"Take it patiently, husband," said Mrs. North, "you know that you deserve it."
"I know from this," said I, "if from nothing else, that your theory is wrong. The truth does not excite such passions in those who love and seek to promote it. We see that, in cases without number, the present condition of the slaves is a blessing for both worlds, and that if all who possess slaves were, as many are, slavery would cease to be any more of a curse than any dependent condition in this world. There must always be those who will do every sort of menial work. The great Father of all, who himself says that he has 'deprived' the ostrich 'of wisdom, neither hath he imparted to her understanding,' so arranges the capacities of some that their happiness consists in leaning upon superior intelligence and capability.
"The serving people, in some districts of country, are volunteers from all races; at the South, they consist of one inferior, dependent race, who for ages have been slaves in their own country, and would be such even now, if they were there. We will not shut the door of hope forever upon any part of the human family, as to their elevation among the tribes of men, but this race has, for a long period of its history, evidently been undergoing a tutelage and discipline at the hand of Providence. There is some marvellous arrangement of Providence, it seems to me, designing that this black race shall lean upon us. Let the same number of any other immigrant race have gone from us to Canada as of this colored race, and the world would have heard a better report from them ere this. They thrive best in connection with us as their masters, whether it be right or wrong for us to be in such relation to them."
"But now," said he,—in a persuasive tone, and evidently wishing to turn the drift of the remarks,—"just set them free, and hire them; we shall agree then. The slaves will be as well off, and so will their masters."
"Mr. North," said I, "being owned is, in itself, irrespective of the character of the master, a means of protection to the negro. Somebody then is responsible for him as his guardian and provider, and is amenable to the State for his sustenance. You can easily see that, let the colored people come to be a hireling class, and their interests and those of their masters are disjoined. There would be conflicts and oppressions among themselves; they would fall into a degraded, serf-like condition; but now each of them partakes of his master's interests, and rises with him. I am not here pleading for slavery in the abstract, but, the blacks being on the soil, it is far better for them to be owned than to be free. Why are the Southwestern States, one after another, passing laws, or framing their constitutions, to shut out from their borders free negroes,—people in the very condition into which you would reduce by wholesale all the blacks in the South? I pray you look and see that you are an abstractionist, setting what you deem a theoretical wrong against a practical good, and under the circumstances, a real mercy."
"But," said Mr. North, "slavery impoverishes the soil, makes the whites shun labor, feeling it to be degrading, and it keeps the white children from industrial pursuits, and"—
"Please stop," said I, "my dear Sir, and think of what you are saying, and be not carried away by that popular flood of cant phrases. Now you know that God has given our Southern friends a south country, nearer than ours to the tropics. Out-of-door labor there is injurious to the white people, as you know. They are not to be blamed for this. God has not given them strength to endure exposure to the sun. Had they a northern climate, in which the labor required by the mechanic arts could be performed with safety and comfort, do you not suppose that they would have the same aptitude and relish as we for handicraft? Their children cannot be brought up to manual labor to the extent that ours are, because the God of heaven has ordained their lot in a land less favorable than ours to toil. His providence, making use of the sins of men, has placed the blacks here; you and the rest of the world, who depend upon their cotton, are willing enough to use it in its countless forms, while you reproach your Maker, as I think, for having caused it to be raised as he has seen fit to do."
"But Oh," said Mr. North, "free labor is more profitable than slave labor. You well know how it affects the soil, and that the great price of slaves will in time make the system oppressive to the masters, especially if they are all as considerate as you say they are about selling."
"The good Aunt has replied to you as to the soil, and we need not distress ourselves about the price of slaves; that will regulate itself. You well understand," said I, "that I am not arguing in favor of slavery per se, nor for the slave-trade, nor for the extension of slavery; but I contend that where slavery now exists, no one has yet proposed a scheme which is better than the continuance of ownership, the blacks remaining on the same soil with their present masters. Nor do I mean to say that the present system must inevitably continue forever. We must leave future developments in other hands. Of course there are difficult problems on such a subject as this. Intelligent Christian gentlemen at the South say that the best schemes which have been proposed by Europeans for the substitution of apprenticed negroes for slaves would make the condition of the negro as far worse than our slavery as the condition of a degraded negro here is below that of his master. Who will care for him when he is old, or sick? Granting this apprentice scheme to be arranged without oppression or sin of any kind, I hold that the condition of our slaves owned by masters and mistresses, is better than such a hireling condition, though it have the appearance of liberty."
"Why so?" inquired Mr. North.
"The slaves are not treated as hired horses are liable to be treated," I replied. "We know how a man is likely to treat his own horse, compared with the horse which he hires. Men nurse their slaves when they are sick; they provide for them when they are old. By their care and responsibility for them, and in relieving them from responsibility, they pay them wages whose market-value, if it could be reckoned in dollars, would be higher wages than are paid to the same class of laborers in the land. There are not four millions of the lower class of the laboring people in any one district of the earth whose condition is to be compared with that of the Southern slaves for comfort and happiness."
"I presume," said Mrs. North, "that you would not regard exemption from responsibility as in itself a blessing. You know how it educates us, how it sharpens the faculties, how it makes a man more of a man; therefore is it, after all, any kindness to the slaves, that they are relieved from responsibility?"
"I thank you," said I, "for that question. Does it concern us that our domestic servants are relieved, for the time, of all responsibility for house-rent, taxes, political duties?
"Every condition of poverty and toil has its peculiar hardships and sorrows. But putting together, respectively, all the advantages and the disadvantages of our slaves, he who looks upon a population with enlarged views of liabilities and of the inevitable results in the working of different schemes of labor, and is not so weak or morbid as to dwell inordinately on real and imaginary wrongs and miseries, which, after all, if real, are compensated for by advantages or surpassed by aggregated smaller evils in other conditions, must admit that, the colored people being here, their being owned is the very best possible thing for their protection, and the surest guarantee against all their liabilities to want in hard times, sickness, and old age.
"Speaking of hard times leads me to say, that if you could put four millions of laboring people in the Free States, for a winter or during commercial distresses and the stagnation of every kind of business, in a position where, while they were still active and useful, a single thought or care about their sustenance would not visit them, you would be deemed a philanthropist and public benefactor. There will not be the same number of people in the laboring class throughout our land next winter, in any one section, whose comfort and happiness will exceed that of our slaves."
"Oh, well," said Mr. North, "all this may be true, but this does not reconcile me to slavery. Our horses here at the North will all be comfortably provided for, notwithstanding any money pressure. But I would rather be a human being and fail, every winter, than be a horse."
"Husband," said Mrs. North, "do you consider that a parallel case? Mr. C. is not arguing, as I understand him, that slavery is better than freedom. He is not persuading us to be slaves rather than free. He takes these four millions of blacks as he finds them, in bondage, and he asks, What shall we do with them? You say, Set them free. He says, They are better off, as a race, in their present bondage, than they would be if made free, to remain here. Not that they are better off than four millions of colored people, who had never been slaves, would be in a commonwealth by themselves."
