Chapter IV: Part 4

Do you ask if I then hold, that God ordains the Russian type of rule to be perpetual over that people? No. The emperor is bound to secure all of "_life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness_," to each individual, consistent with the good of the nation. And he is to learn his obligation from the Bible, and faithfully apply it to the condition of his subjects. _He will thus gradually elevate them_; while they, on their part, are bound to strive for this elevation, in all the ways in which God may show them the good, and the right, which, more and more, will belong to them in their upward progress. The result of such government and such obedience would be that of a father's faithful training, and children's corresponding obedience. The Russian people would thus have, gradually, that measure of liberty they could bear, under the one-man power,--and then, in other forms, as they might be qualified to realize them. This development would be without convulsion,--as the parent gives place, while the children are passing from the lower to their higher life. It would be the exemplification of Carlyle's illustration of the snake. He says, A people should change their government only as a snake sheds his skin: the new skin is gradually formed under the old one,--and then the snake wriggles out, with just a drop of blood here and there, where the old jacket held on rather tightly.

God ordains the government of the United States. And _He places_ the _sovereignty_ in the _will_ of the majority, because He has trained the people, through many generations in modes of government, to such an elevation in moral and religious intelligence, that such sovereignty is best suited to confer on them the highest right, as yet, to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." But God requires that _that will of the majority_ be in perfect submission to Him. Once more then I inquire,--Whether the people of this country, yea all of them consenting, have right from God, to abolish now, at this time, our free institutions, and set up the sway of Russia? No. But why? There is one answer only. He tells us that our happiness is in this form of government, and in it, its developed results.

_The "Social Compact" not recognised in the Divine Institute_.

Here I pause. So, then, God gives no sanction to the notion of a SOCIAL COMPACT. He never gave to man individual, isolated, natural rights, unalienably in his keeping. He never made him a Caspar Hauser, in the forest, without name or home,--a Melchisedek, in the wilderness, without father, without mother, without descent,--a Robinson Crusoe, on his island, in skins and barefooted, waiting, among goats and parrots, the coming of the canoes and the savages, to enable him to "_consent_" if he would, to the relations of social life.

And, therefore, those five sentences in that second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence are not the truth; so, then, it is not _self-evident_ truth that all men are created equal. So, then, it is not the truth, in fact, that they are created equal. So, then, it is not the truth that God has endowed all men with unalienable right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. So, then, it is not the truth that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. So, then, it is not the truth that the people have right to alter or abolish their government, and institute a new form, whenever to them it shall seem likely to effect their safety and happiness.

The manner in which these unscriptural dogmas have been modified or developed in the United States, I will examine in another paper.

I merely add, that the opinions of revered ancestors, on these questions of right and their application to American slavery, must now, as never before, be brought to the test of the light of the Bible. F.A. Ross.

Huntsville, Ala., Jan. 1857.

Man-Stealing.

This argument on the abolition charge, against the slave-holder,--that he is a man-stealer,--covers the whole question of slavery, especially as it is seen in the Old Testament. The headings in the letter make the subject sufficiently clear.

No. III.

Rev. Albert Barnes:--

Dear Sir:--In my first letter, I merely touched some points in your tract, intending to notice them more fully in subsequent communications. I have, in my second paper, sufficiently examined the imaginary maxims of created equality and unalienable rights.

In this, I will test your views by Scripture more directly. "To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." (Isaiah viii. 20).

The abolitionist charges the slave-holder with being a _man-stealer_. He makes this allegation in two affirmations. First, that the slave-holder is thus guilty, because, the negro having been kidnapped in Africa, therefore those who now hold him, or his children, in bondage, lie under the guilt of that first act. Secondly, that the slave-holder, by the very fact that he is such, is guilty of stealing from the negro his unalienable right to freedom.

This is the charge. It covers the whole subject. I will meet it in all its parts.

_The Difference between Man-Stealing and Slave-Holding, as set forth in the Bible_.

The Bible reads thus: (Exodus xxi. 16:)--"He that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death."

What, then, is it to kidnap or steal a man? Webster informs us--To kidnap is "to steal a human being, a man, woman, or child; or to seize and forcibly carry away any person whatever, from his own country or state into another." The idea of "_seizing and forcibly carrying away"_ enters into the meaning of the word in all the definitions of law.

