AN EXAMINATION
OF ELDER GALUSHA'S REPLY TO DR. RICHARD FULLER OF SOUTH CAROLINA.
After my essay on slavery was published in the Herald,[230] I sent a copy of it to a prominent abolition gentleman in New York, accompanied by a friendly letter.
This gentleman I selected as a correspondent, because of his high standing, intellectual attainments, and unquestioned piety. I frankly avowed to him my readiness to abandon slavery, so soon as I was convinced by the Bible that it was sinful, and requested him, "if the Bible contained precepts, and settled principles of conduct, in direct opposition to those portions of it upon which I relied, as furnishing the mind of the Almighty upon the subject of slavery, that he would furnish me with the knowledge of the fact." To this letter I received a friendly reply, accompanied by a printed communication containing the result of a prayerful effort which he had previously made, for the purpose of furnishing the very information to a friend at the South, which I sought to obtain at his hands.
It may be owing to my prejudices, or a want of intellect, that I fail to be convinced, by those portions of the Bible to which he refers, to prove that slavery is sinful. But as the support of truth is my object, and as I wish to have the answer of a good conscience toward God in this matter, I herewith publish, for the information of all into whose hands my first essay may have fallen, every passage in the Bible to which this distinguished brother refers me for "precepts and settled principles of conduct, in direct opposition to those portions of it upon which I relied, as furnishing the mind of the Almighty upon the subject of slavery."
1st. His reference to the sacred volume is this: "God hath made of one blood all nations of men." This is a Scripture truth which I believe; yet God decreed that Canaan should be a servant of servants to his brother—that is, an abject slave in his posterity. This God effected eight hundred years afterward, in the days of Joshua, when the Gibeonites were subjected to prepetual bondage, and made hewers of wood and drawers of water.—Joshua ix: 23.
Again, God ordained, as law-giver to Israel, that their captives taken in war should be enslaved.—Deut. xx: 10 to 15.
Again, God enacted that the Israelites should buy slaves of the heathen nations around them, and will them and their increase as property to their children forever.—Levit. xxv: 44, 45, 46. All these nations were made of one blood. Yet God ordained that some should be "chattel" slaves to others, and gave his special aid to effect it. In view of this incontrovertible fact, how can I believe this passage disproves the lawfulness of slavery in the sight of God? How can any sane man believe it, who believes the Bible?
2d. His second Scripture reference to disprove the lawfulness of slavery in the sight of God, is this: "God has said a man is better than a sheep." This is a Scripture truth which I fully believe—and I have no doubt, if we could ascertain what the Israelites had to pay for those slaves they bought with their money according to God's law, in Levit. xxv: 44, that we should find they had to pay more for them than they paid for sheep, for the reason assigned by the Saviour; that is, that a servant man is better than a sheep; for when he is done plowing, or feeding cattle, and comes in from the field, he will, at his master's bidding, prepare him his meal, and wait upon him till he eats it, while the master feels under no obligation even to thank him for it because he has done no more than his duty.—Luke xvii: 7, 8, 9. This, and other important duties, which the people of God bought their slaves to perform for them, by the permission of their Maker, were duties which sheep could not perform. But I cannot see what there is in it to blot out from the Bible a relation which God created, in which he made one man to be a slave to another.
3d. His third Scripture reference to prove the unlawfulness of slavery in the sight of God, is this: "God commands children to obey their parents, and wives to obey their husbands." This, I believe to be the will of Christ to Christian children and Christian wives—whether they are bond or free. But it is equally true that Christ ordains that Christianity shall not abolish slavery.—1 Cor. vii: 17, 21, and that he commands servants to obey their masters and to count them worthy of all honor.—1 Tim. vi: 1, 2. It is also true, that God allowed Jewish masters to use the rod to make them do it—and to use it with the severity requisite to accomplish the object.—Exod. xxi: 20,21. It is equally true, that Jesus Christ ordains that a Christian servant shall receive for the wrong he hath done.—Col. iii: 25. My correspondent admits, without qualification, that if they are property, it is right. But the Bible says, they were property.—Levit. xxv: 44, 45, 46.