"I thank you, Mrs. North," said I, "for your clear and correct statement of my position. And now I will take up Mr. North's parable about the horses, and apply it justly. Let hay and grass be exceedingly scarce, and I had rather take my chance with an owner and be a horse, in a stable, and at work, than a horse roaming in search of food, chased away everywhere. The comparison is between horse and horse, and man and man."
"You make me think," said Mrs. North, "of an interesting passage in a late magazine, written by a lady. She was on a voyage to Cuba. She arrived at Nassau. She says, 'There were many negroes, together with whites of every grade; and some of our number, leaning over the side, saw for the first time the raw material out of which Northern Humanitarians have spun so fine a skein of compassion and sympathy. You must allow me one heretical whisper,—very small and low. Nassau, and all we saw of it, suggested to us the unwelcome question whether compulsory labor be not better than none.'"[3]
[Footnote 3: Atlantic Monthly, May, 1859, p. 604.]
"There is," said I, "this great question of right, with some, as to slavery: As the State has a right to interpose and send vagrant children to school, has the world a right to interpose, in certain cases, and send certain races to labor for the good of mankind? This was the question which broke upon the lady's mind. It is very interesting to see the question thus stated, and to notice the graceful touch of apology, and of playfulness, in the manner of stating it. There was risk, and even peril, in making the suggestion, but, withal, some moral courage. Still a lady may sometimes venture where it might not be safe for a gentleman to go.
"But the question between us is not, 'Freedom or slavery,' in the abstract, nor, Whether it is right, in any case, to reduce a people to slavery; but, What is best for our slaves? All your proofs that freedom is better than slavery in the abstract, are nothing to the point."
"It is the foulest blot on our nation in the eyes of the world," said
Mr. North, "that we have four millions of human beings in bondage."
"Have you read 'Uncle Tom's Cabin?'" I inquired.
"Ask me," said he, pleasantly, "if I know how to read. Every lover of liberty and hater of oppression has read 'Uncle Tom.'"
"That is very far from being true," said I; "but still, you like Uncle
Tom as a character, do you?"
"You astonish me," said he, "by making a question about it. He is the most perfect specimen of Christianity that I ever heard of."
"Among the martyrs," said I, "have you ever found his superior?"
"No, Sir!" was his energetic answer.
"Now," said I, "what made Uncle Tom the paragon of perfection?"
"What made him?" said he.
"Yes," said I, "what made him the model Christian? You do not reply, and I will tell you. SLAVERY MADE UNCLE TOM. Had it not been for slavery, he would have been a savage in Africa, a brutish slave to his fetishes, living in a jungle, perhaps; and had you stumbled upon him he would very likely have roasted you and picked your bones. A system which makes Uncle Toms out of African savages is not an unmixed evil."
"But," said he, "it makes Legrees also."
"I beg your pardon, Sir," said I, "it does not make Legrees. There are as many Legrees at the North as at the South, especially if we include all the very particular 'friends of the slave.' Legree would be Legree in Wall Street, or Fifth Avenue; Uncle Tom would not be Uncle Tom in the wilds of Africa."
"And so," said he, "it is right to fit out ships, burn villages in Africa, steal the flying people, bestow them in slave-ships, and sell them into hopeless bondage!"
"So you all love to reason," said I, "or seek to force that conclusion upon us. No such thing. If God overrules the evil doings of men, this is no reason for repeating the wrong. I am insisting that slavery as it exists in the South has been a blessing to the African. This does not warrant you in perpetrating outrages on those who are still in Africa.
"But the result has been, through the mercy of God as though we had taken millions of degraded savages out of Africa, and had made them contribute greatly to the industrial interests of mankind.
"We have raised them from heathenish ignorance and barbarism to the condition of intelligent beings. Look at them in their churches and Sabbath-schools. Slavery has done this. See the colored population of Charleston, S.C., voluntarily contributing, as they do, on an average, three dollars apiece, annually, for the propagation of the Gospel at home and abroad. See the meeting-house of the African Church at Richmond, Va., a place selected for public speakers from the North to deliver their addresses in it to the citizens of Richmond, because it is more commodious than any other public building in the city. Think of the membership of slaves in Christian Churches; of the multitudes of them who have died in the faith and hope of the Gospel. Slavery has done this. The question is whether slavery has been, or is, such a curse, on the whole, to the African race, that we must now set free the whole colored population? Please let us keep to the point. The reopening of the slave-trade is a question by itself.
"It seems that God had chosen to redeem and save large numbers of the African race by having them transported to this Christian land. Philanthropists would not be at the cost and trouble of all this. God has, therefore, used the cupidity of men to accomplish his purposes, and he punishes the wicked agents of his own benevolent schemes. His curse has for ages rested on the African race, and the laws of nature have, to a great degree, interposed to prevent Christian efforts in their behalf. God saw fit to change the prison-house, and prison yards and shops of this race from one continent to another, and New England merchantmen, in part, have been allowed to be the conveyers. In the process of transferring these future subjects of civilization and Christianity, vast misery is endured, as in opening a way by the sword for the execution of his decrees, great slaughter is the inevitable attendant. I look at the whole subject of slavery in the light of God's providence. And I do not see that his providence yet indicates any way for its termination consistent with the interests of the colored people.
"As to the extension of slavery, in this land, if the Most High has any further purposes of mercy for the African race in connection with us, he will not consult you nor me. He will open districts of our country for them; if my political party refuses to be the instrument in doing this, from benevolent motives, or from any other cause, He will make that party to be defeated, it may be by a party below us in moral principle, as we view it. This question of slavery, its extension and continuance, is therefore among the great problems of God's providence. I shall do all that I properly can to prevent it, and to encourage, and, if called upon, to aid my brethren now in immediate charge of the slaves, to fulfil their solemn trust; but anything like impatience and passion at the existence of slavery, I hold to be a sin against God. I pity those good men whose minds are so inflamed by the consideration of individual cases of suffering as not to perceive the great and steadfast march of the divine administration. Politicians and others who get their places, or their bread, by easy appeals to sympathy for individual cases of suffering, are the causes of much misplaced commiseration and of a low, uninstructed view of the great interests involved in slavery. Yet these very men who, for selfish purposes, stir up the passions of our people, by dwelling on cases of hardship in slavery, are greatly disappointed when Napoleon III., at Villafranca, prematurely terminates a war of unparalleled slaughter. They would have preferred, for the cause of constitutional liberty and for its possible influence against the Pope, that the fighting had continued a month longer; we hear no pathetic remonstrances from them on the score of the killed and maimed, the widows and orphans and the childless, of homes made desolate, by this additional month of battle. Such is man, so inconsistent, so blinded by party prejudice, so ready to maintain that which, in a change of persons and places, he will denounce. He will be wholly blinded by individual acts of suffering to all that is good in a system; and again, the good to be effected by a war will blind him to the hundreds of thousands of dead or mutilated soldiers, with five times that number of bleeding hearts, rifled by the sword of their precious treasures."
