_Testimonies of General a.s.semblies_.

I agree with you that the Presbyterian Church, both before and since its division, has testified, after a fashion, against slavery. But some of its action has been very curious testimony. I know not how the anti-slavery resolutions of 1818 were gotten up; nor how in some a.s.semblies since. I can guess, however, from what I do know, as to how such resolutions pa.s.sed in Buffalo in 1853, and in New York in 1856. I know that in Buffalo they were at first voted down by a large majority. Then they were reconsidered in mere courtesy to men who said they wanted to speak. So the resolutions were pa.s.sed after some days, in which the _screws_ were applied and turned, in part, _by female hands_, to save the chairman of the committee from _the effects_ of the resolutions being finally voted down!

I know that, in New York, the decision of the a.s.sembly to spread the minority report on the minutes was considered, in the body and out of it, as a Southern victory; for it revealed, however glossed over, that many in the house, who could not vote directly for the minority report, did in fact prefer it to the other.

I was not in Detroit in 1850; but I think it was established in New York last May that that Detroit testimony was so admirably worded that both Southern and Northern men might vote for it with clear consciences!

I need not pursue the investigation. I admit that, after this sort, you have the stultified abstractions of the New School Presbyterian Church,--while I have its common sense; you have its Delphic words,--I have its actions; you have the traditions of the elders making void the word of G.o.d,--I have the providence of G.o.d restraining the church from destroying itself and our social organization under folly, fanaticism, and infidelity.

You, sir, seem to acknowledge this; for, while you appear pleased with the testimony of the New School Presbyterian Church, such as it is, you lament that the Old School have not been true to the resolutions of 1818,--that, in that branch of the church, it is questionable whether those resolutions could now be adopted. You lament the silence of the Episcopal, the Southern Methodist, and the Baptist denominations; you might add the c.u.mberland Presbyterian Church. And you know that in New England, in New York, and in the Northwest, many testify against _us_ as a pro-slavery body. You lament that so many members of the church, ministers of the gospel, and editors of religious papers, defend the system; you lament that so large a part of the religious literature of the land, though having its seat North and sustained chiefly by Northern funds, shows a perpetual deference to the slave-holder; you lament that, after fifty years, nothing has been done to arrest slavery; you lament and ask, "Why should this be so?" In saying this, you acknowledge that, while you have been laboring to get and have reached the abstract testimony of the church, all diluted as it is, the common-sense fact has been and is more and more brought out, in the providence of G.o.d, that _the slave-power has been and is gaining ground in the United States_. In one word, you have contrived to get, in confused utterance, the voice of the Sanhedrim; while Christ himself has been preaching in the streets of our Jerusalem the true meaning of slavery as one form of his government over fallen men.

These, then, are some of the things I promised to show as the results of your agitation. This is the "_tone_" of the past and present speech of Providence on the subject of slavery. You seem disturbed. I feel sure things are going on well as to that subject. Speak on, then, "in unambiguous tones." But, sir, when you desire to go from words to actions,--when you intimate that the const.i.tution of the Presbyterian Church may be altered to permit such action, or that, without its alteration, the church can detach itself from slavery by its existing laws or the modification of them,--then I understand you to mean that you desire to deal, in fact, with slave-holders as _offenders_. Then, sir, _you mean to exscind the South_; for it is absurd to imagine that you suppose the South will submit to such action. You mean, then, to _exscind the South, or to exscind yourself and others_, or to _compel the South to withdraw_. Your tract, just published, is, I suppose, intended by you to prepare the next General a.s.sembly for such movement? What then? Will you make your "American Presbyterian," and your Presbyterian House, effect that great change in the religious literature of the land whereby the subject of slave-holding shall be approached _precisely_ as you deal with "theft, highway-robbery, or piracy?" Will you, then, by act of a.s.sembly, Synod, Presbytery, Session, deny your pulpits, and communion-bread and wine, to slave-holding ministers, elders, and members? Will you, then, tell New England, and especially little Rhoda, We have purified our skirts from the blood: forgive us, and take us again to your love? What then?

Will you then ostracize the South and compel the abolition of slavery?

Sir, do you bid us fear these coming events, thus casting their shadow before from the leaves of your book?

Sir, you may destroy the integrity of the New School Presbyterian Church.

