Slavery Ordained of God by Rev. Fred. A. Ross, D.D.

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SLAVERY ORDAINED OF GOD

By

Rev. Fred. A. Ross, D.D.

"The powers that be are ordained of God." Romans xiii. 1.

TO
The Men
NORTH AND SOUTH,
WHO HONOR THE WORD OF GOD
AND
LOVE THEIR COUNTRY.

Preface.

The book I give to the public, is not made up of isolated articles. It is
one harmonious demonstration--that slavery is part of the government
ordained in certain conditions of fallen mankind. I present the subject in
the form of speeches, actually delivered, and letters written just as
published. I adopt this method to make a readable book.

I give it to the North and South--to maintain harmony among Christians,
and to secure the integrity of the union of this great people.

This harmony and union can be preserved only by the view presented in this
volume,--_i.e._ that _slavery is of God_, and to continue for the good of
the slave, the good of the master, the good of the whole American family,
until another and better destiny may be unfolded.

The _one great idea_, which I submit to North and South, is expressed in
the speech, first in order, delivered in the General Assembly of the
Presbyterian Church, Buffalo, May 27, 1853. I therein say:--

"Let us then, North and South, bring our minds to comprehend _two
ideas_, and submit to their irresistible power. Let the Northern
philanthropist learn from the Bible that the relation of master and slave
is not sin _per se_. Let him learn that God says nowhere it is sin. Let
him learn that sin is the transgression of the law; and where there is no
law there is no sin, and that _the Golden Rule_ may exist in the
relations of slavery. Let him learn that slavery is simply an evil _in
certain circumstances_. Let him learn that _equality_ is only the highest
form of social life; that _subjection_ to authority, even _slavery_, may,
in _given conditions_, be _for a time_ better than freedom to the slave
of any complexion. Let him learn that _slavery_, like _all evils_, has
its _corresponding_ and _greater good_; that the Southern slave, though
degraded _compared with his master, is elevated and ennobled compared
with his brethren in Africa_. Let the Northern man learn these things,
and be wise to cultivate the spirit that will harmonize with his brethren
of the South, who are lovers of liberty as truly as himself: And let the
Southern Christian--nay, the Southern man of every grade--comprehend that
_God never intended the relation of master and slave to be perpetual_.
Let him give up the theory of Voltaire, that the negro is of a different
species. Let him yield the semi-infidelity of Agassiz, that God created
different races of the same species--in swarms, like bees--for Asia,
Europe, America, Africa, and the islands of the sea. Let him believe that
slavery, although not a sin, is a degraded condition,--the evil, the
curse on the South,--yet having blessings in its time to the South and to
the Union. Let him know that slavery is to pass away in the fulness of
Providence. Let the South believe this, and prepare to obey the hand that
moves their destiny."

All which comes after, in the speech delivered in New York, 1856, and in
the letters, is just the expansion of this one controlling thought, which
must be understood, believed, and acted out North and South.

The Author.

Written in Cleveland, Ohio, May 28, 1857.

Contents.

Speech Before the General Assembly at Buffalo
Speech Before the General Assembly at New York
Letter to Rev. A. Blackburn
What Is the Foundation of Moral Obligation?

Letters to Rev. A. Barnes:--

I.--Results of the slavery agitation--Declaration of Independence--
The way men are made infidels--Testimonies of General Assemblies
II.--Government over man a divine institute
III.--Man-stealing
IV.--The Golden Rule

Speech Delivered at Buffalo, Before the General Assembly of the
Presbyterian Church.

To understand the following speech, the reader will be pleased to
learn--if he don't know already--that the General Assembly of the
Presbyterian Church, before its division in 1838, and since,--both Old
School and New School,--has been, for forty years and more, bearing
testimony, after a fashion, against the system of slavery; that is to say,
affirming, in one breath, that slave-holding is a "blot on our holy
religion," &c. &c.; and then, in the next utterance, making all sorts of
apologies and justifications for the slave-holder. Thus: this august body
has been in the habit of telling the Southern master (especially in the
Detroit resolutions of 1850) that he is a _sinner_, hardly meet to be
called a _Christian_; but, nevertheless, if he will only sin "from
unavoidable necessity, imposed by the laws of the States,"--if he will
only sin under the "obligations of guardianship,"--if he will only sin
"from the demands of humanity,"--why, then, forsooth, he may be a
slave-holder as long as _he has a mind to_. Yea, he may hold one slave,
one hundred or one thousand slaves, and till the day of judgment.

