Cotton is King, and Pro-Slavery Arguments Part 63

The case of the American and Ocean Insurance Companies _v._ Canter (1 Peters, 511) referred to and examined, showing that the decision in this case is not in conflict with that opinion, and that the court did not, in the case referred to, decide upon the construction of the clause of the Const.i.tution above mentioned, because the case before them did not make it necessary to decide the question.

3. The United States, under the present Const.i.tution, cannot acquire territory to be held as a colony, to be governed at its will and pleasure. But it may acquire territory which, at the time, has not a population that fits it to become a State, and may govern it as a Territory until it has a population which, in the judgment of Congress, ent.i.tles it to be admitted as a State of the Union.

4. During the time it remains a Territory, Congress may legislate over it within the scope of its const.i.tutional powers in relation to citizens of the United States--and may establish a Territorial Government--and the form of this local Government must be regulated by the discretion of Congress, but with powers not exceeding those which Congress itself, by the Const.i.tution, is authorized to exercise over citizens of the United States, in respect to their rights of persons or rights of property.

IV.

1. The territory thus acquired, is acquired by the people of the United States for their common and equal benefit, through their agent and trustee, the Federal Government. Congress can exercise no power over the rights of person or property of a citizen in the Territory which is prohibited by the Const.i.tution. The Government and the citizen, whenever the Territory is open to settlement, both enter it with their respective rights defined and limited by the Const.i.tution.

2. Congress has no right to prohibit the citizens of any particular State or States from taking up their home there, while it permits citizens of other States to do so. Nor has it a right to give privileges to one cla.s.s of citizens which it refuses to another. The territory is acquired for their equal and common benefit--and if open to any, it must be open to all upon equal and the same terms.

3. Every citizen has a right to take with him into the Territory any article of property which the Const.i.tution of the United States recognizes as property.

4. The Const.i.tution of the United States recognizes slaves as property, and pledges the Federal Government to protect it. And Congress cannot exercise any more authority over property of that description than it may const.i.tutionally exercise over property of any other kind.

5. The act of Congress, therefore, prohibiting a citizen of the United States from taking with him his slaves when he removes to the Territory in question to reside, is an exercise of authority over private property which is not warranted by the Const.i.tution--and the removal of the plaintiff, by his owner, to that Territory, gave him no t.i.tle to freedom.

V.

1. The plaintiff himself acquired no t.i.tle to freedom by being taken, by his owner, to Rock Island, in Illinois, and brought back to Missouri.

This court has heretofore decided that the _status_ or condition of a person of African descent depended on the laws of the State in which he resided.

2. It has been settled by the decisions of the highest court in Missouri, that by the laws of that State, a slave does not become ent.i.tled to his freedom, where the owner takes him to reside in a State where slavery is not permitted, and afterwards brings him back to Missouri.

Conclusion. It follows that it is apparent upon the record that the court below erred in its judgment on the plea in abatement, and also erred in giving judgment for the defendant, when the exception shows that the plaintiff was not a citizen of the United States. And as the Circuit Court had no jurisdiction, either in the case stated in the plea in abatement, or in the one stated in the exception, its judgment in favor of the defendant is erroneous, and must be reversed.

THE

FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.

BY

REV. CHARLES HODGE, D.D.

OF NEW JERSEY.

THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.

NOTE.--We have affixed, by way of comment to "the decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case," the following able paper from the pen of Prof. Hodge. It lucidly explains the source and sanction of Civil Government, and deduces therefrom the duties and responsibilities of the governed.--ED.

Alleged Immorality of the Law answered--Duty of Obedience--Government a Divine Inst.i.tution--The Warrant of Government is not the consent of the governed--Infidel Doctrines--Deductions from this Doctrine--Decision of the Supreme Court--Objections answered--Conscience and the Law--Duty of Executive Officers--Duty of Private Citizens--Objections answered--Right of Revolution--Summary application of these principles to the Fugitive Slave Law--Conclusion.

