P. to Frederick Douglass, November 5, 1858

Capital Punishment.

[For Frederick Douglass' Paper.]

MR. EDITOR:—The comments upon Capital Punishment that have fallen from your pen of late, have seemed to me eminently just and reasonable. They have afforded pleasure and profit, I am well satisfied, to a large portion of your readers.

In your reply to some inquiries made by a correspondent in last week's paper, however, occurs one sentence, concerning the probably construction of which I think you could not have sufficiently reflected before writing it. I allude to the following: "Give us to know that GOD requires us to kill any citizen of Rochester, and it shall go hard with us if we do not execute that requirement." You afterwards add, "But we must know it. * * * We must have it from the mouth of God himself."

Now, Mr. Editor, how many atrocious iniquities has a "thus saith the Lord" covered and excused in past ages? If you declare yourself ready to destroy another's life when God shall by word of mouth command it, how can you object to the same or any other action on the part of another, to whom God speaks quite as authoritatively, he think, in the words of the Bible, or through some other medium? To many the words of the Bible are as authoritative as if God spoke in an audible voice.

In Leviticus 28th chap., the Lord God is recorded as directing, (44th verse,) that the Israelites should take bondmen and bondwomen of the heathens; then in the 46th verse, he is recorded as commanding Moses as follows: "And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession. They shall be your bondmen forever. "

Here we have a "thus saith the Lord" for perpetual slavery. Some would require God to give the direction personally, when they would unhesitatingly take myself (or any other heathen) for an inheritance for their children "forever." Others are less particular, and obey with equal alacrity a command giving through Moses. The mere assertion that the law of Moses was given for a past and not the present age, avails little, since other may with equal propriety view it differently. If we admit the principle that justifies doing a wrong act. even in obedience to the mandate of God, we concede the whole; all further controversy is vain.

Of one thing we may be sure. God's commands never conflict. He utters one uniform testimony through all ages. Within the human breast he has implanted an innate consciousness of the right to liberty. This is universal, and indwelling. It is impossible for God to say a command that shall conflict with this eternal testimony of the human soul. That which goes to form the very essence of the

soul must ever be obeyed at all hazards.—Hence, I think I may safely say that if God should appear in person, attended by all the hosts of heaven, and with all the pomp and power of exalted rank, should impose upon you, Mr. Editor, the requirement to take and hold a fellow man as a slave, or to commit the lesser wrong of destroying his life, you would not do it. No! you would resist such a command, and contest the enforcement of it before the sword of such as God's avenging wrath, inch by inch, all the way to hell! And I for one would sustain you in so doing.

P.

ORLEANS Co., Nov. 5, 1858.

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[We have this one word to say to the above. This understanding to say what God may rightfully do, and may not do, is a species of presumption for which we have no aptitude. Our God is supreme—absolute—and we recognize no laws higher than His known willl. Whoever undertakes to legislate for the Almighty, and to point our laws for His government, are involved in the absurdity of placing the creature above the creator, the legislation above the legislator, the thing made above its maker. "P." himself would not allow himself to be placed in such a relation to his own creations.]—EDITOR.