Happening to be in attendance, as a member of the body, in Buffalo, May,
1853, when, as usual, the system of slavery was touched, in a series of
questions sent down to the church courts below, I made the following
remarks, in good-natured ridicule of such preposterous and stultifying
testimony; and, as an argument, opening the views I have since reproduced
in the second speech of this volume, delivered in the General Assembly
which convened in New York, May, 1856, and also in the letters
following:--

BUFFALO, FRIDAY, May 27, 1853.

The order of the day was reached at a quarter before eleven, and the
report read again,--viz.:

"1. That this body shall reaffirm the doctrine of the second resolution
adopted by the General Assembly, convened in Detroit, in 1850, and,

"2. That with an express disavowal of any intention to be impertinently
inquisitorial, and for the sole purpose of arriving at the truth, so as to
correct misapprehensions and allay all causeless irritation, a committee
be appointed of one from each of the synods of Kentucky, Tennessee,
Missouri, and Virginia, who shall be requested to report to the next
General Assembly on the following points:--1. The number of slave-holders
in connection with the churches, and the number of slaves held by them. 2.
The extent to which slaves are held from an unavoidable necessity imposed
by the laws of the States, the obligations of guardianship, and the
demands of humanity. 3. Whether the Southern churches regard the
sacredness of the marriage relation as it exists among the slaves; whether
baptism is duly administered to the children of the slaves professing
Christianity, and in general, to what extent and in what manner provision
is made for the religious well-being of the slave," &c. &c.

Dr. Ross moved to amend the report by substituting the following,--with
an express disavowal of being impertinently inquisitorial:--that a
committee of _one_ from each of the Northern synods of ---- be appointed,
who shall be requested to report to the next General Assembly,--

1. The number of Northern church-members concerned, directly or
indirectly, in building and fitting out ships for the African slave-trade,
and the slave-trade between the States.

2. The number of Northern church-members who traffic with slave-holders,
and are seeking to make money by selling them negro-clothing, handcuffs,
and cowhides.

3. The number of Northern church-members who have sent orders to New
Orleans, and other Southern cities, to have slaves sold, to pay debts
owing them from the South. [See Uncle Tom's Cabin.]

4. The number of Northern church-members who buy the cotton, sugar, rice,
tobacco, oranges, pine-apples, figs, ginger, cocoa, melons, and a thousand
other things, raised by slave-labor.

5. The number of Northern church-members who have intermarried with
slave-holders, and have thus become slave-owners themselves, or enjoy the
wealth made by the blood of the slave,--especially if there be any
Northern ministers of the gospel in such a predicament.

6. The number of Northern church-members who are the descendants of the
men who kidnapped negroes in Africa and brought them to Virginia and New
England in former years.

7. The aggregate and individual wealth of members thus descended, and what
action is best to compel them to disgorge this blood-stained gold, or to
compel them to give dollar for dollar in equalizing the loss of the South
by emancipation.

8. The number of Northern church-members, ministers especially, who have
advocated _murder_ in resistance to the laws of the land.

9. The number of Northern church-members who own stock in under-ground
railroads, running off fugitive slaves, and in Sabbath-breaking railroads
and canals.

10. That a special commission be sent up Red River, to ascertain whether
Legree, who whipped Uncle Tom to death, (and who was a Northern
_gentleman_,) be not still in connection with some Northern church in good
and regular standing.

11. The number of Northern church-members who attend meetings of
Spiritual Rappers,--or Bloomers,--or Women's-Rights Conventions.

12. The number of Northern church-members who are cruel husbands.

13. The number of Northern church-members who are hen-pecked husbands.

[As it is always difficult to know the temper of speaker and audience from
a printed report, it is due alike to Dr. R., to the whole Assembly, and
the galleries, to say, that he, in reading these resolutions, and
throughout his speech, evinced great good-humour and kindness of feeling,
which was equally manifested by the Assembly and spectators, repeatedly,
while he was on the floor.]

