Lectures on the Philosophy and Practice of Slavery

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Title: Lectures on the Philosophy and Practice of Slavery

Author: William A. Smith

Editor: Thomas O. Summers

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Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LECTURES ON THE PHILOSOPHY AND PRACTICE OF SLAVERY ***

LECTURES ON THE Philosophy and Practice OF SLAVERY,
AS EXHIBITED IN THE INSTITUTION OF DOMESTIC SLAVERY
IN THE UNITED STATES:

WITH THE
Duties of Masters to Slaves.

BY
WILLIAM A. SMITH, D.D.,
PRESIDENT OF RANDOLPH-MACON COLLEGE,
AND PROFESSOR OF MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY.

EDITED BY THOMAS O. SUMMERS, D.D.

Nashville, Tenn.:
STEVENSON AND EVANS.
1856.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by
WILLIAM A. SMITH, In the Office of the Clerk of the District
Court for the Middle District of Tennessee.

STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY A. A. STITT,
SOUTHERN METHODIST PUBLISHING HOUSE, NASHVILLE, TENN.

Contents.

PREFACE

LECTURE I.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ON THE SUBJECT OF AFRICAN SLAVERY IN THE
UNITED STATES.

General subject enunciated--Why this discussion may be regarded
as humiliating by Southern people--Other stand-points, however,
disclose an urgent necessity, at this time, for a thorough
investigation of the whole subject--The results to which it is
the object of these lectures to conduct the mind

LECTURE II.

THE ABSTRACT PRINCIPLE OF THE INSTITUTION OF DOMESTIC SLAVERY.

If the system be sinful, _per se_, the sin of it must be found
in the principle--Is the principle sinful?--The principle
defined--Objections to the term “submission” answered--The
effects of Mr. Jefferson’s doctrine upon many conscientious
persons in the Southern States

LECTURE III.

OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED.

Objections classified--Popular views discussed--“All men are
born free and equal”--“All men are created equal”--“All men in
a state of nature are free and equal”--And the particular form
in which Dr. Wayland expresses the popular idea, viz., “The
relation in which men stand to each other is the relation of
equality; not equality of condition, but equality of
right”--Remarks on Dr. Wayland’s course--His treatise on Moral
Science as a text-book.

LECTURE IV.

THE QUESTION OF RIGHTS DISCUSSED.

Why it is necessary to define the term RIGHTS--The RIGHT in
itself defined to be the GOOD--The doctrine that the will of
God is the origin of the right considered--The will of God not
the origin of the right, but an expression of the right which
is the GOOD--Natural rights and acquired rights, each defined

LECTURE V.

THE DOCTRINES OF RIGHTS APPLIED TO GOVERNMENT.

Government, human as well as Divine, is a necessity of man’s
fallen condition--All men concur in this--Man did not originate
government: he has only modified the form--The legitimate
objects of government, and the means which it employs to effect
these objects--The logical inferences: 1. Although he has the
power, he has no _right_ to do _wrong_; 2. As a fallen being,
he is, without a government over him, liable to lose the power
of self-control--What are the rights of man, 1. In a state of
infancy, 2. In a state of maturity, and, 3. In a savage or
uncivilized state--Civil government is not founded on a
concession of rights

LECTURE VI.

THE ABSTRACT PRINCIPLE OF SLAVERY DISCUSSED ON SCRIPTURE
GROUNDS, AND MISREPRESENTATION OF THE PRINCIPLE EXAMINED.

The true subjective right of self-control defined according to
the Scriptures--The abstract principle of slavery sanctioned by
the Scriptures--The Roman government--Dr. Wayland’s Scripture
argument examined and refuted--The positions of Dr. Channing
and Professor Whewell examined and refuted

LECTURE VII.

THE INSTITUTION OF DOMESTIC SLAVERY.

The question stated--The conduct of masters a separate
question--The institution defined--The position of the
abolitionists, and that of the Southern people--The
_presumption_ is in favor of the latter--Those who claim
freedom for the blacks of this country failed to secure it to
those on whom they professed to confer it--The _doctrine_ by
which they seek to vindicate the claim set up for them,
together with the _fact_ of history assumed to be true, is
false

LECTURE VIII.

DOMESTIC SLAVERY, AS A SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT FOR THE AFRICANS IN
AMERICA, EXAMINED AND DEFENDED ON THE GROUND OF ITS ADAPTATION
TO THE PRESENT CONDITIONS OF THE RACE.

There should be a separate and subordinate government for our
African population--Objection answered--Africans are not
competent to that measure of self-government which entitles a
man to political sovereignty--They were not prepared for
freedom when first brought into the country; hence they were
placed under the domestic form of government--The humanity of
this policy--In the opinion of Southern people, they are still
unprepared--The fanaticism and rashness of some, and the
inexcusable wickedness of others, who oppose the South

LECTURE IX.

THE NECESSITY FOR THE INSTITUTION OF DOMESTIC SLAVERY
EXEMPLIFIED BY FACTS.

The attempts made at domestic colonization--The result of the
experiment in the case of our free colored population--The
colonization experiment on the coast of Africa--The example of
the Canaanitish nations--Summary of the argument on the general
point, and inferences

LECTURE X.

EMANCIPATION DOCTRINES DISCUSSED.

Gradual emancipation the popular plan--It would operate to
collect the slaves into a few States, cut them off from contact
with civilization, and reduce them to barbarism--It would make
an opening for Northern farmers and their menials to come into
those States from which they retired--The modifications which
the system of slavery has undergone within late years--A
comparison of the menials of the free and of the slave States,
and the only plan of emancipation admissible--The gospel the
only remedy for the evils of slavery--Paul’s philosophy and
practice, 1 Tim. vi. 1-5

LECTURE XI.

TEACHING THE SLAVES TO READ AND WRITE.

Superiors frequently neglect inferiors--The policy of the South
vindicated by necessity--The results that would follow an
_attempt_ to establish a system for instructing the blacks in
letters, and those which would follow the establishment of such
a system--The domestic element of the system of slavery in the
Southern States affords the means for their improvement adapted
to their condition and the circumstances of the country--It
affords the _natural_, _safe_, and the effectual means of the
intellectual and moral elevation of the race--The prospects of
the Africans in this country, and their final removal to
Africa--The country never will be entirely rid of them--The
Southern policy wise and humane

LECTURE XII.

THE CONSERVATIVE INFLUENCE OF THE AFRICAN POPULATION OF THE
SOUTH.

Preliminary remarks--American party--The present and
prospective condition of our country--The large number of
voters in the free-soil States who will be under a foreign
influence, political and religious, inducing them to discard
the Bible and the right of private judgment--The freedom of the
Southern States from this anti-Christian and anti-republican
influence--The presence of the African race in the Southern
States secures them this advantage--The unpatriotic policy of
freesoilism

LECTURE XIII.

THE DUTIES OF MASTERS TO SLAVES.

“Masters, give unto your servants (δούλοις, slaves) that which
is just and equal, knowing that ye also have a Master in
heaven.”--COL. iv. 1.

The duty of masters and the rights of slaves reciprocal--1. The
duty of masters to their slaves considered as “their money:” in
regard to working, resting, feeding, clothing, housing, and the
employment of persons over them: also to the sick and the aged.
2. Their duty to their slaves considered as social
beings--Punishments and the social principle discussed. 3.
Their duty to their slaves considered as religious
beings--Public instruction on the Sabbath and at other times,
and the opportunity of attending--The employment of preachers,
and the religious instruction of children

PREFACE.

The following pages contain the substance of Lectures on the subject
of Domestic Slavery in the United States, which for several years have
been delivered to the classes in Moral Science in Randolph Macon
College.

Since the year 1844, I have been frequently called on to discuss this
subject on various popular occasions in Virginia and North Carolina.
My classes in college were compelled to deal with the subject of
domestic slavery. Not only the popular ideas in regard to African
slavery in this country, but the specific treatment of this topic by
numerous text authors in Moral Science, rendered this unavoidable. A
deep conviction that the minds of young men were receiving a wrong,
and, in the present state of the country, a fatal direction, both as
regards the principles of the institution, and the institution itself,
induced me to substitute the text authorities on the subject by a
course of lectures. These lectures, therefore, were originally drawn
up with a view to oral delivery. They were modified by the
circumstances of their origin. In preparing them for the press,
however, I was led to consider the class of persons for whose use they
were chiefly designed, and at the same time to adapt them as far as
possible to the general reader. I was aware of the difficulty of
fixing definitely on the mind of the student the nature and limits of
abstract truths, and that this difficulty is, if any thing, greatly
increased when we pass to those whose reading is not characterized by
habits of thought,--as would be the case with many of those whose
interest in the general subject of slavery might induce them to read
these lectures. The task of meeting these difficulties was encountered
with a measure of painful distrust.

My views on the subject of slavery, as a practical question, will be
found very generally to accord with the popular ideas of those
communities in which the African population chiefly resides. But, as
a question of Moral Science, I will be found to differ, and in some
aspects very materially, from those who have spoken and written on the
subject.

The closing lecture is on the duties of masters to slaves. On this
point it may also appear that my views do not accord with those of
some others. There are men whose views I judge to be entirely too
loose on the whole subject. But I should consider any treatise on the
subject of slavery as inexcusably defective that did not embrace the
duties of masters to slaves; and I persuade myself that the number, if
any, who take a different view of the subject will be found to be
exceedingly small.

Whether I have acted wisely in endeavoring to combine in one
performance a treatise adapted to the habits of the student, and at
the same time to the habits of the general reader; and whether I have
succeeded to any desirable extent in so difficult an undertaking, it
is not for me to determine. I can only say, that in giving these
lectures to the public, I have yielded to the earnest desire, often
expressed, of a large number of friends whose judgment is entitled to
my highest respect and confidence. In meeting their wishes, I have
endeavored to do justice to the subject. I have written honestly, and
with a sincere desire to do good.

For the many imperfections of this volume, the author persuades
himself that the assurance that it has been written and prepared for
the press under the pressure of other important and frequently
distracting avocations, will be received as some apology. In the
humble hope that it may, nevertheless, shed some light on the
difficulties of the general subject, and thereby contribute to diffuse
sounder views on the principles involved, quiet the irritation of the
public mind, and give more stability to our political union, and, at
the same time, impress masters more deeply with the importance and
obligations of their providential position, it is with diffidence
submitted to the judgment of the public.

RANDOLPH MACON COLLEGE, VA.,
_August 18th, 1856_.

LECTURES ON THE Philosophy and Practice of Slavery.

LECTURE I.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ON THE SUBJECT OF AFRICAN SLAVERY IN THE UNITED
STATES.

The great question which arises in discussing the slavery of the
African population of this country--correctly known as “Domestic
Slavery”--is this: _Is the institution of domestic slavery sinful?_

The position I propose to maintain in these lectures is, that slavery,
_per se_, is right; or that the great abstract principle of slavery
is right, because it is a fundamental principle of the social state;
and that domestic slavery, as an _institution_, is fully justified by
the condition and circumstances (essential and relative) of the
African race in this country, and therefore equally right.

I confess that it is somewhat humiliating to discuss the question
enunciated--Is the institution of domestic slavery sinful? The
affirmative assumes that an immense community of Southern people, of
undoubted piety, are, nevertheless, involved in great moral
delinquency on the subject of slavery. This is a palpable absurdity in
regard to a great many. For nothing is more certain than this, that if
it be sinful, they either know it, or are competent to know it, and
hence are responsible. And as no plea of necessity can justify an
enlightened man in committing known sin, it follows that all such
Southern people are highly culpable, which is utterly inconsistent
with the admission that they are pious. To say, as some are accustomed
to do, that “slavery is certainly wrong in the _abstract_,” that is,
in plain terms, in itself sinful, but that they cannot help
themselves, appears to me to be wholly unfounded. It assumes that a
man may be absolutely compelled to commit sin. This certainly cannot
be true. All candid minds will readily allow, that so far as Deity
has yet explained himself, he has in no instance enjoined upon man the
observance of any principle as his duty, which he may be compelled, in
the order of his providence, to violate. It is equally false in fact,
for it is not true that we are absolutely compelled to be
slaveholders. If government be, as it undoubtedly is, the agent of the
people, and the people choose, they are certainly competent by this
agent to free themselves from this institution. True, the immense cost
of such an enterprise would be the least in the catalogue of evils
resulting from it; for the total ruin of the African race in this
country may be put down among the rest. But what of all this? Nothing
can justify an enlightened and civilized people in committing sin. No;
not even the sacrifice of life itself. Withal, if the civil society
refuse to make so costly a sacrifice to avoid sin, there is nothing
that can compel any individual citizen to remain a slaveholder. He can
live in the community, as some do, without even hiring or owning a
slave; or he can remove to one of the so-called free States. We should
give no countenance, therefore, to any such mere attempts to
_apologize_ for domestic slavery. The conduct of bad men may sometimes
find apologists. The conduct of good men always admits _of defence_.
Hence, with many others, I have often been grieved by the repeated
attempts of certain pseudo-friends to pass off this flimsy and
ridiculous apology as an able defence of the South.

In maintaining the institution of domestic slavery, we are either
right or wrong, in a moral point of view. We ask no mere apology on
the score of necessity, and we can certainly claim none on the ground
of ignorance. Those who affirm that we are wrong, directly attack our
morals. In doing this, they arraign the character of many thousands,
who are among the most civilized and pious people now living. This
fact alone is a sufficient refutation of so foul an aspersion; and in
this view, it may be readily admitted that any attempt at a more
formal refutation is a humiliating condescension, to which few
Southern men can willingly submit.

But there is another stand-point from which this subject is to be
viewed, and which reflects it in a very different light, and clearly
indicates the duty of submitting it to the test of the soundest
principles of philosophy and religion. It is this: _the ascendency
which certain popular errors on the subject of African slavery have
acquired, and the extent to which they peril the peace of the country,
if not the very liberties of the whole republic_. I allude to the fact
that there are many in the country--and not a few of this number
spread through our Southern States--who would not intentionally
arraign the piety of their fellow-citizens, but whose minds (it is
painfully humiliating to know) are in a state of great embarrassment
on this subject; so much so, that they are constantly liable to be
made the victims of any fanatical influences abroad in the land, no
less than the dupes of that large class of political aspirants who,
reckless of both truth and morals, would secure their elevation at any
price.

Nor need we wonder at the ascendency of erroneous opinions on the
subject of slavery, any more than at the results which they threaten.

At an early period in our history, Thomas Jefferson denounced domestic
slavery as sinful, _per se_, and declared that “there was no attribute
in the Divine mind which could take sides with the whites in a
controversy between the races:” thus assuming in this remark, that the
providences as well as the attributes of the Deity are against the
slaveholder. Owing to the prominence given by our Puritan fathers to
the higher institutions of learning, together with the fact that the
soil and the climate of New England were unfavorable to agricultural
pursuits, citizens of these States have, from an early period in the
history of the republic, supplied the most of the text-books for the
schools and colleges of the whole country. This grossly offensive
error of Mr. Jefferson has been more or less diffused through the
whole of these text-books. It has been among the first of speculations
upon abstract truth presented to the minds of the American people. It
has been studiously inculcated from professors’ chairs in colleges and
universities in the Northern States, while Southern literary
institutions have been for the most part silent. The pulpits of the
South have also lent their aid, and in some instances have been
zealous and active in propagating this error.

As early as 1780, the Methodists declared, in a general convention of
preachers, that “slavery is contrary to the laws of God, man, and
nature, and hurtful to society; contrary to the dictates of conscience
and pure religion; doing that which we would not that others should do
to us and ours; and that we pass our disapprobation upon all our
friends who keep slaves, and advise their freedom.” This doctrine was
reässerted after the organization of the Church in 1784, and, with
short intervals of time, and unimportant variations of phraseology,
the essential features of this doctrine have been adhered to until the
present time, by this most numerous body of professing Christians in
this country. At an early day, Bishop Coke, of the M. E. Church,
openly advocated this doctrine in the pulpits of the country, until
silenced by the force of public opinion; yet he did not cease, while
he remained in the country, to exert the full amount of his personal
influence in private and social circles against the institution of
domestic slavery. His example was followed by a large number of his
preachers, and many ministers of other Christian denominations, who
imbibed the same doctrine and were animated by the same spirit of
hostility to the institution; and who, like himself, were only held in
abeyance by the same force of public opinion. Many politicians, also,
there were, from time to time, who did not scruple to avow Mr.
Jefferson’s doctrine, and like him affect to foresee dreadful
calamities overhanging the country as a consequence of domestic
slavery. In view of these facts, it cannot be a matter of surprise
that abolition opinions and sentiments should pervade the
non-slaveholding sections of the country; and that at least a private
but painful impression or suspicion that there must be something wrong
in the principle of domestic slavery, should be found to pervade a
portion even of the Southern mind. Reluctant as we may be to admit the
truth, necessity compels us to do so. Let the following facts bear
witness.

No communities on earth are so free from domestic insurrections, and
the disturbing influences which come up from the lower orders of
society as those of the Southern States of this Union. The social
condition of England and Ireland, and the states of the continent of
Europe, are perpetually subject to the disturbing and ruinous
influence of local, and often widely spread, insurrectionary movements
against the social order, and even the safety of the governments. Nor
are the Northern States of this Union any more free from these
agrarian movements, than may be accounted for by the relative
sparseness of their population. Yet a general feeling of security
pervades all these people, whilst it is notorious that there are a
great many in Southern communities who are in a constant state of
feverish excitement on the subject of domestic insurrections. Any
announcement of that kind is sufficient to convulse a whole community.
The trifling affair of Nat. Turner (trifling compared with the
frequent disturbances and loss of life common in the communities just
referred to) painfully agitated the whole State of Virginia; and
occupied her Legislature through a whole winter in grave discussions
as to the “best means of freeing the State from the incubus of
slavery.” These results have all followed from the causes at which we
have glanced.

In this state of things, it is in vain to appeal to the fact that Mr.
Jefferson, though a profound statesman, and to some extent a
logician, was neither a divine nor a metaphysician; and that no people
on the globe have shared more largely in the blessings of a bountiful
Providence than those of the Southern States of this Union. In the
progress of civilization and religion, they have advanced more rapidly
than any communities in the country. Still, Mr. Jefferson’s name does
not lose its enchantment; and having already learned to despise the
unexampled blessings of Providence, many of the Southern people
actually believed--until railroad communications began to dispel the
illusion--that their own happy States were really falling back in
civilization to the darkness of the middle ages. Add to all this, the
halls of legislation continue to echo the opinion that “domestic
slavery is a great moral, political, and social evil.” In this
connection, the phrase, moral evil, is restricted to its appropriate
meaning, _sin_. No doubt, Messrs. Doddridge, Rives, Clay, Webster, and
many others--illustrious names!--who have substantially used this
language in various connections, only meant to deprecate the evils of
slavery in strong terms, that they might propitiate a more favorable
consideration of what they had to say in its defence. But if we be
correct in the position already postulated, it is quite time our
politicians, no less than our ecclesiastics, had learned to chasten
their language on this subject. The fountains of public thought and
feeling have, to a great extent, been poisoned: that is, the abstract
opinions and religious sentiments of the people have been corrupted
and perverted.