So much evil you may do; but you will hereby only add immensely to the great power and good of the Old School; and you will make disclosures of Providence, unfolding a consummation of things very different from the end you wish to accomplish for your country and the world.

I write as one of the animalcules contributing to the coral reef of public opinion.

F. A. Ross.

No. II.

Government Over Man a Divine Inst.i.tute.

This letter is the examination and refutation of the infidel theory of human government foisted into the Declaration of Independence.

I had written this criticism in different form for publication, before Mr.

Barnes's had appeared. I wrote it to vindicate my affirmation in the General a.s.sembly which met in New York, May last, on this part of the Declaration. My views were maturely formed, after years of reflection, and weeks--nay months--of carefully-penned writing.

And thus these truths, from the Bible, Providence, and common sense, were like rich freight, in goodly ship, waiting for the wind to sail; when lo, Mr. Barnes's abolition-breath filled the canvas, and carried it out of port into the wide, the free, the open sea of American public thought.

There it sails. If pirate or other hostile craft comes alongside, the good ship has guns.

I ask that this paper be carefully read more than once, twice, or three times. Mr. Barnes, I presume, will not so read it. He is committed.

Greeley may notice it with his sparkling wit, albeit he has too much sense to grapple with its argument. The Evangelist-man will say of it, what he would say if Christ were casting out devils in New York,--"He casteth out devils through Beelzebub the chief of the devils." Yea, this Evangelist-man says that my version of the golden rule is "diabolical;"

when truly that version is the _word_ of the Spirit, as Christ's casting out devils was the _work_ of the Holy Ghost.

Gerrett Smith, Garrison, Giddings, do already agree with me, that they are right if Jefferson spoke the truth. Yea, whether the Bible be true, is no question with them no more than with him. Yea, they hold, as he did, that whether there be one G.o.d or twenty, it matters not: the fact either way, in men's minds, neither breaks the leg nor picks the pocket. (See Jefferson's Notes on Virginia.) Messrs. Beecher and Cheever will find nothing in me to aid them in speaking to the mobs of Ephesus and Antioch.

They are making shrines, and crying, Great is Diana. Mrs. Stowe is on the Dismal Swamp, with Dred for her Charon, to paddle her light canoe, by the fire-fly lamps, to the Limbo of Vanity, of which she is the queen. None of these will read with attention or honesty, if at all, this examination of what Randolph long ago said was a _fanfaronade of nonsense_. These are all wiser "than seven men that can render a reason."

But there are thousands, North and South, who will read this refutation, and will feel and acknowledge that in the light of G.o.d's truth the notion of created equality and unalienable right is falsehood and infidelity.

Rev. A. Barnes:--

Dear Sir:--In my first letter I promised to prove that the paragraph in the Declaration of Independence, which contains the affirmation of created equality and unalienable rights, has no sanction from the word of G.o.d. I now meet my obligation.

The time has come when civil liberty, as revealed in the Bible and in Providence, must be re-examined, understood, and defended against infidel theories of human rights. The slavery question has brought on this conflict; and, strange as it may seem, the South, the land of the slave, is summoned by G.o.d to defend the liberty he gives; while the North, the clime of the free, misunderstands and changes the truth of G.o.d into a lie,--claiming a liberty he does not give. Wherefore is this? I reply:---

G.o.d, when he ordained government over men, gave to the individual man RIGHTS, _only_ as he is under government. He first established the family; hence all other rule is merely the family expanded. The _good_ of the family limited the _rights_ of every member. G.o.d required the family, and then the state, so to rule as to give to every member the _good_ which is his, in harmony with the welfare of the whole; and he commanded the individual to seek _that good_, and NO MORE.

Now, mankind being depraved, government has ever violated its obligation to rule for the benefit of the entire community, and has wielded its power in oppression. Consequently, the governed have ever struggled to secure the good which was their right. But, in this struggle, they have ever been tempted to go beyond the limitation G.o.d had made, and to seek supposed good, not given, in rights, prompted by _self-will_, destructive of the state.

Government thus ever existing in oppression, and people thus ever rising up against despotism, have been the history of mankind.

The Reformation was one of the many convulsions in this long-continued conflict. In its first movements, men claimed the liberty the Bible grants. Soon they ran into licentiousness. G.o.d then stayed the further progress of emanc.i.p.ation in Europe, because the spread of the a.s.serted liberty would have made infidelity prevail over that part of the continent where the Reformation was arrested. G.o.d preferred Romanism, and other despotisms, modified as they were by the struggle, to rule for a time, than have those countries destroyed under the sway of a licentious freedom.

