Chapter VII: The Ethical Argument (2)

But the enemies of the South say, that still the system of slavery is unrighteous, even though the generosity of a majority of masters prevents its oppressions from being felt, because it confers a power which is irresponsible. We reply, that this is true, although to a vastly less degree than has been charged; but it is also true of every form of authority under heaven; and it is simply impossible to place authority in any human hands at all, without some degree of this risque of irresponsible abuse. The authority of the master is no more irresponsible than that of the husband, father, or mechanic, over his wife, child, or apprentice. The father, in order to have authority, must have discretion: and he may abuse it: for he is imperfect; and against this abuse the child has no legal remedy. For this imperfection in the family law there is no help, save by abolishing all family government; a remedy fraught with ten thousand times the mischief and misery which all the occasional severities of unnatural parents have caused. All human government must have this defect, for man, who administers it, is a sinner. So that the objection of the abolitionist amounts to this: that the institution of slavery is unlawful, because it is not perfect; which nothing human can be. It is so true that any grant of power whatsoever confers some irresponsibility; that the fact remains even where the rights of free citizens are most carefully guarded under republican governments. See, for example, the courts of law, which judge concerning our lives and property. We attempt to limit the abuse of power of the lower courts, by passing their decisions in review before a higher; but there must be some highest, beyond which no appeal can go. Yet the judges of that highest court are also capable of wrong and error; and if they commit them, the victim has no human help; he must submit. All that just and humane legislation can do, then, is so to adjust and limit powers, that the chances of uncompensated wrong may be as small as possible. Now we shall see that in this case of employer and labourer, such as they are in Virginia, the chances of unredressed wrong were reduced to their _minimum_ by our system of domestic slavery. For we thereby raised the most efficient motives, those of self-interest and affection, in the stronger party, to treat the weaker equitably. If the irresponsibility of a part of the master's power proved the relation sinful, all government would be wrong.

§ 3. _The Rights of Man and Slavery._

The radical objection to the righteousness of slavery in most minds is, that it violates the natural liberty and equality of man. To clear this matter, it is our purpose to test the common theory held as to the rights of nature, and to show that this ground of opposition to slavery rests upon a radical and disorganizing scheme of human rights, is but Jacobinism in disguise, and involves a denial of all authority whatsoever. The popular theory of man's natural rights, of the origin of governments, and of the moral obligation of allegiance, is that which traces them to a _social contract_. The true origin of this theory may be found with Hobbes of Malmesbury. It owes its respectability among Englishmen, chiefly to the pious John Locke, a sort of baptized image of that atheistic philosopher;[90] and it was ardently held by the infidel democrats of the first French revolution. According to this scheme, each person is by nature an independent _integer_, wholly _sui juris_, absolutely equal to every other man, and naturally entitled, as a "Lord of Creation," to exercise his whole will. Man's natural liberty was accordingly defined as _privilege to do whatever he wished_. True, Locke attempts to limit this monstrous postulate by defining man's native liberty as privilege to do whatever he wished within the limits of the law of nature. But this virtually returns to the same; because he teaches that man is by nature absolutely independent, so that he must be himself the supreme, original judge, what this law of nature is. According to the doctrine of the social contract, man's natural rights are confounded with this so-called natural liberty. Each man's natural right is to protect his own existence, and to possess himself of whatever will render it more happy, (Locke again adds, within the limits of natural law.) And this scheme most essentially ignored the originality of moral distinctions. Hobbes explains them as the conventional results of the rules which man's experience and convenience have dictated to him. For, the experience of the mutual violences and collisions of so many independent wills, in this supposed "state of nature," induced men, in time, to consent to the surrender of a part of this native independence, in order to secure the remainder of their rights. To do this, they are supposed to have conferred together, and to have formed a compact with each other, binding themselves to each other to submit to certain stipulated rules, which restrained a part of their natural liberty, and to obey certain men selected to govern. The power thus delegated to these hands was to be used to protect the remaining rights of all. The terms of this compact form the organic law, or constitution. Subsequent citizens entering the commonwealth by birth or immigration, are assumed to have given an assent, express or implied, to this compact. And if the question be asked, why men are morally bound to obey magistrates, who naturally are their equals and fellows, the answer of this school is: because they have voluntarily bargained to do so in entering the social compact; and they receive a _quid pro quo_ for their accession to it. Such is the theory of the origin of government, from which the natural injustice of slavery is deduced. For, obviously, if man's obligation to civil society originates in the voluntary social contract of independent integers, none can be rightfully held to a compulsory obedience, which enters into all servitude, both domestic and political.

[Footnote 90: Notwithstanding Locke's amiable and pious spirit, the history of philosophic opinion has shown that he is but a disguised follower of the philosopher of Malmesbury. His psychology is but a system of sensationalism, and his ethics lead to the denial of original moral distinctions. Locke is chargeable with the germs of all the mischievous and atheistical doctrines developed by Hume in Great Britain, and Cordillac in France.]

