Chapter II: Part 2

The rule and the subordination which is essential to the existence of the family, God made commensurate with mankind; for _mankind is only the congeries of families_. When Ham, in his antediluvian recklessness, laughed at his father, God took occasion to give to the world the rule of the superior over the inferior. _He cursed him. He cursed him because he left him unblessed_. The withholding of the father's blessing, in the Bible, was curse. Hence Abraham prayed God, when Isaac was blessed, that Ishmael might not be passed by. Hence Esau prayed his father, when Jacob was blessed, that he might not be left untouched by his holy hands. Ham was cursed to render service, forever, to Shem and Japheth. The _special_ curse on Canaan made the general curse on Ham conspicuous, historic, and explanatory, simply because his descendants were to be brought under the control of God's peculiar people. Shem was blessed to rule over Ham. Japheth was blessed to rule over both. God sent Ham to Africa, Shem to Asia, Japheth to Europe. Mr. Moderator, you have read Guyot's "_Earth and Man_." That admirable book is a commentary upon this part of Genesis. It is the philosophy of geography. And it is the philosophy of the rule of the higher races over the inferior, written on the very face of the earth. He tells you why the continents are shaped as they are shaped; why the mountains stand where they stand; why the rivers run where they run; why the currents of the sea and the air flow as they flow. And he tells you that the earth south of the Equator makes the inferior man. That the oceanic climate makes the inferior man in the Pacific Islands. That South America makes the inferior man. That the solid, unindented Southern Africa makes the inferior man. That the huge, heavy, massive, magnificent Asia makes the huge, heavy, massive, magnificent man. That Europe, indented by the sea on every side, with its varied scenery, and climate, and Northern influences, makes the varied intellect, the versatile power and life and action, of the master-man of the world. And it is so. Africa, with here and there an exception, has never produced men to compare with the men of Asia. For six thousand years, save the unintelligible stones of Egypt, she has had no history. Asia has had her great men and her name. But Europe has ever shown, and now, her nobler men and higher destiny. Japheth has now come to North America, to give us his past greatness and his transcendent glory. (Applause.) And, sir, I thank God our mountains stand where they stand; and that our rivers run where they run. Thank God they run not across longitudes, but across latitudes, from north to south. If they crossed longitudes, we might fear for the Union. But I hail the Union,--made by God, strong as the strength of our hills, and ever to live and expand,--like the flow and swell of the current of our streams. (Applause.)

These two theories of Right and Wrong,--these two ideas of human liberty,--the right, in the nature of things, or the right as made by God,--the liberty of the individual man, of Atheism, of Red Republicanism, of the devil,--or the liberty of man, in the family, in the State, the liberty from God,--these two theories now make the conflict of the world. This anti-slavery battle is only part of the great struggle: God will be victorious,--and we, in his might.

I now come to particular illustrations of the world-wide law that service shall be rendered by the inferior to the superior. The relations in which such service obtains are very many. Some of them are these:--husband and wife; parent and child; teacher and scholar; commander and soldier,--sailor; master and apprentice; master and hireling; master and slave. Now, sir, all these relations are ordained of God. They are all directly commanded, or they are the irresistible law of his providence, in conditions which must come up in the progress of depraved nature. The relations themselves are all good in certain conditions. And there may be no more of evil in the lowest than in the highest. And there may be in the lowest, as really as in the highest, the fulfilment of the commandment to love thy neighbor as thyself, and of doing unto him whatsoever thou wouldst have him to do unto thee.

Why, sir, the wife everywhere, except where Christianity has given her elevation, is _the slave_. And, sir, I say, without fear of saying too strongly, that for every sigh, every groan, every tear, every agony of stripe or death, which has gone up to God from the relation of master and slave, there have been more sighs, more groans, more tears, and more agony in the rule of the husband over the wife. Sir, I have admitted, and do again admit, without qualification, that every fact in Uncle Tom's Cabin has occurred in the South. But, in reply, I say deliberately, what one of your first men told me, that he who will make the horrid examination will discover in New York City, in any number of years past, more cruelty from husband to wife, parent to child, _than in all the South from master to slave_ in the same time. I dare the investigation. And you may extend it further, if you choose,--to all the results of honor and purity. I fear nothing on this subject. I stand on rock,--the Bible,--and therefore, just before I bring the Bible, to which all I have said is introductory, I will run a parallel between the relation of master and slave and that of husband and wife. I will say nothing of the grinding oppression of capital upon labor, in the power of the master over the hireling--the crushed peasant--the chain-harnessed coal-pit woman, a thousand feet under ground, working in darkness, her child toiling by her side, and another child not born; I will say nothing of the press-gang which fills the navy of Britain--the conscription which makes the army of France--the terrible floggings--the awful court-martial--the quick sentence--the lightning-shot--the chain, and ball, and every-day lash--the punishment of the soldier, sailor, slave, who had run away. I pass all this by: I will run the parallel between the slave and wife.