The crime, then, set forth in the Bible was not _selling_ a man: but selling a _stolen_ man. The crime was not having a man _in his hand as a slave_; but......in _his_ hand, as a slave, a _stolen_ man. And hence, the penalty of _death_ was affixed, not to selling, buying, or holding man, as a slave, but to the specific offence of _stealing and selling, or holding_ a man _thus stolen, contrary to this law_. Yea, it was _this law_, and this law _only_, which made it _wrong_. For, under some circumstances, God sanctioned the seizing and forcibly carrying away a man, woman, or child from country or state, into slavery or other condition. He sanctioned the utter destruction of every male and every married woman, and child, of Jabez-Gilead, and the seizure, and forcibly carrying away, four hundred virgins, unto the camp to Shiloh, and there, being given as wives to the remnant of the slaughtered tribe of Benjamin, in the rock Rimmon. Sir, how did that destruction of Jabez-Gilead, and the kidnapping of those young women, differ from the razing of an African village, and forcibly seizing, and carrying away, those not put to the sword? The difference is in this:--God commanded the Israelites to seize and bear off those young women. But he forbids the slaver to kidnap the African. Therefore, the Israelites did right; therefore, the trader does wrong. The Israelites, it seems, gave wives, in that way, to the spared Benjamites, because they had sworn not to give their daughters. But there were six hundred of these Benjamites. Two hundred were therefore still without wives. What was done for them? Why, God authorized the elders of the congregation to tell the two hundred Benjamites to catch every man his wife, of the daughters of Shiloh, when they came out to dance, in the feast of the Lord, on the north side of Bethel. And the children of Benjamin did so, and took them wives, "whom they caught:" (Judges xxi.) God made it right for those Benjamites to catch every man his wife, of the daughters of Shiloh. But he makes it wrong for the trader to catch his slaves of the sons or daughters of Africa. Lest you should try to deny that God authorized this act of the children of Israel, although I believe he did order it, let me remind you of another such case, the authority for which you will not question.

Moses, by direct command from God, destroyed the Midianites. He slew all the males, and carried away all the women and children. He then had all the married women and male children killed; but all the virgins, thirty-two thousand, were divided as spoil among the people. And _thirty-two_ of these virgins, _the Lord's tribute_, were given unto Eleazar, the priest, "as the Lord commanded Moses." (Numbers xxxi.)

Sir, Thomas Paine rejected the Bible on this fact among his other objections. Yea, _his_ reason, _his_ sensibilities, _his_ great law of humanity, _his_ intuitional and eternal sense of right, made it impossible for him to honor such a God. And, sir, on your now avowed principles of interpretation, which are those of Paine, you sustain him in his rejection of the books of Moses and all the word of God.

God's command _made it right_ for Moses to destroy the Midianites and make slaves of their daughters; and I have dwelt upon these facts, to reiterate what I hold to be THE FIRST TRUTH IN MORALS:--that a thing is right, not because it is ever so _per se_, but because God _makes it right_; and, of course, a thing is wrong, not because it is so in the nature of things, but because God makes it wrong. I distinctly have taken, and do take, that ground in its widest sense, and am prepared to maintain it against all comers. He made it right for the sons of Adam to marry their sisters. He made it right for Abraham to marry his half-sister. He made it right for the patriarchs, and David and Solomon, to have more wives than one. He made it right when he gave command to kill whole nations, sparing none. He made it right when he ordered that nations, or such part as he pleased, should be spared and enslaved. He made it right that the patriarchs and the Israelites should hold slaves in harmony with the system of servile labor which had long been in the world. He merely modified that system to suit his views of good among his people. So, then, when he saw fit, they might capture men. So, then, when he forbade the individual Israelite to steal a man, he made it crime, and the penalty death. So, then, that crime was not the mere _stealing_ a man, nor the _selling_ a man, nor the _holding_ a man,--but the _stealing and selling_, or _holding_, a man _under circumstances thus forbidden of God_.

_Was the Israelite Master a Man-Stealer?_

I now ask, Did God intend to make man-stealing and slave-holding the same thing? Let us see. In that very chapter of Exodus (xxi.) which contains the law against man-stealing, and only four verses further on, God says, "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." (Verses 20, 21.)

Sir, that man was not a hired servant. He was bought with money. He was regarded by God _as the money_ of his master. He was his slave, in the full meaning of a slave, then, and now, bought with money. God, then, did not intend the Israelites to understand, and not one of them ever understood, from that day to this, that Jehovah in his law to Moses regarded the slave-holder as a man-stealer. Man-stealing was a specific offence, with its specific penalty. Slave-holding was one form of God's righteous government over men,--a government he ordained, with various modifications, among the Hebrews themselves, and with sterner features in its relation to heathen slaves.

In Exodus xxi. and Leviticus xxv., various gradations of servitude were enacted, with a careful particularity which need not be misunderstood. Among these, a Hebrew man might be a slave for six years, and then go free with his wife, if he were married when he came into the relation; but if his master had given him a wife, and she had borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children should be her master's, and he should go out by himself. That is, the man by the law became free, while his wife and children remained slaves. If the servant, however, plainly said, "I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: then his master brought him unto the judges, also unto the doorpost, and his master bored his ear through with an awl, and he served him forever." (Ex. xxi. 1-6.) Sir, you have urged discussion:--give us then your views of that passage. Tell us how that man was separated from his wife and children according to _the eternal right_. Tell us what was the condition of the woman in case the man chose to "go out" without her? Tell us if the Hebrew who thus had his ear bored by his master with an awl was not a slave for life? Tell us, lastly, whether those children were not slaves? And, while on that chapter, tell us whether in the next verses, 7-11, God did not allow the Israelite father to sell his own daughter into bondage and into polygamy by the same act of sale?

I will not dwell longer on these milder forms of slavery, but read to you the clear and unmistakable command of the Lord 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 for an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; and they shall be your bondmen forever."