I saw that I had prolonged my remarks to an undue length. We sat in silence for a little while, looking into the fire, and listening to the rain against the windows, when Judith called Mrs. North to the door; and, after some whispering between them, Mrs. North said to her,
"Oh, bring them in; our company will excuse it."
The cranberries, it seems, were not doing well over the fire in Judith's department, and she had hesitatingly proposed that they should be promoted to the parlor grate, where, after due apologies, they were placed. They soon began to simmer; then one would burst, and then another, we pausing unconsciously to hear them surrendering themselves to their fate, while one mouth, at least, watered at the thought of the delicious dish which they were to furnish; the rich, ruby color of their juice in the best cut-glass tureen, and the added spoonful, as a reward for not spilling a drop on the table-cloth the last time they were served, coming to mind, with thoughts of early days. And here I was discussing slavery. Now, while the cranberries were over the fire, making one feel domestic and also bringing back young days, it was impossible to be disputatious, had we been so inclined. The Northern cranberry-meadow and the Southern sugar-plantation seemed mixed up in my feelings on this subject, qualifying and rectifying each other. Perhaps the soothing presence of the cranberry saucepan was timely; for, without any design, a phase of our subject next presented itself which was not the most agreeable. I broke the silence, and said,—
"Mr. North, what do you think is the mission of the abolitionists as a party, and of all who sympathize with them?"
"Why," said he, "to abolish slavery, to be sure. What else can it be?"
"You are mistaken," said I. "The real mission of the abolitionists, thus far, is, To perpetuate slavery till Providence has accomplished its plan. You know what Southern synods, and general assemblies, and many of the ablest men at the South have said about slavery; how they deplored it, and called upon Christians to seek its extinction. The South would probably have tried to abolish slavery ere this, if left to themselves. But they would have failed; and Providence prevented the useless effort. The influence of those sentiments which prevailed in the General Assembly of 1818 would have been to remove all the objectionable features of slavery, at least, preparatory to its final extinction, if that could be reached. It looked as though Churches generally would, in obedience to the General Assembly, have made it, in certain cases, the subject of discipline. Abolitionism, however, began about that time. It had the effect to make the South defend themselves and slavery too. Providence saw that the South was weary of the system, and wished to throw it off. But the years of the captivity appointed of God had not come to an end. Purposes of mercy for the African race had not been accomplished; the South must be made willing to hold these poor people for the 'time, times, and half a time,' ordained of God. To encourage them, the God of Nature makes the great Southern staple, cotton, to be in greater demand for the supply of the world; the cotton-gin is invented, and immediately the slaves are thereby assisted to retain that hold upon the South which was about to be broken off. All this seems to me designed, as it certainly has the effect, to perpetuate slavery until Providence shall indicate measures for the removal of the colored people among us. This may be delayed for centuries to come. In the mean time, we at the North, by keeping up our agitation of the subject, have impressed the South with the importance of being united against us; but if any of our schemes of emancipation had divided them, it would not have been for the good of the slaves. So the abolitionists have been fulfilling their destiny by fighting against Providence to help perpetuate slavery till the Most High shall disclose his will concerning it."
"And helped the South," said Mr. North, "perpetuate violations of the marriage relation, and to separate families, and to countenance all the sins in slavery!"
"Yes, to some degree," said I; "for should we treat them with common candor and truthfulness, make them feel that we appreciate the perplexities of the subject, admit for once, and act upon it, that they are better and more competent 'friends of the slave' than we, it would be the surest way to put a stop to every evil in slavery. Now they have little power over a certain class of men among them, who, when measures are proposed for the relief of the slaves, raise the cry that they are abolitionists, and excite an odium which deters them from doing many things which would otherwise be attempted."
"They might all certainly join," said Mr. North, "one would think, to prevent the violation of the marriage contract by the slaves, and the sundering of the marriage tie by the auctioneer."
"Now," said I, "there are two allegations, and I will answer them. As to the violation of the marriage covenant by the slaves, are you aware how many divorces for the same cause are granted in your own state yearly? You will find, on inquiry, that 'freedom' has nothing to boast of in this respect. As to the auctioneer, and the separation of the marriage tie by him, how often do you think that an honest black man, for no crime, is taken from his wife and sold, or she from him? How often, do you suppose, are families divided and scattered at the auction-block? If you will inquire, you will find that the cases are extremely rare; that in some large districts it has not occurred for several years; and that in other cases, where it has occurred, regard has been had to the neighborhood of the purchasers, so that members of the same families have been within reach of one another. You seem to think that a great feature, and the most common effect, of slavery is to separate families. Such is the general belief at the North. Let me remind you that there is no form or condition of service in the world which has more effect than slavery to keep families together."
"Well," said Mrs. North, dropping her work in her lap, "I never thought of that before."
"Why," said I, "where will you find in the Free States husband and wife and children living together as servants in the same family?"
Said Mrs. North, "It is rather uncommon with us to find two sisters living together as help in a family. At least, it is always spoken of and noted as pleasant and desirable."
"What would Northerners think," said I, "of gathering the old parents and all the brothers and sisters of their domestics together, in small tenements near their own dwellings? He who should do this would be regarded as a very great saint. So that you may as well say that slavery is a system by which a serving class is kept together in families, as to say that its purpose and effect is to break up families."
"Just think," said Mrs. North, "of the serving class in our families here at the North,—how they are separated by states, by oceans, from one another!"
"Be careful, Mrs. North," said I, "how you even hint at such mitigations in slavery, for you will be denounced as a 'friend of oppression' if you discern anything in the system but 'villanies.' You never hear such a feature of slavery, as that of which we have just spoken, recognized here at the North by our zealous anti-slavery people."
"Do you not think," said she, "that if we were candid and less passionate, and viewed the subject as anti-slavery men at the South do, we should exert far more influence against slavery?"
"If we exerted any," I replied, "it would be 'far more' than we do now. If we would only cease to 'exert influence' in that direction, and begin to learn that the people of the South are as Christian, benevolent, and good in every respect as we, this first, great lesson, which we all need to learn, would do us all great good. Self-righteousness is the great characteristic of the Northern people with regard to the South. Fifteen States declare that they are justified before God in continuing the system of slavery. The other States would be ashamed to condemn those fifteen States for immorality in the discussion of any other subject; but here they assume that one half of the American nation is convicted of crime. I take the ground that, if the Churches and the ministry of those fifteen States say, With all the evils of slavery, it is right and best that we should maintain it, I will so far yield my convictions as not to feel that they are less righteous than I."
"Oh," said Mr. North, "but they have been born and educated under the system. Of course they must be blinded by it, and their moral sense perverted."
"There," said I, "Mr. North, is the 'Northern Evil' again. Oh, what a shame it is for intelligent people to decry Southern Christians in this way, and to erect their own moral sense into such self-complacent superiority!