Do you say, The slave is held to _involuntary service?_ So is the wife. Her relation to her husband, in the immense majority of cases, is made for her, and not by her. And when she makes it for herself, how often, and how soon, does it become involuntary! How often, and how soon, would she throw off the yoke if she could! O ye wives, I know how superior you are to your husbands in many respects,--not only in personal attraction, (although in that particular, comparison is out of place,) in grace, in refined thought, in passive fortitude, in enduring love, and in a heart to be filled with the spirit of heaven. Oh, I know all this. Nay, I know you may surpass him in his own sphere of boasted prudence and worldly wisdom about dollars and cents. Nevertheless, he has authority, from God, to rule over you. You are under service to him. You are bound to obey him _in all things_. Your service is very, very, very often involuntary from the first, and, if voluntary at first, becomes hopeless necessity afterwards. I know God has laid upon the husband to love you as Christ loved the church, and in that sublime obligation has placed you in the light and under the shadow of a love infinitely higher, and purer, and holier than all talked about in the romances of chivalry. But the husband may not so love you. He may rule you with the rod of iron. What can you do? Be divorced? God forbids it, save for crime. Will you say that you are free,--that you will go where you please, do as you please? Why, ye dear wives, your husbands may forbid. And listen, you cannot leave New York, nor your palaces, any more than your shanties. No; you cannot leave your parlor, nor your bedchamber, nor your couch, if your husband commands you to stay there! What can you do? Will you run away, with your stick and your bundle? He can advertise you!! What can you do? You can, and I fear some of you do, wish him, from the bottom of your hearts, at the bottom of the Hudson. Or, in your self-will, you will do just as you please. (Great laughter.)

[A word on the subject of divorce. One of your standing denunciations on the South is the terrible laxity of the marriage vow among the slaves. Well, sir, what does your Boston Dr. Nehemiah Adams say? He says, after giving eighty, sixty, and the like number of applications for divorce, and nearly all granted at individual quarterly courts in New England,--he says he is not sure but that the marriage relation is as enduring among _the slaves in the South_ as it is among white people in New England. I only give what Dr. Adams says. I would fain vindicate the marriage relation from this rebuke. But one thing I will say: you seldom hear of a divorce in Virginia or South Carolina.]

But to proceed:--

Do you say the slave is _sold and bought?_ So is the wife the world over. Everywhere, always, and now as the general fact, however done away or modified by Christianity. The savage buys her. The barbarian buys her. The Turk buys her. The Jew buys her. The Christian buys her,--Greek, Armenian, Nestorian, Roman Catholic, Protestant. The Portuguese, the Spaniard, the Italian, the German, the Russian, the Frenchman, the Englishman, the New England man, the New Yorker,--especially the upper ten,--_buy the wife_--in many, very many cases. She is seldom bought in the South, and never among the slaves themselves; for they always marry for love. (Continued laughter.) Sir, I say the wife is bought in the highest circles, too often, as really as the slave is bought. Oh, she is not sold and purchased in the public market. But come, sir, with me, and let us take the privilege of spirits out of the body to glide into that gilded saloon, or into that richly comfortable family room, of cabinets, and pictures, and statuary: see the parties, there, to sell and buy that human body and soul, and make her a chattel! See how they sit, and bend towards each other, in earnest colloquy, on sofa of rosewood and satin,--_Turkey_ carpet (how befitting!) under feet, sunlight over head, softened through stained windows: or it is night, and the gas is turned nearly off, and the burners gleam like stars through the shadow from which the whisper is heard, in which that old ugly brute, with gray goatee--how fragrant!--bids one, two, five, ten hundred thousand dollars, and _she_ is knocked off to him,--that beautiful young girl asleep up there, amid flowers, and innocent that she is sold and bought. Sir, that young girl would as soon permit a baboon to embrace her, as that old, ignorant, gross, disgusting wretch to approach her. Ah, has she not been sold and bought for money? But--But what? But, you say, she freely, and without parental authority, accepted him. Then she sold herself for money, and was guilty of _that_ which is nothing better than legal prostitution. I know what I say; you know what I say. Up there in the gallery you know: you nod to one another. Ah! you know the parties. Yes, you say: All true, true, true. (Laughter.)

Now, Mr. Moderator, I will clinch all I have said by nails sure, and fastened from the word of God.

There is King James's English Bible, with its magnificent dedication. I bring the English acknowledged translation. And just one word more to push gently aside--for I am a kind man to those poor, deluded anti-slavery people--their last argument. It is _that_ this English Bible, in those parts which treat of slavery, don't give the ideas which are found in the original Hebrew and Greek. Alas for the common people!--alas for this good old translation! Are its days numbered? No, sir; no, sir. The Unitarian, the Universalist, the Arminian, the Baptist, when pressed by this translation, have tried to find shelter for their false isms by making or asking for a new rendering. And now the anti-slavery men are driving hard at the same thing. (Laughter.) Sir, shall we permit our people everywhere to have their confidence in this noble translation undermined and destroyed by the isms and whims of every or any man in our pulpits? I affirm, whatever be our perfect liberty of examination into God's meaning in all the light of the original languages, that there is a respect due to this received version, and that great caution should be used, lest we teach the people to doubt its true rendering from the original word of God. I protest, sir, against having a Doctor-of-Divinity _priest_, Hebrew or Greek, to tell the people what God has spoken on the subject of slavery or any other subject. (Laughter.) I would as soon have a Latin priest,--I would as soon have Archbishop Hughes,--I would as soon go to Rome as to Jerusalem or Athens,--I would as soon have the Pope at once in his fallible infallibility,--as ten or twenty, little or big, anti-slavery Doctor-of-Divinity priests, each claiming to give his infallible rendering, however differing from his peer. (Laughter.) I never yet produced this Bible, in its plain unanswerable authority, for the relation of master and slave, but the anti-slavery man ran away into the fog of _his_ Hebrew or Greek, (laughter,) or he jabbered the nonsense that God permitted the _sin_ of slaveholding among the Jews, but that he don't do it now! Sir, God sanctioned slavery then, and sanctions it now. He made it right, they know, then and now. Having thus taken the last puff of wind out of the sails of the anti-slavery phantom ship, turn to the twenty-first chapter of Exodus, vs. 2-5. God, in these verses, gave the Israelites his command how they should buy and hold the Hebrew servant,--how, under certain conditions, he went free,--how, under other circumstances, he might be held to service forever, with his wife and her children. There it is. Don't run into the Hebrew. (Laughter.)