THERE is no more obvious duty, at the present time, resting on American Christians, ministers and people, than to endeavor to promote kind feelings between the South and the North. All fierce addresses to the pa.s.sions, on either side, are fratricidal. It is an offense against the gospel, against our common country, and against G.o.d. Every one should endeavor to diffuse right principles, and thus secure right feeling and action, under the blessing of G.o.d in every part of the land. If the South has no such grounds of complaint as would justify them before G.o.d and the human race, whose trustees in one important sense they are, in dissolving the Union, how is it with the North? Are they justifiable in the violent resistance to the fugitive slave bill, which has been threatened or attempted? This opposition in a great measure has been confined to the abolitionists as a party, and as such they are a small minority of the people. They have never included in their ranks either the controlling intellect or moral feeling at the North. Their fundamental principle is anti-scriptural and therefore irreligious.

They a.s.sume that slaveholding is sinful. This doctrine is the life of the sect. It has no power over those who reject that principle, and therefore it has not gained ascendency over those whose faith is governed by the word of G.o.d.

We have ever maintained that the proper method of opposing this party, and of counteracting its pernicious influence, was to exhibit clearly the falsehood of its one idea, viz: that slaveholding is a sin against G.o.d. The discussion has now taken a new turn. It is a.s.sumed that the fugitiue slave law of the last Congress, (1850) is unconst.i.tutional, or if not contrary to the Const.i.tution, contrary to the law of G.o.d. Under this impression many who have never been regarded as abolitionists, have entered their protest against the law, and some in their haste have inferred from its supposed unconst.i.tutionality or immorality that it ought to be openly resisted. It is obvious that the proper method of dealing with the subject in this new aspect, is to demonstrate that the law in question is according to the Const.i.tution of the land; that it is not inconsistent with the divine law; or, admitting its unconst.i.tutionality or immorality, that the resistance recommended is none the less a sin against G.o.d. We do not propose to discuss either of the two former of these propositions. The const.i.tutionality of the law may safely be left in the hands of the const.i.tuted authorities. It is enough for us that there is no flagrant and manifest inconsistency between the law and the const.i.tution; that the first legal authorities in the land p.r.o.nounce them perfectly consistent; and that there is no difference in principle between the present law and that of 1793 on the same subject, in which the whole country has acquiesced for more than half a century. We would also say that after having read some of the most labored disquisitions designed to prove that the fugitive slave bill subverts the fundamental principles of our federal compact, we have been unable to discover the least force in the arguments adduced.

As to the immorality of the law, so far as we can discover, the whole stress of the argument in the affirmative rests on two a.s.sumptions.

First, that the law of G.o.d in Deuteronomy, expressly forbids the restoration of a fugitive slave to his owner; and secondly, that slavery itself being sinful, it must be wrong to enforce the claims of the master to the service of the slave. As to the former of these a.s.sumptions, we would simply remark, that the venerable Prof. Stuart in his recent work, "Conscience and the Const.i.tution," has clearly proved that the law in Deuteronomy has no application to the present case. The thing there forbidden is the restoration of a slave who had fled from a heathen master and taken refuge among the worshipers of the true G.o.d.

Such a man was not to be forced back into heathenism. This is the obvious meaning and spirit of the command. That it has no reference to slaves who had escaped from Hebrew masters, and fled from one tribe or city to another, is plain from the simple fact that the Hebrew laws recognized slavery. It would be a perfect contradiction if the law authorized the purchase and holding of slaves, and yet forbid the enforcing the right of possession. There could be no such thing as slavery, in such a land as Palestine, if the slave could recover his liberty by simply moving from one tribe to another over an imaginary line, or even from the house of his master to that of his next neighbor.

Besides, how inconsistent is it in the abolitionists in one breath to maintain that the laws of Moses did not recognize slavery, and in the next, that the laws about the restoration of slaves referred to the slaves of Hebrew masters. According to their doctrine, there could be among the Israelites no slaves to restore. They must admit either that the law of G.o.d allowed the Hebrews to hold slaves, and then there is an end to their arguments against the sinfulness of slaveholding; or acknowledge that the law representing the restoration of slaves referred only to fugitives from the heathen, and then there is an end to their argument from this enactment against the law under consideration.

