Part 12

This, sir, looks like a new view of the subject. The crime forbidden in the Bible was stealing and selling a man; i.e. seizing and forcibly carrying away, from country or State, a human being--man, woman, or child--contrary to law, and selling or holding the same. But the abolitionist gives us to understand this crime rests on the slave-holder in another sense:--namely, that he steals from the negro a metaphysical attribute,--his unalienable right to liberty!

This is a new sort of kidnapping. This is, I suppose, stealing the man from himself, as it is sometimes elegantly expressed,--robbing him of his body and his soul. Sir, I admit this is a strong figure of speech, a beautiful personification, a sonorous rhetorical flourish, which must make a deep impression on Dr. Cheever's people, Broadway, New York, and on your congregation, Washington Square, Philadelphia; but it is certainly not the Bible crime of man-stealing. And whether the Southern master is guilty of this sublimated thing will be understood by us when you prove that the negro, or anybody else, has such metaphysical right to be stolen,--such transcendental liberty not in subordination to the good of the whole people. In a word, sir, this refined expression is, after all, just the old averment that the slave-holder is guilty of sin per se! That's it.

I have given you, in reply, the Old Testament. In my next, I propose to inquire what the New Testament says in the light of the Golden Rule.

F.A. Ross.

Huntsville, Ala., Jan. 31, 1857.

The Golden Rule.

This view of the Golden Rule is the only exposition of that great text which has ever been given in words sufficiently clear, and, with practical illustrations, to make the subject intelligible to every capacity. The explanation is the truth of God, and it settles forever the slavery question, so far as it rests on this precept of Jesus Christ.

No. IV.

Rev. Albert Barnes:--

Dear Sir:--The argument against slave-holding, founded on the Golden Rule, is the strongest which can be presented, and I admit that, if it cannot be perfectly met, the master must give the slave liberty and equality. But if it can be absolutely refuted, then the slave-holder in this regard may have a good conscience; and the abolitionist has nothing more to say. Here is the rule.

"Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them; for this is the law and the prophets." (Matt. vii. 12.)

In your "Notes," on this passage you thus write:--"This command has been usually called the Savior's Golden Rule; a name given to it on account of its great value.--All that you EXPECT or DESIRE of others, in similar circumstances, DO TO THEM."

This, sir, is your exposition of the Savior's rule of right. With all due respect, I decline your interpretation. You have missed the meaning by leaving out ONE word. Observe,--you do not say, All that you OUGHT to expect or desire, &c., THAT do to them. No. But you make the EXPECTATION or DESIRE, which every man ACTUALLY HAS in similar circumstances, THE MEASURE of his DUTY to every other man. Or, in different words, you make, without qualification or explanation, the MERE EXPECTATION or DESIRE which every man,--with no instruction, or any sort of training,--wise or simple, good or bad, heathen, Mohammedan, nominal Christian,--WOULD HAVE in similar circumstances, THE LAW OF OBLIGATION, always binding upon him TO DO THAT SAME THING unto his neighbor!

Sir, you have left out the very idea which contains the sense of that Scripture. It is this: Christ, in his rule, presupposes that the man to whom he gives it knows, and from the Bible, (or providence, or natural conscience, so far as in harmony with the Bible,) the various relations in which God has placed him; and the respective duties in those relations; i.e. The rule assumes that he KNOWS what he OUGHT to expect or desire in similar circumstances.

I will test this affirmation by several and varied illustrations. I will show how Christ, according to your exposition of his rule, speaks on the subject,--of revenge, marriage, emancipation,--the fugitive from bondage. And how he truly speaks on these subjects.

Revenge--Right according to your view of the Golden Rule.

Indian and Missionary--Prisoner tied to a tree, stuck over with burning splinters.

Here is an Indian torturing his prisoner. The missionary approaches and beseeches him to regard the Golden Rule. "Humph!" utters the savage: "Golden Rule! what's that?" "Why" says the good man, "all that you expect or desired other Indians, in similar circumstances, do you even so to them." "Humph!" growls the warrior, with a fierce smile,--"Missionary--good: that's what I do now. If I was tied to that tree, I would expect and desire him to have his revenge,--to do to me as I do to him; and I would sing my death-song, as he sings his. Missionary, your rule is Indian rule,--good rule, missionary. Humph!" And he sticks more splinters into his victim, brandishes his tomahawk, and yells.

Sir, what has the missionary to say, after this perfect proof that you have mistaken the great law of right? Verily, he finds that the rule, with your explanation, tells the Indian to torture his prisoner. Verily, he finds that the wild man has the best of the argument. He finds he had left out the word OUGHT; and that he can't put it in, until he teaches the Indian things which as yet he don't know. Yea, he finds he gave the commandment too soon; for that he must begin back of that commandment, and teach the savage God's ordination of the relations in which he is to his fellow-men, before he can make him comprehend or apply the rule as Christ gives it.

Marriage--Void under your Interpretation of the Golden Rule.

Lucy Stone, and Moses--Lady on sofa, having just divorced herself--Moses, with the Tables of the Law, appears: she falls at his feet, and covers her face with her hands.

This woman, everybody knows, was married some time since, after a fashion; that is to say, protesting publicly against all laws of wedlock, and entering into the relation so long only as she, or her husband, might continue pleased therewith.