Some liberal writers, as Blackstone, and the great Swiss publicist, _Burlemaqui_, are too sensible not to see that this scheme is false to the facts of the case. But they still hold, that although individual men never, in fact, existed in the independent insulation supposed, and did not actually pass into a state of society by a formal social contract, yet such a transaction must be assumed as the implied and virtual source of political power and civic obligation. To us it appears, that if the contracting never occurred in fact, but is only a theoretical fiction, it is no basis for any thing, and no source of practical rights and duties. Civil society is a universal fact; and its existence must be grounded in something actual. We object, then, to this dream of a social contract preceded by a native state of individual independence, that it is false to the facts of the case. Human beings never rightfully existed, for one moment, in this state, out of which they are supposed to have passed by their own option. God never gave them such independency. Their responsibility to him, and to the civil society under which He has placed them, is as _native_ as they are, being ordained by God to exist from the first. Men do not choose civic obligation, but are born to it, just as the child to his filial obligation. And the simple, conclusive proof is, that if any man were to claim this native option to assume or to decline civic obligations, (in the latter case relinquishing also their advantages,) there is not a government on earth, not the most liberal, that would not laugh his claim to scorn, and at once compel his allegiance. The very assumption of what this theory calls man's normal state, and the very attempt to exercise the option which, as it babbles, originated civil society, would constitute a man an outlaw, the radical enemy of civic society, and would give it a natural right, that of self-preservation, to destroy him. The scheme is not only fictitious, but absurd.

Second: We object that it is atheistic, utterly ignoring the existence of a Creator, and his relations to, and proprietorship in, man. It affects to treat men as though their existence were underived, and independent of any Supreme Being. It boldly discards God's right to determine under what obligations man shall live, and quietly contemns the great Scriptural fact that He has determined man shall live under social law.

Third: This scheme is thoroughly unphilosophical, in that whereas the science of government should be an inductive one, this theory is, and in its nature must be, purely hypothetical. No body, no history pretends to relate in a single instance, any such facts as it professes to rest upon. This Locke admits, and even claims, absurdly seeking in this mode to evade this vital objection. Hence we assert that it has no claims to be entertained _in foro scientiæ_, even for discussion.

Fourth: If man at first possessed that natural liberty, and passed from it under the obligation of constitutions and laws by a social contract, then sundry most inconvenient and preposterous consequences must logically follow. One of these is, that when once men had established their constitution, (in other words, their compact,) so long as its terms were observed by the magistrates and the minority, the majority could never righteously change it, no matter how inconvenient, or even ruinous, new circumstances might have made it, against the will of the minority or of the rulers. For when one has made a voluntary bargain, subsequent inconveniences of it do not justify its breach. The just man is one who changeth not, though he "sweareth to his own hurt." Another consequence would be, that it could never be settled what were the terms agreed upon in the original compact, and what part of existing laws were the accretions of unwarranted power, except in the case of written constitutions. Few nations have such. But a far worse consequence would be, that if the duty of allegiance originated in such compact, then any one unconstitutional act of the rulers or majority would dissolve it. For it is a covenant; but a covenant broken by one party is broken for both. Now, who believes that a single unconstitutional act of the ruler voids the whole allegiance of the aggrieved citizen? Where would be the government which would not be plunged into anarchy?

Last, all commonwealths have found it necessary to arm the magistrate with some powers, which individuals could not have conferred by a social compact, because they never possessed them. One of these is the power of life and death. No man's life is his own: it belongs to God alone. One cannot bargain away what is not his own. Besides, it is absurd to represent men as bargaining away this tremendous power for some smaller advantages and securities; because life is the most precious of all. "What shall a man accept in exchange for his life?" It is of no avail to say that the community is entitled, by the law of self-preservation, to assume this power; because, on this theory, there is no community as yet. There is only a number of independent integers, sovereignly treating with each other. The community cannot assume powers before it exists! It is, if possible, still more difficult to explain, on this theory, how political societies came by the power of capital punishment, against aliens who assail their members. But all governments hold aliens living among them, and invading enemies, subject to their capital penalties. How is this? The foreigner certainly has not assented to the social compact of this society; for he claims to be alien, and to owe no allegiance. His consent, the supposed fountain of all right over him, is utterly lacking. Once more, this theory draws a broad distinction between man's civil liberty as a subject of government, and his natural liberty. The latter it defines as _privilege to do whatever the man pleases_, within the limits of natural law as interpreted by himself. And his natural rights are just the same. Some of these he voluntarily surrenders to society, to secure the rest. All government, therefore, is not only of the nature of restraint; it is essentially _restraint upon one's rights_. The advocates of the theory distinctly represent government as of the nature of a natural evil and wrong, but adopted as an expedient against the worse evil, anarchy; and therefore the obligation to obey it has no higher source than expediency. But worse yet; if there is any such thing as intrinsic morality, government is an immoral restraint, for it is a _restraint upon rights_. Whatever good government may bring us, it is of that species which St. Paul reprobates, as "doing evil that good may come." The great Hobbes was therefore perfectly consistent, in teaching that there is no original morality in acts, and that there was at first no such thing as right, distinct from might. Morals are factitious distinctions invented under civil society for expediency. Let the thoughtful reader consider how this monstrous conclusion uproots all obligation, and order, and allegiance. No man can hold the theory of the origin of government in the social contract, unless he either holds, with Hobbes, this damnable error, or with some abolitionists, (who are thoroughly consistent here,) that _all government is immoral_.

