EXTRACT OF A LETTER TO A GENTLEMAN IN MARYLAND; Wherein is demonstrated the extreme wickedness of tolerating the
Slave Trade,
in order to
avour the
illegalities
of our Colonies, where the
Two First Foundations of English Law,
(Two Witnesses of God) are supplanted by opposite (and of course
illegal
) ordinances, which occasions a
Civil Death of the English Constitution,
so that these
Two Witnesses
may be said to
lie dead
in all the West India Islands!
LONDON:
PRINTED BY JAMES PHILLIPS, GEORGE YARD, LOMBARD STREET. M.DCC.XCIII.
EXTRACT OF A LETTER, &c.
A Remark, which I made many years ago, respecting the
illegality
of taking up
Slaves that had escaped from their masters,
had been useful (I was informed) to some friends of humanity in America, in their endeavours to protect those poor oppressed people. I cannot now find a copy of that paper, but the argument was chiefly built on a reference to a text in Deut. ch. xxiii. v. 15, 16.—
Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee: He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in the place
WHICH HE SHALL CHOOSE
(manifestly
as a freeman
)
in one of thy
GATES
where
IT LIKETH HIM BEST:
thou shalt not oppress him.
This, I observed, was no part of the abrogated
ceremonial
law of the Jews; but, manifestly, a
moral law,
because the reason of it still remains:-so that it must be of indispensible obligation as long as the hateful
oppressions
of Slave-holders afford us any occasions of exercising this
duty
to
God
of
protecting the Slaves that escape from their masters;
and consequently I asserted that any
colonial law,
which opposes this
ordinance of God,
by ordering the arresting and delivering up runaway Slaves, or which, in any way, tends to deprive them of due legal protection, is, of course, to be deemed a
corruption, null
and
void
in itself, as being contrary to the second foundation of English law. This necessary consequence I urged from a well known
maxim
of the English law respecting
Statutes,
(acts of Assembly, or acts of Parliament)
nec contra
RATIONEM,
nec contra
LEGEM DIVINAM"
(statuta) existunt.
(Doct. et Stud. c. 10. p. 35. b.) —That
Statutes exist not against
REASON, nor against the DIVINE LAW," and that
"an unjust law
is NOT LAW.
"Lex injusta non est lex."
Prin. Leg. et Aequit.) And again, that
these two laws,
(viz. the Law of Reason, and the Law Divine)
"cannot abate, or turn aside"
—
Hae duae Leges declinari non possunt.
Doct. et Stud. c. 17. p. 52.
But I have since had occasion to regard these two fundamental laws of the English constitution, with still more awful attention; and therefore I must farther remark, that the first foundation,
the law of
REASON, (as including all the
laws of nature, justice, and natural right
) is certainly to be deemed
the law of God,
as well as the
second foundation
(the divine precepts in the Holy Scriptures), because the former is defined by high legal authority, to be
"the law written upon the heart of man,"
(and of course is the law of nature) which
cannot
therefore be obliterated, nor changed by time or place, but ought every where,
and among
all men,
to
be maintained, because
THE LAWS OF NATURE ARE IMMUTABLE"—"
Lex rationis in corde scribitur,
ideo deleri non potest, nec etiam recipit mutationem ex loco nec tempore, sed ubique, et inter omnes homines servari debet. Nam JURA NATURALIA IMMUTABILIA SUNT. Et ratio immutationis est quod recipiunt naturam rei pro fundamento, quae semper eadem est et ubique.
(Doct. et Stud. c. 2. p. 5.) This amply demonstrates the propriety of declaring
the law of Reason
to be the
first foundation
of English law; as being
"the law of God, written"
(as it were)
on the heart of man
—It is that
knowledge of good and evil
in man,
which may fairly be deemed a participation of
"the Divine Wisdom,"
or of Christ himself, that
true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
(John i. 9.) and of course renders every man obnoxious, through the knowledge of right and law, to the divine vengeance for disobedience! Our first parents
wilfully
assumed this knowledge, contrary to an express command of their Creator, (being deluded by the spiritual enemy) and thereby entailed
death
and
condemnation
on all their posterity, laying them under an absolute necessity to obtain
redemption
by a still farther participation of the same
"Divine Wisdom,"
or
"Word of God."
