Cotton is King, and Pro-Slavery Arguments / Comprising the Writings of Hammond, Harper, Christy, Stringfellow, Hodge, Bledsoe, and Cartrwright on this Important Subject

by Unknown

I reply, that the primary meaning of this Greek word, is in a singular state of preservation. God, as if foreseeing and providing for this controversy, has caused, in his providence, that its meaning in Greek dictionaries shall be thus given, "the opposite of free." Now, readers, what is the opposite of free? Is it a state somewhere between freedom and slavery? If freedom, as a condition, has an opposite, that opposite state is indicated by this very word "doulos." So says every Greek lexicographer. I ask, if this is not wonderful, that the Holy Ghost has used a term, so incapable of deceiving, and yet that that term should be brought forward for the purpose of deception. Another remarkable fact is this: the English word servant, originally meant precisely the same thing as the Greek word "doulos;" that is, says Dr. Johnson in his Dictionary, it meant formerly a captive taken in war, and reserved for slavery. These are two remarkable facts in the providence of God. But, reader, I will give you a Bible key, by which to decide for yourself, without foreign aid, whether servant, when it denotes a relation in society, where the other side of that relation is master, means hired servant. "Every man's servant that is bought for money shall eat thereof; but a hired servant shall not eat thereof."—Exod. xii; 44, 45. Here are two classes of servants alluded to—one was allowed to eat the Passover the night Israel left Egypt; the other not. What was the difference in these two classes? Were they both hired servants? If so, it should read, "Every hired servant that is bought for money shall eat thereof; but a hired servant that is bought for money, shall not eat thereof." My reader, why has the Holy Ghost, in presiding over the inspired pen, been thus particular? Is it too much to say, it was to provide against the delusion of the nineteenth century, which learned men would be practicing upon unlearned men, as well as themselves, on the subject of slavery? Who, with the Bible and their learning, would not be able to discover, that a servant bought with money was a slave; and that a hired servant was a free man? Again, Levit. xxv: 44, 45, and 46; "Thy bond-servants shall be of the heathen that are round about you, and of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy. And they shall be your possession, and ye shall take them as an inheritance, for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession, they shall be your bond-men forever."

Reader, were these hired servants? If so, they hired themselves for a long time. And what is very singular, they hired their posterity for all time to come. And what is still more singular, the wages were paid, not to the servant, but to a former owner or master. And what is still stranger, they hired themselves and their posterity to be an inheritance to their master and his posterity forever! Yet, reader, I am told by my distinguished correspondent, that servant in the Scriptures, when used to designate a relation, means only hired servant. Again, I ask, were the enslaved captives in Deut. xx: 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, hired servants?

One of the greatest and best of men ever raised at the North, (I mean Luther Rice,) once told me when I quoted the law of God for the purchase of slaves from the heathen, (in order to silence his argument about "doulos," and hired servant,) I say he told me positively, there was no such law. When I opened the Bible and showed it to him, his shame was very visible. (And I hope he is not the only great and good man, that God will put to shame for being ignorant of his word.) But he never opened his mouth to me about slavery again while he lived.

If my reader does no better than he did, at least let him not fight against God for establishing the institution of "chattel" slavery in his kingdom, nor against me for believing he did do it. But, reader, if you have the hardihood to insist that these were hired servants, and not slaves after all, then, I answer, that ours are hired servants, too, and not slaves; and so the dispute ends favorably to the South, and it is lawful for us, according to abolition admissions, to hold them to servitude. For ours, we paid money to a former owner; so did the Jews for theirs. The increase of ours passes as an inheritance to our children, so did the increase of the Jewish servants pass as an inheritance to their children, to be an inheritance forever. And all this took place by the direction of God to his chosen people.

My correspondent thinks with Mr. Jefferson, that Jehovah has no attributes that will harmonize with slavery; and that all men are born free and equal. Now, I say let him throw away his Bible as Mr. Jefferson did his, and then they will be fit companions. But never disgrace the Bible by making Mr. Jefferson its expounder, nor Mr. Jefferson by deriving his sentiments from it. Mr. Jefferson did not bow to the authority of the Bible, and on this subject I do not bow to him. How can any man, who believes the Bible, admit for a moment that God intended to teach mankind by the Bible, that all are born free and equal?

Men who engage in this controversy ought to look into the Bible, and see what is in it about slavery. I do not know how to account for such men saying, as my correspondent does, that the slave of the Mosaic law, purchased of the heathen, was a hired servant; and that both he and the Hebrew hired servant of the same law, had a passport from God to run away from their masters with impunity, to prove which is the object of one of his quotations. Again, New Testament servants and masters are not the servants and masters of the Mosaic law, but the servants and masters of the Roman Empire. To go to the law of Moses to find out the statutes of the Roman Empire, is folly. Yet on this subject the difference is not great, and so far as humanity (in the abolition sense of it) is concerned, is in favor of the Roman law.

The laws of each made slaves to be property, and allowed them to be bought and sold. See Gibbon's Rome, vol. i: pp. 25, 26, and Levit. xxv: 44, 45, 46. The laws of each allowed prisoners taken in war to be enslaved. See Gibbon as above, and Deut. xx: 10-15. The difference was this: the Roman law allowed men taken in battle to be enslaved—the Jewish law required the men taken in battle to be put to death, and to enslave their wives and children. In the case of the Midianites, the mercy of enslaving some of the women was denied them because they had enticed the Israelites into sin, and subjected them to a heavy judgment under Balaam's counsel, and for a reason not assigned, the mercy of slavery was denied to the male children in this special case. See Numbers xxxi: 15, 16, 17.

The first letter to Timothy, while at Ephesus, if rightly understood, would do much to stay the hands of men, who have more zeal than knowledge on this subject. See again what I have written in my first essay on this letter. In addition to what I have there said, I would state, that the "other doctrine," 1 Tim. i: 3, which Paul says, must not be taught, I take to be a principle tantamount to this, that Jesus Christ proposed to subordinate the civil to ecclesiastical authority.

The doctrine which was "according to godliness," 1 Tim, vi: 3, I take to be a principle which subordinated the church, or Christ in his members, to civil governments, or "the powers that be." One principle was seditious, and when consummated must end in the man of sin. The other principle was practically a quiet submission to government, as an ordinance of God in the hands of men.

The abolitionists, at Ephesus, in attempting to interfere with the relations of slavery, and to unsettle the rights of property, acted upon a principle, which statesmen must see, would in the end, subject the whole frame-work of government to the supervision of the church, and terminate in the man of sin, or a pretended successor of Christ, sitting in the temple of God, and claiming a right to reign over, and control the civil governments of the world. The Apostle, therefore, chapter ii: 1, to render the doctrine of subordination to the State a very prominent doctrine, and to cause the knowledge of it to spread among all who attended their worship, orders that the very first thing done by the church should be, that of making supplication, prayers, and intercessions, and giving God thanks for all men that were placed in authority, by the State, for the administration of civil government. He assigns the reason for this injunction, "that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty."