In 1826, J. D. Paxton was a Presbyterian minister in Cumberland, Virginia. In an article that year he wrote that injuries to our rights are “great mother-evils,” and that no such injury could be greater than enslaving a human being. His congregation did not appreciate this article, and by the time it was republished in a book seven years later, Paxton was living far away in Kentucky. Paxton himself had come into possession of slaves when he married; he educated them and freed them, and they went to the new colony of Liberia.
There are many things in negro slavery, as it exists among us, to which we all would think it exceedingly hard and unjust, to be ourselves and families subjected. Now the law of “doing as we would be done by,”—the law of “loving our neighbour as ourselves,” appears to me most manifestly to forbid that we should subject others to these things.
The negro slave may, with a solitary exception, be said to be stript of all his rights. The law recognizes his right to life, and makes some provisions to secure it from being violently taken away ; but even those provisions are far short of what are deemed necessary to secure the life of the white man. How this difference is viewed in the eyes of him who “made of one blood all nations of men,” and declares “himself no respecter of persons,” deserves the serious consideration of all; and especially of those who call God their Father, and profess to take his word for the rule of their conduct.
With the above exception, I hardly know the right, natural, civil, or religious, which the slave can be said to possess. All are claimed by the master; and the law of the land sustains his claim. The slave is reduced to a mere chattel—is held by his master as property, with absolute and uncontrolled authority to use him and treat him as his interest, or passion, or caprice may dictate. The slave may be bought and sold at pleasure; and that without any regard to his inclinations; without any regard to long and faithful services—and without any regard to family ties. His times of labour and of rest—the kind and degree of labour, depend on the will of his master. Should a master refuse the degree of rest needful to support nature—should he work his slave beyond his natural strength, the slave has no redress. No one is authorized to interfere. The master claims the whole proceeds of the labour of the slave; and that without acknowledging any obligation to give any compensation, more than a bare subsistence. And as to the means of subsistence, the kind and quantity of food and clothing, the master has it absolutely in his power. Should he give what is unhealthy in kind, and insufficient in quantity, there is no redress. The master may punish his slave in what manner and degree he pleases, (not immediately taking life) for his faults, real or suspected; or for no fault at all. Should a master from prejudice, or caprice, or sheer cruelty, abuse and punish and torture his slave every day, as much as his nature would bear; I know of no law of the land which would make it the duty, or enable any one to interfere and stop the crying injustice. The master may cut off his slave, to what extent he please, from intercourse with the world. He may prevent his forming family connections; or he may break them up when formed. Where the relation of husband and wife exists in good faith between the parties, and is strengthened by all the endearments of a family of children, the pledges of their mutual love, the law still gives no protection. The master may sell the husband without the wife, or the wife without the husband; the parents without the children, or the children without the parents. He may sell them all—he may sell them all separately; one to one man, to be removed in one direction, and another to another man, to be taken in a different direction, as his interest, passion, or caprice may influence. The owner may keep his slaves as ignorant as he please, or as ignorant as he can. He may refuse to teach them to read, and may forbid any other person to do it. He may oppose their religious instruction. He may prevent their attending the preaching of the gospel. He may place them, in situations so remote from the public means of grace, and so lay his commands on them as to staying at home, that, humanly speaking, the slave has no chance of hearing and understanding the gospel to his salvation. Yea so absolute is the power of the master, and so cut off from all help and all defence is the slave, that the slave may be obliged to enter on and pursue sinful courses. Female slaves may be compelled to unclean living. The direct power of the owner or manager to enforce his wishes, by hard usage, and punishment in various forms, and the want of means of defence on the part of the slave, even as to giving testimony against a white man, places the purity of the female, and the comfort and happiness of both male and female, as connected with female purity and mutual confidence, in the power of those over them. Whether slaves be allowed to perform parental duties—educate their children, or children perform filial duties, depends on the will of the owner.
It would be easy to add to the above statement other things in which the situation of the slave is most exposed—is most hard—is such as their masters would be utterly unwilling to be held in themselves with their families—is such that masters would think it righteous in the sight of God and man, to run every hazard and contend even unto blood, rather than continue in it, and leave it a heritage of sufferings and wrongs to their children.
Now the single question I would press for an answer, given in the fear of God, is this:
Is the believer in the Bible, is the professor of the religion of Christ, justified—can he be justified in the sight of him who is no respecter of persons?—Can he be justified by that word of God, which commands him to “love his neighbour as himself”—by that command of Christ, “In all things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them,” can he, I say, be justified in holding a fellow creature deprived of rights which, in his own case, he declares unalienable; and for which he would think himself justified in the sight of heaven and earth, in contending even unto blood?—Can he be justified in giving his countenance to a system, which is based on a total disregard for rights, which he puts in the same scale with his own existence,—a system, which opens the door for evils and oppressions, against which he would think it right to defend himself and family at every hazard? Can he be acquitted before that “God, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity,” in giving in to a practice, pregnant with so many evils: which presents such strong temptations to iniquity, and which operates in so many ways against the salvation of both master and slave?
I think it useless here to enumerate all the ways, in which professors of religion explain the “rule of doing as we would be done by,” in its application to slavery. Perhaps the more common way is to apply the rule to the case in a very partial manner; in a manner so partial, as not at all to touch its most essential parts. Thus the whole matter of depriving a fellow creature of his rights; or (which in its morality is the same) withholding them from him, is passed over.
The rule of doing as we would be done by is not applied to the act of withholding his rights; but to the treatment he receives, considered as thus stripped of them! We daily meet with persons, who appear to make the whole morality of holding slaves, consist in the manner of treating them. To the treatment of slaves simply considered, they, in some sort, apply the rule; but to the act of holding a fellow creature in slavery, considered separately from his treatment in that slate, they appear not to apply the rule at all. They take it for granted that the “rule of doing as we would be done by,” allows the holding of slaves, provided we treat them well.
Now this to me appears, most manifestly, a partial application of the rule to the case. The most important part of the case is not tried by the rule at all. No question is made about stripping a fellow creature of rights, or withholding them from him. And why not? Is it not one of those cases in which we can suppose ourselves in a change of place, and so apply the rule as easily, as we can to any special act of treatment towards those in slavery? On what authority is it withdrawn from the catalogue, embraced by our Saviour in the first part of his rule: “In all things, &c., do ye, &;c.”
It appears to me capable, if not of absolute demonstration, yet of a high degree of proof, that the single act of withholding from a fellow creature his rights, or in other words, the holding him in slavery is the “very head and front of the offending.” This is the great original sin in every case where slavery, such as exists among us, is found. The treatment of slaves may be good or bad, kind or cruel, in all their various degrees; and may of course be more or less conformable to the “rule of doing as we would be done by.” But the act of depriving a fellow creature of his rights to the extent the negro slave is deprived of his, or the act of withholding or refusing to restore them; or, in other words, the act of holding him in slavery,—is at all times and in all situations a violation of the rule. For plainly, no man who has common sense and understands the case would be willing to be stripped of his rights, and held in slavery such as the negro is doomed to. So far from being willing to be treated thus, he would think it most hard, he would, if he understood his natural rights as most masters do, think it most unrighteous; and would think it right to make every effort to burst his bands, and go out free. Now on what principle is it that the rule “of doing as we would be done by” is not applied to this case? May the professor of religion in the face of the rule and in the hearing of the declaration of his Master, with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again,”—mete out the hard measure of slavery to a fellow creature, while he would at every hazard refuse it in his own case?
