Two Treatises of Civil Government

By John Locke
Thomas Hollis Edition. (London: A. Millar et. al.) 1764.

Chapter 11: Who HEIR?

Our author, to make good the title of his book, begins his history of the descent of Adam’s regal power in these words: This lordship which Adam by command had over the whole world, and by right descending from him, the patriarchs did enjoy, was a large, &c. How does he prove that the patriarchs by descent did enjoy it? for dominion of life and death, says he, we find Judah the father pronounced sentence of death against Thamar his daughter in law for playing the harlot. How does this prove that Judah had absolute and sovereign authority? he pronounced sentence of death. The pronouncing of sentence of death is not a certain mark of sovereignty, but usually the office of inferior magistrates. The power of making laws of life and death is indeed a mark of sovereignty, but pronouncing the sentence according to those laws may be done by others, and therefore this will but ill prove that he had sovereign authority: as if one should say, Judge Jefferies pronounced sentence of death in the late times, therefore Judge Jefferies had sovereign authority. But it will be said, Judah did it not by commission from another, and therefore did it in his own right. Who knows whether he had any right at all? Heat of passion might carry him to do that which he had no authority to do. Judah had dominion of life and death: how does that appear? He exercised it, he pronounced sentence of death against Thamar: our author thinks it is very good proof, that because he did it, therefore he had a right to do it: he lay with her also: by the same way of proof, he had a right to do that too. If the consequence be good from doing to a right of doing, Absalom too may be reckoned amongst our author’s sovereigns, for he pronounced such a sentence of death against his brother Amnon, and much upon a like occasion, and had it executed too, if that be sufficient to prove a dominion of life and death.

But allowing this all to be clear demonstration of sovereign power, who was it that had this lordship by right descending to him from Adam, as large and ample as the absolutest dominion of any monarch? Judah, says our author, Judah a younger son of Jacob, his father and elder brethren living; so that if our author’s own proof be to be taken, a younger brother may, in the life of his father and elder brothers, by right of descent, enjoy Adam’s monarchical power; and if one so qualified may be monarch by descent, why may not every man? if Judah, his father and elder brother living, were one of Adam’s heirs, I know not who can be excluded from this inheritance; all men by inheritance may be monarchs as well as Judah.

Touching war, we see that Abraham commanded an army of 318 soldiers of his own family, and Esau met his brother Jacob with 400 men at arms: for matter of peace, Abraham made a league with Abimelech, &c. Is it not possible for a man to have 318 men in his family, without being heir to Adam? A planter in the West Indies has more, and might, if he pleased, (who doubts?) muster them up and lead them out against the Indians, to seek reparation upon any injury received from them; and all this without the absolute dominion of a monarch, descending to him from Adam. Would it not be an admirable argument to prove, that all power by God’s institution descended from Adam by inheritance, and that the very person and power of this planter were the ordinance of God, because he had power in his family over servants, born in his house, and bought with his money? For this was just Abraham’s case; those who were rich in the patriarch’s days, as in the West Indies now, bought men and maid servants, and by their increase, as well as purchasing of new, came to have large and numerous families, which though they made use of in war or peace, can it be thought the power they had over them was an inheritance descended from Adam, when it was the purchase of their money? A man’s riding in an expedition against an enemy, his horse bought in a fair would be as good a proof that the owner enjoyed the lordship which Adam by command had over the whole world, by right descending to him, as Abraham’s leading out the servants of his family is, that the patriarchs enjoyed this lordship by descent from Adam: since the title to the power, the master had in both cases, whether over slaves or horses, was only from his purchase; and the getting a dominion over any thing by bargain and money, is a new way of proving one had it by descent and inheritance.

But making war and peace are marks of sovereignty. Let it be so in politic societies: may not therefore a man in the West Indies, who hath with him sons of his own, friends, or companions, soldiers under pay, or slaves bought with money, or perhaps a band made up of all these, make war and peace, if there should be occasion, and ratify the articles too with an oath, without being a sovereign, an absolute king over those who went with him? He that says he cannot, must then allow many masters of ships, many private planters, to be absolute monarchs, for as much as this they have done. War and peace cannot be made for politic societies, but by the supreme power of such societies; because war and peace, giving a different motion to the force of such a politic body, none can make war or peace, but that which has the direction of the force of the whole body, and that in politic societies is only the supreme power. In voluntary societies for the time, he that has such a power by consent, may make war and peace, and so may a single man for himself, the state of war not consisting in the number of partisans, but the enmity of the parties, where they have no superior to appeal to.

The actual making of war or peace is no proof of any other power, but only of disposing those to exercise or cease acts of enmity for whom he makes it; and this power in many cases any one may have without any politic supremacy: and therefore the making of war or peace will not prove that every one that does so is a politic ruler, much less a king; for then common-wealths must be kings too, for they do as certainly make war and peace as monarchical government.

But granting this a mark of sovereignty in Abraham, is it a proof of the descent to him of Adam’s sovereignty over the whole world? If it be, it will surely be as good a proof of the descent of Adam’s lordship to others too. And then common-wealths, as well as Abraham, will be heirs of Adam, for they make war and peace, as well as he. If you say, that the lordship of Adam doth not by right descend to common-wealths, though they make war and peace, the same say I of Abraham, and then there is an end of your argument: if you stand to your argument, and say those that do make war and peace, as common-wealths do without doubt, do inherit Adam’s lordship, there is an end of your monarchy, unless you will say, that commonwealths by descent enjoying Adam’s lordship are monarchies; and that indeed would be a new way of making all the governments in the world monarchical.

To give our author the honour of this new invention, for I confess it is not I have first found it out by tracing his principles, and so charged it on him, it is fit my readers know that (as absurd as it may seem) he teaches it himself….The governments of the world are as they should be, there is nothing but monarchy in it. This, without doubt, was the surest way our author could have found, to turn all other governments, but monarchical, out of the world.

But all this scarce proves Abraham to have been a king as heir to Adam. If by inheritance he had been king, Lot, who was of the same family, must needs have been his subject, by that title, before the servants in his family; but we see they lived as friends and equals, and when their herdsmen could not agree, there was no pretence of jurisdiction or superiority between them, but they parted by consent, hence he is called both by Abraham, and by the text, Abraham’s brother, the name of friendship and equality, and not of jurisdiction and authority, though he were really but his nephew….

In the next section, he tells us, This patriarchal power continued not only till the flood, but after it, as the name patriarch doth in part prove. The word patriarch doth more than in part prove, that patriarchal power continued in the world as long as there were patriarchs, for it is necessary that patriarchal power should be whilst there are patriarchs; as it is necessary there should be paternal or conjugal power whilst there are fathers or husbands; but this is but playing with names. That which he would fallaciously insinuate is the thing in question to be proved, viz. that the lordship which Adam had over the world, the supposed absolute universal dominion of Adam by right descending from him, the patriarchs did enjoy. If he affirms such an absolute monarchy continued to the flood, in the world, I would be glad to know what records he has it from; for I confess I cannot find a word of it in my Bible: if by patriarchal power he means any thing else, it is nothing to the matter in hand. And how the name patriarch in some part proves, that those, who are called by that name, had absolute monarchical power, I confess, I do not see, and therefore I think needs no answer till the argument from it be made out a little clearer.

The three sons of Noah had the world, says our author, divided amongst them by their father, for of them was the whole world overspread. The world might be overspread by the offspring of Noah’s sons, though he never divided the world amongst them; for the earth might be replenished without being divided: so that all our author’s argument here proves no such division. However, I allow it to him, and then ask, the world being divided amongst them, which of the three was Adam’s heir? If Adam’s lordship, Adam’s monarchy, by right descended only to the eldest, then the other two could be but his subjects, his slaves: if by right it descended to all three brothers, by the same right, it will descend to all mankind; and then it will be impossible what he says, that heirs are lords of their brethren, should be true; but all brothers, and consequently all men, will be equal and independent, all heirs to Adam’s monarchy, and consequently all monarchs too, one as much as another. But it will be said, Noah their father divided the world amongst them; so that our author will allow more to Noah, than he will to God almighty, for he thought it hard, that God himself should give the world to Noah and his sons, to the prejudice of Noah’s birth-right: his words are, Noah was left sole heir to the world: why should it be thought that God would disinherit him of his birth-right, and make him, of all men in the world, the only tenant in common with his children? and yet here he thinks it fit that Noah should disinherit Shem of his birth-right, and divide the world betwixt him and his brethren; so that this birth-right, when our author pleases, must, and when he pleases must not, be sacred and inviolable.

If Noah did divide the world between his sons, and his assignment of dominions to them were good, there is an end of divine institution; all our author’s discourse of Adam’s heir, with whatsoever he builds on it, is quite out of doors; the natural power of kings falls to the ground; and then the form of the power governing, and the person having that power, will not be (as he says they are) the ordinance of God, but they will be ordinances of man: for if the right of the heir be the ordinance of God, a divine right, no man, father or not father, can alter it: if it be not a divine right, it is only human, depending on the will of man: and so where human institution gives it not, the first-born has no right at all above his brethren; and men may put government into what hands, and under what form, they please.

He goes on, Most of the civilest nations of the earth labour to fetch their original from some of the sons, or nephews of Noah. How many do most of the civilest nations amount to? and who are they? I fear the Chineses, a very great and civil people, as well as several other people of the East, West, North and South, trouble not themselves much about this matter. All that believe the Bible, which I believe are our author’s most of the civilest nations, must necessarily derive themselves from Noah; but for the rest of the world, they think little of his sons or nephews. But if the heralds and antiquaries of all nations, for it is these men generally that labour to find out the originals of nations, or all the nations themselves, should labour to fetch their original from some of the sons or nephews of Noah, what would this be to prove, that the lordship which Adam had over the whole world, by right descended to the patriarchs? Whoever, nations, or races of men, labour to fetch their original from, may be concluded to be thought by them, men of renown, famous to posterity, for the greatness of their virtues and actions; but beyond these they look not, nor consider who they were heirs to, but look on them as such as raised themselves, by their own virtue, to a degree that would give a lustre to those who in future ages could pretend to derive themselves from them. But if it were Ogyges, Hercules, Brama, Tamberlain, Pharamond; nay, if Jupiter and Saturn were the names, from whence divers races of men, both ancient and modern, have laboured to derive their original; will that prove, that those men enjoyed the lordship of Adam, by right descending to them? If not, this is but a flourish of our author’s to mislead his reader, that in itself signifies nothing.

To as much purpose is what he tells us concerning this division of the world, That some say it was by Lot, and others that Noah sailed round the Mediterreanean in ten years, and divided the world into Asia, Afric and Europe, portions for his three sons. America then, it seems, was left to be his that could catch it. Why our author takes such pains to prove the division of the world by Noah to his sons, and will not leave out an imagination, though no better than a dream, that he can find any where to favour it, is hard to guess, since such a division, if it prove any thing, must necessarily take away the title of Adam’s heir; unless three brothers can all together be heirs of Adam; and therefore the following words, Howsoever the manner of this division be uncertain, yet it is most certain the division itself was by families from Noah and his children, over which the parents were heads and princes, if allowed him to be true, and of any source to prove, that all the power in the world is nothing but the lordship of Adam’s descending by right, they will only prove, that the fathers of the children are all heirs to this lordship of Adam: for if in those days Cham and Japhet, and other parents, besides the eldest son, were heads and princes over their families, and had a right to divide the earth by families, what hinders younger brothers, being fathers of families, from having the same right? If Cham and Japhet were princes by right descending to them, notwithstanding any title of heir in their eldest brother, younger brothers by the same right descending to them are princes now; and so all our author’s natural power of kings will reach no farther than their own children, and no kingdom, by this natural right, can be bigger than a family: for either this lordship of Adam over the whole world, by right descends only to the eldest son, and then there can be but one heir, as our author says,  or else, it by right descends to all the sons equally, and then every father of a family will have it, as well as the three sons of Noah: take which you will, it destroys the present governments and kingdoms, that are now in the world, since whoever has this natural power of a king, by right descending to him, must have it, either as our author tells us Cain had it, and be lord over his brethren, and so be alone king of the whole world; or else, as he tells us here, Shem, Cham and Japhet had it, three brothers, and so be only prince of his own family, and all families independent one of another: all the world must be only one empire by the right of the next heir, or else every family be a distinct government of itself, by the lordship of Adam’s descending to parents of families. And to this only tend all the proofs he here gives us of the descent of Adam’s lordship: for continuing his story of this descent, he says,

In the dispersion of Babel, we must certainly find the establishment of royal power, throughout the kingdoms of the world. If you must find it, pray do, and you will help us to a new piece of history: but you must shew it us before we shall be bound to believe, that regal power was established in the world upon your principles: for, that regal power was established in the kingdoms of the world, I think no body will dispute; but that there should be kingdoms in the world, whose several kings enjoyed their crowns, by right descending to them from Adam, that we think not only apocryphal, but also utterly impossible. If our author has no better foundation for his monarchy than a supposition of what was done at the dispersion of Babel, the monarchy he erects thereon, whose top is to reach to heaven to unite mankind, will serve only to divide and scatter them as that tower did; and, instead of establishing civil government and order in the world, will produce nothing but confusion.