The way in which abolitionists treat the Scriptures makes it evident that the command in Deuteronomy is urged not so much out of regard to the authority of the word of G.o.d, as an argumentum ad hominem. Wherever the Scriptures either in the Old or New Testament recognize the lawfulness of holding slaves, they are tortured without mercy to force from them a different response; and where, as in this case, they appear to favor the other side of the question, abolitionists quote them rather to silence those who make them the rule of their faith, than as the ground of their own convictions. Were there no such law as that in Deuteronomy in existence, or were there a plain injunction to restore a fugitive from service to his Hebrew master, it is plain from their principles that they would none the less fiercely condemn the law under consideration. Their opposition is not founded on the scriptural command. It rests on the a.s.sumption that the master's claim is iniquitous and ought not to be enforced.[258] Their objections are not to the mode of delivery, but to the delivery itself. Why else quote the law in Deuteronomy, which apparently forbids such surrender of the fugitive to his master? It is clear that no effective enactment could be framed on this subject which would not meet with the same opposition. We are convinced, by reading the discussions on this subject, that the immorality attributed to the fugitive slave law resolves itself into the a.s.sumed immorality of slaveholding. No man would object to restoring an apprentice to his master; and no one would quote Scripture or search for arguments to prove it sinful to restore a fugitive slave, if he believed slaveholding to be lawful in the sight of G.o.d. This being the case, we feel satisfied that the ma.s.s of people at the North, whose conscience and action are ultimately determined by the teachings of the Bible, will soon settle down into the conviction that the law in question is not in conflict with the law of G.o.d.

But suppose the reverse to be the fact; suppose it clearly made out that the law pa.s.sed by Congress in reference to fugitive slaves is contrary to the Const.i.tution or to the law of G.o.d, what is to be done? What is the duty of the people under such circ.u.mstances? The answers given to this question are very different, and some of them so portentous that the public mind has been aroused and directed to the consideration of the nature of civil government and of the grounds and limits of the obedience due to the laws of the land. As this is a subject not merely of general interest at this time, but of permanent importance, we purpose to devote to its discussion the few following pages.

Our design is to state in few words in what sense government is a divine inst.i.tution, and to draw from that doctrine the principles which must determine the nature and limits of the obedience which is due the laws of the land.

That the Bible, when it a.s.serts that all power is of G.o.d, or the powers that be are ordained of G.o.d, does not teach that any one form of civil government has been divinely appointed as universally obligatory, is plain because the Scriptures contain no such prescription. There are no directions given as to the form which civil governments shall a.s.sume.

All the divine commands on this subject, are as applicable under one form as another. The direction is general; obey the powers that be. The propsition is unlimited; all power is of G.o.d; i. e., government, whatever its form, is of G.o.d. He has ordained it. The most pointed scriptural injunctions on this subject were given during the usurped or tyrannical reign of military despots. It is plain that the sacred writers did not, in such pa.s.sages, mean to teach that a military despotism was the form of government which G.o.d had ordained as of perpetual and universal obligation. As the Bible enjoins no one form, so the people of G.o.d in all ages, under the guidance of his Spirit, have lived with a good conscience, under all the diversities of organization of which human government is susceptible.

Again, as no one form of government is prescribed, so neither has G.o.d determined preceptively who are to exercise civil power. He has not said that such power must be hereditary, and descend on the principle of primogeniture. He has not determined whether it shall be confined to males to the exclusion of females; or whether all offices shall be elective. These are not matters of divine appointment, and are not included in the proposition that all power is of G.o.d. Neither is it included in this proposition that government is in such a sense ordained of G.o.d that the people have no control in the matter. The doctrine of the Bible is not inconsistent with the right of the people, as we shall endeavor to show in the sequel, to determine their own form of government and to select their own rulers.

When it is said government is of G.o.d, we understand the Scriptures to mean, first, that it is a divine inst.i.tution and not a mere social compact. It does not belong to the category of voluntary a.s.sociations such as men form for literary, benevolent, or commercial purposes. It is not optional with men whether government shall exist. It is a divine appointment, in the same sense as marriage and the church are divine inst.i.tutions. The former of these is not a mere civil contract, nor is the church as a visible spiritual community a mere voluntary society.