I pass by for the present all the questions respecting the treatment of slaves, and the bearing it may have on their opinions on this subject. For the sake of getting that part of the question separated from the other, let us suppose that they are treated as well as they ought to be—that the law of doing as we would be done by, applied fairly to the case of their treatment, finds no fault; still he is in slavery, and what is implied in that? Why he is stripped of all his rights; is entirely under the power of another: is held as property with a long train of disabilities, and deprivations, and liabilities to evils and oppressions, in all their varieties. Now the question returns, do the laws which Christ has given his people to regulate their conduct towards their fellow men, allow of this stripping another of his rights, or withholding them from him? It appears to me most manifest that they do not, and yet many appear to see the matter differently. It seems therefore necessary to attempt a farther illustration of it.
No injuries are more pernicious to us, no injustice is more cruel than that done to our rights. This surely needs no proof in the day in which we live, and among the free and enlightened people of America. Injuries of no other kind are to be compared with them. The reason is plain. While we are invested with our rights, they are our armour of defence against all kinds of evils to which we are exposed from our fellow men, and where an injury is received, our rights in their legitimate operation will procure us amends. They are an armour defensive and offensive. They afford security. But where in any case they fail to do that, they enable us to procure amends for the evil suffered.
But suppose we are injured in our just unalienable rights; suppose we are stripped of them, suppose they are forcibly withheld from us, our armour of defence is gone. We may be injured every day—we may be assailed on every part. We have no help. We have not the means of defending ourselves against the injury; we have not the means of getting amends for it.
To illustrate this case, suppose a man or a body of men deprived of the single right of self-defence, and that not for any crime, but to enable those who deprived them of the right to accomplish certain purposes with them, their families, property, &c., the fact that some of these persons might, owing to peculiar circumstances, feel but little inconvenience from the cruel measure, would not alter the character of the measure, nor lessen the guilt of those who passed it. The very nature and tendency of the measure was to expose them to oppression and injury and wrong, and that without redress. No one act of wrong that they might meet with under it, nor any number of acts would equal, in their amount of wrong, the injustice and cruelty of the single act which stripped them of the right of self-defence, and for the plain, simple reason that the act which stripped them of the right of self-defence, exposed them to all kinds of assaults and injuries from all sorts of persons at all times and places.
Or suppose any man or body of men put out of the protection of the law, not for any crime, but simply that those who did it might treat them as they please and serve themselves of them. To what does not their outlawry expose them? They may be watched and waylaid, and ensnared—they may be hunted with men, and guns, and dogs, and all kinds of offensive weapons—they may be deceived and betrayed by acquaintances, relations and friends. No person, no place, nor time, is so sacred as to afford protection. Now it would take nothing from the monstrous injustice of the outlawry, were we to suppose that some of the outlawed, owing to peculiar circumstances, felt few, if any, of these evils, and for the obvious reason, that the act of outlawry exposed to all sorts of evils. It was its nature to do this, and if they all did not fall on the victim, no thanks to the act, nor to those who passed it. The act of outlawry is the great injury—the original sin in the case. More or less evil may flow from it, as times and other things may permit; but it produces no good of itself, but evil, only evil, and that continually.
That injuries in our rights are the greatest evils we are exposed to—are great mother-evils, which are prolific of others to an unknown extent, is well understood by the American people. This is evidenced by the fact, that both the wars which were carried on against England were for rights.
The special act of injury committed at the commencement of the revolutionary war, considered separately from the rights involved, would, we may safely say, not have produced war. The money drawn from us by the threepenny tax on tea, and the stamp act, was not worth fighting about, except as it involved principle.
But had we yielded the principle that England might tax us at pleasure, who can tell what taxes she might have laid? what burdens imposed? She might have ground us to the dust; and made us hewers of wood and drawers of water, to her wants, or pride, or extravagance.
In the last war for Sailors’ Rights, the case was much the same. The number of sailors impressed was not so great, nor their condition on board the British fleet so deplorable, (they fared as the British sailors did) as to make a resort to war indispensable, leaving out of view the rights involved. But had we given up the right of search and impressment, who can tell to what extent it might have gone? Who can tell how many thousands might have been torn from house and home and all that was dear, and made to spend their lives in fighting the battles of England?
