Part 3

Ham will be ever lower than Shem; Shem will be ever lower than Japheth. All will rise in the Christian grandeur to be revealed. Ham will be lower than Shem, because he was sent to Central Africa. Man south of the Equator--in Asia, Australia, Oceanica, America, especially Africa--is inferior to his Northern brother. The blessing was upon Shem in his magnificent Asia. The greater blessing was upon Japheth in his man-developing Europe. Both blessings will be combined, in America, north of the Zone, in commingled light and life. I see it all in the first symbolical altar of Noah on that mound at the base of Ararat. The father of all living men bows before the incense of sacrifice, streaming up and mingling with the rays of the rising sun. His noble family, and all flesh saved, are grouped round about him. There is Ham, at the foot of the green hillock, standing, in his antediluvian, rakish recklessness, near the long-necked giraffe, type of his Africa,--his magnificent wife, seated on the grass, her little feet nestling in the tame lion's mane, her long black hair flowing over crimson drapery and covered with gems from mines before the flood. Higher up is Shem, leaning his arm over that mouse-colored horse,--his Arab steed. His wife, in pure white linen, feeds the elephant, and plays with his lithe proboscis,--the mother of Terah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, David, and Christ. And yet she looks up, and bows in mild humility, to her of Japheth, seated amid plumed birds, in robes like the sky. Her noble lord, meanwhile, high above all, stands, with folded arms, following that eagle which wheels up towards Ararat, displaying his breast glittering with stars and stripes of scarlet and silver,--radiant heraldry, traced by the hand of God. Now he purifies his eye in the sun, and now he spreads his broad wings in symbolic flight to the West, until lost to the prophetic eye of Japheth, under the bow of splendors set that day in the cloud. God's covenant with man,--oh, may the bow of covenant between us be here to-day, that the waters of this flood shall never again threaten our beloved land!

Speech Delivered in the General Assembly New York, 1856.

The circumstances, under which this speech was delivered, are sufficiently shown in the statement below.

It was not a hasty production. After being spoken, it was prepared for the "Journal of Commerce," with the greatest care I could give to it: most of it was written again and again. Unlike Pascal, who said, as to his longest and inferior sixteenth letter, that he had not had time to make it shorter, I had time; and I did condense in that one speech the matured reflections of my whole life. I am calmly satisfied I am right. I am sure God has said, and does say, "Well done."

The speech brings to view a wide range of thought, all belonging to the subject of slavery, of immense importance. As introductory,--there is the question of the abolition agitation the last thirty years; then, what is right and wrong, and the foundation of moral obligation; then, the definition of sin; next, the origin of human government, and the relations, in which God has placed men under his rule of subjection; finally, the word of God is brought to sustain all the positions taken.

The challenge to argue the question of slavery from the Bible was thrown down on the floor of the Assembly, as stated. Presently I took up the gauntlet, and made this argument. The challenger never claimed his glove, then nor since; nor has anybody, so far as I know, attempted to refute this speech. Nothing has come to my ears (save as to two points, to be noticed hereafter) but reckless, bold denial of God's truth, infidel affirmation without attempt at proof, and denunciations of myself.

Dr. Wisner having said that he would argue the question on the Bible at a following time, Dr. Ross rose, when he took his seat, and, taking his position on the platform near the Moderator's chair, said,--

"I accept the challenge given by Dr. Wisner, to argue the question of slavery from the Scriptures."

Dr. Wisner.--Does the brother propose to go into it here?

Dr. Ross.--Yes, sir.

Dr. Wisner.--Well, I did not propose to go into it here.

Dr. Ross.--You gave the challenge, and I accept it.

Dr. Wisner.--I said I would argue it at a proper time; but it is no matter. Go ahead.

Dr. Beman hoped the discussion would be ruled out. He did not think it a legitimate subject to go into,--Moses and the prophets, Christ and his apostles, and all intermediate authorities, on the subject of what the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America had done.

Judge Jessup considered the question had been opened by this report of the majority: after which Dr. Beman withdrew his objection, and Dr. Ross proceeded.