For he tells us, the nations they were divided into, were distinct families, which had fathers for rulers over them; whereby it appears, that even in the confusion, God was careful to preserve the fatherly authority, by distributing the diversity of languages according to the diversity of families. It would have been a hard matter for any one but our author to have found out so plainly, in the text he here brings, that all the nations in that dispersion were governed by fathers, and that God was careful to preserve the fatherly authority. The words of the text are; These are the sons of Shem after their families, after their tongues in their lands, after their nations; and the same thing is said of Cham and Japhet, after an enumeration of their posterities; in all which there is not one word said of their governors, or forms of government; of fathers, or fatherly authority. But our author, who is very quick sighted to spy out fatherhood, where no body else could see any the least glimpses of it, tells us positively their rulers were fathers, and God was careful to preserve the fatherly authority; and why? Because those of the same family spoke the same language, and so of necessity in the division kept together. Just as if one should argue thus: Hanibal in his army, consisting of divers nations, kept those of the same language together; therefore fathers were captains of each band, and Hanibal was careful of the fatherly authority: or in peopling of Carolina, the English, French, Scotch and Welch that are there, plant themselves together, and by them the country is divided in their lands after their tongues, after their families, after their nations; therefore care was taken of the fatherly authority: or because, in many parts of America, every little tribe was a distinct people, with a different language, one should infer, that therefore God was careful to preserve the fatherly authority, or that therefore their rulers enjoyed Adam’s lordship by right descending to them, though we know not who were their governors, nor what their form of government, but only that they were divided into little independent societies, speaking different languages.

Two Treatises of Civil Government

By John Locke
Thomas Hollis Edition. (London: A. Millar et. al.) 1764.

Chapter 10: Of the Heir to Adam’s Monarchical Power.

…Either governments in the world are not to be claimed, and held by this title of Adam’s heir; and then the starting of it is to no purpose, the being or not being Adam’s heir signifies nothing as to the title of dominion: or if it really be, as our author says, the true title to government and sovereignty, the first thing to be done, is to find out this true heir of Adam, seat him in his throne, and then all the kings and princes of the world ought to come and resign up their crowns and scepters to him, as things that belong no more to them, than to any of their subjects.

…If kings, who are not heirs to Adam, have no right to sovereignty, we are all free, till our author, or any body for him, will shew us Adam’s right heir. If there be but one heir of Adam, there can be but one lawful king in the world, and no body in conscience can be obliged to obedience till it be resolved who that is; for it may be any one, who is not known to be of a younger house, and all others have equal titles. If there be more than one heir of Adam, every one is his heir, and so every one has regal power: for if two sons can be heirs together, then all the sons are equally heirs, and so all are heirs, being all sons, or sons sons of Adam. Betwixt these two the right of heir cannot stand; for by it either but one only man, or all men are kings. Take which you please, it dissolves the bonds of government and obedience; since, if all men are heirs, they can owe obedience to no body; if only one, no body can be obliged to pay obedience to him, till he be known, and his title made out.

Chapter 11: Who HEIR?

THE great question which in all ages has disturbed mankind, and brought on them the greatest part of those mischiefs which have ruined cities, depopulated countries, and disordered the peace of the world, has been, not whether there be power in the world, nor whence it came, but who should have it. The settling of this point being of no smaller moment than the security of princes, and the peace and welfare of their estates and kingdoms, a reformer of politics, one would think, should lay this sure, and be very clear in it: for if this remain disputable, all the rest will be to very little purpose; and the skill used in dressing up power with all the splendor and temptation absoluteness can add to it, without shewing who has a right to have it, will serve only to give a greater edge to man’s natural ambition, which of its self is but too keen. What can this do but set men on the more eagerly to scramble, and so lay a sure and lasting foundation of endless contention and disorder, instead of that peace and tranquillity, which is the business of government, and the end of human society?

This designation of the person our author is more than ordinary obliged to take care of, because he, affirming that the assignment of civil power is by divine institution, hath made the conveyance as well as the power itself sacred: so that no consideration, no act or art of man, can divert it from that person, to whom, by this divine right, it is assigned; no necessity or contrivance can substitute another person in his room: for if the assignment of civil power be by divine institution, and Adam’s heir be he to whom it is thus assigned, as in the foregoing chapter our author tells us, it would be as much sacrilege for any one to be king, who was not Adam’s heir, as it would have been amongst the Jews, for any one to have been priest, who had not been of Aaron’s posterity…

Let us see then what care our author has taken, to make us know who is this heir, who by divine institution has a right to be king over all men. The first account of him we meet with is in these words: This subjection of children, being the fountain of all regal authority, by the ordination of God himself; it follows, that civil power, not only in general, is by divine institution, but even the assignment of it, specifically to the eldest parents. Matters of such consequence as this is, should be in plain words, as little liable, as might be, to doubt or equivocation; and I think, if language be capable of expressing any thing distinctly and clearly, that of kindred, and the several degrees of nearness of blood, is one. It were therefore to be wished, that our author had used a little more intelligible expressions here, that we might have better known, who it is, to whom the assignment of civil power is made by divine institution; or at least would have told us what he meant by eldest parents: for I believe, if land had been assigned or granted to him, and the eldest parents of his family, he would have thought it had needed an interpreter; and it would scarce have been known to whom next it belonged.

In propriety of speech, (and certainly propriety of speech is necessary in a discourse of this nature) eldest parents signifies either the eldest men and women that have had children, or those who have longest had issue; and then our author’s assertion will be, that those fathers and mothers, who have been longest in the world, or longest fruitful, have by divine institution a right to civil power. If there be any absurdity in this, our author must answer for it: and if his meaning be different from my explication, he is to be blamed, that he would not speak it plainly. This I am sure, parents cannot signify heirs male, nor eldest parents an infant child: who yet may sometimes be the true heir, if there can be but one. And we are hereby still as much at a loss, who civil power belongs to, notwithstanding this assignment by divine institution, as if there had been no such assignment at all, or our author had said nothing of it….

This obscurity cannot be imputed to want of language in so great a master of style as Sir Robert is, when he is resolved with himself what he would say: and therefore, I fear, finding how hard it would be to settle rules of descent by divine institution, and how little it would be to his purpose, or conduce to the clearing and establishing the titles of princes, if such rules of descent were settled, he chose rather to content himself with doubtful and general terms, which might make no ill found in mens ears, who were willing to be pleased with them, rather than offer any clear rules of descent of this fatherhood of Adam, by which men’s consciences might be satisfied to whom it descended, and know the persons who had a right to regal power, and with it to their obedience.

How else is it possible, that laying so much stress, as he does, upon descent, and Adam’s heir, next heir, true heir, he should never tell us what heir means, nor the way to know who the next or true heir is? This, I do not remember, he does any where expresly handle; but, where it comes in his way, very warily and doubtfully touches; though it be so necessary, that without it all discourses of government and obedience upon his principles would be to no purpose, and fatherly power, never so well made out, will be of no use to any body. Hence he tells us, That not only the constitution of power in general, but the limitation of it to one kind, (i.e.) monarchy, and the determination of it to the individual person and line of Adam, are all three ordinances of God; neither Eve nor her children could either limit Adam’s power, or join others with him; and what was given unto Adam was given in his person to his posterity. Here again our author informs us, that the divine ordinance hath limited the descent of Adam’s monarchical power. To whom? To Adam’s line and posterity, says our author. A notable limitation, a limitation to all mankind: for if our author can find any one amongst mankind, that is not of the line and posterity of Adam, he may perhaps tell him, who this next heir of Adam is: but for us, I despair how this limitation of Adam’s empire to his line and posterity will help us to find out one heir. This limitation indeed of our author will save those the labour, who would look for him amongst the race of brutes, if any such there were; but will very little contribute to the discovery of one next heir amongst men, though it make a short and easy determination of the question about the descent of Adam’s regal power, by telling us, that the line and posterity of Adam is to have it, that is, in plain English, any one may have it, since there is no person living that hath not the title of being of the line and posterity of Adam; and while it keeps there, it keeps within our author’s limitation by God’s ordinance….That primogeniture cannot give any title to paternal power, we have already shewed. That a father may have a natural right to some kind of power over his children, is easily granted; but that an elder brother has so over his brethren, remains to be proved: God or nature has not any where, that I know, placed such jurisdiction in the first-born; nor can reason find any such natural superiority amongst brethren. The law of Moses gave a double portion of the goods and possessions to the eldest; but we find not any where that naturally, or by God’s institution, superiority or dominion belonged to him, and the instances there brought by our author are but slender proofs of a right to civil power and dominion in the first-born, and do rather shew the contrary.

His words are in the fore-cited place: And therefore we find God told Cain of his brother Abel; his desire shall be subject unto thee, and thou shalt rule over him. To which I answer,

1. These words of God to Cain, are by many interpreters, with great reason, understood in a quite different sense than what our author uses them in.

2. Whatever was meant by them, it could not be, that Cain, as elder, had a natural dominion over Abel; for the words are conditional, If thou dost well; and so personal to Cain: and whatever was signified by them, did depend on his carriage, and not follow his birth-right….

3. If this were intended by God as the charter of primogeniture, and the grant of dominion to elder brothers in general as such, by right of inheritance, we might expect it should have included all his brethren: for we may well suppose, Adam, from whom the world was to be peopled, had by this time, that these were grown up to be men, more sons than these two: whereas Abel himself is not so much as named; and the words in the original can scarce, with any good construction, be applied to him.

4. It is too much to build a doctrine of so mighty consequence upon so doubtful and obscure a place of scripture, which may be well, nay better, understood in a quite different sense, and so can be but an ill proof, being as doubtful as the thing to be proved by it; especially when there is nothing else in scripture or reason to be found, that favours or supports it….

And thus we have our author’s two great and only arguments to prove, that heirs are lords over their brethren.

1. Because God tells Cain, that however sin might set upon him, he ought or might be master of it: for the most learned interpreters understood the words of sin, and not of Abel, and give so strong reasons for it, that nothing can convincingly be inferred, from so doubtful a text, to our author’s purpose.

2. Because in this Isaac foretels that the Israelites, the posterity of Jacob, should have dominion over the Edomites, the posterity of Esau; therefore says our author, heirs are lords of their brethren: I leave any one to judge of the conclusion.

And now we see how our author has provided for the descending, and conveyance down of Adam’s monarchical power, or paternal dominion to posterity, by the inheritance of his heir, succeeding to all his father’s authority, and becoming upon his death as much lord as his father was, not only over his own children, but over his brethren, and all descended from his father, and so in infinitum. But yet who this heir is, he does not once tell us….But taking it to be his meaning, that the eldest son is heir, (for if the eldest be not, there will be no pretence why the sons should not be all heirs alike) and so by right of primogeniture has dominion over his brethren; this is but one step towards the settlement of succession, and the difficulties remain still as much as ever, till he can shew us who is meant by right heir, in all those cases which may happen where the present possessor hath no son. This he silently passes over, and perhaps wisely too: for what can be wiser, after one has affirmed, that the person having that power, as well as the power and form of government, is the ordinance of God, and by divine institution, than to be careful, not to start any question concerning the person, the resolution whereof will certainly lead him into a confession, that God and nature hath determined nothing about him? And if our author cannot shew who by right of nature, or a clear positive law of God, has the next right to inherit the dominion of this natural monarch he has been at such pains about, when he died without a son, he might have spared his pains in all the rest….it being to no purpose for me to know there is such a paternal power, which I ought, and am disposed to obey, unless, where there are many pretenders, I also know the person that is rightfully invested and endowed with it.

For the main matter in question being concerning the duty of my obedience, and the obligation of conscience I am under to pay it to him that is of right my lord and ruler, I must know the person that this right of paternal power resides in, and so impowers him to claim obedience from me: for let it be true what he says, That civil power not only in general is by divine institution, but even the assignment of it specially to the eldest parents; and That not only the power or right of government, but the form of the power of governing, and the person having that power, are all the ordinance of God; yet unless he shew us in all cases who is this person, ordained by God, who is this eldest parent; all his abstract notions of monarchical power will signify just nothing, when they are to be reduced to practice, and men are conscientiously to pay their obedience….

And hence not being able to make out any prince’s title to government, as heir to Adam, which therefore is of no use, and had been better let alone, he is fain to resolve all into present possession, and makes civil obedience as due to an usurper, as to a lawful king; and thereby the usurper’s title as good. His words are, and they deserve to be remembered: If an usurper dispossess the true heir, the subjects obedience to the fatherly power must go along, and wait upon God’s providence. But I shall leave his title of usurpers to be examined in its due place, and desire my sober reader to consider what thanks princes owe such politics as this, which can suppose paternal power (i. e.) a right to government in the hands of a Cade, or a Cromwell; and so all obedience being due to paternal power, the obedience of subjects will be due to them, by the same right, and upon as good grounds, as it is to lawful princes; and yet this, as dangerous a doctrine as it is, must necessarily follow from making all political power to be nothing else, but Adam’s paternal power by right and divine institution, descending from him without being able to shew to whom it descended, or who is heir to it.

To settle government in the world, and to lay obligations to obedience on any man’s conscience, it is as necessary (supposing with our author that all power be nothing but the being possessed of Adam’s fatherhood) to satisfy him, who has a right to this power, this fatherhood, when the possessor dies without sons to succeed immediately to it, as it was to tell him, that upon the death of the father, the eldest son had a right to it: for it is still to be remembered, that the great question is, (and that which our author would be thought to contend for, if he did not sometimes forget it) what persons have a right to be obeyed, and not whether there be a power in the world, which is to be called paternal, without knowing in whom it resides: for so it be a power, i. e. right to govern, it matters not, whether it be termed paternal or regal, natural or acquired; whether you call it supreme fatherhood, or supreme brotherhood, will be all one, provided we know who has it.

I go on then to ask, whether in the inheriting of this paternal power, this supreme fatherhood, the grandson by a daughter hath a right before a nephew by a brother? Whether the grandson by the eldest son, being an infant, before the younger son, a man and able? Whether the daughter before the uncle? or any other man, descended by a male line? Whether a grandson by a younger daughter, before a grand-daughter by an elder daughter? Whether the elder son by a concubine, before a younger son by a wife? From whence also will arise many questions of legitimation, and what in nature is the difference betwixt a wife and a concubine? for as to the municipal or positive laws of men, they can signify nothing here. It may farther be asked, Whether the eldest son, being a fool, shall inherit this paternal power, before the younger, a wise man? and what degree of folly it must be that shall exclude him? and who shall be judge of it? Whether the son of a fool, excluded for his folly, before the son of his wise brother who reigned? Who has the paternal power whilst the widow-queen is with child by the deceased king, and no body knows whether it will be a son or a daughter? Which shall be heir of the two male-twins, who by the dissection of the mother were laid open to the world? Whether a sister by the half blood, before a brother’s daughter by the whole blood?

