Slaveholding

5. Let us now compare slavery with murder. Who does not know, that oftentimes, when the poor slave can no longer endure the outrages practiced upon him, and flies, and takes to the woods, he is hunted down by dogs, and guns, and thus put to death, just for trying to escape. Every body knows, that it is a thing of frequent occurrence. Put to death – just for trying to escape from his sufferings and his wrongs. Again, it is a maxim with them, that at particular seasons, they can afford to work a set of hands to death, for the purpose of getting their crops early to market, and thereby securing a much greater price. The writer of sketches of slavery, from a year's residence in Florida, speaks of this particularly, as coming under his observation while there; and I have seen this fact referred to by other writers in public print. They do not hesitate to sacrifice the lives of their slaves to hard labor, when it will increase their profits. Besides, the poor slave is often whipped until the result is death. Is not my point made clear, abundantly clear, that slavery is worse than murder? Would you not prefer to be met by a highwayman, and shot dead, rather than have your life worn out on a slave plantation, toiling to enrich the hard-hearted wretch who had stripped you of all your rights? Would you not prefer this to being whipped, and then laid away to die under the effect? And is not the wretch who inflicts death by such means, to enrich himself, more guilty, than he who blows out the traveller's brains and seizes his money to enrich himself? Surely, my point needs no more illustration. Slavery is worse than murder. But there is still this point to be taken into the account. If a man shoots you dead by the way side, it is your own fault if you do not go to heaven. You have the Bible, and the gospel. You know that there is a Saviour, and if you have not repented of your sins, and believed in him for salvation, you are without excuse. If you lose your soul, the fault is your own. Though murdered – you might if you would, have been saved. But the poor slave is prevented from learning the way of salvation while he lives, and then worn out with toil, he dies and is lost forever. Surely I need not say more – what honest man is not prepared to say that slavery is worse than murder?

6. I come now, to a point, which, in the estimation of some, perhaps, ought to be suppressed. But I am a servant of the Most High God, and to him accountable; and as such, placed under solemn obligation to cry aloud and spare not, and show this guilty nation its sins. This, with the Lord's help, I will do. It is high time also, that our mothers, and our wives, our sisters, and our daughters, knew the sufferings and the wrongs of the poor defenceless female slave, that they may lift up their strong cries to Heaven in her behalf.

I wish, therefore, to compare slavery with fornication and adultery, and the violation of female purity by force. And, my hearers, I do not ask you to believe my naked assertion on this point, I will show you proof, as it has been my endeavor to do on every point previously considered.

Look again at the laws. In Kentucky – 'any negro, mulatto, or Indian, bond or free, who shall at any time, lift his hand in opposition to any white person, (mark the language) shall receive thirty lashes, on his or her bare back, well laid on, by order of the justice.'

This regulation, or something very much like it, is believed to be in force in all the slaveholding States. Look now at the condition in which this places the poor female. She is at the uncontrolled will of the master. He may order her, by fear of the lash, into any secret place where he pleases; the same fear of the lash, enables him to accomplish all the hellish purposes of his heart, and then, by the same means, he can seal her lips in silence, that the crime be never divulged. During all this time, if she lift a hand against him, he can procure thirty lashes for her, to be well laid on, by order of the justice, in addition to all he pleases to inflict himself. Let us now just remember, that in addition to such a regulation, no person of color can be a witness against a white man in a court of justice, and you see the exact condition of the poor female slave. There is nothing, so foul in pollution, nothing so horrid in crime, but she may be driven by the lash, to be the victim of it, and she must not lift a hand in self-defence – and then she dare not divulge her wrongs, or if she does, there is no power on earth, from whom she can gain any redress; or even protection, against a repeated infliction of the same evils.

If slaveholders had framed laws for the express purpose, of placing the purity and virtue of their females entirely in their own power, they could not have done it more effectually, than it is now done. It would seem to be a system, framed for the very purpose, of giving them full power, to pollute by force, just as many as they pleased. At any rate, they know the power is in their hands, and there are developements enough which show that they are not slow to use it.1 There are a multitude of facts on this subject, and I will just relate one or two, because I know them to be authentic.

A particular friend of mine, who spent several years in a slave State, gave me the following as an occurrence, which transpired in the place where he resided, and at the very time of his residence there. A man, – I will not say gentleman, and in truth I ought to say monster, – who had a wife and a family of grown up daughters, residing with him, had also in his house a young female slave. This slave became the mother of a child, and it was a matter of public notoriety, that the head of the family was the father of it. So barefaced had the thing become, that the man found it necessary to take some measures to get his shame, and the extreme mortification of his wife and daughters out of his mind.2 He accordingly sold her for the southern market, and though it was with some difficulty that he could persuade the purchaser to take the infant, he at length did so, and the wretched mother, the victim of the master's beastliness and abominable crime, was taken, or rather torn from the house, and borne away, literally uttering cries and shrieks of distress. Now I would like to know whether there is any language under heaven, that will sufficiently set forth the guilt of such a wretch?

