3. We must not, in opposing slavery, indorse the sentiment, that one cannot in any conceivable circumstances give credible evidence of piety, and yet continue in form to hold slaves; that being a master is, in any and in all circumstances, a disciplinable offence in the church; or that it should, without exception, constitute a barrier to church-membership, or to the communion of saints at Christ's sacramental board. While we believe that all the great principles of God's Word go to subvert slavery, and while we are constrained to regard the holding of slaves as diminishing the evidence of a man's piety, and thus far alienating his claims to a good standing in the Christian church, we may nevertheless make exceptions, and not keep a man out of the church, or discipline him when in it, merely because he sustains temporarily the relation of master, not for selfish ends, but, as in rare cases, for benevolent reasons. But if a man defends the system, and takes away from a fellow man inalienable human rights, then we may and should refuse him admission, or subject him to discipline, as the case may be. But, obvious and important as is this distinction, it is one which some anti-slavery men may have failed to make; and that failure may have prejudiced or retarded the cause of emancipation. A good cause suffers by having a single uncandid statement or untenable argument advanced in its support; and the friends of the enslaved must afford their opponents no room for saying, that their reasonings are illogical or anti-scriptural.
4. We must not, in seeking the extinction of American slavery, so insist on its immediate abolition as to repudiate the responsibility which a master owes to this dependent and depressed class of his fellow beings; but that that end be kept steadily in view, to be accomplished as speedily as is consistent with the best good of the parties concerned. The immediate and total extinction of southern slavery, if not obviously impossible, is of questionable expediency. The upas of American slavery has struck its roots so deep, and shot its branches so far, and so interlaced itself with all surrounding objects, that, to have it instantaneously and unreservedly uprooted, might prove, in many cases, disastrous; and, at all events, is not to be expected. To say nothing of other obstacles to the immediate abolition of Southern slavery, the highest good of many of the slaves makes it inexpedient. Some, probably many of them, need to pass through an educating process,—a kind of mental and moral apprenticeship,—in order to their profiting largely by the boon of emancipation.[J]
II. We are now to inquire, lastly, what duties, positive and negative, this great question devolves on those Christians among whom American slavery has its seat, or who are personally identified with it. Hoping, brethren, that the sentiments thus far advanced are your sentiments, I shall have your further assent when I say,
1. That the extinction, at the earliest consistent date, of the system of servitude existing among you, is a result at which you ought steadily and strenuously to aim. And, as you see, we base this obligation of yours, not on the assumption of any sinfulness which you may sustain to slavery, but on the acknowledged injustice and woes, past, present, and prospective, of the system as a system,—its contrariety, as a system, to the fundamental principles of Christianity. Did we regard you as necessarily sinners, if in any sense you hold slaves, then the least we could ask of you would be, that with contrition of heart you should instantaneously cease to indulge in this sin, for all sin should be immediately abandoned. As it is, we only ask, that, just as fast as your slaves can be prepared for freedom, and as the providence of God may put it in your power to liberate them, you will do so. We are not so unwise as to expect that the work of extinction can be accomplished in a day. We know, too, that you are not, in your church capacity, the constituted arbiters of the question as a question of State policy. And, so long as your legislatures and their constituencies are resolved on maintaining the system, perhaps you will be unable to effect as much as you desire in the way of promoting its overthrow. And yet, brethren, there is a way in which we think you can, with entire safety and manifest propriety, contribute largely and directly to the extinction of American slavery. Would the entire Southern church cease all personal participation in slavery, and throw her whole weight and influence into the scale of slavery's complete subversion, that "consummation devoutly to be wished" would soon ensue. Slave-holding, no longer practised or justified by the church, but discountenanced, could not long retain its foothold in the State. Now if this be so, our slaveholding brethren will confess that they are imperiously bound, by motives of Christian duty, to liberate their bondmen with all consistent speed. Meantime, and as one important means of qualifying them for freedom, you ought,
2. To see to it that not only your own, but all the bondmen among you,—your entire slave population,—are furnished with the Bible, and qualified to read and comprehend it; and also with stated preaching. They need a written and preached gospel, were it only to fit them to exchange, with advantage, a state of vassalage for the dignity of freemen; for all experience proves that the Bible and the pulpit are of all instruments the best to qualify men safely to exercise the right of self-government. But there is a servitude more dreadful by far than any domestic bondage that men have ever groaned under; and your slaves need the Bible, and the Bible preached, to prove God's instruments of breaking the chains imposed by Satan, and making them Christ's freemen. Before God and in prospect of eternity, the distinctions between the master and his slave dwindle into insignificance. Having souls that are alike impure and alike precious, alike remembered by a dying Saviour and alike in need of the regenerating change, they stand alike in need of God's Word, written and preached, as the Spirit's instrument in renewing and sanctifying the soul. Hence the Bible and preaching are as much the rightful inheritance of the slave as of the master. We rejoice that these truths and the obligations resulting therefrom are, to some extent, recognized by southern Christians; and that, in spite of certain adverse statutes, so much is being done there for the spiritual well-being of the slaves. Go on, brethren, in the good work of evangelizing your slave population; in teaching them the art of reading and the rudiments of knowledge; in putting the Bible into their hands, and affording them stated opportunities to read it, and to hear it expounded by you and by Christ's ministers. Go on, we say, till there be not one southern slave, who, in point of religious privileges, is not on a footing of equality with yourselves. Prosecuting this laudable work in the spirit of love, you will probably encounter no serious opposition. The adverse but dead statutes referred to will not, we hope, be galvanized into life, in order to oppose you.