These, and many more such doubts, might be proposed about the titles of succession, and the right of inheritance; and that not as idle speculations, but such as in history we shall find have concerned the inheritance of crowns and kingdoms; and if our’s want them, we need not go farther for famous examples of it, than the other kingdom in this very island, which having been fully related by the ingenious and learned author of Patriarcha non Monarcha, I need say no more of. Till our author hath resolved all the doubts that may arise about the next heir, and shewed that they are plainly determined by the law of nature, or the revealed law of God, all his suppositions of a monarchical, absolute, supreme, paternal power in Adam, and the descent of that power to his heirs, would not be of the least use to establish the authority, or make out the title, of any one prince now on earth; but would rather unsettle and bring all into question: for let our author tell us as long as he pleases, and let all men believe it too, that Adam had a paternal, and thereby a monarchical power; that this (the only power in the world) descended to his heirs; and that there is no other power in the world but this: let this be all as clear demonstration, as it is manifest error, yet if it be not past doubt, to whom this paternal power descends, and whose now it is, no body can be under any obligation of obedience, unless any one will say, that I am bound to pay obedience to paternal power in a man who has no more paternal power than I myself; which is all one as to say, I obey a man, because he has a right to govern; and if I be asked, how I know he has a right to govern, I should answer, it cannot be known, that he has any at all: for that cannot be the reason of my obedience, which I know not to be so; much less can that be a reason of my obedience, which no body at all can know to be so.

And therefore all this ado about Adam’s fatherhood, the greatness of its power, and the necessity of its supposal, helps nothing to establish the power of those that govern, or to determine the obedience of subjects who are to obey, if they cannot tell whom they are to obey, or it cannot be known who are to govern, and who to obey. In the state the world is now, it is irrecoverably ignorant, who is Adam’s heir….

It is true, the civil lawyers have pretended to determine some of these cases concerning the succession of princes; but by our author’s principles, they have meddled in a matter that belongs not to them: for if all political power be derived only from Adam, and be to descend only to his successive heirs, by the ordinance of God and divine institution, this is a right antecedent and paramount to all government; and therefore the positive laws of men cannot determine that, which is itself the foundation of all law and government, and is to receive its rule only from the law of God and nature. And that being silent in the case, I am apt to think there is no such right to be conveyed this way: I am sure it would be to no purpose if there were, and men would be more at a loss concerning government, and obedience to governors, than if there were no such right; since by positive laws and compact, which divine institution (if there be any) shuts out, all these endless inextricable doubts can be safely provided against: but it can never be understood, how a divine natural right, and that of such moment as is all order and peace in the world, should be conveyed down to posterity, without any plain natural or divine rule concerning it. And there would be an end of all civil government, if the assignment of civil power were by divine institution to the heir, and yet by that divine institution the person of the heir could not be known. This paternal regal power being by divine right only his, it leaves no room for human prudence, or consent, to place it any where else; for if only one man hath a divine right to the obedience of mankind, no body can claim that obedience, but he that can shew that right; nor can men’s consciences by any other pretence be obliged to it. And thus this doctrine cuts up all government by the roots….

Liberty Chimes

Ed. Frances Whipple

Providence: Providence Ladies Anti-Slavery Society. 1845.

The Contrast

By James Russell Lowell

I.

Thy love thou sentest oft to me,
And still, as oft, I thrust back;
Thy messengers I could not see
In those who every thing did lack,
The poor, the outcast, and the black.

II.

Pride held his hand before mine eyes,
The world with flattery stuffed mine ears;
I looked to see a monarch’s guise,
Nor dreamed thy love would knock for years,
Poor, naked, fettered, full of tears.

III.

Yet, when I sent my love to thee,
Thou with a smile didst take it in,
And entertain’dst it royally,
Though grinned with earth, with hunger thin,
And leprous with the taint of sin.

IV.

Now, every day thy love I meet,
As o’er the earth it wanders wide,
With weary step and bleeding feet,
Still knocking at the heart of pride
And offering grace, though still denied.

ELMWOOD, MASS

Self-Reliance

By H. Clapp, JR

Antislavery has no lesson which it teaches so plainly as the great lesson of self-reliance. I do not, of course, mean by self-reliance, that intense egotism which discovers no wisdom beyond the narrow walls of its own mind, and which is therefore as superficial as it is supercilious, and as intolerable as it is intolerant;-but rather, and simply, that unfaltering reliance on one’s highest convictions and purest instincts, which is supremely indifferent to the ever-shifting current of popular feeling, while at the same time it sees beneath the earthy incrustations of every soul some spark of the absolute truth.

“Unstable as water” must that mind be which takes for its pole-star either public opinion, or the opinion of any sect, clique or individual. It may seem, at first glance, like a becoming humility, to distrust the uncertain light which flickers in one’s own soul, and be guided by what seems the fixed ray of some brighter luminary;-but, depend upon it, such a course pursued continually and implicitly, though it may commence in a healthful diffidence of one’s own powers, will soon degenerate into the most debasing servility. By all means call to your aid , in every important matter, all the counsel and advice which you can command; but, as you value your uprightness of soul, and desire to walk in the path of infinite progress, do not receive one jot or title of it as authority. However hallowed by time, or endeared by association, or defied by superstition, listen to no one as an authority, and be subject to no rule but the clear utterance of your own reason, and the still small voice of your own soul.

It is the utter want of this self-reliance which keeps many beautiful spirits aloof from the antislavery movement. They cannot but perceive, and to some extent appreciate its claims upon their attention; but their moral systems have become so completely unnerved and confused by long, sad years of devotion to sect and authority, that they have no confidence in their own judgement, and are frightened by their own footfall and shadow. Seeing that the Genius of Reform is superior to those Creeds and Teachers which they have been accustomed to receive and reverence as the exponents and expositors of God’s Truth, they feel that every touch of her mighty wand is moral desolation and death. And in their present servile and abject state well they may; for the very sight of her makes the walls of their sanctuary tremble , and shrinks their high priests, who but now bore the seeming of brave and portly men, into pitiful cowards and hideous dwarfs.

Nothing in the history of the world is more striking, or more instructive of good, than the withering effect which this same Genius of Reform has upon the popular religion, and its servile adherents. Her approach is more terrible to them than “an army with banners.” To their disordered eyes her white robes are spotted with blood, and her peaceful wand is a flaming sword. They flee from her as from pestilence, ad at the mention of her name the traitorous blood deserts their cheeks, and with livid face, and lurid eyes the poor things appeal piteously to the rude populace to save their priesthood from death, and the ark of their God from desolation.

So strong is the hold which the popular religion-cowardly and ignoble as we have seen it to be- has upon the thoughtless multitude, they dare not take a step without consent of its authorities, who have the good sense to perceive that any new step-unless it be a step backward- will prove fatal to its existence. And so the people hold back, despite their inmost convictions, from every onward movement , and throw all the obstacles in its way which, with their remaining courage, they dare to.

Now it seems to me that it only needs for the great mass of the community to do their own thinking in order to remedy this state of things, and secure an immense accession to the reform ranks.

And it is equally necessary to continue in this excellent habit (of doing one’s own thinking instead of having it, like so much sewing “done out”) after you have entered those ranks. To this end—if the reader will pardon a little dogmatic advice—sign no creeds; bind yourselves to no Kings or Presidents; submit your judgement to no committees; engage in no political tactics; and submit to no parliamentary, congressional, or (for they are all of a piece) constabular discipline. Touch any of these things and you will be defiled. Engage in any of them, and you will find (if you are a fugitive from church or state) that you have only changed one priesthood for another,-and that while you have been congratulating yourself on a happy escape from the meshes of sect and clique, you are more hopelessly entangled in its cunning web than ever. The only hope of your soul-here or “hereafter”-is the preservation of your individuality,-in other words the maintenance of your own soul as a separate, distinct, entire existence, subject to no authority and amenable to no discipline,-save the authority and discipline of the divine law as written out and declared by “’the oracle within.:”

LYNN, MASS

A Thought Upon Emancipation

“Hereditary bondsmen! know ye not,
Who would be free themselves, must strike the blow?”

The abolitionists during the last twelve years have, by incessant and untiring zeal and labor, accomplished wonders. They have spoken loud and long in behalf of human rights, and the whole nation has heard their terrible denunciations against slavery, and their earnest and thrilling appeals for freedom. They have removed the drapery, which while it allowed the “happy” and “contented” features of slavery to be seen, hid the awful enormity of the slave system from public view. And now, that system reeking with blood of its millions of victims, whose bodies have been tortured and whose minds have been ruined-stands exposed to gaze of the world, in the full broad light of day.

But much yet remains to be done, and much that can only be accomplished by the efforts of the race in whose behalf the abolitionists are labouring.

“Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow.” The efforts of the abolitionists may possibly remove the outward forms of bondage. The lash may no longer be raised-the human auction block may no longer be sold like cattle.-But after all-the real freedom of the negro race can never be attained except by the unceasing efforts of its members. They can never rise in the scale of civilization-never become artizans-scholars-useful and practical men by any-save their own individual endeavors. The abolitionists can be of but little help to them in the struggle for the highest emancipation. They can at most but open the door and it is at the option of the colored man to cross its threshold.

Even, now, the slave himself need no longer be a slave. Has he the heroism to prefer death to slavery and the system is at an end.

Let the terrible determination go forth through all Slavedom, that the slave, will not work- will not eat- will not rise up or lie down at the bidding of an owner and will be free or die, and it is done. Tomorrow’s sun beholds a nation of freemen indeed.

What can the south do against three millions of determinations to die, rather than move another finger as a slave? Would the lash-would the bayonet avail? Powerless all. Terrible-terrible indeed would be that negation of Slavery, uttered by three millions of victims.

Already do we see indications of this spirit in the attempts of large numbers of “property” to walk quietly away from their assumed ownership. And soon may we hope, that the slaves throughout the land will assert their claims to humanity with the omnipotent might of non-resistance and on the very spot of their oppression.

PROVIDENCE, R.I

Liberty Chimes

Ed. Frances Whipple

Providence: Providence Ladies Anti-Slavery Society. 1845.

The Bond-Woman Prayer

By Eliza Store

Sobs went up on the still night air,
The cracking flames shot high,
And darkly circled their smoky breath
Against the summer sky,-

Wild shrieks of torture, fierce and keen,-
A woman’s frantic cry,
Of quivering flesh, and scorching limb,
And mad’ning pangs to die.

A groan of mortal agony,-
A voice of mighty prayer,-
The anguish of a soul, pressed close,
The thick and stifling air.

“God of Egypt’s bondmen,
Avenger of their wrong,
For thy suffering children,
Thine arm, O God, strong!”

But shrieks, and groans, and prayers grew faint-
The glaring flames roar’d on
Till brightly o’er the mouldering pile,
Arose the morning sun.

The burthen of that Spirit’s curse-
And has it pined away,
The curse, that human agony
Wrung from those lips of clay?

An heritage of blood and tears,
Of all untasted woe,
Into our country’s brimming cup,
Must from her bondmen flow.

A blasting, scorching breath goes up,
From all her suffering ones,
The shadow of a coming wrath,
Fast settles round her sons.

BOSTON, MASS

Is Christianity, The Religion of Peace, Adapted to the World?

By S.E Coues

Is it safe to forgive enemies, to love them, to return them good for evil? Can the meek inherit the earth? Is Christianity, the religion of peace, adapted to the world? An answer is given to these questions by the bayonet and the sword, by the pomp of military array; the answer is heard in the beat of the drum, in the roar of the cannon; it is spoken by the statesman in his vaunt of national strength, by the soldier in his aspiration for fame, by every one who maintains the necessity for the appeal to arms. This answer is No! emphatically No! We cannot love our enemies; we cannot do good to those who injure us; we cannot return good for evil. The meek cannot inherit the earth. Christianity is not adapted to the world.

The reasoning of men gives the same answer. The spirit of Jesus Christ, who, when smitten, submitted, when reviled, reviled not again, who was led as a lamb to the slaughter—this spirit of meekness and self-sacrifice is not proper for man! We have duties to discharge to others as well as ourselves which demand the opposite traits of character. If we did not resist evil, it would be an encouragement to evil doers; if we submitted to fraud, injustice, or rebellion, the result would be that confusion and bloodshed would every where prevail. If a nation were to bear one insult with Christian humility, it would open the way for further manifestation of contempt; if an aggression were humbly submitted to, it would be repeated; if one inch of territory were given up, the whole would be claimed. Life, property, and welfare depend upon the sword, for there are many nations living in peace and security, without Christianity, but who ever heard of a civilized people, which did not recognize the appeal to arms for defence? It is the garrison, not the pulpit—the soldier, not the priest—boldness not humility—the power to injure others, not the disposition to endure wrong, which minister to the happiness of the world. We depend on the trumpet-tone of war, not on the whispered words of kindness. We are preserved by the law of force, not by the law of love. We put our trust in the strength of the right arm, not in the promises of God. A religion of peace is not adapted to the world.

There is no common ground, no meeting point, no comingling together of the spirit of Christ and the spirit of the solider; we cannot bring them together in the same heart. A man can at best but choose between them; he can only decide when he will be humble, when self-confident—when he will submit, when rebel—when he will be mild and forbearing, when harsh and revengeful—when he will be peaceable, when warlike. It is impossible to combine these conflicting traits of character, these opposite purposes; what! A valiant soldier, smitten upon one cheek, turning the other to the foe—a meek Christian read to meet injury with injury, blood with blood!