But what have we here?--vs. 7-11:--"And if a man sell his daughter to be a maid-servant, she shall not go out as the men-servants do. If she please not her master, who hath betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed: to sell her unto a strange nation he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her. And if he hath betrothed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters. If he take him another wife, her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage shall he not diminish. And if he do not these three unto her, then shall she go out free without money." Now, sir, the wit of man can't dodge that passage, unless he runs away into the Hebrew. (Great laughter.) For what does God say? Why, this:--that an Israelite might sell his own daughter, not only into servitude, but into polygamy,--that the buyer might, if he pleased, give her to his son for a wife, or take her to himself. If he took her to himself, and she did not please him, he should not sell her unto a strange nation, but should allow her to be redeemed by her family. But, if he took him another wife before he allowed the first one to be redeemed, he should continue to give the first one _food_, her _raiment_, and her _duty of marriage_; that is to say, _her right to his bed_. If he did not do _these three things_, she should go out free; _i.e._ cease to be his slave, without his receiving any money for her. There, sir, God sanctioned the Israelite father in selling his daughter, and the Israelite man to buy her, into slavery and into polygamy. And it was then right, because God made it right. In verses 20 and 21, you have these words:--"And if a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall be surely punished; notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money." What does this passage mean? Surely this:--if the master gave his slave a hasty blow with a rod, and he died under his hand, he should be punished. But, if the slave lived a day or two, it would so extenuate the act of the master he should not be punished, inasmuch as he would be in that case sufficiently punished in losing his money in his slave. Now, sir, I affirm that God was more lenient to the degraded Hebrew master than Southern laws are to the higher Southern master in like cases. But there you have what was the divine will. Find fault with God, ye anti-slavery men, if you dare. In Leviticus, xxv. 44-46, "Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they beget in your land: 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 bondmen forever."

Sir, I do not see how God could tell us more plainly that he did command his people to buy slaves from the heathen round about them, and from the stranger, and of their families sojourning among them. The passage has no other meaning. Did God merely permit sin?--did he merely tolerate a dreadful evil? God does not say so anywhere. He gives his people law to buy and hold slaves of the heathen forever, on certain conditions, and to buy and hold Hebrew slaves in variously-modified particulars. Well, how did the heathen, then, get slaves to sell? Did they capture them in war?--did they sell their own children? Wherever they got them, they sold them; and God's law gave his people the right to buy them.

God in the New Testament made no law prohibiting the relation of master and slave. But he made law regulating the relation under Greek and Roman slavery, which was the most oppressive in the world.

God saw that these regulations would ultimately remove the evils in the Greek and Roman systems, and do it away entirely from the fitness of things, as there existing; for Greek and Roman slaves, for the most part, were the equals in all respects of their masters. Æsop was a slave; Terence was a slave. The precepts in Colossians iv. 18, 23, 1 Tim. vi. 1-6, and other places, show, unanswerably, that God as really sanctioned the relation of master and slave as those of husband and wife, and parent and child; and that all the obligations of the moral law, and Christ's law of love, might and must be as truly fulfilled in the one relation as in the other. The fact that he has made the one set of relations permanent, and the other more or less dependent on conditions of mankind, or to pass away in the advancement of human progress, does not touch the question. He sanctioned it under the Old Testament and the New, and ordains it now while he sees it best to continue it, and he now, as heretofore, proclaims the duty of the master and the slave. Dr. Parker's admirable explanation of Colossians, and other New Testament passages, saves me the necessity of saying any thing more on the Scripture argument.

One word on the Detroit resolutions, and I conclude. Those resolutions of the Assembly of 1850 decide that slavery is sin, unless the master holds his slave as a guardian, or under the claims of humanity.

Mr. Moderator, I think we had on this floor, yesterday, proof conclusive that those resolutions mean any thing or nothing; that they are a fine specimen of Northern skill in platform-making; that it put in a plank here, to please this man,--a plank there, to please that man,--a plank for the North, a broad board for the South. It is Jackson's judicious tariff. It is a gum-elastic conscience, stretched now to a charity covering all the multitude of our Southern sins, contracted now, giving us hardly a fig-leaf of righteousness. It is a bowl of punch,--

A little sugar to make it sweet,
A little lemon to make it sour,
A little water to make it weak,
A little brandy to give it power. (Laughter.)