Sir, the sun will grow dim with age before that Scripture can be tortured to mean any thing else than just what it says; that God commanded the Israelites to be slave-holders in the strict and true sense over the heathen, in manner and form therein set forth. Do you tell the world that this cannot be the sense of the Bible, because it is "a violation of the first principles of the American Declaration of Independence;" because it grates upon your "instinct of liberty;" because it reveals God in opposition to the "spirit of the age;" because, if it be the sense of the passage, then "the Bible neither ought to be, nor can be, received by mankind as a divine revelation"? _That_ is what you say: _that_ is what Albert Barnes affirms in his philosophy. But what if God in his word says, "Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids which thou shalt have shall be of the heathen that are round about you"? What if we may then choose between Albert Barnes's philosophy and God's truth?

Or will you say, God, under the circumstances, _permitted_ the Israelites _to sin_ in the matter of slave-holding, just as he permitted them _to sin_ by living in polygamy. _Permitted_ them _to sin!_ No, sir; God _commanded_ them to be slave-holders. He _made it_ the law of their social state. He _made it_ one form of his ordained government among them. Moreover, you take it for granted all too soon, that the Israelites committed sin in their polygamy. God sanctioned their polygamy. It was therefore not sin in them. It was right. But God now forbids polygamy, under the gospel; and now it is sin.

Or will you tell us the iniquity of the Canaanites was then full, and God's time to punish them had come? True; but the same question comes up:--Did God punish the Canaanites by placing them in the relation of slaves to his people, by express command, which compelled them to sin? That's the point. I will not permit you to evade it. In plainer words:--Did God command the Hebrews to make slaves of their fellow-men, to buy them and sell them, to regard them as their money? He did. Then, did the Hebrews sin when they obeyed God's command? No. Then they did what was right, and it was right because God made it so. Then _the Hebrew slave-holder was not a man-stealer_. But, you say, the Southern slave-holder is. Well, we shall see presently.

Just here, the abolitionist who professes to respect the Scriptures is wont to tell us that the whole subject of bondage among the Israelites was so peculiar to God's ancient dispensation, that no analogy between that bondage and Southern slavery can be brought up. Thus he attempts to raise a dust out of the Jewish institutions, to prevent people from seeing that slaveholding then was the same thing that it is now. But, to sustain my interpretation of the plain Scriptures given, I will go back five hundred years before the existence of the Hebrew nation.

I read at that time, (Gen. xiv. 14:)--"And when Abraham heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them even unto Damascus," &c. (Gen. xvii. 27:)--"And all the men of his house, born, in the house, and bought with the money of the stranger, were circumcised." (Gen. xx. 14:)--"And Abimelech took sheep and oxen, and men-servants and women-servants, and gave them unto Abraham." (Gen. xxiv. 34, 35:)--"And he said, I am Abraham's servant; and the Lord hath blessed my master greatly, and he is become great; and he hath given him flocks and herds, and silver and gold, and men-servants and maid-servants, and camels and asses."

_Was Abraham a Man-Stealer?_

Sir, what is the common sense of these Scriptures? Why, that the slave-trade existed in Abraham's day, as it had long before, and has ever since, in all the regions of Syria, Palestine, Arabia, and Egypt, in which criminals and prisoners of war were sold,--in which parents sold their children. Abraham, then, it is plain, bought, of the sellers in this traffic, men-servants and maid-servants; he had them born in his house; he received them as presents.

Do you tell me that Abraham, by divine authority, made these servants part of his family, social and religious? Very good. But still he regarded them as his slaves. He took Hagar as a wife, but he treated her as his slave,--yea, as Sarah's slave; and as such he gave her to be chastised, for misconduct, by her mistress. Yea, he never placed Ishmael, the son of the bondwoman, on a level with Isaac, the son of the freewoman. If, then, he so regarded Hagar and Ishmael, of course he never considered his other slaves on an equality with himself. True, had he been childless, he would have given his estate to Eliezer: but he would have given it to his slave. True, had Isaac not been born, he would have given his wealth to Ishmael; but he would nave given it to the son of his bondwoman. Sir, every Southern planter is not more truly a slave-holder than Abraham. And the Southern master, by divine authority, may, to-day, consider his slaves part of his social and religious family, just as Abraham did. His relation is just that of Abraham. He has slaves of an inferior type of mankind from Abraham's bondmen; and he therefore, for that reason, as well as from the fact that they are his slaves, holds them lower than himself. But, nevertheless, he is a slave-holder in no other sense than was Abraham. Did Abraham have his slave-household circumcised? Every Southern planter may have his slave-household baptized. I baptized, not long since, a slave-child,--the master and mistress offering it to God. What was done in the parlor might be done with divine approbation on every plantation.

So, then, Abraham lived in the midst of a system of slave-holding exactly the same in nature with that in the South,--a system ordained of God as really as the other forms of government round about him. He, then, with the divine blessing, made himself the master of slaves, men, women, and children, by buying them,--by receiving them in gifts,--by having them born in his house; and he controlled them as property, just as really as the Southern master in the present day. I ask now, _was Abraham a man-stealer?_ Oh, no, you reiterate: but the Southern master is. Why?

_Is the Southern Master a Man-Stealer_?

Do you, sir, or anybody, contend that the Southern master seized his slave in Africa, and forcibly brought him away to America, contrary to law? That, and that alone, was and is kidnapping in divine and human statute. No. What then? Why, the abolitionist responds, The African man-stealer sold his victim to the slave-holder; he, to the planter; and the negro has been ever since in bondage: therefore _the guilt_ of the man-stealer has cleaved to sellers, buyers, and inheritors, to this time, and will through all generations to come. That is the charge.