We know that it has been by some pretended that the law of love is not intended to go into full operation until some lapse of time; that the binding effect of the gospel is put off to some future day, to some indefinite period, when the whole world shall become converted and Christianized; then there will be no necessity for the fight, no need of recourse to the sword. We can all be meek then, and safely too.  But surely, a religion, which commands love to enemies, is not adapted to a world, where there are no enemies to be loved. What becomes of our present duties as followers of the Prince of Peace, here, in the present state now, at this very time, when there are enemies to be loved and wrongs to be borne? It has been said too, that the great and paramount office of Christianity is to save men’s souls; that it is a personal affair between God and the individual conscience, that it takes no special cognizance of the political or social relations, having in all its laws reference to the eternal interests, the peculiar inner good of every man, the salvation of the soul. Be it so. It is not he, who sayeth, Lord! Master! but he, who doeth his will, who imbibes his spirit—it is he, who is saved. Now, the will of our Savior is, that we be good to our enemies; the spirit of our Master is, to yield up even life itself for their safety.

This life is not however a preparation for heaven only. God’s will is, that there should be law, order, peace, security, even here. This world was not created as a mere three-score-and-ten of anarchy and confusion, as a dreary prison house to hold the captives until ready for trial. This is God’s truth! He attests to it himself in the magnificence and open-handed profusion of his gifts to men. His creative energy has been exerted—as may well appear to us—to its utmost range. Look upon this glorious theatre of present life, our beautiful world, rolling continually through almost illimitable space, that the sun afar off may warm and cheer every part of its surface, that the rays of each star of heavenly host may be drunk in by every eye, making even “darkness transparent” and beautiful. It is delight to breathe in such a world, to eat of its fruit, to drink at its chyrstal springs, to have the cheek bathed in its balmy winds, the senses soothed by its colors and shapes, its fragrance and melody; its varied surface and its changes. Its order, its permanence, all these, all, pertaining to the time vesture of God, prove that the world is not a mere appendage of little value in itself, but that it is a part of eternity, and that the welfare of man here in this life is the aim and object of the Almighty God.

He, then, who is commissioned to declare the will of our Father in Heaven, and to ordain laws upon the earth, will make known those truths, and establish that government which sympathizes with nature, and which will minister to the happiness of man and the welfare of society. A revelation from Heaven will contain an element of social order, will guard our lives, our rights, our happiness upon the earth.

The world has not found this element of social order in meek Christianity. It dares not to carry out into the social relations, the mild, merciful and self-sacrificing spirit. It has pronounced its judgement that the religion of peace, which would strike from its hand the sword, is not adapted to the order, security and happiness of man. What then is to be done? Surely if the thorough and complete obedience to the letter and spirit of Christ’s teachings, “when smitten upon one cheek, turn ye the other also,” would give full scope to evil—overthrow all authority—expose the christian  to every species of crime—deluging the earth with blood, so that neither the wives of our bosoms, nor the children of our hearts, neither the young in their innocency, nor the old in their feebleness, could be safe, should we not abjure it at once, boldly and fearlessly, and not continue to profess it with the lips, when almost every act is a denial of its authority?

This startling question to ask in this land, where outward respect at least is claimed for the religion of peace. It is however but a distinct utterance of a very prevalent doubt; it is but the putting into words the skepticism of many hearts; it is but giving a tongue to men’s actions, language, to the conduct of the world! Why shrink you when we demand that you be honest men, and with straight forward integrity of soul either abandon the sword or that religion which saith, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth?”

We for ourselves entertain no doubts upon this subject; we are prepared to come at once to the standard of Christianity; to give up the sword, and let the oppressed go free!

If this gospel made a slight change only in social relations, if it only modified existing customs, we should have great reason to doubt of its being from God. It is the characteristic of human legislation to form halfway expedients; to tolerate also imperfection; to rest satisfied with evil, if there be good mingled with it; to sanction injury to some, if others are delivered from violence. Directly opposite is the principle which comes of God. This changes at once and altogether the relations of men. It assumes a higher purpose. It acts by opposite means. If,-we repeat the idea, if the gospel were intended only to check or diminish the evil, if it cast but some sweet upon the gall of bitterness, if it but restrained the use of the sword, if it had a measure for the proper degree of violence, if it permitted hatred to burn in the human heart for any purpose whatever, if it consented that love should be quenched by any evil that can be inflicted, it might be the invention of some wise man, not the revelation from God. But the gospel utters a law, firm, fixed, unyielding; a law which can ever be made to minister selfishness; a law which admits of no exception or excuse. It forbids us to do any evil to others for our good. It puts the axe at the root of the tree. It takes at once from all wars and fightings the sanction of God. Nothing short of this full, clear, explicit law could come from the Prince of Peace, nothing short of this can extend his reign over the earth.

PORTSMOUTH, N.H.

The Pledge and Prospect of Peace

By Elihu Burritt

There is a fellowship in a common suffering and a common joy, which makes brothers of millions, irrespective of name or nation. And there are millions in this country and the British empire who have just recognized this common bond of peace, and shaken hands in perpetual amity. Without asking leave of their governments, they have signed the same pledge of peace—the pledge of total abstinence. With hearts throbbing with the common sympathies of their nature, they have put their hands to an instrument that makes them brethren. By a united struggle, they have broken the thraldom of one common and dreadful enemy; and will they think of mutual slaughter, while mingling in a common jubilee over their independence?

And there are other millions, on both sides of the Atlantic, who have recently signed a more extensive and solemn treaty of peace. They have formed a vast “Home League” with all the attributes of God, nature and humanity, to restore the millions of human beings who have been expatriated from the great brotherhood of mankind. The light of the Gospel has revealed on Archimedian points of rest; and they have got a lever under the slave; a lever whose longer arm reaches into Heaven, and is now descending beneath the weight of God’s eternal throne and all his angels of light. O, they will raise him! they will raise him! without the aid or consent of human legislation. And think you those swelling millions will leap from that descending lever to fight a national duel, and soil their souls with the blood of fratricide?

Ye men of war, there is treason in your camp; There are a hundred thousand “Hartford Conventions” holding their simultaneous sessions, once a week, all over Christendom, on purpose to frustrate your belligerent projects. A secret coalition of people of all languages and tongues, is now on foot to transfer your empire to a foreign power which you have refused to acknowledge. Multitudes of your countrymen are first and foremost in this deep-laid plot. A new but long predicted Kingdom is about to be established, which shall embrace, the whole continent of humanity. Its great Founder, the Prince of Peace, has already been crowned King of Kings, His coronation was celebrated in the courts of heaven long before the creation of man. The promise that he should reign King of nations as he does King of saints, is as old as eternity, strong as the pillars of his Father’s throne. His government is organized; his officers are appointed; and thousands in America have taken rank in his Legion of Honour, and bear about in their bosoms the Bethlehem Star of their heavenly knighthood. The code of his immutable laws has been published. He himself read the last proof sheet and sealed it with his blood, when he cried on Calvary, “it is finished! It is finished!!” With his dying breath he made it the test of allegiance to carry his statute book to the uttermost corners of the earth and read it in the ears of every human being. Thousands and thousands of the most patriotic sons of America and the most loyal subjects of Britain have taken the oath of that covenant and received that heavenly commission. Six times a year, in solemn convocation, they renew the sublime terms of their fealty, and swear upon the altar of their God and King, that, whether the experiment of American Republic succeed or fail, they and their children and their children’s children, will adhere to the letter of their covenant with the Prince of Peace. The Christians of the Anglo-Saxon race have been singled out as kings and priests unto God, as co-workers with him in the redemption of mankind. And think you they will prove recreant to their heavenly calling? Will they exchange the badge of Jesus for the tri-colored cockade of some bloody faction? Will they throw away their august commission for one in your armies and navies? No! they signed a commercial treaty with eternity; a treaty of eternal peace.

And let me say in conclusion, that in the recent treaty with Great Britain, the two great Anglo-Saxon nations have at last recognized these mighty and multifarious bonds of peace. Look on Bunker Hill! There stands the GRAVE STONE of WAR! Through all the remaining ages of the race, a consecrated halo of heaven ‘s purest light will encircle its august and lofty brow. Sweeter than strains of fabulous melody, the perennial music of peace will breathe from its every granite pore, awakening responding symphonies in the hearts of a thousand generations. The myriads that recently gathered around that hill, felt all their heart fibres thrilling within them, when that great man concentrated all power of his enchaining eloquence upon the prediction, that in a future age, he who leaned against that monument would thank hid God that he, also, was an American. Methinks that future ages will disclose a higher destiny for that towering column; that it will suggest a loftier theme of exultation! Let me tell the great Webster, and his English coadjutor in this conquest of peace, that it will be part of their eternal reward, to have hastened the age when the term “American” shall convey no prerogative of freedom not enjoyed by every being that wears God’s image upon earth; when not only the American, but the African, when he comes to stand within the peaceful penumbra of that obelisk, shall say, with tears of grateful exultation: “I thank my God that I also, am a MAN—A MAN!”

ELMWOOD, MASS

Liberty Chimes

Ed. Frances Whipple

Providence: Providence Ladies Anti-Slavery Society. 1845.

The Nation’s Destiny

By A.H Price

Her doom is sealed, and on the lurid air
Come shrieks of wo, of terror and despair;
Columbia proudly fill’d her cup of crime,
And dar’d destruction on her guilty clime
She said “I am not rich, and strong, and young?
Are not fair words of Freedom on my tongue?
I’ve twin’d my temples with a wreath of fame
And other nations envy my name.”
Proud land! The wealth, oppression made to grow
Is but the price you’ll pay for floods of wo!
The strength you boast, and trusted in to save,
Has dug beneath your feet a fearful grace.
Your fame alas! A mocking now is made,
Your temples built by labor, all unpaid,
And fill’d by wrongs, shall crumble to the ground,
And not a vestige of their pride be found;
You sow’d the wind, the whirlwind you shall reap-
The harvest-feast in sorrow you shall keep.
Mourn for Columbia now! The arm of God
For the crushed poor takes the avenging rod;
The nation trembles as it bears the word,
While gathered vials of His wrath are pour’d
Mercy has moved her starry wing away,
And grieved-no longer seeks his wrath to stay:
Mourn for Columbia now-restraining grace
Is all withheld—and utter darkness shrouds,
While o’er the sky rise fast portentous clouds;
From east to west, from north to south; no ray
To gild the darkness of that dreadful day.
Dire scenes of old, when nations drunk with blood,
Crumbled to dust, at high Jehovah’s nod,
Shall now transpire in thee; when thou shalt feel
Worse tortures than thy despot’s branding steel;
The heaven above be brass, and plagues shall rise
From thy soil, rife with human victims’ cries.-
And, left alone, thy suicidal race
Will slay each other in a fell embrace

Perchance, when ages more shall roll around,
When the mock temple crumbles to the ground,
A glorious dome shall rise—a home of love,
That shall a refuge to the earth-worn prove;
The hist’ry of the past—perchance may save
The new born nation from that dreadful grave;
Then let them build on Righteousness alone,
And peace unending shall be all their own.

HOPEDALE, MASS

What Can A Woman Do?

By Richard Hildreth

The female heart is soft; the affections of woman are warm; her sensibilities are easily excited. Her first impulse is, to give her aid to every effort for the benefit of suffering humanity. Yet what can a woman do?—This question presents itself at the outset, and smothers the desires of many a benevolent heart. What can a woman do?

There is inherent in each individual man and woman, a certain portion of moral power. It is this which makes them human; for of mere physical power, many animals possess more. It is this moral power, which has gradually softened and humanized the more favored portions of the race; it is by means of this moral power, that revolutions and all advancements have been made. Women share it equally with men. In all changes of opinion, in all great struggles attendant upon such changes, they have always borne a conspicuous part. The Grand Rebellion in Great Britain, which transferred the government of that country into the hands of property holders, and gave England such freedom as she has owed much, at its starting point, to those women who overwhelmed the long parliament with petitions, and who commenced the rebellion in Scotland, by an energetic and even tumultuous resistance to the introduction of the liturgy.

The French revolution, which in its results, has wrought such changes throughout Europe and the world, was cradled and nursed in the saloons of Paris, where female influence had reached a higher point than anywhere else before.

It is true, that taking the past history of the world together, the influence of woman appears, on the whole to have been small. This however is more apparent than real. We have the history of battles, and sieges, and political intrigues, and revolutions of governments; but the true history of the human race, the history of progress of opinion, of the development of intellectual and moral power, remains to be written. Christendom for twelve centuries, had its opinions controlled by the Catholic church; and the Catholic church knows well the power of female influence. The several orders of female devotees, were and are, a great pillar of its power; and female saints abound in its calender. It has been the same with the Protestant churches. It is not notorious that at this moment, every Protestant sect in America, is mainly upheld, its churches built, its ministers paid, its associations and charities sustained, by the efforts and influence of women? In every church the female members far out-number the men; and the men who are there, seven times out of ten, are carried there and kept there, by the women. In all this, it is true, the women have played and play, but a secondary part; they are led on, marshalled, ruled and used by male leaders. They are treated as the British treat the Hindoos who compose the bulk of their Indian armies. They are welcome to serve as common soldiers, but are not permitted to rise above the rank of corporal; or sergeant at the best. And the reason is the same in both cases. The intellect of the men has been far more developed than that of the women. It has been held, a sin and a crime for a woman to dare to think for herself. Even here in New England, a woman who adopts that course, is looked upon with suspicion and distrust, as an ambiguous character. Yet the thing becomes more and more common; and is fast losing its strangeness. Having admitted women to equality in education; having opened to them the doors of the school-room and the lecture-room; having allowed them to read not sermons and books of devotion only, but novels, and histories, and newspapers, and everything else, it is impossible to keep them from thinking; and women who think, will presently feel and act, not as their mothers and grandmothers did, but in accordance with those new ideas to which they have attained.

