John Fletcher

“ Had we been made acquainted merely with the fall of man and its effect upon his moral constitution, we should have still been bewildered in the perplexities of our condition. A consciousness of guilt would have filled our minds with apprehension, and the fear of the Divine displeasure would have mingled its bitterness with every gratification, would have seized upon every hope. Like Cain, we should have cried out, “Our punishment is greater than we can bear,” and solicited the black mark of slavery as an antidote to threatened and instant death. ”

“ Did they shut their eyes to the enormities of a great offence against God and man? Did they temporize with a heinous evil, because it was common and popular? Did they abstain from even exhorting masters to emancipate their slaves, though an imperative duty, from fear of consequences? Was slavery more deeply rooted than idolatry? or more deeply interwoven with the civil institutions? more thoroughly penetrated through every thing human—their prejudices, literature, hopes, and happiness? ”

“ Say, thou humble follower of the lowly Jesus, art thou ready to lay down thy life for Him who could truckle to sin—to a gross, an abominable sin, which alone would destroy the purity of his character and the divinity of his doctrine? In all love, we pray Him who holds your very breath in his hand, to cause you to tremble, before you shall say that Jesus Christ was a liar, and his apostles perjured! ”

“ This proposition includes the idea that the Slave States have degraded a portion of their citizens to a state of slavery. This is not true. Our ancestors, contrary to their will, were forced to receive a degraded race among them, not as citizens, but slaves;—and does it follow now, that we must again be forced to make this degraded race our political equals? Even the British Government, with all its claim to sovereign rule, never dreamed of imposing on us a demand so destructive to our political rights; so blighting to social happiness; so annihilating to our freedom as men ”

“ Do we find no satisfaction in this view of the constitution of nature, of the wisdom of God?
These men seem desirous that the works of God should have been on a different footing, or that every thing should have been at once perfect to the extent of his power. Would they then desire to be his equal too? But, at least as to man, the mind incapable of error, the body of suffering! It is possible that under such a dispensation, our mental enjoyments would have been on a par with a mathematical axiom, and our bodies have about as much sympathy for the things around them as has a lump of gold. ”

“ And when we come to examine this celebrated production as an argument against the moral propriety of the existence of the institution of slavery in the world, we shall find every pillar presented for its foundation a mere sophism, now quite distinctly, and again more feebly enunciated, as if with a more timid tongue, and left to inquiry, adorned by festoons of doubt and supposition.
We shall requote some portions, with a view to their more particular consideration. And, first, “Yet it may be doubted whether slavery can ever be supposed the natural condition of man.” ”

“ The question thus runs to the origin of what gives a good title, to wit, the condition that enforces one to be sold, or to sell himself, a slave, in favour of life. True, Blackstone, Montesquieu, and others of less note, contend that no man has a right to sacrifice his liberty; and what is their argument? They make an assumption, where there is no parallel, “that liberty is of equal worth to life;” but before their argument is good, they must show that liberty is of more value than life: for surely a man may barter an equal for an equal. They cry, “God gave all men liberty.” ”

“ Whoever holds one human being in bondage, invites others to plant the foot on his own neck. Thanks to God, not one human being can be wronged with impunity. The liberties of a people ought to tremble, until every man is free. Tremble they will. Their true foundation is sapped by the legalized degradation of a single innocent man to slavery. That foundation is impartial justice, is respect for human nature, is respect for the rights of every human being. ”

“ Wicked men and wicked nations have passed away, but slavery still exists among their descendants. Good men and enlightened nations have gone the way of all that is and has been, but slavery still abides on the earth. Upon the introduction of Christianity, men, who little understood its spirit, suddenly rose up to abolish slavery in cases where the slave became converted to its faith; also to cut loose the believing child from all obligations of obedience to the unbelieving parent, and also the husband or wife from his or her unbelieving spouse. ”

“ And the evil cannot stop at youth. Early licentiousness is fruitful of crime in mature life. How far the obligation to conjugal fidelity, the sacredness of domestic ties, will be revered amid such habits, such temptations, such facilities to vice as are involved in slavery, needs no exposition. So sure and terrible is retribution even in this life! Domestic happiness is not blighted in the slave’s hut alone. The master’s infidelity sheds a blight over his own domestic affections and joys. Home, without purity and constancy, is spoiled of its holiest charm and most blessed influences. ”

“ Suppose an African negro, of the lowest grade, destitute and naked, voluntarily finds himself in that island, where the poor, free inhabitants scarcely sustain life by the most constant toil. The negro finds no employment. He can neither buy, beg, nor steal; starvation is at hand. He applies to sell himself, under the law of the country, a slave for life. Is not slavery, in this case, a good, because life is a greater good than liberty? Liberty is worth nothing in opposition to life. Liberty is worth nothing without available possessions to sustain it. ”

“ But, it may be well here to remark, that we have no sectarian church to sustain; that we belong to no religious order; nor have, as yet, subscribed to any faith formed by man. And while we advocate the cause of religion and truth, yielding ourselves in all humility to the influence of Divine power, we feel as certain of his final notice, as though we had marched through under a thousand banners at the head of the world. We have all confidence in the word of him who hath said that even the sparrow falleth not without his notice. ”