"You will see in your church one excellent brother, whose heart is filled with anguish at the thought of the 'poor slave.' One sits by him who knows full as much on this and on all subjects as he, who feels that the people at the South are perfectly qualified to manage this subject, and that we have no need to interpose. He thinks that if one wishes to be excited with compassion at the sorrows and woes of men, a short walk will bring him to certain abodes such as no Southern slave would be allowed by any human master to inhabit. If he would benefit men as a class, our own sailors need all his philanthropy. But the good anti-slavery brother is possessed with the idea that the Southern slave is the impersonation of injustice and misery, and that those who stand in the relation of masters are guilty of crimes, daily, which ought to shut them out of the Church.
"I have often thought that the most appropriate prayers in our public assemblies, with regard to slavery, would be petitions against Northern ignorance and passion with respect to Southern Christians. It is we who most need to be prayed for. When I think of those assemblies of Christians of all denominations in the South, with a clergy at their head who have no superiors in the world, and then hear a Northern preacher indicting them before God in his prayers, what shall I say? The verdict of a coroner's inquest, if it were held over some of his hearers at such a time, might almost be, Died of disgust."
"Now I desire to know," said Mr. North, "if we are never to pray in public about slavery? Is it not the great subject before the country, and are not all our interests in Church and State deeply involved in it?"
"While we believe," said I, "that holding slaves is a sin, I take the ground that praying for the Southerners is a false impeachment. When we are rid of this error, we do not feel their need of being prayed for any more than 'all men,' for whom Paul says, 'I will that men pray everywhere,'—'lifting up holy hands without wrath or doubting.' Our 'hands' must be 'holy' when we lift them up for 'all men,' including Southerners; there must be no 'wrath' in our prayers,—which I am sorry to say is too easily discerned in prayers against the South; and there must be no 'doubting' in the petitioners whether their feelings and motives are right before God. There is as much in the relation of officers and crews in our merchant vessels, to say the least, to enlist the prayers of ministers, as in slavery. But this relates to ourselves, and has not the enchantment of a distant sin.
"You must bring yourself to believe, Mr. North, that Southern hearts are in general as humane and cultivated as ours. This, it is true, is a great demand upon a Northerner."
"But oh," said he, (we happening to be alone just then,) "the cruelty of compelling virtuous people, members of Churches, to commit sin, under pain of being sold."
"Mr. North," said I, "how do you dare to open your lips on that subject,—you, with myself, a member of a denomination in which men, eminent in our pulpits, have—so many of them of late years—fallen. One would think that we would never cast a stone at the South on that subject.
"Some among us seem to think that the power and the opportunity to commit sin must necessarily be followed by criminal indulgence. They do themselves no credit in this supposition. They also leave out of view a natural antipathy which must be overcome, sense of degradation, probability of detection, loss of character, conscience, and all the moral restraints which are common to men everywhere; and they only judge that all who exercise authority over an abject race must, as a general thing, be polluted.
"As to opportunities for evil-doing at the South compared with the North, no one who walks the streets of a Northern city, by day or night, with the ordinary discernment of one who sets himself to examine the moral condition of a place, will fail to see that we need not go to the South to find humiliating proofs of baseness and shame. There is less solicitation at the South; here it is a nightly trade, without disguise. At the South the young must go in search of opportunity; here it confronts them. The small number of yellow children in the interior of the Cotton States, on 'lone plantations,' is positive proof against the ready suspicions and accusations of Northern people. Let all be true which is said of 'yellow women,' 'slave-breeders,' and every form of lechery, he is simple who does not believe that the statistics of a certain wickedness at the North would, if made as public as difference of color makes the same statistics at the South, leave no room for us to arraign and condemn the South in this particular. Their clergy, their husbands, their young men, if they are no better, are no worse than we. But there is nothing in which the self-righteousness created by anti-slavery views and feelings is more conspicuous than in the way in which the South is judged and condemned by us with regard to this one sin. Had the pulpits of the South afforded such dreadful instances of frailty, for the last ten or fifteen years, as we have had at the North, what confirmation would we have found for our invectives against the corrupting and 'barbarous' influence of slavery!
"How the morbid fancy of a Northerner loves to gloat over occasional instances of violence at the South, and is never employed in depicting scenes of betrayal and cruelty which our policemen in large cities could recount by scores."
"I saw," said Mr. North, "in a recent paper, that a slave in Washington County, N.C., was hanged by the sheriff in the presence of three thousand spectators, for the murder of a white man, whom he shot with a pistol because he suspected him of undue familiarity with the wife of the black man. Poor fellow! no doubt he swung for it because he was a slave. He must let his marriage rights be invaded by the whites, and bear it in silence, or die."
Said I, "What a perfect specimen of Northern anti-slavery feeling and logic have we in what you now say. If a man, on suspicion of you, takes the law into his hands and shoots you with a pistol, does he not deserve to die? He does, if he is a white man; perhaps, if he be a slave, that excuses him! Even where a man is known to be guilty of the crime referred to, and the husband shoots him, he is apt to have a narrow escape from being punished. As to bearing such violations of one's rights in silence under intimidation, there is no more power in intimidation to save a villain at the South from disgrace and abhorrence in his community, than at the North."
"But he can evade prosecution under the statute," said Mr. North, "more easily at the South than here."
"When you have served on the grand jury a few terms," said I, "you will be more charitable toward Southerners. Human nature is the same everywhere. It makes, where it does not find, occasion for sin.
"Now you will not understand, in all that I have said, that I am pleading for slavery, that I desire to have this abject race among us, that Southerners are purer and better than we. We are both under sin. We all have our temptations and trials; each form of society has its own kind of facilities for evil; but the grace of God and all the influences which bear on the formation and the preservation of character, are the same wherever Christianity prevails."
"Well, after all," said he, "it must be a semi-barbarous state of society, where such a system is maintained."
"I shall have to send you," said I, "to the 'Hotel des Incurables.' I think that your judgments are more than semi-barbarous. If you please to term even the Southern negroes 'semi-barbarous,' you may do so; but you are bearing false witness against your neighbor.
"My dear friend," said I, "sum up all the evils of the laboring classes, of foreigners and the lower orders of society. Take their miseries, vices, crimes, with all the blessings of freedom and everything else. Get the proportion of evil to the good. Remember that these classes will continue to exist among us. Then take the slaves, the lower order at the South, as foreigners are with us, and say if, on the whole, the proportion of evil among the slaves is any greater than among the corresponding classes elsewhere. Do not be an optimist. Acknowledge that society, in this fallen world, must have elements of evil, by reason at least of imbecility, want of thrift, misfortune, and other things. You will not fail to see that slavery with all its evils is, under the circumstances, by no means, the worst possible condition for the colored people."
"Well," said he, "I will think of all you have said. I do not wish to be an ultraist, nor to shut my eyes against truth. You will wish to go to bed; there are some further points on which I would know your views, and we will, if you please, resume the subject to-morrow."
