The Anti-Slavery Examiner Volume II Part 60

The Barbadian of November 21, speaks of a "mega.s.s house" set on fire in this island which the peasantry refused to extinguish, and adds that but half work is performed by the laborer in that parish. "Those of the adjoining parish," its says, "are said to be working satisfactorily." In a subsequent paper we notice a report from the Chief of Police to the Lieutenant Governor, which speaks favorably of the general working of the negroes, as far as he had been able to ascertain by inquiry into a district comprising one-third of the laborers.

The New York Commercial Advertiser of February 25, has a communication from Amos Townsend, Esq., Cashier of the New Haven Bank; dated New Haven, February 21, 1839, from which we make the following extract. He says he obtained his information from one of the most extensive shipping houses in that city connected with the West India trade.

"A Mr. Jackson, a planter from St. Vincents, has been in this city within a few day, and says that the emanc.i.p.ation of the slaves on that island works extremely well; and that his plantation produces more and yields a larger profit than it has ever done before. The emanc.i.p.ated slaves now do in eight hours what was before considered a two-days' task, and he pays the laborers a dollar a day.

Mr. Jackson further states that he, and Mr. Nelson, of Trinidad, with another gentleman from the same islands, have been to Washington, and conferred with Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Clay, _to endeavour to concert some plan to get colored laborers from this country to emigrate to these islands, as there is a great want of hands._ They offer one dollar a day for able bodied hands. The gentlemen at Washington were pleased with the idea of thus disposing of the free blacks at the South, and would encourage their efforts to induce that cla.s.s of the colored people to emigrate. Mr. Calhoun remarked that it was the most feasible plan of colonizing the free blacks that had ever been suggested.

This is the amount of my information, and comes in so direct a channel as leaves no room to doubt its correctness. What our southern champions will now say to this direct testimony from their brother planters of the West Indies, of the practicability and safety of immediate emanc.i.p.ation, remains to be seen. Truly yours."

AMOS TOWNSEND, JUN.

ST. LUCIA.

Saint Lucia.--The Palladium states that affairs are becoming worse every day with the planters. Their properties are left without labourers to work them; their buildings broken into, stores and produce stolen, ground provisions destroyed, stock robbed, and they themselves insulted and laughed at.

On Sat.u.r.day night, the Commissary of Police arrived in town from the third and fourth districts, with some twenty or thirty prisoners, who had been convicted before the Chief Justice of having a.s.saulted the police in the execution of their duty, and sent to gaol.

"It has been deemed necessary to call for military aid with a view of humbling the high and extravagant ideas entertained by the ex-apprentices upon the independence of their present condition; thirty-six men of the first West India regiment, and twelve of the seventy-fourth have been accordingly despatched; the detachment embarked yesterday on board Mr. Muter's schooner, the Louisa, to land at Soufriere, and march into the interior."

In both the above cases where the military was called out, the provocation was given by the white. And in both cases it was afterwards granted to be needless. Indeed, in the quelling of one of these fact.i.tious rebellions, the prisoners taken were two white men, and one of them a manager.

THE CHATTEL PRINCIPLE

THE ABHORRENCE OF JESUS CHRIST AND THE APOSTLES; OR NO REFUGE FOR AMERICAN SLAVERY

IN

THE NEW TESTAMENT.

NEW YORK PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY.

NO. 143 Na.s.sAU STREET.

1839

_Please read and circulate._

The

NEW TESTAMENT AGAINST SLAVERY.

"THE SON OF MAN IS COME TO SEEK AND TO SAVE THAT WHICH WAS LOST."

Is Jesus Christ in favor of American slavery? In 1776 THOMAS JEFFERSON, supported by a n.o.ble band of patriots and surrounded by the American people, opened his lips in the authoritative declaration: "We hold these truths to be SELF-EVIDENT, _that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, LIBERTY and the pursuit of happiness._" And from the inmost heart of the mult.i.tudes around, and in a strong and clear voice, broke forth the unanimous and decisive answer: Amen--such truths we do indeed hold to be self-evident. And animated and sustained by a declaration, so inspiring and sublime, they rushed to arms, and as the result of agonizing efforts and dreadful sufferings, achieved under G.o.d the independence of their country. The great truth, whence they derived light and strength to a.s.sert and defend their rights, they made the foundation of their republic. And in the midst of _this republic_, must we prove, that He, who was the Truth, did not contradict "the truths"

which He Himself, as their Creator, had made self-evident to mankind?

