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.

I agree, and I disagree, with you. I harmonize in your words,—"The present is eminently a time when the views of every man on the subject of slavery should be uttered in unambiguous tones." I agree with you in this affirmation; because the subject has yet to be fully understood; because, when understood, if THE BIBLE does not sanction the system, the MASTER must cease to be the master. The SLAVE must cease to be the slave. He must be free, AND EQUAL IN POLITICAL AND SOCIAL LIFE. That is your "unambiguous tone". Let it be heard, if that is the word of God.

But if THE BIBLE does sanction the system, then that "unambiguous tone" will silence abolitionists who admit the Scriptures; it will satisfy all good men, and give peace to the country. That is the "tone" I want men to hear. Listen to it in the past and present speech of providence. The time was when you had the very public sentiment you are now trying to form. From Maine to Louisiana, the American mind was softly yielding to the impress of emancipation, in some hope, however vague and imaginary. Southern as well as Northern men, in the church and out of it, not having sufficiently studied the word of God, and, under our own and French revolutionary excitement, looking only at the evils of slavery, wished it away from the land. It was a mistaken public sentiment. Yet, such as it was, you had it, and it was doing your work. It was Quaker-like, mild and affectionate. It did not, however, work fast enough for you. You thought that the negro, with his superior attributes of body and mind and higher advantages of the nineteenth century, might reach, in a day, the liberty and equality which the Anglo-American had attained after the struggle of his ancestors during a thousand years! You got up the agitation. You got it up in the Church and State. You got it up over the length and breadth of this whole land. Let me show you some things you have secured, as the results of your work.



First Result of Agitation.

1. The most consistent abolitionists, affirming the sin of slavery, on the maxim of created equality and unalienable right, after torturing the Bible for a while, to make it give the same testimony, felt they could get nothing from the book. They felt that the God of the Bible disregarded the thumb-screw, the boot, and the wheel; that he would not speak for them, but against them. These consistent men have now turned away from the word, in despondency; and are seeking, somewhere, an abolition Bible, an abolition Constitution for the United States, and an abolition God.

This, sir, is the first result of your agitation:—the very van of your attack repulsed, and driven into infidelity.



A Second Result of Agitation.

2. Many others, and you among them, are trying in exactly the same way just mentioned to make the Bible speak against slave-holding. You get nothing by torturing the English version. People understand English. Nay, you get little by applying the rack to the Hebrew and Greek; even before a tribunal of men like you, who proclaim beforehand that Moses, in Hebrew, and Paul, in Greek, must condemn slavery because "it is a violation of the first sentiments of the Declaration of Independence." You find it difficult to persuade men that Moses and Paul were moved by the Holy Ghost to sanction the philosophy of Thomas Jefferson! You find it hard to make men believe that Moses saw in the mount, and Paul had vision in heaven, that this future apostle of Liberty was inspired by Jesus Christ.

You torture very severely. But the muscles and bones of those old men are tough and strong. They won't yield under your terrible wrenchings. You get only groans and mutterings. You claim these voices, I know, as testimony against slavery. But you cannot torture in secret as in olden times. When putting the question, you have to let men be present,—who tell us that Moses and Paul won't speak for you,—that they are silent, like Christ before Pilate's scourging-men; or, in groans and mutterings,—the voices of their sorrow and the tones of their indignation,—they rebuke your pre-judgment of the Almighty when you say if the Bible sanctions slavery, "it neither ought to be nor could be received by mankind as a divine revelation."

This, sir, is the second result you have gained by your agitation. You have brought a thousand Northern ministers of the gospel, with yourself, to the verge of the same denial of the word of God which they have made, who are only a little ahead of you in the road you are travelling.



A Third Result of Agitation.

