The clash of the priceless and the profitable: when the auction block meets the sacred

“ But, when we think of the sport of book-hunting, it is to sales in auction-rooms that the mind naturally turns. Here the rival buyers feel the passion of emulation, and it was in an auction-room that Guibert de Pixérécourt, being outbid, said, in tones of mortal hatred, “I will have the book when your collection is sold after your death.” And he kept his word. The fever of gambling is not absent from the auction-room, and people “bid jealous” as they sometimes “ride jealous” in the hunting-field. Yet, the neophyte, if he strolls by chance into a sale-room, will be surprised at the spectacle. ”

“ A Slave Auction! Great God in heaven! a Slave Auction! And that man upon the platform is the auctioneer!
What a noise is going on outside of the doors! There will, surely, enter a troop of men, women and children. How will they find places amongst the spectators of the tragedy which will soon commence?—for every chair is occupied, and many men are leaning upon the bar. There is room in front of the table, and near to the walls of the hall. ”

“ Many are urged by pride, or disdain, or envy, to persuade themselves that they can profit sufficiently by reading and meditating in private, and so to despise public assemblies, and consider preaching as unnecessary. But since they do all in their power to dissolve and break asunder the bond of unity, which ought to be preserved inviolable, not one of them escapes the just punishment of this impious breach, but they all involve themselves in pestilent errors and pernicious reveries. ”

“ If we see a person wilfully abusing the goods of an individual, we may reprehend him, but with comparative mildness. If we see him maiming, or in any way maltreating another man's cattle, we may increase the severity of our rebuke. But if we see him violating all the social and sacred relations of life,—daily defrauding a number of his fellow creatures of the fruits of their toil, calling them his property, selling them for money, lacerating their bodies, and ruining their souls,—we may use the strongest terms of moral indignation. ”

“ That to take away this sacred right from the person and to vest it in property is a wilful perversion of justice and common sense, as the creation and security of property are the consequences of society, the great object of which is human happiness. ”

“ There is an institution, which is called by many civilized men a ‘lawful one,’ but which is in reality an institution of ancient barbarity. It is the institution of slavery! If we take for truth, that civilization and Christianity go hand in hand, we are astonished to see a civilized and Christian people violating the laws of civilization and of Christianity, by adhering to and nursing said institution of barbarity. Christianity and barbarity will always oppose each other, and if a nation is trying to make a mixture of both, civilization as well as Christianity will suffer extensively. ”

“ We will listen to the reading of the auctioneer, who is holding a paper in his right hand:—‘I am authorized,’ he begins, ‘to sell at auction, one hundred and forty-nine plantation negroes, comprising carpenters, [11] bricklayers, blacksmiths, coopers, drivers, house and field-hands. Families will be sold in block. These slave have been raised, and the larger portion of them were born on the estate of Minor R., Esq., who is retiring from the plantation interest on the Beau-Bosquet Place. The slaves are considered as one of the most valuable and healthy gangs in the South. ”

“ Hence, it is said in advertisements that a slave is pious, and, at the auction block, the hardened and heartless seller dwells upon the Christian graces and religious character of some slaves with the unction of an apostle. The purchaser sympathizes, and only desires to know whether the article be a real or a sham Christian. If mere bones and muscles compacted into human shape be worth five hundred dollars, then, if the auctioneer can warrant the subject to have the meekness of Moses and the patience of Job, the same article may be worth seven hundred. ”

“ No barbarian, in whatever part of the globe, will sell at public auction the priest of his faith for any money! Behold, ye nations of Christendom! There is a country which is called a Christian [21] one, in which a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ is sold at public auction like a brute! Will that time never come when such as he shall be sold no more to the highest bidder by the pretended disciples of that Savior who came to break every yoke, and to set every captive free? ”

“ But our author, in this matter of negro slavery, has undertaken to apply his explosive pitch and rosin, not to the affectation of humanity, but to humanity itself. He mocks at pity, scoffs at all who seek to lessen the amount of pain and suffering, sneers at and denies the most sacred rights, and mercilessly consigns an entire class of the children of his Heavenly Father to the doom of compulsory servitude. ”

“ For any errors which may have been committed, the indulgent will find some apology in the difficulties resulting from the extraordinary state of human affairs, and the astonishing spectacles these have presented. A world in arms and trampling on all those moral principles which have heretofore been deemed sacred in the intercourse between nations, could not suffer us to remain insensible of all agitation. ”

“ No form of vice, not worldliness, not greed of gold, not drunkenness itself, does more to un-Christianize society than evil temper. For embittering life, for breaking up communities, for destroying the most sacred relationships, for devastating homes, for withering up men and women, for taking the bloom of childhood, in short,
For sheer gratuitous misery-producing power
this influence stands alone. ”

“ He is answered by one who defends the current creed, and who maintains that, as human nature is constituted, the utilitarian system of morals can not take the place of the sacred origin as the ultimate foundation of social relations. ”

“ Eliminate from the ethical code all belief in the sacred origin of moral injunctions, and confine the judicial action of society to the merely utilitarian effect of individual conduct, and you will surrender the whole criminal code to the doctrine that the individual who does a certain act is to be punished or not to be punished, according to the effect of his act on the person or persons who are immediately or remotely affected by it. ”