I am not a slave-holder. Nay, I have shown some self-denial in that matter. I emancipated slaves whose money-value would now be $40,000. In the providence of God, my riches have entirely passed from me. I do not mean that, like the widow, I gave all the living I had. My estate was then greater than that slave-property. I merely wish to show I have no selfish motive in giving, as I shall, the true Southern defence of slavery. (Applause.) I speak from Huntsville, Alabama, my present home. That gem of the South, that beautiful city where the mountain softens into the vale,--where the water gushes, a great fountain, from the rock,--where around that living stream there are streets of roses, and houses of intelligence and gracefulness and gentlest hospitality,--and, withal, where so high honor is ever given to the ministers of God.

Speaking then from that region where "Cotton is king," I affirm, contrary as my opinion is to that most common in the South, that the slavery agitation has accomplished and will do great good. I said so, to ministerial and political friends, twenty-five years ago. I have always favored the agitation,--just as I have always countenanced discussion upon all subjects. I felt that the slavery question needed examination. I believed it was not understood in its relations to the Bible and human liberty. Sir, the light is spreading North and South. 'Tis said, I know, this agitation has increased the severity of slavery. True, but for a moment only, in the days of the years of the life of this noble problem. Farmers tell us that deep ploughing in poor ground will, for a year or two, give you a worse crop than before you went so deep; but that that deep ploughing will turn up the under-soil, and sun and air and rain will give you harvests increasingly rich. So, this moral soil, North and South, was unproductive. It needed deep ploughing. For a time the harvest was worse. Now it is becoming more and more abundant. The political controversy, however fierce and threatening, is only for power. But the moral agitation is for the harmony of the Northern and Southern mind, in the right interpretations of Scripture on this great subject, and, of course, for the ultimate union of the hearts of all sensible people, to fulfil God's intention,--to bless the white man and the black man in America. I am sure of this. I take a wide view of the progress of the destiny of this vast empire. I see God in America. I see him in the North and in the South. I see him more honored in the South to-day than he was twenty-five years ago; and that that higher regard is due, mainly, to the agitation of the slavery question. Do you ask how? Why, sir, this is the how. Twenty-five years ago the religious mind of the South was leavened by wrong Northern training, on the great point of the right and wrong of slavery. Meanwhile, powerful intellects in the South, following the mere light of a healthy good sense, guided by the common grace of God, reached the very truth of this great matter,--namely, that the relation of the master and slave is not sin; and that, notwithstanding its admitted evils, it is a connection between the highest and the lowest races of man, revealing influences which may be, and will be, most benevolent for the ultimate good of the master and the slave,--conservative on the Union, by preserving the South from all forms of Northern fanaticism, and thereby being a great balance-wheel in the working of the tremendous machinery of our experiment of self-government. This seen result of slavery was found to be in absolute harmony with the word of God. These men, then, of highest grade of thought, who had turned in scorn from Northern notions, now see, in the Bible, that these notions are false and silly. They now read the Bible, never examined before, with growing respect. God is honored, and his glory will be more and more in their salvation. These are some of the moral consummations of this agitation in the South. The development has been twofold in the North. On the one hand, some anti-slavery men have left the light of the Bible, and wandered into the darkness until they have reached the blackness of the darkness of infidelity. Other some are following hard after, and are throwing the Bible into the furnace,--are melting it into iron, and forging it, and welding it, and twisting it, and grooving it into the shape and significance and goodness and gospel of Sharpe's rifles. Sir, are you not afraid that some of your once best men will soon have no better Bible than that?