Men are under obligation to recognize its existence, to join its ranks and submit to its laws. In like manner it is the will of G.o.d that civil government should exist. Men are bound by his authority to have civil rulers for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that do well. This is the scriptural doctrine, as opposed to the deistical theory of a social compact as the ultimate ground of all human governments.

It follows from this view of the subject that obedience to the laws of the land is a religious duty, and that disobedience is of the specific nature of sin; this is a principle of vast importance. It is true that the law of G.o.d is so broad that it binds a man to every thing that is right, and forbids every thing that is wrong; and consequently that every violation even of a voluntary engagement is of the nature of an offense against G.o.d. Still there is a wide difference between disobedience to an obligation voluntarily a.s.sumed, and which has no other sanction than our own engagement, and disregard of an obligation directly imposed of G.o.d. St. Peter recognizes this distinction when he said to Annanias, Thou hast not lied unto men but unto G.o.d. All lying is sinful, but lying to G.o.d is a higher crime than lying to men. There is greater irreverence and contempt of the divine presence and authority, and a violation of an obligation of a higher order. Every man feels that the marriage vows have a sacred character which could not belong to them, if marriage was merely a civil contract. In like manner the divine inst.i.tution of government elevates it into the sphere of religion, and adds a new and higher sanction to the obligations which it imposes.

There is a specific difference, more easily felt than described, between what is religious and what is merely moral; between disobedience to man and resistance to an ordinance of G.o.d.

A third point included in the scriptural doctrine on this subject is, that the actual existence of any government creates the obligation of obedience. That is, the obligation does not rest either on the origin or the nature of the government, or on the mode in which it is administered. It may be legitimate or revolutionary, despotic or const.i.tutional, just or unjust, so long as it exists it is to be recognized and obeyed within its proper sphere. The powers that be are ordained of G.o.d in such sense that the possession of power is to be referred to his providence. It is not by chance, nor through the uncontrolled agency of men, but by divine ordination that any government exists. The declaration of the apostle just quoted was uttered under the reign of Nero. It is as true of his authority as of that of the Queen of England, or that of our own President, that it was of G.o.d. He made Nero Emperor. He required all within the limits of the Roman empire to recognize and obey him so long as he was allowed to occupy the throne.

It was not necessary for the early Christians to sit in judgment on the t.i.tle of every new emperor, whenever the pretorian guards chose to put down one and put up another; neither are G.o.d's people now in various parts of the world called upon to discuss the t.i.tles and adjudicate the claims of their rulers. The possession of civil power is a providential fact, and is to be regarded as such. This does not imply that G.o.d approves of every government which he allows to exist. He permits oppressive rulers to bear sway, just as he permits famine or pestilence to execute his vengeance. A good government is a blessing, a bad government is a judgment; but the one as much as the other is ordained of G.o.d, and is to be obeyed not only for fear but also for conscience sake.

A fourth principle involved in the proposition that all power is of G.o.d is, that the magistrate is invested with a divine right. He represents G.o.d. His authority is derived from Him. There is a sense in which he represents the people and derives from them his power; but in a far higher sense he is the minister of G.o.d. To resist him is to resist G.o.d, and "they that resist shall receive unto themselves d.a.m.nation." Thus saith the Scriptures. It need hardly be remarked that this principle relates to the nature, and not to the extent, of the power of the magistrate. It is as true of the lowest as of the highest; of a justice of the peace as of the President of the United States; of a const.i.tutional monarch as of an absolute sovereign. The principle is that the authority of rulers is divine, and not human, in its origin.

