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SLAVERY ORDAINED OF GOD
SLAVERY ORDAINED OF GOD REV. FRED. A. ROSS "The powers that be are ordained of God." Romans xiii. 1.
TO
The Men
NORTH AND SOUTH
WHO HONOR THE WORD OF GOD
AND
LOVE THEIR COUNTRY.
Preface.
The book I give to the public is not made up of isolated articles. It is
one harmonious demonstration--that slavery is part of the government
ordained in certain conditions of fallen mankind. I present the subject in
the form of speeches actually delivered and letters written just as
published. I adopt this method to make a readable book.
I give it to the North and South--to maintain harmony among Christians
and to secure the integrity of the union of this great people.
This harmony and union can be preserved only by the view presented in this
volume--_i.e._ that _slavery is of God_ and to continue for the good of
the slave the good of the master the good of the whole American family
until another and better destiny may be unfolded.
The _one great idea_ which I submit to North and South is expressed in
the speech first in order delivered in the General Assembly of the
Presbyterian Church Buffalo May 27 1853. I therein say:--
"Let us then North and South bring our minds to comprehend _two
ideas_ and submit to their irresistible power. Let the Northern
philanthropist learn from the Bible that the relation of master and slave
is not sin _per se_. Let him learn that God says nowhere it is sin. Let
him learn that sin is the transgression of the law; and where there is no
law there is no sin and that _the Golden Rule_ may exist in the
relations of slavery. Let him learn that slavery is simply an evil _in
certain circumstances_. Let him learn that _equality_ is only the highest
form of social life; that _subjection_ to authority even _slavery_ may
in _given conditions_ be _for a time_ better than freedom to the slave
of any complexion. Let him learn that _slavery_ like _all evils_ has
its _corresponding_ and _greater good_; that the Southern slave though
degraded _compared with his master is elevated and ennobled compared
with his brethren in Africa_. Let the Northern man learn these things
and be wise to cultivate the spirit that will harmonize with his brethren
of the South who are lovers of liberty as truly as himself: And let the
Southern Christian--nay the Southern man of every grade--comprehend that
_God never intended the relation of master and slave to be perpetual_.
Let him give up the theory of Voltaire that the negro is of a different
species. Let him yield the semi-infidelity of Agassiz that God created
different races of the same species--in swarms like bees--for Asia
Europe America Africa and the islands of the sea. Let him believe that
slavery although not a sin is a degraded condition--the evil the
curse on the South--yet having blessings in its time to the South and to
the Union. Let him know that slavery is to pass away in the fulness of
Providence. Let the South believe this and prepare to obey the hand that
moves their destiny."
All which comes after in the speech delivered in New York 1856 and in
the letters is just the expansion of this one controlling thought which
must be understood believed and acted out North and South.
The Author.
Written in Cleveland Ohio May 28 1857.
Contents.
Speech Before the General Assembly at Buffalo
Speech Before the General Assembly at New York
Letter to Rev. A. Blackburn
What Is the Foundation of Moral Obligation?
Letters to Rev. A. Barnes:--
I.--Results of the slavery agitation--Declaration of Independence--
The way men are made infidels--Testimonies of General Assemblies
II.--Government over man a divine institute
III.--Man-stealing
IV.--The Golden Rule
Speech Delivered at Buffalo Before the General Assembly of the
Presbyterian Church.
To understand the following speech the reader will be pleased to
learn--if he don't know already--that the General Assembly of the
Presbyterian Church before its division in 1838 and since--both Old
School and New School--has been for forty years and more bearing
testimony after a fashion against the system of slavery; that is to say
affirming in one breath that slave-holding is a "blot on our holy
religion" &c. &c.; and then in the next utterance making all sorts of
apologies and justifications for the slave-holder. Thus: this august body
has been in the habit of telling the Southern master (especially in the
Detroit resolutions of 1850) that he is a _sinner_ hardly meet to be
called a _Christian_; but nevertheless if he will only sin "from
unavoidable necessity imposed by the laws of the States"--if he will
only sin under the "obligations of guardianship"--if he will only sin
"from the demands of humanity"--why then forsooth he may be a
slave-holder as long as _he has a mind to_. Yea he may hold one slave
one hundred or one thousand slaves and till the day of judgment.
