We were unpleasantly surprised, on receiving our last number
of the “Comprehensive Commentary” and the “Supplement,” from our good
anti-slavery friend Boutelle, to find the unfeeling author of the “limitations”
posted up, in the frontispiece, by Dr. Jenks, at his own right hand, and
directly over the head of old President Dwight. Perhaps this is a sort of
peace-offering to the slaveholder—a bit of policy to give the "Commentary"
a currency among our “southern brethren.” The Doctor's image would give the
Commentary a cordial passport to the heart of every slaveholder. He would
expect to find the Bible itself chock full of limitations of human obligations
and warrant for slaveholding.
We should not dare send a lad to the Doctor's college, for
fear he would teach him this science of “limitations;” a science as fatal to
human welfare as the atmosphere of Upas is to healthful respiration. What a
kindly blow has the Rev. Doctor here struck at religion and humanity, by this
work, with a most significant and appropriate title — “Limitations of
Responsibilities!” Abridgment of human obligations! Curtailment of moral
obligations! Irresponsibilities to God and man! What a title and a work, to
surprise and delight the devil withal! Give me, quoth the devil, these
abridgers of human liability. O no, sweet mortals, “ye shall not surely die.”
Hath God indeed said so and so? It may be — but then the meaning hath
excellent “limitations.” Commend me, quoth the arch-gambler for the exposed
soul, to these highly taught rabbies — brought up at foot of Gamaliel, who will
ratiocinate the apprehensive mind clear of the trammels of responsibility.
It has been a desideratum with human depravity, from
the first transgression down, to discover that this fatal responsibility had
limits — some resting place, short of these crucifying requirements. Orthodoxy
itself hath at last discovered it, and the fortunate finder is Doctor Francis
Wayland.
“Granting slavery to be in violation of the law of God,”
says the daring Doctor, “it still remains to be decided, what is our duty
respecting it.” In this horrible doctrine we cannot agree, but say rather, that
granting slavery, or any thing else, to be in violation of that law, it is
decided, and always has been, that our duty is forthwith to labor to our utmost
for its immediate suppression.
The Doctor's essay is to “kill the abolitionists dead.”
Colonel Mordecai Noah, of the tribe of Issachar, says exultingly, that
it is doing it. A band of self-devoted men and women have formed themselves
together, to deliver, by the power of simple truth, their poor, soul-withered
brethren from a condition that would awaken irrepressible pity in any thing but
an under mill-stone. They are succeeding. They have insured success; and
this northern Doctor has volunteered, as a sort of Swiss guard, to protect the
slaveholder against them in his “paramount fights,” and to “kill” these unoffending
and faithful ones “dead.” He has woven a web of sophistry, which it would waste
time, and no doubt puzzle our unmetaphysical brains to unravel, in the cunning
order in which it is put together. We shall not worry ourselves to thread its
labyrinths, or unglue its spider fastenings. In plain housewife style, we take
the broomstick of “self-evident truth,” and just poke down this cobweb — dead
flies and all, warp and filling, — with the sly old weaver himself, where he
sits in his central woof, “cunning and fierce, mixture abhorred.” For see. — Slaveholding
is a self-evident crime. We (Doctor and all) are palpably at the bottom of it.
It is engendered and fed on our own vicious public (sentiment. We are bound
forthwith to correct this sentiment, and thereby abolish slavery. There is no “limitation”
about it, and no “two ways about it,” in the expressive parlance. This is better made out, in
the statement, than by any help of words with which we are
acquainted,—and we here dispose of the whole Doctor.
“No cat has two tails,” quoth the Doctor. Agreed, gays Major
Noah, and his gentile brother, the New Hampshire Patriot, “But every cat has
one tail more than no cat,” adds the Doctor, “Han't she?” cries Major Noah. “I
want to know if she han't,” echoes the New Hampshire Patriot. “Therefore,”
concludes the Doctor, (and anti-slavery is extinguished) — “therefore every cat
has Three tails.” “Three tails!” exults the epauletted Israelite; “three tails,
by our gold-laced gabardine, every cat is a three-tailed bashaw,” and it is “perfectly
conclusive to the mind” of the New Hampshire Patriot. Now we hold up any bona
fide pussy in the land by the. tail, and all eyes may see that she hath
but one. The Doctor cannot argue it into three.
SOURCE: Collection from the Miscellaneous Writings
of Nathaniel Peabody Rogers, Second Edition, p. 31-3 which states it was
published in the Herald of Freedom of October 6, 1838.
