eet en ne ar * ales a pest = Laan eet ee eal ina eaten er ete ON orl eae nt Stl ee ed a le ht ~ Soyecu a etna : 7 > er ee rent eer - =e" DUKE UNIVERSITY DIVINITY SCHOOL LIBRARY a ‘ 4 Mi i F . \ ry a ea ne ee igre Te i ey on | , ~ i 1 ’ ot ! ‘ ' j ; 1 I i i oe { a | / ‘= BOOK | AND Beit SLAVERY IRRECONCILABLE. ie ANIMADVERSIONS UPON DR. SMITI’S PHILOSOPHY. - ,| BY GEORGE BOURNE. but now PAaG CST Waa every where, to repent.” Ax . rat 9 CC aN Perer and Pavt. > age es ©, “7. ia ——— y OaparrbaB Er ana: : PRINTED BY 3. M. SANDERSON & CO. 1816, ‘ “I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as ‘did also your» rulers ; and the times of this i ignorance GOD winked at;° (AND 4 oS ? 5 | O, ILLUMINE! o, REGENERATE! BLIND, = en SPIRIT OF TIE LORD! WHO DIDST ANOINT JESUS OF NAZARETH, TO PREACH DELIVERANCE TO THE CAPTIVES: CORRUPT OPPRESSORS! INTRO DUCTION, : ae Raita sR i MIS AMINE the character of Religious ) rofessors ; ask, does consistency prevail? do Ymen believe the word of God? and do they “exhibit a conformity between their creed and ‘their actions ? || ‘The Mosaic Law declares every Slave-hol- der a THIEF ; Paul classes him among the highest criminals; the Preshyterian Confes. sion of Faith asserts, that he is the most guilty ‘ot all thieves ; the Methodist Discipline avows, “that no man can have a sincere desire to ‘flee from the wrath to come,” unless he re- fuses to enslave, buy and sell human flesh ; ** the supreme law of the land” formally pro- ‘hounces that his practice is totally ‘irrecon- ‘cilable wih the principles of justice and humanity’’; and the Bills of Rights promulge, ‘hat the immunities of man which are indis- perisable to the possession of life, the acquisi- tion of property, and the enjoyment of hap- piness, are natural, inherent and inalienable. ‘Therefore, every man who holds Slaves and who pretends to be a Christian or a Republi- an, is either an incurable Idiot who cannot distinguish good from evil, or an obdurate “Sinner who resolutely defies every social, moral, ,and divine requisition. Evangelical charity Anduces the hope that he is an ignoramusy te ; 4 : et ae =< = > a er tt a em a } “ ‘join stealing and honesty, or dare he admonish} | INTRODUCION. “Point to me the mab | Who will not lift his voice against the trade In human souls and blood, and I pronounce, ; ‘That he nor loves his country, nor his God. thi Is he a Christian then? who holds in bonds Ilis brethren ; cramps the vigour of their minds-; Usurps entire dominion o’er their wills, i { oe: { Bars from their souls the light of moral day, Yhe image of the great Eternal Spirit ue Obliterating thence ? Before your God, bE Whose holy eye pervades the secret depths Of every heart, do you who hold inthrall’d Your fellow-being’s liberty, believe ‘That you are guiltless of a DAMNING CRIME? ail: Be undeceived—and cleanse from guilt and blood Your crimson’d conscience, and polluted hands.” * But “‘it is better to be moderate in our op-.|§ position to Slavery ; and not to make too strong un attack upon the Devil.” Moderation a- | gainst sin is an absurdity. Can any man con-;| j i i ae a headstrong transgressor partially to desist 9 from his ungodly practices ? Such sermoniz:: | 9} ing would be approved by every reprobate. | “They call themsclves moderate men; but upon this subject, 1 neither fecl, nor desire to feel, any thing liké the sentiment of moderation. To talk of /§ inoderation upon this matter, reminds me of a passage in Middleton’s Cicero. “Z'o enter a man’s house, and kill him, his wife and family, in the night, is certainly a most heinous crime, and deserving of death. But tc '\ break ofien his house, to murder him, his wife, anc @) ali his children, in the night, may still be right, fro vided it is done wijh moderation.” -‘Yhis is absurd— — and yet it is not so absurd, as to say slavery may be — carried on with moderation. For if you cannot break § — ssanehoatatpee ——+ *Deniel Bryan. {NTRODUCTION. 2 into a single house, if you cannot rob and murder a single man, with moderation ; with what moderation can you break up a whole country, can you pillage an‘! destroy a whole nation? Indeed, in an affair of this nature, I do not profess moderation! It is a question of simple justice. Notwithstanding which, they plead that moderation in arranging robbery and murder may be very preper and useful.” * Our timidity is powerfully addressed, by the enumeration of the varied enmity which accompanies the declaration of truth unmutil- ated and unadulterated. No stronger evidence can be obtained, that a man’s conscience is guilty and that his heart is corrupt, than when the faithful exposition of the BOOK excites his wrath. 