Dr. Ross then proceeded:--Mr. Moderator, I move this amendment in the best
spirit. I desire to imitate the committee in their refinement and delicacy
of distinction. I disavow all intention to be _impertinently_
inquisitorial. I intend to be inquisitorial, as the committee say they
are,--but not _impertinently_ so. No, sir; not at all; not at all.
(Laughter.) Well, sir, we of the South, who desire the removal of the evil
of slavery, and believe it will pass away in the developments of
Providence, are grieved when we read your graphic, shuddering pictures of
the "middle passage,"--the slave-ship, piling up her canvas, as the shot
pours after her from English or American guns,--see her again and again
hurrying hogshead after hogshead, filled with living slaves, into the
deep, and, thus lightened, escape. Sir, what horror to believe that
clipper-ship was built by the hands of Northern, noisy Abolition
church-members! ["Yes, I know some in New York and Boston," said one in
the crowd.] Again, sir, when we walk along your _Broadways_, and see, as
we do, the soft hands of your church-members sending off to the South, not
only clothing for the slave, but manacles and whips, manufactured
expressly for him,--what must we think of your consistency of character?
[True, true.] And what must we think of your self-righteousness, when we
know your church-members order the sale of slaves,--yes, slaves such as
St. Clair's,--and under circumstances involving all the separations and
all the loathsome things you so mournfully deplore? Your Mrs. Stowe says
so, and it is so, without her testimony. I have read that splendid, bad
book. Splendid in its genius, over which I have wept, and laughed, and got
mad, (here some one said, "All at the same time?") yes--all at the same
time. Bad in its theology, bad in its morality, bad in its temporary evil
influence here in the North, in England, and on the continent of Europe;
bad, because her isolated cruelties will be taken (whether so meant by her
or not) as the general condition of Southern life,--while her Shelbys, and
St. Clairs, and Evas, will be looked upon as angel-visitors, lingering for
a moment in that earthly hell. The _impression made by the book is a
falsehood_.

Sir, why do your Northern church-members and philanthropists buy Southern
products at all? You know you are purchasing cotton, rice, sugar,
sprinkled with blood, literally, you say, from the lash of the driver! Why
do you buy? What's the difference between my filching this blood-stained
cotton from the outraged negro, and your standing by, taking it from me?
What's the difference? You, yourselves, say, in your abstractions, there
is no difference; and yet you daily stain your hands in this horrid
traffic. You hate the traitor, but you love the treason. Your ladies,
too,--oh, how they shun the slave-owner _at a distance_, in _the
abstract_! But alas, when they see him in the _concrete_,--when they see
the slave-owner _himself_, standing before them,--not the brutal driver,
but the splendid gentleman, with his unmistakable grace of carriage and
ease of manners,--why, lo, behold the lady says, "Oh, fie on your
slavery!--what a _wretch_ you are! But, indeed, sir, I love your
sugar,--and truly, truly, sir, _wretch_ as you are, I love you too." Your
gentlemen talk just the same way when they behold our matchless women. And
well for us all it is, that your good taste, and hearts, can thus
appreciate our genius, and accomplishments, and fascinations, and
loveliness, and sugar, and cotton. Why, sir, I heard this morning, from
one pastor only, of two or three of his members thus intermarried in the
South. May I thus give the mildest rebuke to your inconsistency of
conduct? (Much good-natured excitement.)

Sir, may we know who are the descendants of the New England kidnappers?
What is their wealth? Why, here you are, all around me. You, gentlemen,
made the best of that bargain. And you have kept every dollar of your
money from the charity of emancipating the slave. You have left us,
unaided, to give millions. Will you now come to our help? Will you give
dollar for dollar to equalize our loss? [Here many voices cried out, "Yes,
yes, we will."]

Yes, yes? Then pour out your millions. Good. I may thank you personally.
My own emancipated slaves would to-day be worth greatly more than
$20,000. Will you give me back $10,000? Good. I need it now.

I recommend to you, sirs, to find out your advocates of _murder_,--your
owners of stock in under-ground railroads,--your Sabbath-breakers for
money. I particularly urge you to find Legree, who whipped Uncle Tom to
death. He is a Northern _gentleman_, although having a somewhat Southern
name. Now, sir, you know the Assembly was embarrassed all yesterday by
the inquiry how the Northern churches may find their absent members, and
what to do with them. Here then, sir, is a chance for you. Send a
committee up Red River. You may find Legree to be a Garrison, Phillips,
Smith, or runaway husband from some Abby Kelly. [Here Rev. Mr. Smith
protested against Legree being proved to be a Smith. Great laughter.
[Footnote: This gentleman was soon after made a D.D., and I think in part
for that witticism.]] I move that you bring him back to lecture on the
_cuteness_ there is in leaving a Northern church, going South, changing
his name, buying slaves, and calculating, without _guessing_, what the
profit is of killing a negro with inhuman labor above the gain of
treating him with kindness.