In this contest the North American colonies had their rise, and they continued the strife with England until they declared themselves independent.

That "Declaration" affirmed not only the liberty sanctioned of the Bible, but also the liberty const.i.tuting infidelity. Its first paragraph, to the word "_separation_," is a n.o.ble introduction. Omit, then, what follows, to the sentence beginning "_Prudence will dictate_," and the paper, thus expurgated, is complete, and is then simply the complaint of the colonies against the government of England, which had oppressed them beyond further submission, and the a.s.sertion of their right to be free and independent States.

This declaration was, in that form, nothing more than the affirmation of the right G.o.d gives to children, in a family, applied to the colonies, in regard to their mother-country. That is to say, children have, from G.o.d, RIGHT, AS CHILDREN, when cruelly treated, to secure the good to which they are ent.i.tled, as children, IN THE FAMILY. They may secure _this_ good by becoming part of another family, or by setting up for themselves, if old enough. So the colonies had, from G.o.d, _right_ as colonies, when oppressed beyond endurance, to exchange the British family for another, or, if of sufficient age, to establish their own household. The Declaration, then, in that complaint of oppression and affirmation of right, in the colonies, to be independent, a.s.serts liberty sanctioned by the word of G.o.d. And therefore the pledge to _that_ Declaration, of "lives, fortune, and sacred honor," was blessed of Heaven, in the triumph of their cause.

But the Declaration, in the part I have omitted, affirms other things, and very different. It a.s.serts facts and rights as appertaining to man, not in the Scriptures, but contrary thereto. Here is the pa.s.sage:--

"We hold these truths to be self-evident,--that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are inst.i.tuted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to inst.i.tute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."

_This is the affirmation of the liberty claimed by infidelity._ It teaches as a fact _that_ which is not true; and it claims as right _that_ which G.o.d has not given. It a.s.serts nothing new, however. It lays claim to that individual right beyond the limitation G.o.d has put, which man has ever a.s.serted when in his struggle for liberty he has refused to be guided and controlled by the word and providence of his Creator.

The paragraph is a chain of four links, each of which is claimed to be a self-evident truth.

The _first_ and controlling a.s.sertion is, "that ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL;" which proposition, as I understand it, is, that _every man and woman on earth is created with equal attributes of body and mind_.

_Secondly_, and consequently, that every individual has, by virtue of his or her being created the equal of each and every other individual, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, _so in his or her own keeping that that right is unalienable without his or her consent_.

_Thirdly_, it follows, that government among men must derive its just powers only from the _consent_ of the governed; and, as the governed are the aggregate of individuals, _then each person must consent to be thus controlled before he or she can be rightfully under such authority_.

_Fourthly_, and finally, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, _as each such individual man or woman may think_, then each such person may rightly set to work to alter or abolish such form, and inst.i.tute a new government, on such principles and in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

This is the celebrated averment of created equality, and unalienable right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, with the necessary consequences. I have fairly expanded its meaning. It is the old infidel averment. It is not true in any one of its a.s.sertions.

_All Men not created equal_.

It is not a truth, _self-evident,_ that all men are created equal.

Webster, in his dictionary, defines "Self-evident--Evident without proof or reason: clear conviction upon a bare presentation to the mind, as that two and three make five."

Now, I affirm, and you, I think, will not contradict me, that the position, "_all men are created equal"_ is _not_ self-evident; that the nature of the case makes it impossible for it to be self-evident. For the created nature of man is not in the cla.s.s of things of which such self-evident propositions can by possibility be predicated. It is equally clear and beyond debate, that it is not _self-evident_ that all men have _unalienable rights_, that governments derive their just powers from the _consent_ of the governed, and may be altered or abolished whenever _to them_ such rights may be better secured. All these a.s.sertions can be known to be true or false only from revelation of the Creator, or from examination and induction of reasoning, covering the nature and the obligations of the race on the whole face of the earth. What revelation and examination of facts do teach, I will now show. The whole battle-ground, as to the truth of this series of averments, is on the first affirmation, "_that all men are created equal_." Or, to keep up my first figure, the strength of the chain of a.s.serted truths depend on _that_ first link. It must then stand the following perfect trial.