheever's argument in a recent popular sermon. He thinks it unanswerable; but it has no weight whatever. It is met perfectly by adding one word to his proposition. Thus:--The master does NOT assume the same relation which the original man-stealer or buyer held to the African. The master's relation to God and to his slave is now wholly changed from that of the man-stealer, and those engaged in the trade; and his obligation is wholly different. What is his relation? and what is his obligation? They are as follows:----
The master finds himself, with no taint of personal concern in the African trade, in a Christian community of white Anglo-Americans, holding control over his black fellow-man, who is so unlike himself in complexion, in form, in other peculiarities, and so unequal to himself in attributes of body and mind, that it is impossible, in every sense, to place him on a level with himself in the community. This is his relation to the negro. What, then, does God command him to do? Does God require him to send the negro back to his heathen home from whence he was stolen? That home no longer exists. But, if it did remain, does God command the master to send his Christianized slave into the horrors of his former African heathenism? No. God has placed the master under law entirely different from his command to the slave-trader. God said to the trader, Let the negro alone. But he says to the present master, Do unto the negro all the good you can; make him a civilized man; make him a Christian man; lift him up and give him all he has a right to claim in the good of the whole community. This the master can do; this he must do, and then leave the result with the Almighty.
We reach the same conclusion by asking, What does God say to the negro-slave?