I have little to say of spirit-rappers, women's-rights conventionists,
Bloomers, cruel husbands, or hen-pecked. But, if we may believe your own
serious as well as caricature writers, you have things up here of which we
down South know very little indeed. Sir, we have no young Bloomers, with
hat to one side, cigar in mouth, and cane tapping the boot, striding up to
a mincing young gentleman with long curls, attenuated waist, and soft
velvet face,--the boy-lady to say, "May I see you home, sir?" and the
lady-boy to reply, "I thank ye--no; pa will send the carriage." Sir, we of
the South don't understand your women's-rights conventions. Women have
their wrongs. "The Song of the Shirt,"--Charlotte Elizabeth,--many, many
laws,--tell her wrongs. But your convention ladies despise the Bible. Yes,
sir; and we of the South are afraid _of them_, and _for you_. When women
despise the Bible, what next? _Paris,--then the City of the Great Salt
Lake,--then Sodom, before_ and _after the Dead Sea_. Oh, sir, if slavery
tends in any way to give the _honour of chivalry_ to Southern young
gentlemen towards ladies, and the exquisite delicacy and heavenly
integrity and love to Southern maid and matron, it has then a glorious
blessing with its curse.

Sir, your inquisitorial committee, and the North so far as represented by
them, (a small fraction, I know,) have, I take it, caught a Tartar this
time. Boys say with us, and everywhere, I _reckon_, "You worry my dog, and
I'll worry your cat." Sir, it is just simply a _fixed fact: the South will
not submit to these questions_. No, not for an instant. We will not permit
you to approach us at all. If we are morbidly sensitive, you have made us
so. But you are directly and grossly violating the Constitution of the
Presbyterian Church. The book forbids you to put such questions; the book
forbids _you to begin discipline_; the book forbids your sending this
committee to help common fame bear testimony against us; the book guards
the honour of our humblest member, minister, church, presbytery, against
all this impertinently-inquisitorial action. Have you a _prosecutor_, with
his definite charge and witnesses? Have you _Common Fame_, with her
specified charges and witnesses? Have you a request from the South that
you send a committee to inquire into slanders? No. Then hands off. As
gentlemen you may ask us these questions,--we will answer you. But,
ecclesiastically, you cannot speak in this matter. You have no power to
move as you propose.

I beg leave to say, just here, that Tennessee [Footnote: At that time I
resided in Tennessee.] will be more calm under this movement than any
other slave-region. Tennessee has been ever high above the storm, North
and South,--especially we of the mountains. Tennessee!--"there she
is,--look at her,"--binding this Union together like a great, long,
broad, deep stone,--more splendid than all in the temple of Baalbec or
Solomon. Tennessee!--there she is, in her calm valour. I will not lower
her by calling her unconquerable, for she has never been assailed; but I
call her ever-victorious. King's Mountain,--her pioneer
battles:--Talladega, Emucfau, Horse-shoe, New Orleans, San Jacinto,
Monterey, the Valley of Mexico. Jackson represented her well in his
chivalry from South Carolina,--his fiery courage from Virginia and
Kentucky,--all tempered by Scotch-Irish Presbyterian prudence from
Tennessee. We, in his spirit, have looked on this storm for years
untroubled. Yes, Jackson's old bones rattled in their grave when that
infamous disunion convention met in Nashville, and its members turned
pale and fled aghast. Yes, Tennessee, in her mighty million, feels
secure; and, in her perfect preparation to discuss this question,
politically, ecclesiastically, morally, metaphysically, or physically,
with the extreme North or South, she is willing and able _to persuade
others to be calm_. In this connection, I wish to say, for the South to
the North, and to the world, that we have no fears from our
slave-population. There might be a momentary insurrection and bloodshed;
but destruction to the black man would be inevitable. The Greeks and
Romans controlled immense masses of white slaves,--many of them as
intelligent as their lords. Schoolmasters, fabulists, and poets were
slaves. Athens, with her thirty thousand freemen, governed half a
million of bondmen. Single Roman patricians owned thirty thousand. If,
then, the phalanx and the legion mastered such slaves for ages, when
battle was physical force of man to man, how certain it is that
infantry, cavalry, and artillery could hold in bondage millions of
Africans for a thousand years!

But, dear brethren, our Southern philanthropists do not seek to have this
unending bondage; Oh, no, no. And I earnestly entreat you to "stand still
and see the salvation of the Lord." Assume a masterly inactivity, and you
will behold all you desire and pray for,--you will see _America liberated
from the curse of slavery_.