1. The denunciations of the sacred volume must not be mitigated : the predominance of vicious tempers and the consequent exhibition of unholy conduct are totally incompatible with the instructions and the example of Ji sus of Nazareth and his Apostles ; a direct and incessant violation of the eighth commandment cannot be compounded with the rectitude * Charles James Fox. 1. Reformation must be put at some distance to pleasc. Its greatest favourers love it better in the abe Straci than in the substance. When any old prejudice of their own, or any interest that they value is touched, they become scrupulous, captious, and every man Ifas his separate exception. Thus between the resistance of power, and the unsysiematical process of popularity, the reformer -is.hissed off the stage, both by friends and foes. a8s ahiak vis - .. Edmund . Burke. beers VAY mith of 48 $6 + G INTRODUCTION. which Christianity enjoins: the worst of all Thieves is not the most devout Believer : that infernal chemistry which extracts the essen- tial qualitics of genuine religion, and then com. bines_ the caput mortuum with constant crime, that it may be palatable to an ignorant or careless conscience, must be opposed: and. the complicated enormity of kidnapping, and the hypocrisy which he displays, who while he is a perpetual Thief, wishes to be honoured as a Christian ; who while he preaches and rules the Church, steals his acighbour, and dooms his Brother toa wretched andendless servi- tude :—must in plain Scriptural language be reprobrated, ‘ “Ye Gospel-Promulgaters | why so dumb Upon this solemn theme, to which each ray Ot Revelation points? And has the world Such fascination, such corrupting. power, And vile intimidation’s force, as thus Yo paralyze the’ energies divine OF Satan’s combatants, that they will yield ¥o his blood-fedsting hosts without one blow ?”’ * These pages are published with no un- christian sensibilities. 2. But Gospel charity "Daniel Bryan. 3. The Apostolic admonitions were recollected. Wherefore, fiutting away lying, sfieak every man rruth with his neighbour ; ‘fur we are members one of ancther. Be ye angry and sin not: let not the sun fo down ufion your wrath: neither give filace to the Devil. Let him that stole, steal no more: but rather Jet hm labour, working with his hands that which ie wood, that he may have to give to him that needed. Ephesians 4, 25—29. 4 requires not, that we should believe u die to be truth, or injustice to be probity, or that he who | stealeth his brother, makes merchandize of him, ah ee 4 t ‘ a a 4 sells him or if he be found in his hand, whom the Word of God proclaims to be a Thief, is an honest man and a Christian. Slavery is condemned ; the uprightness of those pretences which Oppressors offer, why they should. be considered Christians, is the subject of investi- gation ; and the melioration of the Church and of our Country was both the motive which produced, and the object which was desired by this publication The contest is for the sacred cause of Truth ; and however severe it may be when individualized in its applica. | tion, the sentiments are in full unison with the Holy Scriptures, and with every honest Man’s _ unsophisticated convictions ; therefore, to tem. 8 » porize would be criminal. ‘A rough truth is ) better than a smooth falschood.” ‘That. delin. | quent is peculiarly guilty in the judgment of the Book, who cally evil good, bitter sweet, dark. ness Light, or who endeavours so to commingle them, that no difference is discernible between the requisitions of Religion and the solicita- » Uons of vice ; and thus, while men pretend or really desire to fulfil, the divine injunctions, i jhands.” Their guilt against God and Man No desire is felt to propitiate Profes- | they are numbered among the ‘Transgressors. i 1 sing Christians, while they steal ‘* souls and Who hold Slaves in Columbia, is exactly equal INTRODUCTAON. v a INTRODUCTION. with his criminality, who sails to Congo, and kidnaps a cargo of Negros: and it is alto- gether a burlesque upon evcry thing sacred for a Man-robber to pretend to Christianity ; and far more dishonourable and injurious to the Church, to permit him to preach, and rule in the spiritual affuirs of immortals. Many persons to whom the severest cen- sures apply as Slave-holders, possess other estimable qualities; but can that man be @ Christicn who enslaves his coloured neighbour, who unmercifully whips her, although far ad- vanced in pregnancy. who gives her no com- fort of any species