This letter is the examination and refutation of the infidel theory of human government foisted into the Declaration of Independence.
I had written this criticism in different form for publication, before Mr. Barnes's had appeared. I wrote it to vindicate my affirmation in the General Assembly which met in New York, May last, on this part of the Declaration. My views were maturely formed, after years of reflection, and weeks--nay months--of carefully-penned writing.
And thus these truths, from the Bible, Providence, and common sense, were like rich freight, in goodly ship, waiting for the wind to sail; when lo, Mr. Barnes's abolition-breath filled the canvas, and carried it out of port into the wide, the free, the open sea of American public thought. There it sails. If pirate or other hostile craft comes alongside, the good ship has guns.
I ask that this paper be carefully read more than once, twice, or three times. Mr. Barnes, I presume, will not so read it. He is committed. Greeley may notice it with his sparkling wit, albeit he has too much sense to grapple with its argument. The Evangelist-man will say of it, what he would say if Christ were casting out devils in New York,--"He casteth out devils through Beelzebub the chief of the devils." Yea, this Evangelist-man says that my version of the golden rule is "diabolical;" when truly that version is the word of the Spirit, as Christ's casting out devils was the work of the Holy Ghost.
Gerrett Smith, Garrison, Giddings, do already agree with me, that they are right if Jefferson spoke the truth. Yea, whether the Bible be true, is no question with them no more than with him. Yea, they hold, as he did, that whether there be one God or twenty, it matters not: the fact either way, in men's minds, neither breaks the leg nor picks the pocket. (See Jefferson's Notes on Virginia.) Messrs. Beecher and Cheever will find nothing in me to aid them in speaking to the mobs of Ephesus and Antioch. They are making shrines, and crying, Great is Diana. Mrs. Stowe is on the Dismal Swamp, with Dred for her Charon, to paddle her light canoe, by the fire-fly lamps, to the Limbo of Vanity, of which she is the queen. None of these will read with attention or honesty, if at all, this examination of what Randolph long ago said was a fanfaronade of nonsense. These are all wiser "than seven men that can render a reason."
But there are thousands, North and South, who will read this refutation, and will feel and acknowledge that in the light of God's truth the notion of created equality and unalienable right is falsehood and infidelity.
Rev. A. Barnes:--
Dear Sir:--In my first letter I promised to prove that the paragraph in the Declaration of Independence, which contains the affirmation of created equality and unalienable rights, has no sanction from the word of God. I now meet my obligation.
The time has come when civil liberty, as revealed in the Bible and in Providence, must be re-examined, understood, and defended against infidel theories of human rights. The slavery question has brought on this conflict; and, strange as it may seem, the South, the land of the slave, is summoned by God to defend the liberty he gives; while the North, the clime of the free, misunderstands and changes the truth of God into a lie,--claiming a liberty he does not give. Wherefore is this? I reply:---
God, when he ordained government over men, gave to the individual man RIGHTS, only as he is under government. He first established the family; hence all other rule is merely the family expanded. The good of the family limited the rights of every member. God required the family, and then the state, so to rule as to give to every member the good which is his, in harmony with the welfare of the whole; and he commanded the individual to seek that good, and NO MORE.
Now, mankind being depraved, government has ever violated its obligation to rule for the benefit of the entire community, and has wielded its power in oppression. Consequently, the governed have ever struggled to secure the good which was their right. But, in this struggle, they have ever been tempted to go beyond the limitation God had made, and to seek supposed good, not given, in rights, prompted by self-will, destructive of the state.
Government thus ever existing in oppression, and people thus ever rising up against despotism, have been the history of mankind.
The Reformation was one of the many convulsions in this long-continued conflict. In its first movements, men claimed the liberty the Bible grants. Soon they ran into licentiousness. God then stayed the further progress of emancipation in Europe, because the spread of the asserted liberty would have made infidelity prevail over that part of the continent where the Reformation was arrested. God preferred Romanism, and other despotisms, modified as they were by the struggle, to rule for a time, than have those countries destroyed under the sway of a licentious freedom.
In this contest the North American colonies had their rise, and they continued the strife with England until they declared themselves independent.