As a Northern argument against us, it is a mass of lead so heavy that it weighed down even the strong shoulders of Judge Jessup. For, sir, when he closed his speech, I asked him a single question I had made ready for him. It was this:--"Do you allow that Mr. Aiken, of South Carolina, may, under the claims of humanity, hold three thousand slaves, or must he emancipate them?" The Judge staggered, and stammered, and said, "No man could rightly hold so many." I then asked, "How many may he hold, in humanity?" The Judge saw his fatal dilemma. He recovered himself handsomely, and fairly said, "Mr. Aiken might hold three thousand slaves, in harmony with the Detroit action." I replied, "Then, sir, you have surrendered the whole question of Southern slavery." And, sir, the Judge looked as if he felt he had surrendered it. And every man in this house, capable of understanding the force of that question, felt it had shivered the whole anti-slavery argument, on those resolutions, to atoms. Why, sir, if a man can hold three slaves, with a right heart and the approbation of God, he may hold thirty, three hundred, three thousand, or thirty thousand. It is a mere question of heart, and capacity to govern. The Emperor of Russia holds sixty millions of slaves: and is there a man in this house so much of a fool as to say that God regards the Emperor of Russia a sinner because he is the master of sixty millions of slaves? Sir, that Emperor has certainly a high and awful responsibility upon him. But, if he is good as he is great, he is a god of benevolence on earth. And so is every Southern master. His obligation is high, and great, and glorious. It is the same obligation, in kind, he is under to his wife and children, and in some respects immensely higher, by reason of the number and the tremendous interests involved for time and eternity in connection with this great country, Africa, and the world. Yes, sir, _I know_, whether Southern masters fully know it or not, that _they hold from God_, individually and collectively, _the highest and the noblest responsibility ever given by Him to individual private men on all the face of the earth._ For God has intrusted to them to train millions of the most degraded in form and intellect, but, at the same time, the most gentle, the most amiable, the most affectionate, the most imitative, the most susceptible of social and religious love, of all the races of mankind,--to train them, and to give them civilization, and the light and the life of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And I thank God he has given this great work to that type of the noble family of Japheth best qualified to do it,--to the Cavalier stock,--the gentleman and the lady of England and France, born to command, and softened and refined under our Southern sky. May they know and feel and fulfil their destiny! Oh, may they "know that they also have a Master in heaven."

Letter from Dr. Ross.

I need only say, in reference to this letter, that my friends having questioned my position as to the good of the agitation, I wrote the following letter to vindicate that point, as given, in the New York speech:--

HUNTSVILLE, ALA., July 14, 1856.

_Brother Blackburn_:--I affirmed, in my New York speech, that the Slavery agitation has done, and will accomplish, good.

Your very kind and courteous disagreement on that point I will make the occasion to say something more thereon, without wishing you, my dear friend, to regard what I write as inviting any discussion.

I said _that_ agitation has brought out, and would reveal still more fully, the Bible, in its relation to slavery and liberty,--also the infidelity which long has been, and is now, leavening with death the whole Northern mind. And that it would result in the triumph of the _true_ Southern interpretation of the Bible; to the honor of God, and to the good of the master, the slave, the stability of the Union, and be a blessing to the world. To accomplish this, the sin _per se_ doctrine will be utterly demolished. That doctrine is the difficulty in every _Northern mind,_ (where there is any difficulty about slavery,) whether they confess it or not. Yes, the difficulty with every Northern man is, that _the relation of_ master and slave is felt _to be_ sin. I know that to be the fact. I have talked with all grades of Northern men, and come in contact with all varieties of Northern mind on this subject. And I know that the man who says and tries to believe, and does, partially in sober judgment, believe, that slavery is not sin, yet, _in his feelings, in his educated prejudices_, he feels that slavery is sin.

Yes, _that_ is the difficulty, and _that_ is the whole of the difficulty, _between the North and the South_, so far as the question is one of the Bible and morals. Now, I again say, that that _sin per se_ doctrine will, in this agitation, be utterly demolished. And when that is done,--when the North will know and feel fully, perfectly, that the relation of master and slave is not sin, but sanctioned of God,--then, and not till then, the North and South can and will, without anger, consider the following questions:--Whether slavery, as it exists in the United States, all things considered, be or be not a great good, and the greatest good for a time, notwithstanding its admitted evils? Again, whether these evils can or cannot be modified and removed? Lastly, whether slavery itself can or cannot pass away from this land and the world? Now, sir, the moment the sin question is settled, then all is peace. For these other questions belong entirely to another category of morals. They belong entirely to the category of _what is_ wise _to realize_ good. This agitation will bring this great result. And therefore I affirm the agitation to be good.

There is another fact also, the result, in great measure, of this agitation, which in my view proves it to have been and to be of great good. I mean the astonishing rise and present stability of the slave-power of the United States. This fact, when examined, is undeniable. And it is equally undeniable that it has been caused, in great part, by the slavery question in all its bearings. It is a wonderful development made by God. And I must believe he intends thereby either to destroy or bless this great Union. But, as I believe he intends to bless, therefore I am fortified in affirming the good there has been and is in this agitation. Let me bring out to view this astonishing fact.