But its advocates urge that it does give the correct origin of government, because they can point to specific rights, which must have been natural in the individual, but which we now find vested in the government. The instance they most cite, is that of self-defence. We accept it, and assert that it confirms our view. For, if the right of self-defence means privilege of forcible resistance to violence at the time it is offered, we utterly deny that it has been surrendered by the individual, or can be justly limited one iota by government. If it means the savage privilege of retaliation after the collision has passed away, which claims to make the angry defendant accuser, judge, jury, and executioner in his own case, we utterly deny that nature ever gave such right to any man. "Vengeance is mine: I will repay, saith the Lord." Another instance alleged, is when the citizen is restrained by society from certain acts, moral _per se_: as selling his corn out of the country when there is dearth. Yet the good citizen obeys. The answer is, that if the restriction is not unjust, it is because there exists among the citizens such danger of suffering for corn, that the sending it out of the country would be a breach of the natural law of love and equity. Natural rights may change with circumstances, a simple truth often strangely forgotten on this subject.

Now, it is from this vicious theory of human rights, that abolitionism sucks its whole life. The whole argument is but this: no restraint of government on man's will can be righteous, which is forcible and involuntary, because the obligation of all just government originates in the option of the individuals governed, who are by nature sovereign. Before we indicate the relationship of this conclusion with its disorganizing brood of kindred, we must pause to meet a question which arises. It is this: if this pet hypothesis is relinquished, on what basis shall we defend free government? Let us see if a better foundation for its blessings cannot be found.

Political and ethical philosophers have been perpetually victims to the notion, that because theirs are natural sciences, as distinguished from revealed or theological, therefore they must banish from them all reference to God, his nature, his acts, and his will, and our relations to it. The true inference should be, only, that they must abstain from the introduction of those peculiar revealed facts, which belong to man as an object of redemption and subject of the Church of Christ. If we are not atheists, the facts that God is, that our being proceeds from his act, that we are his property, are as truly _natural_ as man and his attributes are. They should therefore be embraced as a part of the facts of the case, to be treated just as all other natural facts, save that these are the most rudimental of all. For, how can that treatment be truly scientific, which proceeds upon a partial induction of the facts of the case, leaving out the most primary? It is this illusion which has led so many moralists to attempt the discussion of the nature and origin of moral distinctions, without introducing a Creator, or a divine will. Whereas, a true science accepts God as the first fact in ethics; his attributes as the primary standard of the moral distinction; his will as the fountain of moral obligation. What wretched impotency and confusion has not this omission caused in ethical discussions!

In like manner, this impotent and infidel theory of government sets out, (as was consistent with its atheistic inventors,) without reference to the fact that man's existence, nature, and rights originated in the personal will of a Creator, without reference to original moral distinctions, or to original responsibilities to God, or to the moral quality of God's will towards man. It quietly ignores the fact that man's will, if he is the creature of an intelligent and moral personal Creator, never could, by any possibility, be his proper rule of acting. It passes over, in the insane pride of human perfectionism, the great fact that man is also a naturally depraved creature. It falsely supposes a state of nature, in which man's will made his right: whereas no being, save an eternal and self-existent God, has a right to exist in that state for one instant. But all these are _facts of nature_, belonging to the case, ascertainable by experience and reason. If, then, we would have a correct theory of natural rights, all of them must be embraced in our view. And the proper account of the matter is simply this: Inasmuch as man did not make himself, _he enters existence the subject of God_. This subjection is not only of force, but also of moral right. Moral distinctions are original, being eternally expressed in God's perfections, and sovereignly revealed to the creature in his preceptive will; which is, to man, the practical source and rule of obligation. This moral obligation is therefore as _native_ as man is. The rudimental relations to his God and his fellows imposed on man are binding on him _ab initio_; not at all by force of any assent of his will, but merely by the rightful force of God's will: man's virtue is to conform his will freely to God's. This will also defines his rights; by which we mean those things which other creatures are morally obliged to allow him to have and to do. Man, we repeat, enters existence with these moral relations resting upon him. And among them, are his social relations to his fellows; as is shown by the fact that he has a social nature. Now civil government is nothing more than the organization of a part of these social relations. God's will and providence, then, as truly as his word, has placed man naturally under civil government. It is as natural as man is. Again: the rule of action imposed by just government is _the moral rule_. That is to say, an equitable government enjoins on its members or subjects the doing of those things which are morally right, and the refraining from those things which are morally wrong.