3. Meanwhile, many of your most pious men, soundest scholars, and sagacious observers of providence, have been led to study the Bible more faithfully in the light of the times. And they are reading it more and more in harmony with the views which have been reached by the highest Southern minds, to wit:—That the relation of master and slave is sanctioned by the Bible;—that it is a relation belonging to the same category as those of husband and wife, parent and child, master and apprentice, master and hireling;—that the relations of husband and wife, parent and child, were ordained in Eden for man, as man, and modified after the fall, while the relation of slavery, as a system of labor, is only one form of the government ordained of God over fallen and degraded man;—that the evils in the system are the same evils of OPPRESSION we see in the relation of husband and wife, and all other forms of government;—that slavery, as a relation, suited to the more degraded or the more ignorant and helpless types of a sunken humanity, is, like all government, intended as the proof of the curse of such degradation, and at the same time to elevate and bless;—that the relation of husband and wife, being for man, as man, will ever be over him, while slavery will remain so long as God sees it best, as a controlling power over the ignorant, the more degraded and helpless;—and that, when he sees it for the good of the country, he will cause it to pass away, if the slave can be elevated to liberty and equality, political and social, with his master, in that country; or out of that country, if such elevation cannot be given therein, but may be realized in some other land: all which result must be left to the unfoldings of the divine will, in harmony with the Bible, and not to a newly-discovered dispensation. These facts are vindicated in the Bible and Providence. In the Old Testament, they stare you in the face:—in the family of Abraham,—in his slaves, bought with his money and born in his house,—in Hagar, running away under her mistress's hard dealing with her, and yet sent back, as a fugitive slave, by the angel,—in the law which authorized the Hebrews to hold their brethren as slaves for a time,—in which parents might sell their children into bondage,—in which the heathen were given to the Hebrews as their slaves forever,—in which slaves were considered so much the money of their master, that the master who killed one by an unguarded blow was, under certain circumstances, sufficiently punished in his slave's death, because he thereby lost his money,—in which the difference between man-stealing and slave-holding is, by law, set forth,—in which the runaway from heathen masters may not be restored, because God gave him the benefits of an adopted Hebrew. In the New Testament:—wherein the slavery of Greece and Rome was recognised,—in the obligations laid on master and slave,—in the close connection of this obligation with the duties of husband and wife, parent and child,—in the obligation to return the fugitive slave to his master,—and in the condemnation of every abolition principle, "AS DESTITUTE OF THE TRUTH." (1 Tim. vi. 1-5.)

This view of slavery is becoming more and more, not only the settled decision of the Southern but of the best Northern mind, with a movement so strong that you have been startled by it to write the pamphlet now lying before me.

This is the third result you have secured:—to make many of the best men in the North see the infidelity of your philosophy, falsely so called, on the subject of slavery, in the clearer and clearer light of the Scriptures.



Another Result of Agitation.

4. The Southern slave-holder is now satisfied, as never before, that the relation of master and slave is sanctioned by the Bible; and he feels, as never before, the obligations of the word of God. He no longer, in his ignorance of the Scriptures, and afraid of its teachings, will seek to defend his common-sense opinions of slavery by arguments drawn from "Types of Mankind," and other infidel theories; but he will look, in the light of the Bible, on all the good and evil in the system. And when the North, as it will, shall regard him holding from God this high power for great good,—when the North shall no more curse, but bid him God-speed,—then he will bless himself and his slave, in nobler benevolence. With no false ideas of created equality and unalienable right, but with the Bible in his heart and hand, he will do justice and love mercy in higher and higher rule. Every evil will be removed, and the negro will be elevated to the highest attainments he can make, and be prepared for whatever destiny God intends. This, sir, is the fourth result of your agitation:—to make the Southern master know, from the Bible, his right to be a master, and his duty to his slave.

These four results are so fully before you, that I think you must see and feel them. You have brought out, besides, tremendous political consequences, giving astonishing growth and spread to the slave power: on these I cannot dwell. Sir, are you satisfied with these consequences of the agitation you have gotten up? I am. I thank God that the great deep of the American mind has been blown upon by the wind of abolitionism. I rejoice that the stagnant water of that American mind has been so greatly purified. I rejoice that the infidelity and the semi-infidelity so long latent have been set free. I rejoice that the sober sense North and South, so strangely asleep and silent, has risen up to hear the word of God and to speak it to the land. I rejoice that all the South now know that God gives the right to hold slaves, and, with that right, obligations they must fulfil. I rejoice that the day has dawned in which the North and South will think and feel and act together on the subject of slavery. I thank God for the agitation. May he forgive the folly and wickedness of many who have gotten it up! May he reveal more and more, that surely the wrath of man shall praise him, while the remainder of wrath he will restrain!



Declaration of Independence.

