SLAVERY OPPOSED TO THE LAW OF GOD AND MAN. So abhorrent from our natural sensations is the system of stealing, buying, selling, and enslaving immortal creatures, that it is difficult accurately to delineate this wretched degradation of man. A slave is a rational, responsible being, with an abject mind and broken heart; without any will: all whose rights are robbed; whose liberty is despoiled, and whose life is prolonged at the caprice of a tyrant. No difference is perceptible between the traffic in human flesh on the coast of Africa or in the interior of America. Every slave in these states is as notoriously kidnapped, as if they had been purloined from Guinea: and he who claims a coloured child as his property, and nurtures and detains it in slavery, is equally a man-thief with the negro-stealer on the Gold Coast. Those persons who denounce the African flesh-merchant, and who seem to admit, that the imported souls could not have been justifiably captivated, deny that they unrighteously grasp their brethren, and denominate themselves "innocent slave holders:" but this is self-confutation. Can that be innocence in the temperate zone, which is the acme of all guilt near the equator? can that be honesty in one meridian of longitude, which at one hundred degrees east, is the climax of injustice? and would not he who appropriates to himself all the children born around him, immediately as they enter the world, upon the same principles, make a descent upon Congo, and kidnap a ship load? No real distinction exists between him, who steals the woman from her husband, the child from its parent, or the whole family, on the eastern or the western shores of the Atlantic, whether for exportation or domestic vassalage. These identical individuals would rage, if it were attempted thus to exculpate any other felon. Innocent horsethief is more consistent language than innocent slave-holder; for the crime of the latter exceeds that of the former, as much as the limited and temporary powers of the ani mal are surpassed by the extensive capacities and never ending existence of man. "We know men to whom the truth is become unintelligible, in consequence of the disguise in which they have taken the pains to clothe it; and who have accustomed themselves to palliate vice, till they are incapable of perceiving its turpitude.” He that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death. Exodus, xxi. 16. By this law, every man-stealer, and every receiver of the stolen person, lost his life: whether the latter stole the man himself, or gave money to a slave-captain or negro-dealer to steal for him. All kidnapping and slave dealing are prohibited, whether practised by individuals or the state.-Adam Clarke. If a man be found stealing any of his brethren of the children of Israel, and maketh merchandise of him, or selleth him, then that thief shall die. Deuteronomy xxiv. 7. Christianity has annihilated that distinction of nations which was once established; every man is now our brother, whatever be his nation, complexion, or creed. How then can the merchandise of men and women be carried on, without transgressing this commandment, or abetting those who do? If a man steal a horse or sheep, he is condemned; but if he steal, or purchase of those who steal, hundreds of men and women, he not only escapes with impunity, but grows great by this unnatural commerce! According to the law of God, whoever stole cattle restored four or five fold; whoever stole one human being though an idiot or an infant, must die. He who stole any one of the human species, in order to make a slave of him, or to -sell him for a slave, whether the thief had actually sold him, or whether he continued in his possession, was punished with death: but if we are true Christians, we shall have no occasion for penal statutes to restrain us from stealing or enslaving our brethren of the human species, and trading the bodies of men.-Scott. Thou shalt not deliver unto his master, the servant who 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.--David said to the Egyptian, canst thou bring me down to this company? and he said, swear unto me by God, that thou wilt neither kill me, nor deliver me into the hands of my master, and I will bring thee down to this company.-Take counsel, execute judgment; make thy shadow as the night in the midst of the noon-day: hide the outcasts, bewray not him who wandereth.