That "Declaration" affirmed not only the liberty sanctioned of the Bible, but also the liberty constituting infidelity. Its first paragraph, to the word "separation," is a noble introduction. Omit, then, what follows, to the sentence beginning "Prudence will dictate," and the paper, thus expurgated, is complete, and is then simply the complaint of the colonies against the government of England, which had oppressed them beyond further submission, and the assertion of their right to be free and independent States.
This declaration was, in that form, nothing more than the affirmation of the right God gives to children, in a family, applied to the colonies, in regard to their mother-country. That is to say, children have, from God, RIGHT, AS CHILDREN, when cruelly treated, to secure the good to which they are entitled, as children, IN THE FAMILY. They may secure this good by becoming part of another family, or by setting up for themselves, if old enough. So the colonies had, from God, right as colonies, when oppressed beyond endurance, to exchange the British family for another, or, if of sufficient age, to establish their own household. The Declaration, then, in that complaint of oppression and affirmation of right, in the colonies, to be independent, asserts liberty sanctioned by the word of God. And therefore the pledge to that Declaration, of "lives, fortune, and sacred honor," was blessed of Heaven, in the triumph of their cause.
But the Declaration, in the part I have omitted, affirms other things, and very different. It asserts facts and rights as appertaining to man, not in the Scriptures, but contrary thereto. Here is the passage:--
"We hold these truths to be self-evident,--that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."
This is the affirmation of the liberty claimed by infidelity. It teaches as a fact that which is not true; and it claims as right that which God has not given. It asserts nothing new, however. It lays claim to that individual right beyond the limitation God has put, which man has ever asserted when in his struggle for liberty he has refused to be guided and controlled by the word and providence of his Creator.
The paragraph is a chain of four links, each of which is claimed to be a self-evident truth.
The first and controlling assertion is, "that ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL;" which proposition, as I understand it, is, that every man and woman on earth is created with equal attributes of body and mind.
Secondly, and consequently, that every individual has, by virtue of his or her being created the equal of each and every other individual, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, so in his or her own keeping that that right is unalienable without his or her consent.
Thirdly, it follows, that government among men must derive its just powers only from the consent of the governed; and, as the governed are the aggregate of individuals, then each person must consent to be thus controlled before he or she can be rightfully under such authority.
Fourthly, and finally, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as each such individual man or woman may think, then each such person may rightly set to work to alter or abolish such form, and institute a new government, on such principles and in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
This is the celebrated averment of created equality, and unalienable right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, with the necessary consequences. I have fairly expanded its meaning. It is the old infidel averment. It is not true in any one of its assertions.
All Men not created equal.
It is not a truth, self-evident, that all men are created equal. Webster, in his dictionary, defines "Self-evident--Evident without proof or reason: clear conviction upon a bare presentation to the mind, as that two and three make five."
Now, I affirm, and you, I think, will not contradict me, that the position, "all men are created equal" is not self-evident; that the nature of the case makes it impossible for it to be self-evident. For the created nature of man is not in the class of things of which such self-evident propositions can by possibility be predicated. It is equally clear and beyond debate, that it is not self-evident that all men have unalienable rights, that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and may be altered or abolished whenever to them such rights may be better secured. All these assertions can be known to be true or false only from revelation of the Creator, or from examination and induction of reasoning, covering the nature and the obligations of the race on the whole face of the earth. What revelation and examination of facts do teach, I will now show. The whole battle-ground, as to the truth of this series of averments, is on the first affirmation, "that all men are created equal." Or, to keep up my first figure, the strength of the chain of asserted truths depend on that first link. It must then stand the following perfect trial.
God reveals to us that he created man in his image, i.e. a spirit endowed with attributes resembling his own,--to reason, to form rule of right, to manifest various emotions, to will, to act,--and that he gave him a body suited to such a spirit, (Gen. i. 26, 27, 28;) that he created MAN "male and female," (Gen. i. 27;) that he made the woman "out of the man," (Gen. ii. 23;) that he made "the man the image and glory of God, but the woman the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man," (1 Cor. xi.;) that he made the woman to be the weaker vessel, (1 Pet. iii. 7.) Here, then, God created the race to be in the beginning TWO,--a male and a female MAN; one of them not equal to the other in attributes of body and mind, and, as we shall see presently, not equal in rights as to government. Observe, this inequality was fact as to the TWO, in the perfect state wherein they were created.