1. Twenty-five years ago, and previously, the whole slave-holding South and West had a strong tendency to emancipation, in some form. But the abolition movement then began, and arrested that Southern and Western leaning to emancipation. Many people have said, and do say, that that _arrest_ was and is a great evil. I say it was and is a great good. Why? Answer: It was and would now be premature. Had it been carried out, it would have been and would now be evil, immense, inconceivable,--to master, slave, America, Africa, and the world; because neither master, slave, America, Africa, the world, were, or are, ready for emancipation. God has a great deal to do before he is ready for emancipation. He tells us so by this _arrest_ put upon that tendency to emancipation years ago. For He put it into the hearts of abolitionists _to make the arrest_. And He stopped the Southern movement all the more perfectly by permitting Great Britain to emancipate Jamaica, and letting that experiment prove, as it has, a perfect failure and a terrible warning. JAMAICA IS DESTROYED. And now, whatever be done for its negroes must be done with the full admission that what has been attempted was in violation of the duty Britain owed to those negroes. But her failure in seeing and doing her duty, God has given to us to teach us knowledge; and, through us, to instruct the world in the demonstration of the problem of slavery.

2. God put it into the hearts of Northern men--especially abolitionists--to give Texas to the South. Texas, a territory so vast that a bird, as Webster said, can't fly over it in a week. Many in the South did not want Texas. But many longer-headed ones did want it. And Northern men voted and gave to the South exactly what these longer-headed Southern statesmen wanted. This, I grant, was Northern anti-slavery fatuity, utterly unaccountable but that God made them do it.

3. God put it into the hearts of Northern men--especially abolitionists--to vote for Polk, Dallas, and Texas. This gave us the Mexican War; and that immense territory, its spoil,--a territory which, although it may not be favorable for slave-labor, has increased, and will, in many ways, extend the slave-power.

4. This leads me to say that God put it into the hearts of many Northern men--especially abolitionists--to believe what Great Britain said,--namely, that _free trade_ would result in slave-emancipation. _But lo! the slave-holder wanted free trade_. So Northern abolitionists helped to destroy the _tariff policy_, and thus to expand the demand for, and the culture of, cotton. Now, see, the gold of California has _perpetuated free trade_ by enabling our merchants to meet the enormous demand for specie created by free trade. So California helps the slave-power. But the abolitionists gave us Polk, the Mexican War, and California.

5. God put it into the hearts of the North, and especially abolitionists, to stimulate the settlement of new free States, and to be the ardent friends of an immense foreign emigration. The result has been to send down to the South, with railroad speed and certainty, corn, wheat, flour, meal, bacon, pork, beef, and every other imaginable form of food, in quantity amazing, and so cheap that the planter can spread wider and wider the culture of cotton.

6. God has, by this growth of the Northwest, made the demand for cotton enormous in the North and Northwest. Again, he has made English and French experiments to procure cotton somewhere else than from the United States _dead failures_,--in the East Indies, Egypt, Algeria, Brazil. God has thus given to the Southern planter an absolute monopoly. A monopoly so great that he, the Southern planter, sits now upon his throne of cotton and wields the commercial sceptre of the world. Yes, it is the Southern planter who says to-day to haughty England, Go to war, if you dare; dismiss Dallas, if you dare. Yes, he who sits on the throne of the cotton-bag has triumphed at last over him who sits on the throne of the wool-sack. England is prostrate at his feet, as well as the abolitionists.

7. God has put it into the hearts of abolitionists to prevent half a million of free negroes from going to Liberia; and thereby the abolitionists have made them consumers of slave-products to the extension of the slave-power. And, by thus keeping them in America, the abolitionists have so increased their degradation as to prove all the more the utter folly of emancipation in the United States.

8. God has permitted the anti-slavery men in the North, in England, in France, and everywhere, so to blind themselves in hypocrisy as to give the Southern slave-holder his last perfect triumph over them; for God tells the planter to say to the North, to England, to France, to all who buy cotton, "Ye men of Boston, New York, London, Paris,--ye hypocrites,--ye brand me as a pirate, a kidnapper, a murderer, a demon, fit only for hell, and yet ye buy my blood-stained cotton. O ye hypocrites!--ye Boston hypocrites! why don't ye throw the cotton in the sea, as your fathers did the tea? Ye Boston hypocrites! ye say, _if we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the slave-trade!_ Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves that ye are the children of them who, in fact, kidnapped and bought in blood, and sold the slave in America! for now, ye hypocrites, ye buy the blood-stained cotton in quantity so immense, that _ye_ have run up the price of slaves to be more than a thousand dollars,--the average of old and young! O ye hypocrites! ye denounce slavery; then ye bid it live, and not die,--in that ye buy sugar, rice, tobacco, and, above all, cotton! Ye hypocrites! ye abuse the devil, and then fall down and worship him!--ye hypocrites,--ye New England hypocrites,--ye Old England hypocrites,--ye French hypocrites,--ye Uncle Tom's Cabin hypocrites,--ye Beecher hypocrites,--ye Rhode Island Consociation hypocrites! Oh, your holy twaddle stinks in the nostrils of God, and he commands me to lash you with my scorn, and his scorn, so long as ye gabble about the sin of slavery, and then bow down to me, and buy and spin cotton, and thus work for me as truly as my slaves! O ye fools and blind, fill ye up the measure of your folly, and blindness, and shame! And this ye are doing. Ye have, like the French infidels, made _reason_ your goddess, and are exalting her above the Bible; and, in your unitarianism and neology and all modes of infidelity, ye are rejecting and crucifying the Son of God."