But, on the other hand, many of your brightest minds are looking intensely at the subject, in the same light in which it is studied by the highest Southern reason. Ay, sir, mother-England, old fogy as she is, begins to open her eyes. What, then, is our gain? Sir, Uncle Tom's Cabin, in many of its conceptions, could not have been written twenty-five years ago. That book of genius,--over which I and hundreds in the world have freely wept,--true in all its facts, false in all its impressions,--yea, as false in the prejudice it creates to Southern social life as if Webster, the murderer of Parkman, may be believed to be a personification of the elite of honor in Cambridge, Boston, and New England. Nevertheless, Uncle Tom's Cabin could not have been written twenty-five years ago. Dr. Nehemiah Adams's "South-Side View" could not have been written twenty-five years ago. Nor Dr. Nathan Lord's "Letter of Inquiry." Nor Miss Murray's book. Nor "Cotton is King". Nor Bledsoe's "Liberty and Slavery". These books, written in the midst of this agitation, are all of high, some the highest, reach of talent and noblest piety; all give, with increasing confidence, the present Southern Bible reading on Slavery. May the agitation, then, go on! I know the New School Presbyterian church has sustained some temporary injury. But God is honored in his word. The reaction, when the first abolition-movement commenced, has been succeeded by the sober second thought of the South. The sun, stayed, is again travelling in the greatness of his strength, and will shine brighter and brighter to the perfect day.

My only fear, Mr. Moderator, is that, as you Northern people are so prone to go to extremes in your zeal and run every thing into the ground, you may, perhaps, become too pro-slavery; and that we may have to take measures against your coveting, over much, our daughters, if not our wives, our men-servants, our maid-servants, our houses, and our lands. (Laughter.)

Sir, I come now to the Bible argument. I begin at the beginning of eternity! (Laughter.) WHAT is RIGHT AND WRONG? That's the question of questions.

Two theories have obtained in the world. The one is, that right and wrong are eternal facts; that they exist per se in the nature of things; that they are ultimate truths above God; that he must study, and does study, to know them, as really as man. And that he comprehends them more clearly than man, only because he is a better student than man. Now, sir, this theory is atheism. For if right and wrong are like mathematical truths--fixed facts--then I may find them out, as I find out mathematical truths, without instruction from God. I do not ask God to tell me that one and one make two. I do not ask him to reveal to me the demonstrations of Euclid. I thank him for the mind to perceive. But I perceive mathematical relations without his telling me, because they exist independent of his will. If, then, moral truths, if right and wrong, if rectitude and sin, are, in like manner, fixed, eternal facts,--if they are out from and above God, like mathematical entities,--then I may find them for myself. I may condescend, perhaps, to regard the Bible as a hornbook, in which God, an older student than I, tells me how to begin to learn what he had to study; or I may decline to be taught, through the Bible, how to learn right and wrong. I may think the Bible was good enough, may be, for the Israelite in Egypt and in Canaan; good enough for the Christian in Jerusalem and Antioch and Rome, but not good enough, even as a hornbook, for me,--the man of the nineteenth century,--the man of Boston, New York, and Brooklyn! Oh, no. I may think I need it not at all. What next? Why, sir, if I may think I need not God to teach me moral truth, I may think I need him not to teach me any thing. What next? The irresistible conclusion is, I may think I can live without God; that Jehovah is a myth,--a name; I may bid him stand aside, or die. Oh, sir, I will be the fool to say there is no God. This is the result of the notion that right and wrong exist in the nature of things.

The other theory is, that right and wrong are results brought into being, mere contingencies, means to good, made to exist solely by the will of God, expressed through his word; or, when his will is not thus known, he shows it in the human reason by which he rules the natural heart. This is so; because God, in making all things, saw that in the relations he would constitute between himself and intelligent creatures, and among themselves, NATURAL GOOD AND EVIL would come to pass. In his benevolent wisdom, he then willed LAW, to control this natural good and evil. And he thereby made conformity to that law to be right, and non-conformity to be wrong. Why? Simply because he saw it to be good, and made it to be right; not because he saw it to be right, but because he made it to be right.

Hence, the ten specific commandments of the one moral law of love are just ten rules which God made to regulate the natural good and evil which he knew would be in the ten relations, which he himself constituted between himself and man, and between man and his neighbor. The Bible settles the question:--sin is the transgression of the law, and where there is no law there is no sin.