“ To prohibit a great people, however, from making all that they can of every part of their own produce, or from employing their stock and industry in the way that they judge most advantageous to themselves, is a manifest violation of the most sacred rights of mankind. ”

“ In the halls of legislation, corruption is unmasked, intrigue is exposed, and tyranny overthrown. Where is its matchless excellence inapplicable? The rich and the poor experience its effects. The guilty are living monuments of its exertion, and the innocent hail it as the vindicator of its violated rights and the preserver of its sacred reputation. In the cause of mercy it is ever omnipotent; bold in the consciousness of its superiority, and fearless and unyielding in the purity of its motives, it destroys all opposition and defies all power. ”

“ But craft and deceit in sacred things breed a vicious habit of defending by false reasoning what an uncorrupted conscience would reject; and the holy name of religion, instead of being a sacrament of good, becomes a sacrament of evil, which is used to cover and consecrate loathsome immoralities. ”

“ If we reflect on the almost irresistible force of prejudice, and the strong opposition it universally made to the establishment of a new religion on the demolition of rites and ceremonies, which authority had made sacred, and custom had familiarized ”

“ To allow a crime to be committed when you can prevent it, is next to committing the crime yourself. And yet, under the banner of non-resistance, the Church has shed the blood of millions, and in the folds of her sacred Vestments have gleamed the daggers of assassination. With her cunning hands she wove the purple for hypocrisy, and placed the crown upon the brow of crime. For a thousand years larceny held the scales of justice, while beggars scorned the princely sons of toil, and ignorant fear denounced the liberty of thought. ”

“ Morality and its victim, the mother—what a terrible picture! Is there indeed anything more terrible, more criminal, than our glorified sacred function of motherhood? ”

“ In this sacred struggle and battle of so many hundred years,—this weary struggle of truths to be recognized,—this desperate battle of rights to be allowed;—in this long, broad current toward more truth and more right, in which are seen the hands of so many good and bad and indifferent men,—and in the midst of all, and surrounding all, the hand of very God,—what political institution has been most vigorous against this current,—what political system has been most noxious to political truth and right?—in short, what foe, in every land, have right and liberty found it hardest to fight or outwit? ”

“ Secondly, however, these virtues are a nieansof advancingself-renunciation,a,nd accordingly the denialjjf the will tolive. For true integrity, inviolable justice, this first and most important of cardinal virtues, is so hard a task that whoever professes it unconditionally and from the bottom of his heart has to make sacrifices that soon deprive life of the sweetness which is demanded to make it enjoyable, and thereby turn away the will from it, thus lead to resignation. Yet just what makes integrity honourable is the sacrifices which it costs; in trifles it is not admired. ”

“ One of the writers most familiar with Indian gem-lore recognizes that while the rich and educated Hindus of our day wear diamonds and other gems chiefly as ornaments, in ancient times these brilliant objects were more largely employed in India to enrich the images of the gods, thus rendering the idols more impressive and causing them to be worshipped with more intense fervor. ”

“ Why not have social critics to comment on society entertainments—or financial critics to roast unhealthy commercial enterprises and advertise safe ones? How long d'you think Wall Street would stand for that? Why don't the papers hire dry-goods experts to prowl through the department stores, publishing the cost prices of merchandise and warning the public against bargain sales? ”

“ I don't go much on the ordinary kinds of morality, and nobody outside of a man's family has the right to question his private life so long as it is private in its consequences. But when his secret conduct affects his business affairs, when it endangers vast interests in which others are concerned, then his associates are entitled to take a hand. ”

“ The most inconsiderable pecuniary interest is regarded too sacred to be entrusted to the most upright judge or juror, or to the most unsuspected witness, till their integrity has been fortified by an appeal to the high sanctions of christianity. ”

“ He is a great boy, a hand for almost every thing. Besides, he is the best dancer in the whole lot, and he knows also how to pray—oh! so beautifully, you would believe he was made to be a minister! How much will you bid for him?’
[14] ‘One thousand dollars.’
‘Good—but that is not half the price he is really worth. Gentlemen, if you will bid two thousand at once, it may not suffice to buy him. One thousand dollars for a boy, who will be worth in three years fully twenty-five hundred dollars cash down. ”

“ But the stranger who had the last bid is not able to give the requisite security, nor is he in possession of cash; and the poor family is placed again upon the platform, to be resold. The torture begins anew; they have again to feel the mortification of being placed in the same category with cattle. Armstead, the poor little boy, will give you the best proof that even little children can feel the atrocity of being thus sold. ”

“ He vituperates the poor black man with a coarse brutality which would do credit to a Mississippi slave-driver, or a renegade Yankee dealer in human cattle on the banks of the Potomac. His rhetoric has a flavor of the slave-pen and auction-block, vulgar, unmanly, indecent, a scandalous outrage upon good taste and refined feeling, which at once degrades the author and insults his readers. ”

“ Tom is therefore entitled to a reward for saving human life, and particularly white life. Entitled to a reward? O, yes! There stands Tom upon the platform of a slave-auction room, and enjoys his reward—to be sold to the highest bidder for $250!
I have seen a valuable mule, which, by kicking, caused the death of a child. This animal was afterwards sold at auction for the sum of $375, fully $125 more than our generous Tom!
No. 85. Who is No. 85? Ay, there we find poor [36] old Betsy, kind old soul! She labored more than 40 years in her master’s house. ”