CHAPTER VII.
OWNERSHIP IN MAN.—THE OLD TESTAMENT SLAVERY.
"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."
HOLY WRIT.
The rain still poured down in the morning, making it agreeable to us that we had the prospect of an uninterrupted forenoon for our conversation.
So when we found ourselves together again in the course of the forenoon, by the fire, we opened the discussion.
Mr. North inquired what I understood by the term "owning a fellow-creature."
"I understand by it," I replied, "a right to use, and to dispose of, the services of another, wholly at my will. That will must be subject to the whole law of God, which includes the golden rule. I do not mean by it that a man owns the body of a man in such a sense that he can maim it at will, or in any way abuse it. Ownership in men is power to use their services and to dispose of them, at will."
"Now," said he, "who gives you a right to go to Africa or to a slave auction and to say to a human being, 'I propose to own you.' How would you like to have a black man come to you in a solitary place and say, 'My dear Sir, I propose to own you. Henceforth your services are subject to my will.'?"
"As to Africa," said I, "and making slaves of those who are now free, we cannot differ. As to the other part of your question, I will carry the illustration a little further, and in doing so, will answer you in part. How would you like to have some Michael O'Connor come to you and say, 'Mr. North, I propose to hire you and pay you wages as my body-servant, or my ostler.' Why should you not consent? If you do not, why should you hire Mike himself to serve you in either of those capacities? What has become of the golden rule, if you hire a man to do work for you which you would not be hired to do?
"You are feasting with a company of friends; and your domestics, below, hear your cheerful talk, and feel the wide difference between your state and theirs. Why do you not go down and say, 'Dear fellow-creatures, go up and take our places at table, and let us be servants'? Does the golden rule require that? Inequalities in human conditions are a wise and benevolent provision for human happiness, so long as men are dependent on one another, as they are and ever must be. Some are so constituted by an all-wise God that they are happier to be in subordinate situations. Mind is lord; and they, seeing and feeling the superiority of others, gladly attach themselves to them as helpers, to be thought for and protected, and to enjoy their approbation. There is nothing cruel in this, unless it be cruel not to have made all men equal. There are important influences growing out of these relationships of superiors and inferiors,—gentleness, kindness, benevolence, in all its forms, on the one hand, and on the other, respect, deference, love, strong attachments and identification of interests.
"As to the remaining part of your question, let me ask, What nation or tribes are capable of such bondage as the Africans at home inflict and bear? We never had a right to go and steal them, nor to encourage their captors in their pillage and violent seizure of the defenceless creatures; nor do I think that all the blessings which multitudes of them have received, for both worlds, in consequence of their transportation from Africa, lessens the guilt of slave-traders; nor are these benefits any justification of the trade, nor do they afford ground for its continuance. Nothing can justify it. Such is the voice of the human conscience everywhere except where covetousness or controversy prevail.
"But finding these colored people here, the question upon which you and
I differ, is, What is our duty with regard to them?
"You say, Set them all free. I reply, The relation of ownership on our part toward them is best for all concerned. You say, It is wrong in itself. To say this, I think, is to be more righteous than God."
"Then you maintain," said he, "that the Most High, in the Bible, countenances all the atrocities of American slavery."
"What a strange way," said I, "of arguing, do we very generally find among anti-slavery men, when their feelings are enlisted, as they are so apt to be. They take unwarrantable, extreme inferences from what we say, and oppose these as logical answers to a statement or argument. 'Auction block' and 'Bunker Hill,' are sufficient answers with them to most of our reasoning on this subject. But let us look at this point in a dispassionate manner.
"But," said I, "before I begin I wish to be distinctly understood as holding this doctrine; namely, The Bible does not justify us in reducing men to bondage at our will. God might appoint that certain tribes should be slaves to others; but before we proceed to reduce men to slavery, our warrant for it must be clear.
"If, however, slavery is found by a certain generation among them, and it is not right and just nor expedient to abolish it, may we not safely ask, How did the Most High legislate concerning slavery among the people to whom he gave a code of laws from his own lips?
"Learning this, we must then consider whether circumstances in our day warrant, or require, different rules and regulations.
"But our inquiry into the divine legislation respecting slavery, will disclose some things which draw largely upon one's implicit faith in the divine goodness; and if a man is disposed to be a sceptic and his anti-slavery feelings are strong, here is a stone on which, if that anti-slavery man falls, he shall be broken, but if it falls on him, it shall grind him to powder.
"You will acknowledge this, if you will allow me to speak further on this subject.
"Did you ever notice," said I, "with what words Christ concludes his enunciation of the golden rule? They are a remarkable answer to our modern infidels, who impugn the Old Testament as far behind the New in its moral standard. After declaring that the rule by which we should treat others is self-love, the Saviour says,—'for this is the Law and the Prophets.' So there was nothing in the Law and Prophets inconsistent with the golden rule. The golden rule therefore marks the history of divine legislation from the beginning; and if God appointed slavery, he ordained nothing in connection with it which was inconsistent with equal love to one's self and to a neighbor.
"This deserves to be considered by those who, finding slavery in the Old Testament appointed by God, begin, as it were, to exculpate their Maker by saying that the Hebrews were a rude, semi-barbarous people, and that divine legislation was wisely accommodated to their moral capacity. Now it is singular, if this be so, that the Mosaic code should be the basis, as it is, of all good legislation everywhere. The effort to make the Hebrew people and their code appear inferior, in order to excuse slavery, is one illustration of the direful effect which anti-slavery principles have had in lowering the respect of many for the Bible, and loosening its hold upon their consciences. Now it is to me a perfect relief on this subject of slavery in the Old Testament, to know that God appointed nothing in the relation of his people to men of any class or condition which his people in a change of circumstances, might not be willing should be administered to them. If slavery was ordained of God to the Hebrews, it must, therefore, have been benevolent. If we start with the doctrine that 'Slavery is the sum of all villanies,' no wonder that we find it necessary to use extenuating words and a sort of apologetic, protecting manner of treating the divine oracles. After all it is evidently hard work, with many anti-slavery men to maintain that reverence for the Old Testament and that confidence in God which they feel are required of them. So they lay all the responsibility of imperfection in the divine conduct, to the 'semi-barbarous Hebrews!'—a people by the way, whose first leader combined in himself a greater variety, and a higher order, of talent, than any other man in history. As military commander, poet, historian, judge, legislator, who is to be named in comparison with the man Moses?
"We must come to the conclusion," said I, "that the relation of ownership is not only not sinful, but that it is in itself benevolent, that it had a benevolent object; for its origin was certainly benevolent."
"What was its origin?" said Mrs. North; "I always had a desire to know how slavery first came into existence."
"Blackstone tells us," I replied, "that its origin was in the right of a captor to commute the death of his captives with bondage. The laws of war give the conqueror a right to destroy his enemies; if he sees fit to spare their lives in consideration of their serving him, this is also his right. Thus, we suppose, slavery gained its existence.