Now, my brother, this controlling slave-power is a world-wide fact. Its statistics of bales count by millions; its tonnage counts by hundreds of thousands; its manufacture is reckoned by the workshops of America and Europe; its supporters are numbered by all who must thus be clothed in the world. This tremendous power has been developed in great measure by the abolition agitation, controlled by God. I believe, then, as I have already said, that God intends one of two things. He either intends to destroy the United States by this slave-power, or he intends to bless my country and the world by the unfoldings of his wisdom in this matter. I believe he will bless the world in the working out of this slavery. I rejoice, then, in the agitation which has so resulted, and will so terminate, to reveal the Bible, and bless mankind.

Your affectionate friend,

F.A. Ross.

REV. A. BLACKBURN.

What Is the Foundation of Moral Obligation?

My position as to this all-important question, in my New York speech, was made subject of remark in the "Presbyterian Herald," Louisville, Kentucky, to which I replied at length in the "Presbyterian Witness," Knoxville, Tennessee. No rejoinder was ever made to that reply. But, recently, an extract from the younger Edwards was submitted to me. To that I gave the following letter. The subject is of the first and the last importance, and bears directly, as set forth in my New York speech, on infidelity, and, of course, the slavery question:--

Mr. Editor:--In your paper of Tuesday, 24th ult., there is an article, under this head, giving the argument of Edwards (the son) against my views as to _the foundation of moral obligation_.

I thank the writer for his argument, and his courteous manner of presenting it. In my third letter to Mr. Barnes, I express my preparation to meet "_all comers_" on this question; and I am pleased to see this "_comer_". If my views cannot be refuted by Edwards, I may wait long for an "_uglier customer_."

A word, introductory, to your correspondent. He says, "His [Dr. Ross's] theory was advanced and argued against in a former age." By this, I understand him to express his belief that my theory has been rejected heretofore. Well. It may, nevertheless, be the true theory. The Copernican astronomy was argued against in a former age and rejected; yet it has prevailed. Newton's law of gravitation was argued against and rejected by a whole generation of philosophers on the continent of Europe; yet it has prevailed. And now all school-boys and girls would call anybody a fool who should deny it. Steam, in all its applications, was argued against and rejected; yet it has prevailed. So the electric telegraph; and, to go back a little, the theory of vaccination,--the circulation of the blood,--a thousand things; yea, Edwards's (the father) theory of virtue, although received by many, has been argued against, and by many rejected; yet it will prevail. Yea, his idea of the unity of the race in Adam was and is argued against and rejected; yet it will prevail. I feel, therefore, no fear that my theory of moral obligation will not be acknowledged because it was argued against and rejected by many in a former age, and may be now. Nay; facts to prove it are accumulating,--facts which were not developed in Edwards's day,--facts showing, irresistibly, that Edwards's theory, which is _that_ most usually now held, is what I say it is,--_the rejection of revelation, infidelity, and atheism_. The evidence amounts to demonstration.

The question is in a nutshell; it is this:--_Shall man submit to the revealed will of God_, or _to his own will?_ That is the naked question when the fog of confused ideas and unmeaning words is lifted and dispersed.

My position, expressed in the speech delivered in the General Assembly, New York, May, 1856, is this:--"God, in making all things, saw that, in the relations he would constitute between himself and intelligent creatures, and among themselves, NATURAL GOOD AND EVIL would come to pass. In his benevolent wisdom, he then _willed_ LAW to control this _good_ and _evil_; and he thereby made _conformity_ to that law to be _right_, and _non-conformity_ to be _wrong_. Why? Simply because he saw it to be _good_, and _made it to be_ RIGHT; not because _he saw it to be right_, but because _he made it to be right_."

Your correspondent replies to this theory in the following words of Edwards:--"Some hold that the foundation of moral obligation is primarily in the will of God. But the will of God is either benevolent or not. If it be benevolent, and on that account the foundation of moral obligation, it is not the source of obligation merely because it is the will of God, but because it is benevolent, and is of a tendency to promote happiness; and this places the foundation of obligation in a tendency to happiness, and not primarily in the will of God. But if the will of God, and that which is the expression of it, the divine law, be allowed to be not benevolent, and are foundation of obligation, we are obliged to conform to them, whatever they be, however malevolent and opposite to holiness and goodness the requirements be. But this, I presume, none will pretend." Very fairly and strongly put; that's to say, if I understand Edwards, he supposes, if God was the devil and man what he is, then man would not be under obligation to obey the devil's will! That's it! Well, I suppose so too; and I reckon most _Christians_ would agree to that statement, Nay, more: I presume nobody ever taught that the mere naked _will_, abstractly considered, if it could be, from the _character_ of God, was the ground of moral obligation? Nay, I think nobody ever imagined that the notion of an infinite Creator presupposes or includes the idea that he is a malevolent Being! I agree, then, with Edwards, that the ultimate ground of obligation _is_ in the _fact_ that God is benevolent, or is a good God. I said _that_ in my speech quoted above. I formally stated that "_God, in his benevolent wisdom, willed law to control the natural good and evil_," &c. What, then, is the point of disagreement between my view and Edwards's? It is in _the different ways by which we_ GET AT _the_ FACT _of divine benevolence_. I hold that the REVEALED WORD _tells us who God is and what he does_, and is, therefore, the ULTIMATE GROUND OF OBLIGATION. But Edwards holds that HUMAN REASON _must tell us who God is and what he does_, and IS, therefore, the PRIMARY GROUND OF OBEDIENCE. _That_ is my issue with Edwards and others; and it is as broad an issue as _faith in revelation_, or the REJECTION OF IT. I do not charge that Edwards did, or that all who hold with him do, deny the word of God; but I do affirm that their argument does. The matter is plain. For what is revelation? It is that God has appeared in person, and _told_ man in WORD that he is GOD; and _told_ him first in WORD (to be expanded in studying _creation_ and _providence_) that God is a Spirit, eternal, infinite in power, wisdom, goodness, holiness,--the Creator, Preserver, Benefactor. That WORD, moreover, he proved by highest evidence--namely, supernatural evidence--to be _absolute, perfect_ TRUTH as to all FACT affirmed _of him_ and _what_ he _does_. REVELATION, as claimed in the Bible, was and is THAT THING.