It only remains that we name a few things, which we trust our Southern brethren will unite with us in saying that they should refrain from doing. (1.) You ought not to, and we trust you will not, betray impatience and irritation, whenever we of the North attempt to press the claims of the enslaved on your attention. Your doing this,—as you sometimes have,—seems to indicate, that, in your opinion, we Northern Christians have no responsibility in regard to slavery and its evils; and that when we discuss this theme we make ourselves "busybodies in other men's matters." To the justness of this opinion we cannot subscribe. While we disclaim all right or intention to break our compact with you as States, we feel that American slavery is a question of too great moment to ourselves and to unborn generations for us to have no concern with or responsibility for; and as patriots, as philanthropists, as Christians, we are constrained to do all that we rightfully may for the downfall of this hoary system of wrong and woe. If any of you differ with us in opinion on this theme, we trust you will allow us to discuss it to our heart's content; and that you will listen to our reasonings with Christian meekness and candor. Not to do so will be construed as an evidence of intrinsic weakness in your cause. (2.) You will freely admit, we presume, that certain practices are authorized by your slave laws, in which you must not indulge even so long as by any necessity you hold slaves. Your slave codes, for example, do not recognize the sanctity of family ties and the domestic affections as existing among slaves; but, as Christian masters, you must. You doubtless believe, as do we, that the marriage relation, with all its rights and immunities, was as much designed for the negro as for the white man; that he, as truly as the other, is entitled to "cleave unto his wife," unexposed to the danger of man's putting asunder what God hath so closely joined, that "they are no more twain, but one flesh." You believe, too, that God united husband and wife thus indissolubly, not simply that they might be a help and solace to each other in the toilsome pilgrimage of life, but that the children with which God should bless them might grow up under their supervision, and by them be qualified for a career of usefulness and honor. Thus you believe, and believing thus, you will not, we trust, counteract God's benevolent designs, by countenancing, in your own practice, the separation of husbands and wives, or of parents and their offspring. We feel assured, that, whatever your laws may allow, or non-professing masters around you may do, you will never ignore the conjugal or parental rights of your servants, or indulge in any thing adapted to mar their domestic enjoyment. Were you to do so, we confess we could not extend to you "the right hand of fellowship" as brethren in Christ. Were a church-member of ours to practise thus, we should regard him as amenable to discipline. We should also regard it as disciplinable for a master to overwork, or brutally chastise, or but half feed and clothe his servants; or to hold slaves for mere purposes of gain, or to traffic in them. None of these inhumanities could we reconcile with the obligations of a Christian profession; and we confidently hope that in these views you will heartily concur, and that with them your practice will correspond.
Christian brethren of the North and the South! The question we have been considering is one of vast moment. Upon the right disposition of it are suspended, under God, interests of immeasurable value, and which stretch far out into the unseen future of our country and the world. Coming ages and unborn generations are to be affected; favorably or otherwise, by the decision of this vexed question; and, brethren, unless I misjudge, its right decision is, to a very great extent, lodged in our hands. As decides the American church, so, methinks, will decide the American people. And now,—may I confess it?—I have dared to hope that the sentiments of this Essay are not only sound, but in unison with the views of the great mass of American Christians. Are we not agreed in this: that American slavery is a system of deep injustice and wrong, not sanctioned by the Word or the providence of God; fraught with incalculable mischief to the interests of both masters, and slaves, and to the social and religious well-being of our whole country; a blot on the escutcheon both of the nation and of the church; a weapon for scepticism to wield, and an obstacle to the introduction of millennial glory; and hence, a system which ought speedily to terminate, and which all good men should unitedly oppose and seek to subvert? If we are thus agreed, let us join hands as well as hearts, and, swerving neither to the extreme of passive indifference on the one hand nor to that of erratic fanaticism on the other, in the majesty of principle let us move calmly onward, a phalanx of Christian philanthropists, attempting naught but what they are assured God would have them attempt, and employing only such means as are warranted by an enlightened conscience. Leaning prayerfully on Him who hears the sighing of the oppressed, let us push vigorously forward, and, though the year of jubilee has not yet fully come, be assured it will come,—that proud day, when not only "throughout all the land," but throughout the civilized world, liberty shall be proclaimed "unto all the inhabitants thereof." Hasten its advent, "O Thou that hearest prayer," and that "delightest in mercy!" Amen and Amen.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] An extended passage containing the extract may be found conveniently in Chambers' Cyclopædia of English Literature, vol. 2, p. 246.
[B] Genesis, 10th Chapter. Vide, Kitto's Cyclopædia, for views in this connection.