for her services, and then | sells her with her offspring for an increased rice. on acconnt of the children whom he | had kidvapped ? Such men would immure > ther Fellow-citizens in bondage, and ingulf then in similar nisery- He who admits not, that this is the real nature and oper ition of in- naie depravity, has never known the plague of his own heart, and is not a penitent Tes deemed sinner. "The most obdurate adherents of Slavery are Preachers of the Gospei and Officers and Mem- | bers of the church. A Son of Belial is easily convinced ; he offers no palliative ; he de- nounces, although he perpetuates the evil; but conceiving himself absolved from all moral obli- gation, lic is desirous to participate in the gain as long as it cen he grasped : but Christians » j defend ,Negro-steating ; they marshal the ex-) ste aaa AcE EPR FO ew es Oe ea a 50 Ricca htegee t, INTRODUCTION. 9 amples of men who lived not under the moral code dispensed by Moses; they misinterpret | varied regulations of his law, and thereby trans- form truth into error, and the dictates of justice i} into the vilest improbity ; they claim the silence of our Lord and his Apostles and Evangelists, . as a proof that Slave-holders then were t- nocent ; and they affirm that no New Testa- ment command or denunciation is directed a- rainst mvoluntary servitude. 3. ‘These wrest the scriptures unto their own destruction ; being | led away with the error of the wicked.* Yo 4 tolerate Slavery or to join in its practice is an insufferable crime which tarnish-s every other good quality. For whosoever shall keep the law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all:+ and it is duplicate malignity ; the word of God is transmuted into indulgence for sin ; infidels and worldlings are encouraged to believe that Christianity is a mere decey tion, when its Lxpositors and Disciples contend for “injustice and inhumanity” by the Book; what blasphemy ! and slavery, with its abettors, is ‘ta mill-stone hanged about the neck” of } the church, from which she must be loosened, | or she will “ be drowned in the depth of the sca.” 3. This is the substance of a Sermon which was w lately delivered in defence, of Slavery. What refined notions of honesty ! What joy to Man-stealers ! What a triumph for the Devil! Alas ! * 2 Peter 3, 16, 17. + James 2. 10, Ja IKTRODUCTIOn. _ _ The flagitious acts concerning Slaves whicli ¥ Christians daily and publicly perpetrate without remorse, are a just subject of animadversion. Repentance, reformation, and restitution are much more suitable for a Slave-driver, than the palliation of his guilt, or excuses for his enormous crime ; and it is the heighth of de- lusion, to suppose him, an “ acceotable”’ Be., liever, who detains his fellow-man in the most dreadful vassalage. But if the most guilty and V' daring transgressor be sought, he is a Gospel. Minister, who solemnly avows his belief of the ie Pr-sbyterian Confession of Faith, or of the a Methodist Discipline, and notwithstanding him- self is a Negro. Pedlar, who steals, buys, sells, and keeps his brethren in Slavery, or supports ' by his taciturnity, or his smooth prophesying, if or his direct defence, the Christian Professor th who unites in the kidnapping trade. Truth { forces the declaration, thatevery Church. Of. it] ficer or member who is a Slave-holder, re- cords himself by his own creed, a Hypocrite !4. | E.xtracts from various writers are incorpo- || “rated with this disquisition : they illustrate and a fortify both the doctrines which are advanced, and the arguments by which they are co‘rob- erated. The most enlightened Theologians, | \\e 4. No discussion of the African Slave-Trade is ine : troduced that was totally abolished in 1808: andcan never be re-established. Hence, it was unnecessary, yi either to display its enormities, or to oppose its un- parallelied gboininations, oe InraopucTicH. li Moralists, Civilians, Politicians, and Patriots ; of ali denominations, climates, countries. and ' languages have uniformly coincided with the BOOK ; have expressed similar sentiments upon the impolicy, the injustice, the cruelty, and the anti-christianity of kidnapping in Africa aud American Slavery ; and have thus con- signed the original contrivers of this infernal machination, and_ the -successive generations of those who have participated in its crimes and unhallowed pelf, to merited ignominy, and execration universal and everiasting. No argument is requisite to justily a work, whichhonestly defends the rights of man, a. gainst the arbitrary exactions of inhuman Cainie tes, and unjust