The three great Protestant denominations[1] of the country have been
torn asunder. The flags of their time-honored unions are trailing in
the dust; and they have ceased to operate as bonds to our political
union. A secret suspicion of the morality of African slavery in the
South, occupies the minds of many of our best citizens--citizens who
are at a vast remove from the fanaticism which stigmatizes those who
are known as the ultra abolitionists of the country. The great family
of Methodists in the District of Columbia, the slave States of
Delaware and Maryland, in Western Virginia, and a part of Missouri,
retain their connection with the abolition division of the M. E.
Church. All along the line of division between the M. E. Church,
North, and the M. E. Church, South,--running through Virginia,
Kentucky, and Missouri,--the evils resulting from the conflict and
strife of opinions on this subject are daily multiplying. The
experiment of abolition fanaticism is progressing; and the souls as
well as the bodies of men are in the crucible. It is clear that
“whilst we have slept, an enemy hath sown these tares,” in our
literature, our politics, and our theology.

[1] The Methodists and Baptists, it is well known, divided
directly upon the subject of slavery; and the Presbyterians
mediately upon a question of constitutional law; but there is
reason to believe that the slavery agitation in the
Presbyterian Church precipitated a division, which otherwise
would probably have been averted.

Two striking phenomena remain to be noticed and accounted for. Amid
all the conflict of opinion and feeling upon this subject,--which was
inseparable from doctrines so utterly at war with the practices of the
country--a conflict which at an early period found its way into the
halls of legislation, civil and ecclesiastical, and has not ceased to
the present time to modify the federal politics of the country,--the
African population has yielded only to certain physical and moral laws
as to the place of its location; whilst the institution of slavery,
which embodies the great mass of that population in the country, has
held on the even tenor of its way, unchecked in the slightest degree
by the antagonistic doctrines and sentiments which have warred so
fiercely against it, and which at so many periods have threatened the
country with a legion of disastrous consequences. In the first place,
the African population has gradually receded to those sections of the
Union which, from their climate and soil, were better adapted to
slave labor. Why did not the abstract opinions and sentiments set
forth by Mr. Jefferson and the M. E. Church, and which are supposed to
have given birth to the emancipation laws of the Northern States,
operate to retain within those States the large portion of slave
population then held, and secure their practical freedom? Why did they
escape the supposed charity of these doctrines, and find their way,
not as freemen, but as slaves, to a climate and soil more congenial to
their nature and destiny? Are these doctrines real abstract truths, as
their advocates profess to believe them to be? Then they are
fundamental--they are vital--they are life-giving, and can never fail
to impress their own essential character upon every system to which
they are applied. The citizens of the Northern States adopted these
doctrines. Then it was an affair of conscience. Emancipation laws were
said to be the result. But that these laws, supposed to be founded in
the belief of certain great abstract truths, which secured to the
African his civil freedom, should operate only to transfer him to a
climate and soil better suited to his condition as a slave, is a
phenomenon for which the hypothesis does not account. And again, the
institution itself, of domestic slavery, by reason of causes which are
evidently, though mysteriously, at work, is this day more firmly
grounded in the confidence of the great mass of the Southern people,
and more extensively ramified and interlocked with other civil
institutions of the whole country, than at any former period of its
history! How is this? The abstract opinions and sentiments in
question, pervading our literature, our politics, and our theology,
have been adopted by so many of our citizens as to entitle the
doctrine to be regarded as a kind of national belief--the sentiment a
kind of national feeling. We are told that all men _believe_ slavery
to be wrong in principle; that is, wrong in itself! and that all men
feel that it is wrong! And certain it is, there is more truth than
fiction in all this! It is strictly true, as to the citizens of the
so-called free States. The same doctrine is not without advocates at
the South; whilst many more, as we have before stated, who may not be
said to believe it, are nevertheless often the subjects of painful
misgivings. They _fear_ it may be true. The causes to which we have
traced this, fully account for it; and we need not fear to state the
truth. But then again, the question recurs--How is this, that the
institution itself, a great practical truth, should daily, for a long
series of years, become more and more practical--a fixed fact in the
country? Truly, this is a phenomenon for which the philosophy of the
day will not account. If those who believed this doctrine were
ruthless fanatics--ultra abolitionists in the strictest sense--if
those who oppose it were really “pro-slavery” men, in the bad sense in
which certain persons understand this phrase, that is, men who, on the
subject of slavery, wickedly do what they know and feel to be wrong:
on either hypothesis we could account for the phenomenon in question.
But these are not the men with whom I deal in these lectures. I lay
all such out of the account. They are men not to be reasoned with. No:
the men of whom I speak, both North and South, are candid, honest men.
I personally know many of them at the North. I have met them on great
battle-fields, where more than blood was shed! I know them to be good
men and true, and I believe the same of the large class they
represent. With many of those at the South who affiliate with them in
opinion as firm believers in Jefferson’s doctrine, or whose embryo
opinions excite painful misgivings of mind, I have often communed
freely, and have equal confidence in their integrity and honesty. The
whole taken together form a very numerous class, and may be safely
regarded as embodying the national belief and feeling on the subject
of slavery. And yet we find that slavery is a great practical truth, a
fixed fact in the country. Now, can it be true that this opinion and
feeling embodies a great abstract truth--a fundamental, vital,
immutable principle, which never did and never can fail to hold
practical error in check, because it takes hold of the conscience of
an honest people--and whose tendency, therefore, is always to an
ultimate practical triumph, with all those who honestly receive it? We
dare not affirm this.

It is not mere belief, nor is it mere honesty, that produces results
in practice; but it is the _reception of the truth in an honest
heart_, which can never fail to result in practice. Now in this case
the people are honest, and the people believe; and if it be essential
truth which they thus believe, then, we say, the fact that in all
those States of this republic in which climate and soil are adapted to
African labor--that precisely there the institution of domestic
slavery should be rooted in the practice of a large portion of this
believing and honest people, and that it should strike its roots into
the federal constitution, and penetrate deeper and deeper every year
into the legislation of the whole country, and thus implicate more and
more the whole mass of this believing people in the sin of it, is a
phenomenon, for which the postulate, that it is the truth they
believe, does not account--nor can it be made to account.

A false principle may be believed to be the truth. And a false
principle believed, has its results, because it is believed; and they
very much resemble the results of truth believed. But we dare not
admit that error can take hold of the conscience as pure principle,
essential truth will do it. But, again, there is another great
psychological fact, which is often overlooked. A false principle may
be honestly believed by minds which, at the same time, adopt
antagonistic principles that are essential truths; but, owing to
various causes calculated to confuse the ideas, the inconsistency is
not perceived. Now, in such a case as this, the principle of essential
truth is really brought into practical antagonism with essential
error, and that in the same minds and upon the same subject. And as
truth is more powerful than error in the minds of all honest people,
the truth holds its way in practical results, in defiance of false
principle, which is relatively powerless in the presence of truth. The
antagonism between the false principle and the practical results of
things may be perceived and acknowledged; whilst the antagonism of the
false principle with the true principle, which underlies and produces
these practical results by a law of its own operation, is not only not
perceived, but actually denied to exist. Now so long as this false
principle is honestly believed to be true, and clearly perceived to be
in conflict with the _practice_, but not perceived to be in conflict
with other and more latent principles, which are in themselves
_truths_, and admitted to be _truths_, and which produce this
_practice_, just so long will this false principle wage war, by the
simple law of belief, against this _practice_. But as this war is not
sufficiently potent to overturn this practice, because it is founded
on the belief of principles _true_ in themselves, the practice will
remain; and so long as this false belief remains, the strife with the
practice must remain. Hence, if this be the state of the public mind
in this country on the subject of African slavery, and it find no
efficient remedy, we can see nothing awaiting us but interminable
strife--men against themselves--the country against the country! We
forbear to sketch the future.

But, young gentlemen, I submit if this psychology may not furnish a
solution of the phenomena I have brought to your notice, and also a
remedy against that otherwise interminable strife which has already
done so much to impair the moral power and blight the fairest hopes of
the country. May it not be that in admitting the great abstract
doctrine of Mr. Jefferson, that the principle of African slavery is,
_per se_, sinful, and that, as such, the attributes and providence of
Deity are opposed to all who practice it, we have most unwisely
admitted a false doctrine? And as this false doctrine, though honestly
believed by a number sufficiently large to designate it as the
national belief and the national feeling, has utterly failed to
abolish or even to modify the institution of African slavery, does it
not afford a strong and clear presumption, to say the least, that this
system which has held unbroken dominion over the African race in this
country for over two centuries, and which continues to strike its
roots deeper and deeper into all the relations of society, North and
South--that this system, so potent in practical results, and so
heedless of the fierce war that is waged against it, is, after all,
_underlaid_ somewhere by a _vast mine of principles_--_pure essential
truths_--which are firmly rooted in the belief of all civilized and
honest men, and which, all along, have imparted a spontaneous being
and activity to the system, and will continue to do so perhaps as long
as any considerable portion of the race shall remain in the country?

If this hypothesis shall prove true, the sovereign remedy for the
otherwise interminable strife, so potent for mischief, is at hand. Let
us then free ourselves, let us free the country, of the dominion of
Mr. Jefferson’s philosophy, because it is false. In doing this, we
shall terminate the conflict which now rages with so much violence. We
shall be free to address ourselves to any modifications in the system
of African slavery which may be demanded to adapt it to the progress
of civilization.

Regarding the whole subject in this light, the duty of thoroughly
investigating it seems to me to be laid upon the country as a moral
necessity. It is useless to talk of “delicacy and humiliation,” in the
presence of such fruits as a false philosophy has already borne
plentifully throughout the land.

As your chosen instructor, I owe you a service. I dare not give up
your minds to the dominion of Wayland’s Philosophy, (your text,) nor
to any other text on this subject, now known to the country. I propose
to lead your way in _exploring the mine of truth_ which we may assume
to underlie the system of African slavery. We may look with confidence
to reach these results:

1. That the philosophy of Jefferson is false, and that the opposite is
true, namely, that the great abstract principle of domestic slavery
is, _per se_, RIGHT; and therefore it is not in the use but in the
abuse of this principle that we are liable to sin, and thereby incur
the Divine displeasure.

2. That we should have a Southern literature. Our schools must be
supplied with correct text-books on this subject. The poison which our
texts now contain must be distilled from them by the learned of the
land. The Church should not only right herself as she has done in the
South, but her voice should be heard in the pulpit enforcing _right
principles_, as well as right duties, upon this subject. Truth is at
all times intolerant of any abuse. Her voice should certainly be heard
under circumstances so urgent as the present. It is due to many in
Southern communities whose minds are, more or less, disturbed by the
long-continued abuse of the pulpit, and the social influence of
mistaken ministers of religion in private life. It is due to the
interests of our common country. We have lost much already in
suppressing the truth. We have much to gain by boldly asserting her
claims--for “truth is great, and will prevail.”

“Truth crushed to earth will rise again:
The eternal years of God are hers;
But Error, wounded, writhes in pain,
And dies amid her worshippers.”

LECTURE II.

THE ABSTRACT PRINCIPLE OF THE INSTITUTION OF DOMESTIC SLAVERY.

If the system be sinful, _per se_, the sin of it must be found
in the principle--Is the principle sinful?--The principle
defined--Objections to the term submission answered--The effect
of Mr. Jefferson’s doctrine upon many conscientious persons in
the Southern States.

I now propose to enter directly upon the inquiry, _Is the institution
of domestic slavery sinful?_ My plan will make it necessary, in this
lecture, to limit the inquiry to the _principle_ of the institution.
If the institution be sinful, it must be so either in the abstract
principle it involves, or in the specific form under which it embodies
that principle, or in both. In either case, Mr. Jefferson’s doctrine
is verified; for if the _abstract principle_ be wrong, then the
institution which envelops the principle, and from which it derives
its character, is of course wrong. It certainly is never right to act
upon a wrong principle. Injustice, as a principle, is confessedly
wrong in itself, according to the ideas of all mankind. No form which
an action can take will make it right, if it proceed upon an unjust
principle. Hence, no circumstances can justify any man in knowingly
doing an act of injustice. If the institution of domestic slavery
envelops the idea of injustice, or any similar element, as its generic
or abstract principle, in such case it would certainly be wrong both
in principle and in practice; that is, wrong in itself; and we should,
without scruple, abandon the controversy. But a similar conclusion
will not follow from a contrary proposition; that is, it will not
follow, that if the abstract principle of the institution be right,
the institution itself is right; because the truth of a conditional
proposition does not turn on the hypothesis, but on the _consequent_,
as both true in itself and dependent upon the antecedent condition.
That this is not the case in this instance is developed by the fact
that the _affirmative_ proposition involved in this conditional is, in
itself, an absurdity, viz., “An _abstract principle_ of action being
right, the _action itself_ is right.” This is absurd. For instance,
justice, in itself, is a _right principle_ of action, according to the
ideas of all mankind; but it does not follow that all actions which
proceed upon the principle of _justice_ are _right_ actions. A.
justly owes B. one hundred dollars: now, to enforce the payment of
this money would be in itself a just act, because the money is
honestly owed by A.; but if, in doing this, B. should take the last
bed from under the wife and children of A., and deprive them of the
last morsel of bread, the _act itself_ would be a very wicked one, and
he would be judged by mankind as but little less guilty than a highway
robber, because this is a case in which the claims of _benevolence_
march before the claims of mere _justice_. Not to respect the claims
of benevolence in such a case is to act upon the _principle_ of pure
_selfishness_. This act, then, would envelop also a wrong
principle--selfishness; and it is the nature of a wrong principle to
spread the hue and poison of guilt over every act into which it
enters. Truth, and its opposite, as principles, are striking examples.
If we speak at all, we should speak the truth. Every utterance into
which, in its proper, generic sense, the _lie_ enters, even in the
least degree, is a poisoned act; and he who does this, is to that
extent a basely wicked man, however smooth his tongue or winning his
manners. Guilt has poisoned his utterance; and if this vice be not
speedily arrested in its progress, it will spread itself through the
whole mass, and break down his entire moral constitution. But it does
not certainly follow that all utterances which are in themselves
_truths_, are right utterances. There are many facts, to which, if we
were to give utterance, we should only speak the truth, but at the
same time we all know that they should lie buried (perhaps for ever)
in the depths of our own hearts. To injure our neighbor by speaking
the truth when no claim of paramount justice demanded it, and the
claims of charity or kindness forbade it, would be a wicked act. For a
child in a similar way to injure a parent would be the conduct of a
demon. All such acts, though they envelop a right principle--truth--do
at the same time envelop a wrong principle--_malevolence_; and it is
the nature of wrong principle to stamp every act into which it enters
with the character of guilt--_it is wrong_.

The conclusion we reach is this: If the abstract or generic principle
of an action be _wrong_, the action itself is therefore _wrong_; but
that, if the abstract principle be _right_, it does not follow that
the action is therefore _right_, but that the action itself is _either
right or wrong_, as may be determined by the presence or absence of
certain other coincident principles; or, as we usually say, as may be
determined by the circumstances.

If, then, the abstract principle of the institution of domestic
slavery be wrong, the institution itself is wrong, and ought to be
abolished; but if the principle be correct, the institution itself is
or is not _right_, just as the circumstances of the case may or may
not require that it be maintained; as in the case of any other act
involving correct principle. The points to be settled, then, are--

I. Is the abstract or generic principle of domestic slavery _right or
wrong_? And if it be right, then,

II. Is the system (so far as it is a system, simply) of domestic
slavery, enveloping this abstract principle, justified by the
circumstances of the case? If so, the system itself is also _right_.
Whether many slaveholders or few, or any at all, are themselves doing
right in the exercise of the legal functions of that relation, are
questions foreign from the present inquiries, even on the hypothesis
that the system itself is right. Their conduct, be it right or wrong,
(and in many cases it is right, and in many others it is no doubt
wrong,) does not at all affect the truth or error of the questions now
before us. It is not with the conduct of individual men that we now
deal; but with the act of that great being, the State--the system of
African slavery established by law in the country--and with that
profound principle of truth or error which not only makes it a
_system_, but makes it a right system or a wrong system, as the case
may be.

The philosophy which prevails on the question before us has originated
two schools--the _abolitionist_ and the _anti-slavery_. The
abolitionist maintain that the _abstract principle of the system is
wrong_, and that therefore the system itself is wrong under all
circumstances. The anti-slavery school agree with the abolitionist
that the _principle is wrong_, but divide among themselves as to the
conclusion they draw. Some hold that the institution itself is not
wrong under all circumstances, and that therefore slaves may be held
under it in given cases without guilt; and others, that the
institution _is wrong in itself_, and should be abolished by the
State, but that the holding of slaves under this _wrong_ system is not
an act in itself _wrong_ in all cases.

A strict analysis of the subject will show that here is a strange
medley of principles and conclusions. I shall be found to agree with
each, and to disagree with each. I _disagree_ with both on the
abstract principle. Hence, I disagree with the abolitionists on the
whole proposition. But I agree with the abolitionists that IF the
abstract principle be _wrong_, the institution is wrong in all cases.
I say with them that all who grant the antecedent of this conditional
are bound to admit the consequent. Hence I disagree with the
anti-slavery school in admitting that the principle is wrong; but in
so far as they admit that the system may be right under given
circumstances, or that slaves may be held under it without guilt, we
agree. I stand, therefore, committed to the affirmative of the
question, both in regard to the principle and to the institution, and
hence proceed to discuss the question:

I. Is the abstract principle of domestic slavery right or wrong?

I have already noticed that the public mind has been so long abused on
this subject, that it is usual for highly intelligent persons, who
have no idea of affirming that the slaveholder is necessarily a
sinner, to allow that slaveholding is _wrong in principle_. But this,
to say the least, is a strange abuse of terms. The right or wrong of
an action, in itself considered, is determined by the _principle_
which it envelops, and the moral character of the _actor_ is
determined by his intention in the performance, or by his voluntary or
involuntary ignorance of the principle. It is reasonable, therefore,
to infer that the public attach no well-defined meaning to the phrase,
the _abstract principle of slavery_. Its definite meaning, however, is
indispensable in this investigation; and, indeed, on all occasions, if
we would speak correctly, and avoid a misapplication of this term.

What, then, is the _principle_ of the system of domestic slavery?

Observe that it is the principle for which we inquire. What, then, is
the system itself? For (to speak with strict philosophical propriety)
our idea of the system is the chronological condition of our idea of
the principle, as our idea of the principle is the logical condition
of our idea of the system. We must perceive an action before we can
determine what is the principle of it, although we must have an
antecedent knowledge of the principle before we can determine what
character that principle gives to the action.

The system is made up of two correlative relations--master and slave.
Here there are but two ideas--the idea of master and the idea of
slave, as correlatives. These are all the ideas that enter into the
system, as a system merely. Whatever abstract principle, therefore,
this system envelops, is to be found in these two terms. It need not
and should not be sought for anywhere else; for these two relations
make the whole system. Without these it could not be a system of
slavery; and with these, it is therein, and in virtue of that fact
alone, a system of slavery. The answer to the question depends upon
the meaning of these terms alone. What, then, is the correlative
meaning of these terms?