Happening to be in attendance as a member of the body in Buffalo May
1853 when as usual the system of slavery was touched in a series of
questions sent down to the church courts below I made the following
remarks in good-natured ridicule of such preposterous and stultifying
testimony; and as an argument opening the views I have since reproduced
in the second speech of this volume delivered in the General Assembly
which convened in New York May 1856 and also in the letters
following:--
BUFFALO FRIDAY May 27 1853.
The order of the day was reached at a quarter before eleven and the
report read again--viz.:
"1. That this body shall reaffirm the doctrine of the second resolution
adopted by the General Assembly convened in Detroit in 1850 and
"2. That with an express disavowal of any intention to be impertinently
inquisitorial and for the sole purpose of arriving at the truth so as to
correct misapprehensions and allay all causeless irritation a committee
be appointed of one from each of the synods of Kentucky Tennessee
Missouri and Virginia who shall be requested to report to the next
General Assembly on the following points:--1. The number of slave-holders
in connection with the churches and the number of slaves held by them. 2.
The extent to which slaves are held from an unavoidable necessity imposed
by the laws of the States the obligations of guardianship and the
demands of humanity. 3. Whether the Southern churches regard the
sacredness of the marriage relation as it exists among the slaves; whether
baptism is duly administered to the children of the slaves professing
Christianity and in general to what extent and in what manner provision
is made for the religious well-being of the slave" &c. &c.
Dr. Ross moved to amend the report by substituting the following--with
an express disavowal of being impertinently inquisitorial:--that a
committee of _one_ from each of the Northern synods of ---- be appointed
who shall be requested to report to the next General Assembly--
1. The number of Northern church-members concerned directly or
indirectly in building and fitting out ships for the African slave-trade
and the slave-trade between the States.
2. The number of Northern church-members who traffic with slave-holders
and are seeking to make money by selling them negro-clothing handcuffs
and cowhides.
3. The number of Northern church-members who have sent orders to New
Orleans and other Southern cities to have slaves sold to pay debts
owing them from the South. [See Uncle Tom's Cabin.]
4. The number of Northern church-members who buy the cotton sugar rice
tobacco oranges pine-apples figs ginger cocoa melons and a thousand
other things raised by slave-labor.
5. The number of Northern church-members who have intermarried with
slave-holders and have thus become slave-owners themselves or enjoy the
wealth made by the blood of the slave--especially if there be any
Northern ministers of the gospel in such a predicament.
6. The number of Northern church-members who are the descendants of the
men who kidnapped negroes in Africa and brought them to Virginia and New
England in former years.
7. The aggregate and individual wealth of members thus descended and what
action is best to compel them to disgorge this blood-stained gold or to
compel them to give dollar for dollar in equalizing the loss of the South
by emancipation.
8. The number of Northern church-members ministers especially who have
advocated _murder_ in resistance to the laws of the land.
9. The number of Northern church-members who own stock in under-ground
railroads running off fugitive slaves and in Sabbath-breaking railroads
and canals.
10. That a special commission be sent up Red River to ascertain whether
Legree who whipped Uncle Tom to death (and who was a Northern
_gentleman_) be not still in connection with some Northern church in good
and regular standing.
11. The number of Northern church-members who attend meetings of
Spiritual Rappers--or Bloomers--or Women's-Rights Conventions.
12. The number of Northern church-members who are cruel husbands.
13. The number of Northern church-members who are hen-pecked husbands.
[As it is always difficult to know the temper of speaker and audience from
a printed report it is due alike to Dr. R. to the whole Assembly and
the galleries to say that he in reading these resolutions and
throughout his speech evinced great good-humour and kindness of feeling
which was equally manifested by the Assembly and spectators repeatedly
while he was on the floor.]
Dr. Ross then proceeded:--Mr. Moderator I move this amendment in the best
spirit. I desire to imitate the committee in their refinement and delicacy
of distinction. I disavow all intention to be _impertinently_
inquisitorial. I intend to be inquisitorial as the committee say they
are--but not _impertinently_ so. No sir; not at all; not at all.