Rehoboamites ; which Opposes “fa licensed system of wholesale robbery and murder,” and maintains the eternally para. Mount claims of eguity and mercy ; which, by developing the absurdity. of all pretensions to Pure and undefiled Religion in him whose whole life is a ceaseless rotation of stealing and cruelty, points the path of duty to the upright inquirer, and exonerates the church from the chee of sanctioning “ the highest degree of theft 3? and which expostulates with those whose diurnal practice is a continual violation of the spirit and letter of the moral law, a flagrant departure from the steps of the Redeemer and his primitive Servants, and an open disgrace to Republicanism and Chris- tianity. 19 ANTRODUCTION, What shall an I’ xpositor of the Truth do ? dare he connive at evils which obstruct the pros- perity of the church? ‘Though convinced of | |i the absolute impossibility 1o reconcile the | bondage and trafic of men with evangelical ||} philanthrophy ; shall he hold his peace, and || refuse to illuminate the ignorance, to remove | the prejudices, to combat the injustice, and to || jj expunge the inconsistency of his professing ||} Chiistian Brethren ? \ He has calmly weighed the consequences; ||| he has deliberated upon the results; he has ||§ foreseen the effect of the plain and earnest de- ||| claration of divine ‘I'ruth; he is convinced, ||% that most persons will become his enemics; || \} he fecls the workings of that fear of man |\@ which bringeth a snare ; and he cannot de- | jj velope the varied agitation with which his heart |} is conflicted under a review of all the extensive |/)) ae censure which the "TRUTH involves ; incul- 14, pating persons of all stations, characters, and of almost every: denomination of Christians, lit -and which declares them participants in | He “a system of incurable injustice, the complica- | tion of every species of iniquity, the greatest | F practical evil that ever has afflicted the human | § 1) race ,and the severest and most extensive cal- | jj Hit: amity recorded in the history of the world” !* | } But how shall an earnest contender for ¢he , Faith which was once delivered to the Saints, i a iF ® William Pitt. aD INTRODUCTIGS. 15 _zact? dare he cry PEACE, when God de- clares there is no peace? dare he deliver smooth . ¢hings, when God urges penitence and re- | |. form? can he scrutinize this mass of corrup- - tion, and not warn his fellow-Christians to touch stot, taste not, handle not 2? dare he from dread . of offending, disobey the books of which he | | professed his belief, and to which he promised | @ conscientious practical conformity? And | will he burden his shoulders with the curse of handling the word of God deceitfully 2 will he load his conscience with the conviction, _ that while men are deceiving themselves, he ") tiseS NO means to remove their destructive ‘ delusions ? will he conceal the truth, which ' unfold» the endless evasions and artifices of sin and Satan to ensnare the soul in perdition _ everlasting ? and dare he deny the evident, i ndeniably correct interpretation of the word ‘of God, to teach the perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, (that gain is godliness.t \ Certain repetitions of sentiment and phra- ‘Seology were designed. It is absolutely ine dispensable to give the Church, precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little and there 2 little, that they may go, and fall backward, | and be broken, and snared and taken.t A criti- / cism upon this volume, will not be heard, either from a Thief, or JSrom him who consents with | him. § The permission would transform a — | {tl Timotdy 6. 8. ¢ Isaiah 28. 10—13. § Psalm 50, 18. i 4 1) 3 4% d 4 In TRODUCTION. _Flesh-Merchant into Legislator, Judge, Jury man, ‘Testimony and Delinquent: and his opinion, especially if he be a pretended Be. || liever, will not be even listened to; because ||} | a Kidnapper or his Defender, is neither a Christian, nor a Presbyterian, nor a Baptist, nora Methodist, nor a Republican; but a Des. | pot, whose ‘‘ traffic in slaves is totally irre. |) concilable with the principles of justice and |//f humanity.’’ || ie O that this essay may remove the obloquy . || 5) ¥ under which Religion groans, and teach us } |} the just estimate which we should form ofa «|[f Ht Slave-holder’s character! O, that Preachers, .)