“MASTER. The Latin is _magister_, compounded of the root of _magis_,
_major_, greater; and the Teutonic, _ster_, Saxon, _steoran_, _to
steer_.” The word, then, signifies _a chief director_--_one who
governs or directs either men or business_. The leading idea is that
of governor by his own will.

SLAVE. The _derivation_ of this word is not a settled question. There
is no difficulty, however, in fixing the meaning--_one who is subject
to the will or direction of another_.

As a concrete, _master_ means one who is governing _in some particular
instance or form_ by his own will; and _slave_, one who is so governed
_in some particular instance_. But these are _abstract_ terms. The
ideas they convey may be conceived and held in the mind, apart from
any particular application of the one or the other. And whether
they are considered as abstract or concrete terms, they are
correlatives--the one implies the other.

A _system_ of slavery is a state or order of things established by law
or custom, in which one set of men are the masters to a given extent,
and another are the slaves to that extent.

_Domestic_ slavery is an instance in which the order or state of
things constituting the system itself, is made a part of the family
relation. The head of the family is the _master_, and the slave is
subject, as to the use of his time and labor, to the control of the
master, as the other members of the family. Domestic slavery,
therefore, is one of the forms of the _general_ system of slavery. The
system has existed under various forms. The ancient system of
villanage in England, of serfdom in Russia, the peon system of Mexico,
as well as domestic slavery in the United States, are all examples of
slavery proper. This leads us to remark that the terms _master_ and
_slave_ are not only abstract but _general abstract_ terms: _general_,
because the abstract ideas they convey are common to each of these
conditions. Each of these systems is pervaded by generic principles or
ideas, which classify the whole as belonging to the same genus--system
of slavery. The abstract principle of slavery is therefore the general
idea, which is enveloped alike in each and every form or system of
slavery. Hence, as the abstract idea of master is governing by one’s
own will, and that of slave is submission or subjection to such
control; and as a system of slavery is a condition into which these
ideas enter in correlation--it follows that _the abstract principle of
slavery is the general principle of submission or subjection to
control by the will of another_. This is the fundamental idea which is
common to every form of slavery. No condition into which this does not
enter as a fundamental idea is a state of slavery. Every condition
into which it enters is a state of slavery to the extent in which it
does so enter.

_Submission or subjection to control by the will of another_ being our
definition of the abstract principle of the system of slavery, two
questions arise: First--Is this a correct definition? and second--If
it be correct, is it a sound, legitimate principle, which may and
ought to be adopted in practice, whenever it may be wise to do so?

_First_--Is the definition correct?

_Subjection_ is the being put under the control of another.
_Submission_ is the delivery of one’s self to the control of another.
The one implies the consent of the will, and the other does not. That
subjection is an idea which fulfils the condition of slavery will not
be disputed by any. Hence our definition is sufficiently wide to
embrace that which is conceded by all. But our definition gives much
greater breadth to the principle. It takes in _submission_ as well as
_subjection_. It assumes that the willing or the nilling of the
subject of this form of control does not necessarily enter into the
principle which logically defines it. He who is subjected to such
control is a slave; and he who submits to such control is not
the less so. This principle might therefore be still further
generalized--_control by the will of another_, with its correlative
idea submission or subjection only implied. But we prefer to define
it in the terms employed, as being more likely to be appreciated in
the sense intended. Are we correct in giving this wide compass of
meaning to the principle in question? Do we assume too much when we
say that a man is not the less a captive, and subject to the control
of the captor, because he voluntarily gives himself up as such? Is a
man then the less a slave who voluntarily consents to be controlled by
the will of another? The popular use of terms in all languages shows
that mankind have conceded this point. They all apply the idea of
slave to such a case. Nay, more, they furnish a constructive meaning
of the term based upon this meaning. They call a man a “slave to his
passions,” who has _voluntarily_ given himself up to be controlled in
his future volitions by his passions as the subjective motive of his
actions. “No bondage is more grievous than that which is voluntary,”
says Seneca. “To be a slave to the passions is more grievous than to
be a slave to a tyrant,” says Pythagoras. “No one can be free who is
intent on the indulgence of evil passions,” says Plato. And Cicero
says, “All wicked men are slaves.” St. Paul, Rom. vi. 16, uses the
term in the same sense, and with the greatest propriety: “Know ye not
that to whom ye yield yourselves servants [δούλους, _slaves_] to
obey, his servants [slaves] ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin
unto death, or obedience unto righteousness?” (See Dr. A. Clarke, _in
loc._) And again, Ephesians vi. 5-7: “Servants, [δοῦλοι.] be obedient
to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and
trembling, in singleness of your hearts as unto Christ: not with
eye-service, as men-pleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the
will of God from the heart; with good will doing service, as to the
Lord, and not to men.” _Doing the will of God--with good will._ We
must certainly understand that it was the duty of those slaves to give
both assent and consent to their condition, as a thing coming to them
in the order of God’s providence, _and pleasing to him_; and therefore
serve their masters with the same willing obedience, because therein
they were serving the Lord. For these persons, we may suppose, were
originally made slaves by subjection. They are exhorted to submit
themselves not only to the particular commands of their masters, but
also to their providential condition. The commands of their masters
might be obeyed from mere prudential considerations. In this case,
their obedience would be without the religious element. Paul exhorts
them to religious obedience. Many, no doubt, obeyed: gave the
_consent_ of their wills, as they gave the assent of their
understandings; and hence, cheerfully submitting to their providential
condition as from the Lord, they obeyed their masters “in singleness
of heart, as unto Christ.” They submitted, as any other good man
submits, with consent as well as assent to his providential condition,
and goes forth to the duties of that condition with a cheerful heart.
Their condition was therefore changed from that of _subjection_ to one
of _submission_, and for as long a time as God might be pleased to
continue it. Did they, by reason of such submission, cease to be
slaves? Certainly not. They were slaves when in a state of
_subjection_. They were not the less so when, from the high Christian
motives commanded by the apostle, their condition was changed to one
of _submission_. Be this, however, as it may, the following case is
decisive of the whole question. The ancient Jew, who _gave_ himself
into slavery, was not the less a slave because he did it voluntarily;
and the Mosaic law provided that such should be held and treated as
slaves in perpetuity. See Exodus xxi. 5, 6: “And if the servant shall
plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children: _I will not
go out free_; then his master shall bring him unto the judges: he
shall also bring him unto the door, or to the door-post; and his
master shall bore his ear through with an awl; _and he shall serve him
for ever_.” Thus the law of God made a man a slave who became so by
his own voluntary act. A state of _submission_, therefore, to _control
by the will of another_, is no less a state of slavery than a state of
_subjection_. If the state itself be one of slavery, the idea,
_submission_, which makes it so, is in this case an element of the
system. Hence, the true philosophical definition of the principle, as
before stated, is _control by the will of another_, with its
correlative (subjection, or submission, as the case might be) implied.
It may be the one; it may be the other; and whichever it is in a given
case, is the mere logical accident of _that_ case, and does not at all
affect the _principle_ itself.

As the whole of the abstract idea of the system of slavery is to be
found in the terms _master_ and _slave_ in correlation; and
_submission and subjection to control by the will of another_ is the
whole idea contained in the correlative sense of these terms,
(certainly nothing more and nothing less,) the definition given is the
whole, and nothing more, of the abstract principle of the institution.
Whoever is in this condition is to that extent a slave. Whatever
system envelops this principle--it matters not what form it may take,
what coincident principles it may include, or what name may be given
to it, or how far the practical working of this principle may be
modified--it is nevertheless to the extent that this principle enters
into it _a system of slavery_. It may be a wise system, because it is
a necessary means for the accomplishment of some desirable end; or it
may be an unwise system, because it is a means unsuited to the end
proposed. But neither hypothesis will at all affect the principle.
That is the same in the one case as in the other; that is, whether it
be abused or properly used, the principle itself is the same. But can
it be properly used at all? This leads to the _second_ inquiry--Is
this a sound, legitimate principle, which may and should be adopted in
practice whenever it may be wise to do so?

We need not scruple to admit that if injustice or any similar idea
should be found to enter as an element into the abstract principle, it
is a poisoned principle, upon which no honest man will allow himself
to act. But is this the case? Doubtless, there may be injustice in
slavery, as in every system which has persons for its subjects: that
is, any _master_ acting under the authority of this system may
perpetrate great injustice; but we maintain that when he does so he
introduces a principle foreign to the system, and for which he is
individually responsible: he does that which mars the character of the
whole performance, and stamps his own personal conduct with the guilt
of injustice.

However carelessly many persons are accustomed to speak on this
subject, yet we may assure ourselves that a little reflection will
satisfy any candid mind that the principle is a legitimate one, and
cannot with any degree of propriety be regarded as sinful. It will
readily occur to all intelligent minds, that this principle enters
more or less as an essential element into every form of human
government. No government can be appropriate to human beings, in their
present fallen condition, that does not embody this generic element in
a greater or less degree.

A form of control, clearly embodying the idea of government, and at
the same time conferring absolute freedom, is a solecism. If men would
uniformly govern themselves aright by their own wills, there could be
no necessity for government, or room for its exercise, at least in the
sense in which we now understand the term. A government adapted to
such a people, I allow, might be without the element of physical
control, so indispensable in human governments. It would be (compared
to human) a modification of government--if government it might be
called--for which our language supplies no term. We cannot conceive it
to be appropriate to any intelligences this side of the “spirits of
just men made perfect in heaven.” These, we conceive, are
sufficiently intelligent to understand clearly and correctly all the
duties appertaining to the various relations they sustain, and so
perfected in moral feeling as to fulfil these duties from the impulses
of their own _spontaneous volitions_. Government, as it may be
understood and applied to such intelligences, must be essentially
different from that which is appropriate to beings of arbitrary
volition; and who, therefore, should be held to accountability in the
exercise of their freedom by the most rigid restrictions from penal
sanctions. To these latter a government that did not embody the
_principle of_ slavery would be no government at all.

Authoritative control, with its correlative, (according to the more
general classification given,) is the abstract principle of slavery.
But a state of freedom is the opposite of a state of slavery. The
abstract principle of a state of freedom or liberty is, therefore, the
opposite to that of slavery. Hence _self-control_ is the abstract
principle of freedom, as its opposite--_control by another_--is the
principle of slavery.

Now every government adapted to fallen beings whose personal or mental
liberty consists in _arbitrary_ volition, is necessarily a combination
of these two opposite elements--the principle of freedom and the
principle of slavery. Either of these entering alone into the system
of government, would in the end defeat the legitimate object of
government--the happiness of the people. If the government were based
upon the principle of freedom alone, allowing every man the
unrestricted liberty of self-control, the wildest anarchy would
result: if to avoid this the opposite principle should be adopted,
allowing no liberty of self-control, but subjecting all to control by
the will of another, it would be found as impracticable as the other
was disastrous, and, as far as successful, only appropriate to idiots
and infants. A good government is such a harmonious union of these
opposing elements, as adapts it to the wants of the people. For as, in
chemistry, elements in opposite states of electricity unite and form
valuable compounds, so in political science, antagonistic principles
enter necessarily into the composition of government. The character or
kind of the government is defined by the ratios in which these
elements enter into its formation. If the principle of slavery enter
very largely into the government, in a highly consolidated form, it is
then an absolute monarchy or military despotism. If the exercise of
this supreme power is distributed among the heads of families, it
assumes the patriarchal or domestic form. If this principle enter in a
less degree, but still in a much greater degree than the principle of
self-control, some one of the forms of constitutional monarchy or
hereditary aristocracy will result. If these opposite principles enter
into the government in somewhat equal ratios, it is then a democratic
republic--a well-balanced government--such as ours is designed to be.
Hence we see that God has rendered the blessing of civil freedom
inseparable from the presence and operation of the principle of
slavery. Such is the present arrangement, that government can no
otherwise secure freedom to its subjects than by abridging them to a
certain extent of self-control; or, in other words, government must
place its subjects under the operation of the principle of slavery in
some things, the more effectually to secure their practical freedom in
other things. And the citizen who may be determined not to submit to
this order of things, and shall persist to do, from the action of a
depraved will, what the State--_his master_--says he shall not do,
will, sooner or later, find himself reduced to a condition of most
abject slavery, within the walls of a public prison.

It is entirely obvious that a government, to secure the highest amount
of happiness to its subjects, must be adapted to their social and
moral condition. This adaptation, as before intimated, can only be
effected by the ratios in which the antagonistic elements of _liberty
and of slavery_ shall enter into the composition of the government.
Now this is virtually the position, after all, of a no less
distinguished abolitionist and literary man than Dr. Wayland, the
author of your text. On the subject “_of the mode in which the objects
of society are accomplished_,” after bringing to view the different
forms of government--“wholly hereditary”--“partly hereditary”--“partly
elective”--and “wholly elective”--he asks, “Which of these is the
preferable form of government?” and adds, “The answer must be
conditional. The best form of government for any people, _is the best
that its present moral and social condition render practicable_. A
people may be _so entirely surrendered to the influence of passion_,
and so feebly _influenced by moral restraint_, that a government which
relied on moral restraint could not exist for a day. In this case a
subordinate and inferior principle yet remains--_the principle of
fear_; and the only resort is to a government of force, or a military
despotism.” Now what is all this but a statement of the great truth
which we have already discussed, only in different terms, that a
government over a people, in the moral and social condition described
by Dr. Wayland, which relied upon “_moral restraint_,” that is, upon
the principle of self-control, “_could not exist for a day_;” and that
for such a people, “the only resort is to a government of force, or a
military despotism”--that is, the _highest conceivable form or system
of slavery_. Now this is said, by Dr. Wayland, after waging a
relentless war against both the principle and practice of slavery! Is
not this an instance in which a great and honest mind, having adopted
certain false notions in antagonism with the system of slavery, wars
against this system; whilst, at the same time, this system is
underlaid, even in his own method of reasoning, by a vast mine of
fundamental principles which, in spite of him, give it both being and
activity? Why need one so learned as Dr. Wayland allow the truth to
escape his notice, because in one connection it wears the livery of
one form of words, and in another connection very properly assumes the
livery of a different form of language?

To proceed: History informs us of many such communities as those
defined by Dr. Wayland, to which any other form of government would be
entirely inappropriate but the one he calls a “_government of force or
a military despotism_,” which is none other than the very highest form
of slavery. And your own good sense, young gentlemen, must assure you
that it would be grossly absurd to confer on reckless boys of fifteen,
or a mass of stupid pagans, all the rights of free citizens of this
great republic. No: the one class should be retained under the slavery
(for let us not scruple to call things by their right names) of
_authoritative control_ by their parents; and the other should be
subjected to the operation of the same general principle by the State.
And to adopt Dr. Wayland’s own language on this point--suicidal as it
is to him--we add, in regard to such citizens as are “_entirely
surrendered to the influence of passion_,” that “after a government of
force has been established, and habits of subordination have been
formed, while the moral restraints are yet too feeble for
self-government, an hereditary government, which addresses itself to
the imagination, and strengthens itself by the influence of domestic
connections and established usage, may be as good a form of government
as they can sustain. As they advance in intellectual and moral
cultivation, it may advantageously become more and more elective; and
in a suitable moral condition, it may be wholly so.” Now, to vary the
language in which these important facts are expressed, so as to bring
out the great philosophical principles which so evidently underlie
them, we would say, that when the government adapted to an ignorant
and depraved people has operated under wise appliances to form habits
of subordination among the masses, a modification of the elements of
government is indicated as best suited to their condition. Some one of
the forms of hereditary government may be adopted. In this
government, the _principle of slavery_ is made to operate less
actively, and there is more room for the play of the opposite
principle of self-control. But as the moral principle is yet too
feeble for self-government proper, it is still held in strong check by
its antagonistic principle--the principle of slavery. As they advance
in intellectual and moral cultivation, a further modification of the
relative operation of these principles is indicated as proper. It may
become more and more elective: that is, more and more of a democratic
republic; and in a suitable moral condition it may be wholly so: that
is, a government in which the _principle of slavery_ and the
_principle of liberty_ operate in about equal ratios. We call this a
well-balanced government. If it fulfil this condition, it is because
these opposing principles so check and counterpoise each other that
the government is not likely to be unbalanced. One holds the other _in
equilibrio_. The principle of self-control is in such vigorous
operation among the masses, and so craned up to a vigilant activity by
coincident forces derived from intelligence and interest, that the
_principle of slavery--control by the will of another, which in this
instance is the will of the majority_--is not competent, according to
the theory of this government, to override and crush the liberties of
the country. On the other hand, the _principle of slavery_, which is
the great _practical force_ of the government, enfeebled as it is by a
prevailing popular enthusiasm for the widest freedom, and deriving no
_present_ aid from interest, finds this deficiency so fully supplied
by the fact that its impersonation is _the will of the majority_, that
it is competent to resist the most violent shocks which may come up
from the misguided self-control of the masses. How often have we seen,
in the history of our glorious republic, the excited passions of the
masses, misdirecting their power of self-control, sweep like a
hurricane over the bosom of our political sea, and lash the waters
into a storm that threatened to engulf the hopes of the nation! But so
_vital_ and so _active_ was that principle which constitutes the true
force of the government, that that great ideal, the State--the “Ship
of State!”--outrode the tempest in perfect safety; and last, as first,
the flag of liberty still streamed from the mast-head.

Now, this is as far as the science of free government, so called, has
been carried into practical operation; and in this we cannot fail to
see that the restraining and controlling _principle of slavery_ is
still in vigorous operation. We call it, by way of eminence, a _free_
government; and so it is, _relatively to other forms, a very free
government_. But then it is only relatively, not absolutely, so; for
if it were rendered entirely free, by excluding the operation of the
principle of slavery altogether, it would be reduced at once to a form
of government which authorizes every man to do in all things and in
all respects just as he might please to do--a guaranty which in the
present state of fallen human nature it could never make good, and,
therefore, virtually it would be no government at all.

Seeing that the abstract principle of slavery enters necessarily and
essentially as an element into every form of civil government, it is
worse than idle to affirm that it is wrong, _per se_. But more than
this, it has the sanction of Jehovah: for government, of which we have
seen it is a necessary element, is expressly declared in Holy
Scripture to be his ordinance. It entered largely into the theocracy
by which he governed the Jewish nation; and indeed is equally
prominent in the government which he exercises over all mankind, if we
take it in its wide sense as comprehending the ultimate rewards and
punishments that await us in a future state. How imbecile then is it
to say of the system of slavery that it is wrong in the
abstract--wrong in principle! How little do men consider what they
affirm in this declaration! Certainly no man in his senses will
gravely affirm of an essential principle of government that it is
wrong! We repeat, then, it is really time that certain politicians, as
well as ecclesiastics, had learned to chasten their language on this
subject. They have already accomplished incalculable mischief. They
have conceded that to the folly of fanaticism which, if it were true,
would render domestic slavery, with every other form of civil
government, wholly indefensible, and their supporters the objects of
the pity and scorn of the civilized world.

