THE CANAANITES NOT SENTENCED TO UNCONDITIONAL EXTERMINATION,
THE BIBLE AGAINST SLAVERY.
The spirit of slavery never seeks shelter in the Bible, of its own accord. It grasps the horns of the altar only in desperation--rushing from the terror of the avenger"s arm. Like other unclean spirits, it "hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest its deeds should be reproved." Goaded to phrenzy in its conflicts with conscience and common sense, denied all quarter, and hunted from every covert, it vaults over the sacred inclosure and courses up and down the Bible, "seeking rest, and finding none." THE LAW OF LOVE, glowing on every page, flashes around it an omnipresent anguish and despair. It shrinks from the hated light, and howls under the consuming touch, as demons quailed before the Son of G.o.d, and shrieked, "Torment us not." At last, it slinks away under the types of the Mosaic system, and seeks to burrow out of sight among their shadows. Vain hope! Its asylum is its sepulchre; its city of refuge, the city of destruction. It flies from light into the sun; from heat, into devouring fire; and from the voice of G.o.d into the thickest of His thunders.
DEFINITION OF SLAVERY.
If we would know whether the Bible sanctions slavery, we must determine _what slavery is_. A const.i.tuent element, is one thing; a relation, another; an appendage, another. Relations and appendages presuppose _other_ things to which they belong. To regard them as _the things themselves_, or as const.i.tuent parts of them, leads to endless fallacies. A great variety of conditions, relations, and tenures, indispensable to the social state, are confounded with slavery; and thus slaveholding becomes quite harmless, if not virtuous. We will specify some of these.
1. _Privation of suffrage._ Then minors are slaves.
2. _Ineligibility to office._ Then females are slaves.
3. _Taxation without representation._ Then slaveholders in the District of Columbia are slaves.
4. _Privation of one"s oath in law._ Then disbelievers in a future retribution are slaves.
5. _Privation of trial by jury._ Then all in France and Germany are slaves.
6. _Being required to support a particular religion._ Then the people of England are slaves. [To the preceding may be added all other disabilities, merely _political_.]
7. _Cruelty and oppression._ Wives, children, and hired domestics are often oppressed; but these forms of cruelty are not slavery.
8. _Apprenticeship._ The rights and duties of master and apprentice are correlative and reciprocal. The claim of each upon the other results from his _obligation_ to the other. Apprenticeship is based on the principle of equivalent for value received. The rights of the apprentice are secured, equally with those of the master. Indeed, while the law is _just_ to the master, it is _benevolent_ to the apprentice. Its main design is rather to benefit the apprentice than the master. It promotes the interests of the former, while in doing it, it guards from injury those of the latter. To the master it secures a mere legal compensation--to the apprentice, both a legal compensation and a virtual gratuity in addition, he being of the two the greatest gainer. The law not only recognizes the _right_ of the apprentice to a reward for his labor, but appoints the wages, and enforces the payment. The master"s claim covers only the services of the apprentice. The apprentice"s claim covers _equally_ the services of the master. Neither can hold the other as property; but each holds property in the services of the other, and BOTH EQUALLY. Is this slavery?
9. _Filial subordination and parental claims._ Both are nature"s dictates and intrinsic elements of the social state; the natural affections which blend parent and child in one, excite each to discharge those offices incidental to the relation, and const.i.tute a shield for mutual protection. The parent"s legal claim to the child"s services, while a minor, is a slight return for the care and toil of his rearing, to say nothing of outlays for support and education. This provision is, with the ma.s.s of mankind, indispensable to the preservation of the family state. The child, in helping his parents, helps himself--increases a common stock, in which he has a share; while his most faithful services do but acknowledge a debt that money cannot cancel.
10. _Bondage for crime._ Must innocence be punished because guilt suffers penalties? True, the criminal works for the government without pay; and well he may. He owes the government. A century"s work would not pay its drafts on him. He is a public defaulter, and will die so.
Because laws make men pay their debts, shall those be forced to pay who owe nothing? The law makes no criminal, PROPERTY. It restrains his liberty, and makes him pay something, a mere penny in the pound, of his debt to the government; but it does not make him a chattel. Test it. To own property, is to own its product. Are children born of convicts, government property? Besides, can _property_ be guilty? Are chattels punished?
11. _Restraints upon freedom._ Children are restrained by parents--pupils, by teachers--patients, by physicians--corporations, by charters--and legislatures, by const.i.tutions. Embargoes, tariffs, quarantine, and all other laws, keep men from doing as they please.