We trace civil government, then, not to any social contract, or other human expediency, but to the will and providence of God, and to original moral obligation. If asked, whence the obligation to obey the civil magistrate who, personally, is but our fellow, we answer, from God's will, which is the source and measure of duty. Man's will is wayward and depraved. Hence practical authority to enforce this rule of right upon him must be lodged in some hands; and since God does not rule statedly by miracle, it must be in human hands. Civil government is God's ordinance, and its obligations are those of original moral right. The advantage and convenience resulting illustrate and confirm, but do not originate, the obligation. This is the theory of government plainly taught by St. Paul (Rom. xiii. 1 to 7) and St. Peter (1 Ep. ii. 13 to 18.) For we are here told that the civil magistrate is God's minister, to uphold right and repress wrong; that obedience to him in this is not only of moral, but religious obligation; and that he who resists this function disobeys God.

What, then, is man's natural liberty? We answer, that it is only _privilege to do whatever he has a moral right to do_. Freedom to do whatever a man wills, is not a liberty, either natural or civil, but an unnatural license, a natural iniquity; man's will being naturally depraved. What then is man's civil liberty? We reply, that under an equitable government, it is the same--the privilege to do whatever he has a moral right to do. No government is perfectly equitable: none are wholly unjust. Some withhold more, some fewer, of the citizen's moral rights. None withhold them all. Hence, under the most despotic government there are some rights left, and so, some liberty. A perfectly just government would be one which would allot to each citizen freedom to do all the things which he had a moral right to do, and nothing else. Such a government would not restrain the natural liberty of any citizen in any respect; each man's civil liberty would be identical with his natural. Government does not originate rights, neither can it justly take them away. But practically, it confirms, instead of impairing, our natural liberty; because it secures us in the exercise of it.

But the friends of liberal government may feel a lurking suspicion of this plain statement; because it is on a theory of pretended 'divine right' that the arguments for legitimacy, passive obedience, and despotism repose. Let us, then, pause to inquire whether the true scheme looks in that direction. And we ask first: Whether it is not much more likely that tyrannical conclusions will be drawn from those principles which ignore God, the great standard of right, and original moral distinctions, which are the basis of all rights, and so of all liberty--from principles which make man's might his natural right; rather than from our principles, which solidly found man's rights in eternal moral distinctions, and in the will of a just and benevolent God, the common Father, before whom rulers and ruled are equal? And when we turn to the history of opinion, we see that while Locke illogically deduced from this theory of the social contract a scheme of liberal government, his greater master, Hobbes, inferred that the most complete despotism was the most consistent. And both the French and the Yankee Jacobins, deriving from it an impious deification of the will of the mob which happens to be the larger, as the supreme law, have reduced their theory to practice in the most violent, ruthless, and mischievous oppressions ever perpetrated on civilized communities. Let the tree be judged by its fruits.

We repeat, that the glory and strength of the Christian theory of human government and liberty is this: that _it founds man's rights on eternal moral distinctions_. The liberty it grants each man is privilege of doing all those things which he, with his particular character and relations, is morally entitled to do. Privilege of doing all other things it retrenches; for what would this be but sin? Now the epitome of moral distinctions is, 'Love thy neighbour as thyself.' It is the same law expressed in the "Golden Rule." The meaning of this, as we saw, is, not that we must do to our fellow all that our caprice might desire, if our positions were inverted; but what we should believe ourselves morally entitled to require of him, in that case. Here, then, is the true basis of human equality. Men are all children of a common Father, brethren of the same race, each one entitled by the same right to his own appropriate share of well-being. Hence, by a single and conclusive step, as the foundation of civil government is moral, its proper object is the good of all, governors and governed. Government is not for the behoof of rulers, but of the ruled also. Subjects were not made for kings, but kings for subjects. Indeed, rulers are themselves subjects, owing allegiance to the universal law of right, and members of the brotherhood for whose common good this law reigns. In the sublime Words of Samuel Rutherford, _Rex, Lex_. Neither Scriptures nor providence give to rulers any of that paternal right over the people, of which the legitimatists prate. They neither have for their subjects the father's instinctive love, nor the father's natural superiority in virtue, experience, or powers. The Scriptural governments over Israel were none of them legitimatist; and that to which Paul, Peter, and Christ owned conscientious allegiance, the Empire of the Cæsars, was not hereditary, and was a recent novelty. Again: while it is God's ordinance that men shall live under governments, no one form of government is ordained. "The powers that be are ordained of God." The one which, in His providence, actually subsists, is the legitimate one to the individual conscience. Still less has God indicated the individuals who shall govern as His agents. There is no divine nomination of the particular person. Hence, as government is for the common good of all, the selection of these agents belongs to the common wisdom and rectitude of the whole. And it is in this sense, (and only this,) that the Christian holds that the power of rulers is delegated from the ruled. In the higher sense, it is delegated from God, who is our true, rightful, and literal despot. The despotism of perfect, infinite rectitude is the most perfect freedom.

