Part 5

Letter from Dr. Ross.

I need only say, in reference to this letter, that my friends having questioned my position as to the good of the agitation, I wrote the following letter to vindicate that point, as given, in the New York speech:--

HUNTSVILLE, ALA., July 14, 1856.

Brother Blackburn:--I affirmed, in my New York speech, that the Slavery agitation has done, and will accomplish, good.

Your very kind and courteous disagreement on that point I will make the occasion to say something more thereon, without wishing you, my dear friend, to regard what I write as inviting any discussion.

I said that agitation has brought out, and would reveal still more fully, the Bible, in its relation to slavery and liberty,--also the infidelity which long has been, and is now, leavening with death the whole Northern mind. And that it would result in the triumph of the true Southern interpretation of the Bible; to the honor of God, and to the good of the master, the slave, the stability of the Union, and be a blessing to the world. To accomplish this, the sin per se doctrine will be utterly demolished. That doctrine is the difficulty in every Northern mind, (where there is any difficulty about slavery,) whether they confess it or not. Yes, the difficulty with every Northern man is, that the relation of master and slave is felt to be sin. I know that to be the fact. I have talked with all grades of Northern men, and come in contact with all varieties of Northern mind on this subject. And I know that the man who says and tries to believe, and does, partially in sober judgment, believe, that slavery is not sin, yet, in his feelings, in his educated prejudices, he feels that slavery is sin.

Yes, that is the difficulty, and that is the whole of the difficulty, between the North and the South, so far as the question is one of the Bible and morals. Now, I again say, that that sin per se doctrine will, in this agitation, be utterly demolished. And when that is done,--when the North will know and feel fully, perfectly, that the relation of master and slave is not sin, but sanctioned of God,--then, and not till then, the North and South can and will, without anger, consider the following questions:--Whether slavery, as it exists in the United States, all things considered, be or be not a great good, and the greatest good for a time, notwithstanding its admitted evils? Again, whether these evils can or cannot be modified and removed? Lastly, whether slavery itself can or cannot pass away from this land and the world? Now, sir, the moment the sin question is settled, then all is peace. For these other questions belong entirely to another category of morals. They belong entirely to the category of what is wise to realize good. This agitation will bring this great result. And therefore I affirm the agitation to be good.

There is another fact also, the result, in great measure, of this agitation, which in my view proves it to have been and to be of great good. I mean the astonishing rise and present stability of the slave-power of the United States. This fact, when examined, is undeniable. And it is equally undeniable that it has been caused, in great part, by the slavery question in all its bearings. It is a wonderful development made by God. And I must believe he intends thereby either to destroy or bless this great Union. But, as I believe he intends to bless, therefore I am fortified in affirming the good there has been and is in this agitation. Let me bring out to view this astonishing fact.

1. Twenty-five years ago, and previously, the whole slave-holding South and West had a strong tendency to emancipation, in some form. But the abolition movement then began, and arrested that Southern and Western leaning to emancipation. Many people have said, and do say, that that arrest was and is a great evil. I say it was and is a great good. Why? Answer: It was and would now be premature. Had it been carried out, it would have been and would now be evil, immense, inconceivable,--to master, slave, America, Africa, and the world; because neither master, slave, America, Africa, the world, were, or are, ready for emancipation. God has a great deal to do before he is ready for emancipation. He tells us so by this arrest put upon that tendency to emancipation years ago. For He put it into the hearts of abolitionists to make the arrest. And He stopped the Southern movement all the more perfectly by permitting Great Britain to emancipate Jamaica, and letting that experiment prove, as it has, a perfect failure and a terrible warning. JAMAICA IS DESTROYED. And now, whatever be done for its negroes must be done with the full admission that what has been attempted was in violation of the duty Britain owed to those negroes. But her failure in seeing and doing her duty, God has given to us to teach us knowledge; and, through us, to instruct the world in the demonstration of the problem of slavery.

2. God put it into the hearts of Northern men--especially abolitionists--to give Texas to the South. Texas, a territory so vast that a bird, as Webster said, can't fly over it in a week. Many in the South did not want Texas. But many longer-headed ones did want it. And Northern men voted and gave to the South exactly what these longer-headed Southern statesmen wanted. This, I grant, was Northern anti-slavery fatuity, utterly unaccountable but that God made them do it.

3. God put it into the hearts of Northern men--especially abolitionists--to vote for Polk, Dallas, and Texas. This gave us the Mexican War; and that immense territory, its spoil,--a territory which, although it may not be favorable for slave-labor, has increased, and will, in many ways, extend the slave-power.