"True, its very nature partakes of our fallen condition; it is not a paradisiacal institution; it is not good in itself; it is an accompaniment of the loss which we have incurred by sin. In that light it is proper to speak of the Most High as adapting his legislation to the depraved condition of man; but that is no more true of slavery than of redemption; everything in the treatment of us by the Almighty is an exponent of our departure from our first estate."
"Now," said Mrs. North, "all this is a relief to me; for I have always been sorely tried by remarks seemingly impugning the divine wisdom and goodness, whenever slavery in the Bible has been under discussion."
"Please give us an outline," said Mr. North, "of the Hebrew legislation on this subject." He handed me a Bible.
"I will try and not be tedious," said I, "and will repeat to you in few words the principal points of the Hebrew Code, with regard to involuntary servitude.
* * * * *
"Slavery is the first thing named in the law given at Sinai, after the moral law and a few simple directions as to altars. This is noticeable. In the twenty-first chapter of Exodus, and in the twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus, we find the Hebrew slave-code. The following is a summary of it:—
"1. Hebrews themselves might be bought and sold by Hebrews; but for six years only, at farthest. If the jubilee year occurred at any time during these six years, it cut short the term of service.
"2. Hebrew paupers were an exception to this rule. They could be retained till the year of jubilee next ensuing.
"3. Hebrew servants, married in servitude, if they went out free in the seventh, or in the jubilee year, must go out alone, leaving their wives which their masters had given them, and their children by these wives, (if any,) behind them, as their masters' possession. If, however, they chose to remain with their wives and children, the ear of the servant was bored with an awl to the door-post, and his servitude became perpetual.
"4. Hebrew servants might also, from love to their masters, in like manner and by the same ceremony, become servants forever.
"5. Strangers and sojourners among the Hebrews, 'waxing rich,' were allowed to buy Hebrews who were 'waxen poor,' and who were at liberty to sell themselves to these sojourners or to the family of these strangers. The jubilee year, however, terminated this servitude. The price of sale was graduated according to the number of years previous to the jubilee year. The kindred of the servant had the right of redeeming him, the price being regulated in the same way.
"6. In all these cases in which Hebrews were bought and sold, there were special injunctions that they should not be treated 'with rigor,' the reason assigned by the Most High being substantially the same in all cases, namely, 'For unto me the children of Israel are servants; they are my servants whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.'
"7. Liberal provision was to be made for the Hebrew servant at the termination of his servitude. During his term of service, he was to be regarded and treated 'as an hired servant and a sojourner.'
"8. Bondmen and bondmaids, as property, without limitation of time, and transmissible as inheritance to children, might be bought of surrounding nations. The children of sojourners also could be thus acquired. To these the seventh year's and the fiftieth year's release did not apply.
"Now, Mr. North," said I, "let me proceed to try your faith somewhat. I will see whether your confidence in divine revelation is sound, for nothing at the present day has overthrown the faith of many like the manifest teachings of the Bible with regard to slavery. You have felt that the Hebrew code is better than ours, so far as it relates to slaves who were Hebrews. As to the slaves from the heathen, we infer that they met 'with rigor,' or at least were liable to it; for God continually enjoins it upon the Hebrews that they shall not use rigor with their brethren.
"Now let me mention some things which will try your faith in revelation, if you are an abolitionist.
"The Hebrews were allowed to sell their servants to other people.
"Thus they traded in flesh and blood. This was prohibited in the case of a Hebrew maid-servant, whom a man had bought and had made her his concubine. If she did not please him, it was said that—'to sell her unto a strange nation he shall have no power.' The inference is that they sold their Gentile slaves, if they pleased, 'to a strange nation.' Again. When a father or mother became poor, their creditor could take their children for servants. Thus you read: 'Now there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha saying, Thy servant my husband is dead, and thou knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord; and the creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen.' This was according to the law of Moses, in the twenty-fifth of Leviticus; 'bondmen,' however, meaning here a servant for a term of years. See also the New Testament parable of the unforgiving servant.
"This was hard, it will seem to you and to all of us, that if one became poor in Israel, his children could be attached. Thus the idea of involuntary servitude, where no crime was, prevailed in the Theocracy.
"But we come now to something which draws harder upon our faith.
"We find the Most High prescribing, Exodus xxi. 20, 21, that a master who kills his servant under chastisement shall be punished (but not put to death); and if the servant survives a day or two, the master shall not even be 'punished' for the death of his slave!
"The reason which the Most High gives is this: 'For he is his money'!
"A human being, 'money'! An immortal soul, 'money'! God's image, 'money'! And this the reasoning, these the very words of my Maker! Is it not astonishing, if your principles are correct, that there has been no controversy for ages against this? and that the Bible, with such passages in it should have retained its hold on the human mind? 'He is his money'! It would have been no different had it read: 'He is his cotton.' You see that the Most High recognized 'ownership,' 'property in man.' Why is it said, 'He is his money'? Poole (Synopsis) says,—'that is, his possession bought with money; and therefore 1. Had a power to chastise him according to his merit, which might be very great. 2. Is sufficiently punished with his own loss. 3. May be presumed not to have done this purposely or maliciously.'
"Either and all of which explanations, or any other which can be given, only bring more clearly to view the idea of 'money' as a reason why the master is not to be punished, for causing the death of a slave by whipping, if the slave happens to continue a day or two, no matter under what mutilations and sufferings.
"Furthermore. We find the Most High decreeing perpetual bondage in certain cases, and more than all, as we have seen, the forcible separation of husband and wife among slaves. Let me turn to Exodus xxi. and read:—
"'1. Now these are the judgments which thou shalt set before them.
"'2. If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.
"'3. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him.
"'4. If his master have given him a wife and she have borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself.'
"I have not finished my reading," said I; "but what do you say to that,
Mr. North?"
"Read on," said he.
"'5. And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children, I will not go out free:
"'6. Then his master shall bring him unto the judges, he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door-post, and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall serve him forever.'
"God decreed, therefore, that the marriage of a slave in bondage, in those days, was dissoluble, as no other marriage was. Divorces among the Hebrews, allowed for the hardness of their hearts, were not parallel to the forcible separation of a slave from his wife under the hard necessity of choice between perpetual bondage with a wife, or freedom without her. The merciful God who kindly enacted, 'No man shall take the nether nor the upper millstone to pledge: for he taketh a man's life to pledge,' and that a garment pawned should be restored before sundown, that wages should not be withheld over night, yes, the God who legislated about bird's-nests ordained the dissolution of the marriage tie between slaves in certain cases, unless the slave husband was willing for his wife's sake, to be a slave forever!
"What do you say to this, Mr. North?" I asked again.
Said Mrs. North, "I begin to see the origin and cause of infidelity among the abolitionists."
"Tell me," said Mr. North, "how you view it."