We might refer to the political questions now agitated with so much earnestness, between the national and state governments, and their adherents. Rights are the bone of contention. And they are contended for with a zeal which proves that their worth is understood. It is seen, and felt, and avowed, that with our rights is connected everything that is dear—that if they be lost, all is lost—if they be saved, all is safe.
That our rights are more important than anything else of which we can be deprived—that we may receive a deeper injury in our rights, than in any other way, (and of course may do a greater injury to another in his rights) is on the whole, well understood by the mass of the people. They have been pretty well schooled on this matter.
Now to see a professor of religion who is thus alive to the worth of rights; thus alive to the deep and irreparable injury which he may receive from that quarter; and who professes obedience to the command of his Lord, to “Love his neighbour as himself”—“To do in all things as he would be done by,”—to see him, in applying this rule to the case of slavery, pass over the whole matter of rights, the very part where he is most alive in his own ease—the very part where the deepest wound may be given—the greatest injustice committed,—and busy himself about the quantity of bread, and meat, and clothing, which will satisfy the rule—what shall we say of it! “What man seeing this, and having human feelings, does not blush, and hang his head to think himself a man.”
What were the rights we were like to lose at the commencement of the revolutionary war? and to prevent which we entered into that fearful strife? The right of not being taxed but with our own consent. And what were the rights contended for in the last war? The rights of not being subject to search and impressment. These rights were, in the view of the people at large, worth contending for unto blood. The great bulk of professing Christians thought so too, and gave ample proof that they approved of the war, as right and necessary, by contributing their part to support it; and many of them by treading the tented field and mingling in the strife of battle.
Now, what are these rights compared with the rights of which the slave is deprived? They are a mere nothing! and how can the Christian slave-holder say, he obeys Christ, “he does as he would be done by?”
But it will, perhaps, be said, the slaves don’t know their rights; they have never possessed them and can’t estimate their loss! Now passing the generosity and justice of withholding from a fellow creature his rights, because he is ignorant of them, or unable to assert them, I would like to know how it is reconciled with the morality of the gospel? what part of the teaching of Christ or his apostles, gives the shadow of authority for a course of conduct of this kind? How can it be reconciled with the rule of “doing as we would be done by?”
Apply the principle to the case of property. An orphan has a right to property; but owing to some untoward circumstance in which he has been placed in infancy, and kept ever afterwards, he knows but little, if anything about his rights. The whole matter is so situated, that while his right is good, his neighbour can keep him from the possession of it, and, to a great degree, ignorant of his right to it, and destitute of the information needful to make the best use of it, were he in any way to get it in possession.
What now would we say of the honesty of that neighbour, who would take advantage in such a case? What would we say of his excuse, “he does not know the property is his;” “he does not know his rights;” “he can make no estimate of his loss.” And how much would he mend the matter in the eyes of every honest man were he to say, the person whose property I hold, not only does not know that it is his, or at least I can hold it in spite of him; but he is too ignorant to make a good use of it, if he had it; when it was notorious that he had kept him in ignorance, as a means of keeping him from his rights? And were this defrauder and oppressor to plead the example of others who acted in the same way; were he to plead that every man with a white face in his neighbourhood, treated every one with a yellow or a black face, as he did the orphan boy, how much would he help his cause? Were he to profess the religion of the Lord Jesus, and take his seat at the sacramental table, while he still held on to the wages of unrighteousness, what would we say of his profession? what would we say of his religion? Suppose he were heard to say, and with great self-complacency, “I am good to the orphan boy; I have, it is true, stripped him of his all, but I am not cruel to him. I give him bread and meat when he passes, and at times make him presents of my old clothes.”
How would public indignation brand such conduct. How would the report of it spread from Dan to Beersheba; and how would his name, blotted with disgrace, be handed down to posterity.
Now, what is the loss of property compared with the loss of liberty? what is poverty compared with slavery? and on what page of Scripture is the rule of justice, of doing as we would be done by, suspended, when we meet with a man with a black face?
——“The Article to Which Offense Was Taken,” in Letters on Slavery, 1833.