The great question of the world is, WHAT IS TO BE THE FUTURE OF THE
AMERICAN SLAVE?--WHAT IS TO BE THE FUTURE OF THE AMERICAN MASTER? The
following _extract from the "Charleston Mercury"_ gives my view of the
subject with great and condensed particularity:--

"Married, Thursday, 26th inst., the Hon. Cushing Kewang, Secretary of
State of the United States, to Laura, daughter of Paul Coligny,
Vice-President of the United States, and one of our noblest Huguenot
families. We learn that this distinguished gentleman, with his bride, will
visit his father, the Emperor of China, at his summer palace, in Tartary,
north of Pekin, and return to the Vice-President's Tea Pavilion, on Cooper
River, ere the meeting of Congress." The editor of the "Mercury" goes on
to say: "This marriage in high life is only one of many which have
signalized that immense emigration from Christianized China during the
last seventy-five years, whereby Charleston has a population of 1,250,000,
and the State of South Carolina over 5,000,000,--an emigration which has
wonderfully harmonized with the great exodus of the negro race to
Africa." [Some gentleman here requested to know of Dr. Ross the date of
the "Charleston Mercury" recording this marriage. The doctor replied, "The
date is 27th May, 1953, exactly one hundred years from this day." Great
laughter.]

Sir, this is a dream; but it is not all a dream. No, I verily believe you
have there the Gordian knot of slavery untied; you have there the solution
of the problem; you have there the curtain up, and the last scene in the
last act of the great drama of Ham.

I am satisfied with the tendencies of things. I stand on the mountain-peak
above the clouds. I see, far beyond the storm, the calm sea and blue sky;
I see the Canaan of the African. I like to stand there on the Nebo of his
exodus, and look across, not the Jordan, but the Atlantic. I see the
African crossing as certainly as if I gazed upon the ocean divided by a
great wind, and piled up in walls of green glittering glass on either
hand, the dry ground, the marching host, and the pillar of cloud and of
fire. I look over upon the Niger, black with death to the white man,
instinct with life to the children of Ham. _There_ is the black man's
home. Oh, how strange that you of the North see not how you degrade him
when you keep him here! You will not let him vote; you will not let him
rise to honors or social equality; you will not let him hold a pew in your
churches. Send him away, then; tell him, begone. Be urgent, like the
Egyptians: send him out of this land. _There_, in his fatherland, he will
exhibit his own type of Christianity. He is, of all races, the most gentle
and kind. The _man_, the most submissive; the _woman_, the most
affectionate. What other slaves would love their masters better than
themselves?--rock them and fan them in their cradles? caress them--how
tenderly!--boys and girls? honor them, grown up, as superior beings? and,
in thousands of illustrious instances, be willing to give life, and, in
fact, die, to serve or save them? Verily, verily, this emancipated race
may reveal the most amiable form of spiritual life, and the _jewel_ may
glitter on the Ethiop's brow in meaning more sublime than all in the
poet's imagery. Brethren, let them go; and, when they are gone,--ay,
before they go away,--rear a monument; let it grow in greatness, if not on
your highest mountain, in your hearts,--in lasting memory of the
South,--in memory of your wrong to the South,--in memory of the
self-denial of the South, and her philanthropy in training the slave to
be free, enlightened, and Christian.

Can all this be? Can this double emigration civilize Africa and more than
re-people the South? Yes; and I regard the difficulties presented here, in
Congress, or the country, as little worth. God intends both emigrations.
And, without miracle, he will accomplish both. Difficulties! There are no
difficulties. Half a million emigrate to our shores, from Ireland, and all
Europe, every year. And you gravely talk of difficulties in the negro's
way to Africa! Verily, God will unfold their destiny as fast, and as
fully, as he sees best for the highest good of the slave, the highest good
of the master, and the glory of Christ in Africa.

And, sir, there are forty thousand Chinese in California. And in Cuba,
this day, American gentlemen are cultivating sugar, with Chinese hired
labor, more profitably than the Spaniards and their slaves. Oh! there is
China--half the population of the globe--just fronting us across that
peaceful sea,--her poor, living on rats and a pittance of red rice,--her
rich, hoarding millions in senseless idolatry, or indulging in the
luxuries of birds'-nests and roasted ice. Massed together, they must
migrate. Where can they go? They must come to our shores. They must come,
even did God forbid them. But he will hasten their coming. They can live
in the extremest South. It is their latitude,--their side of the ocean.
They can cultivate cotton, rice, sugar, tea, and the silkworm. Their
skill, their manipulation, is unrivalled. Their commonest gong you can
neither make nor explain. They are a law-abiding people, without castes,
accustomed to rise by merit to highest distinctions, and capable of the
noblest training, when their idolatry, which is waxing old as a garment,
shall be folded up as a vesture and changed for _that_ whose years shall
not fail. The English ambassador assures us that the Chinese negotiator of
the late treaty was a splendid gentleman, and a diplomatist to move in any
court of Europe. Shem, then, can mingle with Japheth in America.

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