Sayfadaki görseller
PDF
ePub

the world: for the church is founded upon a rock, and infinite wisdom, grace, and power, has assured us that the gates of hell shall never prevail against it. When persecution failed, when the rage of Jews and the power of Rome could not effect its ruin, the sunshine of peace and prosperity, the arts of sophistry, the errors of professed friends, proved more successful engines, and more threatened the demolition of this building of heaven. But God is on our side: Michael and his angels are fighting against the dragon. Let us then not be discouraged, but join the heavenly host, and fight a gainst those formidable foes under the banner of the Prince of peace. If we are called upon earnestly to contend for the truth, either from the pulpit or the press, let us do it in meekness and love, with firmness and perThe best way to carry on this war is for ministers and people to be very humble, imbibe much of the spirit of Christ, and follow his example.

severance.

Though against the principles of our church in particular, philosophers should attempt to reason, and partizans or errorists exclaim, in or out of the pulpit, all this is no evidence that we are wrong, and ought not to discourage us. Let us not quarrel for our principles, but understand, believe, and practise them.

Ye, therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away by the error of the wicked one, fall from your own steadfastness. and in the knowledge of our Lord grow grace, and Saviour Jesus Christ: To him be glory both now

But

and ever.

in

Amen.

II.

The following Tract is upon a delicate, but vastly important subject. It is republished at this time, merely as a specimen of father Rice's fidelity to his God, and to his country, and to his fellow men, at a time when he supposed that something might have been done towards obtaining deliverance from what all lament over as a great evil imposed upon the Southern States, and entailed upon the fathers and their children, and their children's children, by the British Government, previously to the era of the American Revolution.

SLAVERY INCONSISTENT WITH JUSTICE AND GOOD POLICY.—BY PHILANTHROPOS.-(First printed in 1792.)

THERE is an important question now lying before the public, which will probably be considered by our approaching Convention; viz. Whether Slavery is consistent with justice and good policy? But, before this is answered, it may be necessary to inquire what a Slave is?

A Slave is a human creature made by law the property of another human creature, and reduced by mere power to an absolute unconditional subjection to his will.

This definition will be allowed to be just, with only this one exception, that the law does not leave the life and the limbs of the Slave entirely in the master's power: and from it may be inferred several melancholy truths, which will include a sufficient answer to the main question.

In order to a right view of this subject, I would observe that there are some cases, where a man may justly be made a slave by law. By vicious conduct he may forfeit

his freedom; he may forfeit his life. Where this is the case, and the safety of the publick may be secured by reducing the offender to a state of slavery, it will be right; it may be an act of kindness. In no other case, if my con ceptions are just, can it be vindicated on principles of justice or humanity.

As creatures of God, we are, with respect to liberty, all equal. If one has a right to live among his fellow creatures, and enjoy his freedom, so has another: if one has a right to enjoy that property he acquires by an honest industry, so has another. If I by force take that from another, which he has a just right to according to the law of nature, (which is a divine law,) which he has never forfeited, and to which he has never relinquished his claim, I am certainly guilty of injustice and robbery; and when the thing taken is the man's liberty, when it is himself, it is the greatest injustice. I injure him much more, than if I robbed him of his property on the high-way. In this case, it does not belong to him to prove a negative, but to me to prove that such forfeiture has been made; because, if it has not, he is certainly still the proprietor. All he has to do is to shew the insufficiency of my proofs.

A Slave claims his freedom; he pleads that he is a man, that he was by nature free, that he has not forfeited his freedom, nor relinquished it. Now, unless his master can prove that he is not a man, that he was not born free, or that he has forfeited or relinquished his freedom, he must be judged free, the justice of his claim must be acknowledged. His being long deprived of this right, by force or fraud, does not annihilate it; it remains, it is still his right. When I rob a man of his property, I leave him his liberty, and a capacity of acquiring and possessing more property; but when I deprive him of his liberty, I also deprive him of this capacity; therefore I do him

greater injury, when I deprive him of his liberty, than when I rob him of his property. It is in vain for me to plead that I have the sanction of law; for this makes the injury the greater, it arms the community against him, and makes his case desperate.

If my definition of a Slave is true, he is a rational creature, reduced by the power of legislation to the state of a brute, and thereby deprived of every privilege of humanity, except as above, that he may minister to the ease, luxury, lust, pride, or avarice of another, no better than himself.

We only want a law enacted that no owner of a brute nor other person, should kill or dismember it, and then in law the case of a Slave and a brute is in most respects parallel; and where they differ, the state of the brute is to be preferred. The brute may steal or rob, to supply his hunger; the law does not condemn him to die for his of fence, it only permits his death; but the Slave, though in the most starving condition, dare not do either, on penalty of death, or some severe punishment.

Is there any need of arguments to prove, that it is in a high degree unjust and cruel, to reduce one human creature to such an abject wretched state as this, that he may minister to the ease, luxury or avarice of another? Has not that other the same right to have him reduced to this state, that he may minister to his interest or pleasure? On what is this right founded? Whence was it derived? Did it come from heaven, from earth, or from hell? Has the great King of heaven, the absolute sovereign disposer of all men, given this extraordinary right to white men over black men? Where is the charter? In whose hands is it lodged? Let it be produced, and read, that we may know our privilege.

Thus reducing men is an indignity, a degradation to our

own nature. Had we not lost a true sense of its worth and dignity, we should blush to see it converted into brutes. We should blush to see our houses filled, or surrounded with cattle, in our own shapes. We should look upon it to be a fouler, a blacker stain, than that with which the vertical suns have tinged the blood of Africa. When we plead for slavery, we plead for the disgrace and ruin of our own nature. If we are capable of it, we may ever after claim kindred with the brutes, and renounce our own superior dignity.

From our definition it will appear, that a Slave is a creature made after the image of God, and accountable to him for the maintenance of innocence and purity; but by law reduced to a liableness to be debauched by men, without any prospect or hope of redress.

That a Slave is made after the image of God, no christian will deny; that a Slave is absolutely subjected to be debauched by men, is so apparent from the nature of slavery, that it needs no proof. This is evidently the unhappy caseof female slaves; a number of whom have been remarkable for their chastity and modesty. If their master at-tempts their chastity, they dare neither resist, nor complain. If another man should make the attempt, though resistance may not be so dangerous, complaints are equally vain. They cannot be heard in their own defence;their testimony cannot be admitted. The injurious person has a right to be heard, may accuse the innocent sufferer of malicious slander, and have her severely chastised.

A virtuous woman, and virtuous Africans no doubt there are, esteems her chastity above every other thing; some have preferred it even to their lives: then forcibly to deprive her of this, is treating her with the greatest injustice. Therefore, since law leaves the chastity of a female

« ÖncekiDevam »