Now it is clear, that the several rights of different individuals in the same society must differ exceedingly, because the persons differ indefinitely in powers, knowledge, virtue, and natural relations to each other. From that very law of love and equity, whence the moral equality of men was inferred, it must also follow, that one man is not morally entitled to pursue his natural well-being at the expense of that of other men, or of the society. Each one's right must be so pursued, as not to infringe others' rights. The well-being of all is inter-connected. Hence equity, yea, a true equality itself, demands a varied distribution of social privilege among the members, according to their different characters and relations. In other words, an equal government must confer very different degrees of power, and impose very different degrees of restraint, upon different classes of members. To attempt an identical and mechanical equality; to confer on those who are incompetent to use them, the same privileges granted to others who can and will use them rightfully, would be essential inequality; for it would clothe the incompetent and undeserving with power to injure the deserving and capable, without real benefit to themselves. Hence, the civic liberties of all classes in the same society ought not to be the same. Thus, of the adult members, half are females, inexorably separated by sex, strength, social relations, and natural duties. Hence different civic rights are properly given to the male, in some respects; not because it is right to empower him to consume upon the promotion of his natural well-being that of his sister, but because, on the whole, the well-being of both sexes is thus most promoted. Whether this result does follow, must be a question of fact, to be decided by experience, if not settled in advance by God's Word. There is in the society another class of members, the children, who are not only different from, but inferior to, the adults, in knowledge, strength, experience, and self-controul. Hence, it is equitable to withhold from them still other privileges of the full citizenship. Again: the amount of privileges properly conceded to the body of citizens of the first class, should vary in different commonwealths with their average character. If intelligence and virtue are, in the average, more developed, the restraints of government should be fewer; if less cultivated, more numerous. Different frames of government may be best for different communities.

Once more: If the society contains a class of adult members, so deficient in virtue and intelligence that they would only abuse the fuller privileges of other citizens to their own and others' detriment, it is just to withhold so many of these privileges, and to impose so much restraint, as may be necessary for the highest equity to the whole body, inclusive of this subject class. And how much restraint is just, must be determined by facts and experience. Any degree of it is righteous, which is necessary to the righteous end. This is so obvious, that even abolitionists admit it, when they lose sight for the moment of their hobby. Of this Dr. Francis Wayland, a prominent abolitionist, gives us a striking instance in his "Moral Science." (Boston, 1838, p. 351.) He says: "Whatever concessions on the part of the individual, and whatever powers on the part of society, are _necessary_ to the existence of society, must, by the very fact of the existence of society, be taken for granted." On p. 356, he adds: "If it be asked which of these" (hereditary, mixed, or republican) "is the preferable form of government, the answer, I think, must be conditional. The best form of government for any people, _is the best that its present social and moral condition renders practicable_. A people may be _so entirely surrendered to the influence of passion_, and so feebly _influenced by moral restraints_, that a government which relied upon moral restraints could not exist for a day. In this case a subordinate and inferior principle yet remains,--_the principle of fear_: and the only resort is to a government of force, or a military despotism."

If then the necessities of order justify the subjection of a whole nation, with their labour, property, and lives, to one man, will not the same reasons justify the far milder and more benevolent authority of masters over their servants? If it appear that the Africans in these States were by recent descent pagans and barbarians, men in bodily strength and appetite, with the reason and morals of children, constitutionally prone to improvidence, so that their possession of all the franchises of a free white citizen would make them a nuisance to society and early victims to their own degradation; and if sound experience teaches that this ruin cannot be prevented without a degree of restraint approaching that proper for children; that is, by giving to a guardian the controul of their involuntary labour, and the expenditure of the fruits for the joint benefit of the parties; how can we be condemned for it? And that social welfare and order, and the happiness of the African himself, do call imperiously for this degree of controul, is confessed by all who have a practical knowledge of his character, as it is proved by the disasters resulting from his emancipation.

Every government in the world acknowledges this necessity, and applies, in some form, this remedy. The abolition government of the United States, for instance, imposed compulsory restraints and labour upon multitudes of fugitive slaves, during the war. The only difference was, that whereas our system of domestic slavery placed this power in hands most powerfully interested to employ it humanely and wisely, the anti-slavery authorities placed it in hands which had every selfish inducement to abuse it to the misery of the slave, and the detriment of the publick interest. And the same government is to-day avouching every word of the above argument, by justifying itself, from a pretended political necessity, for placing the white race of the South under a much stricter bondage than that formerly borne by the negroes; a bondage which places not only labour and property, but life, at the irresponsible will of the masters. If slavery is wrong, then the abolitionists are the greatest sinners; for they have turned their own brethren into a nation of slaves.

