Three Prize Essays on American Slavery — John Shaqi
Three Prize Essays on American SlaveryThurston, R. B. (Richard Bowers)
Religion
Three Prize Essays on American Slavery
Thurston, R. B. (Richard Bowers)
Slavery -- United States; Slavery and the church -- United States
Furthermore, this is the only practical conclusion. By inevitable
necessity, the slaves, as a body, must remain on the soil of their
bondage. Only exceptional cases of removal can occur. They are the
laborers of the South; and no State will, or can, or is bound, to remove
its laborers. It is simply bound to protect and treat them with
Christian equity and kindness. Banishment of them would be injustice and
cruelty, violating perhaps no less than restoring divine rights.
Moreover, no practicable means of removing them have ever been seriously
proposed; and, till they shall be, the point needs no discussion.
But the question may be raised, "Are the slaves to endure their present
wrongs until the laws shall be thus renewed, or perhaps forever?" We
reply, in showing how slave-holders can cease from guilty connection
with slavery; we have also shown how the situation of the slaves becomes
one of practical righteousness, before the laws can be readjusted; and
for this great obligation of the body politic, sufficient time most be
allowed. Moral principles do not exact natural impossibilities. The
elevation of oppressed millions can be accomplished only in harmony with
great natural and social, as well as ethical laws, which the wisdom of
God has ordained.
It remains therefore, that, for a period of which no man can see the
end, the slaves must, in most cases, dwell within the present
boundaries; but it is incumbent on the citizens and legislators of the
South to institute _immediate_ measures for restoring to them the
inviolable rights of men. So long as they continue, by the _necessities_
of the case, in the relation of servants and laborers, masters should
deal with them according to the rules of humane and Christian equity,
paying to them in suitable ways their just earnings, holding sacred
their family ties, and securing to them the privileges of education and
religion. Meanwhile, the legislatures of the several States, by wise
enactments, should coöperate with masters in training their servile
population for the position which the Creator designed for men.
When these things shall come to pass, a consideration, in which many
good men have sought relief in regard to slavery, will have multiplied
force. The providential wisdom of God, in bringing millions of the
children of Africa from a land of pagan darkness and violence to a land
of freedom and Christianity, will shine with new lustre, when they shall
receive from American hands, together with true religion, every divine
right, and shall thus be qualified and enabled to convey to the dark
habitations of their fathers the infinite blessings of enlightened
liberty and of the gospel of eternal salvation.
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