But how can they act? They cannot vote; the cannot preach,—at least not many of them;—they cannot legislate;—what can they do? More than voter, preacher or legislator. Each and all of those, is but the instrument to promulgate, or carry into effect, some pre-established opinion. No man can preach except as the expounder and defender of opinions already espoused by his hearers, or a part of them. If he preaches his own opinions in contradiction to theirs, he must be content to lack salary and a pulpit, and seek audience as Paul did, in the market-place, or corners of the streets, at the risk not only of brick bats and rotten eggs, but of the police and the house correction. How many men are equal to that? No an can legislate except in conformity to the opinions of those who make him a legislator; and the voter does only signify by his vote, his adherence to a certain principle or opinion which he thereby proclaims and vindicates. Behind all these is the opinion preached, voted for, made into law,—and whence comes that? It is first conceived in the depths of some few contemplative souls; thence, as circumstances oppose or favor, it is more or less gradually communicated to others; and this little leaven, worked in and diffused imperceptibly almost, through the mass, presently leavens the whole lump. The mass ferments, rises and becomes something which it was not before. All kneading, rolling, baking and fussing in the world will not make bread, without the leaven to begin with.

For instilling into the public mind, and diffusing through society those new opinions, in which all social changes must have their origin, women possess peculiar advantages. They have an access to the hearts of men, which no man has. They have an access to the hearts of children, peculiar to themselves, those children who are soon to become men and women, and to influence, for good or evil, the destinies of the race.

There is no woman whose soul is possessed by any great idea, and who longs for its diffusion, who may not become, if she has patience and perseverance, a very apostle among the children of some little village school which she teaches, or who may be otherwise within the circle of her influence, may perhaps be, sporting and prattling, the political and social leaders of the next generation. Who knows? Let her scatter the seed then hopefully. Some no doubt will fall upon ‘stony places, and some among thorns,’ and much the fowls of the air will devour. But some too, will fall upon good ground and will produce fruit twenty, and fifty, and an hundred fold.

BOSTON, MASS

The Reception of Slave Holders At The North

By Geo. W Stacy

To discharge the duty of faithful rebuke to those who are violating the plain commands of the Most High God, requires an amount of moral courage which few possess. Naturally we are inclined to covet the good will of our fellow pilgrims. A smile accompanies with the voice of friendship, is more acceptable and comforting than a frown, indicating feelings of bitterness. Especially is the duty of rebuke, uttered to the wrong-doer, a great trial to our Christian integrity, when by ties of kindred and long familiar acquaintance we are influenced to forbear. The peerless example of Jesus, and the truthfulness of the Apostles and early Christians, present a profitable theme upon which to expatiate. But sad is our deficiency of imitation in respect to a consistent practice.

I apprehend one of the strong holds of the dark and terrible system of American slavery is to be found in the reception of slave-holders at the North. The southerner finds it pleasant and profitable often, for a season, to turn his back upon the land of “whips and chains,” and mingle with relatives, friends and acquaintances at the north. Inflated with the pride of a tyrant,—wrapped up in a garment of self-esteem, he deigns to pass himself off as an honest and moral man in community where he chances to make a temporary sojourn. He throws himself back upon his dignity and chivalry, and walks erect as though no foul stain rested upon his garments. Say you, he is an ignorant sinner? It may in a measure be so. I have no time to discuss this point.

But how is the slave-holder received by those who profess to look upon Man-stealing as a sin? Does he hear the voice of remonstrance and warning? Is he told of his atrocious crimes of murder, theft and adultery? Does he understand from his intercourse with us, that we view him as a vile and notorious sinner? Does he feel like eluding our presence, and calling upon darkness to hide him from the light of truth and relieve his soul from the pain which consequently follows words of “truth and soberness?” Does he return to his foul work of hate and tyranny goaded and tormented out of season by what his eyes have seen, and his ears heard in the society of northerners? Does the rattle of the chain terrify his ears? Does the streaming blood which follows the scorpion lash harrow his conscience? Does the piercing shriek of sundered hearts around the auction block, cause his knees to smite in anguish? Does the mighty flood of licentiousness, which meets his eye at every turn, pain and sicken his soul? Alas, we must answer, no.

With the comfortable assurance, “I am not a sinner above others,” the slave-holder returns from his pleasant visit to the north. His hands are strengthened in the dark work of oppression. He has procured an anodyne to his conscience, and hugs his robber-plunder to his “heart of hearts.” To all about him he proclaims the pleasing tidings of a gracious reception, flattering caresses, and constant marks of attention from those who are supposed to be the enemies of their “peculiar institution.”

Abolitionists, these “things ought not so to be.” We are too faint-hearted, too taciturn, too tame, in respect to the monster who perpetrates the sin of Man-stealing. On our part, at least, there should be no compromise—no good natured truce with the man in whose character concentrates all the works of damning darkness. Let us respect and count humanity too sacred to treat a slave-holder like a gentlemen, and brand the horse-thief as a villain. The character of the former is as black as the fabled regions of darkness compared with the latter. Mercy shall be our theme to the repentant soul, and “tribulation, anguish and wrath upon every man that doeth evil.” In the meek, mild, yet uncompromising spirit of Him who came to “preach deliverance to the captive,” let us sound the words of rebuke in every slave-holder’s ear who comes within speaking distance. Then shall he know and feel that we are true to our professions,—true to the crushed bondman, and true to God.

HOPEDALE, MASS.

Treason! Treason!! Treason!!!

By C.K. Whipple

Very well; be it so! We do not shrink from the name that designates our act, nor do we fear the position into which that act brings us. But, you who clamor so violently against us, are you really so instructed in the affairs of this world as to suppose that treason is always necessarily a crime?

Truly illustrious are the predecessors whose traitorous footsteps we follow. We do not seek protection beneath the shelter of their names; truth, right, justice, the arm of the living God, are a sufficient defence for us; but since you need the authority which their eminence and popularity give to acts like theirs, you shall have it.

Heard you never of the Roman Brutus, of the British Sydney, the Polish Kosciusko, the Greek Bozzarris, the American Washington, Hancock, Adams, Warren, Henry? Rank traitors were these, every one of them! Residents of established authority, violators of law, and each not only exposed, but certain, had he fallen alive into the hands of the existing and established government of his country, to have died a traitor’s death.

These men were defenders of liberty of conscience, freedom of thought, speech and action, the rights of the minority; they recognized in justice something superior to law and rightfully taking precedence of it. Without expressing them—themselves in bible phraseology, their actions plainly said, “Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye;” and if those to whom this appeal was made judged blindly and unjustly, these conscientious traitors renounced that decision, judged for themselves, followed up their judgement with action, and cheerfully risked, for the sake of principle, the loss of property, life and present reputation, knowing that the truth which they held fast was more precious than all these combined.

The very men who now cry out so zealously for law and order, as if there were no better things in the universe, are loudest in their praises of Washington for his resistance to law, and his violation of order. Alas! their inconsistency gives us reason to fear that the success of the American Revolution, rather than its justice, gives it glory in their eyes.

But was not Washington’s rebellion against the tyrannical British laws as just and righteous while he bore the obloquy and risked the doom of a traitor, as now that he has become the idol of the world? The justice of a revolutionary movement then is quite independent of success of failure, and may be decided with perfect certainty while the result is yet pending. It is to be settled, not by armies or majorities, alike impotent attempts of might to make right, but by deliberate inquiry into the merits of the case, and an application to it of the plain and immutable rules of right and wrong. If these show distinctly and decidedly (for while a single doubt remains upon a subject of such moment, we should refrain from action,) if these show distinctly and decidedly, that the human law in question is opposed to essential justice and the law of God, it should be to us as if it had never been, and should receive from us no more respect or consideration than any other detected imposture.

Socrates, Jesus, Paul, for vindicating the claims of righteousness against existing laws, were despised and rejected of men, and finally suffered death, stigmatized as enemies of the civil and religious institutions of their country. But the judgement of their contemporaries has been completely reversed by posterity. Their names are now held in high esteem and men say, and no doubt seriously think, if we had lived in those days, we would not have been partakers in the blood of those just men.” But are we uncharitable in suspecting that they deceive themselves, when we see them denouncing and reproaching the men of the present day who, like those illustrious martyrs, make right their standard rather than law?

With such laws of this country as are just and righteous, we have no quarrel; but in so far as they authorize slavery, and enjoin war for its support, we repudiate and renounce them; we cannot respect, and we will not obey them.

Such is the position of abolitionists. Let us see now what those are doing whom abolitionists call pro-slavery men.

The southern church and state (as represented by Governor Hammond and Rev. Dr. Fuller of South Carolina,) are putting forth an elaborate defence of slavery from the Bible, and declaring the perfect accordance of that “sum of all villainies” with their religious system; and the northern church and state, (as represented by [episcopal] Bishop [William Croswell] Doane and the Honorable Rufus Choate) are coming to the same end by a different course, namely, a defence of the divine right of governments, which if established, would show by necessary implication that whatever crime a governor commands may be perpetrated without guilt by any subject. Thus priests and politicians of the north and the south play into each other’s hands for the support of slavery. The leaders in church and state boldly promulgate these detestable doctrines, (thus giving the lie to the Gospel and Declaration of Independence, both of which they profess at the same time to hold sacred,) and their credulous disciples follow up the movement by throwing every obstruction in their power in the way of the abolitionist.

What is the duty, in this emergency, of faithful followers of him who was at once Prince of Peace and preacher of deliverance to the captives? Are we to forsake the cause of the slave because “Reverends” and “Excellencies” and “Honorables” are binding his chains tighter? Are we to make war against him because these tilted personages present themselves as recruiting sergeants, and offer us their dispensation from the sin of bloodshed”? Nay, verily!

Christianity, while it repudiates carnal weapons, is yet a system of determined aggression against all sin. We are now liable at any moment to be called upon by our profligate government to commit one of the most detestable of crimes in its support. A war in favor of Texas would be a war against the slave! A war in favor of Texas would be the deliberate support of slavery by murder! Let those wage such a war who will; but let them be aware that they are to find in the rapidly increasing band of Anti-Slavery men and women neither support nor acquiescence, but determined, active opposition. They will find the cry of “treason” as powerless as that of “infidelity” to restrain us. Regardless of both, while we feel ourselves supported by the precepts and example of Christ, we repeat the declaration: We will not countenance or aid the United States Government in any war which may be occasioned by the annexation of Texas, or in any other war, foreign or domestic, designed to strengthen or perpetuate slavery.

BOSTON, MASS

Liberty Chimes

Ed. Frances Whipple

Providence: Providence Ladies Anti-Slavery Society. 1845.

Free Speech

By N. P. Rogers

How can we ask freedom for the plantation slave, if the abolitionist himself may not be trusted with liberty of speech! If the advocates of humanity are not competent to meet together, and talk about freedom, without first being fettered, how can wild-passioned men hope to live free amid the stern excitements of conflicting life!

It seems to me, abolitionists had better first ascertain, whether any degree of freedom is possible to themselves. Whether any liberty—the liberty of thought—is practicable to any of the race. Whether unfortunate humanity be not, in fact, here on the earth, incapable of self-regulation, and only to be kept in a state of endurable servitude, by fear of the aggregated brute force of Community. We have gone manacled from our birth, and have got to thinking chains are natural to us—and that they were born with us. —They were born with us, —or we with them—but we better not have any more born so. —We inherited fetters from our “fathers,” —but we better not transmit them.

The right of speech—it is the right of rights—the paramount and paragon attribute of our kind. It is glorious among the brutes, when it is free. The roar of the lion—it is majestic and sublime in his native desert. —Not so, when he grunts under the stir of the poker, in the menagerie. The scream of the eagle, in the sky—or on the crag, where he lives and has his home—how unlike his most base croak, when they withhold his allowance in the cage that you may hear him make a noise. The one is free speech, in “free meeting.” The other, speech-making, under chairs, boards and business committees. —How different the wild note of the life-bird, in the top of the high pine, when the setting sun awakens her throat after the shower, —how different, from the chitter of the poor caged canary, in the pent up street of the city. But illustration fails. —The glory and beauty of freedom cannot be illustrated. It must be witnessed—experienced, and felt.

Speech is the only terror of tyrants. It is the thing they cannot control or encounter. —Brute force has no tendency to match it. “Four hostile presses,” said Bonaparte—the most formidable brute the modern world has seen—“are more to be dreaded, than a hundred thousand bayonets.” So, he might have said, is one hostile press—if it is free. And if it is free, it will be hostile to tyranny. It is as hostile to boards, as it is to bayonets, and as formidable. It is “the king of terrors” to both. The board has nothing to oppose to it, but the bayonet. The bayonet is the board’s argument, —and only argument. A board without a bayonet, is a hornet without a sting—or a toothless hound. But it will try to worry and bark down free speech if it cannot bite. And as the bayonet is the board’s only argument, so only boards ever wield that ugly and hateful implement. Individuality never can hold or maintain it. —The individual can resort only to the truth.

“Stop his mouth!” cries alarmed and exasperated tyranny. Stifle his outcry! mankind will hear him! Shut him up, where he cannot be heard! Let his dungeon be deep and his walls thick, —not so much to keep him, as to keep him from being heard! I must not hear him myself. “It disturbs my tranquility.” Keep him alone!

It is the uttered word, that awakens the tread that moves mankind. Words are the storm that “awakens its deep.” Words revolutionize society and nations, and change human condition. They bring those “changes,” the “fear” of which “perplexes monarchs.” Monarchy builds its bastiles to imprison them. It erects them amid the silence of the people, and it is only speech that can throw them down. The bastile of France, that fell at the outbreak of her dread revolution, —it was not artillery that prostrated its walls, but they were shaken down by the thunder and earthquake of the voice of the people, and had France known the power of that voice, she would have shaken down with it every throne in Europe. But she took the bayonet and it failed. It failed even in the hand of Bonaparte, the strongest that ever grasped it to conquer the world. It failed, and France is again in chains. Kings build their bastiles again in her borders, for the imprisonment of the people, but they have to build them in a later style of architecture than the old Gothic, for fear the sight of that would awaken again the people’s voice.