There is also another legal term or title, for this
first foundation of law;
viz.
the eternal law,
which in our books is properly defined to mean exactly the same authority as
the law of reason,
i. e.
the supreme reason of
DIVINE
WISDOM,
by which
GOD WILLS
that all things created by him, be moved and directed to a good and proper end.
—LEX AETERNA
nihil aliud est quam ipsa
SUMMA RATIO GUBERNATIONIS RERUM IN DEO,
sive illa summa ratio
DIVINAE SAPIENTIAE,
qua vult
DEUS
omnia a se condita moveri, et dirigi ad bonum et debitum finem,
&c. (Doct. et Stud. c. 1. p. 2.)—and again,
The
LAW ETERNAL,
under another description, is called a perpetual and constant
WILL
to give to every one his
RIGHT.
Lex Aeterna sub alia descriptione dicitur perpetua et constans
VOLUNTAS JUS SUUM UNICUIQUE TRIBUENS.
(ibid.) Here then we find an immoveable foundation of
justice,
of
right,
of
the rights of man,
of
righteousness,
of
the law of nature,
&c. for all these terms are parallel, or of the same import; and are necessarily included in the
law of reason
or
eternal law,
which is properly called
the first law
— LEX
etiam
AETERNA
dicitur
LEX PRIMA,
et bene dicitur prima, nam fuit ante omnes alias leges: et omnes aliae leges dirivantur ab ea:
—The LAW ETERNAL
is called the
FIRST LAW, and
well is it called the first, for it was before all other laws; and all other laws are derived from it.
In this solemn view of the
first foundation of English law,
it must evidently be deemed
"a witness of God,"
as well as the
second foundation,
the written
word of God in the Holy Scriptures;
and
both foundations
may well be expressed together by the more compendious terms of
"natural and revealed religion."
In no instance whatever are
these
TWO WITNESSES OF GOD more obviously and undeniably resisted than in the
toleration of slavery
and
the Slave Trade,
because these oppressions are
iniquities
which militate against
both the foundations,
and therefore the present public question, whether the
Slave Trade
ought or ought not to be
abolished,
may fairly be deemed an infallible
touch-stone
to discover the treachery of pretended
loyalists;
for no man can be truly
loyal
to God and his country, who is so totally devoid of
first principles,
as to
favour slavery!
Let those who have
ignorantly
done so, recover their credit by redoubled endeavours to restore the honour and constitutional law of their country, which has been wounded by their
treacherous
neglect of the foundations of law, whereby they will otherwise
incur that indelible stain of infamy,
which our
common
LAW deservedly fixes on all persons
who betray the law of the land,
Legem terrae amittentes perpetuam infamiae notam inde merito incurrunt.
(3 Inst. p. 221). But mark the authorities of our
common law
to this purpose—
"Liberty,"
is declared by the maxims of the
first foundation,
to be
"inestimable"
—
Libertas est res inestimabilis
(Jenk. Cent. 52.) and
Liberty is the greatest jewel.
(Grounds & Rudim. of Law and Equity, p. 196.) and therefore
cruel
of necessity must that law be deemed, which
augmenteth slavery,
and
diminisheth liberty
—says the excellent and worthy Chancellor Fortescue, who in very dark times of prevailing
bestial power,
nobly asserted the supreme immutable authority of
God's two witnesses,
as manifested in the first principles of our English common law, or legal constitution. "For in behalf of
liberty"
(says he), "human nature always implores" (or solicits favour),
because
Slavery is introduced
by man,
and
for vice;
but LIBERTY is implanted BY GOD, in the
very nature of man:
wherefore when stolen by man, it always earnestly longs to return, as does every thing which is deprived of
natural liberty;
for which reason the man who does
not favour liberty
is to be adjudged IMPIOUS and CRUEL. The laws of England acknowledging these" (principles,) "give favour to
liberty in every case.
"Crudelis etiam necessario judicabitur lex, quae servitutem augmentat, et minuit libertatem. Nam pro ea natura semper implorat humana. Quia ab homine et pro vitio, introducta est servitus. Sed libertas a Deo hominis est indita naturae. Quare ipsa ab homine sublata semper redire gliscit, ut facit omne, quod libertare naturali privatur. Quo IMPIUS et CRUDEL IS judicandus est qui libertati non faver. Haec considerantia Angliae Jura in omni casu libertati dant favorem (Chan. Fort. de laudibus Legum Angliae, c. 42. p. 101."