(Laughter.) Well sir we of the South who desire the removal of the evil
of slavery and believe it will pass away in the developments of
Providence are grieved when we read your graphic shuddering pictures of
the "middle passage"--the slave-ship piling up her canvas as the shot
pours after her from English or American guns--see her again and again
hurrying hogshead after hogshead filled with living slaves into the
deep and thus lightened escape. Sir what horror to believe that
clipper-ship was built by the hands of Northern noisy Abolition
church-members! ["Yes I know some in New York and Boston" said one in
the crowd.] Again sir when we walk along your _Broadways_ and see as
we do the soft hands of your church-members sending off to the South not
only clothing for the slave but manacles and whips manufactured
expressly for him--what must we think of your consistency of character?
[True true.] And what must we think of your self-righteousness when we
know your church-members order the sale of slaves--yes slaves such as
St. Clair's--and under circumstances involving all the separations and
all the loathsome things you so mournfully deplore? Your Mrs. Stowe says
so and it is so without her testimony. I have read that splendid bad
book. Splendid in its genius over which I have wept and laughed and got
mad (here some one said "All at the same time?") yes--all at the same
time. Bad in its theology bad in its morality bad in its temporary evil
influence here in the North in England and on the continent of Europe;
bad because her isolated cruelties will be taken (whether so meant by her
or not) as the general condition of Southern life--while her Shelbys and
St. Clairs and Evas will be looked upon as angel-visitors lingering for
a moment in that earthly hell. The _impression made by the book is a
falsehood_.
Sir why do your Northern church-members and philanthropists buy Southern
products at all? You know you are purchasing cotton rice sugar
sprinkled with blood literally you say from the lash of the driver! Why
do you buy? What's the difference between my filching this blood-stained
cotton from the outraged negro and your standing by taking it from me?
What's the difference? You yourselves say in your abstractions there
is no difference; and yet you daily stain your hands in this horrid
traffic. You hate the traitor but you love the treason. Your ladies
too--oh how they shun the slave-owner _at a distance_ in _the
abstract_! But alas when they see him in the _concrete_--when they see
the slave-owner _himself_ standing before them--not the brutal driver
but the splendid gentleman with his unmistakable grace of carriage and
ease of manners--why lo behold the lady says "Oh fie on your
slavery!--what a _wretch_ you are! But indeed sir I love your
sugar--and truly truly sir _wretch_ as you are I love you too." Your
gentlemen talk just the same way when they behold our matchless women. And
well for us all it is that your good taste and hearts can thus
appreciate our genius and accomplishments and fascinations and
loveliness and sugar and cotton. Why sir I heard this morning from
one pastor only of two or three of his members thus intermarried in the
South. May I thus give the mildest rebuke to your inconsistency of
conduct? (Much good-natured excitement.)
Sir may we know who are the descendants of the New England kidnappers?
What is their wealth? Why here you are all around me. You gentlemen
made the best of that bargain. And you have kept every dollar of your
money from the charity of emancipating the slave. You have left us
unaided to give millions. Will you now come to our help? Will you give
dollar for dollar to equalize our loss? [Here many voices cried out "Yes
yes we will."]
Yes yes? Then pour out your millions. Good. I may thank you personally.
My own emancipated slaves would to-day be worth greatly more than
$20000. Will you give me back $10000? Good. I need it now.
I recommend to you sirs to find out your advocates of _murder_--your
owners of stock in under-ground railroads--your Sabbath-breakers for
money. I particularly urge you to find Legree who whipped Uncle Tom to
death. He is a Northern _gentleman_ although having a somewhat Southern
name. Now sir you know the Assembly was embarrassed all yesterday by
the inquiry how the Northern churches may find their absent members and
what to do with them. Here then sir is a chance for you. Send a
committee up Red River. You may find Legree to be a Garrison Phillips
Smith or runaway husband from some Abby Kelly. [Here Rev. Mr. Smith
protested against Legree being proved to be a Smith. Great laughter.
[Footnote: This gentleman was soon after made a D.D. and I think in part
for that witticism.]] I move that you bring him back to lecture on the
_cuteness_ there is in leaving a Northern church going South changing
his name buying slaves and calculating without _guessing_ what the
profit is of killing a negro with inhuman labor above the gain of
treating him with kindness.