| ie Officers, and Members of the Church, |) ij Ht may take the alarm, and contemplate the re. «/| 7) Nii sult ef their silence and example! O, that 3) ale Nominal Disciples of Jesus may strive to main. Bann tain consistency, that it may no longer be an 5) 9 ave ‘infidel reproach, ‘the is a Christian Slave. be holder,” alias Man stealer! and O, that other: ; may confederate for the contest, and Cease no! to combat, until Legron is exterminated from «| 9 | the ‘Temple of Gad ! } Lie —*Lut hark! whence rolls that thundering peal «| (Which shakes astgnish’d Mammon’s glittering mounds |) 9) | ‘ And rouses all the ferce and ,clamorous ire to iat Of his tyrannic votaries? Lo? begirt 1144 With the impervious mail of martyr’d zeal, ait “And golden truth, a little phalanx stands, ‘Upon the Heaven-defended dbatteries Of Gospel-Law, and aims the artillery are i Tenth Article of the Treaty with Brisam,.’. eS Re ee Dip Pes > hea ENTHODUCSION. yf holy eloquence, against the dark, ‘The massy battlements of tyranny. Yhence tis, that those convulsing thunders break, |) Which fire the sons of Avarice with rage. ) Persist, ye reverend Veterans ! for the cause | In which your hallow’d banner is unfurl’d, | Embraces all that makes existence dear. | | Undaunted band of Christian Patriots, hail ! _. May Victory’s bays your honour’d temples crown, ’ And your reward be those deiights supreme . Which store the magazines of heavenly bliss-— |’ Whose melodies divine, no human ear - Has known; whose charms unmatch’d, no earthly eye ' Has seen; and whose exhaustless excellence, \.. The mind and heart of man have ne’er conceived.” ® ———— | © Daniel Bryan. : CHAPTER I, STATEMENT OF THE SUBJECT. “we: @ i wz 1" i HE corruption of the human heart, and | f the deceitfulness which accompanies it are inconceivable. Among the various modes by which they are displayed, the detention of men in bondage indefinite, should receive unmitiga-. ted execration : and the priaciples upon which slave-holding is defended, with the characters of those who engage in its support, are most melancholy demonstrations of duplicity, and of — the promptitude, with which we can be delud- :)) ed to change the truth of God into a lie. Is it | Hi not a fact too alarming to be recorded without | | * the utmost dread, and will it not in futurity be | | deemed almost incredible, that a system which my mcludes horrors ten-fold more than Egyptian servitude is incorporated with most of the re/i- gous ! and civil institutions, which are estab- | | lished in the only land of freedom that cxists >” 1) on the habitable globe ? Will sabsequent ages | i credit so monstrous a statement ; that Preach. | | ti ers of the Gospel, 1800 years after Angels had | _ sung, on earth, peace, good-will ta men,t were | characterized as proverbially devoted particip- a ants in all the enormities and iniquity of man- Stealing ? and nearly 40 years after the pro- mulgation of the Columbian Declaration of | | } t Luke 2. 14. STATEMENT OF TRE SUBJECT, 17 - Independence reprobated its sef ‘evident truths, as unsound propositions, because in practice | their covetousness, and their barbarous been - bery of the rights of man would have rob- ~ restrained That any persons should have imbibed ef-, -- frontery sufficient to commence and persist in -*an internal trade with the bodies and souls '}+ of men, where the ilumination of the Gospei _ determines our duties, responsibility, and des- ‘tiny, is proof more than ample, of the innate ' tendency of the human race to every moral obli- " quity. © Admitting that under the reign of Monkish superstition, an absurdity so pre- ' posterous might have been tolerated for the sake of exacting the fees of penance and ab- ~ solution; what apology shall be patiently heard. , at the present era, for upholding a trafic which. “! nécessurily includes every species of iniquity, ~and which is the offspring of an unhallowed. ‘avarice that conducrs to hell ? /) ‘The cunning and_ pertinacity with which, { men, who have not the plea of ignorance to: “J excuse their aberrations maintain and justily ‘ their ungodly: praetices, is a_ most lamentable: ‘ aad irrefragable testimony of the vitiated pro- |< pensitics of the soul. But although, through i the Justre of the Holy. Scriptures, itis scarcely _, possible to discover an individual. who will j-ealiniy’ pallate the evil nature of those more flagrant transgressions of the moral law, those: plebcian violations of decency which are €. \}) i eta a 18 STATEMEST 2 een yee emp mn rere penne ste ati a DN ce kira en pa weep en % . = ae CRE ee ee Se qually debasing and disgusting ; yet, they | who denounce these crimes and the perpe- trators of them in terms of unqualified re- ana with equal zeal will excuse more | ashionable sins, especially if they are menaced | with the consequences