Restraints are the web of society, warp and woof. Are they slavery? then civilized society is a giant slave--a government of LAW, _the climax of slavery,_ and its executive, a king among slaveholders.
12. _Compulsory service._ A juryman is empannelled against his will, and sit he must. A sheriff orders his posse; bystanders _must_ turn in. Men are _compelled_ to remove nuisances, pay fines and taxes, support their families, and "turn to the right as the law directs," however much against their wills. Are they therefore slaves? To confound slavery with involuntary service is absurd. Slavery is a _condition_. The slave"s _feelings_ toward it, are one thing; the condition itself, is another thing; his feelings cannot alter the nature of that condition. Whether he desires or detests it, the condition remains the same. The slave"s willingness to be a slave is no palliation of the slaveholder"s guilt.
Suppose the slave should think himself a chattel, and consent to be so regarded by others, does that _make_ him a chattel, or make those guiltless who _hold_ him as such? I may be sick of life, and I tell the a.s.sa.s.sin so that stabs me; is he any the less a murderer? Does my _consent_ to his crime, atone for it? my partnership in his guilt, blot out his part of it? The slave"s willingness to be a slave, so far from lessening the guilt of the "owner," aggravates it. If slavery has so palsied his mind that he looks upon himself as a chattel, and consents to be one, actually to hold him as such, falls in with his delusion, and confirms the impious falsehood. These very feelings and convictions of the slave, (if such were possible) increase a hundred fold the guilt of the master, and call upon him in thunder, immediately to recognize him as a man and thus break the sorcery that cheats him out of his birthright--the consciousness of his worth and destiny.
Many of the foregoing conditions are _appendages_ of slavery. But no one, nor all of them together, const.i.tute its intrinsic unchanging element.
We proceed to state affirmatively that, ENSLAVING MEN IS REDUCING THEM TO ARTICLES OF PROPERTY--making free agents, chattels--converting _persons_ into _things_--sinking immortality, into _merchandize_. A _slave_ is one held in this condition. In law, "he owns nothing, and can acquire nothing." His right to himself is abrogated. If he say _my_ hands, _my_ feet, _my_ body, _my_ mind, MY _self_, they are figures of speech. To use _himself_ for his own good, is a CRIME. To keep what he _earns_, is stealing. To take his body into his own keeping, is _insurrection_. In a word, the _profit_ of his master is made the END of his being, and he, a _mere means_ to that end--a _mere means_ to an end into which his interests do not enter, of which they const.i.tute no portion[A]. MAN, sunk to a _thing!_ the intrinsic element, the _principle_ of slavery; MEN, bartered, leased, mortgaged, bequeathed, invoiced, shipped in cargoes, stored as goods, taken on executions, and knocked off at public outcry! Their _rights_, another"s conveniences; their interests, wares on sale; their happiness, a household utensil; their personal inalienable ownership, a serviceable article, or a plaything, as best suits the humor of the hour; their deathless nature, conscience, social affections, sympathies, hopes--marketable commodities! We repeat it, _the reduction of persons to things;_ not robbing a man of privileges, but of _himself_; not loading with burdens, but making him a _beast of burden_; not _restraining_ liberty, but subverting it; not curtailing rights, but abolishing them; not inflicting personal cruelty, but annihilating _personality_; not exacting involuntary labor, but sinking him into an _implement_ of labor; not abridging human comforts, but abrogating human nature; not depriving an animal of immunities, but despoiling a rational being of attributes--uncreating a MAN, to make room for a _thing_!
[Footnote A: Whatever system sinks men from an END to a mere _means_, just so far makes him a _slave_. Hence West India apprenticeship retains the cardinal principle of slavery. The apprentice, during three fourths of his time, is still forced to labor, and robbed of his earnings; just so far forth he is a _mere means_, a _slave_. True, in other respects slavery is abolished in the British West Indies. Its bloodiest features are blotted out--but the meanest and most despicable of all--forcing the poor to work for the rich without pay three fourths of their time, with a legal officer to flog them if they demur at the outrage, is one of the provisions of the "Emanc.i.p.ation Act!" For the glories of that luminary, abolitionists thank G.o.d, while they mourn that it rose behind clouds, and shines through an eclipse.]
That this is American slavery, is shown by the laws of slave states.