They exercise the power which belongs to them of divine right. The reader, we trust, will not confound this doctrine with the old doctrine of "the divine right of kings." The two things are as different as day and night. We are not for reviving a defunct theory of civil government; a theory which perished, at least among Anglo-Saxons, at the expulsion of James II. from the throne of England. That monarch took it with him into exile, and it lies entombed with the last of the Stuarts. According to that theory G.o.d had established the monarchical form of government as universally obligatory. There could not consistently with his law be any other. The people had no more right to renounce that form of government than the children of a family have to resolve themselves into a democracy. In the second place, it a.s.sumed that G.o.d had determined the law of succession as well as the form of government. The people could not change the one any more than the other; or any more than children could change their father, or a wife her husband. And thirdly, as a necessary consequence of these principles, it inculcated in all cases the duty of pa.s.sive obedience. The king holding his office immediately from G.o.d, held it entirely independent of the will of the people, and his responsibility was to G.o.d alone. He could not forfeit his throne by any injustice however flagrant. The people, if in any case they could not obey, were obliged to submit; resistance or revolution was treason against G.o.d. We have already remarked that the scriptural doctrine is opposed to every one of these principles. The Bible does not prescribe any one form of government; it does not determine who shall be depositories of civil power; and it clearly recognizes the right of revolution. In a.s.serting, therefore, the divine right of rulers, we are not a.s.serting any doctrine repudiated by our forefathers, or inconsistent with civil liberty in its widest rational extent.

Such, as we understand it, is the true nature of civil government. It is a divine inst.i.tution and not a mere voluntary compact. Obedience to the magistrate and laws is a religious duty; and disobedience is a sin against G.o.d. This is true of all forms of government. Men living under the Turkish Sultan are bound to recognize his authority, as much as the subjects of a const.i.tutional monarch, or the fellow-citizens of an elective president, are bound to recognize their respective rulers. All power is of G.o.d, and the powers that be are ordained of G.o.d, in such sense that all magistrates are to be regarded as his ministers, acting in his name and with his authority, each within his legitimate sphere; beyond which he ceases to be a magistrate.

That this is the doctrine of the Scriptures on this subject can hardly be doubted. The Bible never refers to the consent of the governed, the superiority of the rulers, or to the general principles of expediency, as the ground of our obligation to the higher powers. The obedience which slaves owe their masters, children their parents, wives their husbands, people their rulers, is always made to rest on the divine will as its ultimate foundation. It is part of the service which we owe to G.o.d. We are required to act, in all these relations, not as men-pleasers, but as the servants of G.o.d. All such obedience terminates on our Master who is in heaven. This gives the sublimity of spiritual freedom even to the service of a slave. It is not in the power of man to reduce to bondage those who serve G.o.d, in all the service they render their fellow-men. The will of G.o.d, therefore, is the foundation of our obligation to obey the laws of the land. His will, however, is not an arbitrary determination; it is the expression of infinite intelligence and love. There is the most perfect agreement between all the precepts of the Bible and the highest dictates of reason. There is no command in the word of G.o.d of permanent and universal obligation, which may not be shown to be in accordance with the laws of our own higher nature. This is one of the strongest collateral arguments in favor of the divine origin of the Scriptures. In appealing therefore to the Bible in support of the doctrine here advanced, we are not, on the one hand appealing to an arbitrary standard, a mere statute book, a collection of laws which create the obligations they enforce; nor, on the other hand, to "the reason and nature of things" in the abstract, which after all is only our own reason; but we are appealing to the infinite intelligence of a personal G.o.d, whose will, because of his infinite excellence, is necessarily the ultimate ground and rule of all moral obligation. This, however, being the case, whatever the Bible declares to be right is found to be in accordance with the const.i.tution of nature and our own reason. All that the Scriptures, for example, teach of the subordination of children to their parents, of wives to their husbands, has not its foundation, but its confirmation, in the very nature of the relation of the parties. Any violation of the precepts of the Bible, on these points, is found to be a violation of the laws of nature, and certainly destructive. In like manner it is clear from the social nature of man, from the dependence of men upon each other, from the impossibility of attaining the end of our being in this world, otherwise than in society and under an ordered government, that it is the will of G.o.d that such society should exist. The design of G.o.d in this matter is as plain as in the const.i.tution of the universe. We might as well maintain that the laws of nature are the result of chance, or that marriage and parental authority have no other foundation than human law, as to a.s.sert that civil government has no firmer foundation than the will of man or the quicksands of expediency. By creating men social beings, and making it necessary for them to live in society, G.o.d has made his will as thus revealed the foundation of all civil government.