of their guilt. The conduct of Religious Professors and _ rulers loudly demands the severest castigation, and renders the defence of those who adhere to the truth, doubly necessary. It requires more than Christian charity to allow many per- sons the characteristic of sincerity ; for the contradiction is so vast, that if the highest int- crests of the human family were not connected, their discrepancy would excite ridicule: but as man’s eternal doom is indissolubly combi- | ned with the rectitude of his present practice, the heart is filled with the keenest compassion for that obduracy which rejects truth, for that blindness which transmutes its individu- alizing qualities, and for that hypocrisy, which to evade scriptural censures, distorts the book | into a sanction of the vices that it unequiv- — ocally condemns. i Human inconsistency and foily cannot be developed in a stronger light, than by a dis- passionate review of the multifarious artifices _ which are adopted to veil the horrors of Slavery, | and the evasions by which the charge that } they are the most enormous sinners against ©; God and man, is repelled. Had this com- | pound of all corruption no connection with | oo: thei OF THF SUNJECT. i9 the church of Christ; however deleterions are the effects of it in political socicty, how. ever necessary is its immediate and total ab- | | olition, and however pregnant with danger to | the Union, is the prolongation of the system ; to Legislators and Civilians, the redress of the evil would have been committed. But Slavery is the golden Calf, which has been clevated a- mong the Tribes, and before it, the Priests and the iIders and the nominal sons of Israel, eat, drink, rise up to play, worship and sacri- fice* —there are Balaams among us, who pro- phesy in the name of the Lord, but covet the ‘presents of Balakt—we have an Achan in the camp, whose unsanctified love of monew trou- bles usj—this is Delilah, whose fascinations unnerve Samson’s arm, despoil him of his locks, and leave hima prey to the Philistines) — this is Bathsheba, whose charms have bewit- ched Christians, until they are involved in im- puriiy and murderij—this is the idol which the 1 children of Israel have set up in their hearts : the stumbling-block of iniquity which the house of Judah have placed before their faces§—ihis \ COvetrousness recoins the thirty picces of silver for which Judas betrayed his Lord** --and this is that love of the present world, for which - Demas forsook the Apostles’ doctrine and fel- Jowship.tt 3 7 4 * ‘Exodus 32. + Numbers 22 $¢ Joshua 7 ' § Judges 16. || 2 Samucl 11. § Mzckikl 14. &. ¥* Matthew 26 14—16. {ft 2 Timothy 4. 10. 20 STATEMENT Ht The Book, the unbiassed conviciions of e-) very man’s conscience, and the natural sensi. || bilities of ihe heart, establish this docirme :/ but Officers and Members of the church have}, endeavoured to intimidate and silence the pro- | mulgers of the truth: while the shameless at- | tempts which have latterly been made, to sus-|jf tain a system of merciless horrors upon evan- | t gelical principles, and by men whose authority || §) will be adduced, and whose example will be |) # imuated by the thoughtless and the covetous, |) | imperiously require the exertions of those whe | wo tld preserve the chracter of sincere Christ- || 9 tans. 5. i i “] shall briefly give my opinion of slavery I know it to be inhuman; I am certain it is unjust: and no})§ ‘honest man can support @ trade founded upon prin: | @ ciples of injustice and cruelty Upon this subject, I) neither feel, nor desire to feel, any thing like mode )) i ration. We are accused of enthusiasm Are we then Fanstics ? are we Enthusiasts ? because we cry, Do mot rob, do not murder! I have ever considered this, business as a most unjust and horrible persecution. |) ot our fellow-creatures? and in whatsoever situation | I may ever be; as long as I have a voice to speak, |) this question. shull never be at an end. * “Tius Fox, all-cloquent for freedom stood, With specch resistiess as the voice of bload ; He . The voice that crics through all the Patriot’s veins; |) j Wren at his feet his country groans in chains ; "hac voice that whispers in. the Mother’s breast, Whe smiles her infant in his rosy rest: 5 Tov circumstances which produced this volume are subsequently narrated. ® Charlee James Fox. : TO THE sSUBIECT. ¥3 Of power to bid the storm of passion roll ; Or touch with sweetest tenderness the soul. He spake in vain—till with his latest breath, He broke the spell of Africa in death : His dying accents trembled into air ; “Spare injured