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Selections: From Dr. Wayland's Final Letter To Dr. Fuller

Selections: From Dr. Wayland's Final Letter To Dr. Fuller image
Parent Issue
Day
23
Month
May
Year
1845
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

"The question that first prcscnts itself is the following: - What s .slavery? In the answer to this qufistion we seem to differ widfily, but the diiïerence is muirily a matter of terminology. You defino slavery to be the right to obligo another to labor for us without his contract or consent. I consent to this definition, with the liberty to add, that ital.su includes the right to all the means necessary to estabiish and perpetúate the original right, and that it thus includes the right to control the intellectua', social and moral nature of man, in so far as it is i rv to render the original right avuilaMe. "Suffer me to explain my view of the subject in a very words. 'Slavery,' says Dr. Paley, 'is the right to oblige another to labor for us without his contract or consent.' I3ut what, according to the same author, is the meaning of obligc? A man i.s obliged when He is urged by a violent motive, resulting from the command of anotlior.' The right of slavery stherefore the right to urge another man by a violent motive resulting from my oion command, to labor for me without his contract or consent. Now I must say that to the best of my understanding, the conferring of such a right does really confer all that I havo asserled. You grant ihat tconfersthe power, but that it does not confer the right to uso it. I am nlmost ashamed to say that I do not clearly understand this distinction in such a case. -The rightas above explaincd, islhe right lo urge another by violent motives 1 ing not from ihe laio of God or tho social lates of man, but resulting from 'my won command. My command dictates both the kind and degreo of violonce: and I do not see that in the confbrring of this right, nnj' Iimitations are imposed upon theexercise of my own will. I do not! perceive how we can exelude from this definition the grant of all the rights nocessarj' to secure and estabüsh it, including absolute control over the iniellectual, moral and social nature of the slave. That this has alvvays been claimed asa portion of the rights of the master. is, I suppose, evident, from the whole history , of domestic slavery. When thcrefore, I have spoken of slavery, I have spoken of the whole system, originating in ihe claim to holdour fellow men in bondage. ¦ and terminating in those yaripus abuses j inflicted on slaves, whcrever this system ' e.xists. Of course, Í do not pretend that every slaveholder cnrrics out his pies to their practical results. 1 am j ing of what tlje assumption neoessarily j volves, and of tlie effecis ivhichjj as a system, legitimately fiow from it. twFrom this view of slavery, however, you wliolly dissent, and declare that it invoives nothing, absolutely nothing but mere personal bondage, wilh the right to obligethc enslaved persen to labor. You say, 'Slavcry isnly bondoge.' Slavery is nothing more tliau the condition ofonewlio is depri vea of poliucal power, and does service without bis contract and consent, but yet checrfully and happily, and for a compensalion reasonable and certain, pdid in moiios of return best for the slave bimself. With what isstrictly physical liberty the niaster iníerferes no more, in sucli cases, than you do with a liired servant.' Leiter Ud. "Again: - fA riglu to the service of a man without his contract conveys?jo J ditional right but those proper nnd necessary to the original right. Byt it is??o proper and neecssary lo this original rigfil that a human heing be deprived of tiny ' riffht which is juslly as an immorial, I intelligent, moral, social, and fallen j ture. Therefore, a rfehf to lho service of a man witliout his contract or consent. does nol jnstijy auy jcror.g dono to his mind, soul, or dom'slic relo.lians.'' "This, I confes, is tó me a new view of the institution of dowestic slavc-rv, and i must add that it pienses me incomparably better than any that I liave ever soen. Slavery, according lo this definitión, j Iers en the: master no right whatever, bevond merely that of obliging the slave 'to labor. It gives him no right ovor the stavo as an immortal, intelectual, moral, social, and fallen creaturc, and justifies no icrong done to his minl, soví, or domeslic relations. ín all these rèöjfebt$j then, slavery makesnodifibrence bctweon the slavo and any othcr man. His condition, bating tho obligation to labor for his master,is precisely that of a freoman. He hasjust the samo right as any other man to his wife and chtldren, lo all the means of education, to the opporlunity for intellectual cultivation, to tho privilege of worshipping God when and ns ho chooses, o the trial by jury, to be reccivcd as awitness ín a coiut of justicc,ir in an tribunal; in a word, to the full benefit of equal luw in all I es whatsoever, save only thnt he is under obligalion to render reasonnl)le and I ful service to his niaster. The scparation I of children from their parents, of 1 bands from tlieir wivos, by the dornestic slave trade, nnd. ia fnct, the whole syateni of legislation nnd practiee by wmcw a ilistinction is made between slaves and freemen, firjds noapology in this view of bíávery; and it is, likt nny olher case of cnuseless oppression, Wh'olly indefensibie,; n wrong, and a sin agninst God. Here, ihen, we entirely agree. I believe all this. We will not contend about words. ï care not what you cali this wrong. I may cali it slavery. You cali it by 1 uther name. lf, however, we agrce in what we :ffirm of its character in the sightof God, I am perfectly content. - Mero, then, is a ver}' large part of what I cali thcsystcm of slavery, concerning whichwe do not iliffer in the least. This; is certainly a very important point of [igreement. :We then have arrived together to Ibis conclusión: every respect in which the intellectual, moral, social, or domestic condition of a slave is made to difTer from thnt of any other man, is indefensibie, unauthorized, and wrong. We have next to proceed and consider slavery in the restrictcd sense in which you understandi it; sincn it is only hero that therc can bc any differonco. of opinión between us. "ilere 1 am reminded of a rcinark which you have frequently made, that