Judge Stroud, in his "Sketch of the Laws relating to Slavery," says, "The cardinal principle of slavery, that the slave is not to be ranked among sentient beings, but among _things_--obtains as undoubted law in all of these [the slave] states." The law of South Carolina thus lays down the principle, "Slaves shall be deemed, held, taken, reputed, and adjudged in law to be chattels personal in the hands of their owners and possessors, and their executors, administrators, and a.s.signs, to ALL INTENTS, CONSTRUCTIONS, AND PURPOSES WHATSOEVER."--Brevard"s Digest, 229. In Louisiana, "A slave is one who is in the power of a master to whom he belongs; the master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry, and his labor; he can do nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire any thing, but what must belong to his master."--Civ. Code of Louisiana, Art. 35.
This is American slavery. The eternal distinction between a person and a thing, trampled under foot--the crowning distinction of all others--alike the source, the test, and the measure of their value--the rational, immortal principle, consecrated by G.o.d to universal homage, in a baptism of glory and honor by the gift of His Son, His Spirit, His word, His presence, providence, and power; His shield, and staff, and sheltering wing; His opening heavens, and angels ministering, and chariots of fire, and songs of morning stars, and a great voice in heaven, proclaiming eternal sanctions, and confirming the word with signs following.
Having stated the _principle_ of American slavery, we ask, DOES THE BIBLE SANCTION SUCH A PRINCIPLE?[A] "To the _law_ and the _testimony_?"
First, the moral law. Just after the Israelites were emanc.i.p.ated from their bondage in Egypt, while they stood before Sinai to receive the law, as the trumpet waxed louder, and the mount quaked and blazed, G.o.d spake the ten commandments from the midst of clouds and thunderings.
_Two_ of those commandments deal death to slavery. "THOU SHALT NOT STEAL," or, "thou shalt not take from another what belongs to him." All man"s powers are G.o.d"s gift to _him_. That they are _his own_, is proved from the fact that G.o.d has given them to _him alone_,--that each of them is a part of himself, and all of them together const.i.tute himself. All else that belongs to man, is acquired by the _use_ of these powers. The interest belongs to him, because the princ.i.p.al does; the product is his, because he is the producer. Ownership of any thing, is ownership of its _use_. The right to use according to will, is _itself_ ownership. The eighth commandment presupposes and a.s.sumes the right of every man to his powers, and their product. Slavery robs of both. A man"s right to himself, is the only right absolutely original and intrinsic--his right to whatever else that belongs to him is merely _relative_ to this, is derived from it, and held only by virtue of it. SELF-RIGHT is the _foundation right_--the _post is the middle_, to which all other rights are fastened. Slaveholders, when talking about their RIGHT to their slaves, always a.s.sume their own right to themselves. What slaveholder ever undertook to prove his right to himself? He knows it to be a self-evident proposition, that _a man belongs to himself_--that the right is intrinsic and absolute. In making out his own t.i.tle, he makes out the t.i.tle of every human being. As the fact of being a _man_ is itself the t.i.tle, the whole human family have one common t.i.tle deed. If one man"s t.i.tle is valid, all are valid. If one is worthless, all are.
To deny the validity of the _slave"s_ t.i.tle is to deny the validity of _his own_; and yet in the act of making a man a slave, the slaveholder _a.s.serts_ the validity of his own t.i.tle, while he seizes him as his property who has the _same_ t.i.tle. Further, in making him a slave, he does not merely disfranchise the humanity of _one_ individual, but of UNIVERSAL MAN. He destroys the foundations. He annihilates _all rights_.
He attacks not only the human race, but _universal being_, and rushes upon JEHOVAH. For rights are _rights_; G.o.d"s are no more--man"s are no less.
[Footnote A: The Bible record of actions is no comment on their moral character. It vouches for them as _facts_, not as _virtues_. It records without rebuke, Noah"s drunkenness, Lot"s incest, and the lies of Jacob and his mother--not only single acts, but _usages_, such as polygamy and concubinage, are entered on the record without censure. Is that _silent entry_ G.o.d"s _endors.e.m.e.nt_? Because the Bible in its catalogue of human actions, does not stamp on every crime its name and number, and write against it, _this is a crime_--does that wash out its guilt, and bleach into a virtue?]