"On stating this, once," said I, "in a public meeting, I raised a clamor. Three or four men sprung to their feet, and one of them, who first caught the chairman's eye, cried out, his face turning red, his eyes starting from their sockets, his fist clenched, 'I demand of the gentleman whether he means to approve of all the abominations of American slavery! Is he in favor of separating husbands and wives, parents and children? Let us know it, Sir, if it be so. No wonder that strong anti-slavery men turn infidels when they hear Christian men defending American slavery from the Bible. No wonder that they say, "The times demand, and we must have, an anti-slavery constitution, an anti-slavery Bible, and an anti-slavery God." Mr. Moderator, will the gentleman answer my question,—Do you mean to approve all the atrocities of American slavery, on the ground that the Bible countenances them?'
"I was never more calm in my life. I replied, 'Mr. Chairman, taking for my warrant an inspired piece of advice as to the best way of answering a man according to his folly, it would be just, should I reply to the gentleman's question, Yes, I do. But the gentleman, I perceive, is too much excited to hear me.'
"He had flung himself round in his seat, put his elbow on the back of it, and his hand through his hair; he then flung himself round in the opposite direction, and put his arm and hand as before, and he blew his nose with a sound like a trombone.
"I then said, 'Mr. Chairman, if all that the gentleman meant to ask was, Do you find any countenance under any circumstances, for the relation of master and slave in the divine legation of Moses,—and this was all which, as a fair man, not carried away by a gust of passion, he should have asked me,—my answer was correct and proper. If he wished to know my views of what is right and proper as to the marriage relation of our slaves, he should have put the question in a different shape. But first, Sir,' said I, 'if he dislikes the twenty-first chapter of Exodus, his controversy must be with his God, not with me. Sinai was, let me remind him, more of a place than Bunker Hill. I am not a friend of "oppression" any more than the gentleman; but I trust that had I lived in Israel, I should never have thought of being more humane than my Maker.'
"I then proceeded to say that (as before remarked to you) we are not warranted by the Bible to make men slaves when we please; nor, if slavery exists, are we commanded to adopt the rules and regulations of Hebrew slavery.
"But we do learn from the Bible that property in man is not in itself sinful,—not even to say of a man, 'He is my money.'
"Were it intrinsically wrong, God would not have legislated about it in such ways; for granting, if you please, the untenable distinction about his 'not appointing' slavery, but 'finding it in existence' and legislating for it, what necessity could there have been for making such a law as that relating to the boring of the ear, rather than giving the slave his wife and children and suffering them all to go free?
"No, Mr. North," said I, continuing our conversation, "I cannot oppose the relation of master and slave as in itself sinful; for then I become more righteous than God. But I must inquire whether it is right, in each given case, to reduce men to bondage: shall that be, for example, the mode in which prisoners of war shall be disposed of? or a subjugated people? or criminals? or, in certain cases, debtors? In doing so, there is no intrinsic sin; the act itself, under the circumstances, may be exceedingly sinful; but the relation of ownership is not necessarily a sin. This, I hold, is all that can be deduced from the Bible in favor of slavery: The relation is not in itself sinful."
"But," said Mr. North, "we sinned in stealing these people from Africa; all sin should be immediately forsaken; therefore, set the slaves free at once."
I replied, "Let us apply that principle. You and I, and a large company of passengers, are in a British ship, approaching our coast. We find out, all at once, that the crew and half of the passengers stole the ship. We gain the ascendency; we can do as we please. Now, as all sin must be repented of at once, it is the duty of the passengers and crew to put the ship about, and deliver it to the owners in Glasgow! Perhaps we should not think it best to put in force the 'ruat coelum' doctrine, especially if we had had some 'ruat coelum' storms, and it was late in the season. But then we should actually be enjoying the stolen property—the ship and its comforts—for several days, with the belief that benevolence and justice to all concerned required us to reach the end of the voyage before we took measures to perform that justice, which, before, would have been practical folly.
"Now, please, do not require this illustration to go on all fours. All that I mean is this: A right thing may be wrong, if done unseasonably, or in disregard of circumstances which have supervened.
"But to go a little further, and beyond mere expediency: Can you see no difference between buying slaves, and making men slaves? While it would be wicked for you to reduce people to slavery, is that the same as becoming owners to those who are already in slavery? In one case, you could not apply the golden rule; in the other, the golden rule would absolutely compel you, in many instances, to buy slaves. Go to almost any place where slaves are sold, and they will come to you, if they like your looks, and, by all the arts of persuasion, entreat you to become their master. Having succeeded, step behind the scenes, if you can, and hear them exulting that they 'fetched more' than this or that man. Is there no difference between this and reducing free people to slavery?"
"Say yes, husband," said Mrs. North, "or I must say it for you."
"So that, let me add," said I, "in opposing slavery, I am necessarily confined to the evils and abuses committed in the relationship of master. But, even in doing this, why should I be meddlesome? We have a most offensive air and manner in our behavior towards Southerners, in connection with their duties as masters. It is perfectly disgusting. I may oppose slavery, on the grounds of political economy or for national reasons. But if I mix up with it wrathful opposition to the sin, so called, or the unrighteousness of holding property in man, it has no countenance in the Bible. If I speak of it publicly, as a system fraught with evil, I must discriminate; or they whom I would influence, knowing that I am mistaken, will regard me as an infatuated enemy, who will effect more injury than I can repair. As to Mr. Jefferson's testimony, there are as good and conscientious men at the South in our day as Thomas Jefferson. Mr. Calhoun was as worthy a witness in all respects."
"Now tell us," said Mrs. North, "your sober convictions, apart from this Northern controversy, about that twenty-first chapter of Exodus, where God directs that slaves, in certain cases, shall be slaves forever; and, moreover, in certain cases, that slave husbands may have their wives and children withheld from them, and the husbands leave them forever. How do you reconcile this with the justice and goodness of God?"
I said to her, "To make the case fully appear, before we converse upon it, hear this passage, 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.' So, in the next verses, '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 begat in your land; and they shall be your possession: And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen forever; but over your brethren, the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigor.'
"Here, and in all the divine legislation on this subject, a distinction is made between Hebrews who became slaves, and slaves who were foreigners, or of foreign extraction, though resident in Israel. Slaves of Hebrew extraction might go free after six years, and upon the death of the owner; and in every jubilee year they must all return to freedom, and be free from every disability by reason of bondage, except where the ear was bored.
"Not so with the slaves of foreign extraction; nor even with the Hebrew whose ear was bored, provided his wife was given him in slavery, and he had elected to live with her rather than be free. Not even upon the death of the owner could such slaves be manumitted, as was the case ordinarily with regard to Hebrew slaves; but property in these Gentile slaves, and in Hebrew slaves reduced to the same condition, God ordained should be an 'inheritance,' passing down forever from father to child.
