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Show 34 God's great provts1ons for softening, refining, elevating human nature are thwarted. Thus social ties are liable to be turned into bitterness and wrong. An ecclesiastical document, which appeared not long ago in some of our papers, is a strong illustration of the influence of slavery on the relations of domestic life. It confirms, what we have ofiel'l heard, that the slaves are commanded to marry or live together, for the purpose of keeping up the stock of the estate. It shows us, too, that when slaves are sold at a distance from their original homes, they are commanded to give up the wives or hus· bands whom they have left, and to serve the estate by forming new connexions. Against this tyranny one would think, that the slave would find some protection in his religious teachers. One would think, that the Christian minister would interpose, to save the colored member of the church from being forced to renounce the wife from whom he had been torn ; that he would struggle to rescue him from an adulterous union, against which his affections as well as sense of duty may revolt. But, according to this document, an association of ministers decreed, that the slave, sold at a distance from his home, was to be regarded as dead to his former wife ; that he was not to be treated in this concern as a free agent ; that he was not to be countenanced by the church in resisting his master's will. The document is given below.* What a comment on * The following extract is made from the Antislavery record of Febmary 9, 1836. 11 The following query was, not long since, preSented to the Sa van· nab River Baptist Association of Ministers. 1 Whether, in case of involuntary separation, of such a character as to preclude all prospect of future intercourse, the parties ought to be allowed to marry again? ' 'f111is query was put in regard to husband and wife separated by sale; a.n every·day result of the great internal slave-trade. They answered; 11 'That such separation, among persons s1tuated as our slaves are, is civilly a. separation by death; and they believe, that in the sight of 35 Southern institutions ! It shows, how religion is made their tool, how Christianity is used to do violence to the most sacred feelings and ties, that the breed of slaves may be kept up. It shows us, that this iniquitous system pollutes by •Is touch, the divinest, the holiest provision of God for human happiness and virtue. There is a short method of palliating these and all the enormities of slavery, which is more and more resorted to at the South. The slaveholder looks abroad on the world and, finding in other countries a great amount of hardship: crime, prostitution, penury, woe, he proceeds to say, that these are the lot of humanity, and that they are not borne more extensively or painfully in slave countries than in other~, perha.ps even less. Why, then, is slavery so great nn ev1l ? W 1thout stopping to examine these alleged facts, I see an Important difference in the cases brought into comparison. In other civilized countries, the evils charged on them are seen and deplored, and it is acknowledged that earnest efforts should be made for their removal. Religion and philanthropy, though still half slumberincr are waking up to a sense of great responsibility, and 7~ new struggles with the giant evils of society. It is acknowledged, that, as far as institutions entail on the great labonng class, poverty, vice, prostitution, domestic infidelity, and brutal debasement of intellect and henri , they ought to be changed. Nowhere but in slave countries are t~~ civil power, the sword, the laws, the wealth, the rehgwn, of a community deliberately pledged to the support God it woul<! be so viewed. To forbid second marriages in such case would be to e~pose the parties, not only to stronger hardships and str~ng temptatiOns, but to church censure for acting in obedience to the~r masters, who cannot be expected to acquiesce in a regulation at vu~ance with justice. to the slaves, and to the spirit of that command wluch regulates marnage among Christians. The slaves are not free u.gents; and a dissolution by death is not more entirely without their consent and beyond thc>ir control, than by such separation.'" |