I must-advance one step further. What is sin, as a mental state? Is it some quality--some concentrated essence--some elementary moral particle in the nature of things--something black, or red, like crimson, in the constitution of the soul, or the soul and body as amalgamated? No. Is it self-love? No. Is it selfishness? No. What is it? Just exactly, self-will. Just that. I, the creature, WILL not submit to thy WILL, God, the Creator. It is the I AM, created, who dares to defy and dishonor the I AM, not created,--the Lord God, the Almighty, Holy, Eternal.

That IS SIN, per se. And that is all of it,--so help me God! Your child there--John--says to his father, "I WILL not to submit to your will." "Why not, John?" And he answers and says, "Because I WILL not." There, sir, John has revealed all of sin, on earth or in hell. Satan has never said--can never say--more. "I, Satan, WILL NOT, because I WILL not to submit to thee, God; MY WILL, not thine, shall be."

This beautiful theory is the ray of light which leads us from night, and twilight, and fog, and mist, and mystification, on this subject, to clear day. I will illustrate it by the law which has controlled and now regulates the most delicate of all the relations of life,--viz.: that of the intercourse between the sexes. I take this, because it presents the strongest apparent objections to my argument.

Cain and Abel married their sisters. Was it wrong in the nature of things? [Here Dr. Wisner spoke out, and said, "Certainly."] I deny it. What an absurdity, to suppose that God could not provide for the propagation of the human race from one pair, without requiring them to sin! Adam's sons and daughters must have married, had they remained in innocence. They must then have sinned in Eden, from the very necessity of the command upon the race:--"Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth." (Gen. i. 28). What pure nonsense! There, sir!--that, my one question, Dr. Wisner's reply, and my rejoinder, bring out, perfectly, the two theories of right and wrong. Sir, Abraham married his half-sister. And there is not a word forbidding such marriage, until God gave the law (Lev. xviii.) prohibiting marriage in certain degrees of consanguinity. That law made, then, such marriage sin. But God gave no such law in the family of Adam; because he made, himself, the marriage of brother and sister the way, and the only way, for the increase of the human race. He commanded them thus to marry. They would have sinned had they not thus married; for they would have transgressed his law. Such marriage was not even a natural evil, in the then family of man. But when, in the increase of numbers, it became a natural evil, physical and social, God placed man on a higher platform for the development of civilization, morals, and religion, and then made the law regulating marriages in the particulars of blood. But he still left polygamy untouched. [Here Dr. Wisner again asked if Dr. R. regarded the Bible as sustaining the polygamy of the Old Testament.] Dr. R.--Yes, sir; yes, sir; yes, sir. Let the reporters mark that question, and my answer. (Laughter.) My principle vindicates God from unintelligible abstractions. I fearlessly tell what the Bible says. In its strength, I am not afraid of earth or hell. I fear only God. God made no law against polygamy, in the beginning. Therefore it was no sin for a man to have more wives than one. God sanctioned it, and made laws in regard to it. Abraham had more wives than one; Jacob had, David had, Solomon had. God told David, by the mouth of Nathan, when he upbraided him with his ingratitude for the blessings he had given him, and said, "And I gave thee thy master's house, and thy master's wives into thy bosom." (2 Sam. xvii. 8.)

God, in the gospel, places man on another platform, for the revelation of a nobler social and spiritual life. He now forbids polygamy. Polygamy now is sin--not because it is in itself sin. No; but because God forbids it,--to restrain the natural and social evil, and to bring out a higher humanity. And see, sir, how gently in the gospel the transition from the lower to the higher table-land of our progress upward is made. Christ and his apostles do not declare polygamy to be sin. The new law is so wisely given that nothing existing is rudely disturbed. The minister of God, unmarried, must have only one wife at the same time. This law, silently and gradually, by inevitable and fair inference of its meaning, and from the example of the apostles, passed over the Christian world. God, in the gospel, places us in this higher and holier ground and air of love. We sin, then, if we marry the sister, and other near of kin; and we sin if we marry, at the same time, more wives than one, not because there is sin in the thing itself, whatever of natural evil there might be, but because in so doing we transgress God's law, given to secure and advance the good of man. I might comment in the same way on every one of the ten commandments, but I pass on.