I agree with you, sir, that the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence contains five affirmations, declared to be self-evident truths, which, if truths, do sustain you and all abolitionists in every thing you say as to the right of the negro to liberty; and not only to liberty,—to equality, political and social. But I disagree with you as to their truth, and I say that not one of said affirmations is a self-evident truth, or a truth at all. On the contrary, that each one is contrary to the Bible; that each one, separately, is denied; and that all five, collectively, are denied and upset by the Bible, by the natural history of man, and by providence, in every age of the world. I say this now. In a subsequent communication, I will prove what I affirm. For the present I merely add, that the Declaration of Independence stands in no need of these false affirmations. It was, and is, a beautiful whole without them. It was, and is, without these imaginary maxims, the simple statement of the grievances the colonies had borne from the mother-country, and their right as colonies, when thus oppressed, to declare themselves independent. That is to say, the right given of God to oppressed children to seek protection in another family, or to set up for themselves somewhat before twenty-one or natural maturity; right belonging to them in the British family; right sanctioned of God; right blessed of God, in the resistance of the colonies as colonies—not as individual men—to the attempt of the mother-country to consummate her tyranny. But God gives no sanction to the affirmation that he has created all men equal; that this is self-evident, and that he has given them unalienable rights; that he has made government to derive its power solely from their consent, and that he has given them the right to change that government in their mere pleasure. All this—every word of it, every jot and tittle—is the liberty and equality claimed by infidelity. God has cursed it seven times in France since 1793; and he will curse it there seventy times seven, if Frenchmen prefer to be pestled so often in Solomon's mortar. He has cursed it in Prussia, Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain. He will curse it as long as time, whether it is affirmed by Jefferson, Paine, Robespierre, Ledru Rollin, Kossuth, Greeley, Garrison, or Barnes.

Sir, that paragraph is an excrescence on the tree of our liberty. I pray you take it away. Worship it if you will, and in a manner imitate the Druid. He gave reverence to the mistletoe, but first he removed the parasite from the noble tree. Do you the same. Cut away this mistletoe with golden knife, as did the Druid; enshrine its imaginary divinity in a grove or cave; then retire there, and leave our oak to stand in its glory in the light of heaven. Men have been afraid to say all this for years, just as they have been timid to assert that God has placed master and slave in the same relation as husband and wife. Public sentiment, which you once had and have lost, suppressed this utterance as the other. But now, men speak out; and I, for one, will tell you what the Bible reveals as to that part of the Declaration of Independence, as fearlessly as I tell you what it says of the system of slavery.



How Men are made Infidels.

I agree with you that some men have been, are, and will be, made infidels by hearing that God has ordained slavery as one form of his government over depraved mankind. But how does this fact prove that the Bible does not sanction slavery? Why, sir, you have been all your life teaching that some men are made infidels by hearing any truth of the Bible;—that some men are made infidels by hearing the Trinity, Depravity, Atonement, Divinity of Christ, Resurrection, Eternal Punishment. True: and these men find "great laws of their nature,—instinctive feelings"—just such as you find against slavery, and not more perverted in them than in you, condemning all this Bible. And they hold now, with your sanction, that a book affirming such facts "cannot be from God."

Sir, some men are made infidels by hearing the Ten Commandments, and they find "great laws of their nature," as strong in them as yours in you against slavery, warring against every one of these commandments. And they declare now, with your authority, that a book imposing such restraints upon human nature, "cannot be from God" Sir, what is it makes infidels? You have been wont to answer, "They will not have God to rule over them. They will not have the BIBLE to control the great laws of their nature." Sir, that is the true answer. And you know that the great instinct of liberty is only one of three great laws, needing special teaching and government:—that is to say, the instinct to rule; the instinct to submit to be ruled; and the instinct for liberty. You know, too, that the instinct to submit is the strongest, the instinct to rule is next, and that the aspiration for liberty is the weakest. Hence you know the overwhelming majority of men have ever been willing to be slaves; masters have been next in number; while the few have struggled for freedom.

The Bible, then, in proclaiming God's will as to these three great impulses, will be rejected by men, exactly as they have yielded forbidden control to the one or the other of them. The Bible will make infidels of masters, when God calls to them to rule right, or to give up rule, if they have allowed the instinct of power to make them hate God's authority. Pharaoh spoke for all infidel rulers when he said, "Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice?"

The Bible will make infidels of slaves, when God calls to them to aspire to be free, if they have permitted the instinct of submission to make them hate his commands. The Israelites in the wilderness revealed ten times, in their murmuring, the slave-instinct in all ages:—"Would to God we had died in the wilderness!"

You know all this, and you condemn these infidels. Good.

But, sir, you know equally well that the Bible will make infidels of men affirming the instinct of liberty, when God calls them to learn of him how much liberty he gives, and how he gives it, and when he gives it, if they have so yielded to this law of their nature as to make them despise the word of the Lord. Sir, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram spoke out just what the liberty-and-equality men have said in all time:—"Ye, Moses and Aaron, take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them: wherefore, then, lift ye up yourselves above the congregation?" Verily, sir, these men were intensely excited by "the great law of our nature,—the great instinct of freedom." Yea, they told God to his face they had looked within, and found the higher law of liberty and equality—the eternal right—in their intuitional consciousness; and that they would not submit to his will in the elevation of Moses and Aaron above them.