But these two fell from that perfect state, became depraved, and began to be degraded in body and mind. This statement of the original inequality in which man was created controls all that comes after, in God's providence and in the natural history of the race.
Providence, in its comprehensive teaching, "says that God, soon after the flood, subjected the races to all the influences of the different zones of the earth;"--"That he hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord if haply they might feel after him and find him, though he be not far from every one of us." (Acts xvii. 26, 27.)
These "bounds of their habitation" have had much to do in the natural history of man; for "all men" have been "created," or, more correctly, born, (since the race was "created" once only at the first,) with attributes of body and mind derived from the TWO unequal parents, and these attributes, in every individual, the combined result of the parental natures. "All men," then, come into the world under influences upon the amalgamated and transmitted body and mind, from depravity and degradation, sent down during all the generations past; and, therefore, under causes of inequality, acting on each individual from climate, from scenery, from food, from health, from sickness, from love, from hatred, from government, inconceivable in variety and power. Under such causes, to produce infinite shades of inequality, physical and mental, in birth--if "all men" were created equal (i.e. born equal) in attributes of body and mind--such "creation" would be a violation of all the known analogies in the world of life.
Do, then, the facts in man's natural history exhibit this departure from the laws of life and spirit? Do they prove that "all men are created equal"? Do they show that every man and every woman of Africa, Asia, Europe, America, and the islands of the seas, is created each one equal in body and mind to each other man or woman on the face of the earth, and that this has always been?
Need I extend these questions? Methinks, sir, I hear you say, what others have told me, that the "Declaration" is not to be understood as affirming what is so clearly false, but merely asserts that all men are "created equal" in natural rights.
I reply that that is not the meaning of the clause before us; for that is the meaning of the next sentence,--the second in the series we are considering.
There are, as I have said, four links to the chain of thought in this passage:--1. That all men are created equal. 2. That they are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights. 3. That government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed. 4. That the people may alter and abolish it, &c.
These links are logical sequences. All men--man and woman--are created equal,--equal in attributes of body and mind; (for that is the only sense in which they could be created equal;) therefore they are endowed with right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, unalienable, except in their consent; consequently such consent is essential to all rightful government; and, finally and irresistibly, the people have supreme right to alter or abolish it, &c.
The meaning, then, I give to that first link, and to the chain following, is the sense, because, if you deny that meaning to the first link, then the others have no logical truth whatever. Thus:--
If all men are not created equal in attributes of body and mind, then the inequality may be so great that such men cannot be endowed with right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, unalienable save in their consent; then government over such men cannot rightfully rest upon their consent; nor can they have right to alter or abolish government in their mere determination.
Yea, sir, you concede every thing if you admit that the "Declaration" does not mean to affirm that all men are "created" equal in body and mind.
I will suppose in the Alps a community of Cretins,--i.e. deformed and helpless idiots,--but among them many from the same parents, who, in body and mind, by birth are comparatively Napoleons. Now, this inequality, physical and mental, by birth, makes it impossible that the government over these Cretins can be in their "consent." The Napoleons must rule. The Napoleons must absolutely control their "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness," for the good of the community. Do you reply that I have taken an extreme case? that everybody admits sensible people must govern natural fools? Ay, sir, there is the rub. Natural fools! Are some men, then, "created" natural fools? Very well. Then you also admit that some men are created just a degree above natural fools!--and, consequently, that men are "created" in all degrees, gradually rising in the scale of intelligence. Are they not "created" just above the brute, with savage natures along with mental imbecility and physical degradation? Must the Napoleons govern the Cretins without their "consent"? Must they not also govern without their "consent" these types of mankind, whether one, two, three, thirty, or three hundred degrees above the Cretins, if they are still greatly inferior by nature? Suppose the Cretins removed from the imagined community, and a colony of Australian ant-catchers or California lizard-eaters be in their stead: must not the Napoleons govern these? And, if you admit inequality to be in birth, then that inequality is the very ground of the reason why the Napoleons must govern the ant-catchers and lizard-eaters. Remove these, and put in their place an importation of African negroes. Do you admit their inferiority by "CREATION?" Then the same control over them must be the irresistible fact in common sense and Scripture of God. The Napoleons must govern. They must govern without asking "consent,"--if the inequality be such that "consent" would be evil, and not good, in the family--the state.