The eighth commandment forbids the taking of _any part_ of that which belongs to another. Slavery takes the _whole_. Does the same Bible which prohibits the taking of _any_ thing from him, sanction the taking of _every_ thing? Does it thunder wrath against him who robs his neighbor of a _cent_, yet bid G.o.d speed to him who robs his neighbor of _himself_? Slaveholding is the highest possible violation of the eighth commandment. To take from a man his earnings, is theft. But to take the _earner_, is a compound, life-long theft--supreme robbery, that vaults up the climax at a leap--the dread, terrific, giant robbery, that towers among other robberies a solitary horror, monarch of the realm. The eighth commandment forbids the taking away, and the _tenth_ adds, "THOU SHALT NOT COVET ANY THING THAT IS THY NEIGHBOR"S;" thus guarding every man"s right to himself and his property, by making not only the actual taking away a sin, but even that state of mind which would _tempt_ to it. Who ever made human beings slaves, without _coveting_ them? Why take from them their time, labor, liberty, right of self-preservation and improvement, their right to acquire property, to worship according to conscience; to search the Scriptures, to live with their families, and their right to their own bodies, if they do not _desire_ them? They covet them for purposes of gain, convenience, l.u.s.t of dominion, of sensual gratification of pride and ostentation. THEY BREAK THE TENTH COMMANDMENT, and pluck down upon their heads the plagues that are written in the book.--_Ten_ commandments const.i.tute the brief compend of human duty.--_Two_ of these brand slavery as sin.
The giving of the law at Sinai, immediately preceded the promulgation of that body of laws called the "Mosaic system." Over the gateway of that system, fearful words were written by the finger of G.o.d--"HE THAT STEALETH A MAN AND SELLETH HIM, OR IF HE BE FOUND IN HIS HAND, HE SHALL SURELY BE PUT TO DEATH." Ex. xxi. 16.
The oppression of the Israelites in Egypt, and the wonders wrought for their deliverance, proclaim the reason for _such_ a law at _such_ a time--when the body politic became a theocracy, and reverently waited for the will of G.o.d. They had just been emanc.i.p.ated. The tragedies of their house of bondage were the realities of yesterday, and peopled their memories with thronging horrors. They had just witnessed G.o.d"s testimony against oppression in the plagues of Egypt--the burning blains on man and beast--the dust quickened into loathsome life, and swarming upon every living thing--the streets, the palaces, the temples, and every house heaped up with the carcases of things abhorred--the kneading troughs and ovens, the secret chambers and the couches; reeking and dissolving with the putrid death--the pestilence walking in darkness at noonday, the devouring locusts, and hail mingled with fire, the first-born death-struck, and the waters blood, and last of all, that dread high hand and stretched-out arm, that whelmed the monarch and his hosts, and strewed their corpses on the sea. All this their eyes had looked upon,--earth"s proudest city, wasted and thunder-scarred, lying in desolation, and the doom of oppressors traced on her ruins in the hand writing of G.o.d, glaring in letters of fire mingled with blood--a blackened monument of wrath to the uttermost against the stealers of men. No wonder that G.o.d, in a code of laws prepared for such a people at such a time, should light up on its threshold a blazing beacon to flash terror on slaveholders. _"He that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death."_ Ex. xxi. 16.
Deut. xxiv. 7[A]. G.o.d"s cherubim and flaming sword guarding the entrance to the Mosaic system!
[Footnote A: Jarchi, the most eminent of the Jewish Commentators, who wrote seven hundred years ago, in his commentary on this stealing and making merchandize of men, gives the meaning thus:--"Using a man against his will, as a servant lawfully purchased; yea, though he should use his services ever so little, only to the value of a farthing, or use but his arm to lean on to support him, _if he be forced so to act as a servant_, the person compelling him but once to do so shall die as a thief, whether he has sold him or not."]
The word _Ganabh_ here rendered _stealeth_, means the taking what _belongs_ to another, whether by violence or fraud; the same word is used in the eighth commandment, and prohibits both _robbery_ and theft.
The crime specified is that of depriving SOMEBODY of the ownership of a man. Is this somebody a master? and is the crime that of depriving a master of his servant? Then it would have been "he that stealeth" a _servant, not_ "he that stealeth a _man_." If the crime had been the taking an individual from _another_, then the _term_ used would have been expressive of that relation, and most especially if it was the relation of property and _proprietor_!
The crime is stated in a three-fold form--man _stealing_, _selling_, and _holding_. All are put on a level, and whelmed under one penalty--DEATH.