Verily, sir, you, in the spirit of Korah, now proclaim and say, "Ye masters, and ye white men who are not masters, North and South, ye take too much upon you, seeing the negro is created your equal, and, by unalienable right, is as free as you, and entitled to all your political and social life. Ye take, then, too much upon you in excluding him from your positions of wealth and honor, from your halls of legislation, and from your palace of the nation, and from your splendid couch, and from your fair women with long hair on that couch and in that gilded chariot: wherefore, then, lift ye up yourselves above the negro?"

Verily, sir, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram said all we have ever heard from abolition-platforms or now listen to from you. But the Lord made the earth swallow up Korah, Dathan, and Abiram!

I agree with you then, sir, fully, that some men have been, are, and will be, made infidels by hearing that God, in the Bible, has ordained slavery. But I hold this to be no argument against the fact that the Bible does so teach, because men are made infidels by any other doctrine or precept they hate to believe.

Sir, no man has said all this better than you. And I cannot express my grief that you—in the principle now avowed, that every man must interpret the Bible as he chooses to reason and feel—sanction all the infidelity in the world, obliterate your "Notes" on the Bible, and deny the preaching of your whole life, so far as God may, in his wrath, permit you to expunge or recall the words of the wisdom of your better day.



Testimonies of General Assemblies.

I agree with you that the Presbyterian Church, both before and since its division, has testified, after a fashion, against slavery. But some of its action has been very curious testimony. I know not how the anti-slavery resolutions of 1818 were gotten up; nor how in some Assemblies since. I can guess, however, from what I do know, as to how such resolutions passed in Buffalo in 1853, and in New York in 1856. I know that in Buffalo they were at first voted down by a large majority. Then they were reconsidered in mere courtesy to men who said they wanted to speak. So the resolutions were passed after some days, in which the screws were applied and turned, in part, by female hands, to save the chairman of the committee from the effects of the resolutions being finally voted down!

I know that, in New York, the decision of the Assembly to spread the minority report on the minutes was considered, in the body and out of it, as a Southern victory; for it revealed, however glossed over, that many in the house, who could not vote directly for the minority report, did in fact prefer it to the other.

I was not in Detroit in 1850; but I think it was established in New York last May that that Detroit testimony was so admirably worded that both Southern and Northern men might vote for it with clear consciences!

I need not pursue the investigation. I admit that, after this sort, you have the stultified abstractions of the New School Presbyterian Church,—while I have its common sense; you have its Delphic words,—I have its actions; you have the traditions of the elders making void the word of God,—I have the providence of God restraining the church from destroying itself and our social organization under folly, fanaticism, and infidelity.

You, sir, seem to acknowledge this; for, while you appear pleased with the testimony of the New School Presbyterian Church, such as it is, you lament that the Old School have not been true to the resolutions of 1818,—that, in that branch of the church, it is questionable whether those resolutions could now be adopted. You lament the silence of the Episcopal, the Southern Methodist, and the Baptist denominations; you might add the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. And you know that in New England, in New York, and in the Northwest, many testify against us as a pro-slavery body. You lament that so many members of the church, ministers of the gospel, and editors of religious papers, defend the system; you lament that so large a part of the religious literature of the land, though having its seat North and sustained chiefly by Northern funds, shows a perpetual deference to the slave-holder; you lament that, after fifty years, nothing has been done to arrest slavery; you lament and ask, "Why should this be so?" In saying this, you acknowledge that, while you have been laboring to get and have reached the abstract testimony of the church, all diluted as it is, the common-sense fact has been and is more and more brought out, in the providence of God, that the slave-power has been and is gaining ground in the United States. In one word, you have contrived to get, in confused utterance, the voice of the Sanhedrim; while Christ himself has been preaching in the streets of our Jerusalem the true meaning of slavery as one form of his government over fallen men.

These, then, are some of the things I promised to show as the results of your agitation. This is the "tone" of the past and present speech of Providence on the subject of slavery. You seem disturbed. I feel sure things are going on well as to that subject. Speak on, then, "in unambiguous tones." But, sir, when you desire to go from words to actions,—when you intimate that the constitution of the Presbyterian Church may be altered to permit such action, or that, without its alteration, the church can detach itself from slavery by its existing laws or the modification of them,—then I understand you to mean that you desire to deal, in fact, with slave-holders as offenders. Then, sir, you mean to exscind the South; for it is absurd to imagine that you suppose the South will submit to such action. You mean, then, to exscind the South, or to exscind yourself and others, or to compel the South to withdraw. Your tract, just published, is, I suppose, intended by you to prepare the next General Assembly for such movement? What then? Will you make your "American Presbyterian," and your Presbyterian House, effect that great change in the religious literature of the land whereby the subject of slave-holding shall be approached precisely as you deal with "theft, highway-robbery, or piracy?" Will you, then, by act of Assembly, Synod, Presbytery, Session, deny your pulpits, and communion-bread and wine, to slave-holding ministers, elders, and members? Will you, then, tell New England, and especially little Rhoda, We have purified our skirts from the blood: forgive us, and take us again to your love? What then? Will you then ostracize the South and compel the abolition of slavery? Sir, do you bid us fear these coming events, thus casting their shadow before from the leaves of your book?