There are many among ourselves who, though they are not sufficient
metaphysicians to detect and expose the error of a conclusion, are
sufficiently candid to admit that if the conceded dogma of Jefferson
be true, domestic slavery can never be justified in practice by any
circumstances whatever; and they have pious feeling enough to prompt
them to great hesitation in supporting the institution in view of this
admission, although they are pressed to do so by circumstances of
urgent duty to the slaves themselves. In this state of things there
arises in many sensitive minds a most painful state of feeling.
Pressed on the one hand by what is assumed to be correct principle,
and on the other by the claims of a high moral necessity,--the
necessity of governing and providing for their slaves, which they
erroneously suppose to be in conflict with right principle,--they
really find themselves in a most embarrassing situation, from which
they sigh to be released. Many such have quietly retired from the
State of their nativity and choice as their only alternative. (This
may account for more of those removals, usually attributed to worn-out
lands, than many of our politicians wot of.) Others remain, it is
true, but it is rather an act of subjection than submission. Citizens
of this class (and it is not a small class) are of course always
liable to become the victims of any fanatical movement on the subject
of slavery that may be afoot in the land. To all this mischief, the
speakers and writers in question have contributed their full share.
Yea, for myself, I doubt not they have contributed much more to
dissatisfy the religious community of the South--the large majority of
the whole population--than all the abolitionists of the North put
together. It is doubtless the magic of their names which at present
enables the M. E. Church (the most regular and well-defined
anti-slavery, if not indeed abolitionist, association this day
existing in the country) to maintain its footing in the District of
Columbia, the States of Delaware and Maryland, and along the northern
border of Eastern and through a large part of Western Virginia,
together with a portion of Kentucky and Missouri. It is the authority
of their names, also, which so disquiets the feelings of many good
people in the whole country as to make them the victims of the
political legerdemain of certain politicians, who, under cover of
“free-soilism,” “fugitive slave law,” and “Nebraska” excitements, are
overriding their rights and insulting the whole country before the
civilized world; and who, last though not least, are daily oppressing
the African population by the incubus of a morbid sensibility in
regard to them, which utterly prevents the system under which they
live from any thing like a reasonable participation in the progress of
civilization. In view of these facts, we again assume that it is
really time they had learned to chasten their language on the subject
of African slavery. Public opinion in the whole country must soon
become intolerant of so great an abuse of the truth.

LECTURE III.

OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED.

Objections classified--Popular views discussed--“All men are
born free and equal”--“All men are created equal”--“All men in
a state of nature are free and equal”--And the particular form
in which Dr. Wayland expresses the popular idea, viz., “The
relation in which men stand to each other is the relation of
_equality_; not equality of condition, but equality of
_right_”--Remarks on Dr. Wayland’s course--His treatise on
Moral Science as a text-book.

It is now appropriate to consider some of the speculations in Moral
Science which may be supposed to invalidate the position discussed in
the preceding lecture. As far as they have come under my notice, they
all belong to one class. The general objection may be thus stated:
_Slavery is an abridgment of rights to which the enslaved are entitled
by nature; or, more logically, slavery is an abridgment of inalienable
rights_. This doctrine is expressed in different forms of language,
but is essentially the same in meaning. It is with the popular view
of this subject that I propose to deal in this lecture. Hence I shall
restrict my remarks, in the first place, to the objection as it
usually _exists in thought_, and notice several popular forms of
expression:

1. “All men are born free and equal.”

Until within a few years past, this dogma was stereotyped in all the
text-books of the country--from the horn-book to the most eminent
treatise on Moral Science for colleges and universities. From the days
of Jefferson until now, it has been the text for the noisy twaddle of
the “stump-politician,” and the profound discussions of the grave
senator in the Congress of the United States. If this dogma, as it
generally exists in thought, be true, it will follow, that any and
every abridgment of liberty is a violation of original and natural
right--that is, inalienable right. Hence every system of slavery must
be based upon a false principle. The popular sense in which this
language is generally understood, from father to son, is evidently the
literal sense. But taken in this sense, the doctrine is utterly false.
For men are born in a state of infancy, and grow up to the state of
manhood; and infants are entirely incapable of freedom, and do not
enjoy a particle of it. They _are_ not, therefore, born equally free,
but in a state of entire subjection. They grow up, it is true--if
they be not imbeciles--to a degree of mental liberty, that is, the
liberty of arbitrary volition in the plain matters of _right_ and
_wrong_, and hence are accountable; but the degree of this liberty, or
how far they are thus mentally free, depends upon the accident of
birth, education, and numerous coincident circumstances, which
destroys all equality of mental freedom; and as to _equality_ in other
respects, it is scarcely a decent regard to the feelings of mankind to
affirm their equality. They are not _physically_ equal. No two men
will compare exactly in this respect. They are not _politically_
equal. The history of all human governments, throughout all time,
shows this. To be “hewers of wood and drawers of water,” in unequal
and subordinate positions, _to the few_, has been the lot of the great
mass of mankind from the days of Adam. But, says the “socialist,” (to
whom the doctrine is far more creditable,) “this latter is precisely
the state of things we deprecate, and affirm that such was never the
intention of Deity, but that it is his will that there should be no
such inequality among men; that his will is in itself _the right_; and
what it is his will we should be, it is _right_ for us to be, and it
is our right _to be_; and that system which makes our condition other
than this, deprives us of our rights.” This is the philosophy of
socialism.

Now it is true that much of the inequality of condition among men is
owing to an abuse of the superior power which intelligence confers
upon the few; but this admission does not advance the cause of
socialism. For if it were allowed that the will of God is the only
rule of right--that is, in itself _the right_, instead of this, that
that which in itself is _the right_ is the will of God--it will not
help the argument. For, on this hypothesis, the will of God is the
only rule of right, as on the other it conforms to the only rule of
right; so that on either, the will of God may be taken as a certain
rule of right. What then does he will? In regard to the present
subject of inquiry, we can only judge what he wills from that which he
has done. Now we have seen that he has not endowed the souls of men
with equal capacity, nor has he even placed them in circumstances of
providential equality, favorable to an equal development of the
unequal capacities he has given them. Superior intelligence is the
condition of inequality. Where this exists, there is essential
inequality, and practical inequality cannot usually be avoided. Hence
_superior_ and _inferior_, and cognate terms, are found in all
languages, and the conditions they represent are found amongst all
people. Hence inequality among men is the will of God; and if his will
is the rule of _our rights_, we have no abstract right to equality.
It is rather our duty to submit to that inequality of condition which
results from the superior intelligence or moral power of others.
Superior physical power may, for a time, give us the ascendency; but
things will find their level. Superior intelligence will ultimately
bear its possessor to his destined eminence. A state of oppression is
not one of _inequality_ merely. It is one in which superior
intelligence has degraded and afflicted those who rank below it, in an
inferior condition; or it is an instance in which, by the aid of brute
force, those of inferior condition have, for a time, risen at the
expense of those of superior intelligence. If we are oppressed, in
either of these ways, we have a right to complain, because our
oppressors violate the will of God concerning us--violate our rights;
but we have no right to complain of _inequality_ merely. Inequality is
the law of Heaven. He who complains of this is not less _unwise_ than
the prisoner who frets at his condition, and chafes himself against
the bars and bolts of the prison which securely confines him!

But if the dogma in question cannot be made to serve the cause of
truth, it has often been made to serve the cause of policy. Many there
are who have not scrupled to use it as a tocsin to call together a
clan, not their inferiors merely, but so degraded in their
inferiority, that, for the price of being honored with the
distinction of “_free and equal fellow-citizens_,” they have been
ready as menials to bow their necks to their masters, debase
themselves, dishonor the state, and insult Jehovah!

2. “All men are created equal.”

This is only another form in which the social philosophy is pleased to
express its one idea. We need only notice the additional error
acquired by the change of language. “All men,” it is said, “are
created.” It is written in the first of Genesis, that “God created man
in his own image: in the image of God created he him: male and female
created he them.” The term “man” is, of course, to be understood in
its generic sense, and all that is affirmed is, that God directly
_created_ Adam and Eve, and all their posterity seminally in them; and
from whom, therefore, they have proceeded, as to both soul and body,
by _generation_, and not by a separate act of creation by Jehovah. Now
of these two created beings, one was placed in direct and immediate
subordination to the other; and although it be true, as it often
practically is, that the _fall_ has reversed this order of things, and
placed the wife at the head of affairs, still the doctrine of
headship, the doctrine of _inequality_, prevails in the one case as in
the other. It is not amiss, however, to remark in passing, that even
so great and humble a man as the Apostle Paul preferred the
old-fashioned doctrine: he insists that we observe the original order
of things: “I suffer not a woman to usurp authority over the man;” 1
Tim. ii. 12; “but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also
saith the law.” 1 Cor. xiv. 34.

As to other points in this dogma, they have been already treated. We
only add that philosophy, no less than religion and true patriotism,
cannot fail to regret that a dogma setting each of their claims aside,
and teaching the purest agrarianism, and that under the most deadly
form--the form of _pure abstract truth_--should have found its way
into that immortal instrument, the Declaration of American
Independence. We cannot otherwise account for it than by the fact that
one of the presiding minds of that great paper had become strongly
tinctured with the infidel philosophy of France.

3. “All men in a state of nature are free and equal.”

This is the form of words by which that great man, Locke, involved
himself in the doctrine of socialism. The school of philosophy has
freed itself of the errors of Locke, and of much of the infidelity of
Hume which those errors precipitated upon the world. The error now
under notice, in the unsettled political state of France, was seized
upon by the Communists: infidelity and anarchy followed. From them, it
was consecrated in an abridged form of words in the greatest state
paper that was ever written,--the “Declaration of Independence,”--and
incorporated into the popular language of the American people, and,
indeed, into that of every people where the English language is
spoken. Great and good men, who abhor the folly of socialism, do not
scruple to assert that the true theory of all governments is, that
they are an abridgment of original and natural rights; forgetful of
the fact that it is from the fountain of socialism that they draw
their original supply of ideas. Those of the republican type maintain
that the government should be founded upon the _concessions_ of the
majority, and that any thing else is tyranny. I propose to deal with
this idea in a future lecture. I now only consider the dogma in the
literal sense--the form in which it exists in popular thought.

Literally, what is the state of man by nature? and, Is he free and
equal in that state? We can conceive of man as existing only in one or
the other of two states; one of which is his natural state, and the
other merely hypothetical: that is, the _simple_, or individual state,
and the _complex_, or social state. To conceive of men in their simple
state, or as _not in a state of society_, is to conceive of them as
existing as mere individuals: that is, _without connection or relation
one with the other_. Is this the _natural_ state of man--the state
intended for him by nature? Certainly not. It is not known to history,
any more than to us, that any set of men ever existed in this way.
This, then, is a merely hypothetical state. In reality, there never
was such a state of things, and never will be. Indeed, on the
hypothesis that such was the original state of men by nature, or as
intended by the Lord, it would follow as a mere truism that each one
of those separate individuals was _free_ from control by any one or
all of the others: that is, they were all _free_ and equal. That this
truism expresses the truth of the case, no doubt exists in the thought
of a great many; but they overlook the hypothesis which makes it a
hypothetical truism, merely because it never had any existence in
fact, and never can have.

To conceive of men in the _social state_ is to conceive of them in
their relations to each other. Hence it is a _complex_ state. Several
ideas enter into this state--not only individuality, as in the former
case, but also contiguity of time and place, variety, and often
contrariety of relations, together with all the ideas which, as
sequences, grow out of these. Now, a leading idea involved in this
state, and inseparable from it, is the idea of _government_: that is,
the _political_ is inseparable from the social state. These various
and conflicting relations must be defined by certain rules, carrying
the full idea of _control_. Without this, these relations could not
operate in harmonious agreement for a single day. Now, as the
_natural_ state of man is the state for which he was made,--the state
to which alone his entire nature is adapted,--there can be no dispute,
the _social_ state is the _natural_ state of man. “And the Lord God
said, It is not good that the man should be alone: I will make him an
helpmeet for him.” He was made, then, for society, and society was
immediately furnished him. But the _law_ of relation, we find, was
coincident with the relation itself: “Therefore shall a man leave his
father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife.” Gen. ii. 24.
And so also, every one born into the world was born in a state of
society--the social state--and has always existed in this state: that
is, _under government_. But we have before proved that a state of
slavery is fundamental in the _complex_ idea of government. There is,
there can be, _no government without it_. Therefore, the natural state
of man, or the state to which he is adapted by both his mental and
physical constitution, is a state of slavery in combination with
liberty, _which is the complex idea of government_.

4. “The relation which men sustain to each other is the relation of
_equality_: not _equality of condition_, but _equality of right_.”

This is the form in which Dr. Wayland prefers to express the doctrine
of equality.[2] He explains himself thus: “Each separate individual is
created with precisely the same right to use the advantages with which
God has endowed him as any other individual.” From this position, as
thus explained, he deduces an argument the force of which, without
expressing it in so many words, is constructively made to pervade the
whole performance. For his whole argument may be embodied thus: the
government which places an individual in any other condition than that
of political equality is an odious tyranny: the government which
establishes domestic slavery does this, and is therefore an odious
tyranny.

[2] Moral Science. Part II., Division I--Reciprocity.

Now, the proposition, as he explains it, may be admitted as a truism;
but then the doctrine of essential equality of right will not follow
from such an admission: that is, social and political equality. For
what if it be true that “each separate individual has precisely the
same right to use the advantages with which God has endowed him?” It
only follows that each one has a common right in this respect merely,
but not that there is an essential equality of right in any available
sense in which we are accustomed to understand the phrase. For if so,
it will follow that brutes have an essential equality of rights with
men, and that both men and brutes have an essential equality of rights
with angels. This is not pushing the argument too far in either
direction. For brutes, in a sense well defined by Dr. Wayland himself,
have rights. No one but a _moral_ brute would deny the right of his
fellow-creature--the brute--to appropriate an accessible bucket of
refreshing water to slake his burning thirst. Nothing is more certain
than that brutes, men, and angels have a common right to appropriate
the advantages with which God has endowed them. Brutes could not have
lower, and angels could not have higher, rights in this respect. But
surely it cannot be said that this common right confers on brutes,
men, and angels, essential equality of rights in any practical sense
whatever; for then it will follow that brutes, men, and angels have an
equal right to social and political equality--a bold and reckless
absurdity.

We admit that one man has a common right with each and all other men
in the respect stated; but not that they have common rights in other
respects. The common right to use our “_advantages to promote our
happiness_” will not constitute us equals in any proper sense, unless
our _advantages_ be equal. Now, Dr. Wayland himself allows, in the
very terms of his proposition, that men are _not equal in
condition_--that is, _not equal in advantages_. And nothing is more
obvious than that men are not equal in that intellectual and moral
condition which would enable them to use certain social and political
advantages for the benefit of themselves and others: consequently,
upon his own admission, they would have no right to them. Unless,
then, it can be shown that God has endowed all human beings with
intellectual and moral capacities sufficiently developed to enable
them to be used for the common welfare, they have no right to what we
call political freedom. But it is unquestionable that men are not
universally nor even generally so endowed. It is not the case with
minors. Political freedom is withheld from them by the laws of all
States, for the obvious reason that it is not among the privileges
which God, as yet, endowed them with the ability to use for the common
welfare. Still, no one, so far as we are aware, ever dreamed that
minors were herein abridged of their natural rights, and that
government and parents were “_odious tyrants_” because they subjected
them to one of the known forms of domestic slavery! We are not
surprised, therefore, that Dr. Wayland found himself compelled to
admit that minors were exceptions to his rule; which, however, he had
argued as universal--universals admit of no exceptions.

Again, it is not true of barbarians, through any of the stages of
barbarism. At no period are they in that state of intellectual and
moral development in which they could use for the common welfare the
blessings of civil freedom, as understood and enjoyed by a highly
civilized people. If they were, they would not be barbarians, but a
civilized people, to whom the right of civilization--political
freedom--would inure.

Now I assume here, what I shall prove in a future lecture, that the
African came into this country in a state of extreme barbarism; and
that, in the judgment of Southern people--whom prejudice itself can
hardly deny are honest and the only competent judges in this
matter--they are still, as a race, in a state of semi-barbarism, to
say the least. If we are right in this position, they also are an
example of persons who are clearly not entitled to the rights which
inure only to a state of civilization. With what propriety, therefore,
could any decent man, whose object is not to insult, affirm that we
are “odious tyrants,” for withholding from the African the rights
which are appropriate only to a state of civilization: unless he were
prepared first to show that we are wrong in our position as to the
question of fact, that they are still in a state of semi-barbarism,
and, therefore, not entitled to civil freedom?

How shall we characterize the course of Dr. Wayland! After drawing an
ingenious argument through many pages of his performance: appealing to
the facts and principles of Holy Scripture: not failing, in the
progress and application of his false position, to stigmatize the
system of African slavery as an odious tyranny, and this for the
obvious purpose of degrading the Southern States of this Union in the
eyes of the whole civilized world: then, when he is confronted, as he
necessarily was, in the progress of his own argument, by the only
material fact in the whole discussion, he adroitly evades all
consideration of it whatever! On page 216, fourth edition, he states
the position of the South, that the “slaves are not competent to
self-government,” and shortly replies, “This is a question of fact
which it is not the province of Moral Philosophy to decide.” Why then
did he decide it by an application of his false position to the South?
Echo answers, Why?

Had he confined the application of his principles to the rights which
belong to a civilized people, we should have no cause to complain; or
had he adduced facts to invalidate the position of the South in
regard to its African population, we should be bound to regard him as
maintaining an honorable discussion; or, yielding this point, had he
attempted to define that form of government most appropriate to a mass
of semi-barbarians, dwelling in the midst of a highly civilized
people, with whom they could not amalgamate; or, declining this, had
he frankly confessed his incompetency (as indeed will really appear
upon a discussion of his basis principle) to do justice to the subject
of Moral Philosophy at this point at least--in either case we should
be bound to respect his effort. But departing, as he evidently does,
from all these obvious lines of duty in the pathway of his desolating
errors, and inflicting so deep a wound upon the feelings of the whole
Southern community, it must be allowed that our charity is heavily
taxed in accounting for his course. He can have no cause to complain
that we adopt the opinion that he has permitted an early prejudice to
grow into a feeling of fanaticism, so fixed as to warp his judgment on
points of very simple application in Moral Science.

Dr. Wayland’s treatise is a text-book in many of our literary
institutions, and he himself is eminently distinguished both in the
religious and literary world. Such a text-book, thus endorsed by both
piety and learning, put into the hands of our young men, could rarely
fail of its object--especially if the professor concur in enforcing
its doctrines. This is frequently the case in Northern institutions,
and has often occurred in Southern; and where it has not, the
professor, as a general thing, is either silent, or he concedes the
_doctrines_ of the text, and rests the defence of the South upon the
false position, that “she cannot help herself!” The assumption that
God has placed men in circumstances in which they cannot avoid a
violation of his own immutable principles of right, may be so entirely
overlooked, as to leave the doctrines and arguments of the text to
work an increasing conviction that there is moral wrong in African
slavery. If this state of things continue, we must not be surprised if
abolition fanaticism should have a still more rapid growth in our
land.

LECTURE IV.

THE QUESTION OF RIGHTS DISCUSSED.

Why it is necessary to define the term RIGHTS--The right in
itself defined to be _the good_--The doctrine that the will of
God is the origin of the right considered--The will of God not
the origin of the right, but an expression of _the right_ which
is the good--Natural rights and acquired rights, each defined.