The following fact was related by a pious physician who resides in the city of Washington. It came to me in such a way that I know it to be a fact.

'There is,' said this physician, 'residing in this city, a young female slave, who is pious, and a member of the same church to which I belong. She is a mulatto, and her complexion nearly white. One day, she came to me in great trouble and distress, and wished me to tell her what she could do. She stated to me, that her master's son, was in the practice of compelling her whenever he pleased, to go with him to his bed. She had been obliged to submit to it, and she knew of no way to obtain any relief. She could not appeal to her master for protection, for he was guilty of like practices himself. She wished to know what she could do? Poor girl, what could she do? She could not lift a hand in self defence. She could not flee, for she was a slave. She would be brought back and beaten, and be placed perhaps in a worse condition than before. And there she was, a pious girl, with all the feelings of her heart alive to the woes of her condition, the victim of the brutal lusts of a dissolute young man; with no means of defence or escape, and no prospect before her, but that of being again and again polluted, whenever his unbridled passions should chance to dictate.

Perhaps there is a mother here, who has a pious daughter, and I would like to come into her heart, and ask what would be her feelings, if that daughter were placed in such circumstances as these; or what would be the feelings of that daughter, if she were thus bound down, to a condition so much worse than death. I do solemnly believe that there is no adulterer under heaven, no fornicator, covered with a guilt so deep and damning, as the wretch that will pursue such a course of conduct as that. Even the victim of seduction is but decoyed from the paths of virtue, but here is a disciple of Christ, bound, and that too, by the laws of the land, and laid, a helpless victim, on the altar of prostitution.

Here then, is a crime punishable, under most Governments, with death, and the victim has power of redress, and certainly of escape from a repetition of the outrage; but slavery places its victims where there is no redress, and no deliverance; and gives the slaveholder full power, to roll, and riot, upon the virtue and innocence of as many defenceless females as he pleases, with no power under heaven to call him to account. I say again, if they had made their laws for the express purpose, of securing to themselves this power, they could not have done the thing more effectually; and no man, who has ever seen or heard much of southern practices, is ignorant of the truth, that such things as I have been relating, are the common occurrences of every day. O, when I reflect on this subject, I could almost pray for a voice like a volcano; and for words that would scorch and burn like drops of melted lava, that I might thunder the guilt of the slaveholder in his ears, and talk to him in language which he would feel. Who will say, that this system of slavery, under which no female, who has a drop of African blood in her veins, has any defence for her virtue, against any white man, even for an hour, and no possibility of escaping from pollution, is not unspeakably worse than fornication and adultery, or even the violation of purity by force, where there are laws to apprehend and punish for such a crime? Do not suspect me of a wish to palliate these vices. They were never painted, in colorings too foul and loathsome; nor was their guilt ever portrayed in a blackness deeper than the reality – but I say, the system of slavery is a thing fouler, blacker, guiltier still.

7. But let us look again, and compare slavery with treason. Benedict Arnold was a traitor. At a time, when his country was in great distress and difficulties, he formed the mad purpose, of delivering her over to the will of her enemies; and did what he could, to accomplish his end. Every breast in the land, burned with indignation against him – and, but for his flight, he would have ended his days on a gallows.

But suppose he had accomplished his end, and the unjust laws against which our fathers fought and bled, had remained in full force upon us until now? I am bold to say, that we should not have suffered wrongs, that ought to be mentioned, in comparison with the wrongs of the slave. There was a heavy and unjust taxation, but it was not stripping us of all our earnings for life. There was a refusal, to give us a just representation, in framing the laws, by which we were to be governed; but it was not stripping us from all protection of law, and reducing us in that respect, to the condition of cattle or swine. It was not stripping us of all our rights, and robbing us of our children, and subjecting our wives, our sisters and our daughters, to wanton and promiscuous violation, with no power to lift a hand in self defence, and depriving us of the power of giving them protection. The husband or father, if he be a slave, may look on, and see his wife or daughter polluted before his eyes, and all the laws of the land, are against his lifting a finger for their deliverance. He may toil ever so hard, during his whole life, and he cannot be worth a farthing. The treason of Arnold, had it prospered, would never have subjected us to such evils as these. Besides, had we remained until this time British Colonies, other things being as they now are, this evil of slavery would now have been done away, and perhaps years ago. When I think of this, if I had not confidence in the overruling Providence of God, I could almost weep, that it did not seem best to the God of armies, to leave us under the control of a power, that would have uprooted this destructive Bohon Upas, which is still throwing its broad branches of death and desolation, over such wide spreading portions of our otherwise happy land. Sure I am, that Arnold's treason would never have made our land groan under such woes, and send up to heaven such cries of distress, as are wrung daily from the breasts of the helpless millions whom our nation now enslaves. I say again, therefore, that the system of slavery, is unspeakably worse than treason. But I cannot pursue this parallel farther. I have glanced at what men regard as the worst of evils and crimes; but when weighing the guilt of slavery, we find that everything which we can place in the opposite scale, at once kicks the beam. It has a weight of guilt attached to it, that can be balanced by the guilt of no other crime.

