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Slavery Ordained of God

R >> Rev. Fred. A. Ross, D.D. >> Slavery Ordained of God




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.

Man, then, having this revelation; is under obligation ever to believe
every jot and tittle of that WORD. He at first, no doubt, knew little of
the meaning of some _facts_ declared; nay, he may have comprehended
nothing of the sense or scope of many _facts_ affirmed. Nay, he may now,
after thousands of years, know most imperfectly the meaning of that WORD.
But he was and he is, notwithstanding, to believe with absolute faith the
WORD,--that God _is_ all he says he is, and _does_ all he says he
does,--however that WORD may _go beyond_ his reason, or _surprise_ his
feelings, or _alarm_ his conscience, or _command_ his will.

This statement of what revelation is, settles the whole question as
presented by Edwards. For REVELATION, as explained, does FIX _forever the
foundation of man's moral obligation in the benevolence of God_,
PRIMARILY, as it is _expressed_ in the word of God. REVELATION does then,
in that sense, FIX _obligation in the_ MERE WILL OF GOD; for, the moment
you attempt to establish the foundation _somewhere else_, you have
abandoned the ground of revelation. You have left the WILL OF GOD _in his
word_, and you have made your rule of right to be the WILL OF MAN _in the_
SELF _of the_ HEART. The proof of what I here say is so plain, even as the
writing on the tables of Habakkuk's vision, that he may run that readeth
it. Read, then, even as on the _tables_.

God _says_ in his WORD, "I am all-powerful, all-wise, the Creator." "You
may be," says Edwards, "but I want _primary foundation_ for my faith; and
I can't take your _word_ for it. I must look first into _nature_ to see if
evidence of infinite power and wisdom is there,--to see if evidence of a
Creator is there,--and if thou art he!"

Again, God _says_ in his word, "I am benevolent, and _my will_ in my law
is expression of that benevolence." "You may tell the truth," Edwards
replies, "but I want _primary ground_ for my belief, and I must hold your
word suspended until I examine into my reason, my feelings, my conscience,
my will,--to see if your WORD _harmonizes_ with my HEART,--to see if what
you reveal tends to _happiness_ IN MY NOTION OF HAPPINESS; _or tends to
right_ IN MY NOTION OF RIGHT!" That's it. That's the theory of Edwards,
Barnes, and others.

And what is this but the attempt to know the divine attributes and
character in _some other way_ than through the divine WORD? And what is
this but the denial of the divine WORD, except so far as it agrees with
the knowledge of the attributes and character of God, obtained in THAT
_some other way?_ And what is this but to make the word of God
_subordinate_ to the teaching of the HUMAN HEART? And what is this but to
make the WILL _of God_ give place to the WILL _of man?_ And what is this
but the REJECTION OF REVELATION? Yet this is the result (though not
intended by him) of the whole scheme of obligation, maintained by Edwards
and by all who agree with him.

Carry it out, and what is the progress and the end of it? This. Human
reason--the human heart--will be supreme. Some, I grant, will hold to a
revelation of some sort. A thing more and more transcendental,--a thing
more and more of fog and moonshine,--fog floating in German cellars from
fumes of lager-beer, and moonshine gleaming from the imaginations of the
drinkers. Some, like Socrates and Plato, will have a God supreme,
personal, glorious, somewhat like the true; and with him many inferior
deities,--animating the stars, the earth, mountains, valleys, plains, the
sea, rivers, fountains, the air, trees, flowers, and all living things.
Some will deny a personal God, and conceive, instead, the intelligent mind
of the universe, without love. Some will contend for mere law,--of
gravitation and attraction; and some will suggest that all is the result
of a fortuitous concourse of atoms! Here, having passed through the
shadows and the darkness, we have reached the blackness of
infidelity,--blank atheism. No God--yea, all the way the "_fools_" were
saying in their hearts, no God. What now is man? Alas! some, the Notts and
Gliddons, tell us, man was indeed _created_ millions of ages ago, the Lord
only knows when, in swarms like bees to suit the zones of the
earth,--while other some, the believers in the _vestiges of creation_, say
man is the result of development,--from fire, dust, granite, grass, the
creeping thing, bird, fish, four-footed beast, monkey. Yea, and some of
these last philosophers are even now going to Africa to try to find men
they have heard tell of, who still have tails and are jumping and climbing
somewhere in the regions around the undiscovered sources of the Nile.

