The Liberator (newspaper)/September 18, 1857/Bishop Hopkins on Slavery
Selections.
From the Christian Examiner for September.
Bishop Hopkins on Slavery.
The book, the title of which we have given above, contains thirty-three chapters and a great variety of topics. In this it resembles the work of another Bishop, who wrote a book beginning with the virtues of tar-water, and ending with the Trinity, the omne scibile filling up the interspace. Bishop Hopkins has nothing to say about tar-water, but, with that exception, he discusses nearly as many subjects as Bishop Berkeley. He begins with the Federal Constitution, which he thinks excludes infidels from office, though it declares that ‘no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.’ But he thinks this means that all Christian sects have a right to be tolerated in their worship under the Constitution; but not Hindoos, Chinese, Turks, Mormons, nor even Roman Catholics. ‘I am compelled to conclude,’ says he, ‘that, under the Constitution, no Romanist can have a right to the free enjoyment of his religion, without a serious inconsistency.’ Having thus disposed of infidels, Mormons, and Roman Catholics, he turns aside to indulge in some classical reminiscences, and gives us in Chapter V. an abstract of ‘Cicero de Officiis.—Why this is introduced (unless in order to make use of some of his former labors during his sixteen years of educational occupation) does not distinctly appear. He says that Cicero agrees with the Bible, and therefore is good authority. But then why not take the Bible itself—since most of his readers would be more ready to admit the authority of the Bible than that of Cicero?
Having finished his classical prelections, the Bishop plunges into the question of slavery, and discusses it through six chapters. Slavery he thinks to be perfectly right and lawful, but not at all expedient; excellent for the slaves, but bad for the masters; an institution which ought to be defended against the wicked assaults of Abolitionism, but which also ought to be abolished by an ingenious process discovered by the Bishop himself.
Having thus arranged the question of slavery, he turns to ‘business’; talks about farmers, lawyers, merchants, physicians, editors, and ministers;—praises homoeopathy and defends hydropathy; tells us how to choose a wife; falls foul of strong-minded women, and the Woman’s Rights Party; favors gymnastics and calisthenics; justly opposes saleratus in bread; approves of young ladies learning to read and write, and obtaining a fair knowledge of geography; thinks a school-girl might properly read a book like ‘Goldsmith’s Animated Nature,’ and study botany, and even draw and paint in water-colors. ‘But I should disapprove, decidedly, of her learning oil-painting,’ says he; and thinks she ought not to study Latin and Greek, algebra, geometry, physiology, chemistry, or metaphysics, since these do not ‘qualify the woman to be the companion and helpmate of the man,’—which he regards as her chief mission. The Bishop then gives rules for the wife of an American citizen in the matter of making calls; advises her to keep a visiting-book, ‘arranged either alphabetically, or according to the places of their residence,’ not to stay too long, not to tell any conventional lies, and to get home in time for her husband’s dinner, so as not ‘to run the risk of wasting his time and putting him out of humor, by finding his house out of sorts, and his meals delayed.’ The Bishop then proceeds to prattle about dinner-parties and evening-parties, which he seems to like; but he does not like tableaux vivans, balls, or dances. In this respect he is not singular; for it is a curious fact that those clergymen who defend slavery are always sure to condemn dancing—probably on the old theological principle of tithing mint and forgetting justice, of straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel.
The very miscellaneous character of the book will appear from this hasty description. But our chief business with the Bishop regards his doctrine of slavery. The book, on the whole, we might recommend, as a good-humored and garrulous collection of commonplaces. But his views on slavery deserve a closer examination. They are indeed superficial enough, and belong to that class of heresies which refute themselves. But proceeding from a Bishop of the Episcopal Church, in one of the freest of the Free States, they carry a certain derived weight of authority with them, which makes it proper to devote to them a few pages of criticism. It has recently been our hard duty to follow Dr. Nehemiah Adams on his South-Side excursion, and to wonder at the style of his arguments in defence of slavery. We have also criticised Dr. Lord of Dartmouth in his more elaborate and logical argument on the same side. That even-handed justice which we have meted out to the man of sentimental piety and to the Orthodox dogmatist, we must not deny to the Episcopal Bishop. Since Sentimental Religion, Dogmatic Religion, and Ceremonial Religion have made haste to show themselves inhuman, to take side with the oppressor against the oppressed, to rivet every yoke, and to lay a new weight on the shoulders of Christ’s poor, it becomes us constantly to expose their unchristian mind and heart, and to let in on their speculations a little of the light of the Gospel. A ‘Christian Examiner’ which should not do this duty, what would it be good for in the world?
The Bishop’s opinions and statements concerning slavery may conveniently be arranged under the three heads of Errors, Sophisms, and Inhumanities. His statements are erroneous, his arguments sophistical, and his plans and projects inhuman. Of course, we do not mean to accuse him of deliberate inhumanity or sophistry. He is probably a well-meaning gentleman personally; but his opinions are false, weak, and cruel, as we shall proceed to prove. We war not with him, but with his opinions.