Is Jesus Christ in favor of American slavery? What, according to those laws which make it what it is, is American slavery? In the Statute-Book of South Carolina thus it is written:[A] "Slaves shall be deemed, sold, taken, reputed and adjudged in law to be _chattels personal_ in the hands of their owners and possessors, and their executors, administrators and a.s.signs, to all intents, constructions and purposes whatever." The very root of American slavery consists in the a.s.sumption, that _law has reduced men to chattels_. But this a.s.sumption is, and must be, a gross falsehood. Men and cattle are separated from each other by the Creator, immutably, eternally, and by an impa.s.sable gulf. To confound or identify men and cattle must be to _lie_ most wantonly, impudently, and maliciously. And must we prove, that Jesus Christ is not in favor of palpable, monstrous falsehood?

[Footnote A: Stroud's Slave Laws, p. 23.]

Is Jesus Christ in favor of American slavery? How can a system, built upon a stout and impudent denial of self-evident truth--a system of treating men like cattle--operate? Thomas Jefferson shall answer. Hear him.[B] "The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous pa.s.sions; the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submission on the other. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives loose to his worst pa.s.sions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, can not but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy, who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circ.u.mstances." Such is the practical operation of a system, which puts men and cattle into the same family and treats them alike. And must we prove, that Jesus Christ is not in favor of a school where the worst vices in their most hateful forms are systematically and efficiently taught and practiced?

[Footnote B: Notes on Virginia.]

Is Jesus Christ in favor of American slavery? What, in 1818, did the General a.s.sembly of the Presbyterian church affirm respecting its nature and operation?[C] "Slavery creates a paradox in the moral system--it exhibits rational, accountable, and immortal beings, in such circ.u.mstances as scarcely to leave them the power of moral action. It exhibits them as dependent on the will of others, whether they shall receive religious instruction; whether they shall know and worship the true G.o.d; whether they shall enjoy the ordinances of the gospel; whether they shall perform the duties and cherish the endearments of husbands and wives, parents and children, neighbors and friends; whether they shall preserve their chast.i.ty and purity, or regard the dictates of justice and humanity. Such are some of the consequences of slavery; consequences not imaginary, but which connect themselves with its very existence. The evils to which the slave is _always_ exposed, _often take place_ in their very worst degree and form; and where all of them do not take place, still the slave is deprived of his natural rights, degraded as a human being, and exposed to the danger of pa.s.sing into the hands of a master who may inflict upon him all the hardships and injuries which inhumanity and avarice may suggest." Must we prove, that Jesus Christ is not in favor of such things?

[Footnote C: Minutes of the General a.s.sembly for 1818, p. 29.]

Is Jesus Christ in favor of American slavery? It is already widely felt and openly acknowledged at the South, that they can not support slavery without sustaining the opposition of universal christendom. And Thomas Jefferson declared, that "he trembled for his country when he reflected, that G.o.d is just; that his justice can not sleep forever; that considering numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events; that it may become practicable by supernatural influences! The Almighty has no attribute which can take sides with us in such a contest."[A] And must we prove, that Jesus Christ is not in favor of what universal christendom is impelled to abhor, denounce, and oppose;--is not in favor of what every attribute of Almighty G.o.d is armed against?

[Footnote A: Notes on Virginia]

"YE HAVE DESPISED THE POOR."

It is no man of straw, with whom in making out such proof we are called to contend. Would to G.o.d we had no other antagonist! Would to G.o.d that our labor of love could be regarded as a work of supererogation! But we may well be ashamed and grieved; to find it necessary to "stop the mouths" of grave and learned ecclesiastics, who from the heights of Zion have undertaken to defend the inst.i.tution of slavery. We speak not now of those, who amidst the monuments of oppression are engaged in the sacred vocation; who as ministers of the Gospel can "prophesy smooth things" to such as pollute the altar of Jehovah with human sacrifices; nay, who themselves bind the victim and kindle the sacrifice. That _they_ should put their Savior to the torture, to wring from his lips something in favor of slavery, is not to be wondered at. They consent to the murder of the children; can they respect the rights of the Father?