“ What says this moral sense, this conscience, in the savage, who is taught to steal from his friend and torture his enemy? Does the reverend doctor think his moral sense will dictate the same conclusion? What right has he, then, to say, it is the voice of nature—of God? Does he fail to perceive that the moral quality of actions is distinguished by man in conformity to his experience, his training, his education?
We see that men often differ about the moral quality of an action. It might be that no two men would have the same idea about the moral quality of a particular action. ”

“ The slave obeys, and the state of servitude extends no further. All domestic affairs are managed by the master’s wife and children. To punish a slave with stripes; to load him with chains, or condemn him to hard labour, is unusual. It is true that slaves are sometimes put to death, not under colour of justice, or of any authority vested in the master; but in a transport of passion, in a fit of rage, as is often the case in a sudden affray but it is also true that this species of homicide passes with impunity. The freedmen are not of much higher consideration than the actual slaves ”

“ Channing’s sympathies for every appearance of human suffering, for every grade of human imperfection, gave a peculiar phasis, perhaps most amiable to his intellect, religion, and writings. He sought perfection for himself—he was ardent to behold it universal. Heaven must for ever be the home of such a spirit. But the scenes of earth gave agitation and grief. Limited, in his earthly associations, to the habits of the North, the very purity of his heart led him to attack what he deemed the most wicked sin of the South. ”

“ These things are so; creation has grown up; and human life can never effect one tremble of the leaf on which it has found its residence.
But the Christian philosopher views these evidences of a great moral catastrophe without madness. He perceives that sin has sunk man into degradation, slavery, and death. He comprehends his own weakness, and trusts in God.
But there is a man, with all these facts before him, who rages. He makes war on the providence, and determines, as if to renovate the work, of the Almighty. Is he a man of a single idea? ”

“ The idea that the souls of men are unequal in a future state of existence seems to be consonant with the faith of most of the Christian churches. “And his lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but from him that hath not, shall be taken away even that he hath; and cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” ”

“ National regeneration has ever been thus slow. Thus, savage life has ever put to death the captive; while we find that slavery, among such tribes, has ever been introduced as a merciful provision in its stead, and is surely a proof of one step towards a more elevated state of moral improvement. But in the case of Britain and the whole of Europe, the slave was of the same original stock with the master; he, therefore, presented no physical impediment to amalgamation, by which has been brought about whatever of equality now exists among their descendants. ”

“ Or, a case might be, for it is presumable, that the master, from some obliqueness of understanding, might not wish some slave, even in good health, to labour at all, but would prefer, at great expense, to maintain such slave in luxury and idleness, clothed in purple and fine linen, and faring sumptuously every day: surely, such slave, would be under no obligation to labour for the benefit of the master, when, to do so, would be acting contrary to his will and command. Yet none of these circumstances make the slave a freeman, or alter at all the essentials of slavery. ”

“ Such has been the condition of the race through all time, while falsehood has often mingled in her ingredients, adding misery to the degradation of man;—for it is truly observable that falsehood has for ever led to deeper degradation, to an increased departure from the laws of civil rule. So far as human intellect has threaded its way along the path of truth and through the mazes of human depravity, so far has man improved his condition by increasing his knowledge and power,—while a reversed condition has ever attended a retrograde movement. ”

“ Then the name of republicanism ought to become a by-word and reproach among the nations. Then monarchy, limited as it is in England, is incomparably better and happier than our more popular forms. Then, despotism, as it exists in Prussia, where equal laws are in the main administered with impartiality, ought to be preferred. A republican government, bought by the sacrifice of half, or more than half of a people, stripping them of their most sacred rights, by degrading them to a brutal condition, would cost too much. A freedom so tainted with wrong ought to be our abhorrence. ”

“ We can spend but little time with such infidel principles as lead some men to say, “Down with your Bible that teaches slavery.” “If the religion of Jesus Christ allows slavery, the New Testament is the greatest curse that could be inflicted on man.” “Down with your God who upholds slavery; he shall be no God of mine.” “Jesus Christ was himself a negro!” Our hearts bleed when we see such evidence of a destroyed intellect. The maniac in his ravings excites our extreme sorrow. We feel no harshness. He has sunk far below resentment. ”

“ May they not have been slaves in the strict and proper sense, and may not his act of purchasing them have been, in fact, a species of emancipation in a way similar to that in which God emancipates his people from the galling servitude of sin? The mere act of paying a price for them no more implies that he continued to hold them as slaves, than it does now when a man purchases his wife or child who have been held as slaves, or than the fact that God has redeemed his people by a price, implies that he regards them as slaves. ”

“ Barnes really mean to say, what is the fact, that the condition of slavery is so well adapted to the negro race, that, by it, their comforts, peace of mind, and general happiness are made so certain and well-secured to them, that they increase rapidly? And that, as they are a race of people whom we do not desire to bear rule over us, or become more numerous than they now are, it would be good policy, and he desires, to set them free, in order that they may be deprived of their present comforts, peace of mind, and happiness, with the view to lessen their increase, and waste them away? ”