There are questions which lie back of this discussion--errors, as I
think, which underlie the popular ideas of both government and rights.
We should not consider that we had fully met the difficulties of the
subject if we passed them by.

Domestic slavery, it is said, is an abridgment of inalienable rights;
and legitimate government is a voluntary concession of certain
alienable rights.

Natural rights are, of course, such as are inherent in the
constitution of man: inalienable, because in point of fact he cannot
be substantively deprived of them. The law which in any case provides
to do this, treats him as though he were not a rational, but a mere
sentient being--and therein alienates his rights. Domestic slavery is
said to treat the slave as a mere chattel, a thing, not an entity, and
hence deprives him by provision of law of the right of being treated
as a rational being as he is, and not a mere thing. This is said,
because it places his time and labor at the disposal of another man.
How far this reproach is just, turns upon a definite answer to the
question--_What are rights?_

“_Government is a voluntary concession of certain alienable rights._”
If this concession be made by the majority of the citizens, the
government is called republican; if otherwise, it is called despotic.
In this theory of government, certain rights are assumed to be given
up, in order to secure other and more important rights. I have shown
government to embody, of necessity, two great abstract principles in
harmonious operation--though, in their essential nature, the one
antagonizes the other. Now the principle of slavery--_control by the
will of another_--certainly operates an abridgment of the exercise of
_self-control_, which is the principle of liberty. And so far as the
principle of slavery operates, in any given instance of government, is
that, in such instance, a giving up, to that extent, of the right of
_self-control_, in order to secure a _right_ to the _self-control_
which remains ungiven up? Is this so? This question also turn upon
the solution of that other question--What are rights?

And again, _self-control_, we say, is the principle of liberty.
Practical freedom is the exercise of the _right_ of self-control. How
far does the right of self-control extend? I say that an instance in
which a body of men emerged from a state of nature, (so called,) and
formed a government by an original act, is unknown to history. It
never occurred. Man was placed originally by Jehovah himself under
political law. The very moment that he placed the first being in a
relation to another by giving him a “_helpmeet_,” he gave him a law to
govern that relation, as we have seen; and all the subsequent acts of
men in the matter of government-making, have been such modifications
of the existing form of government as they supposed would better suit
their circumstances. But it is said that when society meets in
convention to agree upon certain principles called a constitution,
under which the laws shall be made, men do virtually, for the time
being, resolve themselves into their original position or state
without government; and that the constitution so formed is virtually
an original formation. Well, for the sake of the argument, let it be
so. When, therefore, society thus falls back upon its original
position, men stand upon the basis of what are supposed their
_original rights_! What is that? Why, the right that each man has to
do as he may please. They form a government: that is, give up a part,
more or less, of their _original right_. Of course a part remains
ungiven up, and the giving up cannot be to secure the possession of
that which is already in possession! What is it that invests these
questions with difficulty? Is it not the ambiguity of the term rights?
Let us then define _rights_, if we would not be for ever entoiled by
these absurdities.

And still again: Is liberty the right of self-control? Is not
man--accountable man--free in virtue of his very humanity? Does this
freedom imply absolute liberty? If so, absolute liberty is inherent in
his very constitution--it is inalienable. What right, then, can he
have to give it up, or any part of it? If so, he has the right to do
that which subjectively he cannot do. If, then, government be a
concession of the _right_ of self-control in this sense, it is the
concession of an inalienable right, and should be abandoned as a piece
of folly.

It is entirely obvious, therefore, that we cannot advance in these
inquiries at all without first settling the question, _What are
rights?_

The English language is allowed to be one of great power, compass, and
accuracy, and therefore eminently adapted to reasoning. It derives
this quality in a good degree from its flexibility, the different
varieties of idea, and often the different shades of meaning in these
varieties that may be expressed by one word. No language is supposed
to compare with it in this respect. But whilst this adapts it to the
purpose of correct reasoning, it opens also a wide field for errors in
argument. Men usually differ widely in _opinion_, but they do not
often differ in sentiment. All intelligent and good men _feel right_,
and _mean right_. They often differ in opinion because they differ in
the meaning they attach to the language, the same language, which is
the medium through which each views the same subject. Different men
use the same word in different senses. The same man often uses the
same word by habit in different senses in the same connection. They
come to different conclusions, of course, and the same man often
entoils himself by his own argument. Now, there are few words with
which men have more to do in discussions and opinions about liberty
and government--the next most important matters to personal
religion--than with the word _rights_; and there are few words which
are capable of more varied application, and which are in truth oftener
applied to express different shades of meaning, than this word
_rights_. Webster gives correctly some forty different meanings of
this term, together with several subordinate senses in which it
occurs, all of which are in common use. _Our_ language--and of what
language is not the same true?--our literature, our theology, our
politics--society on all sides--is bristling with _rights_! Now, is it
not obvious that there must be some generic idea which classifies all
the different meanings and applications of this term, and which has
its foundation in the common sense, the common reason of all mankind?

If, then, we inquire what are our rights in any given case, this
question directly involves that other and ultimate question, What is
_the right_ in itself? the solution of which solves at once the
general question in regard to all cases. And although the case in
which our _rights_ may appear must be first in point of time before
our minds, to call up our idea of _the right_, still our definite
antecedent idea of the right is the logical condition on which we
determine whether the right appears in that case.

Call then, to your mind, an instance of justice, and one of injustice:
a case of virtue and a case of crime: an example of heroism and an
example of weakness: does not each of these cases embody, the one
class your idea of the _right in itself_, and the other your idea of
the _wrong in itself_? But your conception of the cases in which your
antecedent idea of the _right_ and the _wrong_ appears, and your
antecedent idea of _that right_ and of _that wrong_, are very
different ideas: that is, the case itself and your idea of the
principle are distinct: the one a thing, the other an idea of
something real. What, then, is your idea of the _right_, which is so
distinct in your mind from the case in which it appears? Interrogate
your reason and consciousness. Interrogate the reason and
consciousness of all mankind.

Take this example: “The father of _Caius Toranius_ had been proscribed
by the triumvirate. _Caius Toranius_, coming over to the interest of
that party, discovered to the officers who were in pursuit of his
father the place where he concealed himself, and gave withal a
description by which they might distinguish his person when they found
him. The old man, more anxious for the safety and fortunes of his son
than about the little that might remain of his own life, began
immediately to inquire of the officers who seized him, whether his son
were well, whether he had done his duty to the satisfaction of the
generals. ‘That son,’ replied one of the officers, ‘so dear to thy
affections, betrayed thee to us: by his information thou art
apprehended, and diest.’ The officer, with this, struck a poniard to
his heart, and the unhappy parent fell, not so much affected by his
fate as by the means to which he owed it.”[3] Here is an example of
the greatest filial impiety, and of the highest parental affection.
The one fulfils our idea of _the right_, the other our idea of _the
wrong_. Now, what is this idea of the right and the wrong in which all
are supposed to agree? We would not ask, with the disciple of Paley,
of Condillac, or of Helvetius, what the “wild boy, caught years ago in
the woods of Hanover,” would have thought of this case; nor what the
savage, without experience and without instruction, cut off in his
infancy from all intercourse with his species, would think of it. No:
“the savage state offers us humanity in swaddling-clothes, so to
speak--the germ of humanity, but not humanity entire. The true man is
the perfect man of his kind: true human nature is human nature arrived
at its development.”[4] We utterly deny that, in order to arrive at
the judgment of human nature, we need consult a savage in such
circumstances, or indeed to consult a savage at all. And yet we say
that even a savage of good mind, who has lived long enough in society
to get the idea of the relation of parent and child--such as even
savages have--would pronounce the conduct of the one to be right, and
of the other to be wrong, and have a definite idea of that _right_ and
that _wrong_, each in itself. And we furthermore say, that human
nature cultivated to the highest degree bears the same testimony to
the difference in the conduct of this father and this son, and
attaches essentially the same ideas to that difference. In calling the
one _right_ and the other _wrong_, men say, and they mean to say, that
_the one is good and the other is evil_. This is the uniform judgment
of human reason--the permanent belief of mankind. To this _common
sense_ bears ample testimony. Grammarians have not invented languages.
Government itself dates back of legislators--they have only modified
it. Philosophers have not invented beliefs: without concert, without
conventions, the world has fallen upon certain beliefs, and certain
signs to express these beliefs. In the secret chambers of the soul,
not of any one individual man, but of all men individually,
consciousness bears testimony that such and such is the belief of all
men, and this we call the judgment of common sense; and such is also
her testimony in all languages as to the thing that is _right_, and
that the _right_ in any given case is the idea we have of the _good_
in that case. _The right, then, is the good._

[3] Paley’s Philosophy.--Moral Science.

[4] M. Cousin.

“Right, _rectus_,” says Webster, “straightness, rectitude;” which he
explains to be conformity to rule or law, and that the _will of God_
is the ultimate rule or law which determines the _right_ or the
_wrong_ in all cases. Hence conformity to this rule is the generic
idea of the _right_ in itself, according to Webster. In this view,
Horne Tooke, in his Diversions of Purley, concurs. As his criticism is
ingenious, instructive, and generally truthful, I quote the more
material portion of his article on rights. After telling us in his
dialogue that Johnson only informs us that _right_ is not _wrong_, and
_wrong_ is not _right_, he adds:

“H. RIGHT is no other than RECT_um_, (_regetum_,) the past participle
of the Latin verb _regere_, etc.

“In the same manner, our English word JUST is the past participle of
the verb _jubere_.

“DECREE, EDICT, STATUTE, INSTITUTE, MANDATE, PRECEPT, are all past
participles.

“F. What then is law?

“H. It is merely the past tense and past participle of the Gothic and
Anglo-Saxon verb which means something or any thing laid down as a
rule of conduct. Thus when a man demands his RIGHT, he asks only that
which it is ordered he shall have. A RIGHT conduct is that which is
_ordered_: a RIGHT reckoning is that which is ordered: a RIGHT line is
that which is _ordered_ or _directed_, (not a random extension, but)
the shortest between two points: the RIGHT road is that ordered to be
passed (for the object you have in view:) to do RIGHT is to do that
which is ordered to be done: to be in the RIGHT is to be in such
situation or circumstances as are _ordered_: to have RIGHT or law on
one’s side is to have in one’s favor that which is ordered or laid
down: a RIGHT and JUST action is such an one as is _ordered_ and
_commanded_: a JUST man is such as he is commanded to be--_qui leges
juraque servat_--who observes and obeys the things laid down or
commanded; and the RIGHT hand is that which custom and those who have
brought us up have ordered or directed us to use in preference, when
one hand only is employed; and the LEFT hand is that which is
_leaved_, left, or which we are taught to leave out of use on such
occasions. So that left, you see, is also a past participle.

“F. Every thing, then, that is _ordered_ and _commanded_ is RIGHT and
JUST?

“H. Surely; for that is only affirming that what is _ordered_ and
_commanded_, is _ordered_ and _commanded_.

“F. Now what becomes of your vaunted RIGHTS of man? According to you,
the chief merit of man is obedience; and whatever is ordered and
commanded is RIGHT and JUST. This is pretty well for a _democrat_. And
those have always been your sentiments?

“H. Always; and those sentiments confirm my democracy.

“F. Those sentiments do not appear to have made you very conspicuous
for obedience. There are not a few passages, I believe, in your life,
where you have opposed what was _ordered_ and _commanded_. Upon your
principles, was that RIGHT?

“H. Perfectly.

“F. How now! Was it _ordered_ and _commanded_ that you should oppose
what was _ordered_ and _commanded_! Can the same thing be at the same
time both RIGHT and WRONG?

“H. Travel back to Melinda, and you will find the difficulty easily
solved.” (The people of Melinda are all _left-handed_, i. e., _their
right_ is _our left_. But they are as _right_-handed as we are; for
they use that hand in preference which is _ordered_ by their custom,
and is therefore _their right hand_, and leave out of employ the
other, which is, therefore, their _left_ hand.) “A thing may be at the
same time both RIGHT and WRONG, as well as RIGHT and LEFT. It may be
_commanded_ to be done and _commanded_ not to be done. The law--that
which is _laid down_--may be different by different authorities.

“I have always been most obedient when most taxed with disobedience.
But my RIGHT hand is not the RIGHT hand of Melinda. The RIGHT I
revere is not the right ordered by sycophants: the _jus vagum_, the
capricious command of princes or ministers. I follow the LAW _of God_,
(what is _laid down_ by him for the rule of my conduct,) when I follow
the laws of human nature: which without any human testimony we know
must proceed from God; and upon these are founded the RIGHTS of man,
or what is _ordered_ for man. I revere the constitution and
constitutional laws of England, because they are in conformity with
the LAWS of _God_ and _nature_; and upon these are founded the
rational rights of Englishmen. If princes, or ministers, or the
corrupt sham-representatives of the people, _order_, _command_, or
_lay down_ any thing contrary to that which is _ordered_, _commanded_,
or _laid down_ by God, human nature, or the constitution of this
government, I will still hold fast by the higher authorities. If the
meaner authorities are offended, they can only destroy the body of the
individual, but never can affect the RIGHT, or that which is ordered
by their superiors.”[5]

[5] See his whole article on Rights.

Thus he is found to agree with Webster, that the _will of God_ is the
ultimate _genus_ of the RIGHT. That is RIGHT, which conforms to the
will of God as _laid down in law_--whether that law be a _written
revelation_, nature, or the customs of society, (as in the case of
the _right_ and _left_ hand,) as the exponent of that will--they are
what is ordered in the case, and make the RIGHT. Hence he condemns as
“wretched mummery” the distinction admitted by M. Portalis, between
obedience to a command, and obedience to what is RIGHT and JUST in
itself, and, on the same ground, pronounces it “highly improper” to
say, with Mr. Locke, “God has a RIGHT to do it: we are his creatures.”
For truly if his will be the ultimate _genus_ of RIGHT, then he can
have no _rights_, for there is certainly no superior to whose
_commands_ he conforms in the acts of his will. But precisely at this
point let us take our stand. I affirm on the authority of Scripture,
no less than sound philosophy, (always in harmony,) that _God has_
RIGHTS, and that the distinction of M. Portalis is in many instances
correct; and that hence Tooke, Dr. Paley, (who also concurs in this
view--see his article Rights, in his Moral Philosophy,) Dr. Webster,
with many others of great distinction, strangely err, not in their
etymology of this word, but in that hypothesis by which they make it a
significate of the _will of God_. We cannot agree with them that
RIGHTS and DUTIES which are reciprocal, are resolvable only into the
will of God--have his will alone for their ultimate foundation. I take
ground back of this. True, I say with them--and I claim full credit
in the declaration--that the volitions, the acts of God, are always
RIGHT; but I do not say that his will makes the essential or true
distinction between _right_ and _wrong_. We dare not assume that God,
could, by an act of volition, make the _right_ to be the _wrong_, and
the _wrong_ to be the _right_--good evil, and evil good! It is absurd
to assume that God can do things that are in themselves contradictory.
Omnipotent, we know, he is; but such things are not the objects of
power, any more than things which _are_ the objects of power, are, in
the same sense, the objects of Omniscience. To affirm that he could
make the _right_ to be the wrong, is as _false_ as it would be impious
to affirm that he _would_ do it, if he could--false, because, if he
can, he has not deposited the truth in that great master-work of his
hand, the mind of man; for, by the power of the intuition he has given
us, we are assured that the idea is in itself a gross absurdity. And
if this be not decisive of the question, then neither intuition nor
the deductions of intuition are of any authority. Man is the victim of
a false guide within! He may “eat and drink, for to-morrow he dies!”
There will be no more of him; or, what is worse, he is but a link in a
chain of sentient beings who are governed by a cruel fate, which
regards not the distinctions of _right_ and _wrong_; and he may be
the sport of wickedness in the world to come, as he has been the
victim of deception in this! I think it more than error to reason
thus! I think it profane!

We may take ground back of this--ground as honorable to God as it is
exalting to man and encouraging to his hopes. It is true, that both
rectitude and duty, together with liberty, are resolvable into the
essential good. Or, in other words, _freedom_, _rectitude_, and _duty_
are the modes of thought in which we conceive of the good as existing
in the soul of man, and that they are, each of them, in their distinct
nature and harmonious union, the true ideal of the good--the modes of
thought, also, in which the intuition of man perceives the good in the
case of every moral action which is good. And concerning the good in
itself, which is thus in an humble degree perceived by us, it is
certainly a reality which is immutable and eternal. God did not make
it--nor was it made. It is of the essential nature of God, and
eternal. He is the great impersonation of the good. His will, his
volitions, in all cases, are but the expressions of this high
attribute. His will, therefore, always conforming to the essential
good, is a perfect rule of what is right in itself, and proper to be
observed by us, as a rule of duty or conduct. Such a rule, it will be
seen, is eminently adapted to the wants of humanity; but, at the same
time, his will and the good are different realities. The one is an
essential quality of his holy nature, and the other is, to a certain
extent, an expression of this attribute in the form of volitions. That
the will of God did not make the right in itself, will readily appear.
Is it to be conceived that there ever was a period in eternity past,
when truth was not truth, or when truth did not exist? when _the good_
was not the _good_, or when the good did not exist? But does it not
accord with the clearest teachings of reason, that the truth always
was the truth, and ever will be the truth? that the good always will
be the good? That two and two are equal to four; that to affirm a
thing to be and not to be at the same time is an absurdity and a
contradiction; and that things equal to one and the same thing are
equal to one another, we say are all intuitive truths--we cannot be
mistaken about them. So also in morals: that the truth is good; that
virtue is good; that a good action is not an evil action; and that to
affirm that a good action is not a good action is an absurdity, a
contradiction, we say, _are all intuitions_--_we cannot be mistaken
about them_. But is it not equally intuitive that these things were
always so--that these truths were always truths--the good was always
the good, just as certainly as that they are so now? Then the
_eternity_ of these things is just as certainly an intuition, as that
they exist now is an intuition. Hence the eternity of God, who is the
great impersonation of this high quality, or whose attribute it is, is
an intuitive truth. Hence his will did not make it, for it is absurd
to say that he made himself. His will, therefore, which, in given
cases, is his volition, is but the expression of this essential
quality of his holy nature. Hence his will is a rule of right, because
in all cases it conforms to the good, but it did not make the good.

Therefore the RIGHT, as it conforms to the essential GOOD, is of the
nature of the GOOD. It is properly a significate of the good, and not
a significate of the _will of God_. Things agreeing with one and the
same thing agree with each other. Hence it coincides with the will of
God. But such coincidence does not constitute any thing _right_ in
itself; but it is because, like the will of God, it conforms to, or is
of the nature of, the ESSENTIAL GOOD, _that it is right_. The RIGHT
then, in itself, is the GOOD. The GOOD is the true generic idea which
classifies all the different applications of this term. So far as any
thing is of the nature of the GOOD, it is in itself RIGHT. So far as
any thing, to which the idea of the RIGHT applies, is negative of the
_good_, i. e., is evil, it is WRONG.