And it brings up the question so often and triumphantly asked by the abolitionist; _i.e._ "You," he says to the slave-holder,--"you admit it was wrong to steal the negro in Africa. Can the slave-holder, then, throw off wrong so long as he holds the slave at any time or anywhere thereafter?" I answer, yes; and my reply shall be short, yet conclusive. It is this:--_Guilt_, or criminality, is that state of a moral agent which results from _his_ actual commission of a crime or offence knowing it to be crime or violation of law. _That_ is the received definition of _guilt_, and _you_, I know, do accept it. The _guilt_, then, of kidnapping _terminated_ with the man-stealer, the seller, the buyer, and holders, who, knowingly and intentionally, carried on the traffic contrary to the divine law. THAT GUILT attaches in no sense whatever, as a personal, moral responsibility, to the present slave-holder. Observe, I am here discussing, _not the question of mere slave-holding,_ but whether the master, who has had nothing to do with the slave-trade, can _now_ hold the slave without the moral guilt of the man-stealer? I have said that _that_ guilt, in no sense whatever, rests upon him; for he neither stole the man, nor bought him from the kidnapper, nor had any _complicity_ in the traffic. Here, I know, the abolitionist insists that the master _is_ guilty of this _complicity_, unless he will at once emancipate the slave; because, so long as he holds him, he thereby, personally and _voluntarily, assumes the same relation which the original kidnapper or buyer held to the African_.

This is Dr. Cheever's argument in a recent popular sermon. He thinks it unanswerable; but it has no weight whatever. It is met perfectly by adding _one_ word to his proposition. Thus:--_The master does_ NOT _assume the same relation which the original man-stealer or buyer held to the African_. The master's _relation_ to God and to his slave is now _wholly changed_ from that of the man-stealer, and those engaged in the trade; and his obligation is wholly different. What is his relation? and what is his obligation? They are as follows:----

The master finds himself, with no taint of personal concern in the African trade, in a Christian community of white Anglo-Americans, holding control over his black fellow-man, who is so unlike himself in complexion, in form, in other peculiarities, and so unequal to himself in attributes of body and mind, that it is _impossible, in every sense_, to place him on a level with himself in the community. _This is his relation to the negro_. What, then, does God command him to do? Does God require him to send the negro back to his heathen home from whence he was stolen? That home no longer exists. But, if it did remain, does God command the master to send his Christianized slave into the horrors of his former African heathenism? No. God has placed the master under law entirely different from his command to the slave-trader. God said to the trader, _Let the negro alone_. But he says to the present master, _Do unto the negro all the good you can; make him a civilized man; make him a Christian man; lift him up and give him all he has a right to claim in the good of the whole community_. This the master can do; this he must do, and then leave the result with the Almighty.

We reach the same conclusion by asking, What does God say to the negro-slave?

Does he tell him to ask to be sent back to heathen Africa? No. Does he give him authority to claim a created equality and unalienable right to be on a level with the white man in civil and social relations? No. To ask the first would be to ask a great evil; to claim the second is to demand a natural and moral impossibility. No. God tells him to seek none of these things. But he commands him to know the facts in his case as they are in the Bible, and have ever been, and ever will be in Providence:--that he is not the white man's equal,--that he can never have his level--that he must not claim it; but that he can have, and ought to have, and must have, all of good, in his condition as a slave, until God may reveal a higher happiness for him in some other relation than that _he must ever_ have to the Anglo-American. The present slave-holder, then, by declining to emancipate his bondman, does not place himself in _the guilt_ of the man-stealer or of those who had complicity with him; but he stands _exactly_ in that NICK _of time and place_, in the course of Providence, where _wrong_, in the transmission of African slavery, _ends_, and _right begins_.

I have, sir, fairly stated this, your strongest argument, and fully met it. _The Southern master is not a man-stealer._ The abolitionist--repulsed in his charge that the slave-owner is a kidnapper, either in fact or by voluntarily assuming any of the relations of the traffic--then makes his impeachment on his second affirmation, mentioned at the opening of this letter. That the slave-holder is, nevertheless, thus _guilty_, because, in the simple fact of being a master, he _steals_ from the negro his unalienable right to freedom.

This, sir, looks like a new view of the subject. The crime forbidden in the Bible was stealing and selling a man; _i.e._ seizing and forcibly carrying away, from country or State, a human being--man, woman, or child--contrary to law, and selling or holding the same. But the abolitionist gives us to understand this crime rests on the slave-holder in another sense:--namely, that he steals from the negro a metaphysical attribute,--his unalienable right to liberty!

This is a new sort of kidnapping. This is, I suppose, _stealing the man from himself_, as it is sometimes elegantly expressed,--_robbing him of his body and his soul_. Sir, I admit this is a strong figure of speech, a beautiful personification, a sonorous rhetorical flourish, which must make a deep impression on Dr. Cheever's people, Broadway, New York, and on your congregation, Washington Square, Philadelphia; but it is certainly not the Bible crime of man-stealing. And whether the Southern master is _guilty_ of this sublimated thing will be understood by us when you prove that the negro, or anybody else, has such metaphysical right to be stolen,--such transcendental liberty not in subordination to the good of the whole people. In a word, sir, this refined expression is, after all, just the old averment that the slave-holder is guilty of _sin per se!_ That's it.