-Thou snouldst not have stood in the cross-way, to cut off those who did escape; neither shouldst thou have delivered up those who did remain in the day of distress. As thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee: thy reward shall return upon thine own head. These scriptures proclaim that slave-holding is an abomination in the sight of God: for it justifies the slave in absconding from his tyrant, and enjoins upon every man to facilitate his escape, and to secure his freedom. Does this injunction comport with a Christian's advertising as a fugitive criminal, a man who has merely fled from his cruel captivity, or with his aiding to trace and seize him who had thus burst from "durance vile ?" It is a reiteration of the theft: yet he professes to be influenced by the Gospel! But the man-stealer states, that this is injustice, as it destroys his property; and that it is base to aid a slave to fly from his chains, or not to assist in recapturing him. Were the master placed in similar misery with the victim of his cruel avarice, and he should escape, rather than be seized, he would slay the assailant. His heroism would be honoured, and his contest for freedom being righteous, he would be exonerated: but if a coloured person wounds a kidnapper, he is ignominiously executed, and almost without form: for the trial of negroes is the highest burlesque upon the administration of justice, that despotism ever devised. 66 For 'tis establish'd by your partial laws, No slave bears witness in a white man's cause. Happy for your slaves, were this doctrine true, A man cannot assist in seizing a slave, and robbing him again of his liberty or life, when he is inculpable before society, without violating the law of love, and the command of God. 66 'Slavery! virtue dreads it as her grave And snap the chain the moment when you may!" The prophecies are filled with divine denunciations against Judah and Israel, for their oppression, fraud, rapine, cruelty, and the varied enormities which originated in their covetousness; and Tyre was destroyed for having traded the persons of men. The gospel censures these sinners with celestial authority. Paul characterises the Romans who were slave-holders, as inventors of evil things without natural affection, implacable, and unmerciful. Among the most corrupt transgressors, he classes manstealers. This crime among the Jews exposed the perpetrators of it to capital punishment; and the apostle classes them with sinners of the first rank. The word he uses, in its original import, comprehends all who are concerned in bringing any of the human race into slavery, or in detaining them in it. Stealers of men are all those who bring off slaves or freemen, and keep, sell, or buy them. To steal a freeman is the highest kind of theft. In other instances we only steal human property, but when we steal or retain men in slavery, we seize those who in common with ourselves, are constituted by the original grant, lords of the earth.-Presbyterian Confession of Faith. Man-stealers!-The worst of all thieves; in comparison of whom, highway robbers and house-breakers are innocent! What then are traders in negroes, and procurers of servants for America.-Wesley. Men-stealers are inserted among these daring criminals. against whom the law of God directed its awful curses. These kidnapped men to sell them for slaves; and this practice seems inseparable from the other iniquities and oppressions of slavery; nor can a slave-dealer keep free from this criminality, if the receiver be as bad as the thief.'-Scott. They who make war, for the inhuman purpose of selling the vanquished as slaves, are really men-stealers. And they who encourage that unchristian traffic by purchasing the slaves which they know to be thus unjustly acquired are partakers in their crime.-Macknight. The Lord God who judgeth her, will effuse his wrath upon Babylon, because she makes merchandise of slaves, the bodies and souls of men. To number the persons of men with beasts, sheep, and horses, as the stock of a farm, or with bales of goods, as the cargo of a ship, is a most detestable and antichristian practice.--Scott. Shall Protestants renounce that merchandise of Rome, which consists of odours, and ointments, and chariots, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and continue that more scandalous traffic in slaves and souls of men ?-Robinson. In ages to come, it will scarcely meet with credit, that we who boast ourselves of being a free nation, should have been capable of buying and selling souls. If there were no other cause, this is enough to bring down the severest of the divine judgments! No political motives whatever can justify this diabolical traffic. Such has been the general practice of mankind in every age preceding the introduction of the gospel: and it is the introduction and profession of that gospel, which render the dealing in slaves so enormously wicked! A Christian buying and selling slaves! A man, who professes that the leading law of his life, is to do as he would be done by, spending his time and amassing a fortune in buying and selling his fellowmen!-Simpson. The Methodist discipline asserts, that there is "one only condition previously required of those who wish admission into these societies, a desire to flee from the wrath to come, and to be saved from their sins." But how shall they evidence that their desire is real and genuine? "By avoiding evil of every kind, especially that which is most generally practised: the buying or selling of men, women, or children, with an intention to enslave them." |