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CHAPTER XII.

MODERN SOUTHERN VIEWS OF SLAVERY.

WE have shown at some length, in previous chapters, the opinions entertained of slavery as an institution, both at the North and in the South, by the Church, by statesmen, and by the people, from before the establishment of the National Government down to a period within some thirty years; and they exhibit, with rare exceptions, a concurrent testimony against the system, on grounds both of principle and policy. Divines and statesmen, during the earlier period, as well in those States where it was established as elsewhere, regarded it as an evil to be tolerated rather than justified, and many of them hoped for its ultimate removal from the country, and aided schemes of emancipation with that end in view.

During the later period, a total revolution in opinion has obtained in the States in rebellion, embracing the Church and the world together, which has been for many years practically universal. It now approves what it once condemned, applauds what it once lamented, justifies what it once tolerated, blesses what it once denounced, and places under the divine sanction what it formerly consigned to God's withering curse.

As this change in Southern opinion is the fruitful germ which has brought forth this monstrous rebellion, we propose in this chapter to give some examples of the present status of this opinion, confining ourselves as before chiefly to the Church, as seen in the views of leading divines and ecclesiastical bodies. There is nothing in this aspect of

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the subject which requires that we should present this testimony in the chronological order of its utterance. It rather seems appropriate that we should exhibit some of the later expressions of opinion first, that we may see to what they have grown, and the baldness and boldness with which they are announced. We shall show, also, at the conclusion of this chapter, the development and progress of this modern opinion in the South in the order of time, and thus show how far the Church is responsible for leading and misleading the men of the world. Our chief object, however, is to set forth the sharp contrast between present and former opinions in the same section of country.

DEFENDED BY NORTHERN MEN.

We have entitled this chapter, "Modern Southern Views of Slavery," because the opinions here presented are mostly entertained in the South. But it will be seen, that among their stanchest advocates are found divines in the free and in the Border slave States. And what is a most significant fact in this connection is, that at no time since the existence of our Government have prominent Northern men been so bold in advocating and defending slavery, many of them going to the extreme length of modern Southern opinion, and justifying it on every ground, human and divine,-as since the beginning of the rebellion caused by slavery, and during a short time previous, when the determination openly to resist the Government for the sake of slavery was in process of maturing. Volumes and pamphlets, of various ponderosity in size and argument, have been written by Bishop Hopkins, President Lord, Dr. Seabury, Professor Morse, and other men of equal and some of less distinction. Besides these, sermons have been issued, and portions of the periodical

press have come to the rescue; while at least one professedly religious newspaper in Kentucky, conducted and supported by Presbyterians, is battling lustily and constantly as no religious journal within the State has ever been known to do before, going the full length of the most ultra Southern extremists in vindication of the system, and commending with special earnestness the works and writers to which we refer. There is a certain significance in these things which may be very puzzling to philosophers or very easy of solution to plain men.

POSITIONS TAKEN.

We state the positions which the modern defenders of slavery take, and give from their writings quotations which illustrate them, classifying both under two general heads the sanction given to slavery by the Law of Nature; and the sanction claimed for it in the Word of God.

It must be borne in mind, as vital in the issue, that these positions, and the authorities and reasons for them, are presented by those who assert them not only to cover slavery in former times and in other nations, but are designed to exhibit the grounds on which the present system of Negro Slavery in the South is vindicated and sanctioned.

The views taken of the system by Southern extremists and their Northern "allies," though differing somewhat among their defenders, may be substantially reduced to the following form:

I. That slavery is in no sense the creature of local law, or indeed of any law of man, but is based upon the Law of Nature; that it is normally universal, found among all states of society and in every nation where it has not been positively prohibited, and has existed from the origin of

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the race to the present time; and that, therefore, " slavery is not municipal but natural," while "it is abolition which is municipal and local:" the grand conclusion from all which is, that Negro Slavery as it exists in the United States is sustained by these sanctions.

II. That slavery exists by the positive statutes of Divine Revelation; that it is sanctioned in the Decalogue, is an institution of the patriarchal age, has the approbation of the Mosaic code, was approved by all the prophets, and is interwoven with the whole history and ordinances of the Jewish Church; that it was sanctioned and regulated by Christ and the Apostles, and existed in the New Testament Church which they established; that it is placed by the Scriptures on the same footing with the civil, connubial, and parental relations, and is therefore "an ordinance of God" of the same character with them, in its rights, interests, duties, and permanency; that the system in the Southern States is the fulfilment of the prophetic curse upon Canaan the son of Ham; that it is essential to the intellectual and moral elevation of the negro race in the South; that it is the proper system for the evangelization of heathen; and that, as to the type of Southern negro slavery in particular, "it might have existed in Paradise and may continue through the Millennium:" the grand conclusion from all which is, that Negro Slavery as it exists in the United States is sustained by these sanctions.

AUTHORITIES FOR THESE POSITIONS.

We select a few passages out of enough to fill a volume, which it will be seen fully cover all the points in the foregoing paragraphs. We take them in such order, as far as convenience of extracting will admit, as will show their bearing upon each of the positions in the order in which they are announced.

I. As related to Natural and Municipal Law.

REV. JAMES H. THORNWELL, D. D., of Columbia, S. C.: "It has been contended that the right of property in slaves is the creature of positive statute, and, consequently, of force only within the limits of the jurisdiction of the law. * * Slavery has never, in any country, so far

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as we know, arisen under the operation of statute law. It is not a municipal institution-it is not the arbitrary creature of the State, it has not sprung from the mere force of legislation. Law defines, modifies, and regulates it, as it does every other species of property, but law never created it. The law found it in existence, and, being in existence, the law subjects it to fixed rules. On the contrary, what is local and municipal, is the abolition of slavery. The States that are now non-slaveholding have been made so by positive statute. Slavery exists, of course, in every nation in which it is not prohibited. It arose in the progress of human events, from the operation of moral causes; it has been grounded by philosophers in moral maxims; it has always been held to be moral by the vast majority of the race. No age has been without it. From the first dawn of authentic history until the present period, it has come down to us through all the course of ages. We find it among nomadic tribes, barbarian hordes, and civilized States. Wherever communities have been organized, and any rights of property have been recognized at all, there slavery is seen. If, therefore, there be any property which can be said to be founded in the common consent of the human race, it is the property in slaves. If there be any property that can be called natural, in the sense that it spontaneously springs up in the history of the species, it is the property in slaves. If there be any property which is founded in principles of universal operation, it is the property in slaves. To say of an institution, whose history is thus the history of man, which has always and everywhere existed, that it is a local and municipal relation, is of all absurdities the motliest, the merest word that ever fooled the ear from out the schoolman's jargon.' Mankind may have been wrong-that is not the question. The point is, whether the law made slavery-whether it is the police regulation of limited localities, or whether it is a property founded in natural causes, and causes of universal operation. We say nothing as to the moral character of the causes. We insist only upon the fact that slavery is rooted in a common law, wider and more pervading than the common law of England-THE UNIVERSAL CUSTOM OF MANKIND." [The capitals are the author's.]—Southern Presbyterian Review, Jan., 1861.

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