But what shall we say of theological professors at the North--professors of sacred literature at our oldest divinity schools--who stand up to defend, both by argument and authority, southern slavery! And from the Bible! Who, Balaam-like, try a thousand expedients to force from the mouth of Jehovah a sentence which they know the heart of Jehovah abhors!

Surely we have here something more mischievous and formidable than a man of straw. More than two years ago, and just before the meeting of the General a.s.sembly of the Presbyterian church, appeared an article in the Biblical Repertory,[A] understood to be from the pen of the Professor of Sacred Literature at Princeton, in which an effort is made to show, that slavery, whatever may be said of _any abuses_ of it, is _not a violation of the precepts of the Gospel_. This article, we are informed, was industriously and extensively distributed among the members of the General a.s.sembly--a body of men, who by a frightful majority seemed already too much disposed to wink at the horrors of slavery. The effect of the Princeton Apology on the southern mind, we have high authority for saying, has been most decisive and injurious. It has contributed greatly to turn the public eye off from the sin--from the inherent and necessary _evils of slavery_ to incidental evils, which the _abuse_ of it might be expected to occasion. And how few can be brought to admit, that whatever abuses may prevail n.o.body knows where or how, any such thing is chargeable upon them! Thus our Princeton prophet has done what he could to lay the southern conscience asleep upon ingenious perversions of the sacred volume!

[Footnote A: For April, 1836. The General a.s.sembly of the Presbyterian Church met in the following May, at Pittsburgh, where, in pamphlet form, this article was distributed. The following appeared upon the t.i.tle page:

PITTSBURGH: 1836.

_For gratuitous distribution_.

About a year after this, an effort in the same direction was jointly made by Dr. Fisk and Prof. Stuart. In a letter to a Methodist clergyman, Mr. Merritt, published in Zion's Herald, Dr. Fisk gives utterance to such things as the following:--"But that you and the public may see and _feel_, that you have the ablest and those who are among the honestest men of this age, arrayed against you, be pleased to notice the following letter from Prof. Stuart." I wrote to him, knowing as I did his integrity of purpose, his unflinching regard for truth, as well as his deserved reputation as a scholar and biblical critic, proposing the following questions:--

1. Does the New Testament directly or indirectly teach, that slavery existed in the primitive church?

2. In 1 Tim. vi. 2, And they that have believing masters, &c., what is the relation expressed or implied between "they" (servants) and "_believing masters_?" And what are your reasons for the construction of the pa.s.sage?

3. What was the character of ancient and eastern slavery?--Especially what (legal) power did this relation give the master over the slave?

PROFESSOR STUART'S REPLY.

ANDOVER, 10th April, 1837.

REV. AND DEAR SIR,--Yours is before me. A sickness of three months'

standing (typhus fever,) in which I have just escaped death, and which still confines me to my house, renders it impossible for me to answer your letter at large.

1. The precepts of the New Testament respecting the demeanor of slaves and of their masters, beyond all question, recognize the existence of slavery. The masters are in part "believing masters,"

so that a precept to them, how they are to behave as _masters_, recognizes that the relation may still exist, _salva fide et salva ecclesia_, ("without violating the Christian faith or the church.") Otherwise, Paul had nothing to do but to cut the band asunder at once. He could not lawfully and properly temporize with a _malum in se_, ("that which is in itself sin.")

If any one doubts, let him take the case of Paul's sending Onesimus back to Philemon, with an apology for his running away, and sending him back to be his servant for life. The relation did exist, may exist. The _abuse_ of it is the essential and fundamental wrong. Not that the theory of slavery is in itself right. No; "Love thy neighbor as thyself," "Do unto others that which ye would that others should do unto you," decide against this. But the relation once const.i.tuted and continued, is not such a _malum in se_ as calls for immediate and violent disruption at all hazards. So Paul did not counsel.