Very well. Then I, without insult to her or offense to my readers, suppose that about this time she has shown her unalienable right to liberty and equality by giving her husband a bill of divorcement. Free again, she reclines on her couch, and is reading the Tribune. It is mid-day. But there is a light, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about her. And he, who saw God on Sinai, stands before her, the glory on his face, and the tables of stone in his hands. The woman falls before him, veils her eyes with her trembling fingers, and cries out, "Moses, oh, I believed till now that thou practised deception, in claiming to be sent of God to Israel. But now, I know thou didst see God in the burning bush, and heard him speak that law from the holy mountain. Moses, I know ... I confess.".... And Moses answers, and says unto her, "Woman, thou art one of a great class in this land, who claim to be more just than God, more pure than their Maker, who have made their inward light their God. Woman, thou in 'convention' hast uttered Declaration of Independence from man. And, verily, thou hast asserted this claim to equality and unalienable right, even now, by giving thy husband his bill of divorcement, in thy sense of the Golden Rule. Yea, verily, thou hast done unto him all that thou expectedst or desiredst of him, in similar circumstances. And now thou thinkest thyself free again. Woman, thou art a sinner. Verily, thine inward light, and declaration of independence, and Golden Rule, do well agree the one with the other. Verily, thou hast learned of Jefferson, and Channing, and Barnes. But, woman, notwithstanding thou hast sat at the feet of these wise men, I, Moses, say thou art a sinner before the law, and the prophets, and the gospel. Woman, thy light is darkness; thy declaration of equality and right is vanity and folly; and thy Golden Rule is license to wickedness.

"Woman, hast thou ears? Hear: I, by authority of God, ordained that the man should rule over thee. I placed thee, and children, and men-servants, and maid-servants, under the same law of subjection to the government ordained of God in the family,--the state. I for a time sanctioned polygamy, and made it right. I, for the hardness of men's hearts, allowed them, and made it right, to give their wives a bill of divorcement. Woman, hear. Paul, having the same Spirit of God, confirms my word. He commands wives, and children, and servants, after this manner:--'Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord; children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing unto the Lord; servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God.' Woman, Paul makes that rule the same, and that submission, the same. The manner of the rule he varies with the relations. He requires it to be, in the love of the husband, even as Christ loved the church,--in the mildness of the father, not provoking the children to anger, lest they be discouraged,--in the justice and equity of the master, knowing that he also has a master in heaven: (Colossians.) Woman, hear. Paul says to thee, the man now shall have one wife, and he now shall not give her a bill of divorcement, save for crime. Woman, thou art not free from thy husband. Christ's Golden Rule must not be interpreted by thee as A. Barnes has rendered it; Christ assumes that thou believest God's truth,--that thou knowest the relation of husband and wife, and the obligations and rights of the same, as in the Bible; then, in the light of this knowledge, verily, thou art required to do what God says thou oughtest to do. Woman, thou art a sinner. Go, sin no more. Go, find thy husband; see to it that he takes thee back. Go, submit to him, and honor him, and obey him."

Emancipation--Ruin--Golden Rule, in your meaning, carried out.

Island in the Tropics--Elegant houses falling to decay--Broad fields abandoned to the forest--Wharves grass-grown--Negroes relapsing into the savage state--A dark cloud over the island, through which the lightning glares, revealing, in red writing, these words:--"Redeemed, regenerated, and disenthralled by the irresistible genius of universal emancipation".--[Gospel--according to Curran--and the British Parliament.]

Jamaica, sir, to say nothing of St. Domingo, is illustration of your theory of the Golden Rule, in negro emancipation. You tell the Southern master that all he would expect or desire, if he were a slave, he must do unto his bondman; that he must not pause to ask whether the relation of master and slave be ordained of God or not. No. You tell him, if he would expect or desire liberty were he a slave, that settles the question as to what he is to do! He must let his bondman go free. Yea, that is what you teach: because the moment you put in the word OUGHT, and say, all that you OUGHT to expect or desire,--i.e. all that you know God commands you to expect or desire in your relations to men, as established by him,--THAT do to them. Sir, when you thus explain the Golden Rule, then your argument against slave-holding, so far as founded on this rule, is at once arrested; it is stopped short, in full career; it has to wait for reinforcement of FACT, which may never come up. For, suppose the FACT to be, that the relation of master and slave is one mode of the government ordained of God. Then, sir, the master, knowing that FACT, and knowing what the slave, as a slave, OUGHT to expect or desire, he, the master, then FULFILS THE GOLDEN RULE when he does that unto his slave which, in similar circumstances, he OUGHT to expect to be done unto himself. Now comes the question, OUGHT he then to expect or desire liberty and equality? THAT is the question of questions on this subject. And without hesitation I reply, The Golden Rule DECIDES that question YEA or NAY, absolutely and perfectly, as God's word or providence shows that the GOOD of the family, the community, the state, REQUIRES that the slave IS or IS NOT to be set free and made equal. THAT GOOD, as God reveals it, SETTLES THE QUESTION.

Let the master then see to it, how he hears God's word as to THAT GOOD. Let him see to it, how he understands God's providence as to THAT GOOD. Let him see to it, that he makes no mistake as to THAT GOOD. For God will not hold him guiltless, if he will not hear what he tells him as to THAT GOOD. God will not justify him, if he has a bad conscience or blunders in his philosophy. God will punish him, if he fails to bless his land by letting the bond go free when, he OUGHT to emancipate. And God will punish him, if he brings a curse upon his country by freeing his slave when he OUGHT NOT to give him liberty.