Yea, sir, if you deny that the "Declaration" asserts "all men are created equal" in body and mind, then you admit the inequality may be such as to make it impossible that in such cases men have rights unalienable save in their "consent;" and you admit it to be impossible that government in such circumstances can exist in such "consent" But, if you affirm the "Declaration" does mean that men are "created equal" in attributes of body and mind, then you hold to an equality which God, in his word, and providence, and the natural history of man, denies to be truth.
I think I have fairly shown, from Scripture and facts, that the first averment is not the truth; and have reduced it to an absurdity. I will now regard the second, third, and fourth links of the chain.
I know they are already broken; for, the whole chain being but an electric current from a vicious imagination, I have destroyed the whole by breaking the first link. Or was it but a cluster from a poisonous vine, then I have killed the branches by cutting the vine. I will, however, expose the other three sequences by a distinct argument covering them all.
Authority Delegated to Adam.
God gave to Adam sovereignty over the human race, in his first decree:--"He shall rule over thee." That was THE INSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT. It was not based on the "consent" of Eve, the governed. It was from God. He gave to Adam like authority to rule his children. It was not derived from their "consent". It was from God. He gave Noah the same sovereignty, with express power over life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. It was not founded in "consent" of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives. It was from God. He then determined the habitations of men on all the face of the earth, and indicated to them, in every clime, the form and power of their governments. He gave, directly, government to Israel. He just as truly gave it to Idumea, to Egypt, and to Babylon, to the Arab, to the Esquimaux, the Caffre, the Hottentot, and the negro.
God, in the Bible, decides the matter. He says, "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: for he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid, for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience' sake. For this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. Render, therefore, to all their dues; tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor." (Rom. xiii. 1-7.)
Here God reveals to us that he has delegated to government his own RIGHT over life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness; and that that RIGHT is not, in any sense, from the "consent" of the governed, but is directly from him. Government over men, whether in the family or in the state, is, then, as directly from God as it would be if he, in visible person, ruled in the family or in the state. I speak not only of the RIGHT simply to govern, but the mode of the government, and the extent of the power. Government can do ALL which God would do,--just THAT,--no more, no less. And it is bound to do just THAT,--no more, no less. Government is responsible to God, if it fails to do just THAT which He himself would do. It is under responsibility, then, to rule in righteousness. It must not oppress. It must give to every individual "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness," in harmony with the good of the family,--the state,--as God himself would give it,--just THAT, no more, no less.
This passage of Scripture settles the question, From whence has government RIGHT to rule, and what is the extent of its power? The RIGHT is from God, and the EXTENT of the power is just THAT to which God would exercise it if he were personally on the earth. God, in this passage, and others, settles, with equal clearness, from whence is the OBLIGATION to submit to government, and what is the extent of the duty of obedience? The OBLIGATION to submit is not from individual RIGHT to consent or not to consent to government,--but the OBLIGATION to submit is directly from God.
The EXTENT of the duty of obedience is equally revealed--in this wise: so long as the government rules in righteousness, the duty is perfect obedience. So soon, however, as government requires that which God, in his word, forbids the subject to do, he must obey God, and not man. He must refuse to obey man. But, inasmuch as the obligation to submit to authority of government is so great, the subject must know it is the will of God, that he shall refuse to obey, before he assumes the responsibility of resistance to the powers that be. His conscience will not justify him before God, if he mistakes his duty. He may be all the more to blame for having SUCH A CONSCIENCE. Let him, then, be CERTAIN he can say, like Peter and John, "Whether it be right, in the sight of God, to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye."
But, when government requires that which God does not forbid the subject to do, although in that the government may have transcended the line of its righteous rule, the subject must, nevertheless, submit,--until oppression has gone to the point at which God makes RESISTANCE to be duty. And that point is when RESISTANCE will clearly be less of evil, and more of good, TO THE COMMUNITY, than further submission.