4. This leads me to say that God put it into the hearts of many Northern men--especially abolitionists--to believe what Great Britain said,--namely, that free trade would result in slave-emancipation. But lo! the slave-holder wanted free trade. So Northern abolitionists helped to destroy the tariff policy, and thus to expand the demand for, and the culture of, cotton. Now, see, the gold of California has perpetuated free trade by enabling our merchants to meet the enormous demand for specie created by free trade. So California helps the slave-power. But the abolitionists gave us Polk, the Mexican War, and California.

5. God put it into the hearts of the North, and especially abolitionists, to stimulate the settlement of new free States, and to be the ardent friends of an immense foreign emigration. The result has been to send down to the South, with railroad speed and certainty, corn, wheat, flour, meal, bacon, pork, beef, and every other imaginable form of food, in quantity amazing, and so cheap that the planter can spread wider and wider the culture of cotton.

6. God has, by this growth of the Northwest, made the demand for cotton enormous in the North and Northwest. Again, he has made English and French experiments to procure cotton somewhere else than from the United States dead failures,--in the East Indies, Egypt, Algeria, Brazil. God has thus given to the Southern planter an absolute monopoly. A monopoly so great that he, the Southern planter, sits now upon his throne of cotton and wields the commercial sceptre of the world. Yes, it is the Southern planter who says to-day to haughty England, Go to war, if you dare; dismiss Dallas, if you dare. Yes, he who sits on the throne of the cotton-bag has triumphed at last over him who sits on the throne of the wool-sack. England is prostrate at his feet, as well as the abolitionists.

7. God has put it into the hearts of abolitionists to prevent half a million of free negroes from going to Liberia; and thereby the abolitionists have made them consumers of slave-products to the extension of the slave-power. And, by thus keeping them in America, the abolitionists have so increased their degradation as to prove all the more the utter folly of emancipation in the United States.

8. God has permitted the anti-slavery men in the North, in England, in France, and everywhere, so to blind themselves in hypocrisy as to give the Southern slave-holder his last perfect triumph over them; for God tells the planter to say to the North, to England, to France, to all who buy cotton, "Ye men of Boston, New York, London, Paris,--ye hypocrites,--ye brand me as a pirate, a kidnapper, a murderer, a demon, fit only for hell, and yet ye buy my blood-stained cotton. O ye hypocrites!--ye Boston hypocrites! why don't ye throw the cotton in the sea, as your fathers did the tea? Ye Boston hypocrites! ye say, if we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the slave-trade! Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves that ye are the children of them who, in fact, kidnapped and bought in blood, and sold the slave in America! for now, ye hypocrites, ye buy the blood-stained cotton in quantity so immense, that ye have run up the price of slaves to be more than a thousand dollars,--the average of old and young! O ye hypocrites! ye denounce slavery; then ye bid it live, and not die,--in that ye buy sugar, rice, tobacco, and, above all, cotton! Ye hypocrites! ye abuse the devil, and then fall down and worship him!--ye hypocrites,--ye New England hypocrites,--ye Old England hypocrites,--ye French hypocrites,--ye Uncle Tom's Cabin hypocrites,--ye Beecher hypocrites,--ye Rhode Island Consociation hypocrites! Oh, your holy twaddle stinks in the nostrils of God, and he commands me to lash you with my scorn, and his scorn, so long as ye gabble about the sin of slavery, and then bow down to me, and buy and spin cotton, and thus work for me as truly as my slaves! O ye fools and blind, fill ye up the measure of your folly, and blindness, and shame! And this ye are doing. Ye have, like the French infidels, made reason your goddess, and are exalting her above the Bible; and, in your unitarianism and neology and all modes of infidelity, ye are rejecting and crucifying the Son of God."

Now, my brother, this controlling slave-power is a world-wide fact. Its statistics of bales count by millions; its tonnage counts by hundreds of thousands; its manufacture is reckoned by the workshops of America and Europe; its supporters are numbered by all who must thus be clothed in the world. This tremendous power has been developed in great measure by the abolition agitation, controlled by God. I believe, then, as I have already said, that God intends one of two things. He either intends to destroy the United States by this slave-power, or he intends to bless my country and the world by the unfoldings of his wisdom in this matter. I believe he will bless the world in the working out of this slavery. I rejoice, then, in the agitation which has so resulted, and will so terminate, to reveal the Bible, and bless mankind.

Your affectionate friend,

F.A. Ross.

REV. A. BLACKBURN.

What Is the Foundation of Moral Obligation?