—A part of this sentence is cited by Lord Coke, as a maxim of our
common law,
—
Impius et crudelis,
judicandus est qui libertati non favet.
(Co. Lit. 124.)—viz.
Impious
and
cruel is the man to be adjudged, who does not favour liberty.
The opposite condition, therefore, to liberty, viz.
slavery,
is properly declared by one of our oldest English authorities in law,
Fleta,
to be "
contrary to nature.
"Est quidem
Servitus Libertati
contrarium; item Constitutio quaedam de jure Gentium, qua quis Domino" (or rather "Dominio") "alieno CONTRA NATURAM subjicitur," &c. (Fleta, 2d ed. p. 1.)
" (Fleta, 2d edit. p. 1.) which expression of Fleta is really a maxim of the
civil
or Roman law (See Inst. Lib. 1. tit. 3. leg. 2.); and though such appeals in the Roman code to
the foundations of law,
could not restrain the
belluina potestas
of Roman tyranny in any of the ten kingdoms of the beast, as clearly foretold in the scriptures, nor prevent improper additions to the code under the name of law; yet surely the friends of
Liberty
may be thankful to the Justinian code for the authority of its testimony against
slavery:
for when
the two first foundations of law
shall
hereafter
be restored, through God's mercy, to their due power and effect,—when these
two witnesses of God shall stand upon their feet, and ascend into Heaven,
(i. e. be established above
all human authority,
and be acknowledged as the irresistable
will of God,
which must
BE DONE ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN;)
then shall our deluded Statesmen, Lawyers, Commercial Politicians, and Planters, be compelled to understand that a more forcible expression of
illegality
and
iniquity
could not have been used than that by which SLAVERY is defined in the Roman code, as well as by our English Fleta,—i. e. that it is "CONTRA NATURAM," "AGAINST NATURE;" for consequently it must be
utterly illegal,
a crime which by the
first foundation of English law,
is justly deemed both IMPIOUS and CRUEL, and which in the strong figurative language of God's prophets, under the second foundation of our law, is compared to the guilt of
cannabalism,
or
eating human flesh,
as I have shewn in my remonstrance to the Citizens of London,
Viz. 'That there are also many other odious means of promoting
human destruction,
to which
the guilt of Man-eating
is equally
imputable
in the Scripture sense of that horrible depravity, which the sacred Writers manifestly attributed to the
oppressors of the poor, the orphan, and the stranger;
to him that
used his neighbour's service without wages, and gave him not for his work;
to those that
"oppressed the stranger wrongfully;"
and to those, perhaps more particularly, who presumed to make
"private property"
of the poor and the stranger, by iniquitous ordinances, contrary to the
foundations of law;
depriving them of
"judgment,"
I mean that
protection of the laws,
which is emphatically deemed
"the judgment of God,"
and which all
legal
Kings and their Judges are still bound by their oaths to maintain, viz.
"judgment,"
(or
"due process of the law,"
)
without respect of persons.
For where this
"judgment of God"
is even only
neglected,
there can be
no legal government;
but if the
neglect
of it be actually ordained by
"unrighteous decrees,"
pretending to give men a
right
to do
wrong,
and to
"establish iniquity by a law,"
the presumption must be
heinous
in the sight of the
King of Righteousness;
for in no other sense were the persons whom the Prophets charged with
"eating up the people,"
(
flaying their skin from off them, and chopping them in pieces, as for the pot,
&c.) ever guilty of
Man-eating.
And therefore this
unnatural
crime is surely still
equally imputable
to the authors and promoters of the like oppressions in the present times, who literally
flay off the skin from off
their poor
unrewarded
labourers with
Cow-skin whips,
and cruelly
exact all their labours!
Even to be silent when the suppression of such enormities was fairly brought to a
national question,
after the clearest proofs of their existence, must be
highly criminal!
And it would be
uncharitable
in me as a
Citizen,
if I neglected this fair opportunity of a
public charity
to warn my
fellow citizens, who have withheld their testimony of abhorrence
on this occasion, how far this horrible guilt of
Man-eating
is
really imputable!
The illegal tyrannies by which this guilt is most obviously incurred are, indeed, at a distance from your sight,' &c.
and therefore these
unnatural crimes
of
Slavery, and the Slave-Trade,
must necessarily be deemed, like all other
unnatural crimes,
detestable, abominable, and damnable, both to the souls and bodies of all that willfully promote them! The severity of these expressions cannot be restrained without injustice to the high authorities on which this argument is founded.