The GOOD, therefore, as an ultimate _genus_, is much more extensive in
meaning than the RIGHT. It extends to all _physical_ as well as
_moral_ good. Our subject requires us to consider it only so far as it
applies to humanity. And how far is this? When Jehovah created man, he
pronounced him to be “very good,” i. e., essentially good in the
attributes of his nature. He was created in “his own image: in the
image of God created he him.” “And the Lord God formed man of the dust
of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and
_man became a living soul_.” That is, he was created a pure spiritual
intelligence. He had a clear and correct perception and judgment of
pure abstract truth, and of the relations of truth; with the
corresponding feelings of obligation to duty, and a power of will
sufficient to control the mental states within the sphere of its
operations. Now, as a pure intelligence, thus endowed, he is within
the limits of his capacity a cause within himself--strictly a
self-acting agent, and hence accountable. And as he was created with a
feeling of obligation to observe the good as a rule in all his
conduct, he was created a subject of duty--he was under obligation to
do, to act; and as in each of these respects, and in all others, he
was created in conformity with the essential good, he was _rectus_,
_right_. All this is implied in that declaration of his essential
nature, as a pure spiritual intelligence, (who was therein made in the
image of God,) which defined him to be “_very good_.” Nor can we think
of this good as a quality or attribute of humanity, without being
conscious, if we reflect closely, of associating in our minds the idea
that the being who personates it is for that reason _free_; that for
that reason he is _rectus_, _straight_, conformed to the good as the
rule, that is, _right_; and that for the same reason he is under
obligation--it is his _duty_ to act according to that rule. Every
instance of moral action that is good implies these ideas: it is
_free_, it is _rectus_, _straight_, and it is done in accordance with
_duty_. In the same sense in which _life_, _sense_, and _motion_ enter
into and so form the comprehension of the creature, animal; so
_liberty_, _rectitude_, and _duty_ form the comprehension of moral
good, so far as it applies to humanity. These are distinct ideas.
Still they coincide, and either implies the others as correlatives.
Hence we say of a _free_ action that it is _good_, implying that it is
at the same time _rectus_, and done in accordance with duty; and of an
action in conformity to a proper rule, that it is _good_, implying at
the same time that it is _free_, and done in accordance with _duty_;
and also of an action in compliance with _duty_, that it is _good_,
implying that it is also _free_, and straight, i. e., conformed to
rule: thus in each case we imply the correlative ideas.

Now, whatever is in my possession by natural endowment is _mine_, in
the strictest sense. Hence, _freedom_ is mine, _duty_ is mine, and
_rectitude_ is mine, because the _good_ is mine, and those are the
elements of the good, each one implying the others.

Hence arises the idea of _natural right_: that is, the _right_ with
which I am endowed by the constitution of my nature as a rational
being. But what is that RIGHT? Evidently, the _good_. The good as an
attribute is in my possession. I am constituted with it and by it.
Hence it is inalienable. Divest me of the good as an attribute of my
nature, i. e., liberty, rectitude, and duty, and I sink at once in the
scale of being: I cease altogether to be a rational or accountable
being.

Let no one imagine that this position conflicts with the well-known
fact that man is a fallen being. For although fallen, he is still
accountable. True, his moral nature is in ruins, but still it is a
moral nature. Though disordered, it is not eradicated. Hence the
restoration by grace is called a conversion; but if the essential
moral nature of man had been destroyed by the fall, and an attribute
of essential evil had taken the place of it, his restoration could not
be called, as it is, a _change_, but should be called in the
strictest sense an _original_ creation. Hence, although man is fallen,
depraved--and we need not object to the strong terms in which this
depravity is usually expressed--still we find that the sentiment of
all mankind is on the side of virtue, on the side of the good; and
that men, though unchanged by sovereign grace, are still required to
be honest, gentlemanly, and in all things regardful of each other’s
rights. We admit of exceptions or modifications of this only in the
case of those in whom humanity has not been fully developed, as before
noticed, and those in civilized life who have so far abused their
moral nature as, in the language of Paul, to fit themselves for
destruction. Therefore, it still remains that the _good_ in the form
of rectitude, _right_, is in some modification an endowment of my
nature: the _right_, in itself, is mine by nature.

But the good, as an attribute, is an _active_ principle. We were
endowed with it for the purpose of movement--for results. It is my
duty to act _right_--straight, or in accordance with the _good_ as a
rule. Hence, whatever is a necessary _condition_ of the operation of
this active principle, the essential good, is in itself a good which
is either in my possession, and hence is mine by possession; or it
_ought_ to be in my possession, and hence is mine by just title.
Hence, to breathe, under all circumstances, together with all physical
motion and the sustenance of the body, which involves the right of
property to a certain extent, each in given circumstances, is the
natural right of every one. So also the right of the embryo-man, the
idiot, the imbecile, the uncivilized, or the savage, to protection and
defence, is a natural right; and for the same reason, to be protected
and defended from certain helpless conditions by others, is the
natural right of every one in all states of humanity. Because each of
these, and of all similar things, is in itself good, being a necessary
condition of the operation of the essential good, and is either in our
possession or ought to be in our possession; each one is also a
_natural right_, the good that is or ought to be in our possession.

But there are _acquired rights_.

It is the _duty_ of man to act, from the very fact that he is endowed
with the attribute of the _good_, which envelops the idea of duty. He
also has _power_ to act from the very same natural constitution. Now,
if he use this _power_ as duty and rectitude indicate that he should
do, all nature teaches, what the Bible confirms, that he will glorify
God, i. e., exemplify his goodness, and therein promote his own
happiness and the happiness of those with whom he is associated; or,
in other words, he will secure for himself and confer upon his
fellows eminent benefits resulting from the performance of his duty.
Now, whatever results to him in this way is certainly his by
possession, or by Divine grant, as much so as any natural _right_; but
these _benefits_, being of the nature of the essential good, (for the
reason that they are _benefits_, are in themselves _right_,) result to
him in the performance of his duty, and therefore are _his rights_.
But the acquisition is made to depend upon the exercise of his
_arbitrary_ volition. If he use this in pursuance of duty, they
follow. If he use it in violation of duty, they do not follow. Hence,
if he realize them at all, either by possession or by title, they are
_acquired_, and therefore are acquired _rights_ or benefits.

Therefore, _acquired rights_ may be defined, such good, in the form of
benefits or privileges, as results from the performance of duty.
Logically, they belong to the class of the essential good called
benefits or privileges, with the “_essential difference_” that they
are such as result from the performance of duty. Any other result,
though in itself of the nature of the essential good, yet, as it
conferred no benefit, could not be said to be _our right_. Capital
punishment, for example, when in accordance with the Divine will, is
in itself of the nature of the essential good; still, it would be an
abuse of language to say, in any ordinary case, that it was the right
of the criminal to be hung! because for no reason that we can imagine
does it confer any benefit or privilege upon the criminal. To be
_acquired rights_, therefore, they must not only be of the nature of
the good--that is, actual benefits--but this good must result from the
performance of duty, and not from the non-performance of duty, as in
the example given.

The definition corresponds with the language of common sense. All men,
in speaking of cases which are supposed to involve the question of
_rights_, employ the term in this sense. You say, of a farmer in a
given case, that he had no _right_ to an abundant harvest: why?
because he neglected his farm: his lands were not properly prepared,
and the growing crop was left open to depredations from stock: that
is, he neglected his duty; he had no _right_ to the benefit of an
abundant harvest. And again, you say to a neighbor, You should have
paid a certain sum of money to A., in a given case. He had a _right_
to the money, because he complied with the conditions on which the
money was to be paid. _He did his duty_, and therefore had a _right_
to the money. Thus, the neglect of duty negatives _right_ in the one
case, and the performance affirms it in the other, according to the
common usage of language.

Another idea which clearly enters into the common and correct use of
this term is that it is reciprocal with _obligation_: that is,
wherever there is a right in one person, there is a corresponding
obligation, _duty_, upon others. If one man has a _right_ to an
estate, others are under obligation, that is, it is their _duty_, to
abstain from it. If the letting of it alone be the result of duty on
the part of others, the enjoyment of it by him must also result from
duty on his part, or the ideas do not coincide: that which was duty in
one set of men would not be duty in another, in regard to the same
thing, and in correlative circumstances. This would be absurd:
therefore, the duty of one set of men to let another alone in the
enjoyment of a certain benefit, implies the correlative idea that they
enjoy the benefit in virtue of doing their duty. Hence, those benefits
which are our rights result to us from the performance of our duty.

The points established in this discussion are:

1. That conformity to what is _ordered_ or commanded is not the true
generic idea of _the right_ in itself. What is ordered or commanded
can only interpret _the right_, when the command itself conforms to
the essential good, as in the case of the Divine will. This is always
_right_, because it so conforms, or is always an expression of the
essential good.

Hence, the _good_ is the true generic idea of _the right_. This alone
can interpret _the right_ in any case. Therefore, although man, in
virtue of his constitution as a pure intelligence, has the _power_ to
do _wrong_, he has not, and never can have, _the right_ to do wrong.
For wrong is the negative of right; and any thing, whether attribute,
quality, opinion, doctrine, or act--every thing, whether moral or
physical--to be _right_, must be of the nature of the _good_: all else
is _wrong, not right_. And it further follows, that the only true
subjective _right_ which any man has to exercise his power of
self-control, is in doing that which is good, and not in doing that
which is evil.

2. The _natural rights_ of man are,

First--The essential good in his possession by natural endowment, and
which is therefore inalienable. And, Second--The necessary conditions,
whatever they may be, of the operation of the inherent good as an
active principle. Some of these are inalienable, and others are
alienable. To this view of natural rights the common usage of language
conforms.

3. The _acquired rights_ of man are, such good, in the form of
benefits or privileges, as results to him from the performance of
duty.

LECTURE V.

THE DOCTRINES OF RIGHTS APPLIED TO GOVERNMENT.

Government, human as well as Divine, is a necessity of man’s
fallen condition--All men concur in this--Man did not originate
government: he has only modified the form--The legitimate
objects of government, and the means which it employs to effect
these objects--The logical inferences: 1. Although he has the
power, he has no right to do wrong; 2. As a fallen being, he
is, without a government over him, liable to lose the power of
self-control--What are the rights of man: 1. In a state of
infancy; 2. In a state of maturity; and, 3. In a savage or
uncivilized state--Civil government is not founded on a
concession of rights.

Philosophers, it seems to me, strangely overlook the tendency of man’s
fall to modify the operation of the laws of mind; and those who admit
the fall still overlook this fact, that the depravity of man’s nature
was the result of _deprivation_, and not the infusion of an evil
principle as an attribute of his nature. But it is not with the
theology of this subject that we are now dealing. The fact that, as a
fallen being, he was deprived of the immediate presiding influence of
the Divine Spirit, is the matter that more immediately engages our
attention. His lower physical nature, the great medium of the soul’s
communication with the outward world, and of consciousness in the
embodied state, _originally_ operated in perfect and harmonious
subordination to his higher spiritual nature. In this condition, his
appetites, propensities, and passions presented no bar to his
happiness, or to that of his fellows. The government or control which
his situation demanded, we may suppose, was simple, and concerned
chiefly his relation to the Deity. But when, on the great occasion of
his trial, he exercised his power of self-action, and exalted this
nature as a rule of moral action, instead of the essential good of his
higher nature, of which the will of God in the given case was the full
and just exponent, there resulted a deprivation of the Divine Spirit,
such as entirely changed the relation of those departments of his
nature. Under the clouded condition of intellect consequent upon this
deprivation, his lower nature, with its appetites, propensities, and
passions, is brought into constant and fierce conflict with his
spiritual nature. This change in the condition of his humanity
presents his case in an aspect altogether new. The history of each
individual man becomes the history of a warfare--a warfare with
himself, and a warfare with his fellows. With a highly vigorous moral
nature, he is also the subject of a carnal or depraved nature. In this
state of things, _government_ becomes an _actual necessity of his
condition_. The Divine government, with all the aids and appliances
afforded by the grand scheme of atonement, must appeal to his
passions, both of hope and of fear. For it is only by reducing his
lower nature to its originally subordinate and harmonious position
that an equilibrium will be established, and his primordial happiness
regained. But the Divine government, though operating in harmony with
the claims of his moral nature, and founded upon the relation which he
sustains to Jehovah, and indispensable to his happiness here and
hereafter, of itself alone does not meet a great many of the immediate
demands of his condition. Hence the statement of Solomon: “Because
sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the
heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.” The
consequences of obedience, high and holy as they are, and the
consequences of disobedience, great and terrible as they are, are too
remote from man, in many states of intellect and feeling in which he
often places himself, to meet the immediate demands of his nature.
Hence, that modification of government called civil government, is no
less demanded by the necessities of his condition than the Divine.

Civil government deals chiefly with the relations of man to his
fellow-man. It coincides with the Divine government. They each aim at
the control of the lower nature of man, and the development of his
higher nature. The means they employ are the same in principle. They
address the same passions. The rewards and punishments of the one are
in this life, and of the other chiefly in the life to come. Withal,
the civil has the sanction of the Divine, and the Divine should always
have the sanction of the civil, government. But still they are
entirely distinct, and should not be confounded either in theory or in
practice. The one is secular, and the other is Divine.

Now, we say that civil government--for of that we are called more
particularly to speak--_is a necessity of man’s condition_. It dates
back as early as the creation of man. God himself established it in
the law he gave to govern the first relation that existed on
earth--the relation between Adam and his “helpmeet.” After the fall, a
necessity arose which gave it a new and more important bearing. We
soon see it ramifying itself through all society, and dealing with all
the relations of life.

Its necessity and authority, as a great means of controlling the
lower nature of man, is among the permanent beliefs of mankind.
Neither legislators nor philosophers originated these beliefs. They
are among the intuitions of man. The common judgment of mankind is not
more assured that man exists, than that fallen man must be controlled
in his appetites, propensities, and passions--the sum of what is often
considered his interest and his happiness--by the _physical powers of
government_. Each individual man feels that he needs its powerful
sanctions to arm him against himself, when violently tempted to do
wrong; and that he needs its sanctions to protect him from outrage and
wrong from his fellow-men, when moved by similar forces. The instincts
of animal nature are not more certain in their movements than are the
_intuitive_ perceptions and spontaneous feelings of mankind, causing
them to lean upon the strong arm of civil government, to _control_ the
propensities and passions, and to promote the free exercise of the
higher moral nature of man.

Government is the whole society in action. No people was ever known to
exist for any definite period without government. Sometimes, it is
true, _the form_ has been the result of implied understandings among
the people--as when “there was no judge in Israel:” at others, a
master-spirit has assumed the reins, and been deferred to by common
consent; and at others, it has been modified by formal processes--such
as conventions and constitutions. Be this, however, as it may,
government has always existed. Legislators did not make it. They have
had much to do in modifying, directing, and often in corrupting the
form; but nothing to do in originating government, in any proper sense
of the term. It sprang spontaneously from the common sense of mankind.
An agent indispensable to self-preservation was certainly coeval with
the race.

In its true generic sense, that is, in a sense equally applicable to
all forms, government is _control_ by the authority of God and the
people. God, in his word, declares the authority of the magistrate to
be his ordinance; and this accords with the intuitive belief and
feeling of necessity of all mankind: not that either approves in all
cases of the _form_ which government assumes, but that the generic
principle, in all cases, has the sanction of each.

The legitimate object of government is to secure to the people the
highest amount of freedom which their moral condition and relative
circumstances will admit. The means which it employs to effect this
object, are, 1. Suitable penalties, addressed to their hopes and
fears, to lay them under such restraints as to the indulgence of their
appetites, propensities, and passions, as thereby to prevent them
from operating as a bar to the free exercise of their intellectual and
moral powers in pursuit of the _essential_ good; and, 2. The security
which it offers to every man, in the exercise of the higher powers of
his nature, that he may do it without restraint from the passions of
men; or, in other words, to guarantee to every man the free exercise
of his essential power to do good.

That both the object of government, and the means which it employs,
are correctly stated, will not be disputed. All men concur in these
views. They underlie all our opinions and reasonings on the subject of
civil government. But in assenting to this much, (and how can it be
avoided?) may we not stand committed to much more than many
theoretical politicians are aware?

Let us trace the logical inferences which arise from the principles
discussed.

I. Man, we find, is endowed with a self-acting power of will, which is
called mental liberty, and hence he is accountable. For although it is
admitted that there cannot be a volition without a motive, yet it is
an idea inseparable from our notions of mental liberty, that there
cannot be any thing in these motives necessitating the volition; for
in that case it would not be free. But he is free to adopt either the
right or the wrong motive of volition, and therefore he is
accountable for his actions. Nor does it follow that this liberty
confers the _right_ to do _wrong_. His liberty, as we have shown, is
to be understood in a sense agreeing with the coincident ideas of
_right_ and _duty_. We are all conscious, that so soon as we perceive
_the good_, in any case, we have a feeling of _obligation_ to observe
it as the rule of conduct, and to avoid the contrary as _wrong_; that
is, _each man has a conscience_. Hence, although man has the _power_
to do wrong, he has no _right_ to do wrong; but only a _right_ to do
that which is good. Such, and such only, is the true subjective _right
of self-control_. It is not a right to do as we may please, unless we
shall please to do that which, in itself, is _right_; that is, _the
good_.

II. His fall, we have seen, has had the effect to place him in such
circumstances, that the attributes of his lower nature, his appetites,
propensities, and passions, often have such ascendency as motives of
action, that he is always liable to do wrong. Many reasons, _à
priori_, could be given for this. The mind is first brought into
contact with the outward world through the bodily senses. They come
first into play; and hence the natural sensibilities are first
developed. The will, in the form of spontaneous volition, is
accustomed, from earliest life, to act from these as a motive, for the
reason that there is no other from which it can act. The pure
intelligence, the percipient of the good, and the corresponding
feelings of obligation, unfold themselves slowly; and long before it
may be said that the mind is matured, the will is accustomed to make
the natural sensibilities the motive of spontaneous volition. Now the
will is, like all other faculties of the mind, subject to the great
law of habit; and if not checked, restrained according to the true
idea of government, a _habit_ of submission is formed, which, if not
early dissolved, becomes a confirmed habit. The will, instead of being
the governing power of the mind, becomes, in truth, the faculty
governed. _It has lost the power of self-control._ It has become the
slave of passion--confirmed in the habit of submission. It is
precisely at this point of mental degradation that Paul declares of
“vessels of wrath,” those who have brought themselves into this state
by their own act, that “they are fitted to destruction.” Now, in view
of these facts and the principles already established, what are the
rights of man?

First. In the state of infancy. It has been proved that the subjective
endowments of humanity, and whatever is necessary to their existence
and operation, are the _natural right of man_. That the undeveloped
good is the endowment of this form of humanity will not be disputed:
hence whatever is necessary to its existence and operation, is the
natural right of infants. But it is obvious that a governing power,
existing somewhere, is indispensably necessary in the case of the
child; that is, a power must exist sufficiently potent to control the
spontaneous volitions of the will, or, in the circumstances of its
position, it will probably extinguish its own liberty, by the law of
habit. Government, then,--absolute government,--is necessary to the
existence and operation of the endowment of humanity in the state of
infancy; and therefore absolute government is the _natural right of
the infant_. Hence all civil governments have exercised (so far as the
will and physical condition are concerned) an absolute despotism over
the child, and have recognized the parent, or some one appointed in
the place of the parent, as the agent of its functions in this
respect. Not to accord to the infant this extreme form of control,
would be a practical denial of its natural rights. Therefore this
extreme form of despotism, so far from being a curse, is the natural
right of infants--the good to which they are entitled by nature. And
again, the civil government accords to the child a progressive
modification of this form of government under given circumstances. It
requires its agent to relax the stringency of this control, and to
extend a privilege of self-control, in the ratio in which the pure
intelligence and feelings of obligation or duty are _practically_
developed. For a child who had become, to a certain extent, a subject
of duty, and was disposed to fulfil this duty, but was kept, _per
force_, in the physical condition of infancy until he lost the use of
his limbs, would be considered as deprived of the right of
self-control to that extent, and thereby cruelly treated. The agent in
such a case would be severely punished, and the child committed to
other hands.