Errors of Statement.
Error 1. The Bishop gives an erroneous definition of slavery. He says (page 125):—‘What is this relation? Simply a perpetual obligation which binds the slave to serve the master for life, and binds the master to govern the slave with justice and with reason; to provide for him in sickness as in health; to instruct him in what is necessary to his moral and spiritual welfare, according to his condition and capacity; to maintain his family in comfort, and to bury him decently when life is ended.’
If this were slavery, our opposition to it would be very much less than now. But this is not that Ameaican slavery which the Bishop is defending.—That is a legal relation defined by the laws, and maintained by the whole power of the State. This may be slavery as it ought to be, according to a Christian view of it; but it is not the actual relation existing in every Southern State. The slave is not merely bound to serve the master for life, but is his property, to be bought and sold, who may therefore be sold at his master’s pleasure from his home, from his wife and children, and sent into a lonely exile. He who merely owes perpetual labor for a fixed recompense is not a slave, but a serf. Nor is the master bound by law, as the Bishop asserts, to govern him with justice, to provide for him, or to instruct him. In many States he is forbidden by law to instruct him. In none is he compelled by law, under any penalty, to provide for him or to teach him. If the slave refuses to labor, the master may kill him; if the master refuses to provide proper food or clothing for the slave, there is no legal help or remedy. What mockery, then, is such a definition of slavery as this!
Error 2. The Bishop asserts (page 131), and the assertion is common, that ‘the free negro, other things being equal, is in a worse condition than the slave, physically and morally—less happy, less healthy, less contented, less secure, less religious.’
This is an easy assertion to make, but a hard one to prove. He says that ‘many who have escaped have returned to their masters, glad to escape from the wretchedness of their freedom.’ So, a few years since, a convict who had escaped from the penitentiary at Jeffersonville, Ia., returned and gave himself up, saying he was happier there than outside. Does this prove imprisonment, ‘other things being equal,’ better than freedom? How many of the fugitives have returned to slavery? Even Bishop Hopkins will not maintain that the majority have returned; and if not, the argument is the other way.
The physical wretchedness of the free negroes is constantly and systematically exaggerated. The writer of this article, having taken some pains to examine into their condition in Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and other places, is satisfied that they are considerably better off as a class than the poorest class of whites. Many of them, in these cities, have accumulated large amounts of property. The colored people in Cincinnati held in 1850, in real estate, property to the amount of $600,000.—Out of 3500 colored people, 200 paid taxes on real estate. In Philadelphia, the free blacks owned, some years since, property to the value of $800,000.—The colored people in New York city and vicinity owned, some years since, about $2,000,000.
But suppose that they should have no property. The slave has none. Suppose their physical comforts inferior to those of the slave, which is not true. Is it nothing to be free? nothing to have a right to one’s self? nothing to be under the protection of the law? nothing to be able to go or stay, to be able to keep your wife and children with you? nothing to be a man, and not a chattel?
Error 3. The Bishop asserts (page 132) that in many respects the slave is better off than the white free laborer at the North. Because, says he, among other reasons, ‘their work is light and regular, as a general rule.’
The majority of the negroes are on the plantations, and the work of these is neither light nor regular. The Northern hired laborer works ten hours a day, from seven to twelve, and from one to six.—The negro often works from sunrise to sunset in summer, with but half an hour for dinner in the field. But even if he worked less than the free laborer, his work would not be light. ‘For what is it,’ says Dr. Channing, ‘which lightens toil? Hope lightens toil, and of hope the slave has none.’ His work is light who works in the hope of bettering his condition.
When a man thus argues that slavery is better than freedom, it is difficult to reply to him, because the only suitable reply would be to give him an opportunity of trying it. We should put Dr. Nehemiah Adams, President Lord, and Bishop Hopkins on a cotton plantation in Mississippi, under an overseer of the usual sort. Let them each have his three pounds of bacon and peck of corn a week, for working before the lash from morning twilight to dewy eve, without hope of anything better to the end of their days. Then, after a few months of this experience, we would replace them in their snug easy-chairs and their quiet libraries, and ask them their candid opinion of the relative satisfactions of slavery and freedom. We think they would hardly continue to prefer the condition of the slave to that of the free laborer, who returns after his day’s work to his own home, his own wife and children, who deposits his equal ballot by the side of the millionaire, whose children go to the best schools, provided by the public, who is protected by equal laws, is an equal member of lyceums, clubs, and literary societies, and at church is one of Christ’s people equal with any other.
