Chapter III: The Argument From the Scriptures (3)

We shall conclude the argument from scripture with the following just and impressive testimony of the Princeton Review: "The mass of the pious and thinking people in this country are neither abolitionists nor the advocates of slavery. They stand where they ever have stood--on the broad Scriptural foundation; maintaining the obligation of all men, in their several places and relations, to act on the law of love, and to promote the spiritual and temporal welfare of others by every means in their power. They stand aloof from the abolitionists for various reasons. In the first place, they disapprove of their principles. The leading characteristic doctrine of this sect is that slaveholding is in all cases a sin, and should, therefore, under all circumstances, be immediately abandoned. _As nothing can be plainer than that slaveholders were admitted to the Christian church by the inspired apostles, the advocates of this doctrine are brought into direct collision with the Scriptures. This leads to one of the most dangerous evils connected with the whole system, viz., a disregard of the authority of the word of God, a setting up a different and higher standard of truth and duty, and a proud and confident wresting of Scripture to suit their own purposes._ THE HISTORY OF INTERPRETATION FURNISHES NO EXAMPLES OF MORE WILLFUL AND VIOLENT PERVERSIONS OF THE SACRED TEXT THAN ARE TO BE FOUND IN THE WRITINGS OF THE ABOLITIONISTS. THEY SEEM TO CONSIDER THEMSELVES ABOVE THE SCRIPTURES; AND WHEN THEY PUT THEMSELVES ABOVE THE LAW OF GOD, IT IS NOT WONDERFUL THAT THEY SHOULD DISREGARD THE LAWS OF MEN. Significant manifestations of the result of this disposition to consider their own light a surer guide than the word of God, are visible in the anarchical opinions about human governments, civil and ecclesiastical, and on the rights of women, which have found appropriate advocates in the abolition publications. Let these principles be carried out, and there is an end to all social subordination, to all security for life and property, to all guarantee for public or domestic virtue. If our women are to be emancipated from subjection to the law which God has imposed upon them, if they are to quit the retirement of domestic life, where they preside in stillness over the character and destiny of society; if they are to come forth in the liberty of men, to be our agents, our public lecturers, our committee-men, our rulers; if, in studied insult to the authority of God, we are to renounce in the marriage contract all claim to obedience, we shall soon have a country over which the genius of Mary Wolstonecraft would delight to preside, but from which all order and all virtue would speedily be banished. There is no form of human excellence before which we bow with profounder deference than that which appears in a delicate woman, adorned with the inward graces and devoted to the peculiar duties of her sex; and there is no deformity of human character from which we turn with deeper loathing than from a woman forgetful of her nature, and clamorous for the vocation and rights of men. It would not be fair to object to the abolitionists the disgusting and disorganizing opinions of even some of their leading advocates and publications, did they not continue to patronize those publications, and were not these opinions the legitimate consequences of their own principles. Their women do but apply their own method of dealing with Scripture to another case. This no inconsiderable portion of the party have candor enough to acknowledge, and are therefore prepared to abide the result."

FOOTNOTES:

[163] Lev. xxv. 44, 45, 56.

[164] Lev. xxv. 44, 45, 46.

[165] Exod. xxi. 20, 21.

[166] Exod. xxi. 7, 8.

[167] Deut. xxiii. 15, 16.

[168] Moses Stewart, a divine of Massachusetts, who had devoted a long and laborious life to the interpretation of Scripture, and who was by no means a friend to the institution of slavery.

[169] Speech in the Metropolitan Theatre, 1855.

[170] Speech at the Metropolitan Theatre, 1855.

[171] Fools may hope to escape responsibility by such a cry. But if there be any truth in moral science, than every man should examine and decide, or else forbear to act.

[172] The Italics are ours.

[173] The emphasis is ours.

[174] Elliott on Slavery, vol. i. p. 205.