I have given you, in reply, the Old Testament. In my next, I propose to inquire what the New Testament says in the light of the _Golden Rule_.

F.A. Ross.

Huntsville, Ala., Jan. 31, 1857.

The Golden Rule.

This view of the Golden Rule is the only exposition of that great text which has ever been given in words sufficiently clear, and, with practical illustrations, to make the subject intelligible to every capacity. The explanation is the truth of God, and it settles forever the slavery question, so far as it rests on this precept of Jesus Christ.

No. IV.

Rev. Albert Barnes:--

Dear Sir:--The argument against slave-holding, founded on the Golden Rule, is the strongest which can be presented, and I admit that, if it cannot be perfectly met, the master must give the slave liberty and equality. But if it can be absolutely refuted, then the slave-holder in this regard may have a good conscience; and the abolitionist has nothing more to say. Here is the rule.

"Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them; for this is the law and the prophets." (Matt. vii. 12.)

In your "_Notes_," on this passage you thus write:--"This command has been usually called the Savior's _Golden Rule_; a name given to it on account of its great value.--_All that you_ EXPECT or DESIRE _of others, in similar circumstances_, DO TO THEM."

This, sir, is your exposition of the Savior's rule of right. With all due respect, I decline your interpretation. You have missed the meaning by leaving out ONE word. Observe,--you do not say, All that you OUGHT to _expect_ or _desire_, &c., THAT _do to them_. No. But you make the EXPECTATION or DESIRE, _which every man_ ACTUALLY HAS _in similar circumstances_, THE MEASURE _of his_ DUTY _to every other man_. Or, in different words, you make, without qualification or explanation, the MERE EXPECTATION or DESIRE which every man,--with no instruction, or any sort of training,--wise or simple, good or bad, heathen, Mohammedan, nominal Christian,--WOULD HAVE _in similar circumstances_, THE LAW OF OBLIGATION, _always binding_ upon him TO DO THAT SAME THING _unto his neighbor!_

Sir, you have left out _the very idea_ which contains the sense of that Scripture. It is this: Christ, in his rule, _presupposes_ that the man to whom he gives it _knows_, and from the Bible, (or providence, or natural conscience, _so far as in harmony_ with the Bible,) the _various relations_ in which God has placed him; and the _respective duties_ in those relations; _i.e._ The rule _assumes_ that he KNOWS what he OUGHT to _expect_ or _desire_ in similar circumstances.

I will test this affirmation by several and varied illustrations. I will show how Christ, according to your exposition of his rule, speaks on the subject,--of _revenge, marriage, emancipation_,--_the fugitive from bondage_. And how he truly speaks on these subjects.

_Revenge--Right according to your view of the Golden Rule_.

Indian and Missionary--Prisoner tied to a tree, stuck over with burning splinters.

Here is an Indian torturing his prisoner. The missionary approaches and beseeches him to regard _the Golden Rule_. "Humph!" utters the savage: "Golden Rule! what's that?" "Why" says the good man, "all that you _expect_ or _desired_ other Indians, in similar circumstances, do you even so to them." "Humph!" growls the warrior, with a fierce smile,--"Missionary--good: that's what I do now. If I was tied to that tree, I would _expect_ and _desire him_ to have _his_ revenge,--to do to me as I do to him; and I would sing my death-song, as he sings his. Missionary, your rule is Indian rule,--good rule, missionary. Humph!" And he sticks more splinters into his victim, brandishes his tomahawk, and yells.

Sir, what has the missionary to say, after this perfect proof that you have mistaken the great law of right? Verily, he finds that the rule, with your explanation, tells the Indian to torture his prisoner. Verily, he finds that the wild man has the best of the argument. He finds he had left out the word OUGHT; and that he can't put it in, until he teaches the Indian things which as yet he don't know. Yea, he finds he gave the commandment too soon; for that he must begin back of that commandment, and teach the savage God's ordination of the relations in which he is to his fellow-men, before he can make him comprehend or apply the rule as Christ gives it.

_Marriage--Void under your Interpretation of the Golden Rule_.

Lucy Stone, and Moses--Lady on sofa, having just divorced herself--Moses, with the Tables of the Law, appears: she falls at his feet, and covers her face with her hands.

This woman, everybody knows, was married some time since, after a fashion; that is to say, protesting publicly against all laws of wedlock, and entering into the relation so long only as she, or her husband, might continue pleased therewith.

