Note.—We have affixed, by way of comment to "the decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case," the following able paper from the pen of Prof. Hodge. It lucidly explains the source and sanction of Civil Government, and deduces therefrom the duties and responsibilities of the governed.—Ed.
Alleged Immorality of the Law answered—Duty of Obedience—Government a Divine Institution—The Warrant of Government is not the consent of the governed—Infidel Doctrines—Deductions from this Doctrine—Decision of the Supreme Court—Objections answered—Conscience and the Law—Duty of Executive Officers—Duty of Private Citizens—Objections answered—Right of Revolution—Summary application of these principles to the Fugitive Slave Law—Conclusion.
There is no more obvious duty, at the present time, resting on American Christians, ministers and people, than to endeavor to promote kind feelings between the South and the North. All fierce addresses to the passions, on either side, are fratricidal. It is an offense against the gospel, against our common country, and against God. Every one should endeavor to diffuse right principles, and thus secure right feeling and action, under the blessing of God in every part of the land. If the South has no such grounds of complaint as would justify them before God and the human race, whose trustees in one important sense they are, in dissolving the Union, how is it with the North? Are they justifiable in the violent resistance to the fugitive slave bill, which has been threatened or attempted? This opposition in a great measure has been confined to the abolitionists as a party, and as such they are a small minority of the people. They have never included in their ranks either the controlling intellect or moral feeling at the North. Their fundamental principle is anti-scriptural and therefore irreligious. They assume that slaveholding is sinful. This doctrine is the life of the sect. It has no power over those who reject that principle, and therefore it has not gained ascendency over those whose faith is governed by the word of God.
We have ever maintained that the proper method of opposing this party, and of counteracting its pernicious influence, was to exhibit clearly the falsehood of its one idea, viz: that slaveholding is a sin against God. The discussion has now taken a new turn. It is assumed that the fugitiue slave law of the last Congress, (1850) is unconstitutional, or if not contrary to the Constitution, contrary to the law of God. Under this impression many who have never been regarded as abolitionists, have entered their protest against the law, and some in their haste have inferred from its supposed unconstitutionality or immorality that it ought to be openly resisted. It is obvious that the proper method of dealing with the subject in this new aspect, is to demonstrate that the law in question is according to the Constitution of the land; that it is not inconsistent with the divine law; or, admitting its unconstitutionality or immorality, that the resistance recommended is none the less a sin against God. We do not propose to discuss either of the two former of these propositions. The constitutionality of the law may safely be left in the hands of the constituted authorities. It is enough for us that there is no flagrant and manifest inconsistency between the law and the constitution; that the first legal authorities in the land pronounce them perfectly consistent; and that there is no difference in principle between the present law and that of 1793 on the same subject, in which the whole country has acquiesced for more than half a century. We would also say that after having read some of the most labored disquisitions designed to prove that the fugitive slave bill subverts the fundamental principles of our federal compact, we have been unable to discover the least force in the arguments adduced.
As to the immorality of the law, so far as we can discover, the whole stress of the argument in the affirmative rests on two assumptions. First, that the law of God in Deuteronomy, expressly forbids the restoration of a fugitive slave to his owner; and secondly, that slavery itself being sinful, it must be wrong to enforce the claims of the master to the service of the slave. As to the former of these assumptions, we would simply remark, that the venerable Prof. Stuart in his recent work, "Conscience and the Constitution," has clearly proved that the law in Deuteronomy has no application to the present case. The thing there forbidden is the restoration of a slave who had fled from a heathen master and taken refuge among the worshipers of the true God. Such a man was not to be forced back into heathenism. This is the obvious meaning and spirit of the command. That it has no reference to slaves who had escaped from Hebrew masters, and fled from one tribe or city to another, is plain from the simple fact that the Hebrew laws recognized slavery. It would be a perfect contradiction if the law authorized the purchase and holding of slaves, and yet forbid the enforcing the right of possession. There could be no such thing as slavery, in such a land as Palestine, if the slave could recover his liberty by simply moving from one tribe to another over an imaginary line, or even from the house of his master to that of his next neighbor. Besides, how inconsistent is it in the abolitionists in one breath to maintain that the laws of Moses did not recognize slavery, and in the next, that the laws about the restoration of slaves referred to the slaves of Hebrew masters. According to their doctrine, there could be among the Israelites no slaves to restore. They must admit either that the law of God allowed the Hebrews to hold slaves, and then there is an end to their arguments against the sinfulness of slaveholding; or acknowledge that the law representing the restoration of slaves referred only to fugitives from the heathen, and then there is an end to their argument from this enactment against the law under consideration.
The way in which abolitionists treat the Scriptures makes it evident that the command in Deuteronomy is urged not so much out of regard to the authority of the word of God, as an argumentum ad hominem. Wherever the Scriptures either in the Old or New Testament recognize the lawfulness of holding slaves, they are tortured without mercy to force from them a different response; and where, as in this case, they appear to favor the other side of the question, abolitionists quote them rather to silence those who make them the rule of their faith, than as the ground of their own convictions. Were there no such law as that in Deuteronomy in existence, or were there a plain injunction to restore a fugitive from service to his Hebrew master, it is plain from their principles that they would none the less fiercely condemn the law under consideration. Their opposition is not founded on the scriptural command. It rests on the assumption that the master's claim is iniquitous and ought not to be enforced.[258] Their objections are not to the mode of delivery, but to the delivery itself. Why else quote the law in Deuteronomy, which apparently forbids such surrender of the fugitive to his master? It is clear that no effective enactment could be framed on this subject which would not meet with the same opposition. We are convinced, by reading the discussions on this subject, that the immorality attributed to the fugitive slave law resolves itself into the assumed immorality of slaveholding. No man would object to restoring an apprentice to his master; and no one would quote Scripture or search for arguments to prove it sinful to restore a fugitive slave, if he believed slaveholding to be lawful in the sight of God. This being the case, we feel satisfied that the mass of people at the North, whose conscience and action are ultimately determined by the teachings of the Bible, will soon settle down into the conviction that the law in question is not in conflict with the law of God.
But suppose the reverse to be the fact; suppose it clearly made out that the law passed by Congress in reference to fugitive slaves is contrary to the Constitution or to the law of God, what is to be done? What is the duty of the people under such circumstances? The answers given to this question are very different, and some of them so portentous that the public mind has been aroused and directed to the consideration of the nature of civil government and of the grounds and limits of the obedience due to the laws of the land. As this is a subject not merely of general interest at this time, but of permanent importance, we purpose to devote to its discussion the few following pages.
Our design is to state in few words in what sense government is a divine institution, and to draw from that doctrine the principles which must determine the nature and limits of the obedience which is due the laws of the land.