And Bonaparte himself, with a wall around him of half a million of bayonets, trembled at the slightest breath of free speech. The creature sued men for libel in the English Courts. At a time he was at war with her—when the proud island stood dismayed at his threatened descent upon her, —when he hovered with his dreadful marshals on the edge of the British Channel, the English Common Pleas was resounding with the call of the Crier, to “John Smith to come into Court and answer to the complaint of Napoleon Bonaparte, or his default would be recorded.” —The Emperor had no confidence at all in his terrible Marshals, —or the armies of Italy and of Egypt, so long as free speech could libel him with impunity in the coffee houses of London. And did it strike any body as ludicrous, that Bonaparte should be scared at a libel? not at all. His folly was, that he sought to defeat it by a law-suit. Had he been a man, he would have sent an article against the libeler, to the British press. He did not dare to. He was a tyrant—the truth was against him, —free speech was uttering it. —It scared him, and he stupidly went to law. I forget whether he got the case!

To come nearer home, and to the fields of moral strife. Corporation is the same cowards and tyrant-foe of free speech, in the chair—the board—the business committee, as in the camps and courts of kings: and free speech, the bane and terror of corporation in all its forms. Its motto and banner words, —No Committees—nor commitment. No Boards, on which to lay humanity out, for a living burial. —Association—but of associate individuals—unabated and undiluted. Concert of action—but of individual, personal action—where no combination can bring upon individual freedom, the wizard spell of the majority—where that monstrosity is not known—where unfelt and unacknowledged, is the influence of numbers and the authority of names—where are not great men—no leaders; —that sends out its great truths, backed up by no external or extrinsic force, to make their own way to the free and unawed heart of the people. —This is the “anti-slavery society.” —The New Hampshire Anti-Slavery Society is such. The humblest and poorest of anti-slavery bodies. —Poor in every thing but its principles, its love of liberty, and its fidelity to the cause of Humanity. In these it is rich. —It proffers its hard right hand of working fellow-ship to the anti-slavery of the land, and especially to the field-tried and service-worn handful in little Rhode Island. —It is “auxiliary” to all anti-slavery society, —subsidiary to none, as indeed no real anti-slavery body would claim of its subordination or homage.

              Concord, N.H.

Reform

By Wendell Phillips

Let no one who looks for fame join us. Let him wait rather, and be one of that crowd which will flock like doves to our windows, the moment the first gleam of success shall gild them. Our work is only to throw up, ourselves unseen, the pathway over which unheeding, the triumphant majority are to pass, shouting the names of later and gaudier leaders as their watch words.

How few have ever heard of Zachary Macauley, the counsellor to whom Wilberforce looked up,-one who rose before the sun to give every hour to the slave, and died at last that glorious poor man, which the creditor of humanity always is. But thousands echo the easier earned fame of his son!

How few know anything of that little committee of Quakers, who labored unseen, in Lombard street, that Wilberforce and Clarkson might be strong in the eyes of the great British people, grappled uncheered with the great British heart, and enlisted it finally in the cause of Africa; but went down, most of them, to their graves forgotten, while the gallant ship which they had launched so painfully,- baptized with a new name, and bannered  with a new flag, anchored in the safe harbor of a nations welcome.

“We may regret,” says the Edinburg Review, “that those who sowed should not be allowed to reap, but such is the ordinary course of events. By separating success from merit, by imposing on one set of men the sacrifice and the labor, and giving to another the credit of the result, Providence seems to tell us that higher motives than any man can offer, ought to actuate those who assume the responsibility of government.”

In the place of ‘Government’ put “Reform” and the sentiment is still more applicable to a cause like ours.

“And grant,” says old Fuller, “That God honors thee not to build his temple in thy parish, yet thou mayest, with David, provide metal and materials for Solomon thy successor, to build it with.”

Some reluct at the long time requisite to change the institutions of a nation, or regenerate its public sentiment. But here too, a moment’s thought shows us, how wise in this respect is the order of Providence. The progress of a great reform is a nation’s school. It creates as it advances, the moral principle, the individual independence, the habit of private judgement, the enlightened public opinion, which are necessary for its own success; and thus by new moulding the national character and elevating its tone of morals, it confers far other and greater benefits that its originators at first proposed. And further, it naturally opens the eye to kindred abuses, or growing itself out of a wrong principle, which has other results beside this immediate one, it insensibly prepares the way for wider and more radical reform. Having once gathered under its banner army of disinterested and enthusiastic hearts, its slow advance keeps them in the field long enough to form them veteran and willing laborers in every good cause. Forty years in the wilderness were necessary to make the Egyptian slave a fit soldier for Joshua to lead, and a fit subject for David and Solomon to govern.

An acute observer has well remarked, speaking of the slow step of the English movement for a repeal of the corn laws:

“The change will be delayed so long, that when it comes, the people will have been instructed in the necessity for something more than a mere repeal of an act of Parliament, important as that repeal unquestionably is. They will see the necessity for an organic change-that the cause of evil is in selfish legislation, and that again springs from the exclusive possession by one small class of legislative power; and thus Chartism under the name of Complete Suffrage, will become the adopted measure of the middle classes.”

Welcome then the thought that careless History, will probably drop from her tablets the names of those, who were first to stem the current of corrupt popular opinion. It tends to keep our ranks pure.

Welcome the long years of struggle which show us that we are enlisted no for a single campaign, but for life. The discipline will make us wiser, and imprint deeper in our hearts the conviction, that it is from us the ranks of the future reforms are to be recruited; and that to shut our eyes to the light of other reformations is to be traitor to the past.

Boston, Mass.

The American Union

By Adin Ballou

O MIGHTY confederacy, nation of nations, great republic, boasted Land of Liberty (!) Who shall declare thy resources, thy enterprise, thy attainments, thy destiny? Thy children multiply by millions, and shout thy praise with universal exultation. Thy glory is the theme of poets and orators, and thy chieftains delight to magnify the excellence of thine institutions. Ancient nations honor and envy thy rising greatness. Distant barbarians talk of thee in their tents. The earth is filled with thy fame.

Has all this inspired thee with zeal to prove thyself worthy—to realize the best hopes of an expecting world? Has it determined thee to renounce and forsake all that disgraces thee? To remove from thy countenance the hateful blotches which threaten to turn thy beauty into ugliness? Dost thou feel thine infirmities, and seek the strength of righteousness? Wouldst thou be great in goodness as in numbers, wealth and power? Wouldst thou be indeed “the home of the brave and the land of the free?” Wouldst thou lead off the nations of the earth in the grand march of reform, to welcome the dawn of that long predicted era when universal Love and Peace shall reign? Does this sublime ambition throb in thy raighty heart? Does it rule thy counsels, direct thy policy, and breathe through thy powerful influences? Does it animate thy statesman, thy legislators, thy philosophers, thy literati, thy scribes, thy religious and moral teachers? Are all thy efforts and energies and interests unitedly directed to the attainment of such a destiny?

Alas! My country, I blush, I tremble for thee. Thou art indeed capable of all that constitutes true greatness. Heaven and earth have lavished their gifts upon thee in boundless profusion. Nothing wanting in thee but a right spirit—a pure heart. These thou lackest. Thou hast made fair professions. Thou hast solemnly acknowledged the noblest principles of action. Thy career opened with promises of unparalleled usefulness to the human race. Liberty, equality, justice, mercy, progress, happiness, were thy watchwords. But where now is liberty? Where is equality? Where is justice? Where is mercy? Where are the pillars of greatness? Where is thy moral excellency? Where is that true majesty which exalts a nation-the majesty of righteousness? Nearly three millions of human beings, whose birth right was freedom, clank the chains of slavery, and send up to heaven unavailing groans for liberty, for justice, for mercy. Thy vast cotton harvest is annually moistened by their sweat and tears. Thy sugar cane and rice fields flourish by their unrequited toil. Thy wealth, rolling in golden streams across the land, is tainted with their lash-extorted blood. They would fly from thy tyranny, but thou pursuest them with blood-hounds. All thy citizens are in league to keep them in bondage. They would rise up and fight for liberty, after the example of thy revolutionary worthies, but thou terrifies them with thine armies—with threats of swift and terrible destruction. They would kneel in humble petition before thy Congress, and sue for the crumbs of liberty which fall from their masters’ tables: but slaves are not permitted even to petition. They would learn letters and acquire knowledge; but it is made a high misdemeanor to teach them. They would enjoy their wives, their husbands, their children, the endearments of family and home, to slake themselves amid the sadness and dreariness of their servitude; but these are all rudely trampled underfoot by their oppressors. Every ligament of tender affection is torn asunder. Degradation, ignorance, toil and unnumbered miseries-immeasurable wrongs crush them as between the upper and nether milestone.  Who is horror-struck at all this oppression? Who burns with shame? Who weeps bitter tears of repentance? Who rises up to put away these abominations? Who are they that propose to break every yoke, and let the oppressed go free? Are thy presidents, judges, statesmen, legislators, editors, politicians, divines and pastors, putting forth all their influence to accomplish this indispensable reform? Alas! See them, hear them, mark their proceedings! They grasp new slave regions; they threaten to extend the area of oppression over all Mexico; and yet they call it the area of Freedom. They feel no shame, they experience no compunction; they dash forward like the war-horse rough-shod over their fallen victims; proclaiming to the world with matchless insolence of the rightfulness of all their robberies! The mercy of all their cruelty; and the increasing happiness of their down trodden fellow men! Every where ascends the loud “amen” of a deluded people. They shout to the onward progress of the most intolerable wrong and outrage. And the highest places of religion, a spurious and adulterated religion, blasphemously pronounce benedictions on these heaven-daring iniquities.

But though hand join in hand, wickedness like this shall not go unpunished. Hear, O people, the word of Jehovah: “This rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the Lord: which say to the Seers, See not, and to the prophets, Prophesy, not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits. Wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel, Because ye despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and stay thereon: Therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant” ISA. 30:9-13 “He that heareth let him hear and he forbeareth, let him forbear.” Ezek, 3:27

Hope Dale, Mass

Principles of Economics

By Carl Menger

Trans. James Dingwall and Bert F. Hoselitz. Institute for Humane Studies. 1976. Originally Published: 1871.

Chapter II: Economy and Economic Goods

3. The Origin of Human Economy and Economic Goods

D. The laws governing the economic character of goods.

In our investigation of the laws governing human requirements, we have reached the result that the existence of requirements for goods of higher order is dependent: (1) on our having requirements for the corresponding goods of lower order, and also (2) on these requirements for goods of lower order being not already provided for, or at least not completely provided for. We have defined an economic good as a good whose available quantity does not meet requirements completely, and thus we have the principle that the existence of requirements for goods of higher order is dependent upon the corresponding goods of lower order having economic character.

In places where pure and healthy drinking water is present in quantities exceeding the requirements of the population, and where this good therefore does not exhibit economic character, requirements for the various implements or means of transportation serving exclusively for carrying or piping and filtering drinking water cannot arise. And in regions in which there is a natural superabundance of firewood (trees, to be exact), and in which, as a result, this good has non-economic character, obviously all requirements for goods of higher order suitable exclusively for the production of firewood are absent from the very beginning. In regions, on the other hand, where firewood or drinking water have economic character, requirements for the corresponding goods of higher order will certainly exist.

But if it has now been established that human requirements for goods of higher order are determined by the economic character of the corresponding goods of lower order, and that requirements for goods of higher order cannot arise at all if they are not applicable to the production of economic goods, it follows that requirements for goods of higher order can never, in this event, become larger than their available quantities, however small, and hence that it is impossible from the very beginning for them to attain economic character.

From this we derive the general principle that the economic character of goods of higher order depends upon the economic character of the goods of lower order for whose production they serve. In other words, no good of higher order can attain economic character or maintain it unless it is suitable for the production of some economic good of lower order.

If, therefore, goods of lower order displaying economic character are under consideration, and if the question arises as to the ultimate causes of their economic character, it would be a complete reversal of the true relationship, if one were to assume that they are economic goods because the goods employed in producing them displayed economic character before the production process was undertaken. Such a supposition would contradict, in the first place, all experience, which teaches us that, from goods of higher order whose economic character is beyond all doubt, completely useless things may be produced, and in consequence of economic ignorance, actually are produced—things that do not even have goods-character let alone economic character. Moreover, cases can be conceived where, from economic goods of higher order, things can be produced that have goods-character but not economic character. By way of illustration, one need only imagine persons using costly economic goods to produce timber in virgin forests, to store up drinking water in regions abounding in freshwater springs, or to make air, etc.!

The economic character of a good thus cannot be a consequence of the circumstance that it has been produced from economic goods of higher order, and this explanation would have to be rejected in any case, even if it were not involved in a further internal contradiction. The explanation of the economic character of goods of lower order by that of goods of higher order is only a pseudo-explanation, and apart from being incorrect and in contradiction with all experience, it does not even fulfill the formal conditions for the explanation of a phenomenon. If we explain the economic character of goods of first order by that of goods of third order, this again by the economic character of goods of fourth order, and so on, the solution of the problem is not advanced fundamentally by a single step, since the question as to the last and true cause of the economic character of goods always still remains unanswered.

Our previous explanation, however, demonstrates that man, with his needs and his command of the means to satisfy them, is himself the point at which human economic life both begins and ends. Initially, man experiences needs for goods of first order, and makes those whose available quantities are smaller than his requirements the objects of his economic activity (that is, he treats them as economic goods) while he finds no practical inducement to bring the other goods into the sphere of his economic activity.

Later, thought and experience lead men to ever deeper insights into the causal connections betweens things, and especially into the relations between things and their welfare. They learn to use goods of second, third, and higher orders. But with these goods, as with goods of first order, they find that some are available in quantities exceeding their requirements while the opposite relationship prevails with others. Hence they divide goods of higher order also into one group that they include in the sphere of their economic activity, and another group that they do not feel any practical necessity to treat in this way. This is the origin of the economic character of goods of higher order.