This doctrine is but one aspect of the comprehensive doctrine of Theism, a doctrine which teaches the existence of a personal G.o.d, a Spirit infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, justice, holiness, goodness, and truth; a G.o.d who is everywhere present upholding and governing all his creatures and all their actions. The universe is not a machine left to go of itself. G.o.d did not at first create matter and impress upon it certain laws and then leave it to their blind operation. He is everywhere present in the material world, not superseding secondary causes, but so upholding and guiding their operations, that the intelligence evinced is the omnipresent intelligence of G.o.d, and the power exercised is the _potestas ordinata_ of the Great First Cause. He is no less supreme in his control of intelligent agents. They indeed are free, but not independent. They are governed in a manner consistent with their nature; yet G.o.d turns them as the rivers of waters are turned. All events depending on human agency are under his control. G.o.d is in history. Neither chance nor blind necessity determine the concatenation or issues of things. Nor is the world in the hands of its inhabitants. G.o.d has not launched our globe on the ocean of s.p.a.ce and left its mult.i.tudinous crew to direct its course without his interference. He is at the helm. His breath fills the sails.

His wisdom and power are pledged for the prosperity of the voyage.

Nothing happens, even to the falling of a sparrow, which is not ordered by him. He works all things after the counsel of his will. It is by him that kings reign and princes decree justice. He puts down one, and raises up another. As he leads out the stars by night, marshaling them as a host, calling each one by its name, so does he order all human events. He raises up nations and appoints the bounds of their habitation. He founds the empires of the earth and determines their form and their duration. This doctrine of G.o.d's universal providence is the foundation of all religion. If this doctrine be not true, we are without G.o.d in the world. But if it is true, it involves a vast deal. G.o.d is everywhere in nature and in history. Every thing is a revelation of his presence and power. We are always in contact with him. Every thing has a voice, which speaks of his goodness or his wrath; fruitful seasons proclaim his goodness, famine and pestilence declare his displeasure.

Nothing is by chance. The existence of any particular form of government is as much his work, as the rising of the sun or falling of the rain. It is something he has ordained for some wise purpose, and it is to be regarded as his work. If all events are under G.o.d's control, if it is by him that kings reign, then the actual possession of power is as much a revelation of his will that it should be obeyed, as the possession of wisdom or goodness is a manifestation of his will that those endowed with those gifts, should be reverenced and loved. It follows, therefore, from the universal providence of G.o.d, that "the powers that be are ordained of G.o.d." We have no more right to refuse obedience to an actually existing government because it is not to our taste, or because we do not approve of its measures, than a child has the right to refuse to recognize a wayward parent; or a wife a capricious husband.

The religious character of our civil duties flows also from the comprehensive doctrine that the will of G.o.d is the ground of all moral obligation. To seek that ground either in "the reason and nature of things," or in expediency, is to banish G.o.d from the moral world, as effectually as the mechanical theory of the universe banishes him from the physical universe and from history. Our allegiance on that hypothesis is not to G.o.d but to reason or to society. This theory of morals therefore, changes the nature of religion and of moral obligation. It modifies and degrades all religious sentiment and exercises; it changes the very nature of sin, of repentance and obedience, and gives us, what is a perfect solecism, a religion without G.o.d. According to the Bible, our obligation to obey the laws of the land is not founded on the fact that the good of society requires such obedience, or that it is a dictate of reason, but on the authority of G.o.d. It is part of the service which we owe to him. This must be so if the doctrine is true that G.o.d is our moral governor, to whom we are responsible for all our acts, and whose will is both the ground and the rule of all our obligations.

We need not, however, dwell longer on this subject. Although it has long been common to look upon civil government as a human inst.i.tution, and to represent the consent of the governed as the only ground of the obligation of obedience, yet this doctrine is so notoriously of infidel origin, and so obviously in conflict with the teachings of the Bible, that it can have no hold on the convictions of a Christian people. It is no more true of the state than it is of the family, or of the church.