Domestic servitude, as we define and defend it, is but civil government in one of its forms. All government is restraint; and this is but one form of restraint. As long as man is a sinner, and his will perverted, restraint is righteous. We are sick of that arrogant and profane cant, which asserts man's 'capacity for self-government' as a universal proposition; which represents human nature as so good, and democratic government as so potent, that it is a sort of miraculous _panacea_, sufficient to repair all the disorders of man's condition. All this ignores the great truths, that man is fallen; that his will is disordered, and therefore ought not to be his rule; that God, his owner and master, has ordained that he shall live under authority. What fruit has radical democracy ever borne, except factious oppression, anarchy, and the stern necessity for despotism?

It has been stated that each man's civil liberty, which, under a just government, is the same with his natural liberty, consists in the privilege of doing and having those things to which he is morally entitled. It has been shown, that as different persons in the same society differ widely in character, powers, and relations, their specific natural rights differ also. But under all forms of government, all still have some liberty. And under a perfectly equitable form, the different classes of persons would properly have different grades of liberty. So that, even in the relation of involuntary servitude for life, if it be not abused, there is an appropriate liberty. Such a servant has privilege to do those things which he is morally entitled to do. If there are certain things which he is restrained by authority from doing, which the superior grades may do, these things are not rights to him. His inferior character, ignorance, and moral irresponsibility, have extinguished his right to do them. And this properly, because his privilege of doing them would injure others and himself, and thus violate the law of equity. If his slavery restrains him from doing more things than these, then the laws do him injustice, and mar his rightful liberty.

This degree of domestic servitude supposes that the end of the restraints it imposes is, to secure, on the whole, the best well-being of both parties to the relation, servant as well as master. Here we may notice a forensic trick practised by Dr. Wayland and the abolitionists. It is that of giving to the proposition which they wish to overthrow, such an exposition as makes it absurd in itself. Says this professed moralist, in his chapter on slavery: "Domestic slavery proceeds upon the principle that the master has a right to controul the actions, physical and intellectual, of the slave, for his own, that is, the master's individual benefit; and of course, that the happiness of the master, when it comes in competition with the happiness of the slave, extinguishes in the latter the right to pursue it." If this were true, it would need no argument to show that slavery is a natural injustice. But slavery proceeds on no such principles. All men ought to know that our slave laws proved the contrary, in that they protected the slave, in many particulars, against the master's will, when it became unrighteous. All know that the publick sentiment of our people proved the contrary; in that the vast majority laboured and gave heartily for the welfare of their servants. And all men who have informed themselves know, that the grand result stamps the definition as a misrepresentation; in that domestic slavery here has conferred on the unfortunate black race more true well-being than any other form of society has ever given them. But it may be asked: Do not many masters selfishly use their slaves according to that definition? We reply: Do not many parents selfishly use their children according to that definition, neglecting their culture and true well-being, temporal and eternal, for the sake of gain? And is it not in the "thrifty" North that most of these instances of greedy, grinding parents are found? Yet who dreams of accusing the parental relation as therefore unrighteous and mischievous? This selfish tyranny is not the parental relation, but the abuse of it. So, every intelligent master defends his slaveholding, because it was, in the main, as preferable for the slave's interest as for his own.

§ 4. _Abolitionism is Jacobinism._

The promise was made above, to unmask some of the hideous affinities of the anti-slavery theory. This is now easy. If men are by nature sovereign and independent, and mechanically equal in rights, and if allegiance is founded solely on expressed or implied consent, then not only slavery, but every involuntary restraint imposed on a person or a class not convicted of crime, and every difference of franchise among the members of civil society, is a glaring wrong. Such are the premises of abolition. Obviously, then, the only just or free government is one where all franchises are absolutely equal to all sexes and conditions, where every office is directly elective, and where no magistrate has any power not expressly assented to by the popular will. For if inequalities of franchise may be justified by differences of character and condition, of course a still wider difference of these might justify so wide an inequality of rights as that between the master and servant. Your true abolitionist is then, of course, a Red-Republican, a Jacobin. Is not this strikingly illustrated by the fact, that the first wholesale abolition in the World was that enacted for the French colonies by the frantic democrats of the 'Reign of Terror?' And this hint may serve to explain to the aristocracy of Great Britain the popularity of the authoress of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' and of her slanderous book, among the masses there. It was not because Britain was so exempt from cases of social hardship and oppression at home, that its people had all its virtuous sympathies at leisure and unoccupied, to pour forth upon the imaginary wrongs of Uncle Tom: but it was because the Jacobinism of the abolitionist theory awakened an echo in the hearts of the lower classes, still seething with the recent upheaval of 1848. The community of agrarian sympathies made itself felt. The noble Lords and Ladies, who patronized the authoress and her book, were industriously fanning the very fires which are destined to consume their vested privileges.