Sir, you may destroy the integrity of the New School Presbyterian Church. So much evil you may do; but you will hereby only add immensely to the great power and good of the Old School; and you will make disclosures of Providence, unfolding a consummation of things very different from the end you wish to accomplish for your country and the world.

I write as one of the animalcules contributing to the coral reef of public opinion.

F. A. Ross.



No. II.

Government Over Man a Divine Institute.



This letter is the examination and refutation of the infidel theory of human government foisted into the Declaration of Independence.

I had written this criticism in different form for publication, before Mr. Barnes's had appeared. I wrote it to vindicate my affirmation in the General Assembly which met in New York, May last, on this part of the Declaration. My views were maturely formed, after years of reflection, and weeks—nay months—of carefully-penned writing.

And thus these truths, from the Bible, Providence, and common sense, were like rich freight, in goodly ship, waiting for the wind to sail; when lo, Mr. Barnes's abolition-breath filled the canvas, and carried it out of port into the wide, the free, the open sea of American public thought. There it sails. If pirate or other hostile craft comes alongside, the good ship has guns.

I ask that this paper be carefully read more than once, twice, or three times. Mr. Barnes, I presume, will not so read it. He is committed. Greeley may notice it with his sparkling wit, albeit he has too much sense to grapple with its argument. The Evangelist-man will say of it, what he would say if Christ were casting out devils in New York,—"He casteth out devils through Beelzebub the chief of the devils." Yea, this Evangelist-man says that my version of the golden rule is "diabolical;" when truly that version is the word of the Spirit, as Christ's casting out devils was the work of the Holy Ghost.

Gerrett Smith, Garrison, Giddings, do already agree with me, that they are right if Jefferson spoke the truth. Yea, whether the Bible be true, is no question with them no more than with him. Yea, they hold, as he did, that whether there be one God or twenty, it matters not: the fact either way, in men's minds, neither breaks the leg nor picks the pocket. (See Jefferson's Notes on Virginia.) Messrs. Beecher and Cheever will find nothing in me to aid them in speaking to the mobs of Ephesus and Antioch. They are making shrines, and crying, Great is Diana. Mrs. Stowe is on the Dismal Swamp, with Dred for her Charon, to paddle her light canoe, by the fire-fly lamps, to the Limbo of Vanity, of which she is the queen. None of these will read with attention or honesty, if at all, this examination of what Randolph long ago said was a fanfaronade of nonsense. These are all wiser "than seven men that can render a reason."

But there are thousands, North and South, who will read this refutation, and will feel and acknowledge that in the light of God's truth the notion of created equality and unalienable right is falsehood and infidelity.



Rev. A. Barnes:—

Dear Sir:—In my first letter I promised to prove that the paragraph in the Declaration of Independence, which contains the affirmation of created equality and unalienable rights, has no sanction from the word of God. I now meet my obligation.

The time has come when civil liberty, as revealed in the Bible and in Providence, must be re-examined, understood, and defended against infidel theories of human rights. The slavery question has brought on this conflict; and, strange as it may seem, the South, the land of the slave, is summoned by God to defend the liberty he gives; while the North, the clime of the free, misunderstands and changes the truth of God into a lie,—claiming a liberty he does not give. Wherefore is this? I reply:—-

God, when he ordained government over men, gave to the individual man RIGHTS, only as he is under government. He first established the family; hence all other rule is merely the family expanded. The good of the family limited the rights of every member. God required the family, and then the state, so to rule as to give to every member the good which is his, in harmony with the welfare of the whole; and he commanded the individual to seek that good, and NO MORE.

Now, mankind being depraved, government has ever violated its obligation to rule for the benefit of the entire community, and has wielded its power in oppression. Consequently, the governed have ever struggled to secure the good which was their right. But, in this struggle, they have ever been tempted to go beyond the limitation God had made, and to seek supposed good, not given, in rights, prompted by self-will, destructive of the state.

Government thus ever existing in oppression, and people thus ever rising up against despotism, have been the history of mankind.

The Reformation was one of the many convulsions in this long-continued conflict. In its first movements, men claimed the liberty the Bible grants. Soon they ran into licentiousness. God then stayed the further progress of emancipation in Europe, because the spread of the asserted liberty would have made infidelity prevail over that part of the continent where the Reformation was arrested. God preferred Romanism, and other despotisms, modified as they were by the struggle, to rule for a time, than have those countries destroyed under the sway of a licentious freedom.