4. Wealth

Earlier we called “the entire sum of goods at a person’s command” his property. The entire sum of economic goods at an economizing individual’s command we will, on the other hand, call his wealth. The non-economic goods at an economizing individual’s command are not objects of his economy, and hence must not be regarded as parts of his wealth. We saw that economic goods are goods whose available quantities are smaller than the requirements for them. Wealth can therefore also be defined as the entire sum of goods at an economizing individual’s command, the quantities of which are smaller than the requirements for them. Hence, if there were a society where all goods were available in amounts exceeding the requirements for them, there would be no economic goods nor any “wealth.” Although wealth is thus a measure of the degree of completeness with which one person can satisfy his needs in comparison with other persons who engage in economic activity under the same conditions, it is never an absolute measure of his welfare, for the highest welfare of all individuals and of society would be attained if the quantities of goods at the disposal of society were so large that no one would be in need of wealth.

These remarks are intended to introduce the solution of a problem which, because of the apparent contradictions to which it leads, is capable of creating distrust as to the accuracy of the principles of our science. The problem arises from the fact that a continuous increase in the amounts of economic goods available to economizing individuals would necessarily cause these goods eventually to lose their economic character, and in this way cause the components of wealth to suffer a diminution. Hence we have the queer contradiction that a continuous increase of the objects of wealth would have, as a necessary final consequence, a diminution of wealth.

Suppose that the quantity of a certain mineral water available to a people is smaller than requirements for it. The various portions of this good at the command of the several economizing persons, as well as the mineral springs themselves, are therefore economic goods, and hence constituent parts of wealth. Suppose now that this medicinal water should suddenly begin to flow in several brooks in such abundant measure as to lose its previous economic character. Nothing is more certain, than that the quantities of mineral water that were at the command of economizing individuals before this event, as well as the mineral springs themselves, would now cease to be components of wealth. Thus is would indeed be the case that a progressive increase in the component parts of wealth would finally have caused a diminution of wealth.

This paradox is exceedingly impressive at first sight, but upon more exact consideration, it proves to be only an apparent one. As we saw earlier, economic goods are goods whose available quantities are smaller than the requirements for them. They are goods of which there is a partial deficiency, and the wealth of economizing individuals is nothing but the sum of these goods. If their available quantities are progressively increased until they finally lose their economic character, a deficiency no longer exists, and they move out of the category of goods constituting the wealth of economizing individuals—that is, they leave the class of goods of which there is a partial deficiency. There is certainly no contradiction in the fact that the progressive increase of a good of which there was previously a deficiency finally brings about the result that the good ceases to be in short supply.

On the contrary, that the progressive increase of economic goods must finally lead to a reduction in the number of goods of which there was previously a deficiency is a proposition that is as immediately evident to everyone as the contrary proposition that is as immediately evident to everyone as the contrary proposition that a long continued diminution of abundantly available (non-economic) goods must finally make them scarce in some degree—and thus components of wealth, which is thereby increased.

The above paradox, which was raised not only with regard to the extent of objects of wealth but in an analogous manner also with regard to the value and price of economic goods, is therefore only an apparent one, and is founded upon a misinterpretation of the nature of wealth and its components.

We have defined wealth as the entire sum of economic goods at the command of an economizing individual. The existence of any item of wealth presupposes, therefore, an economizing individual, or at any rate one in whose behalf acts of economizing are performed. Quantities of economic goods destined for a specific purpose are therefore not wealth in the economic sense of the word. The fiction of a legal person may be valid for purposes of legal practice or even for purposes of juridical constructions but not for our science which decidedly rejects all fictions. So-called “trust funds” are therefore quantities of economic goods devoted to specific purposes, but they are not wealth in the economic sense of the word.

This leads to the question of the nature of public wealth. States, provinces, communities, and associations generally have quantities of economic goods at their disposal in order to satisfy their needs, to realize their ends. Here the fiction of a legal person is not necessary for the political economist. Without calling upon any fiction, he can observe an economizing unit, a social organization, whose personnel administer certain economic goods that are available to it for the purpose of satisfying its needs, and direct them to this objective. Hence no-one will hesitate to admit the existence of governmental, provincial, municipal and corporate wealth.

The situation is different with what is designated by the term “national wealth.” Here we have to deal not with the entire sum of economic goods available to a nation for the satisfaction of its needs, administered by government employees, and devoted by them to its purposes, but with the totality of goods at the disposal of the separate economizing individuals and associations of a society for their individual purposes. Thus we have to deal with a concept that deviates in several important respects from what we term wealth.

If we employ the fiction of conceiving of the totality of economizing persons in a society, each striving for the satisfaction of his special needs, and driven not infrequently by interests opposed to the interests of others, as one great economizing unit, and if we further assume that the quantities of economic goods at the disposal of the separate economizing individuals are not applied to the satisfaction of their special needs but to the satisfaction of the needs of the totality of individual composing the economy, then we do, of course, arrive at the concept of a sum of economic goods at the disposal of an economizing unit (here, at the disposal of society) that are available for the purpose of satisfying its collective needs. Such a concept could correctly be designated by the term national wealth. But under our present social arrangements, the sum of economic goods at the disposal of the individual economizing members of society for the purpose of satisfying their special individual needs obviously does not constitute wealth in the economic sense of the term but rather a complex of wealths linked together by human intercourse and trade.

The need for a scientific designation for the sum of goods just mentioned is, however, so just, and the term “national wealth” for that concept is so generally accepted and sanctioned by usage, that we would serve this need badly if we were to drop the existing term as we become clearer about the correct nature of the so-called national wealth.

It is, then, only necessary that we guard against the error that must arise if we pay no attention to the distinction discussed here. In all questions where the issue is merely the quantitative determination of the so-called national wealth, the sum of the wealths of the individuals of the nation may be designated as national wealth. But when inferences running from the magnitude of the national wealth to the welfare of a people, or when phenomena resulting from contacts between the various economizing individuals, are involved, the concept of national wealth in the literal sense of the term must necessarily lead to frequent errors. In all these cases, the national wealth must be regarded rather as a complex composite of the wealths of the members of society, and we must direct our attention to the different sizes of these individual wealths.

Two Treatises of Civil Government

By John Locke
Thomas Hollis Edition. (London: A. Millar et. al.) 1764.

Chapter 3: Of Adam’s Title to Sovereignty by Creation.

SIR Robert, in his preface to his Observations on Aristotle’s politics, tells us, A natural freedom of mankind cannot be supposed without the denial of the creation of Adam: but how Adam’s being created, which was nothing but his receiving a being immediately from omnipotence and the hand of God, gave Adam a sovereignty over any thing, I cannot see, nor consequently understand, how a supposition of natural freedom is a denial of Adam’s creation, and would be glad any body else (since our author did not vouchsafe us the favour) would make it out for him: for I find no difficulty to suppose the freedom of mankind, though I have always believed the creation of Adam. He was created, or began to exist, by God’s immediate power, without the intervention of parents or the pre-existence of any of the same species to beget him, when it pleased God he should; and so did the lion, the king of beasts, before him, by the same creating power of God: and if bare existence by that power, and in that way, will give dominion, without any more ado, our author, by this argument, will make the lion have as good a title to it, as he, and certainly the antienter. No! for Adam had his title by the appointment of God, says our author in another place. Then bare creation gave him not dominion, and one might have supposed mankind free without the denying the creation of Adam, since it was God’s appointment made him monarch.

But let us see, how he puts his creation and this appointment together. By the appointment of God, says Sir Robert, as soon as Adam was created, he was monarch of the world, though he had no subjects; for though there could not be actual government till there were subjects, yet by the right of nature it was due to Adam to be governor of his posterity: though not in act, yet at least in habit, Adam was a king from his creation. I wish he had told us here, what he meant by God’s appointment: for whatsoever providence orders, or the law of nature directs, or positive revelation declares, may be said to be by God’s appointment: but I suppose it cannot be meant here in the first sense, i.e. by providence; because that would be to say no more, but that as soon as Adam was created he was de facto monarch, because by right of nature it was due to Adam, to be governor of his posterity. But he could not de facto be by providence constituted the governor of the world, at a time when there was actually no government, no subjects to be governed, which our author here confesses. Monarch of the world is also differently used by our author; for sometimes he means by it a proprietor of all the world exclusive of the rest of mankind, and thus he does in the same page of his preface before cited: Adam, says he, being commanded to multiply and people the earth, and to subdue it, and having dominion given him over all creatures, was thereby the monarch of the whole world; none of his posterity had any right to possess any thing but by his grant or permission, or by succession from him. 2. Let us understand then by monarch proprietor of the world, and by appointment God’s actual donation, and revealed positive grant made to Adam, as we see Sir Robert himself does in this parallel place, and then his argument will stand thus, by the positive grant of God: as soon as Adam was created, he was proprietor of the world, because by the right of nature it was due to Adam to be governor of his posterity. In which way of arguing there are two manifest falsehoods. First, It is false, that God made that grant to Adam, as soon as he was created, since, tho’ it stands in the text immediately after his creation, yet it is plain it could not be spoken to Adam, till after Eve was made and brought to him: and how then could he be monarch by appointment as soon as created, especially since he calls, if I mistake not, that which God says to Eve, the original grant of government, which not being till after the fall, when Adam was somewhat, at least in time, and very much distant in condition, from his creation, I cannot see, how our author can say in this sense, that by God’s appointment, as soon as Adam was created, he was monarch of the world. Secondly, were it true that God’s actual donation appointed Adam monarch of the world as soon as he was created, yet the reason here given for it would not prove it; but it would always be a false inference, that God, by a positive donation, appointed Adam monarch of the world, because by right of nature it was due to Adam to be governor of his posterity: for having given him the right of government by nature, there was no need of a positive donation; at least it will never be a proof of such a donation.

On the other side the matter will not be much mended, if we understand by God’s appointment the law of nature, (though it be a pretty harsh expression for it in this place) and by monarch of the world, sovereign ruler of mankind: for then the sentence under consideration must run thus: By the law of nature, as soon as Adam was created he was governor of mankind, for by right of nature it was due to Adam to be governor of his posterity; which amounts to this, he was governor by right of nature, because he was governor by right of nature: but supposing we should grant, that a man is by nature governor of his children, Adam could not hereby be monarch as soon as created: for this right of nature being founded in his being their father, how Adam could have a natural right to be governor, before he was a father, when by being a father only he had that right, is, methinks, hard to conceive, unless he will have him to be a father before he was a father, and to have a title before he had it.

To this foreseen objection, our author answers very logically, he was governor in habit, and not in act: a very pretty way of being a governor without government, a father without children, and a king without subjects. And thus Sir Robert was an author before he writ his book; not in act it is true, but in habit; for when he had once published it, it was due to him by the right of nature, to be an author, as much as it was to Adam to be governor of his children, when he had begot them: and if to be such a monarch of the world, an absolute monarch in habit, but not in act, will serve the turn, I should not much envy it to any of Sir Robert’s friends, that he thought fit graciously to bestow it upon, though even this of act and habit, if it signified any thing but our author’s skill in distinctions, be not to his purpose in this place. For the question is not here about Adam’s actual exercise of government, but actually having a title to be governor. Government, says our author, was due to Adam by the right of nature: what is this right of nature? A right fathers have over their children by begetting them; generatione jus acquiritur parentibus in liberos, says our author out of Grotius. The right then follows the begetting as arising from it; so that, according to this way of reasoning or distinguishing of our author, Adam, as soon as he was created, had a title only in habit, and not in act, which in plain English is, he had actually no title at all.

To speak less learnedly, and more intelligibly, one may say of Adam, he was in a possibility of being governor, since it was possible he might beget children, and thereby acquire that right of nature, be it what it will, to govern them, that accrues from thence: but what connection has this with Adam’s creation, to make him say, that as soon as he was created, he was monarch of the world? for it may be as well said of Noah, that as soon as he was born, he was monarch of the world, since he was in possibility (which in our author’s sense is enough to make a monarch, a monarch in habit,) to outlive all mankind, but his own posterity. What such necessary connection there is betwixt Adam’s creation and his right to government, so that a natural freedom of mankind cannot be supposed without the denial of the creation of Adam, I confess for my part I do not see; nor how those words, by the appointment, &c. how ever explained, can be put together, to make any tolerable sense, at least to establish this position, with which they end, viz. Adam was a king from his creation; a king, says our author, not in act, but in habit, i.e. actually no king at all.

I fear I have tired my reader’s patience, by dwelling longer on this passage, than the weightiness of any argument in it seems to require: but I have unavoidably been engaged in it by our author’s way of writing, who, hudling several suppositions together, and that in doubtful and general terms, makes such a medly and confusion, that it is impossible to shew his mistakes, without examining the several senses wherein his words may be taken, and without seeing how, in any of these various meanings, they will consist together, and have any truth in them: for in this present passage before us, how can any one argue against this position of his, that Adam was a king from his creation, unless one examine, whether the words, from his creation, be to be taken, as they may, for the time of the commencement of his government, as the foregoing words import, as soon as he was created he was monarch; or, for the cause of it, as he says,  creation made man prince of his posterity? how farther can one judge of the truth of his being thus king, till one has examined whether king be to be taken, as the words in the beginning of this passage would persuade, on supposition of his private dominion, which was, by God’s positive grant, monarch of the world by appointment; or king on supposition of his fatherly power over his off-spring, which was by nature, due by the right of nature; whether, I say, king be to be taken in both, or one only of these two senses, or in neither of them, but only this, that creation made him prince, in a way different from both the other? For though this assertion, that Adam was king from his creation, be true in no sense, yet it stands here as an evident conclusion drawn from the preceding words, though in truth it be but a bare assertion joined to other assertions of the same kind, which confidently put together in words of undetermined and dubious meaning, look like a sort of arguing, when there is indeed neither proof nor connection: a way very familiar with our author: of which having given the reader a taste here, I shall, as much as the argument will permit me, avoid touching on hereafter; and should not have done it here, were it not to let the world see, how incoherences in matter, and suppositions without proofs put handsomely together in good words and a plausible stile, are apt to pass for strong reason and good sense, till they come to be looked into with attention.

