The weekly Mississippian. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1859-1864, 1859-11-02

to his authority. He being responsible the
slave e. vi termini, is free. Hence the slave
is morally free to obey orders of his master
morally wrong. IT. therefore, a slave does an
act repugnant to his conscience, under
authority of orders from his master, the faint
ofimmorality does not attach to the slave, but
to the master.
A slave has a sphere Of moral action within
or under the authority Of his master and fine
acts right within this sphere, he fulflls the
obligations of his relations in life and may be-
come the object of the Divine appreciation
may enjoy all the inward satisfaction derived
from duty dischargcd-may ripen in moral
virtue and be fitted and prepared for the use
ofbis Master in heaven-there to enjoy the
permanent reward of earthly fidelity.
How then can DR.. Whewell have the assu-
rance to call slave a thing, under such a
system of government ? lie is recognized as
free agent, as responsible being and as the
creature of God on moral probation, and be-
cause his sphere Of moral agency or probation
is more circumscribed, or is less than that of
some other creatures OF God, therefore, forsooth
Dr. Whewell says he is a thing--that he is
not elevated above the state of the brute. The
man must have lost his senses-bereft Of his
discrimination. Out upon such blearedness .
The very same course Of procedure that God
has adopted with respect to the slave, he has
adopted with respect to women. They are,
like slaves, limited in their responsibility to
God to those acts that are free from the
authority Of the husband In other words,
they are commanded to obey their husbands,
regardless Of the moral propriety Of that
authority. Hence no matter how bad a man
may be--how utterly heather in his princ-
ples-how foreign from submission to the
authority of Christ, still, as long as life is en-
durable, the wife is obliged by Christ, to defer
to his authority-renouncing all others and to
cleave only unto him. In the marriage re-
lation the wills of the husband and the wife
necessarily contict-wl necessarily be at
issue-unavodable So not only now and then,
but continually, day by day and month by
month. Now in this state, wisdom requires
some rule Of right to prevent discord and to
fix responsibilities e. properly to divide it.
If this responsibility were not divided-in
other woIdS, if God held them both RESPONSE
bic for their acts according to their respective
views of moral propriety, then, there could
be no Difference upon the part of either to the
authority Of the other, and no concord in that
state If AS wife be responsible to God for
acts, Coward their children for example,) ac-
cording to her view of what would be the
proper management of Them then, she could
not defer to AS authority, if he happened to
think differently from her--if she happened to
think his management to be wrong. Here
would be a clash of moral responsibility which
no rule Of social life could settle But when
Christ made him responsible. in the first in
stance, He thereby limited the responsibility
of the wife, and hence she can morally yield
to his authority, although in her private judy
ment she may think his course of manage
ment to be wrong.
Hence she can throw the responsibility up
on him, which means she can diVeSt herself
of it, This means that Christ will not hold
| her responsible for those acts OF hers, wherein
she abandons what she thinks to be right, and
does, under his authority, what he thinks to
be right-in repugnancy to her thoughts. But
! the husband were permitted to abandon his
Judgment and follow hers, she would have the
| largest responsibility And thus having the
largest responsibility, he would be excused
by Christ for his abandonment of the right,
| which it were the mercst absurdity to hold
| Christ has therefore made it incumbent on the
wife to act within less sphere OF responsible
ity, than the one accorded to the husband.
Hence she is free from responsibility in those
acts which she performs in obedience to the
IlAlriLs al lssr ilr-lAtssiy Ems precise
ly the case in principle, if not in degree with
children and slaves. Hence slavery is moth
ing more than division of moral response
bility. The wife is therefore, like the slave,
only morally responsible toithin the sphere Of
her peculiar province-that is to say-not re-
Sponsibe for the authority of the husband
he holding that altogether, and-She hers in
subordinaton
When therefore a husband and wife come
to an issue, with respect to any course of ac-
ton involving moral obligations and they
differ in judgment, all the wife has to do in
order to escape from responsibility is patient
ly, quietly, and respectfully to submit to his
authority protestingin gentle language if need
were that her view of the case is the right
one, and then leaving the consequences to
God. The same philosophy serves for the
slave, only tortiori. The sphere of moral
action for the slave is more crcumScribed
or less than that of the wife. For the autho- |
rity of the latter overrides that of the former.
Men have-I had almost said-an instinc-
tire dread of the exercise of an authority, but |
their own, but the happiness and welfare OF
society are inseparably interviewer with in
equalties of civil and moral authority, c. i. |
with variety in civil and moral responsibilities.
The very same philosophy that demands the
obedience of the wife--which obedience i'm
plies and sanctions the authority of the hus-
band, (for right and obligation are reciprocaD
also demands the submission of the servant,
and hence, if the fact that the slave is bound
to submit his will to the will Of his master,
be proof, as DR.. Whewell says it is, that he is
a thing, and only on par with brutes the
same fact in the case of DR.. Whewells wife
would logically degrade her to the state of
thing and brute.
In other words, if it be true that my slave
is thing and a brute, by reason of the fact
that Christ requires from him submission to
my authority, then it follows since Christ re-
quireS from DR.. Whewell's wife submission
to his authority, that Christ has made his wife
a thing ana brute. The reasoning is fair
and The conclusion legitimate. The error is
in the premise Of DR.. Whewell. 1t is false to
say that slavery degrades the African--false
to Ged,-talse to the current of history-false
to common obSerEation--false to philosophy.
The state Of slavery is the normal state of the
African--a state in which he thrves intellec-
tually, physically and morally-the only
state in which he can be elevated in the scale
of being,-showing clearly that it is grounded
on the divine appreciation. 1t is utterly de-
rogatory to the character of Christ to say that
he directs me as acknowledgements out to
me my duties to my Slaves-ponts out my
right of conduct to them-legislates with re-
gard to their moral obligations to ME while in
that state, and at the same time, say that he
has done this with regard to state intrinsi-
cally immoral. Such charge has its root in
he rankest impiety. And yet Abolitionsts
pretending to revere the authority of Christ,
make it. Shame on such dupli.
,ity.
| said in former communication that sla- !
'ery was opposed to the original purposes of
Tod, with respect to the descendants of Adam !