In this contest the North American colonies had their rise, and they continued the strife with England until they declared themselves independent.

That "Declaration" affirmed not only the liberty sanctioned of the Bible, but also the liberty constituting infidelity. Its first paragraph, to the word "separation," is a noble introduction. Omit, then, what follows, to the sentence beginning "Prudence will dictate," and the paper, thus expurgated, is complete, and is then simply the complaint of the colonies against the government of England, which had oppressed them beyond further submission, and the assertion of their right to be free and independent States.

This declaration was, in that form, nothing more than the affirmation of the right God gives to children, in a family, applied to the colonies, in regard to their mother-country. That is to say, children have, from God, RIGHT, AS CHILDREN, when cruelly treated, to secure the good to which they are entitled, as children, IN THE FAMILY. They may secure this good by becoming part of another family, or by setting up for themselves, if old enough. So the colonies had, from God, right as colonies, when oppressed beyond endurance, to exchange the British family for another, or, if of sufficient age, to establish their own household. The Declaration, then, in that complaint of oppression and affirmation of right, in the colonies, to be independent, asserts liberty sanctioned by the word of God. And therefore the pledge to that Declaration, of "lives, fortune, and sacred honor," was blessed of Heaven, in the triumph of their cause.

But the Declaration, in the part I have omitted, affirms other things, and very different. It asserts facts and rights as appertaining to man, not in the Scriptures, but contrary thereto. Here is the passage:—

"We hold these truths to be self-evident,—that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."

This is the affirmation of the liberty claimed by infidelity. It teaches as a fact that which is not true; and it claims as right that which God has not given. It asserts nothing new, however. It lays claim to that individual right beyond the limitation God has put, which man has ever asserted when in his struggle for liberty he has refused to be guided and controlled by the word and providence of his Creator.

The paragraph is a chain of four links, each of which is claimed to be a self-evident truth.

The first and controlling assertion is, "that ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL;" which proposition, as I understand it, is, that every man and woman on earth is created with equal attributes of body and mind.

Secondly, and consequently, that every individual has, by virtue of his or her being created the equal of each and every other individual, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, so in his or her own keeping that that right is unalienable without his or her consent.

Thirdly, it follows, that government among men must derive its just powers only from the consent of the governed; and, as the governed are the aggregate of individuals, then each person must consent to be thus controlled before he or she can be rightfully under such authority.

Fourthly, and finally, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as each such individual man or woman may think, then each such person may rightly set to work to alter or abolish such form, and institute a new government, on such principles and in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

This is the celebrated averment of created equality, and unalienable right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, with the necessary consequences. I have fairly expanded its meaning. It is the old infidel averment. It is not true in any one of its assertions.



All Men not created equal.

It is not a truth, self-evident, that all men are created equal. Webster, in his dictionary, defines "Self-evident—Evident without proof or reason: clear conviction upon a bare presentation to the mind, as that two and three make five."

Now, I affirm, and you, I think, will not contradict me, that the position, "all men are created equal" is not self-evident; that the nature of the case makes it impossible for it to be self-evident. For the created nature of man is not in the class of things of which such self-evident propositions can by possibility be predicated. It is equally clear and beyond debate, that it is not self-evident that all men have unalienable rights, that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and may be altered or abolished whenever to them such rights may be better secured. All these assertions can be known to be true or false only from revelation of the Creator, or from examination and induction of reasoning, covering the nature and the obligations of the race on the whole face of the earth. What revelation and examination of facts do teach, I will now show. The whole battle-ground, as to the truth of this series of averments, is on the first affirmation, "that all men are created equal." Or, to keep up my first figure, the strength of the chain of asserted truths depend on that first link. It must then stand the following perfect trial.

God reveals to us that he created man in his image, i.e. a spirit endowed with attributes resembling his own,—to reason, to form rule of right, to manifest various emotions, to will, to act,—and that he gave him a body suited to such a spirit, (Gen. i. 26, 27, 28;) that he created MAN "male and female," (Gen. i. 27;) that he made the woman "out of the man," (Gen. ii. 23;) that he made "the man the image and glory of God, but the woman the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man," (1 Cor. xi.;) that he made the woman to be the weaker vessel, (1 Pet. iii. 7.) Here, then, God created the race to be in the beginning TWO,—a male and a female MAN; one of them not equal to the other in attributes of body and mind, and, as we shall see presently, not equal in rights as to government. Observe, this inequality was fact as to the TWO, in the perfect state wherein they were created.

But these two fell from that perfect state, became depraved, and began to be degraded in body and mind. This statement of the original inequality in which man was created controls all that comes after, in God's providence and in the natural history of the race.