Again, it follows of course from the premises of abolitionism, that hereditary monarchy, no matter how limited, is a standing injustice. A hereditary branch of the legislature is, if possible, still worse. Any such thing as a privileged class in the State is a fraud upon the others; for "all men are equal." The limitation of the right of suffrage, by property or sex, is a crime against human right; for the non-voting classes are ruled without their own consent; but consent is, according to them, the source of rightful authority. Thus are condemned at once the three branches of the hoary and honoured British constitution, kings, lords, and commons; under which men have enjoyed regulated liberty longer, and to a greater degree, than under any government on earth. And here it may be remarked that abolitionist ideas, so current in Great Britain, should have been as alien to the prevalent turns of thought of that people, as they certainly are to their welfare and the genius of their institutions. That a fantastic sciolist, intoxicated with vanity and dazzled by some glittering sophisms, should be an abolitionist, is natural. But Englishmen have ever been esteemed a solid and practical race. Their political conclusions have usually been, to the credit of their good sense, historical rather than theoretical. Their temper has been rather to guard the franchises inherited from their fathers, and approved by the national experience, than to gape after visionary and abstract rights of man. But despite all this, Great Britain has also been leavened with this fell spirit. Her political managers imagined that they found in abolitionism the convenient 'apple of discord' to destroy the peace of a great rival, and they therefore fostered it. To this great injustice they have added the condemnation of the South unheard, upon the testimony of our interested accusers. And the majority of Englishmen, with a dogmatism as unjust as senseless, have refused to permit either explanation or defence, proudly wrapped in impenetrable prejudice, while an innocent and noble people were condemned and overwhelmed by baseless obloquy. But it requires no spirit of prophecy to see that Divine Providence is speedily preparing a retribution by means of their own sin, which will be tremendous enough to satisfy the resentment of any injured Southerner. Abolitionized America is manifestly to be the Nemesis of Britain, through her Jacobin ideas, or arms, or both. The principles of abolition are, as we have proved, destructive of the foundations of the British constitution. Her own statesmen have insanely taught them to her people. The masses do not, indeed, reason very continuously or consistently; yet principles once fixed in their minds always work themselves out, in time, to their logical results. The so-called "Liberal Party" of Great Britain, which draws its inspirations from the abolition democracy of America, is unveiling itself more and more, as a party of true Jacobinism; and other parties have now paltered and dallied so long, that it will speedily show itself irresistible. And when the policy of England is swayed by moneyless votes, instead of capital and land, the caution and forbearance, bred by financial interests, which has thus far scarcely kept the peace between her and the United States, will speedily be changed. The two Jacobinisms, now so sweetly fraternizing over the ruin of the South, will disclose their innate and uniform aggressiveness, and will rush at each other's throats. This the immemorial rivalries and opposition of dearest interests will insure. Then will England feel, in the disintegration of her whole social fabrick by radical American ideas, and the Yankee invasions of Canada and Ireland, the folly of her own policy.

But other consequences follow from the abolitionist dogmas. "All involuntary restraint is a sin against natural rights," therefore laws which give to husbands more power over the persons and property of wives than to wives over husbands, are iniquitous, and should be abolished. The same decision must be made upon the exclusion of women, whether married or single, from suffrage, office, and the full franchises of men. There must be an end of the wife's obedience to her husband. Is it said that these subordinations are consistent, because women assent to them voluntarily, in consenting to become wives? This plea is insufficient, because the female sex is impelled to marriage by irresistible laws of their nature and condition. How tyrannous is this legislation which shuts woman up to the alternative of foregoing the satisfaction of the prime instincts of her existence; or else of submitting to a code of natural injustice! As to the disabilities of single women, this plea has no pretended application. Thus the abolitionists will reason, yea, are reasoning. What was the strange prediction of prophetic wisdom, a few years ago, is now already familiar fact. Female suffrage is already introduced in one State, and will doubtless prevail as widely as abolitionism. But when God's ordinance of the family is thus uprooted, and all the appointed influences of education thus inverted; when America has had a generation of women who were _politicians_, instead of _mothers_, how fundamental must be the destruction of society, and how distant and difficult must be the remedy!

Once more: The same principles have consistently led some abolitionists to assail the parental relation itself. For although none can deny that, in helpless infancy, subjection should be the correlative of protection and maintenance, when once the young citizen has passed from the age of childhood, by what reason can the abolitionist justify his compulsory government by the father? Are not all men by nature equal?

