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
Christian and conservative men can unite in the proposed measures and
the truth which appoints them; for they desire to preserve only what is
right. Christian and progressive men can unite in them; for they desire
to abolish only what is wrong. Politics can approve them; for they are
constitutional and patriotic. Philanthropy can be satisfied with them;
for they promise all that in the nature of the case can be promised for
the early relief of the slaves. Religion sanctions them; for they
restore her own institutions. Good men of the South can unite in them
with those of the North; for they have equal authority North and South.
They proffer only that moral aid which great communities, sharing common
interests and responsibilities, should render and receive with intimate
and cordial confidence. They honor the sovereignty of proud and jealous
States; for each of them, exercising the power which springs from its
own people in its own way, will discharge its political obligations to
all within its boundaries.
A few years or even months of combined efforts will suffice to convey
this truth with vital energy to millions of minds and hearts. In due
time it will manifest its efficacy in the public sentiment and public
policy. We trust in its power. It is invincible; it will be victorious;
for it is from God. Its absence from the popular and legislative mind
well explains many of the evils that have been precipitated upon the
nation. Its future prevalence, under divine mercy, will arrest the
progress of events which would be, as we judge, not remedy, but
retributive destruction, on account of slavery.
This leads us to the final question. Are the principles and measures
advocated in this tract or their equivalents, with the contemplated
result, essential to the welfare of our country? We are compelled to
believe so.
We present, for the consideration of citizens and statesmen, this fact.
In harmony with that law of fitness which pervades the Creator's works,
all men are constituted with a nature corresponding with the dominion
they have received. They feel that they have a right to hold property,
and should not be held as property. Slaves feel this. Masters often show
that they feel it. They who make laws for slavery, North and South, show
that they feel it. The little property which slaves are often allowed to
possess, so far from furnishing apology for slavery, is an unwitting
tribute to the living principle that destroys the system. Here is a
philosophical demonstration that slavery cannot stand in perpetuity.
This vital element in human nature, to which a divine institution itself
is but an index, is subterranean fire beneath the pyramid of oppression.
Though long crushed and silent, it will not always sleep. Do men expect
to control forever, by law and force, that sense of rights which burns
inextinguishable in every human breast, which God himself kindled in
Eden? As well pile rocks on volcanoes to suppress earthquakes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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