This is the progress and the result of the Edwards theory; because, deny
or hesitate about revelation, and man cannot prove, _absolutely_, any of
the things we are considering. Let us see if he can. Edwards writes, "On
the supposition that the will or law of God is the primary foundation,
reason, and standard of right and virtue, every attempt _to prove the
moral perfection or attributes of God is absurd_." Here, then, Edwards
believes, that, to reach the primary foundation of right and virtue, he
must not take God's word as to his perfection or attributes, no matter how
fully _God_ may have _proved_ his word: no; but he, Edwards, he, man, must
first _prove_ them in _some other way_. And, of course, he believes he can
reach such primary foundation by such other proof. Well, let us see how he
goes about it. I give him, to try his hand, the easiest
attribute,--"POWER." I give him, then, all creation, and providence
besides, as his _black-board_, on which to work his demonstration. I give
him, then, the lifetime of Methuselah, in which to reach his conclusion of
proof.--Well, I will now suppose we have all lived and waited that long
time: what is his _proof_ OF INFINITE POWER? Has he found the EXHIBITION
of _infinite power?_ No. He has found _proof_ of GREAT POWER; but he has
not reached the DISPLAY of _infinite power_. What then is his _faith_ in
infinite power after such _proof?_ Why, just this: he INFERS _only_, that
THE POWER, _which did the things he sees, can go on, and on, and on, to
give greater, and greater, and greater manifestations of itself!_ VERY
GOOD: _if so be, we can have no better proof_. But _that_ PROOF is
infinitely below ABSOLUTE PROOF _of infinite power_. And all
manifestations of power to a _finite creature_, even to the archangel
Michael, during countless millions of ages, never gives, because it never
can give to him, ABSOLUTE PROOF _of infinite power_. But the word of GOD
gives the PROOF ABSOLUTE, _and in a moment of time!_ "I AM THE ALMIGHTY!"
The _perfect proof_ is in THAT WORD OF GOD.

I might set Edwards to work to prove the _infinite wisdom_, the _infinite
benevolence_, the _infinite holiness_--yea, the EXISTENCE--of God. And he,
finite man, in any examination of creation or providence, must fall
infinitely below the PERFECT PROOF.

So then I tell Edwards, and all agreeing with him, that _it is absurd_ to
attempt to _prove_ the moral perfection and attributes of God, if he
thereby seeks to reach the HIGHEST EVIDENCE, _or if he thereby means to
find the_ PRIMARY GROUND _of moral obligation_.

Do I then teach that man should not seek the _proof_ there is, of the
perfection and attributes of God, in _nature and providence_? No. I hold
that such proof unfolds the _meaning_ of the FACTS declared in the WORD of
God, and is all-important, as such expansion of meaning. But I say, by
authority of the Master, that _the highest proof, the absolute proof, the
perfect proof_, of the FACTS as to _who God is, and what he does_, and the
PRIMARY OBLIGATION _thereupon, is in the_ REVEALED WORD.

FRED. A. ROSS.

Huntsville, Ala., April 3, 1857.

N.B.--In notice of last Witness's extract from Erskine, I remark that
Thomas Erskine was, and may yet be, a lawyer of Edinburgh. He wrote
_three works_:--_one_ on the _Internal Evidences_, the _next_ on
_Faith_, the _last_ on the _Freeness of the Gospel_. They are all
written with great ability, and contain much truth. But all have in them
fundamental _untruths_. There is least in the Evidences; more in the
essay on Faith; most in the tract on the Freeness of the Gospel,--which
last has been utterly refuted, and has passed away. His _Faith_ is,
also, not republished. The Evidences is good, like good men,
notwithstanding the evil.




Letters to Rev. A. Barnes.




Introduction.



As part of the great slavery discussion, Rev. A. Barnes, of Philadelphia,
published, in October, 1856, a pamphlet, entitled, "The CHURCH and
SLAVERY." In this tract he invites every man to utter his views on the
subject. And, setting the example, he speaks his own with the greatest
freedom and honesty.

In the same freedom of speech, I have considered his views unscriptural,
false, fanatical, and infidel. Therefore, while I hold him in the highest
respect, esteem, and affection, as a divine and Christian gentleman, and
cherish his past relations to me, yet I have in these letters written to
him, and of him, just as I would have done had he lived in France or
Germany, a stranger to me, and given to the world the refined scoff of the
one, or the muddy transcendentalism of the other.

My first letter is merely a glance at some things in his pamphlet, in
which I show wherein I agree and disagree with him,--_i.e._ in our
estimate of the results of the agitation; in our views of the Declaration
of Independence; in our belief of the way men are made infidels; and in
our appreciation of the testimonies of past General Assemblies.

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