In 1852, a well-regarded
Kentucky clergyman, the perhaps ironically named
Reverend Joseph Priest, wrote a popular tract assuring readers that
slave-ownership was not simply perfectly
Biblically correct, but was itself essentially a holy duty, writing that "the
institution of
slavery received the
sanction of the
Almighty". Priest waxed eloquently on slavery, declaring that:
Its legality was recognized, and its relative duties regulated by our Saviour, when upon Earth; that it was established in wisdom, and has been wisely continued through all ages, and handed down to us in mercy; and that the relation of master and servant harmonizes strictly with the best interests of the inferior or African race in particular, in securing to him that protection and support which his native imbecility of intellect disqualifies him from securing for himself.
Other priests may disagree, but this Priest tells us, "the mere fact of being a slaveholder will not, in our humble
judgment, debar a man from an entrance into that house not made with hands, eternal in the
heavens." And, Priest thence direly warned that "the existence of free blacks in any
community, whether free or slave, is universally admitted to be an
evil of no minor consideration. Their removal, therefore, is a matter deeply affecting the interests and well-being of both races."
Priest's book runs to over 500 pages of thoroughly documented and parsed out passages from Old Testament and New, classing American-style
race-based slavery not simply as a non-sinful institution, but a positively blessed undertaking brought into being by
God directly and carried forth with the promise of God's
blessing and certain
reward to the slaveowner. The work ends with a thorough condemnation of
abolitionists as
thieves and fomenters of
discord, in other words classing them as
sinners whose very agitation for abolition has earned them eternal
hellfire. Priest's book ends with pages upon pages of endorsements from various compatriots of the day, praising the correctness of his
analysis. Thousands of copies were sought and obtained throughout the American South, to be held up as examples of the
proof that God undoubtedly loved slavery and the slavemaster, and condemned opponents of slavery. And this was one of hundreds, if not thousands, of works written by scores of literate and well-versed Christian leaders arriving at the same
conclusion.
But naturally, though this be the majority view, there were contradictory works written by Christian leaders as well, though of a different
geography. Those mostly Northern voices arrived at quite opposite conclusions, citing chapter and verse to condemn slavery as a
sin in the harshest terms, agitating for the
liberation of the slaves, and in some instances (though hardly with uniform universality) praising those who would liberate slaves from their owners. And, verily, some of the very authors of abolitionist Biblical readings were no doubt themselves amongst the breakers of chains and the hiders of fugitive slaves.
So here we have a stark divide -- for if Priest and his ilk are correct, than slavery was
never any sin but was instead God's own blessed work on Earth. And so the slaveholder who bought slaves on the block, steadfastly worked them every day of his life, whipped them when they were disobedient or chafed for freedom, and died without a drop of remorse for all this, will be rewarded with a clear passage to Heaven; but, those who broke chains and hid fugitives were thieves, who
stole slaves which were the property of that or any other slaveowner. And those who stole were
scum in the
eyes of God, unforgiven, condemned to eternal Hell. And indeed, those who authored tracts condemning slavery were equally hated by God, and equally condemned.
But on the other hand, if it is the abolitionist clerics who are correct, it is then the unrepenting slaveowners who have sinned, and who are spurned by God and descend to the eternal fires of Hell along with those who advocated for slavery as God's
word and
will. Meanwhile, those who liberated slaves have so earned passage to Heaven, in the view of the abolitionists.
So, as between them, and assuming no other arguably sinful concerns are at issue, who now burns in Hell? Those who owned slaves and believed it rightful to do so? Or those who schemed to free slaves from their masters and believed it rightful to do so? Naturally, in modernity the politically correct answer is surely to put the slaveowners in Hell, and
credit instead of
condemning the abolitionists.
Now there are, it must be confessed, two other possibilities. One being that
both the slaveowner and the slave liberator burn for their respective deeds, just as he steals from a thief becomes a thief as well without absolving the original thief of their thiefdom, and he who murders a murderer is a murderer still; the other being that the whole conceit is a matter of
myth, and so neither one is condemned as a matter of course for their part in the grand charade.