this is purcly an abstract question, a question of simple right, and is by no means afiected ! by the marnier in which a master may use his slave. He may use him cruelly, j but this does not prove that he has not a ! right to hold him as a slave. In this 1 fully concur. I also add that the question of right is not afFected by the humanity of the master. ITc might use his slave cruelly, but this wouid not disprov?, and he might use him humancly, and. this would not estabiish his right. It is a ! question oí ownership. just like that of the ownership of any other property. If the question should be bron glit before a court and jury, whelher I was the owner of a i particular horse, it would aifec isstie in no manner whatever to prove thnt Jhad used him either kindlj' or cruclly. - Nor, ngain, is this question respecting the trcnlment of men in any particular condiiion, it is a question respecling the lawfulness of the condilion ilsdf. TWisj supposel had kepta child blindtbkied from infancv, so that hc had never secn the light. I migiit treat him very well as u blind cküd. I might say that he gave me much more trouble, and was of far less service to me than n child that had the uso of Jus e'es. All this may be, but the question would still return, why do you not strip off the bandage? I am bound to show, not that I treat him well in this condition, but the reaon why I , keep in this condition at all. This abstract] view of the case is, i t'nink, speciollym bo bore in mindat the present puint oflhe discussion. "Tbe right ofslavery is, then, as we have seen, the right to i;rge another, by a violent motive resulting froin my oun command. to labor for mo without bis contract or consent.' Tiiis right you suppose to be conferred upon us by the pre, cepts of the New Testament. These precepts were given when men of all naíions and color and grades of civilization were in the universal habit of enslaving each other, and the New Testament con firmed them in the righl of so doirg. And i ycl more, the New Testnment wis given ; as our moral statute-book to the end of time. We can neilher add to nor take from it. VVliatever permistión it gives I is a universal permission. It iscd to mon as men, and henee tho right Tviiich it Ihus confers ii, confers on human nnturc. The right, thereforc, for whicl) you contend may lic, I tiunk, exoressedj truly in (hese word?. Every man has i the right to .urge every other man, by o : violent motive proceeding from lys own will, to labor for him without his contract or consent. "Thai this is the mcaning of the assertion is evident. The only other lorm in which it couldbe expressed would bc the fóllowing. Musiera have the right to urge stares.' Bul the quesüon would return who are rnasters, and who are sla ves? To this we must reply, n mastcr is one who has this right, and a stare one who U uiuler this obigali-m. The nssertion would then be a mere truíSm. It would i affiren that l;c who hnd this right luul il, 'l and hc who is under this obligation is, under it; leavipg tho matler in disj.ute just where it foniifl it. "We must thcrefore, 1 think, trike the ac,rt;on in its abstract nd urilimited senso in the form in which 1 have s'.nted it. And here, ï am constraincd to say, l canby no means agreo with you. I will not, however, go into extendedjn the sul)ject. The subsïnnce of what Í iiave to urge may be found in the chapter an Reciprocity, in the Elementa of Moral' Science, to which you have done me the honor to refer. Suffer me, however,briefly tojo ffer the following consideraron. '1. Thisdüctrine is really morealarming than any that ï have ever knöwn to beincLilcatedon f his subject. If this right to obligo anothcr man to labor for us ia thus given to human nature, it is as really and truly given to black men as to white men. It authorizes them to enslatfo us,just as much as it authorizes us to enslave them. This goes very far beyond any thing that I everbefore heard claimed for the slaves. I have hen rd it snid, but I never agreed to it, that the slaves had it right to nse and emancípate themselves' by force; but this goes much farthcr, and claims for them the additional right to enslave their masters. Thus, if the slaves of any state or plantation should rise and enslave their masters, this precept would justify them; and vet more, the other precepts, according to your inferpretation, would oblige the masters as Christiansto1 obey them, 'doing service f rom thè heart, not only to the good and gentle, but aíso to the forward.' And still more, if thi be the precept of ihe New Testament, and we are allowed to keep back nothing that would be profitable to man, this would be the doctrine that ministers of the gospel would be specially obliged to incúlcate upon slaves."But this is not aïï. This ís, as ï onderstand it, a precept for human nature. It is revealcd by God as one of the social laws of man. It is a permission given, not lo a few men in a portion of a singlo country, but tr the whole human race.- F! y virtun of it, I have the right tooblige everv otlicr man to labor Tor me without his contract or consent. I may assert ihis right ío-day. I might be weíí pleased wiíh ibis permission, but then every other man is, by the samo rule, equalíy nnthorizcd to oblige mo to labor for him. I The question which shall be the master, and which the slave, must be decided by j physical strengih. And after I have sab dued him, hei has the same right as before to en si a ve me ín return. Here then is war - war interminable, uncí war to the knife. Nor is t his all. Whilelam obeyivg Ihe gospel in ehslavjng him, I em at the same moment disoleying if, iñ not also allowing him to enslavo mo. Here thon sa permission given of which every man may avail himself, but of which ha cannotnvail himself without directly vi olafing it. I cannot by no menns believe that Jcsus Christ or his apostles evef tntigiit such a doctrine as tiiis. And here suffer me fo reinind you, that, if this bO an argument at ál!, it is a universal Argument. It is on the question of abstract right, and is not affectèd by the cruelty or kiridness by which this right may be enforced. It applies to every caso in which any deviafion from the law of perfect reciproeity of right is pleaded as a matter of revelation in the Now Teatament.

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Subjects
Signal of Liberty
Old News