There is one more point to the thing, which I wish to name, as giving blackness and aggravation to its guilt, and then I have done. It is, that multitudes of the professed disciples of Christ, come forward to justify the system of slavery, and to claim for it the sanctions of the word of God. Yes, this system of slavery, red as it is with crime, black as it is with guilt, and foul as it is with impurity, is called, even by professed Christians and Ministers, an institution of the Bible. Oh, it seems to me, that if the long suffering patience of a forbearing God, was ever insulted beyond endurance, it must be, when the protection of his authority is claimed, for the perpetuity of such a system as this. There is no crime which it does not legalize – no sin which it does not protect – no depth of impurity which it does not dig, and in which it does not permit vile men to wallow. And yet there are not wanting men, Christian men, and ministers who wait at the altar of God, who call this an institution of Heaven, and claim for it the authority of the Most High. I know that they would plead for slavery, without the abominations which I have named, and claim to look upon such crimes, and vices, with as deep an abhorrence as we.

But who cannot see, that slavery is the common mother of all this brood of hellish ills; in whose frightfully prolific womb they are conceived, and by whom they are brought forth. Slavery itself is the thing to be reprobated? You must put the odious dam to death, or she will continue to multiply her infernal progeny, and send them abroad among us, prolific in woes. You cannot have slavery without its concomitant evils. I know men may be found, whose hearts have felt the power of the religion of Christ, but whose moral sensibilities are not sufficiently awake, to lead them to obey God on this subject, to break every yoke and let the oppressed go free, who claim that they treat their slaves kindly, and that under such circumstances, slavery is justifiable; and that moreover, they are not accountable for the crimes which other men commit among their slaves, or for the wrongs which they practice upon them. Kindness to an enslaved man! It is a contradiction in terms. You might as well rob him of his all on earth, cut off his hands and feet, and bore out his eyes, and then take him into your house, and treat him kindly to make up for the wrong.

The slave, under the best circumstances, is the victim of robbery every day. Day by day, all his life, he is robbed of the fruits of his labor, that it may go to enrich another. He has hands indeed, but he may not use them for his own benefit. Feet he has, but they may not bear him where he would go. They must go and come at the master's bidding, and not his. He has eyes, but he may not look on the light of science, or on the clearer, purer light of God's revealed truth. Even the sun shines not for him, as it only serves to light him to his unwilling and unrequited toil. Of what use then, are hands, and feet, and eyes, to him? He can no more use them for his own benefit, than if he had none – and yet you think to make up to him by kindness what you have taken away; and call yourself a disciple of Christ, and think that Heaven will reward you for being so kind to your poor oppressed, down trodden victim, whom you compel to labor unrewarded, for your good. Is that the religion of Christ? Is that loving your neighbor as yourself?

But, the most kind hearted, and upright, and pious slaveholder in the land, so far as he approves of the system of slavery, and pleads for its perpetuity, is at best, accessory to all the evils to which the system gives rise. He is therefore a partaker in its guilt, and will hereafter find his hands stained and polluted with its vices and its crimes. He who has said in his Bible, Be not partaker of other men's sins, has also said, Come out from among them, and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing, and no man can be guiltless who refuses to do this.

But perhaps it will be asked; admitting that slavery is everything that you claim it to be, what right have you to interfere? I claim no right of interference, based on the existing laws of our country, for these, as we have seen, are so abominably wicked and oppressive, as fully to sanction all the evils and crimes which we have been considering. Still, I claim, that I have a right to interfere,3 and to do all in my power, by every possible means, for the extinction of slavery. Do any ask, on what that right is based? I answer, on the statute book of Almighty God – on the pillars of heaven's eternal throne, and better authority than this, to sanction my interference, I do not ask. 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.' 'Who is my neighbor?' Let Jesus Christ answer. 'A certain man, no matter who, went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounding him, departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance, there came down a certain priest that way; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.' How exactly like the conduct of many ministers of the gospel, toward the slave. They just look on his sufferings, and pass by, making no effort to give him relief. 'And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.' Just so multitudes of professing Christians conduct toward the slave. They look on him, pass on, and leave him alone in his woes. 'But, a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence and gave them to the host, and said unto him, take care of him, and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again I will repay thee.' Here our Saviour has shown us what it is to act the part of a neighbor. This Samaritan found a fellow being in distress. He stopped not to inquire who he was, but proceeded at once to do as he would like to have others do to him in like circumstances. And now the command of Christ is, 'Go thou and do likewise.' Wherever, therefore, we find a fellow being in distress, we find in him a neighbor, one whom we are bound to love as we love ourselves. We are to identify ourselves with him, and feel for his wrongs and his woes, as we would for our own in like circumstances, and are to do for him, so far as lies in our power, everything, which, in like circumstances, we could wish others to do for us. Tell me not then, that I have no right to interfere, when I see more than two millions of my neighbors, yes, of my brethren, my own fellow countrymen, groaning and toiling, and dying, under the unparalleled wrongs of slavery. I have no right not to interfere. I am a traitor to my neighbor, and a rebel against my God, if I forbear to interfere; if I fail to use the last power which my Maker has given me, in pleading for the immediate deliverance of my fellow men from their sufferings and their chains. I trample on the universal law of the infinite Jehovah, if I leave undone anything in my power, which I would wish to have done for me, if all the miseries of slavery were mine.