Very well. Then I, without insult to her or offense to my readers, suppose that about this time she has shown her unalienable right to liberty and equality by giving her husband a bill of divorcement. Free again, she reclines on her couch, and is reading the Tribune. It is mid-day. But there is a light, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about her. And _he_, who saw God on Sinai, stands before her, the glory on his face, and the tables of stone in his hands. The woman falls before him, veils her eyes with her trembling fingers, and cries out, "Moses, oh, I believed till now that thou practised deception, in claiming to be sent of God to Israel. But now, I know thou didst see God in the burning bush, and heard him speak that law from the holy mountain. Moses, I know ... I confess.".... And Moses answers, and says unto her, "Woman, thou art one of a great class in this land, who claim to be more just than God, more pure than their Maker, who have made their inward light their God. Woman, thou in '_convention_' hast uttered _Declaration of Independence_ from man. And, verily, thou hast asserted this claim to equality and unalienable right, even now, by giving thy husband his bill of divorcement, in thy sense of the Golden Rule. Yea, verily, thou hast done unto him all that thou _expectedst_ or _desiredst_ of him, in similar circumstances. And now thou thinkest thyself free again. Woman, thou art a sinner. Verily, thine inward light, and declaration of independence, and Golden Rule, do well agree the one with the other. Verily, thou hast learned of Jefferson, and Channing, and Barnes. But, woman, notwithstanding thou hast sat at the feet of these wise men, I, Moses, say thou art a sinner before the law, and the prophets, and the gospel. Woman, thy light is darkness; thy declaration of equality and right is vanity and folly; and thy Golden Rule is license to wickedness.

"Woman, hast thou ears? Hear: I, by authority of God, ordained that the man should rule over thee. I placed thee, and children, and men-servants, and maid-servants, under the same law of subjection to the government ordained of God in the family,--the state. I for a time sanctioned polygamy, and made it right. I, for the hardness of men's hearts, allowed them, and made it right, to give their wives a bill of divorcement. Woman, hear. Paul, having the same Spirit of God, confirms my word. He commands _wives_, and children, and servants, after this manner:--'Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord; children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing unto the Lord; servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God.' Woman, Paul makes _that rule_ the same, and _that submission_, the same. The _manner_ of the rule he varies with the relations. He requires it to be, in the _love_ of the husband, even as Christ loved the church,--in the _mildness_ of the father, not provoking the children to anger, lest they be discouraged,--in _the justice and equity_ of the master, knowing that he also has a master in heaven: (Colossians.) Woman, hear. Paul says to thee, the man _now_ shall have one wife, and he _now_ shall not give her a bill of divorcement, save for crime. Woman, thou art not free from thy husband. Christ's Golden Rule must not be interpreted by thee as A. Barnes has rendered it; Christ _assumes_ that thou _believest_ God's truth,--that thou _knowest_ the relation of husband and wife, and the _obligations and rights_ of the same, _as in the Bible; then_, in the light of this _knowledge_, verily, thou art required to do what God says thou _oughtest_ to do. Woman, thou art a sinner. Go, sin no more. Go, find thy husband; see to it that he takes thee back. Go, submit to him, and honor him, and obey him."

_Emancipation--Ruin--Golden Rule, in your meaning, carried out_.

Island in the Tropics--Elegant houses falling to decay--Broad fields abandoned to the forest--Wharves grass-grown--Negroes relapsing into the savage state--A dark cloud over the island, through which the lightning glares, revealing, in red writing, these words:--"_Redeemed, regenerated, and disenthralled by the irresistible genius of universal emancipation"_.--[Gospel--according to Curran--and the British Parliament.]

Jamaica, sir, to say nothing of St. Domingo, is illustration of your theory of the Golden Rule, in negro emancipation. You tell the Southern master that all he would _expect_ or _desire_, if he were a slave, he must do unto his bondman; that he must not pause to ask whether the relation of master and slave be ordained of God or not. No. You tell him, _if_ he would _expect_ or _desire_ liberty were he a slave, _that_ settles the question as to what he is to do! He must let his bondman go free. Yea, _that_ is what you teach: because the moment you put in the word OUGHT, and say, all that you OUGHT to _expect_ or _desire_,--_i.e._ all that you _know_ God commands you to _expect _ or _desire_ in your relations to men, _as established by him,_--THAT _do to them_. Sir, when you thus explain the Golden Rule, then your argument against slave-holding, so far as founded on this rule, is at once arrested; it is stopped short, in full career; it has to wait for reinforcement of FACT, which may never come up. For, suppose the FACT to be, that the relation of master and slave is one mode of the government ordained of God. Then, sir, the master, _knowing that_ FACT, and _knowing_ what the slave, _as a slave_, OUGHT to _expect_ or _desire_, he, the master, then FULFILS THE GOLDEN RULE when he does that unto his slave which, in similar circumstances, he OUGHT to expect _to be done unto himself_. Now comes the question, OUGHT he then to _expect_ or _desire_ liberty and equality? THAT is the question of questions on this subject. And without hesitation I reply, The Golden Rule DECIDES _that question_ YEA or NAY, _absolutely_ and _perfectly_, as God's word or providence shows that the GOOD _of the family, the community, the state_, REQUIRES that the slave IS or IS NOT _to be set free and made equal_. THAT GOOD, _as God reveals it_, SETTLES THE QUESTION.

Let the master then see to it, how he hears God's word as to THAT GOOD. Let him see to it, how he understands God's providence as to THAT GOOD. Let him see to it, that he makes no mistake as to THAT GOOD. For God will not hold him guiltless, if he will not hear what he tells him as to THAT GOOD. God will not justify him, if he has a bad conscience or blunders in his philosophy. God will punish him, if he fails to bless his land by letting the bond go free when, he OUGHT to emancipate. And God will punish him, if he brings a curse upon his country by freeing his slave when he OUGHT NOT to give him liberty.