This _somebody_ deprived of the ownership of a man, is the _man himself_, robbed of personal ownership. Joseph said, "Indeed I was _stolen_ away out of the land of the Hebrews." Gen. xl. 15. How _stolen?_ His brethren sold him as an article of merchandize. Contrast this penalty for _man_-stealing with that for _property_-stealing, Ex.
xxii. If a man had stolen an _ox_ and killed or sold it, he was to restore five oxen; if he had neither sold nor killed it, two oxen. But in the case of stealing a _man_, the _first_ act drew down the utmost power of punishment; however often repeated, or aggravated the crime, human penalty could do no more. The fact that the penalty for _man_-stealing was death, and the penalty for _property_-stealing, the mere restoration of double, shows that the two cases were adjudicated on totally different principles. The man stolen might be past labor, and his support a burden, yet death was the penalty, though not a cent"s worth of _property value_ was taken. The penalty for stealing property was a mere property penalty. However large the theft, the payment of double wiped out the score. It might have a greater _money_ value than a thousand men, yet death was not the penalty, nor maiming, nor branding, nor even _stripes_, but double of _the same kind._ Why was not the rule uniform? When a _man_ was stolen why was not the thief required to restore double of the same kind--two men, or if he had sold him, five men? Do you say that the man-thief might not _have_ them? So the ox-thief might not have two oxen, or if he had killed it, five. But if G.o.d permitted men to hold _men_ as property, equally with _oxen_, the man-thief could get men with whom to pay the penalty, as well as the ox-thief, oxen. Further, when _property_ was stolen, the legal penalty was a compensation to the person injured. But when a _man_ was stolen, no property compensation was offered. To tender money as an equivalent, would have been to repeat the outrage with intolerable aggravations.
Compute the value of a MAN in _money!_ Throw dust into the scale against immortality! The law recoiled from such supreme insult and impiety. To have permitted the man-thief to expiate his crime by restoring double, would have been making the repet.i.tion of crime its atonement. But the infliction of death for _man-stealing_ exacted the utmost possibility of reparation. It wrung from the guilty wretch as he gave up the ghost, a testimony in blood, and death-groans, to the infinite dignity and worth of man,--a proclamation to the universe, voiced in mortal agony, "MAN IS INVIOLABLE"--a confession shrieked in phrenzy at the grave"s mouth--"I die accursed, and G.o.d is just."
If G.o.d permitted man to hold man as property, why did he punish for stealing that kind of property infinitely more than for stealing any other kind of property? Why did he punish with death for stealing a very little of _that_ sort of property, and make a mere fine, the penalty for stealing a thousand times as much, of any other sort of property--especially if G.o.d did by his own act annihilate the difference between man and _property,_ by putting him on a level with it?
The atrociousness of a crime, depends much upon the nature, character, and condition of the victim. To steal is a crime, whoever the thief, or whatever the plunder. To steal bread from a full man, is theft; to steal from a starving man, is both theft and murder. If I steal my neighbor"s property, the crime consists not in altering the _nature_ of the article but in shifting its relation from him to me. But when I take my neighbor himself, and first make him _property_, and then _my_ property, the latter act, which was the sole crime in the former case, dwindles to nothing. The sin in stealing a man, is not the transfer from its owner to another of that which is _already property,_ but the turning of _personality_ into _property_. True, the attributes of man remain, but the rights and immunities which grow out of them are attributed. It is the first law both of reason and revelation to regard things and beings as they are; and the sum of religion, to feel and act towards them according to their value. Knowingly to treat them otherwise is sin; and the degree of violence done to their nature, religions, and value, measures its guilt. When things are sundered which G.o.d has indissolubly joined, or confounded in one, which he has separated by infinite extremes; when sacred and eternal distinctions, which he has garnished with glory, are derided and set at nought, then, if ever, sin reddens to its "scarlet dye." The sin specified in the pa.s.sage, is that of doing violence to the _nature_ of a man--to his intrinsic value as a rational being, and blotting out the exalted distinction stamped upon him by his Maker. In the verse preceding, and in that which follows, the same principle is laid down. Verse 15, "He that smiteth his father or his mother shall surely be put to death." V. 17, "He that curseth his father or his mother, shall surely be put to death." If a Jew smote his neighbor, the law merely smote him in return; but if the blow was given to a _parent,_ it struck the smiter dead. The parental relation is the _centre_ of human society. G.o.d guards it with peculiar care. To violate that, is to violate all. Whoever trampled on that, showed that _no_ relation had any sacredness in his eyes--that he was unfit to move among human relations who had violated one so sacred and tender. Therefore, the Mosaic law uplifted his bleeding corpse, and brandished the ghastly terror around the parental relation to guard it from impious inroads.