But it is not merely by looking at the general principles of God's government, that I learn my duty toward the toil-worn, agonized, suffering slave. I find positive direction for this specific case. Jer. 21: 12. – 'Thus saith the Lord – Execute judgment in the morning, and deliver him that is spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor, lest my fury go forth like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.' Who is spoiled, if it be not the slave? Is he not spoiled of everything? Spoiled of all his earnings – spoiled of the child whom he loves – spoiled of the wife that is bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh – spoiled even of the ownership of himself, and spoiled of his immortal soul, by being robbed of the light that would guide his feet to heaven? And the poor suffering female slave – of what is she not spoiled? Spoiled of all that protection, which the innocent and helpless, have a right to claim, even of the savage. Spoiled of all the affectionate tenderness, which woman everywhere, has a right to expect; spoiled even of her virtue, and that by law, for we have seen, that the laws have placed her, where she cannot preserve it, if she would.

Who then, I ask again, is spoiled, if it be not the slave? And who is an oppressor, if it be not the man who holds him in bondage, and inflicts all these wrongs upon him? While, therefore, I hear the God of heaven saying, 'Deliver him that is spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor, lest my fury go forth like fire, and burn, that none can quench it,' can I expect to escape the fury of that fire, if I shut my ears against the mandate, which thunders upon me from the presence chamber, and from the lips of Him, who declares himself King of kings, and Lord of lords? Tell me not, that I have no right to interfere – no right to plead for the deliverance 'of the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor.' I may not fail to do it – lest the fire of God's fury kindle upon me, for my disregard of his high command. And the same, is true of all my readers. Unless you have a right to disobey Almighty God, you have no right to leave anything undone, which you might do, for the deliverance of the slave.

But who is the slave? He is a man – made in the image of God – and bears as much of God's image, remember, as though he had the complexion, and the features, and the limbs, of the white man. Where is the man with a pale face, even among slaveholders, who will stand up, before the face of heaven, and claim that he bears more of God's image than his slave? He would show the image of the devil, large as life, had he the pride, and effrontery, to do such a deed of daring impiety. The slave is made in the image of his God, and to him God gave dominion over the works of his hand, as much as to the white man. For him God lighted up the sun and moon, and made the heavens resplendent with stars, as much as for us. For him God made the breath of morning, and the calm stillness of the summer eve – for him the deep blue sky was spread a canopy, and for him puts on alternate tints of purple and of gold. For him the landscape smiles in green, and flowers spring up to beautify his path, and trees hang out their foliage, and bend beneath their burdens of delicious fruit. For him the fields wave with their ripening grain – for him the valleys yield their corn – for him the flocks and herds lay down their treasures, and the sea sends up its inexhaustible supplies. For him the limpid stream, the clear pure fountain were provided, and for him the balmy air, echoing with melody of birds. Ah, and for him, remember it ye who dare withhold it from him – for him the Bible was given. Who dare say, that God provided these things for the master, more than for the man whom he enslaves.

But what is more than all, for him the Son of God came down and died. The blood gushed from his heart as freely, and in streams as pure, for the oppressed and broken hearted slave, as for us, or for the man who dares enslave God's image – for him the river of water of life, proceedeth clear as crystal from the throne of God and the Lamb – for him the streets of the New Jerusalem are paved with gold, and for him, the glory of God and the Lamb, shall pour forth its light, in beams that shall forever hide the brightness of the noonday sun – and for him are made ready the joys of an eternal heaven. Yes, this is the being whom slavery binds in chains, and robs of all the richest gifts of heaven, and sinks in ignorance and pollution down to hell. Oh, if the whole arch of heaven above us, ever echoed with the loud threatenings of an indignant God – it may now be heard to echo with the fearful interrogation – 'Shall I not visit for these things saith the Lord? Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?'