So, then, _the Golden Rule does not_, OF ITSELF, _reveal to man at all what are his_ RELATIONS _to his fellow-men; but it tells him what he is to_ DO, _when he_ ALREADY KNOWS THEM.

So, then, you, sir, cannot be permitted to tell the world that this rule must emancipate all the negro slaves in the United States,--no matter how unprepared they may be,--no matter how degraded,--no matter how unlike and unequal to the white man by creation,--no matter if it be a natural and moral impossibility,--no matter: the Golden Rule must emancipate by authority of the first sentiments of the Declaration of Independence, and by obligation of the great law of liberty,--the intuitional consciousness of the eternal right!

No. The Rule, as said, _presupposes_ that he who is required to obey it does already _know_ the relations in which God has placed him, and the respective duties in those conditions. Has God, then, established the relations of husband and wife, parent and child, master and slave? Yes. Then the command comes. It says to the husband, To aid you in your known obligations to your wife,--to give you a lively sense of it,--suppose yourself to be the wife: whatsoever, therefore, you OUGHT, in that condition, to _expect_ or _desire_, that, as husband, do unto your wife. It says to the parent, Imagine yourself the child; and whatsoever, as such, you OUGHT to _expect_ or _desire, that_, as parent, do unto your child. It says to the master, Put yourself in the place of your slave; and whatsoever you OUGHT, in that condition, to _expect_ or _desire, that_, as master, do unto your slave. Let husband, parent, master, _know_ his obligations from God, and obey the Rule.

_Fugitive Slave--Obeying the Golden Rule under your version_.

Honorable Joshua R. Giddings and the Angel of the Lord--Hon. Gentleman at table--Nine runaway negroes dining with him--The Angel, uninvited, comes in and disturbs the feast.

Giddings has boasted in Congress of having had nine fugitive slaves to break bread with him at one time. I choose, then, to imagine that, during the dinner, the angel who found Hagar by the fountain stands suddenly in the midst, and says to the negroes, "Ye slaves, whence came ye, and whither will ye go?" And they answer and say, "We flee from the face of our masters. This abolitionist told us to kill, and steal, and run away from bondage; and we have murdered and stolen and escaped. He, thou seest, welcomes us to liberty and equality. We _expect_ and _desire_ to be members of Congress, Governors of States, to marry among the great, and one of us to be President. Giddings, and all abolitionists, tell us that these honors belong to us equally as to white people, and will be given under the Golden Rule." And the angel of the Lord says to them, "Ye slaves, return unto your masters, and submit yourselves under their hands. I sent your fathers, and I send you, into bondage. I mean it unto good, and I will bring it to pass to save much people alive." Then, turning to the tempter, he says, "Thou, a statesman! thou, a reader of my word and providence! why hast thou not understood my speech to Hagar? I gave her, a slave, to Sarah. She fled from her mistress. I sent her back. Why hast thou not understood my word four thousand years ago,--that _the slave shall not flee from his master?_ Why hast thou also perverted my law in Deuteronomy, (xxiii. 15, 16?) I say therein, 'Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee: he shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that place which he shall choose, in one of thy gates where it liketh him best: thou shalt not oppress him.' Why hast thou not known that I meant the _heathen slave_ who escaped from his _heathen master?_ I commanded, Israel, in such case, not to hold _him_ in bondage. I made this specific law for this specific fact. Why hast thou taught that, in this commandment, I gave license to all men-servants and maid-servants in the whole land of Israel to run away from their masters? Why hast thou thus made me, in one saying, contradict and make void all my laws wherein I ordained that the Hebrews should be slave-owners over their brethren during years, and over the heathen forever? Why hast thou in all this changed my Golden Rule? I, in that rule, _assume_ that men _know_ from revelation and providence the relations in which I have placed them, and their duties therein. I then command them to do unto others what they thus _know_ they _ought_ to do unto them in these relations; and I make the obligation quick and powerful, by telling every man to imagine himself in such conditions, and then he will _the better_ KNOW '_whatsoever_' he should do unto his neighbor. Why hast thou made void my law, by making me say, 'All that thou _expectest_ or _desirest_ of others, in similar circumstances, do to them'? I never imagined to give such license to folly and sin. Why hast thou imagined such license to iniquity? Verily, thou tempter, thou hast in thy Golden Rule made these slaves thieves and murderers, and art now eating with them the bread of sin and death.

"Why hast thou tortured my speech wherein I say that I have made of _one blood_ all nations of men, to mean that I have created all men equal and endowed them with rights unalienable save in their consent? I never said that thing! I said that I made all men to descend from _one parentage!_ That is what I say in that place! Why hast thou tortured that plain truth? Thou mightest as well teach that all 'the moving creatures that have life, and fowl that fly above the earth, in the open firmament of heaven,' are _created equal_, because I said I brought them forth _of the water_. Thou mightest as well say that 'all cattle, and creeping thing and beast of the earth, _are created equal_, because I said I brought them forth _of the earth_, as to affirm the _equality of men_ because I say they are _of one blood_. Nay, I have made men unequal as the leaves of the trees, the sands of the sea, the stars of heaven. I have made them so, in harmony with the infinite variety and inequality in every thing in my creation. And I have made them unequal in my _mercy_. Had I made all men equal in attributes of body and mind, then _unfallen man_ would never have realized the varied glories of his destiny. And had I given _fallen man_ equality of nature and unalienable rights, then I had made the earth an Aceldama and Valley of Gehenna. For what would be the _strife_ in all the earth among men equal in body and mind, equal in power, equal in depravity, equal in will, each one maintaining rights unalienable? When would the war end? Who would be the victors where all are giants? Who would sue for peace where none will submit? What would be _human social life?_ Who would be the weak, the loving? Who would seek or need forbearance, compassion, self-denying benevolence? Who would be the grateful? Who would be the humble, the meek? What would be _human_ virtue, what _human_ vice, what _human_ joy or sorrow? Nay, I have made men _unequal_ and given them _alienable rights_, that I might INSTITUTE HUMAN GOVERNMENT and reveal HUMAN CHARACTER.

