“A Congregational minister at Hampton, Conn. (Rev. Mr. Mosely), separated by sale a husband and wife who were both of them members of his own church, and who had been, by his own officiating act as a minister, united in marriage” (Ibid., p. 114).
Let me cite one of the laws of the Bible relative to the treatment of slaves—a law which demons would blush to indorse, but which a merciful (?) God enacted for the guidance of his children:
“If a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money” (Ex. xxi, 20, 21).
Here a master may brutally beat his slave, and if that slave linger in the agonies of death a day or two before dying, he shall not be punished, because the slave “is his money.”
Goodell’s “American Slave Code,” a work written by a Christian clergyman, and which I have already quoted, contains four hundred pages of outrages, like the following, committed by men who accepted the Bible as their moral guide:
“A minister in South Carolina, a native of the North, had a stated Sabbath appointment to preach, about eight miles from his residence. He was in the habit of riding thither in his gig. Behind him ran his negro slave on foot, who was required to be at the place of appointment as soon as his master, to take care of his horse. Sometimes he fell behind, and kept his master waiting for him a few minutes, for which he always received a reprimand, and was sometimes punished. On one occasion of this kind, after sermon, the master told the slave that he would take care to have him keep up with him, going home. So he tied him by the wrists, with a halter, to his gig behind, and drove rapidly home. The result was that, about two or three miles from home, the poor fellow’s feet and legs failed him, and he was dragged on the ground all the rest of the way by the wrists! On alighting and looking round, the master exclaimed, ‘Well; I thought you would keep up with me this time!’ So saying, he coolly walked into the house. The servants came out and took up the poor sufferer for dead. After a time he revived a little, lingered for a day or two, and died!”
Was this brutal minister punished? He was not. “If he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money.” Was he silenced from preaching? was he even reprimanded by the church? No. Without punishment, without censure, he continued to preach Bible morals and abuse his slaves.
Frederick Douglass, the greatest of his race and a slave, says: “My master found religious sanctity for his cruelty.... I have seen him tie up a lame young woman and whip her with a heavy cowskin upon her naked shoulders, causing the warm red blood to drip; and, in justification of the bloody deed, he would quote this passage of Scripture: ‘He that knoweth his master’s will and doeth it not shall be beaten with many stripes.’”
Slavery flourished on this continent because the Bible taught that it was lawful and just. To oppose slavery was to oppose the plainest teachings of this book. The Abolition movement was an Infidel movement. The Emancipation Proclamation was a nullification of “God’s law.” The great Rebellion was a contest between Bible morality and natural morality. The latter triumphed, but the conflict filled half a million graves, brought grief to many million hearts, and covered the land with desolation.
And this advocate of slavery is the idol Protestants worship; this is the book they wish to become the law of our land; this is the moral guide they wish to place in our public schools! In the name of those who died for the freedom of their fellow-men; in the name of those made childless, fatherless, and companionless by this cruel strife; in the name of those whose backs still bear the scars of the master’s lash; in the name of human liberty, I protest against this retrogressive movement!