LETTER

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PHIL. CHRISTIAN OBSERVER, 1845.

[As the following letter is referred to on a subsequent page, and as it contains not only an outline of the following series, but some thoughts which are not repeated elsewhere, it seems proper to give it a place in this collection. It explains for itself the occasion on which it was written.]

MR. EDITOR:-Some person has been kind enough to send me your paper of the 5th instant, in which a writer, subscribing himself" A Puritan at the South," animadverts with some freedom upon a speech which he supposes me to have made at the last meeting of the General Association of Connecticut, and of which he has found some representation in the Boston Recorder. I have not seen the Boston Recorder.to which he refers, and therefore I cannot say whether the report of my speech there is correct or not. I only know that elsewhere I have seen it decidedly mis-reported.

The passage which your correspondent has quoted from my speech, is not a very unfair representation of something which I said, if the connection in which it was said is fairly given by the reporter-which I am bound to presume is not the case, inasmuch as

your correspondent makes no allusion to the course of my argument, on which the meaning of that passage entirely depends. I said nothing in that speech, I believe, which I have not often said in print, with at least equal strength of language, years ago; and because I have taken just the position which I took in that speech, those who in this part of the country call themselves the only "friends of the slave," have made me as your correspondent knows, if he knows anything about me in this relation-a mark of special obloquy.

My positions were, in effect, and "for substance," briefly these:

1. The relation of master to one whom the laws and the constitution of society have made a slave, is not intrinsically and necessarily a sin on the part of the master; certainly not such a sin as will justify a sentence of excommunication against him, without inquiry as to how he came into that relation, or how he conducts himself in it.

2. The master who buys and sells human beings, like cattle, for gain; who permits male and female servants, placed by law under his protection and control, to live together in brutish concubinage, or in a merely temporary pairing, with no religious sanctity, which is not only unprotected by the law, but which he himself considers liable to be dissolved at the caprice of the parties, or whenever his convenience or gain may require the separation; who refuses to train his servants diligently, from their childhood up, in the knowledge of God and in the way of salvation, and of the book of God, and whose servants, in a word, live and die in heathenish igno

rance; or who treats his servants in any manner inconsistent with the fact that they are intelligent and voluntary beings who were created in God's image, and for whom Christ has died-does not make a creditable profession of Christian piety. Such a master has no more claim to recognition or communion among Christ's disciples than a Turk might have, who, having renounced Mohammed, might present himself for membership in a Christian church while yet retaining a full "patriarchal" seraglio of wives and concubines.

3. It is not to be presumed that all masters, professing to be "believing masters," are, of course, guilty of all or any of the crimes above described. But so far as the ministers, elders, or members of any church commit any of these crimes, and the church to which they are responsible in respect to their Christian character, does not deal with them as offenders, to bring them to repentance, or if they will not repent, to cut them off as reprobate, so far that church is liable to be called to account by every and any church with which it is in communion. And it is the duty of all churches with which a church so neglecting the discipline of Christ's house may desire communion, to admonish that church, and labor with it for its reformation, and, in the event of the failure of such efforts, then to withdraw from all communion with it.

4. Those laws of the southern States, by the force of which the crimes above mentioned, and others of the same general description, instead of being forbidden and punished, are permitted and promoted, are a shame to human nature, especially when con

sidered as the laws of a people glorying in their freedom, their honor, and (proh pudor) their magnanimity. The system of slavery in these United States, as it exists in its own theory, apart from any question of fact in respect to the working of the system-the system of slavery, simply as set forth in the laws respecting slavery—is a system which belongs, historically and philosophically, to the lowest stage, save one, of human barbarism. The existence of such a body of laws in the statute-books of free American states, "Anglo Saxon" in lineage, and pretending to be Christian, is enough to make the cheek of an American, anywhere, tingle with shame. It is often said that no people can be, on the whole, better than their laws are. I believe that thousands of the southern people are a great deal better than their laws are. I try all I can to believe that the entire people of the south are better, in fact, than they are, as represented by their laws-though sometimes, I must confess, I have to try very hard, especially when such events happen as that which happened a few days ago at Lexington, and that which happened last winter at Charleston. I do believe that there are thousands of southern men whose moral sense is shocked, as mine is, by the atrocity of those defences of slavery which are put forth now and then by the Hammonds, the McDuffies, and the Dews. But, after all, the fact remains. Those barbarian laws stand in the statute-books; and of the thousands who at heart detest them, who dares to propose a repeal or an amendment? Who dares even to utter a protest against them? Public opinion at the south-or what passes for public opinion

annihilates, on this subject, the freedom of the press, the freedom of speech, and even the right of private judgment. No people upon earth are more governed by public opinion, or have less idea of the possibility of resisting public opinion, than the people of our southern States, particularly in relation to this subject. Public opinion makes them murder each other -like cowards who dare not refuse to do what they know to be wrong-in duels. Public opinion, speaking in the hoarse clamors of the blood-thirsty mob, and in the terrific sentence of the Lynch court, compels the thousands who detest those laws about slavery to digest their detestation in silence. This very habit of being governed by a local public opinion, and of regarding public opinion as a force that cannot possibly be resisted, makes the southern people, in proportion as their intercourse with other communities increases, and the eyes of the nations are turned with closer attention towards their "peculiar institutions," more and more sensitive to the public opinion of the world at large. "They that take the sword, shall perish by the sword." So they who attempt to uphold an atrocious body of laws by the tyranny of public opinion, are already beginning to writhe under the indignant public opinion of the civilized world. I say, then, let the voice of universal human nature utter itself against those laws.

It is not through any want of sensibility to shame, but only through ignorance and thoughtlessness of what the public opinion of the world really is, that citizens of the States in which that atrocious system of laws exists, are able to look citizens of other States, or the subjects of other governments, in the face