Providence, in its comprehensive teaching, "says that God, soon after the flood, subjected the races to all the influences of the different zones of the earth;"—"That he hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord if haply they might feel after him and find him, though he be not far from every one of us." (Acts xvii. 26, 27.)

These "bounds of their habitation" have had much to do in the natural history of man; for "all men" have been "created," or, more correctly, born, (since the race was "created" once only at the first,) with attributes of body and mind derived from the TWO unequal parents, and these attributes, in every individual, the combined result of the parental natures. "All men," then, come into the world under influences upon the amalgamated and transmitted body and mind, from depravity and degradation, sent down during all the generations past; and, therefore, under causes of inequality, acting on each individual from climate, from scenery, from food, from health, from sickness, from love, from hatred, from government, inconceivable in variety and power. Under such causes, to produce infinite shades of inequality, physical and mental, in birth—if "all men" were created equal (i.e. born equal) in attributes of body and mind—such "creation" would be a violation of all the known analogies in the world of life.

Do, then, the facts in man's natural history exhibit this departure from the laws of life and spirit? Do they prove that "all men are created equal"? Do they show that every man and every woman of Africa, Asia, Europe, America, and the islands of the seas, is created each one equal in body and mind to each other man or woman on the face of the earth, and that this has always been?

Need I extend these questions? Methinks, sir, I hear you say, what others have told me, that the "Declaration" is not to be understood as affirming what is so clearly false, but merely asserts that all men are "created equal" in natural rights.

I reply that that is not the meaning of the clause before us; for that is the meaning of the next sentence,—the second in the series we are considering.

There are, as I have said, four links to the chain of thought in this passage:—1. That all men are created equal. 2. That they are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights. 3. That government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed. 4. That the people may alter and abolish it, &c.

These links are logical sequences. All men—man and woman—are created equal,—equal in attributes of body and mind; (for that is the only sense in which they could be created equal;) therefore they are endowed with right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, unalienable, except in their consent; consequently such consent is essential to all rightful government; and, finally and irresistibly, the people have supreme right to alter or abolish it, &c.

The meaning, then, I give to that first link, and to the chain following, is the sense, because, if you deny that meaning to the first link, then the others have no logical truth whatever. Thus:—

If all men are not created equal in attributes of body and mind, then the inequality may be so great that such men cannot be endowed with right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, unalienable save in their consent; then government over such men cannot rightfully rest upon their consent; nor can they have right to alter or abolish government in their mere determination.

Yea, sir, you concede every thing if you admit that the "Declaration" does not mean to affirm that all men are "created" equal in body and mind.

I will suppose in the Alps a community of Cretins,—i.e. deformed and helpless idiots,—but among them many from the same parents, who, in body and mind, by birth are comparatively Napoleons. Now, this inequality, physical and mental, by birth, makes it impossible that the government over these Cretins can be in their "consent." The Napoleons must rule. The Napoleons must absolutely control their "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness," for the good of the community. Do you reply that I have taken an extreme case? that everybody admits sensible people must govern natural fools? Ay, sir, there is the rub. Natural fools! Are some men, then, "created" natural fools? Very well. Then you also admit that some men are created just a degree above natural fools!—and, consequently, that men are "created" in all degrees, gradually rising in the scale of intelligence. Are they not "created" just above the brute, with savage natures along with mental imbecility and physical degradation? Must the Napoleons govern the Cretins without their "consent"? Must they not also govern without their "consent" these types of mankind, whether one, two, three, thirty, or three hundred degrees above the Cretins, if they are still greatly inferior by nature? Suppose the Cretins removed from the imagined community, and a colony of Australian ant-catchers or California lizard-eaters be in their stead: must not the Napoleons govern these? And, if you admit inequality to be in birth, then that inequality is the very ground of the reason why the Napoleons must govern the ant-catchers and lizard-eaters. Remove these, and put in their place an importation of African negroes. Do you admit their inferiority by "CREATION?" Then the same control over them must be the irresistible fact in common sense and Scripture of God. The Napoleons must govern. They must govern without asking "consent,"—if the inequality be such that "consent" would be evil, and not good, in the family—the state.

Yea, sir, if you deny that the "Declaration" asserts "all men are created equal" in body and mind, then you admit the inequality may be such as to make it impossible that in such cases men have rights unalienable save in their "consent;" and you admit it to be impossible that government in such circumstances can exist in such "consent" But, if you affirm the "Declaration" does mean that men are "created equal" in attributes of body and mind, then you hold to an equality which God, in his word, and providence, and the natural history of man, denies to be truth.

