An Unsound And Dangerous Principle.

A preliminary remark with which you enter on your scriptural argument is this; “In the Bible the state of slavery is clearly recognized; but the condition of the slave, like that of all society, is left to be regulated by the civil police of the state or country in which it exists.” This remark, though brief, is manifestly fundamental, to your subsequent reasoning. The position assumed, if we understand you, is this, that if the Bible recognizes any species of slavery in any nation, for instance among the Jews, (and we suppose you would include the idea of giving precepts for the regulation of it,) then slaveholding generally, is not wrong; and the rulers of other nations have right to authorize it; and to regulate, as they may think proper, the condition of the enslaved. To this doctrine we strongly object, as not only erroneous, but of most dangerous tendency. It may indeed be convenient for the justification of American Slavery; but if generally admitted will inevitably lead to conclusions from which you, as well as we, must shrink with horror. — If by this mode of reasoning the slaveholding of our country may be vindicated, the Russian Autocrat may in the same way be justified in crushing the Poles; the Turkish Sultan, in tyrannizing over the Greeks; heathen kings, in the heart of Africa, have a divine right to sell their subjects into foreign bondage; and the despots of the Barbary States are not to be blamed for capturing the vessels of Christian nations, and subjecting their crews and passengers to perpetual servitude. Should you, with your families, be wrecked on the coast of the great Sahara, as some of our countrymen have been, the wandering Arabs would be entirely justified in reducing you at once to abject slavery; and in selling you to the Moors or Algerines for as much as they could obtain in the market. They look down with as much disdain on those whom they denominate “Christian dogs,” as the southern masters do on their colored servants; and this is the way in which they regulate the condition of their slaves. To such conclusions as these, indefinitely multiplied, your fundamental principle irresistibly tends. We know you will not admit of its general application, will not allow it in any case in which it might justify the enslaving of yourselves; and therefore must insist, that you cannot consistently avail yourselves of it merely to answer a turn, in case of self defence. To this point we may have occasion to revert hereafter.

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Continued from: Reverend Silas McKeen to Thomas C. Stuart, August 20, 1839

SOURCE: Cyrus P. Grosvenor, Slavery vs. The Bible: A Correspondence Between the General Conference of Maine, and the Presbytery of Tombecbee, Mississippi, p. 33-5