"If a servant who has left a Christian master and gone to a distant place, has himself become a Christian, and wishes to return, it is right for other Christians to assist him by requesting his former master to receive him in a Christian manner, as he would one of them, especially when they know (vs. 17, 21) that he will do what they ask of him." 1 Concerning the forcible rendition of servants by public authority, we find in the scriptures but one solitary precept: "Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee: he shall dwell with thee, even among you in that place which he shall choose, in one of thy gates where it liketh him best; thou shalt not oppress him" (Deut. xxiii. 15, 16). The Jews understood this as addressed to Israel as a people, "Thou shalt not deliver him"; that is, thou, the Israelitish people: and this interpretation is favored by the words “in one of thy gates." Accordingly they understood the prohibition as referring to servants escaped to them from the surrounding heathen nations. This view (which is the least favorable to the servant's freedom of any that can be proposed) would leave the matter of fugitives from Israelites to Israelites without legislation. Of course it would furnish no warrant for fugitive slave laws, since, whatever be its extent, it is wholly prohibitory. But let us examine the matter more nearly, from a simply biblical point of view. The precept of the Mosaic law, then, if it have any authority for us, forbids the rendition of servants to masters of another country. It does not appear that a simple league or confederacy between sovereign and independent states (as, for example, that between David and Hiram king of Tyre) could alter the matter. But the constitution of the United States is peculiar. It makes us one nation without destroying the individuality of the different states. In respect to the many and important prerogatives of sovereignty which the separate states have resigned to the nation as a whole, they are to be regarded simply as part of that whole. But in respect to the prerogatives which they have retained, our laws regard and treat them as distinct states, as much as they do England and Spain. The Southern States, for example, legislate on the subject of slavery in an independent and sovereign way, just as Spain does, and the Constitution acknowledges their right to do so. Can any one show, then, why the Mosaic prohibition under consideration, if it have any binding force for us, should not in equity apply to them in the matter of slavery, as well as to Spain? It may, perhaps, be argued that the nations to whom the Israelites were forbidden to restore fugitive servants were heathen, having barbarous slave-codes, and treating their servants in a barbarous manner. But for the advocates of slavery this would be giving the argument an unfortunate turn, since it would authorize us, before deciding the question of duty, to inquire how far the southern slave-codes are heathenish in their character. The truth is, that we are bound to return persons fleeing from service only by an express provision of the constitution, which is, we do not say anti-scriptural, but extra-scriptural. It is a compromise contrary to the spirit of the Constitution; and for this reason it has been, and will continue to be, an apple of discord. It subjects us to the power of the slave-holding states in a sphere where we are forbidden to have any voice. They may make their slave-codes as barbarous as We have dwelt at length on the argument from the Bible, because it is here that the modern abettors of slavery take their stand, endeavoring to build up around the system a hedge of scriptural authority. When any one begins the work of examining and trying the institution by its principles and fruits, they cry out: "Procul, O, procul este, profani "Far off, far off, ye profane; this is a sacred enclosure; do not intrude upon it.". We have shown that the alleged divine sanction for the institution of slavery is a nullity; that it consisted in simply suffering the system, like other organic abuses, for the hardness of men's hearts. The way is, then, opened for the remaining source of argument. II. The intrinsic Character of American Slavery and its legitimate Results, as compared with the Principles of God's Word. On this we do not propose to dwell at length. It will be sufficient to indicate the general heads of argument, for they are self-luminous. In the first place, then, the foundation on which they place the system of American slavery is anti-scriptural. This is no other than the distinction of race. While the Bible declares that God has made of one blood all nations of the earth, that he is the common Father of them all, and that they are all brethren bound to accord to each other the rights of manhood, and to deal with each other according to the Christian law of love; while this is the doctrine of God's word, the doctrine of American slavery is that the normal position of the African race is that of slavery to the they choose, and we, who have no voice in the making of them, may be compelled, at the point of the bayonet, to assist in keeping the slaves subject to them. Nevertheless, it is a part of the Constitution, and, until it shall be constitutionally repealed, we must acquiesce in it; for the only alternatives we have reference to the ordinary course of law in a time of peace, not to any military exigencies which the existence of civil war may impose on our government—are the Constitution or revolution. But let no one pretend to justify it from the holy scriptures. white races; not merely the dependence which naturally belongs to the weaker in their relation to the stronger, but slavery; that they are in their appropriate condition when they are reduced to chattels, divested of all their rights as men, and bought and sold like horses and cattle. And they have made up an argument from the prophetic curse of Noah, which, if it were valid, would only prove that God uses them, as he did Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar, Herod and Pontius Pilate, as ministers of his "determinate counsel and foreknowledge." But the argument is not valid; for the curse of Noah fell not on them, but on Canaan, none of whose posterity settled in Africa. One knows not which to admire most, the audacity or the wickedness of this position. We white men of the Saxon race, who are rich and strong, take it upon ourselves to decide that God intended the Africans to be our slaves, and then enforce the decision by handcuffs and manacles. The position involves, of course, the moral rectitude of the foreign as well as the domestic slave-trade. For if slavery is appointed by God to be the normal condition of the African race, the condition in which they are in fact most happy and useful, then it is altogether right and proper that they who have ships to send to Africa and money to buy slaves there, should help to place them in their right relation to the white race. Such is the logical result of the doctrine; and we find accordingly that the abettors of slavery are rapidly drifting in this direction. They cannot do otherwise; for whoever mounts a lie will soon find himself at the stable of the father of lies, whence the black horse came. But the great central principle of American slavery, that which constitutes its distinctive character, and sharply separates it from all other kinds of servitude, is property in man. This the slave-codes not merely assume, but affirm, with the most shameless perspicuity. They take pains to tell us that slaves are "chattels personal in the hands of their mas See on this subject our remarks in the January number of the Bibliotheca Sacra, pp. 72, 73. See also in the April number of the New Englander for the present year the Article entitled "Noah's Prophecy." ters and possessors, to all intents and purposes whatsoever;" and they deliberately proceed to divest them of their rights as men; declaring that their masters may sell them, dispose of their persons and labor, and that they "can do nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire anything but which must belong to their masters." It follows, by natural consequence, that the master claims as his lawful property the children of his female slaves, whoever may be their father, on the same ground that the farmer does the increase of his flocks and herds, viz. that they are his personal chattels. The very spirit of the system, as defined by the laws, is that the slave, like any other article of merchandise, is to be held and used for his owner's interests, not for his own. We need not spend time in showing that this is contrary to the spirit of the gospel. The great law of Christianity is: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." In direct opposition to this the slave-codes authorize the master to love himself supremely, and to buy, sell, and use his neighbors and their offspring, as chattels personal, for his own private advantage. We are far from denying that many masters endeavor to deal with their slaves according to the law of Christian love. But this they do, not in accordance with the spirit of the system, but in spite of it; not by carrying out in practice its provisions, but by abstaining from doing so. It is very difficult to hold the abettors of slavery to this point. The idea of converting men and women into articles of merchandise is so manifestly abhorrent to the spirit of Christianity, that it needs only to be looked at to be condemned. This the defenders of slavery well understand. They talk of the power which the father has over his children; as if such power, limited in duration, and having for its end the good of the child, were the same thing as converting men and women, with their offspring forever, into chattels personal, to be bought and sold, not for their good, but for the profit of their owners. They talk of the power of husbands over their wives, and how dreadfully it is abused. Now, so far as wives in barbarous countries are by common law and usage converted into drudges, we will only say that their husbands rule over them in the true spirit of American slavery. Yet even they are not made articles of merchandise, to be transferred from hand to hand. But the normal institution of marriage has, as these sophists well know, nothing in common with slavery. Though the woman is by divine authority subordinated to the man, her welfare is as much consulted as his in the union between the two. So long as men remain wicked and selfish, the conjugal relation will be alloyed with many evils; but these do not, as in the case of slavery, grow out of the proper nature and tendency of the institution. They talk once more these defenders of slavery of the sale of fair women in high life for money; meaning, of course, matches made up from considerations of property. Yes, but this is a matter of private and individual folly. There is no institution empowering men to buy and sell women for money, using them in the meanwhile as they see good. This is what slavery does; for it makes women "chattels personal in the hands of their masters and possessors, to all intents and purposes whatsoever." No wonder that the champions of slavery are ashamed of its fundamental principle property in man; for it is as opposite to Christianity as light is to darkness. But there it is, embedded in the very centre of the institution; and to eradicate it would be to pluck up the system itself. Another anti-Christian feature of American slavery, growing immediately out of the principle of property in man, is the supremacy of the master over the domestic relations of his slaves. It is true that conscientious masters respect these divinely appointed relations. But the slave-laws are not made for the especial benefit of conscientious men. They always have regard, in their provisions, to the interests of the great body of slaveholders. If one of these personal chattels is to be sold, it would not be convenient to hamper him with the encumbrance of a wife and children. The buyer may want him, and not his family. Then, the laws allow him to take him away from his family and carry him off to a distant state. What if God has joined together the hus |