Man, then, having this revelation; is under obligation ever to believe every jot and tittle of that WORD. He at first, no doubt, knew little of the meaning of some _facts_ declared; nay, he may have comprehended nothing of the sense or scope of many _facts_ affirmed. Nay, he may now, after thousands of years, know most imperfectly the meaning of that WORD. But he was and he is, notwithstanding, to believe with absolute faith the WORD,--that God _is_ all he says he is, and _does_ all he says he does,--however that WORD may _go beyond_ his reason, or _surprise_ his feelings, or _alarm_ his conscience, or _command_ his will.

This statement of what revelation is, settles the whole question as presented by Edwards. For REVELATION, as explained, does FIX _forever the foundation of man's moral obligation in the benevolence of God_, PRIMARILY, as it is _expressed_ in the word of God. REVELATION does then, in that sense, FIX _obligation in the_ MERE WILL OF GOD; for, the moment you attempt to establish the foundation _somewhere else_, you have abandoned the ground of revelation. You have left the WILL OF GOD _in his word_, and you have made your rule of right to be the WILL OF MAN _in the_ SELF _of the_ HEART. The proof of what I here say is so plain, even as the writing on the tables of Habakkuk's vision, that he may run that readeth it. Read, then, even as on the _tables_.

God _says_ in his WORD, "I am all-powerful, all-wise, the Creator." "You may be," says Edwards, "but I want _primary foundation_ for my faith; and I can't take your _word_ for it. I must look first into _nature_ to see if evidence of infinite power and wisdom is there,--to see if evidence of a Creator is there,--and if thou art he!"

Again, God _says_ in his word, "I am benevolent, and _my will_ in my law is expression of that benevolence." "You may tell the truth," Edwards replies, "but I want _primary ground_ for my belief, and I must hold your word suspended until I examine into my reason, my feelings, my conscience, my will,--to see if your WORD _harmonizes_ with my HEART,--to see if what you reveal tends to _happiness_ IN MY NOTION OF HAPPINESS; _or tends to right_ IN MY NOTION OF RIGHT!" That's it. That's the theory of Edwards, Barnes, and others.

And what is this but the attempt to know the divine attributes and character in _some other way_ than through the divine WORD? And what is this but the denial of the divine WORD, except so far as it agrees with the knowledge of the attributes and character of God, obtained in THAT _some other way?_ And what is this but to make the word of God _subordinate_ to the teaching of the HUMAN HEART? And what is this but to make the WILL _of God_ give place to the WILL _of man?_ And what is this but the REJECTION OF REVELATION? Yet this is the result (though not intended by him) of the whole scheme of obligation, maintained by Edwards and by all who agree with him.

Carry it out, and what is the progress and the end of it? This. Human reason--the human heart--will be supreme. Some, I grant, will hold to a revelation of some sort. A thing more and more transcendental,--a thing more and more of fog and moonshine,--fog floating in German cellars from fumes of lager-beer, and moonshine gleaming from the imaginations of the drinkers. Some, like Socrates and Plato, will have a God supreme, personal, glorious, somewhat like the true; and with him many inferior deities,--animating the stars, the earth, mountains, valleys, plains, the sea, rivers, fountains, the air, trees, flowers, and all living things. Some will deny a personal God, and conceive, instead, the intelligent mind of the universe, without love. Some will contend for mere law,--of gravitation and attraction; and some will suggest that all is the result of a fortuitous concourse of atoms! Here, having passed through the shadows and the darkness, we have reached the blackness of infidelity,--blank atheism. No God--yea, all the way the "_fools_" were saying in their hearts, no God. What now is man? Alas! some, the Notts and Gliddons, tell us, man was indeed _created_ millions of ages ago, the Lord only knows when, in swarms like bees to suit the zones of the earth,--while other some, the believers in the _vestiges of creation_, say man is the result of development,--from fire, dust, granite, grass, the creeping thing, bird, fish, four-footed beast, monkey. Yea, and some of these last philosophers are even now going to Africa to try to find men they have heard tell of, who still have tails and are jumping and climbing somewhere in the regions around the undiscovered sources of the Nile.