I think I have fairly shown, from Scripture and facts, that the first averment is not the truth; and have reduced it to an absurdity. I will now regard the second, third, and fourth links of the chain.

I know they are already broken; for, the whole chain being but an electric current from a vicious imagination, I have destroyed the whole by breaking the first link. Or was it but a cluster from a poisonous vine, then I have killed the branches by cutting the vine. I will, however, expose the other three sequences by a distinct argument covering them all.



Authority Delegated to Adam.

God gave to Adam sovereignty over the human race, in his first decree:—"He shall rule over thee." That was THE INSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. It was not based on the "consent" of Eve, the governed. It was from God. He gave to Adam like authority to rule his children. It was not derived from their "consent". It was from God. He gave Noah the same sovereignty, with express power over life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. It was not founded in "consent" of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives. It was from God. He then determined the habitations of men on all the face of the earth, and indicated to them, in every clime, the form and power of their governments. He gave, directly, government to Israel. He just as truly gave it to Idumea, to Egypt, and to Babylon, to the Arab, to the Esquimaux, the Caffre, the Hottentot, and the negro.

God, in the Bible, decides the matter. He says, "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: for he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid, for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience' sake. For this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. Render, therefore, to all their dues; tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor." (Rom. xiii. 1-7.)

Here God reveals to us that he has delegated to government his own RIGHT over life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness; and that that RIGHT is not, in any sense, from the "consent" of the governed, but is directly from him. Government over men, whether in the family or in the state, is, then, as directly from God as it would be if he, in visible person, ruled in the family or in the state. I speak not only of the RIGHT simply to govern, but the mode of the government, and the extent of the power. Government can do ALL which God would do,—just THAT,—no more, no less. And it is bound to do just THAT,—no more, no less. Government is responsible to God, if it fails to do just THAT which He himself would do. It is under responsibility, then, to rule in righteousness. It must not oppress. It must give to every individual "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness," in harmony with the good of the family,—the state,—as God himself would give it,—just THAT, no more, no less.

This passage of Scripture settles the question, From whence has government RIGHT to rule, and what is the extent of its power? The RIGHT is from God, and the EXTENT of the power is just THAT to which God would exercise it if he were personally on the earth. God, in this passage, and others, settles, with equal clearness, from whence is the OBLIGATION to submit to government, and what is the extent of the duty of obedience? The OBLIGATION to submit is not from individual RIGHT to consent or not to consent to government,—but the OBLIGATION to submit is directly from God.

The EXTENT of the duty of obedience is equally revealed—in this wise: so long as the government rules in righteousness, the duty is perfect obedience. So soon, however, as government requires that which God, in his word, forbids the subject to do, he must obey God, and not man. He must refuse to obey man. But, inasmuch as the obligation to submit to authority of government is so great, the subject must know it is the will of God, that he shall refuse to obey, before he assumes the responsibility of resistance to the powers that be. His conscience will not justify him before God, if he mistakes his duty. He may be all the more to blame for having SUCH A CONSCIENCE. Let him, then, be CERTAIN he can say, like Peter and John, "Whether it be right, in the sight of God, to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye."

But, when government requires that which God does not forbid the subject to do, although in that the government may have transcended the line of its righteous rule, the subject must, nevertheless, submit,—until oppression has gone to the point at which God makes RESISTANCE to be duty. And that point is when RESISTANCE will clearly be less of evil, and more of good, TO THE COMMUNITY, than further submission.

That is the rule of duty God gives to the whole people, or to the minority, or to the individual, to guide them in resistance to the powers that be.

It is irresistibly certain that He who ordains government has, alone, the right to alter or abolish it,—that He who institutes the powers that be has, alone, the right to say when and how the people, in whole or in part, may resist. So, then, the people, in whole, or in part, have no right to resist, to alter, or abolish government, simply because they may deem it destructive of the end for which it was instituted; but they may resist, alter, or abolish, when it shall be seen that God so regards it. This places the great fact where it must be placed,—under the CONTROL of the BIBLE and PROVIDENCE.



Illustrations.

I will conclude with one or two illustrations. God, in his providence, ordains the Russian form of government,—i.e. He places the sovereignty in one man, because He sees that such government can secure, for a time, more good to that degraded people than any other form. Now, I ask, Has the emperor right, from God, to change at once, in his mere "consent," the form of his government to that of the United States? No. God forbids him. Why? Because he would thereby destroy the good, and bring immense evil in his empire. I ask again, Have the Russian serfs and nobles,—yea, all,—"consenting," the right, from God, to make that change? No. For the government of the United States is not suited to them. And, in such an attempt, they would deprive themselves of the blessings they now have, and bring all the horrors of anarchy.

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.