The Bishop asserts as an unquestionable fact, that the slaves are the happiest class of laborers in the world, and the most perfectly contented with their condition. ‘The fact,’ says he, ‘remains undeniable, that the slaves at the South are, on the whole, the happiest class of laborers in the world, and the most perfectly contented with their own condition.’ We quote this statement to show the quality of the Bishop’s information. There is no doubt that he believes what he says; and he believes it because he obtains this information from slaveholders or their friends. Only thus could he have been led to call this statement ‘an undeniable one.’ He has never taken the pains to read any other testimony, or if he has seen it, it has been only to deny and disbelieve it. The fact that a fugitive slave law is necessary to keep these contented and happy slaves from running away, that bloodhounds are advertised in the Southern newspapers for the purpose of pursuing fugitives, that from time to time bloody rebellions and insurrections take place among them, that the South lives in such dread of these insurrections that even in Maryland a free negro has lately been sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment in the penitentiary for having in his possession a copy of ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’ that a bookseller has been driven from Mobile for having on his shelves a copy of the ‘Life of Douglas,’ that men have been repeatedly driven from the Southern States for expressing anti-slavery opinions, that Mr. Underwood was last year expelled from Virginia for supporting Fremont—such notorious facts as these have never suggested to the mind of the Bishop any doubt as to the entire happiness and contentment of the slave population. But suppose it were necessary to have a fugitive law, enforced by the whole power of the United States, to prevent free laborers in Massachusetts from escaping from their work; suppose that packs of hounds were kept in every New England neighborhood with which to pursue fugitive apprentices and journeymen; suppose we were in the habit of lynching any man who spoke or wrote against our system of hired labor, and accusing him of inciting our hired men to cut our throats—would such a state of things argue perfect content and happiness among our laboring population?
And why should slaves be happy? How can slaves be happy? Does it make a man happy to work all his life, from childhood to old age, for a peck of corn and three pounds of pork a week, with the privilege of raising vegetables by working on Sunday—to be exposed to be sold at any moment, and separated from his family and friends—and to have his wife and children taken from him whenever it suits the convenience of his owner? Does human happiness consist, according to our Bishop, in being kept in ignorance, being deprived of all the means of progress and improvement, and having every hope and aspiration of the soul trampled down under the strong hand of power? Was it extreme contentment and happiness which induced Brown to be nailed up in a box in order to escape from slavery, the slave of Mr. Gaines to kill her child rather than to have it carried back to slavery, Ellen Crafts to disguise herself in man’s clothes in order to reach a land of freedom, and the thousands who escape by the Underground Railroad to encounter all the risks of whip and rifle in order to get away from the Bishop’s paradise of content and joy? Are such facts as these the ground of the Bishop’s assertion, that it is ‘undeniable’ that the slaves are the happiest class of laborers in the world, and the most perfectly contented with their condition?
Error 4. Bishop Hopkins maintains that slavery has been abolished by worldly causes, and without any suspicion that the institution in itself involved any violation of religion or morality. ‘It was not until the latter part of the eighteenth century that a doubt was expressed, on either side of the Atlantic, in relation to the perfect consistency of such slavery with the precepts of the Gospel.’
The following extracts from Church Fathers and historians will show whether this statement is correct or erroneous.
‘Christianity,’ says Neander (Torrey’s Transl., vol. 1, page 268,) ‘brought about that change in the consciousness of humanity, from which a dissolution, of this whole relation, though it could not be immediately effected, yet, by virtue of the consequences resulting from that change, must eventually take place.’
The principles which produced this change were identical with those ‘glittering generalities’ announced in the Declaration of Independence. Thus Tertullian says: ‘We recognize that the world is one great republic; we are children of one mother.’
Minucius Felix: ‘All men are born equal, and virtue is the only distinction.’
Clemens Alex.: ‘Take off your ornaments, and what difference between you and your slaves, except that they are stronger and more healthy?’
Ambrose: ‘Nature is our common mother; we are all brothers.’
St. Jerome: ‘Rich and poor, bond and free, are all equal.’ And in another place he says: ‘When God says to Noah, “Your fear shall be on all animals,” he excepts man, who is not subjected to this law of terror.’
These broad principles being thus laid down, it followed that all the Christian Fathers recommended and praised the affranchisement of slaves. Thus Gregory the Great says (Decret. Grat., p. 11): ‘It is a good and salutary thing, when those who by nature were created free, and whom the laws of men have reduced to slavery, are, by the benefaction of manumission, restored to that liberty in which they were born.’
The early Christian writers commemorate the case of Hermas, prefect of the city at Rome, who on Good Friday freed twelve hundred and fifty slaves; and of Melania, a young lady, who freed eight thousand. ‘No Christian perfection,’ they teach, ‘can be attained by those who own slaves.’
St. John Chrysostom preached three sermons on the Epistle to Philemon; not, as is now done, to justify slavery out of it, but to urge masters, by the example of Paul’s request to Onesimus, that they too should free their slaves.
From these extracts, it may be seen that the Bishop errs in asserting that the change in public opinion which causes slavery to be regarded as inconsistent with Christianity, only began at the end of the last century, and was not brought about by the influence of the Bible or of the Church.
(To be concluded.)