Why such a difference in penalties, for the same act? Answer. (1.) The relation violated was obvious--the distinction between parents and others manifest, dictated by natural affection--a law of the const.i.tution. (2.) The act was violence to nature--a suicide on const.i.tutional susceptibilities. (3.) The parental relation then, as now, was the focal point of the social system, and required powerful safeguards. "_Honor thy father and thy mother_," stands at the head of those commands which prescribe the duties of man to man; and, throughout the Bible, the parental state is G.o.d"s favorite ill.u.s.tration of his own relations to the whole human family. In this case death was to be inflicted not for smiting a _man_, but a _parent_--a _distinction_ cherished by G.o.d, and around which, He threw up a bulwark of defence. In the next verse, "He that stealeth a man," &c., the SAME PRINCIPLE is wrought out in still stronger relief. The crime to be punished with death was not the taking of property from its owner, but the doing violence to an _immortal nature,_ blotting out a sacred _distinction_, making MEN "chattels." The incessant pains taken in the Old Testament to separate human beings from brutes and things, shows G.o.d"s regard for his own distinction.
"In the beginning" it was uttered in heaven, and proclaimed to the universe as it rose into being. Creation was arrayed at the instant of its birth, to do it homage. It paused in adoration while G.o.d ushered forth its crowning work. Why that dread pause and that creating arm held back in mid career and that high conference in the G.o.dhead? "Let us make man in OUR IMAGE after OUR LIKENESS, AND LET HIM HAVE DOMINION over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth." Then while every living thing, with land, and sea, and firmament, and marshalled worlds, waited to swell the shout of morning stars--then "G.o.d CREATED MAN IN HIS OWN IMAGE; IN THE IMAGE OF G.o.d CREATED HE HIM." This solves the problem, IN THE IMAGE OF G.o.d, CREATED HE HIM. Well might the sons of G.o.d shout, "Amen, alleluia"--For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet." Ps. viii. 5, 6. The repet.i.tion of this distinction is frequent and solemn. In Gen. i. 26-28, it is repeated in various forms. In Gen. v. 1, we find it again, "IN THE LIKENESS OF G.o.d MADE HE MAN." In Gen. ix. 6, again. After giving license to shed the blood of "every moving thing that liveth," it is added, "_Whoso sheddeth man"s blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for_ IN THE IMAGE OF G.o.d MADE HE MAN." As though it had been said, "All these creatures are your property, designed for your use--they have the likeness of earth, they perish with the using, and their spirits go downward; but this other being, MAN, has my own likeness: "IN THE IMAGE OF G.o.d made I man;" "an intelligent, moral, immortal agent, invited to all that I can give and he can be." So in Lev. xxiv. 17, 18, 21, "He that killeth any MAN shall surely be put to death; and he that killeth a beast shall make it good, beast for beast; and he that killeth a man shall be put to death." So in Ps. viii. 5, 6, what an enumeration of particulars, each separating infinitely MEN from brutes and things! (1.) "_Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels._" Slavery drags him down among _brutes_. (2.) "_And hast crowned him with glory and honor._"
Slavery tears off his crown, and puts on a _yoke_. (3.) "_Thou madest him to have dominion_ OVER _the works of thy hands._" Slavery breaks the sceptre, and casts him down _among_ those works--yea _beneath them_.
(4.) "_Thou hast put all things under his feet._" Slavery puts HIM under the feet of an "owner." Who, but an impious scorner, dares thus strive with his Maker, and mutilate HIS IMAGE, and blaspheme the Holy One, who saith, "_Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, ye did it unto_ ME."
In further presenting this inquiry, the Patriarchal and Mosaic systems will be considered together, as each reflects light upon the other, and as many regulations of the latter are mere _legal_ forms of Divine inst.i.tutions previously existing. As a _system_, the latter alone is of Divine authority. Whatever were the usages of the patriarchs, G.o.d has not made them our exemplars[A].
[Footnote A: Those who insist that the patriarchs held slaves, and sit with such delight under their shadow, hymning the praises of "those good old patriarchs and slaveholders," might at small cost greatly augment their numbers. A single stanza celebrating patriarchal _concubinage_, winding off with a chorus in honor of patriarchal _drunkenness_, would be a trumpet call, summoning from bush and brake, highway and hedge, and sheltering fence, a brotherhood of kindred affinities, each claiming Abraham or Noah as his patron saint, and shouting, "My name is legion."