I have little to say of spirit-rappers women's-rights conventionists
Bloomers cruel husbands or hen-pecked. But if we may believe your own
serious as well as caricature writers you have things up here of which we
down South know very little indeed. Sir we have no young Bloomers with
hat to one side cigar in mouth and cane tapping the boot striding up to
a mincing young gentleman with long curls attenuated waist and soft
velvet face--the boy-lady to say "May I see you home sir?" and the
lady-boy to reply "I thank ye--no; pa will send the carriage." Sir we of
the South don't understand your women's-rights conventions. Women have
their wrongs. "The Song of the Shirt"--Charlotte Elizabeth--many many
laws--tell her wrongs. But your convention ladies despise the Bible. Yes
sir; and we of the South are afraid _of them_ and _for you_. When women
despise the Bible what next? _Paris--then the City of the Great Salt
Lake--then Sodom before_ and _after the Dead Sea_. Oh sir if slavery
tends in any way to give the _honour of chivalry_ to Southern young
gentlemen towards ladies and the exquisite delicacy and heavenly
integrity and love to Southern maid and matron it has then a glorious
blessing with its curse.
Sir your inquisitorial committee and the North so far as represented by
them (a small fraction I know) have I take it caught a Tartar this
time. Boys say with us and everywhere I _reckon_ "You worry my dog and
I'll worry your cat." Sir it is just simply a _fixed fact: the South will
not submit to these questions_. No not for an instant. We will not permit
you to approach us at all. If we are morbidly sensitive you have made us
so. But you are directly and grossly violating the Constitution of the
Presbyterian Church. The book forbids you to put such questions; the book
forbids _you to begin discipline_; the book forbids your sending this
committee to help common fame bear testimony against us; the book guards
the honour of our humblest member minister church presbytery against
all this impertinently-inquisitorial action. Have you a _prosecutor_ with
his definite charge and witnesses? Have you _Common Fame_ with her
specified charges and witnesses? Have you a request from the South that
you send a committee to inquire into slanders? No. Then hands off. As
gentlemen you may ask us these questions--we will answer you. But
ecclesiastically you cannot speak in this matter. You have no power to
move as you propose.
I beg leave to say just here that Tennessee [Footnote: At that time I
resided in Tennessee.] will be more calm under this movement than any
other slave-region. Tennessee has been ever high above the storm North
and South--especially we of the mountains. Tennessee!--"there she
is--look at her"--binding this Union together like a great long
broad deep stone--more splendid than all in the temple of Baalbec or
Solomon. Tennessee!--there she is in her calm valour. I will not lower
her by calling her unconquerable for she has never been assailed; but I
call her ever-victorious. King's Mountain--her pioneer
battles:--Talladega Emucfau Horse-shoe New Orleans San Jacinto
Monterey the Valley of Mexico. Jackson represented her well in his
chivalry from South Carolina--his fiery courage from Virginia and
Kentucky--all tempered by Scotch-Irish Presbyterian prudence from
Tennessee. We in his spirit have looked on this storm for years
untroubled. Yes Jackson's old bones rattled in their grave when that
infamous disunion convention met in Nashville and its members turned
pale and fled aghast. Yes Tennessee in her mighty million feels
secure; and in her perfect preparation to discuss this question
politically ecclesiastically morally metaphysically or physically
with the extreme North or South she is willing and able _to persuade
others to be calm_. In this connection I wish to say for the South to
the North and to the world that we have no fears from our
slave-population. There might be a momentary insurrection and bloodshed;
but destruction to the black man would be inevitable. The Greeks and
Romans controlled immense masses of white slaves--many of them as
intelligent as their lords. Schoolmasters fabulists and poets were
slaves. Athens with her thirty thousand freemen governed half a
million of bondmen. Single Roman patricians owned thirty thousand. If
then the phalanx and the legion mastered such slaves for ages when
battle was physical force of man to man how certain it is that
infantry cavalry and artillery could hold in bondage millions of
Africans for a thousand years!