It has been currently asserted that the premises of the abolitionists were embraced in the Declaration of Independence; so that the United States have been committed to them from the beginning. The words usually referred to are the following: "That all men are created equal: that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights: that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed," etc. If by these celebrated propositions it was meant that there ever was, or could be, a government where all men enjoyed the same measure of privilege, then it is false. If it was meant that there ever was, or could be, a state of society in which all men could indulge their volitions to the same extent, and that, in every case, the full extent, it is false; for natural and unavoidable differences of persons must ever prevent this. If it were meant that all men are naturally equal, then it would be false; for men are born with different bodily and mental powers, different moral qualities, and different inheritances of rights. If it was meant that every person enters life free from just controul, it is false; for we all begin our existence rightfully subject, irrespective of our consent, to authority in family and State. Neither God nor nature makes it optional with us whether we will be subject to government. But if it be meant that all men are created equal in this sense, that all are children of a common heavenly Father, all common subjects of the law of equity expressed in the "Golden Rule," each one as truly entitled to possess the set of rights justly appropriate to him, (and by the same reason,) as any other is entitled to his set of rights; this is true, and a glorious truth. This is man's moral equality. It means that, under God, the servant is as much entitled to the rights and privileges of a justly-treated servant, as the master is to the rights of a master; that the commoner is as much entitled to the just privileges of a commoner, as a peer to those of a peer. It is the truthful boast of Englishmen, that in their land every man is equal before the law. What does this mean? Does it mean that Lord Derby has no other franchises and privileges than the day-labourer? By no means. But the privileges allotted to the day-labourer by the laws are defended by the same institutions, and adjudicated by the same free principles, and made legally as inviolable, as the very different and larger privileges of Earl Derby. It is in this sense that a just and liberal government holds all men by nature equal. And if, when the Declaration of Independence says that the right of all men to their liberty is "inalienable," the proper definition of civil liberty is accepted, (that it only means privilege to do what each man, in his peculiar circumstances, has a moral right to do,) this also is universally true. But all this is perfectly consistent with differences of social condition, and station, and privilege; where characters and relations are different. As we have seen, the servant for life, who as a slave receives "those things which are just and equal," has his true liberty, though it is different from that of the free citizen; and the servant can no more be justly stripped of this his _modicum_ of liberty, than the master of his. Last, when it is declared that "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed," there is a sense in which it is true, and one in which it is false. In one sense, they derive their just powers from God, his law, and providence. In the other sense, that the people are not for their rulers, but the rulers for their people, the selection of particular forms of constitution and of the individuals to execute the functions, belongs to the aggregate rectitude and intelligence of the commonwealth, expressed in some way practically fair. But by "the consent of the governed," our wise fathers never intended the consent of each particular human being, competent and incompetent. They intended the representative commonwealth as a body, the "_populus_," or aggregate corporation of that part of the human beings properly wielding the franchises of full citizens. Their proposition is general, and not particular. The men of 1776 were not vain _Ideologues_; they were sagacious, practical Englishmen. Thus understood, as every correct thinker does, they teach nothing against difference of privilege among the subjects of government; and consequently, nothing inconsistent with the servitude of those who are found incapable of beneficially possessing a fuller liberty.

Now, the evidence that this only was their meaning is absolutely complete. Had their proposition been that of the Jacobin abolitionist, (that just claim on men's obedience to authority is founded on the individual's consent,) they must have ordered every thing differently from their actual legislation. They could not have countenanced limited suffrage, of which nearly all of them were advocates. They must have taught female suffrage, which the most democratic of them would have pronounced madness. Not only did they retain the African race in slavery, in the face of this declaration, but they refused to adopt full democratic equality, in reconstructing their constitutions. Were these men fools? Were they ignorant of the plain meaning of their own propositions? Did they, like modern Radicals, disdain the plainest obligations of consistency? Some attempt to evade their retention of slavery, by saying that they did not defend its consistency, nor contemplate it as a permanent relation; but the other facts are unanswerable. It may be true that Jefferson, the draughtsman of the Declaration, did heartily adopt his propositions in the sense of the advocates of the social contract; for it is well known that he was properly a Democrat, and not, like the other great Whigs of Virginia, only a Republican; that he had drank deeply into the spirit of Locke's political writings; and that he had already contracted a fondness for the atheistical philosophy of the French political reformers. But who can believe that George Mason, of Gunston, could fail to see the glaring inconsistency between these propositions, taken in the extravagant and radical sense now forced upon them by the abolitionists, and the constitution which he gave to the State of Virginia? According to that immortal instrument, our commonwealth was as distinctly contrasted with a levelling democracy, as any monarchy regulated by laws could possibly be. It was, indeed, a liberal, aristocratic republic. None could vote save the owners of land in fee-simple; and these were permitted to exercise their elective powers directly, only in one sole instance, the election of the General Assembly. This Assembly then exercised, without farther reference to the freeholders, all the powers of the commonwealth. The Assembly elected the Governor of the State. The Assembly appointed all judges of law, and executive officers of State. The county courts, to whom belonged the whole power of police, of local taxation, and of administration of local justice in cases beneath the grade of a felony, formed a proper aristocracy, serving for life, appointing their own clerks and sheriffs, and filling vacancies in their own numbers by a nomination to the Governor, which was always virtually imperative. Such was the government which the statesmen of Virginia deliberately adopted, after signing the Declaration of Independence; than which none could have been devised by human wit, so well adapted to the character and wants of their people, and under which they exhibited the highest political stability and purity which our commonwealth has ever known. Any one who knows the British Constitution will see at a glance, that our Virginian frame of government was not the work of men led by the Utopian dream of "liberty, fraternity, and equality," but of practical statesmen, establishing for their posterity the historical rights of British freemen.