My position as to this all-important question, in my New York speech, was made subject of remark in the "Presbyterian Herald," Louisville, Kentucky, to which I replied at length in the "Presbyterian Witness," Knoxville, Tennessee. No rejoinder was ever made to that reply. But, recently, an extract from the younger Edwards was submitted to me. To that I gave the following letter. The subject is of the first and the last importance, and bears directly, as set forth in my New York speech, on infidelity, and, of course, the slavery question:--

Mr. Editor:--In your paper of Tuesday, 24th ult., there is an article, under this head, giving the argument of Edwards (the son) against my views as to the foundation of moral obligation.

I thank the writer for his argument, and his courteous manner of presenting it. In my third letter to Mr. Barnes, I express my preparation to meet "all comers" on this question; and I am pleased to see this "comer". If my views cannot be refuted by Edwards, I may wait long for an "uglier customer."

A word, introductory, to your correspondent. He says, "His [Dr. Ross's] theory was advanced and argued against in a former age." By this, I understand him to express his belief that my theory has been rejected heretofore. Well. It may, nevertheless, be the true theory. The Copernican astronomy was argued against in a former age and rejected; yet it has prevailed. Newton's law of gravitation was argued against and rejected by a whole generation of philosophers on the continent of Europe; yet it has prevailed. And now all school-boys and girls would call anybody a fool who should deny it. Steam, in all its applications, was argued against and rejected; yet it has prevailed. So the electric telegraph; and, to go back a little, the theory of vaccination,--the circulation of the blood,--a thousand things; yea, Edwards's (the father) theory of virtue, although received by many, has been argued against, and by many rejected; yet it will prevail. Yea, his idea of the unity of the race in Adam was and is argued against and rejected; yet it will prevail. I feel, therefore, no fear that my theory of moral obligation will not be acknowledged because it was argued against and rejected by many in a former age, and may be now. Nay; facts to prove it are accumulating,--facts which were not developed in Edwards's day,--facts showing, irresistibly, that Edwards's theory, which is that most usually now held, is what I say it is,--the rejection of revelation, infidelity, and atheism. The evidence amounts to demonstration.

The question is in a nutshell; it is this:--Shall man submit to the revealed will of God, or to his own will? That is the naked question when the fog of confused ideas and unmeaning words is lifted and dispersed.

My position, expressed in the speech delivered in the General Assembly, New York, May, 1856, is this:--"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 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."

Your correspondent replies to this theory in the following words of Edwards:--"Some hold that the foundation of moral obligation is primarily in the will of God. But the will of God is either benevolent or not. If it be benevolent, and on that account the foundation of moral obligation, it is not the source of obligation merely because it is the will of God, but because it is benevolent, and is of a tendency to promote happiness; and this places the foundation of obligation in a tendency to happiness, and not primarily in the will of God. But if the will of God, and that which is the expression of it, the divine law, be allowed to be not benevolent, and are foundation of obligation, we are obliged to conform to them, whatever they be, however malevolent and opposite to holiness and goodness the requirements be. But this, I presume, none will pretend." Very fairly and strongly put; that's to say, if I understand Edwards, he supposes, if God was the devil and man what he is, then man would not be under obligation to obey the devil's will! That's it! Well, I suppose so too; and I reckon most Christians would agree to that statement, Nay, more: I presume nobody ever taught that the mere naked will, abstractly considered, if it could be, from the character of God, was the ground of moral obligation? Nay, I think nobody ever imagined that the notion of an infinite Creator presupposes or includes the idea that he is a malevolent Being! I agree, then, with Edwards, that the ultimate ground of obligation is in the fact that God is benevolent, or is a good God. I said that in my speech quoted above. I formally stated that "God, in his benevolent wisdom, willed law to control the natural good and evil," &c. What, then, is the point of disagreement between my view and Edwards's? It is in the different ways by which we GET AT the FACT of divine benevolence. I hold that the REVEALED WORD tells us who God is and what he does, and is, therefore, the ULTIMATE GROUND OF OBLIGATION. But Edwards holds that HUMAN REASON must tell us who God is and what he does, and IS, therefore, the PRIMARY GROUND OF OBEDIENCE. That is my issue with Edwards and others; and it is as broad an issue as faith in revelation, or the REJECTION OF IT. I do not charge that Edwards did, or that all who hold with him do, deny the word of God; but I do affirm that their argument does. The matter is plain. For what is revelation? It is that God has appeared in person, and told man in WORD that he is GOD; and told him first in WORD (to be expanded in studying creation and providence) that God is a Spirit, eternal, infinite in power, wisdom, goodness, holiness,--the Creator, Preserver, Benefactor. That WORD, moreover, he proved by highest evidence--namely, supernatural evidence--to be absolute, perfect TRUTH as to all FACT affirmed of him and what he does. REVELATION, as claimed in the Bible, was and is THAT THING.