That is the rule of duty God gives to the whole people, or to the minority, or to the individual, to guide them in resistance to the powers that be.
It is irresistibly certain that He who ordains government has, alone, the right to alter or abolish it,--that He who institutes the powers that be has, alone, the right to say when and how the people, in whole or in part, may resist. So, then, the people, in whole, or in part, have no right to resist, to alter, or abolish government, simply because they may deem it destructive of the end for which it was instituted; but they may resist, alter, or abolish, when it shall be seen that God so regards it. This places the great fact where it must be placed,--under the CONTROL of the BIBLE and PROVIDENCE.
Illustrations.
I will conclude with one or two illustrations. God, in his providence, ordains the Russian form of government,--i.e. He places the sovereignty in one man, because He sees that such government can secure, for a time, more good to that degraded people than any other form. Now, I ask, Has the emperor right, from God, to change at once, in his mere "consent," the form of his government to that of the United States? No. God forbids him. Why? Because he would thereby destroy the good, and bring immense evil in his empire. I ask again, Have the Russian serfs and nobles,--yea, all,--"consenting," the right, from God, to make that change? No. For the government of the United States is not suited to them. And, in such an attempt, they would deprive themselves of the blessings they now have, and bring all the horrors of anarchy.
Do you ask if I then hold, that God ordains the Russian type of rule to be perpetual over that people? No. The emperor is bound to secure all of "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness," to each individual, consistent with the good of the nation. And he is to learn his obligation from the Bible, and faithfully apply it to the condition of his subjects. He will thus gradually elevate them; while they, on their part, are bound to strive for this elevation, in all the ways in which God may show them the good, and the right, which, more and more, will belong to them in their upward progress. The result of such government and such obedience would be that of a father's faithful training, and children's corresponding obedience. The Russian people would thus have, gradually, that measure of liberty they could bear, under the one-man power,--and then, in other forms, as they might be qualified to realize them. This development would be without convulsion,--as the parent gives place, while the children are passing from the lower to their higher life. It would be the exemplification of Carlyle's illustration of the snake. He says, A people should change their government only as a snake sheds his skin: the new skin is gradually formed under the old one,--and then the snake wriggles out, with just a drop of blood here and there, where the old jacket held on rather tightly.
God ordains the government of the United States. And He places the sovereignty in the will of the majority, because He has trained the people, through many generations in modes of government, to such an elevation in moral and religious intelligence, that such sovereignty is best suited to confer on them the highest right, as yet, to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." But God requires that that will of the majority be in perfect submission to Him. Once more then I inquire,--Whether the people of this country, yea all of them consenting, have right from God, to abolish now, at this time, our free institutions, and set up the sway of Russia? No. But why? There is one answer only. He tells us that our happiness is in this form of government, and in it, its developed results.
The "Social Compact" not recognised in the Divine Institute.
Here I pause. So, then, God gives no sanction to the notion of a SOCIAL COMPACT. He never gave to man individual, isolated, natural rights, unalienably in his keeping. He never made him a Caspar Hauser, in the forest, without name or home,--a Melchisedek, in the wilderness, without father, without mother, without descent,--a Robinson Crusoe, on his island, in skins and barefooted, waiting, among goats and parrots, the coming of the canoes and the savages, to enable him to "consent" if he would, to the relations of social life. And, therefore, those five sentences in that second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence are not the truth; so, then, it is not self-evident truth that all men are created equal. So, then, it is not the truth, in fact, that they are created equal. So, then, it is not the truth that God has endowed all men with unalienable right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. So, then, it is not the truth that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. So, then, it is not the truth that the people have right to alter or abolish their government, and institute a new form, whenever to them it shall seem likely to effect their safety and happiness.
The manner in which these unscriptural dogmas have been modified or developed in the United States, I will examine in another paper.
I merely add, that the opinions of revered ancestors, on these questions of right and their application to American slavery, must now, as never before, be brought to the test of the light of the Bible. F.A. Ross.
Huntsville, Ala., Jan. 1857.
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