Chapter 4: Of Adam’s Title to Sovereignty by Donation

HAVING at last got through the foregoing passage, where we have been so long detained, not by the force of arguments and opposition, but the intricacy of the words, and the doubtfulness of the meaning; let us go on to his next argument, for Adam’s sovereignty. Our author tells us in the words of Mr. Selden, that Adam by donation from God, was made the general lord of all things, not without such a private dominion to himself, as without his grant did exclude his children. This determination of Mr. Selden, says our author, is consonant to the history of the Bible, and natural reason. And in his Pref. to his Observations on Aristotle, he says thus, The first government in the world was monarchical in the father of all flesh, Adam being commanded to multiply and people the earth, and to subdue it, and having dominion given him over all creatures, was thereby the monarch of the whole world: none of his posterity had any right to possess any thing, but by his grant or permission, or by succession from him: The earth, saith the Psalmist, hath he given to the children of men, which shew the title comes from fatherhood.

Before I examine this argument, and the text on which it is founded, it is necessary to desire the reader to observe, that our author, according to his usual method, begins in one sense, and concludes in another; he begins here with Adam’s propriety, or private dominion, by donation; and his conclusion is, which shew the title comes from fatherhood.

But let us see the argument. The words of the text are these; and God blessed them, and God said unto them, be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. from whence our author concludes, that Adam, having here dominion given him over all creatures, was thereby the monarch of the whole world: whereby must be meant, that either this grant of God gave Adam property, or as our author calls it, private dominion over the earth, and all inferior or irrational creatures, and so consequently that he was thereby monarch; or 2dly, that it gave him rule and dominion over all earthly creatures whatsoever, and thereby over his children; and so he was monarch: for, as Mr. Selden has properly worded it, Adam was made general lord of all things, one may very clearly understand him, that he means nothing to be granted to Adam here but property, and therefore he says not one word of Adam’s monarchy. But our author says, Adam was hereby monarch of the world, which, properly speaking, signifies sovereign ruler of all the men in the world; and so Adam, by this grant, must be constituted such a ruler. If our author means otherwise, he might with much clearness have said, that Adam was hereby proprietor of the whole world. But he begs your pardon in that point: clear distinct speaking not serving every where to his purpose, you must not expect it in him, as in Mr. Selden, or other such writers.

In opposition therefore to our author’s doctrine, that Adam was monarch of the whole world, founded on this place, I shall shew,

1. That by this grant, God gave no immediate power to Adam over men, over his children, over those of his own species; and so he was not made ruler, or monarch, by this charter.

2. That by this grant God gave him not private dominion over the inferior creatures, but right in common with all mankind; so neither was he monarch, upon the account of the property here given him.

3. That this donation, gave Adam no power over men, will appear if we consider the words of it: for since all positive grants convey no more than the express words they are made in will carry, let us see which of them here will comprehend mankind, or Adam’s posterity; and those, I imagine, if any, must be these, every living thing that moveth…of which words the scripture itself is the best interpreter: God having created the fishes and fowls the 5th day, the beginning of the 6th, he creates the irrational inhabitants of the dry land….

When God had made the irrational animals of the world, divided into three kinds, from the places of their habitation, viz. fishes of the sea, fowls of the air, and living creatures of the earth, and these again into cattle, wild beasts, and reptils, he considers of making man, and the dominion he should have over the terrestrial world, and then he reckons up the inhabitants of these three kingdoms, but in the terrestrial leaves out the second rank [of] wild beasts: but here, where he actually exercises this design, and gives him this dominion, the text mentions the fishes of the sea, and fowls of the air, and the terrestrial creatures in the words that signify the wild beasts and reptils, though translated living thing that moveth, leaving out cattle. In both which places, though the word that signifies wild beasts be omitted in one, and that which signifies cattle in the other, yet, since God certainly executed in one place, what he declares he designed in the other, we cannot but understand the same in both places, and have here only an account, how the terrestrial irrational animals, which were already created and reckoned up at their creation, in three distinct ranks of cattle, wild beasts, and reptils, were here, actually put under the dominion of man, as they were designed, nor do these words contain in them the least appearance of any thing that can be wrested to signify God’s giving to one man dominion over another, to Adam over his posterity.

And this further appears from Gen. ix. 2. where God renewing this charter to Noah and his sons, he gives them dominion over the fowls of the air, and the fishes of the sea, and the terrestrial creatures…which by no means can comprehend man, the grant being made to Noah and his sons, all the men then living, and not to one part of men over another: which is yet more evident from the very next words, where God gives every every moving thing, the very words used, to them for food. By all which it is plain that God’s donation to Adam, and his designation, and his grant again to Noah and his sons, refer to and contain in them neither more nor less than the works of the creation the 5th day, and the beginning of the 6th….From whence I think it is past all doubt, that man cannot be comprehended in this grant, nor any dominion over those of his own species be conveyed to Adam. All the terrestrial irrational creatures are enumerated at their creation, under the names beasts of the earth, cattle and creeping things; but man, being not then created, was not contained under any of those names; and therefore, whether we understand the Hebrew words right or no, they cannot be supposed to comprehend man, in the very same history, and the very next verses following….And if God made all mankind slaves to Adam and his heirs by giving Adam dominion over every living thing that moveth on the earth, as our author would have it, methinks Sir Robert should have carried his monarchical power one step higher, and satisfied the world, that princes might eat their subjects too, since God gave as full power to Noah and his heirs, to eat every living thing that moveth, as he did to Adam to have dominion over them, the Hebrew words in both places being the same….

To maintain this property and private dominion of Adam, our author labours in the following page to destroy the community granted to Noah and his sons….

Our author probably foreseeing he might not be very successful in persuading people out of their senses, and, say what he could, men would be apt to believe the plain words of scripture, and think, as they saw, that the grant was spoken to Noah and his sons jointly; he endeavours to insinuate, as if this grant to Noah conveyed no property, no dominion; because, subduing the earth and dominion over the creatures are therein omitted, nor the earth once named. And therefore, says he, there is a considerable difference between these two texts; the first blessing gave Adam a dominion over the earth and all creatures; the latter allows Noah liberty to use the living creatures for food: here is no alteration or diminishing of his title to a property of all things, but an enlargement only of his commons. So that in our author’s sense, all that was said here to Noah and his sons, gave them no dominion, no property, but only enlarged the commons; their commons, I should say, since God says, to you are they given, though our author says his; for as for Noah’s sons, they, it seems, by Sir Robert’s appointment, during their father’s life-time, were to keep fasting days.

Any one but our author would be mightily suspected to be blinded with prejudice, that in all this blessing to Noah and his sons, could see nothing but only an enlargement of commons: for as to dominion, which our author thinks omitted, the fear of you, and the dread of you, says God, shall be upon every beast, which I suppose expresses the dominion, or superiority was designed man over the living creatures, as fully as may be; for in that fear and dread seems chiefly to consist what was given to Adam over the inferior animals; who, as absolute a monarch as he was, could not make bold with a lark or rabbet to satisfy his hunger, and had the herbs but in common with the beasts. In the next place, it is manifest that in this blessing to Noah and his sons, property is not only given in clear words, but in a larger extent than it was to Adam. Into your hands they are given, says God to Noah and his sons; which words, if they give not property, nay, property in possession, it will be hard to find words that can; since there is not a way to express a man’s being possessed of any thing more natural, nor more certain, than to say, it is delivered into his hands. And to shew, that they had then given them the utmost property man is capable of, which is to have a right to destroy any thing by using it; Every moving thing that liveth, saith God, shall be meat for you; which was not allowed to Adam in his charter. This our author calls, a liberty of using them for food, and only an enlargement of commons, but no alteration of property. What other property man can have in the creatures, but the liberty of using them, is hard to be understood: so that if the first blessing, as our author says, gave Adam dominion over the creatures, and the blessing to Noah and his sons, gave them such a liberty to use them, as Adam had not; it must needs give them something that Adam with all his sovereignty wanted, something that one would be apt to take for a greater property; for certainly he has no absolute dominion over even the brutal part of the creatures; and the property he has in them is very narrow and scanty, who cannot make that use of them, which is permitted to another. Should any one who is absolute lord of a country, have bidden our author subdue the earth, and given him dominion over the creatures in it, but not have permitted him to have taken a kid or a lamb out of the flock, to satisfy his hunger, I guess, he would scarce have thought himself lord or proprietor of that land, or the cattle on it; but would have found the difference between having dominion, which a shepherd may have, and having full property as an owner. So that, had it been his own case, Sir Robert, I believe, would have thought here was an alteration, nay, an enlarging of property; and that Noah and his children had by this grant, not only property given them, but such a property given them in the creatures, as Adam had not: For however, in respect of one another, men may be allowed to have propriety in their distinct portions of the creatures; yet in respect of God the maker of heaven and earth, who is sole lord and proprietor of the whole world, man’s propriety in the creatures is nothing but that liberty to use them, which God has permitted; and so man’s property may be altered and enlarged, as we see it was here, after the flood, when other uses of them are allowed, which before were not. From all which I suppose it is clear, that neither Adam, nor Noah, had any private dominion, any property in the creatures, exclusive of his posterity, as they should successively grow up into need of them, and come to be able to make use of them.

Thus we have examined our author’s argument for Adam’s monarchy….Wherein I think it is impossible for any sober reader, to find any other but the setting of mankind above the other kinds of creatures, in this habitable earth of ours. It is nothing but the giving to man, the whole species of man, as the chief inhabitant, who is the image of his Maker, the dominion over the other creatures. This lies so obvious in the plain words, that any one, but our author, would have thought it necessary to have shewn, how these words, that seemed to say the quite contrary, gave Adam monarchical absolute power over other men, or the sole property in all the creatures; and methinks in a business of this moment, and that whereon he builds all that follows, he should have done something more than barely cite words, which apparently make against him; for I confess, I cannot see any thing in them, tending to Adam’s monarchy, or private dominion, but quite the contrary. And I the less deplore the dulness of my apprehension herein, since I find the apostle seems to have as little notion of any such private dominion of Adam as I, when he says, God gives us all things richly to enjoy, which he could not do, if it were all given away already, to Monarch Adam, and the monarchs his heirs and successors. To conclude, this text is so far from proving Adam sole proprietor, that, on the contrary, it is a confirmation of the original community of all things amongst the sons of men, which appearing from this donation of God, as well as other places of scripture, the sovereignty of Adam, built upon his private dominion, must fall, not having any foundation to support it.

But yet, if after all, any one will needs have it so, that by this donation of God, Adam was made sole proprietor of the whole earth, what will this be to his sovereignty? and how will it appear, that propriety in land gives a man power over the life of another? or how will the possession even of the whole earth, give any one a sovereign arbitrary authority over the persons of men? The most specious thing to be said, is, that he that is proprietor of the whole world, may deny all the rest of mankind food, and so at his pleasure starve them, if they will not acknowledge his sovereignty, and obey his will. If this were true, it would be a good argument to prove, that there never was any such property, that God never gave any such private dominion; since it is more reasonable to think, that God, who bid mankind increase and multiply, should rather himself give them all a right to make use of the food and raiment, and other conveniences of life, the materials whereof he had so plentifully provided for them; than to make them depend upon the will of a man for their subsistence, who should have power to destroy them all when he pleased, and who, being no better than other men, was in succession likelier, by want and the dependence of a scanty fortune, to tie them to hard service, than by liberal allowance of the conveniences of life to promote the great design of God, increase and multiply: he that doubts this, let him look into the absolute monarchies of the world, and see what becomes of the conveniences of life, and the multitudes of people.

But we know God hath not left one man so to the mercy of another, that he may starve him if he please: God the Lord and Father of all has given no one of his children such a property in his peculiar portion of the things of this world, but that he has given his needy brother a right to the surplusage of his goods; so that it cannot justly be denied him, when his pressing wants call for it: and therefore no man could ever have a just power over the life of another by right of property in land or possessions; since it would always be a sin, in any man of estate, to let his brother perish for want of affording him relief out of his plenty. As justice gives every man a title to the product of his honest industry, and the fair acquisitions of his ancestors descended to him; so charity gives every man a title to so much out of another’s plenty, as will keep him from extreme want, where he has no means to subsist otherwise: and a man can no more justly make use of another’s necessity, to force him to become his vassal, by with-holding that relief, God requires him to afford to the wants of his brother, than he that has more strength can seize upon a weaker, master him to his obedience, and with a dagger at his throat offer him death or slavery.

Should any one make so perverse an use of God’s blessings poured on him with a liberal hand; should any one be cruel and uncharitable to that extremity, yet all this would not prove that propriety in land, even in this case, gave any authority over the persons of men, but only that compact might; since the authority of the rich proprietor, and the subjection of the needy beggar, began not from the possession of the Lord, but the consent of the poor man, who preferred being his subject to starving. And the man he thus submits to, can pretend to no more power over him, than he has consented to, upon compact. Upon this ground a man’s having his stores filled in a time of scarcity, having money in his pocket, being in a vessel at sea, being able to swim, &c. may as well be the foundation of rule and dominion, as being possessor of all the land in the world; any of these being sufficient to enable me to save a man’s life, who would perish if such assistance were denied him; and any thing, by this rule, that may be an occasion of working upon another’s necessity, to save his life, or any thing dear to him, at the rate of his freedom, may be made a foundation of sovereignty, as well as property. From all which it is clear, that though God should have given Adam private dominion, yet that private dominion could give him no sovereignty; but we have already sufficiently proved, that God gave him no private dominion.