"Why hast thou been willingly ignorant of these first principles of the oracles of God, which would have made thee truly a Christian philosopher and statesman?"

_Fugitive Slave--Obeying the Golden Rule as Christ gave it_

Rev. A. Barnes and the Apostle Paul--Minister of the gospel in his study--Fugitive slave, converted under his preaching, inquiring whether it is not his duty to return to his master--Paul appears and rebukes the minister for wresting his Gospel.

With all respect and affection for you, sir, I imagine a slave, having run away from his master and become a Christian under your preaching, might, with the Bible in his hands and the Holy Spirit in his heart, have, despite your training, question of conscience, whether he did right to leave his master, and ought not to go back. And I think how Paul would listen, and what he would say, to your interpretation of his Epistle to Philemon. I think he would say,--

"I withstand thee to thy face, because thou art to be blamed. Why hast thou written, in thy '_Notes_,' that the word I apply to Onesimus may mean, not _slave_, but _hired servant?_ Why hast thou said this in unsupported assertion? Why hast thou given no respect to Robinson, and all thy wise men, who agree that the word wherein I express Onesimus's relation to Philemon never means a hired servant, but a _slave_,--the property of his master,--a living possession?

"Why hast thou called in question the fact that Philemon was a slave-holder? Why hast thou taught that, if he was a slave-holder when he became a Christian, he could not _continue, consistently_, to be a slave-owner and a Christian,--that if he did so _continue_, he would not be in _good standing_, but an _offender_ in the church? (See Notes.)

"I say Philemon was the master of Onesimus, in the real sense of a slave-owner, under Roman law, in which he had the right of life and death over him,--being thereby a master in possession of power unknown in the United States. And yet I call Philemon 'our dearly beloved and fellow-laborer,' I tell him that I send to him again Onesimus, who had been unprofitable to him in time past; but now, being a Christian, he would be profitable. I tell him, I send him again, not a slave, (only,) but above a slave, a Christian brother, beloved, specially to me, but how much more unto him, both _in the flesh_ and in the Lord. Dost thou know, Albert Barnes, what I mean by that word, _in the flesh?_ Verily, I knew the things wherein the master and the slave are beloved, the one of the other, in the best affections of human nature, and in the Lord! therefore I say to Philemon that he, _as master_, could receive Onesimus _as his slave_, and yet as a _brother_, MORE _beloved, by reason of his relation to him as master_, than I could regard him! Yea, verily,--and I say to thee, Albert Barnes, thou hast never been in the South, and thou dost not understand, and canst not understand, the force, or even the meaning, of my words _in the flesh_; i.e. _in the love of the master and the slave to one another_. But Philemon I knew would feel its power, and so I made that appeal to him.

"Why hast thou said, that I did not send Onesimus back _by authority?_ I did send him back by authority,--yea, by authority of the Lord Jesus Christ? For it was my duty to send him again to Philemon, whether he had been willing to go or not; and it was his duty to go. But he was willing. So we both felt our obligations; and, when I commanded, he cheerfully obeyed. What else was my duty and his? Had I not said, in line upon line and in precept upon precept, 'Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, pleasing God'? (Coloss. iii. 22.) Had not Peter written, 'Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward'? (1 Pet. ii. 18.) Onesimus had broken these commandments when he fled from his master. Was it not then of my responsibility to send him again to Philemon? And was it not Christ's law to him to return and submit himself under his master's hand?

"Why, then, hast thou not understood my speech? Has it been even because thou couldst not _hear_ my word? What else has hindered? What more could I have said, than (in 1 Tim. vi. 1-5) I do say, to rebuke all abolitionists? Yea, I describe them--I show their principles--as fully as if I had called them by name in Boston, in New York, in Philadelphia, and said they would live in 1857.

"And yet thou hast, in thy commentary on my letter to Timothy, utterly distorted, maimed, and falsified my meaning. Thou hast mingled truth and untruth so together as to make me say what was not and is not in my mind. For thou teachest the slave, while professing not so to teach him, that I tell him that he is _not_ to count his master worthy of all honor; that he _is_ to _despise_ him; that he is _not_ to do him service as to a Christian faithful and beloved. _No_. But thou teachest the slave, in my name, to regard his Christian master an _offender_ in the sight of Christ, if he _continues_ a slave-owner.

"Thou tellest him to obey _only_ in the sense in which he is to submit to injustice, oppression, and cruelty; and that he is ever to seek to throw off the yoke in his created equality and unalienable right to liberty. (See Notes.)