"No jubilee trumpet was to cheer their hearts. Think what the jubilee morning must have been to those slaves in hopeless bondage, if bondage were necessarily such as many fancy. Our abolitionists represent the bells and guns of our Fourth of July to be a hideous mockery in the ears of the slaves; and multitudes of our good people ludicrously fancy them as most miserable on that day, by the contrast of their enslaved condition with our boasted Independence. Let us borrow this fancy, and apply it to the Hebrew slave.
"The jubilee trumpets, and all the joyous scenes of the fiftieth year in Israel, caused multitudes of slaves in Israel, we will suppose, to reflect, This Jehovah, God of Israel, has doomed us to hopeless bondage. We are guilty of having been born so many degrees south or north, east or west, of these Hebrews. We, by God's providence, are Gentiles. Our chiefs sold us, and these Hebrews bought us. We were betrayed; we were driven out of our homes; unjust wars were made upon us, to make us captives, that we might be sold. And 'the Lord's people' bought us, by his special edict (Lev. xxv. 44). Our brother-servants, unfortunate Hebrews, get released in the jubilee year, except these poor creatures who were so unfortunate as to be married in slavery, and, not being willing to be divorced, had their ears fastened, with the ignominious 'awl,' to their master's door-post. God could have ordained that they, with their wives and children, and we, with ours, should have release in the fiftieth year. But, no! our bondage is forever, and so is theirs; and our children and their children are to be servants forever. But we hold it to be a self-evident truth that all men are born free and equal, and have an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Slavery is the sum of all villanies. Our master's will is our law; we are subject to his passions; we are chattels; we 'are his money.' This is the language of your God,—the God whom you worship; and not only so, but you circumcise us to worship Him!
"Some benevolent Levite, jealous for the character of his Maker, replies, 'But God did not institute slavery; He found it in existence, and he only legislates about it, and regulates it.'
"A thousand groans are the prelude to the withering answer which the slaves make to this apology for oppression.
"'He broke your bonds, it seems,' they cry, 'in Egypt, and in the Red Sea. Did He "find slavery" on the opposite shore of the Red Sea? Why did he not merely "legislate for it, and regulate it?" No, He enacted it. How dare you apologize for your God with such a miserable pretext? He made the ordinance separating a husband from wife and children, unless the husband would submit to the indignity of having his ear bored and to the doom of perpetual bondage, in case his wife was a Gentile. If he goes away, he must leave his wife and children. Great indulgence have you in multiplying wives; that is winked at "for the hardness of your hearts;" but the poor Hebrew must abandon his wife and family if he chooses freedom! They are his master's "property," "his money," and God gave the servant these children, knowing that they would be the "property" of another, and that he would have no unencumbered right to them; and down through all ages they and their descendants must be servants. And now you tell us, "God did not institute" this! He only "found it!" He "regulated it!" Come, blow up your trumpet, reverend Levite! Go, worship the God of whom you feel half ashamed. Do not ask us to worship and love a Being who is bound by the laws of fate so that he cannot do otherwise, if he would, than make one of us a slave forever, while the man who grinds with me at the same mill, goes with his wife and children, forever free!'"
"Those remarks have the true Boston tone," said Mrs. North.
"Yes," said I, "there were brave men before Agamemnon, Horace tells us. There is slavery forever," said I, "or the separation of husband and wife, father and children, unless the man would be a slave forever. What 'partings' there must have been! What struggles in those who concluded to take the fatal 'awl' through their ears, before they could make up their minds to be slaves forever. See the hardship of the case. If the man 'loves his wife and children,' he may be a slave; that love would make him spend and be spent for them in freedom, in his humble home, amid the sweets of liberty; but no; if he loves his wife he must take the bitter draught of slavery with his love. But if he hates her and his children, he may be free! What a bounty on conjugal fickleness, on unnatural treatment of offspring!"
"Was there no Canada?" said Mrs. North, biting off her thread. "O, I recollect; Hagar went there. I wonder if the angel who remanded her was removed from office, on his return to heaven."
"Come, wife," said Mr. North, "there is such a thing as being converted too much. Please, Sir, will you answer the question as to the consistency of all this with the divine wisdom and goodness?"
"That," said I, "is not the question which you wish to ask."
"I do not understand you," said he; "please to explain."
"You wish to ask," said I, "how I reconcile these things with your notions of wisdom and benevolence."
"Why," said he, "I have my ideas of divine wisdom and goodness, and I wish to make these things square with them."
"And that," said I, "is just the rock on which you all split. Your ideas of the divine goodness must be based on a complete view of the revealed character and conduct of God. But you and your friends say, 'this and that ought to be, or ought not to be,' and you try your Maker by that measure. Now I say, 'he that reproveth God, let him answer it.' Are not the things which I have quoted, parts of divine revelation, as much as the flood and the passover?"
"I see that they are," said Mr. North.
"Do you believe that God is a spirit infinite, eternal, unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth?"
"I do," said he.
"You believe this notwithstanding the apostasy, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the flood, and the extirpation of the Canaanites."
"I do," said he, "so long as I receive the Bible as the Word of God."
"I think," said Mrs. North, "that the loss of the 'Central America' with her four hundred passengers, tries my faith in God full as much as a heathen's having his ear bored to spend his days with his wife and children among God's covenant people."
"Then you do not worship the Goddess of Liberty, Mrs. North," said I.—"'Art thou called being a servant? Care not for it. But if thou mayest be made free, use it rather.'"
"That," said she, "seems to express my idea about bondage and freedom. Of course it is not, theoretically, a blessing to be a slave. It may be, practically, to some. But what strikes me oftentimes is the utter inability of an abolitionist to say to a slave, under any circumstances, 'Care not for it.' His doctrine, rather, is, 'Art thou called being a servant? If thou hast a Sharpe's rifle, or a John Brown's pike, use it rather.' Or, 'Art thou called being a servant? If thou canst run for Canada, use it rather.' Paul had not an abolitionist mind, that is very clear. But," she continued, "do relieve my husband and enlighten me also, by giving us your views about the Old Testament slavery, which I presume you can do without seeming to arraign the character of God."
I replied, "This is a sinful race, and we are treated as such. Slavery is one of God's chastisements. Instead of destroying every wicked nation by war, pestilence, or famine, he grants some of them a reprieve, and commutes their punishment from death to bondage. Those whom he allowed to be slaves to his people Israel were highly favored; they enjoyed a blessing which came to them disguised by the sable cloud of servitude; but in their endless happiness many of them will bless God for the bondage which joined them to the nation of Israel.
"I look upon our slaves as being here by a special design of Providence, for some great purpose, to be disclosed at the right time. Unless I take this view of it, I am embarrassed and greatly troubled; 'perplexed, but not in despair.' The great design of Providence in no wise abates the sin of those who brought the slaves here, nor does it warrant us in getting more of them. While this is true, I cannot resist the thought that God has a controversy with this black race which is not yet finished. I believe that God withholds from them a spirit and temper suited for freedom till he shall have finished his marvellous designs. His destiny with the Jew, as a nation, to the present day, is another illustration of his mysterious providence with regard to a people.