It would be an awful inquiry to trace the time when the English Nation was rendered obnoxious by
Slavery,
to the application of these horrible epithets,
impious, cruel,
&c. And it is wonderful how the
unnatural crime
could so long be overlooked, until usage and custom had established in all the British Colonies, as a
right,
this enormous
wrong;
to the perversion of all legal terms. We cannot conceive that the admission of Slavery into the Colonies has been
intentional
on the part of government at home, but merely through want of a fixt attention to
the two first principles of law
and religion. But the sworn Judges of the Colonial Courts (when the oppression first began,) were without excuse for permitting the evil of Slavery to take root without warning their Royal Masters of the
illegality,
knowing that the
constitutional law
of the kingdom, is
to deny justice to no man
without exception, (
nulli negabimus aut differemus justitiam;
Magna Charta.) and knowing that they themselves are sworn
to do justice and judgment without respect of persons,
—and also that under a
legal
English Government, there can be but
one law
for all descriptions of persons, according to two excellent maxims of the first foundation;
"Turpis est pars quae non convenit cum suo toto," and
nihil in lege intolerabilius est eandem rem diverso jure censeri.
(Grounds & Rudim. of Law and Eq. No. 307,)
and consequently that without
national reprobacy,
there could be no such personal distinctions in law as SLAVEHOLDER and SLAVE, so that they must be bound in duty to their King and Country, to prevent in the King's name any such oppression as
Slaveholding.
They ought to have known, that the limited temporal permission which had been granted to the Israelites to hold
Slaves,
was absolutely annulled by a subsequent command of God,
to let the
oppressed go free, and to break every yoke,
(Isaiah c. lviii. v. 5 and 6). There is no exception to this command, which proves that a
total Abolition of Slavery
was at that time, the declared
Will of God:
which is still more clearly demonstrated by a future denunciation against the practice of Slaveholders, by the prophet Jeremiah, just before the Israelites themselves were to be carried into
Slavery
for their
oppressions
and neglect of God's laws.
Woe be to him that useth his neighbour's service
WITHOUT WAGES,
and giveth him not for his work.
These are
moral laws
of
eternal obligation,
(though recorded in the Old Testament) because the
reason, justice,
and
mercy
of them are still obvious; for
"ratio legis est anima legis,"
and therefore surely
woe
is most alarmingly due to
all governments,
or pretended legal establishments, which sanction such notorious injustice and oppression! Should a total disregard of the two first foundations of the
Engish Law
and
Constitution
prevail, we shall have not only to dread the
infamy
incurred, according to the maxim,
Legem Terrae amittentes,
&c. but also to look for
divine retribution
from him who has promised to
destroy the destroyers of the earth,
and to
lead into captivity
those
that led into captivity!
And indeed after the most careful investigation of all the prophetical marks of the antichristian beast, and its image, compared with preceding times, according to the best Chronological Histories, I am convinced that the accomplishment and end of the tyranny (
not
by
human means,
but
"without hand"
) must be nearly approaching! The divine vengeance seems ready to be poured upon us!
Let not the inhabitants of Maryland and Carolina conceive, that because their territories are not included within the bounds of the four great monarchies, the theatre of the prophetical examples of
Divine vengeance,
that they shall be less liable to the awful effects of it! For be assured that when the ten kingdoms of Bestial Roman Government are destroyed, the
will of God,
as expressed in the two foundations of English law,
natural
and
revealed religion,
(God's two witnesses) will certainly be established
"on earth as it is in heaven,"
according to the universal prayer of the Christian church.—Nay, it will be established
under the whole heaven,
(Daniel vii. 27.) so that the only effectual means of avoiding this universal destruction of
bestial illegality,
is to acknowledge, reverence, and establish, the
two first foundations of English Law
above all other authorities; for that must be the universal effect of
the kingdom of Christ on earth.
If the Legislators and Lawyers of Maryland and the Carolinas, shall be able to suggest any thing
like an argument
in opposition to the high legal authorities which I have cited, they must have more
subtile
heads and
worse
hearts than I am willing to attribute to any one, who is not obviously
actuated
by the grand spiritual enemy of man!
GRANVILLE SHARP.