A Defence of Virginia: And Through Her, of the South, in Recent and Pending Contests Against the Sectional PartyDabney, Robert Lewis
History
A Defence of Virginia: And Through Her, of the South, in Recent and Pending Contests Against the Sectional Party
Dabney, Robert Lewis
Slavery -- Justification; Slavery -- United States; Slavery -- United States -- History; Slavery -- Virginia
smitten again! There is this farther absurdity: the pious servant is
required to stretch his forbearance to so Quixotic a degree, as to
waive, not only the claim of forcible self-defence, but that of legal
protection. (Oh that the holy Abolitionists had practised towards the
injured South a little tythe of this forbearance which their learned
scribe so consistently inculcates!) Is it Christ's requirement, that
the Christian under oppression must refuse the shield of legal
protection? Did Paul think thus, when, prosecuted at the bar of
Porcius Festus by unscrupulous enemies, he claimed the rights of his
citizenship with so admirable a union of forbearance and courage? Now,
if Messrs. Wayland and Barnes are right, these oppressed slaves
possessed a tribunal in common with their oppressors, to which they
could lawfully, peacefully, forgivingly, yet righteously summon them:
_the church court_. They could have demanded of these authorities,
with the strictest Christian propriety, to use all their spiritual
powers, so far as they went, to induce the masters, their
fellow-members, to give them that liberty which was their due. But, so
exceedingly forbearing are they, that they not only forego forcible
resistance, but the peaceable claim of their ecclesiastical right, for
fear they might be thought to act in an impatient manner! A highwayman
meets me in a wood, and begins to beat me and rob me: I have a weapon,
but I forbear to use violence against him. Meantime, the legal
authorities pass by, and I also forbear to claim their protection
under the law, lest it should scandalize the amiable highwayman, and
make him think less favourably of my religion!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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