This is the progress and the result of the Edwards theory; because, deny or hesitate about revelation, and man cannot prove, _absolutely_, any of the things we are considering. Let us see if he can. Edwards writes, "On the supposition that the will or law of God is the primary foundation, reason, and standard of right and virtue, every attempt _to prove the moral perfection or attributes of God is absurd_." Here, then, Edwards believes, that, to reach the primary foundation of right and virtue, he must not take God's word as to his perfection or attributes, no matter how fully _God_ may have _proved_ his word: no; but he, Edwards, he, man, must first _prove_ them in _some other way_. And, of course, he believes he can reach such primary foundation by such other proof. Well, let us see how he goes about it. I give him, to try his hand, the easiest attribute,--"POWER." I give him, then, all creation, and providence besides, as his _black-board_, on which to work his demonstration. I give him, then, the lifetime of Methuselah, in which to reach his conclusion of proof.--Well, I will now suppose we have all lived and waited that long time: what is his _proof_ OF INFINITE POWER? Has he found the EXHIBITION of _infinite power?_ No. He has found _proof_ of GREAT POWER; but he has not reached the DISPLAY of _infinite power_. What then is his _faith_ in infinite power after such _proof?_ Why, just this: he INFERS _only_, that THE POWER, _which did the things he sees, can go on, and on, and on, to give greater, and greater, and greater manifestations of itself!_ VERY GOOD: _if so be, we can have no better proof_. But _that_ PROOF is infinitely below ABSOLUTE PROOF _of infinite power_. And all manifestations of power to a _finite creature_, even to the archangel Michael, during countless millions of ages, never gives, because it never can give to him, ABSOLUTE PROOF _of infinite power_. But the word of GOD gives the PROOF ABSOLUTE, _and in a moment of time!_ "I AM THE ALMIGHTY!" The _perfect proof_ is in THAT WORD OF GOD.

I might set Edwards to work to prove the _infinite wisdom_, the _infinite benevolence_, the _infinite holiness_--yea, the EXISTENCE--of God. And he, finite man, in any examination of creation or providence, must fall infinitely below the PERFECT PROOF.

So then I tell Edwards, and all agreeing with him, that _it is absurd_ to attempt to _prove_ the moral perfection and attributes of God, if he thereby seeks to reach the HIGHEST EVIDENCE, _or if he thereby means to find the_ PRIMARY GROUND _of moral obligation_.

Do I then teach that man should not seek the _proof_ there is, of the perfection and attributes of God, in _nature and providence_? No. I hold that such proof unfolds the _meaning_ of the FACTS declared in the WORD of God, and is all-important, as such expansion of meaning. But I say, by authority of the Master, that _the highest proof, the absolute proof, the perfect proof_, of the FACTS as to _who God is, and what he does_, and the PRIMARY OBLIGATION _thereupon, is in the_ REVEALED WORD.

FRED. A. ROSS.

Huntsville, Ala., April 3, 1857.

N.B.--In notice of last Witness's extract from Erskine, I remark that Thomas Erskine was, and may yet be, a lawyer of Edinburgh. He wrote _three works_:--_one_ on the _Internal Evidences_, the _next_ on _Faith_, the _last_ on the _Freeness of the Gospel_. They are all written with great ability, and contain much truth. But all have in them fundamental _untruths_. There is least in the Evidences; more in the essay on Faith; most in the tract on the Freeness of the Gospel,--which last has been utterly refuted, and has passed away. His _Faith_ is, also, not republished. The Evidences is good, like good men, notwithstanding the evil.

Letters to Rev. A. Barnes.

Introduction.

As part of the great slavery discussion, Rev. A. Barnes, of Philadelphia, published, in October, 1856, a pamphlet, entitled, "The CHURCH and SLAVERY." In this tract he invites every man to utter his views on the subject. And, setting the example, he speaks his own with the greatest freedom and honesty.

In the same freedom of speech, I have considered his views unscriptural, false, fanatical, and infidel. Therefore, while I hold him in the highest respect, esteem, and affection, as a divine and Christian gentleman, and cherish his past relations to me, yet I have in these letters written to him, and of him, just as I would have done had he lived in France or Germany, a stranger to me, and given to the world the refined scoff of the one, or the muddy transcendentalism of the other.

My first letter is merely a glance at some things in his pamphlet, in which I show wherein I agree and disagree with him,--_i.e._ in our estimate of the results of the agitation; in our views of the Declaration of Independence; in our belief of the way men are made infidels; and in our appreciation of the testimonies of past General Assemblies.

The other letters I will notice in similar introductions.

These letters first appeared as original contributions to the Christian Observer, published and edited by Dr. A. Converse, Philadelphia.

I take this occasion to express my regard for him, and my sense of the ability with which he has long maintained the rights and interests of the Presbyterian body, to which we both belong; and the wise and masterly way in which he has vindicated, from the Bible, the truth on the slavery question. To him, too, the public is indebted for the first exhibition of Mr. Barnes's errors in his recent tract which has called forth my reply.

No. I.

Rev. A. Barnes:--

_Dear Sir_:--You have recently published a tract:--"The Church and Slavery."

"The opinion of each individual," you remark, "contributes to form public sentiment, as the labor of the animalcule in the ocean contributes to the coral reefs that rise above the waves."

True, sir, and beautifully expressed. But while, in harmony with your intimation, I must regard you one of the animalcules, rearing the coral reef of public opinion, I cannot admit your disclaimer of "special influence" among them in their work. Doubtless, sir, you have "special influence,"--and deserve to have. I make no apology for addressing you. I am one of the animalcules.