John Aughey - The Iron Furnace; or, Slavery and Secession

Previous to the sermon a prayer was offered, of which the following is the conclusion:

Almighty God – We would present our country, the United States of America, before thee. When our political horizon is overcast with clouds and darkness, when the strong-hearted are becoming fearful for the permanence of our free institutions, and the prosperity, yea, the very existence of our great Republic, we pray thee, O God, when flesh and heart fail, when no human arm is able to save us from the fearful vortex of disunion and revolution, that thou wouldst interpose and save us. We confess our national sins, for we have, as a nation, sinned grievously. We have been highly favoured, we have been greatly prospered, and have taken our place amongst the leading powers of the earth. A gospel-enlightened nation, our sins are therefore more heinous in thy sight. They are sins of deep ingratitude and presumption. We confess that drunkenness has abounded amongst all classes of our citizens. Rulers and ruled have been alike guilty; and because of its wide-spreading prevalence, and because our legislators have enacted no sufficient laws for its suppression, it is a national sin. Profanity abounds amongst us; Sabbath-breaking is rife; and we have elevated unworthy men to high positions of honour and trust. We are not, as a people, free from the crime of tyranny and oppression. For these great and aggravated offences, we pray thee to give us repentance and godly sorrow, and then, O God, avert the threatened and imminent judgments which impend over our beloved country. Teach our Senators wisdom. Grant them that wisdom which is able to make them wise unto salvation; and grant also that wisdom which is profitable to direct, so that they may steer the ship of State safely through the troubled waters which seem ready to engulf it on every side. Lord, hear us, and answer in mercy, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen and Amen!

The following is a synopsis of my sermon:

Israel had been greatly favoured as a nation. No weapon formed against them prospered, so long as they loved and served the Lord their God. They were blessed in their basket and their store. They were set on high above all the nations of the earth. * * * * When all Israel assembled, ostensibly to make Rehoboam king, they were ripe for rebellion. Jeroboam and other wicked men had fomented and cherished the sparks of treason, till, on this occasion, it broke out into the flame of open rebellion. The severity of Solomon’s rule was the pretext, but it was only a pretext, for during his reign the nation prospered, grew rich and powerful. Jeroboam wished a disruption of the kingdom, that he might bear rule; and although God permitted it as a punishment for Israel’s idolatry, yet he frowned upon the wicked men who were instrumental in bringing this great evil upon his chosen people.

The loyal division took the name of Judah, though composed of the two tribes, Judah and Benjamin. The revolted ten tribes took the name of their leading tribe, Ephraim. Ephraim continued to wax weaker and weaker. Filled with envy against Judah, they often warred against that loyal kingdom, until they themselves were greatly reduced. At last, after various vicissitudes, the ten tribes were carried away, and scattered and lost. We often hear of the lost ten tribes. What became of them is a mystery. Their secession ended in their being blotted out of existence, or lost amidst the heathen. God alone knows what did become of them. They resisted the powers that be – the ordinance of God – and received to themselves damnation and annihilation.

As God dealt with Israel, so will he deal with us. If we are exalted by righteousness, we will prosper; if we, as the ten tribes, resist the ordinance of God, we will perish. At this time, many are advocating the course of the ten tribes. Secession is a word of frequent occurrence. It is openly advocated by many. Nullification and rebellion, secession and treason, are convertible terms, and no good citizen will mention them with approval. Secession is resisting the powers that be, and therefore it is a violation of God’s command. Where do we obtain the right of secession? Clearly not from the word of God, which enjoins obedience to all that are in authority, to whom we must be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience’ sake. The following scriptural argument for secession is often used, 1 Tim. vi. 1 – 5. In these verses Paul was addressing believing servants, and commanding them to absent themselves from the teaching of those who taught not the doctrine which is according to godliness. In a former epistle he had commanded Christians not to keep company with the incestuous person who had his father’s wife. He directed that they should not keep company with any man who was called a brother, if he were a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolator, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such a one no not to eat; but he expressly declares that he does not allude to those who belong to the above classes that have made no profession of religion. He does not judge them that are without, for them that are without, God judgeth. He afterwards exhorts that the church confirm their love toward the incestuous person as he had repented of his wickedness. This direction of the Apostle to believers to withdraw from a brother who walked disorderly, till he had manifested proper repentance; and his exhortation to believing servants to absent themselves from the teachings of errorists, cannot logically be construed as a scriptural argument in favour of secession. Were the President of the United States an unbeliever, a profane swearer, a Sabbath-breaker, or a drunkard, this fact would not, per se , give us the right to secede or rebel against the government.

There is no provision made in the Constitution of the United States for secession. The wisest statesmen, who made politics their study, regarded secession as a political heresy, dangerous in its tendencies, and destructive of all government in its practical application. Mississippi, purchased from France with United States gold, fostered by the nurturing care, and made prosperous by the wise administration of the general government, proposes to secede. Her political status would then be anomalous. Would her territory revert to France? Does she propose to refund the purchase-money? Would she become a territory under the jurisdiction of the United States Congress?

Henry Clay, the great statesman, Daniel Webster, the expounder of the Constitution, General Jackson, George Washington, and a mighty host, whose names would fill a volume, regarded secession as treason. One of our smallest States, which swarmed with tories in the Revolution, whose descendants still live, invented the doctrine of nullification, the first treasonable step, which soon culminated in the advocacy of secession. Why should we secede, and thus destroy the best, the freest, and most prosperous government on the face of the earth? the government which our patriot fathers fought and bled to secure. What has Mississippi lost by the Union? I have resided seven years in this State, and have an extensive personal acquaintance, and yet I know not a single individual who has lost a slave through northern influence. I have, it is true, known of some ten slaves who have run away, and have not been found. They may have been aided in their escape to Canada by northern and southern citizens, for there are many in the South who have given aid and comfort to the fugitive; but the probability is that they perished in the swamps, or were destroyed by the bloodhounds.

The complaint is made that the North regards slavery as a moral, social, and political evil, and that many of them denounce, in no measured terms, both slavery and slaveholders. To be thus denounced is regarded as a great grievance. Secession would not remedy this evil. In order to cure it effectually, we must seize and gag all who thus denounce our peculiar institution. We must also muzzle their press. As this is impracticable, it would be well to come to this conclusion: – If we are verily guilty of the evils charged upon us, let us set about rectifying those evils; if not, the denunciations of slanderers should not affect us so deeply. If our northern brethren are honest in their convictions of the sin of slavery, as no doubt many of them are, let us listen to their arguments without the dire hostility so frequently manifested. They take the position that slavery is opposed to the inalienable rights of the human race; that it originated in piracy and robbery; that manifold cruelties and barbarities are inflicted upon the defenceless slaves; that they are debarred from intellectual culture by State laws, which send to the penitentiary those who are guilty of instructing them; that they are put upon the block and sold; parent and child, husband and wife being separated, so that they never again see each other’s face in the flesh; that the law of chastity cannot be observed, as there are no laws punishing rape on the person of a female slave; that when they escape from the threatened cat-o’-nine-tails, or overseer’s whip, they are hunted down by bloodhounds, and bloodier men; that often they are half-starved and half-clad, and are furnished with mere hovels to live in; that they are often murdered by cruel overseers, who whip them to death, or overtask them, until disease is induced, which results in death; that masters practically ignore the marriage relation among slaves, inasmuch as they frequently separate husband and wife, by sale or removal; that they discourage the formation of that relation, preferring that the offspring of their female slaves should be illegitimate, from the mistaken notion that it would be more numerous. They charge, also, that slavery induces in the masters, pride, arrogance, tyranny, laziness, profligacy, and every form of vice.