But dear brethren our Southern philanthropists do not seek to have this
unending bondage; Oh no no. And I earnestly entreat you to "stand still
and see the salvation of the Lord." Assume a masterly inactivity and you
will behold all you desire and pray for--you will see _America liberated
from the curse of slavery_.
The great question of the world is WHAT IS TO BE THE FUTURE OF THE
AMERICAN SLAVE?--WHAT IS TO BE THE FUTURE OF THE AMERICAN MASTER? The
following _extract from the "Charleston Mercury"_ gives my view of the
subject with great and condensed particularity:--
"Married Thursday 26th inst. the Hon. Cushing Kewang Secretary of
State of the United States to Laura daughter of Paul Coligny
Vice-President of the United States and one of our noblest Huguenot
families. We learn that this distinguished gentleman with his bride will
visit his father the Emperor of China at his summer palace in Tartary
north of Pekin and return to the Vice-President's Tea Pavilion on Cooper
River ere the meeting of Congress." The editor of the "Mercury" goes on
to say: "This marriage in high life is only one of many which have
signalized that immense emigration from Christianized China during the
last seventy-five years whereby Charleston has a population of 1250000
and the State of South Carolina over 5000000--an emigration which has
wonderfully harmonized with the great exodus of the negro race to
Africa." [Some gentleman here requested to know of Dr. Ross the date of
the "Charleston Mercury" recording this marriage. The doctor replied "The
date is 27th May 1953 exactly one hundred years from this day." Great
laughter.]
Sir this is a dream; but it is not all a dream. No I verily believe you
have there the Gordian knot of slavery untied; you have there the solution
of the problem; you have there the curtain up and the last scene in the
last act of the great drama of Ham.
I am satisfied with the tendencies of things. I stand on the mountain-peak
above the clouds. I see far beyond the storm the calm sea and blue sky;
I see the Canaan of the African. I like to stand there on the Nebo of his
exodus and look across not the Jordan but the Atlantic. I see the
African crossing as certainly as if I gazed upon the ocean divided by a
great wind and piled up in walls of green glittering glass on either
hand the dry ground the marching host and the pillar of cloud and of
fire. I look over upon the Niger black with death to the white man
instinct with life to the children of Ham. _There_ is the black man's
home. Oh how strange that you of the North see not how you degrade him
when you keep him here! You will not let him vote; you will not let him
rise to honors or social equality; you will not let him hold a pew in your
churches. Send him away then; tell him begone. Be urgent like the
Egyptians: send him out of this land. _There_ in his fatherland he will
exhibit his own type of Christianity. He is of all races the most gentle
and kind. The _man_ the most submissive; the _woman_ the most
affectionate. What other slaves would love their masters better than
themselves?--rock them and fan them in their cradles? caress them--how
tenderly!--boys and girls? honor them grown up as superior beings? and
in thousands of illustrious instances be willing to give life and in
fact die to serve or save them? Verily verily this emancipated race
may reveal the most amiable form of spiritual life and the _jewel_ may
glitter on the Ethiop's brow in meaning more sublime than all in the
poet's imagery. Brethren let them go; and when they are gone--ay
before they go away--rear a monument; let it grow in greatness if not on
your highest mountain in your hearts--in lasting memory of the
South--in memory of your wrong to the South--in memory of the
self-denial of the South and her philanthropy in training the slave to
be free enlightened and Christian.
Can all this be? Can this double emigration civilize Africa and more than
re-people the South? Yes; and I regard the difficulties presented here in
Congress or the country as little worth. God intends both emigrations.
And without miracle he will accomplish both. Difficulties! There are no
difficulties. Half a million emigrate to our shores from Ireland and all
Europe every year. And you gravely talk of difficulties in the negro's
way to Africa! Verily God will unfold their destiny as fast and as
fully as he sees best for the highest good of the slave the highest good
of the master and the glory of Christ in Africa.
And sir there are forty thousand Chinese in California. And in Cuba
this day American gentlemen are cultivating sugar with Chinese hired
labor more profitably than the Spaniards and their slaves. Oh! there is
China--half the population of the globe--just fronting us across that
peaceful sea--her poor living on rats and a pittance of red rice--her
rich hoarding millions in senseless idolatry or indulging in the
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