Cases of Conscience

The Pennsylvania Freeman gives us a gentle h[?] for having so dull a conscience respecting the use of slave labor produce. It copies an item from a late No. of the Christian, and glances an arrow at us, as will be seen below.

REFORMATORY.—The Editor of the Christian Freeman has been asked, on a case of conscience, whether it would be right for a strict temperance man to sell timber to a cooper to make up into rum casks. The Editor says he has not 'instinctive discernment' enough to decide so nice a point. We should think a plain NO was the-only tolerable answer. A man who well sell grain to be distilled into intoxicating liquor, or timber to encask it, fails to discountenance intemperance 'in all suitable ways.'— Practical Christian.

The Practical Christian decides that point without any hesitation. One would think it quite as easy to say No, to the question, is it right for abolitionists to pay the slaveholder the price of the products of his stolen labor, because they are a little cheaper than the products of honest industry. Yet our good friend Ballou lacks the 'instinctive discernment' to answer this. Why can he not see as clearly the wrong of this connection with sin, as in the case he names? Surely it is quite as direct, and abstinence from it as practicable.

Cannot our Free Produce friends discriminate correctly, or is the obfuscation all in our mental vision? We could not sell stave timber to work up into rum casks, or our grain to be manufactured into whiskey. Why? Because these uses of our stave timber and grain are evil, SINFUL; and we cannot be innocent in knowingly selling useful substances for sinful purposes. But the distiller has some old rejected liquor casks, which are suitable for keeping soap. We need casks for that purpose, which is a good purpose, and these are much cheaper than new ones. So we go and purchase his old ruin casks for soap barrels. We testify faithfully against his sinful business, and tell him that while we can sell him nothing to make a bad use of, we can sell to him or buy of him anything to make a good use of. We are inconsistent, are we? If we cannot furnish him for money our stave timber and grain to pervert to sinful uses, we cannot buy his rejected liquor casks to put to a good use! We do not understand such logic.

Again; we cannot sell ship timber to build a known slaver, nor help kidnap slaves, nor furnish articles to be worked into slave whips, branding irons, torture collars and hand cuffs, nor recognize a slaveholder as a suitable member in the Christian Church, or in a republican State. But, says brother Free Producer, 'you can purchase and use cotton cloth manufactured out of cotton raised by slave labor! You have no scruples of conscience against this!' No. If we can buy it as an out-spoken anti-slavery man, without compromise or concealment, we have no scruples against doing so. It is a good thing, which we need for a good use, and which we obtain without abating or suppressing our testimony against slavery, or cotton mill oppression. 'But you know that the cotton was raised by slaveholders, by means of slave labor.' Yes, and we know that it was manufactured into cloth without paying all the operatives a full equivalent for their labor. Shall we therefore scruple to buy and use it for a good purpose? 'But you thereby and others in enriching the wicked cotton grower, and so confirm him in slave-holding.' Shall we not do the same thing if we trade at all with people who trade with slave-holders? Why not? We buy broadcloth which was paid for in England with southern cotton. The slaveholder sold his cotton to a trader, who took it to Liverpool, and exchanged it for broadcloth. He brought the broadcloth to Boston, whence it came to Milford, where we buy a piece of it for a new coal. In this case we do not enrich and encourage the slaveholder, do we? A slave-holder swaps a slave for four horses, or for ten silver watches, or for five bales of linen goods. Now we may innocently buy one of these horses, watches, or a bale of linen goods; but if we buy a cotton shirt, or a pint of rice, or a pound of sugar, we buy stolen goods, and as a partaker are guilty with the slaveholder of the great transgression. We confess we do not see how men and women of sense can reason in this way. We respect their tenderness of conscience, but we cannot respect their logic. If the fault is in our own head or heart, Heaven grant us a speedy deliverance. We want to go all lengths with a right conscience. But we do not believe a thoroughly enlightened conscience ever quarrels with a thoroughly enlightened reason. Brother Freeman, if we are wild and inconsistent, do not let us off without due correction.