Hence, in the ratio in which the pure intelligence is unfolded, and
feelings of obligation arise, or conscience is developed, and becomes
the practical rule of action, the individual _acquires_ the right of
self-control, and only in that ratio. This right may ultimately reach
to all things in themselves good--the civil government always holding
the authority to punish departures from duty, and thereby always
abridging men of the moral power to do wrong, (because it never could
be their right to do wrong,) and always fortifying them in the right
exercise of liberty of will, by furnishing motives, addressed to their
intelligence and passions, to observe the right and to avoid the wrong
in the exercise of the volitive power. Therefore, the _natural right
of man_ is the right to such absolute control by others, in the
earlier periods of his life, as that his will may retain its
self-acting power unimpaired, as his mind is naturally unfolded by
time and circumstances; and to such modification of this absolute
control in after life, as may afford him due restraint under
temptation to do wrong, and proper encouragement, at all times, to do
right.

Second. _The right of man in a state of maturity._

1. The government should accord him all his natural rights, and
protect him in the exercise of the same. That is, the political
government should coöperate with the Divine to preserve his will in
its normal condition as a self-acting power, and to guarantee to him
the exercise of this power of self-action in all things good. The man
who is protected in the enjoyment of this inherent liberty of will, is
a free man in the strictest sense of the word. The government over him
may be concentrated in the hands of one man, or it may be divided
among an aristocracy, more or less numerous, or it may be what is
called a democracy, but this does not of itself affect the fact of his
freedom. If the government secure him in the enjoyment of these
rights, and of all which necessarily attaches to them, he is
essentially free. The kind of government, as a hereditary monarchy, or
a democratic republic, does not, of itself, determine the actual
freedom of its subjects. History furnishes many examples of
government in which the power of control was concentrated in the hands
of but one, or of a few individuals, which afforded its subjects the
highest amount of essential liberty. To this day, “_the freedom of the
British Constitution_”--as much as we justly prefer our own--is by no
means an idle boast. It is a great mistake to suppose that a
government which deposits the sovereignty among the great mass of the
people, is the only free government. We are constrained to acknowledge
that it is better to be oppressed by _one_, or by a few tyrants, than
by a multitude of tyrants. It is not _this_ or _that kind_ of
government that makes the subject essentially free. But it is the fact
that the controlling power, whether wielded by one or by many, secures
each man in the enjoyment of his natural rights--affords him that
system of appliances which develops and matures the self-acting power
of his will--discourages all abuse of this power, and fully protects
him in the proper exercise of it in the pursuit of the essential good.
_It is this that makes him free._

We prefer, for those to whom it is applicable, a democratic republic;
because it is a more secure government, and less liable to an abuse of
power; not because it is necessarily a more free government than any
other. Another form of government may secure equal freedom in every
essential particular; and this form may be as oppressive as any
other; and whenever it is so, the condition of the down-trodden
minority is far more hopeless than is that of the oppressed majority
under some other form of government. Still, in certain conditions of
the people, it is a much more secure form of government. The
sovereigns of a state should always be socially equal, and, at the
same time, honest as well as intelligent. Such rulers will not be
oppressors. If the sovereigns of a democracy are intelligent, for the
reason that but few participate directly and personally in the
administration of government and the spoils of office, they have but
few inducements to corruption, and are more likely to be honest. The
mass of the people, though often wrong in opinion, are always right in
sentiment--they mean to do right, and they desire to do right. If they
do err in a given case, they may usually be set right, for they have
no motive to stay wrong. Hence, we think that when the condition of
intelligence is fulfilled in the case of those occupying a social
footing, we may expect a wiser and purer government; whilst the extent
to which they may participate in the affairs of government, giving it
a firmer hold upon their affections, cannot fail to make it a more
secure government. It is widely different in the case of a government
concentrated in the hands of a few. The sovereigns are at the same
time the administrators of law. They share not only the honors of
sovereignty, but also the immediate profits of sovereignty--the spoils
of office. Temptations to abuse power are always present and active.
Hence we find that such governments are more frequently oppressive.
Withal, even in cases in which they are not, (for they need not be,)
for the reason that the mass of the people do not immediately
participate in the affairs of government, they are not as devoted to
its interests, and hence the government cannot be as secure. For these
reasons, a democratic republic is called by way of eminence a _free
government_; but, evidently, not because it is the only form which
secures freedom to its subjects. Any of these forms are legitimate
when they are so adapted to the condition of the people as to secure
to them the highest amount of freedom of which that condition will
admit.

2. The government should secure to him all his acquired rights, or the
rights which he acquires by the proper use of his essential rights. Of
these, we notice,

1. His rights of social equality with those with whom he holds common
interests, pleasures, benefits, happiness, and duties. These rights
usually vary with the condition of different individuals, or
different classes of individuals. It will not be maintained that an
infant or idiot, and a man of rude intellect and vulgar habits, have
interests and duties common to each other, and common to persons in a
different condition, in any such sense as would entitle them all to
social equality. Both their mental and physical condition would be a
bar to any such equality. So in the case of the sexes, difference in
physical condition is a bar, except in the marriage state. So also
certain races of men are by their physical condition barred from
social equality, in many respects, with those of other races. Those
duties required by one condition in order to attain the essential good
are very different from those of another condition which are necessary
to attain the same object. But the privilege of social equality with
all in a similar condition, which results from the discharge of the
duties of that condition, is the right of every one. Some will require
positive law to secure them; as in the marriage relation, the social
as well as other rights of the parties must be secured by law; whilst
others will be better secured by leaving them to be regulated by the
conventional usages of society--only another form of government. But
there is an obvious difference in the social rights of men which
government is bound to respect, unless it would arrest the progress
of civilization; because it is an inequality founded in that
difference of condition, against which no government can provide, nor
was it intended that it should provide. We notice,

2. That government should secure to him all those political rights to
which he is entitled by making a proper use of his essential rights.

We need not specify all the political rights which may be regarded
acquired rights. It is sufficient to consider this topic in regard to
the question of sovereignty. We say, that all the members of a given
society, having a common interest in that society, are entitled to
share the sovereignty of its government _on certain conditions, and on
no other conditions_. We take the ground that mere humanity, in itself
considered, does not entitle any one to the rights of political
sovereignty. If this were so, we should be bound to place females,
together with minors of both sexes, and the inmates of State prisons,
among the sovereigns of society. They are all perfect specimens of
humanity. Of the first it may be said, they are often equal in
intellect with the other sex, and in other respects are generally
superior specimens of humanity. These all have an interest in society
common to all other members of it, and yet it is admitted that they
should not be numbered among the sovereigns of the land. What is it,
then, that entitles a man to the right of political sovereignty?
First--He should have reached that point in mental development in
which he will have a capacity, in common with others, to understand
and appreciate the leading principles of government and their
applications. Second--He should have reached that period in life in
which there is usually a corresponding development of the moral
sense--the feeling of obligation to do right--which affords a
reasonable guaranty for the faithful application of his knowledge in
discharging the duties of sovereignty. Third--He should be in that
state of social equality which gives him a common interest, a common
happiness, and common duties as a citizen, with other sovereigns,
which will also afford a necessary guaranty for the faithful
performance of his duties. And, Fourth--He should be in that physical
condition, also, which is necessary to the duties of so responsible a
position, under all ordinary circumstances. If one or more of these
conditions exclude a whole sex, together with all minors, idiots,
felons, and foreigners, they at the same time limit it to a definite
class of males, and bar all others from any title to it. No sensible
man would admit that the power of sovereign control inherent in
government could, with safety to the only legitimate object of
government, the happiness of the subjects, be deposited with any
other class of men. But those who fulfil these conditions have a right
to rule. They have acquired it by the performance of those duties
which have elevated them to the condition of being qualified for
sovereignty. It should not be withheld. If those in a society
qualified for sovereignty be numerous, the government should take the
popular form--a democratic republic. But if those qualified to rule
are a limited portion of the whole society, some other form of
government is more appropriate.

But our subject leads us to notice:

Third. _The rights of man in the savage or uncivilized state._

No savage community was ever known to rise unaided to a state of
civilization; and every example of savage society furnishes evidence
that it is a state into which they have fallen by the tendencies of
depraved nature. They are instances in which the government originally
enjoyed--both human and Divine--has failed to preserve to the
individual that liberty of will in the pursuit of the good which
government is designed to secure. The pure intelligence is not
sufficiently developed to constitute an enlightened conscience.
Dwelling apart from civilized society, the absence of all the
artificial wants of civilization is highly favorable to many of the
natural virtues--such as hospitality to strangers, truth, fidelity,
and generosity to their friends; but the undeveloped state of the pure
reason leaves the moral sense in a state of so much immaturity, as to
characterize them as unfaithful, cruel, and revengeful to their
enemies. These are characteristics which, in their condition of
physical maturity, make them terrible to their neighbors.

Now the question is, What are the rights of such a people? It is
useless to discuss this question so far as it relates to mere savage
government; for in this view it is a question of no interest. But the
question, What rights can they claim of a civilized people? is the one
with which we have to deal.

They certainly have a natural right to protection under given
circumstances, and freedom from oppression under all circumstances. If
a civilized people, holding a balance of power in virtue of superior
intelligence, have an undisputed right to protect themselves from the
cruelty and infidelity of neighboring savages, still it will be
admitted that oppression in any proper sense of the term would be an
invasion of their natural rights. They have a right to be left in the
enjoyment of the highest amount of freedom which their mental state
will allow them to use legitimately. And more than this, their natural
rights claim for them reasonable exertions to elevate their moral
condition. Hence the noble efforts now being made by the Christian
people of this country to evangelize the savages on our border, and
the no less commendable efforts of the United States government to
favor this design, by an annual appropriation from the national
treasury. All this is only according them their rights. But do these
rights entitle them to claim social equality with a civilized people?
That which it is the right of another to claim of me, it is my duty to
grant. Is it then my duty to grant social equality to any or to every
wandering savage that may chance to pass my dwelling? Should I not
only extend to him the rights of hospitality due to a wandering
savage--give him food and shelter in given circumstances, and treat
him kindly in all respects--but extend to him true social equality,
such as it is my duty to do to other men in certain states of
civilization! No man--himself not a savage--would dare affirm this!
The savage has no right to claim it. The reason is obvious on the
principles discussed. Certain social rights arise only on certain
conditions of moral development, and the fulfilment of the duties
which attach to that state. The savage has not reached this condition;
hence has not fulfilled its duties, and is not entitled to the right
of social equality which attaches to that state. For a sensible man
to affirm that he has this right in virtue of his mere humanity, would
be simply ridiculous. And this being so, it follows, _a fortiori_,
that it is much less our duty to allow him an equal participation in
the sovereignty of the State--allow him a control in the affairs of
government--share the authority to regulate our relations, domestic
and foreign; and even to participate in governing our families.

The man who should gravely propose in Congress to annex the savage
tribes of our border, as sovereign States of this Union, would, by all
right-minded men, be regarded as insane. No one of the managers of
looms, spindles, and other machinery, among the agrarian portion of
our northern community, with all their boasted knowledge of the
natural rights of man, and their readiness to accord equal rights to
all men, and to protect them in asserting those rights, have, as yet,
made up their minds to go thus far--although we may be at a loss to
account for it that they so far falsify their principles as not to do
so.

Now, as it is not our duty to do this in behalf of a neighboring race
of uncivilized people, for the reason that they have no right to it,
how does the question stand in regard to a numerous class of such
persons, spread through a definite section of our country? Does this
change of position and contact with civilization confer on them
higher rights than it has already been admitted belong to them in a
separate state in virtue of their humanity? Is it our duty to accord
to them equality of political rights? and for the reason that they are
diffused through the mass of society? Can this position be maintained?
On the contrary, the change of position, and the service which in that
position they render to the cause of civilization, which is assumed to
acquire for them a right that does not belong to their class of
persons in a separate position, so far from affording a vindication of
this doctrine, furnishes a still stronger reason against it. They are
not only uncivilized, but are now in a position to exert an evil
influence, which in a separate state they could not do, although they
might dwell upon our border. In a separate state, the artificial wants
of civilized life are unknown to them. The great sources of temptation
to do wrong by invading the rights of neighbors, is not supplied to
them by their position. But when in immediate contact with
civilization, a great many of these artificial wants are learned by
them, and felt to be objects of desire. These desires, by a fixed law
of the human mind, must be a constant source of temptation--they
clamor for gratification. If the indulgence should not be restrained,
either by a system of laws which reached the case, or by the motives
which a state of civilization supplies, they would inevitably result
in a disregard of the rights of property, and a general depravation of
morals. They are without the latter, for they are uncivilized. Hence
the demands of their position must be met by laws appropriate to an
uncivilized people. The laws appropriate to a state of civilization,
coöperating as they do with the motives supplied by that state, are
not more than equal to the task of restraining the passions of
civilized men. To rely upon them in the case of uncivilized men would
be the grossest folly. Hence if it were not our duty to share our
political rights with such a people, dwelling upon our border, in a
separate state, for a much stronger reason it is not our duty to do
this for those dwelling in our midst. If it is not our duty to do it,
it cannot be their right to claim it; for rights and duties are always
reciprocal. But, on the contrary, for the same general reasons by
which it becomes the duty of a civilized state to place all its minors
under the despotism of parental control, as before defined, it is the
duty of the state to place an uncivilized race which may chance to
dwell within its borders, under a similar form of government. This
despotism need not be oppressive in the one case any more than in the
other. It is the proud boast of all our native citizens that they
have always lived under a free government; and yet they were brought
up to the age of twenty-one under a pure despotism. But this does not
deprive them of their right to boast. True, the government conferred
almost absolute control upon the parent, or guardian, or master of the
apprentice! These might have oppressed them. But the government, which
stood ready to vindicate their rights, did not do it. The government,
in what it did, only accorded them their natural rights, as we have
seen--provided to confer on them the highest amount of freedom of
which their condition would admit. It was to them essentially a free
government, though in one of the forms of despotism. So in that form
of despotism appropriate to a race of uncivilized people dwelling in
the midst of a civilized people, if adapted to their condition, or
securing to them (as in the case of minors) their natural rights, it
is, _for_ them, and _to_ them, a _free government_. So far from being
a curse, as many of our philosophers teach, it is a blessing, which
their essential rights entitle them to claim. Any other form of
government would be, in their case, as well as in that of minors, a
practical denial of their rights; because it would result in the
annihilation of their essential rights; that is, the enslavement of
their wills to the basest passions of fallen nature.

Hence, we find that government, both human and Divine, is a special
necessity of man’s fallen condition, and coeval with the history of
the race: that its legitimate object is to preserve him from that
annihilation of his essential liberty of will which would inevitably
follow if there were no government, and to secure him in the enjoyment
of the highest amount of this liberty which his condition will allow:
that to do this, various forms of civil government are admissible; and
that the one best adapted to the condition of the people is the one
that should be applied, and is the only strictly _free government_ for
the people to whom it is appropriate. A democracy applied to minors or
savages, in the midst of a civilized people, would be the most
grinding of all oppressions. We have seen that the _means_ appropriate
to government are suitable penalties addressed to our passions of hope
and fear: that the only _right_ which a man has to exercise his
inherent liberty--that is, the only right he has of self-control--is
the authority to do that which, in itself, _is right_--not a right to
do _wrong_: that the exclusive authority of government is to restrain
man from doing _wrong_, and to protect and encourage him in doing
_right_--restrain his _power_ to do wrong, not his power to do
right--this it seeks to strengthen. We have seen that the rights of
man in a state of minority--and the same of uncivilized men dwelling
in a community of the civilized--are to the benefits of an absolute
form of government; any other would be only a system of ruinous
oppression to them: that at his maturity as a civilized man, he should
be protected in the exercise of all the rights which naturally belong
to a state of maturity, and also the enjoyment of all those rights
which he has acquired by availing himself of the privileges afforded
by his condition. Of his acquired rights, we see that on certain
conditions he is entitled to social equality; and that on certain
further conditions, he is entitled to the right of political
sovereignty.

Now, we ask, in what sense can it be said that legitimate government
is a concession of some rights, in order to secure others? Certainly,
in no good sense, seeing it only limits his power to do _wrong_, by
laying him under suitable disabilities, and that it does this in order
to secure both the power and the privilege of doing right. But by
falsely assuming that government is a concession of rights, and that
the government in which every citizen does not make a voluntary
concession of the rights exercised by government is a cruel
oppression, men fall upon conclusions which, when carried out, (and
principles will tend to work out their results,) lead to agrarianism:
that is, the destruction of all rights, by the annihilation of all
civilization.

And again we ask, How does it follow that the domestic slavery of the
negro in America is an abridgment of his inalienable rights? Certainly
not from the fact that he is placed under an absolute form of control,
for we have seen that, in certain conditions of humanity, that is the
only form of government that will secure any freedom at all: as in the
case of all minors, and the case of an uncivilized race that may
chance to be diffused among the mass of a civilized people. If, then,
his government be an oppression at all, it is because his state of
civilization, and the relative circumstances of his condition, have
acquired for him the _rights of social equality_ and the _rights of
political_ sovereignty. These are questions of fact that will be
considered in their proper place.

LECTURE VI.

THE ABSTRACT PRINCIPLE OF SLAVERY DISCUSSED ON SCRIPTURE GROUNDS, AND
MISREPRESENTATIONS OF THE PRINCIPLE EXAMINED.

The inquiry, if the institution of domestic slavery existing amongst
us agrees in its _details_ with the teachings of the Holy Scriptures,
is reserved for a future lecture. We now inquire how far it agrees
with the Holy Scriptures in its great fundamental principles?--the
abstract principles which, thus far, have been shown to be right.

We, of course, acknowledge the full authority of the Scriptures.
Although not a formal philosophical treatise, the Bible embodies no
other than the profoundest principles both of mental and moral
science; and all its teachings are in accordance with them. “To the
law,” then, “and to the testimony.” Do they sanction the principles I
have sought to establish? Do they accord to man any other subjective
right of self-control than simply the _right_ to do that which in
itself is _right_--that is, _good_? True, they assume that he has the
_power_ to do wrong, but at the same time they deny to him _all right_
to do wrong. All those scriptures which forbid his doing _wrong_, and
enjoin it upon him to do _right_, under severe penalties for
disobedience, are in proof. They are too numerous and familiar to
require that I quote them. They all assume that he has power to do
either _right_ or _wrong_, but only a _right_ to do that which is
_right_. Whoever, then, sets up a _right_ to do a thing, and can give
no better reason for it than that he has power to do it in virtue of
his humanity, and that therefore others should not interpose obstacles
in the way of his doing it, on peril of abridging him of a natural
right, assumes far more than the Scriptures allow him; nay, he assumes
that which is forbidden him in Holy Scripture, no less than in reason
and common sense; and if allowed to exercise such lawless power, under
the plea of _natural right_, he could not fail to put an end to all
law, and to precipitate society into a state of anarchy. Therefore,
the government which places minors, aliens, and citizens, who at the
same time allow themselves to be subjects of a foreign prince,
together with uncivilized persons, in circumstances in which they
cannot, or are not likely, to injure their neighbors, or to injure
society, does not, for that reason, deprive them of a _natural_ right,
unless it could be shown that they have a natural right to do the very
thing which the Scriptures declare they have no right to do, that is,
to injure their neighbors! It further follows, that the right to do an
act which involves accountability, is the right to do that which, _in
itself_, _is right_; or, in other words, the only natural right of
self-control is the right to do that which is good. Hence, those who
claim for any class of society a right to political sovereignty,
should be prepared to show that the essential good requires that such
privilege be accorded them, or they fail to establish their right, for
the reason that no right can ever be justly _acquired_ which does not
coincide with the natural right to do good.

Again, we have shown that the abstract principle of slavery is control
by the will of another, with its correlatives: that this is an
essential element of all government; for a government which did not
exercise the right to control men, even against their wills, under
given circumstances, would be no government at all. Do these views
accord with the teachings of the Holy Scriptures? That control is an
essential idea of government, is an intuitive perception, and needs no
proof. The question then resolves itself into this: Do the Scriptures
sanction government? That the Bible itself is only a system of
government, will not be disputed. It _forbids_ and _commands_, and
requires all men to conform their volitions to its requirements, as to
that which is in itself good. Moreover, it sanctions civil government
in the most express terms: “Let every soul be subject unto the higher
powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are
ordained of God. Whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power,” that is,
the authority of government, “resisteth the ordinance of God; and they
that resist shall receive to themselves damnation,” etc. (Rom. xiii.
1-7. See A. Clarke’s notes.) This was said to the Roman Christians,
and was an injunction to obey Caesar’s government. In that government,
it is well known, the slavery element greatly predominated: but little
room was left for the exercise of self-control; political sovereignty
being denied to the people. In declaring government, even in this
extreme form of controlling the wills of men, to be his appointment,
God establishes the _principle, as in itself right_. Dr. Wayland,
however, (see article, Modes in which Personal Liberty may be
violated,) affirms, “that the gospel is diametrically opposed to the
_principle_ of slavery.”

The moral precepts of the Bible, which he assumes to be diametrically
opposed to the principle of slavery, are, (as quoted by himself,)
“Thou shalt love _thy neighbor as thyself_; and _all things
whatsoever_ ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto
them.” He says that, “were this precept obeyed, it is manifest that
slavery could not in fact exist for a single instant. The _principle_
of the precept is absolutely subversive of the _principle_ of
slavery.” That the gospel should, nevertheless, acknowledge
slaveholders (for neither the Jewish nor the Roman law _required_ any
citizen to hold slaves) as “_believers_,” and “_worthy of all honor_,”
and require of the Christian slaves held by them to acknowledge them
as _brethren_, that is, good men, and accord them _all honor_, is
evidently a troublesome question to the Doctor. There is no room for
surprise. The second scripture quoted, it is allowed, interprets the
first. In what sense then are we to understand the duty inculcated in
the second? There are only two senses in which the form of the
expression will allow us to evolve any significance whatever. The
first is, Do unto another whatsoever you would have him to do unto
you, if you were in his situation; and the second is, Do unto another
whatsoever you would have a _right_ to require another to do unto you,
if you were in his circumstances.

Now if we could suppose that the Saviour intended his language to be
understood in the first sense, it will not perhaps be disputed that it
is our duty to abolish domestic slavery, for we should, no doubt,
desire to be released, if we were in a state of domestic slavery. But,
unfortunately for the argument, this interpretation would not stop at
the abolition of domestic slavery in the case of the African. It would
reach to the domestic slavery of the child also. There is scarcely a
wayward lad in Christendom who could not justly claim release from
parental restraint on the same principle! Nay, more, the criminal at
the bar of civil justice, the inmates of State prisons, and the poor
man in his hovel, would all claim release! And as that which is duty
in others, in such cases, is a right in them, not to grant them
release would certainly be a denial of their just rights! Is this the
sense in which Dr. Wayland would have us understand the Saviour of
mankind? Certain it is, that this is the only sense in which his words
can be understood so as to involve the necessary abolition of slavery!
We cheerfully acquit Dr. W. from the purpose to teach any such
agrarian folly. Still, we can see no good reason why one so eminent,
as a Christian and a scholar, should permit even an early prejudice as
to a practical question, about which he allows that he is uninformed,
to betray him into such views of a plain principle as logically
involve him in the grossest absurdities.

That the second sense given is the proper one in which to understand
the Saviour’s doctrine can admit of no dispute. What we should have a
_right to claim_, if we were in the circumstances of a slave, is
precisely that which we are to accord to such slave, according to the
precept of the Saviour. If we should have a right to claim political
sovereignty, in those circumstances, we are bound to allow them such
sovereignty, that is, release them from slavery. This directly
involves the question, Whether they are fitted for that
self-government which is involved in such sovereignty? That they are
not so in virtue of their humanity merely, we have proved; and whether
they are so or not, by acquirement, is a practical question which Dr.
Wayland allows that he is not competent to decide. This question will
be met in another place. It is sufficient here to state, that the
scripture so confidently relied on as repudiating the principle of
slavery, is found not to reach the question of the principle at all,
and, therefore, is wholly misapplied.

The patriarchal form of government, which existed before the
theocracy of the Jews, constituted the patriarch (he being the head of
the family) the owner of slaves. Abraham, Lot, and others, held them
in large numbers. These men enjoyed the unqualified approbation of
Jehovah, and in their character of slaveholders, no less than in many
other respects. According to Dr. W., they enjoyed the Divine
approbation in the practice of iniquity; for he says, the Bible
condemns both the _principle_ and the _practice_ of slavery!

It is evident that the Jews brought slaves with them from Egypt; for
the terms of the Decalogue not only imply that they were familiar with
domestic slavery, but also that it was, at that time, an existing
practice among them. But more than this, the Decalogue is strictly the
constitution which Jehovah himself gave to the Jewish nation. Now to
assume that he provided in this constitution to protect in all time to
come (for it is allowed to embody immutable principles) a relation
which was, in itself, _an iniquity_, is more than a mere
absurdity--_it is profanity_. And it is certain that the tenth article
of this constitution provides to protect the right of property in
slaves: “_Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s_ MAN-SERVANT, _nor his_
MAID-SERVANT, _nor any thing that is thy neighbor’s_.”

The Saviour has recognized this law, as it was originally designed to
be, of universal obligation and force: “_Think not that I am come to
destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to
fulfil_.” Matt. v. 17.

In accordance with this fundamental law of the nation, God proceeded
to provide in their civil institutions for the operation of a regular
system of domestic slavery. Under these institutions, a Hebrew might
lose his liberty and become a domestic slave, in six different ways.
(See A. Clarke, on Ex. xxi.)

1. In extreme poverty, he might sell his liberty. Lev. xxv. 39: “_If
thy brother be waxed poor and be sold unto thee_.”

2. A father might sell his child. Ex. xxi. 7: “_If a man sell his
daughter to be a maid-servant_.”

3. Insolvent debtors became the slaves of their creditors. 2 Kings iv.
1: “_My husband is dead, and the creditor is come to take unto him my
two sons to be bondsmen_.” Also, Matt. xviii. 25.

4. A thief, if he had not money to pay the fine laid on him by the
law, was to be sold for his profit whom he had robbed. Ex. xxii. 3:
“_If he have nothing, then he shall be sold for the theft_.”

5. A Hebrew was liable to be taken in war, and sold for a slave. 2
Chron. xii. 8.

6. A Hebrew slave who had been ransomed from a Gentile by a Hebrew,
might be sold by him who ransomed him to one of his own nation.

All who became slaves under this system were emancipated in the
seventh year, except those who should refuse to accept liberty. Ex.
xxi. 2-6. They were emancipated in the year of jubilee.

But then, the law further provided for domestic slaves _in
perpetuity_.

“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. Moreover, of 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 for ever; but over your brethren, the children of Israel, ye
shall not rule over one another with rigor.” Lev. xxv. 44-46.

The attempts which are sometimes made to prove that δοῦλος, of the
Septuagint, and _servus_, of the Vulgate version, translated
indifferently _servant_ or slave, means only a _hired servant_, need
only to be mentioned to be refuted. That these terms defined an actual
state of slavery among the Greeks and Romans, no one acquainted with
the facts will deny. But whatever might be their original meaning,
they are to be understood, as Bible terms, in the sense of the
original Hebrew, which they are employed to express. Now, nothing is
more certain than this, that the Hebrew Bible (and the same is true of
the English translation) speaks of _servants_, _hired_ servants, and
_bond_ servants. The term servant is the generic form, and evidently
means, a person who is controlled by the will of another: _hired_
servant is one who serves in that way by contract for a definite
period; whilst _bond_ servant is one who has either contracted to do
so through his whole life, or who, by the usages of war, or by
inheritance, or by purchase from another, was so bound to
service--(such as Paul calls a “servant under the yoke.” 2 Tim. vi.
1.) These different relations are distinctly marked by the use of
these terms in the Bible, and especially the meaning of BOND SERVANT,
in distinction from a HIRED SERVANT: “_If thy brother that dwelleth by
thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shall not compel him
to serve as a_ BOND SERVANT, _but as a_ HIRED SERVANT, _and as a
sojourner, shall he be_.” Lev. XXV. 39, 40.

Thus we find that the Jewish constitution provided to protect the
right of property in servants or slaves in the generic sense: that is,
whether in the one form or the other; and that He who gave them their
civil institutions, also provided under their constitution for the
organization of a regular system of domestic slavery, in two distinct
forms: the _one_, the enslavement, in the true generic sense, of
Hebrews in given circumstances, for a definite period; and the
_other_, the enslavement, in the same sense, of the neighboring
heathen, _in perpetuity_.

Such was the legal origin of domestic slavery among the Jews. During
all the calamities that have befallen that people, this constitution
and these laws have known neither repeal nor modification. At no
period of their history were they without domestic slaves; and when
the Saviour dwelt among them, the whole land was filled with such
slaves. No State in this Union can with more propriety be regarded a
slaveholding community, than was that of the Jewish people in the days
of the Saviour. In every congregation which he addressed, bond slaves
may have mingled. The hospitalities of every family of which he
partook, were probably ministered to him, more or less, by domestic
slaves. And in all this time, and under all these circumstances, not a
word is known to have escaped him, either in public or in private,
declaring the relation of master and slave to be sinful! But, on the
contrary, Paul’s denunciation--1 Tim. vi. 3--of the teachers of
abolition doctrines, that they “_consent not to wholesome words, even
the words of our Lord Jesus Christ_,” is sufficient reason to believe
that he was always understood to approve of the relation, and to
condemn in express terms all attempts to abolish it as a duty of the
religion which he taught. And certain it is, that this relation is
made the subject of some of his most eloquent allusions, and the basis
of some of his most instructive parables: “One is your Master, even
Christ,” Matt. xxiii. 10: “Good Master, what shall I do?” Mark x. 17:
“No man can serve two masters,” Matt. vi. 24--are specimens of the
former; whilst the parable, Matt. xiii. 24-28, “And the servants said,
Wilt thou that we go and gather them up?”--of the vineyard, Matt.
xxi.; of the talents, Matt. xxv.; and others of a similar nature, are
striking examples of the latter. And yet, young gentlemen, the author
of your text says, the doctrines of the Bible, and especially the
teachings of the Saviour, are “diametrically opposed to both the
principle and the practice of domestic slavery.” If this be true, it
is really passing strange that Jehovah himself should provide, in the
organic law of the Jewish commonwealth, for the working of a system of
domestic slavery, and, by a series of laws drawn up under this
constitution, set such a system in actual operation; and that the
Saviour of mankind should also give, according to every legitimate
interpretation that can be put, either upon his language or his
conduct, his unqualified approbation to that which was so flatly
opposed to all his doctrines! It is saying but little of all this to
affirm that it is grossly absurd! It can appeal to no doctrine that we
are aware of for its defence, unless it be the kindred absurdity that
the _will of God_ is not the rule of right, in this sense, that it
always conforms to that which, _in itself, is right_, i. e., good; but
that it is the rule of right in this other sense, that it is
absolutely, in itself, the only rule of right; and that, in the case
under consideration, domestic slavery was right for the Jews, because
God so willed it, but the same thing in principle, and under similar
circumstances, would be wrong for any other people, because in regard
to them God had willed differently: thus assigning to Deity the power
to make _the wrong the right, and the right the wrong_! We regret to
know that this absurd view of the Divine volitions has found its way
beyond the pages of Dr. Paley. It is countenanced by some writers of
eminent distinction in theology. But to give it a definite application
in any case, is all that is required for its entire refutation. We
rely with confidence on the conclusion that what God thus provided for
in the Jewish constitution, was right in principle in itself, and
that, under the circumstances of the Jewish people, it was right in
practice.

Among the strange, if not wholly unaccountable, misconceptions, if not
gross misrepresentations, of the fundamental ideas of domestic
slavery, we may place those of Dr. Channing and Prof. Whewell. The
latter, in his “Elements of Morality,” states that “slavery converts a
person into a thing--a subject merely passive, without any of the
recognized attributes of human nature.” “A slave,” he further says,
“in the eye of the law which stamps him with that character, is not
acknowledged as a man. He is reduced to the level of a brute;” that
is, as he explains it, “he is divested of his moral nature.”

Dr. Channing, the great apostle of Unitarianism in America, says, “The
very idea of a slave is that he belongs to another: that he is bound
to live and labor for another; to be another’s instrument, that is, in
all things, just as a threshing-machine, or another beast of burden;
and to make another’s will his habitual law, however adverse to his
own.” He adds, in another place, “We have thus established the reality
and sacredness of human rights; and that slavery is an infraction of
these, is too plain to need any labored proof. Slavery violates not
one, but all; violates them not incidentally, but necessarily,
systematically, from its very nature.”

These, together with your text, young gentlemen, are leading
authorities on this subject. Following these, we should adopt the
belief that the principle of slavery in question is, as they express
it, “an absorption of the humanity of one man into the will of
another;” or, in other words, that “slavery contemplates him, not as a
responsible, but a mere sentient being--not as a man, but a brute.”

If this be so, the wonder is not, as they affirm, that the civilized
world is so indignant at its outrageous wrongs, but that “it has been
so slow in detecting its gross and palpable enormities: that mankind,
for so many ages, acquiesced in a system as monstrously unnatural as
would be a general effort to walk upon the head or to think with the
feet!” We need have no hesitation in flatly denying the truth of this
description, and pronouncing it a caricature. For if this be a
faithful description, we can safely affirm that no instance of slavery
ever existed under the authority of law in any nation known to
history.

In the first place, the state of things so rhetorically described is a
palpable impossibility. The constitution of the human mind is in flat
contradiction to the idea of the absorption of the will, the
conscience, and the understanding of one man into the personality of
another! This is a state of things which the human mind cannot even
conceive to be possible, but does intuitively perceive to be utterly
impossible. In the next place, we affirm that the idea of _personal
rights_ and _personal responsibility_ pervades the whole system. Both
the Divine and human laws which recognize the system assume the
personality and responsibility of the slave. Even under the Roman and
Grecian codes--which recognized far more stringent forms of slavery
than that of the African in this country, at any period of its
history--this view of the system will find no support. Paul and Peter,
who wrote with special allusion to slaves under these laws, so far
from regarding this personality as lost and swallowed up in the
humanity of the master, expressly assumed their personality and
responsibility. For whilst they _recognize him as a servant_, they
treat him as a man: they declare him possessed, though a slave, of
certain rights, which it was injustice in the master to disregard, and
under obligation to certain duties, as a slave, which it would be
sinful in him to neglect; and, moreover, that it was the office of
that religion whose functions they filled, to protect these rights and
duties with its most solemn sanctions. Hence they enjoin upon masters
the moral obligation of rendering to their bondmen “_that which is
just and equal_,” and upon servants to “_be subject to their masters
with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the
froward_. _For this is thankworthy, if a man, for conscience toward
God, endure grief, suffering wrongfully._” Was this treating them as
beings whose wills were absorbed in the humanity of the master, who
therefore was the only accountable person for all their conduct!
Nothing could be more alien from truth, and significant of falsehood!
No: obedience is never applied, except as a figurative term, and
especially by the apostles, to any but rational and accountable
beings. And with such inspired requisitions before us--“_obedience
from the one, and justice from the other_”--it is grossly absurd to
affirm that the relation of master and slave regards the slave as a
brute, and not as an accountable man. “The blind passivity of a
corpse, or the mechanical obedience of a tool,” which Channing and
Whewell regard as constituting the essential idea of slavery, seems
never to have entered the minds of the apostles. They considered
slavery as a social and political economy, in which relations
involving reciprocal rights and duties subsisted, between moral,
intelligent, and responsible beings, between whom, as between men in
other relations, religion held the scales of justice.

The right of property in man, as man, is nowhere taught in Scripture,
although it distinctly recognizes the relation of master and slave.
The right which the master has in the slave, according to the
Scriptures, is, _not to the man_, but to so much of his time and labor
as is consistent with his rights of humanity. The master who
disregards these claims, denies his slave that which is “just and
equal.” The duty which the slave owes, is the service which, in
conformity with these rights, the master exacts. A failure in either
party is a breach of Scripture.

The only difference between free and slave labor is, that the one is
rendered in consequence of a contract, and the other in consequence of
a command. Each is service rendered according to the will of another;
and each may, or may not, be according to the consent of the party
rendering service. The former is often as _involuntary_, in point of
fact, as the latter. Hirelings _assent_ to it, in most cases, as a
necessity of their condition. They do not _consent_ to it--they are
far from choosing it. A few persons reach that high attainment of a
pure Christianity, in which they learn in every state in which they
are placed, in the providence of God, “therewith to be content”--they
choose it. But in the general, hired service is, in point of fact, as
involuntary as slave labor.

A right, therefore, to the time and labor of another to a definite
extent, by no means involves the right to his humanity. Such right is
a mere fiction, to which even the imagination can give no significance
or consistency. “It is the miserable cant of those who would storm by
prejudice what they cannot demolish by argument.”

Thus, young gentlemen, that the abstract principle of the institution
of slavery, and the principles of natural rights, coincide, and that
both have the unqualified approbation of Holy Scripture, cannot be
successfully controverted. Natural rights and the principle of slavery
do not conflict. No man has a natural right to do wrong. That wherein
the principle of slavery is in itself _right_, is that, when carried
out in the form of civil government, it furnishes an instance in which
the subjects of government who are liable to injure society by doing
wrong, are placed under such disabilities, or in such circumstances,
in which they cannot or are not likely to do this wrong, but to do
that which they have a natural right

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