Africa ! the Necro spare !” + _ That so monstrous an anomaly as man-steal- ing should ever have existed, almost surpasses credibility : but that Messias’ disciples should be guilty of this highest transgression against human nature, and defend its abominations, never could have been believed, had not all onr senses verified the awful fact. 6. oe ; + Montgomery’s West-Indies. +6. The question was introduced for discussion inte the last General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. A petition upon the propriety of acknowledging Slavee holders as Christian Believers, and a reference res pecting the religion of Soul-Merchants were presente ed: their proceedings exhibited great indecision, and intimated not hesitation only, but a fear to fulfil their obligations. ¢ ) During the debate, the uniform conduct: of Slaves holders who profess Christianity, was denied as ‘mise Tefiresentation :’’ notorious facts were contradicted up- | on tne plea of “exargeration 2’ and an aversion from eo ee +e | \j j i 4 h , detaining men in involuntary. unconditional, and ine términable servitude and degradation, of the blackest Nature, and in the basest degree, was reprobated in the most public manner, as “th: offefiring of a tur dulent and factious spirit.” — “= $ The minute of the Assembly ; a Protest against i) the decision of that body; and a mcthod to extirpate | Slavery from the Church, are inserted in the Appendix. ee wh 4 * wie | i ih, } i Being decided against any compromise be- |, tween justice and injustice, Gospel-sincerity | and human dissimulation, and opposing this |} | Goliah of iniquity ; the sling and the stone are | 4 ae STATEMENT taken— t Yes! It is the misrenresentatton with which they charged Elijah, when on Mount Carmel, he denoun- ced the Priests of Baal as the soul-destroyers of the Israelites: ¢ it is the exaggeration with which the Jews calumniated Jeremiah, when he delivered the tremendous information—that for enslaving their bre-: 7 thren, the LORD froclaimed liberty to the sword,’ the pestilence, and the famine.* It is the turbulence if which characterized Peter, when he avowed before || | it the Sanhedrim, that he would obey GOD rather than man: it is the factious sfirit which was imputed to Stephen, when he declared the truth of the Jewish, | Council; Ye stiff-nccked, and uncircumcised in heart | and vars, who do always resist the HOLY-GHOST, @ 9) your Fathers did, s0 do ye :§ it isthe world-upside- i | { i Hh | : | ; Ot ‘ t down-turning disposition, which emboldened Paul, to | iif preach Refientance and the Resurrection of the dead, a to the Areoparzites : || it is the ¢urdulence for which. || 9 they reviled Martin Luther, when he dared to defend |) the ¢ruth, thougn Rome and her imps had determined tn destroy him: it is the /actious spirit, by the in” | | fluence of which, John Knox silenced Mary of Scot. | } | land, when he assured her, that there was a vast dis: |) tinction hetween an ignorant and an informed consci: || fj | ence, and that her judgment being unenlightened, |) [ ‘Rat conducted her into the paths of error an‘! irreligion: 9) @ in! and it 1s that misrepresenting, exaggerating, turbulen: |) dit and factious spirit, which peopicd the Coiumbian ||) Ft Wiids, rather than surrender to any ecclesiastical ty-| |) it | —— aa t 1 Kings 18. * Jeremiah 34 8=—-20. $ Acte 4 1) Anh and 5. § Acts 7. 51. || Acta 1% | i \G 23 OF THE SURITCT. | Who is this uncircumcised PiHILISTINE, ‘that he should defy the armies of the living i WGod ? * he 1 » ) Samuel 17. 26. ranny, the rights of man, and the illumination of the BOOK. _ 4 O for more “ Misrenrcsenters,” who have the buld- | mess to display the abominations of Negro-Tanners ! . 40 for more *Exaggerators”’ who will heap confusion | upon pretended Christians, by lucidly developing their 1% Jconstant violations of the eighth commandme:t! O \for more turbulent and factious souls, who wili not an iconnive at Officers and Members of the Church, - Ustealing men, with impunity, and without censure + ‘i O God, grant us ali the exuberance of that spirit | lwhich impelled the reformers, the > Martyrs, the | | Prophets, and the Apostles of Jesus cunxist! Anzn. =a ATRL A RE GE te EET CRE <- _je a ey ate ie rae Ae LOE ~ Sas Sess \ ' } 1% | il | aoe tS SS —— CHAPTER IZ. THE LAW OF GOD AND MAN. —<——wt 5 it} a— So abhorrent from our natural sensations is! the system of stealing, buying, selling, and) enslaving immortal creatures, that it is dificultll accuratcly to peu ate this wretched degrada. |] tion of mar. A Slave is a rational, ren being, with an abject mind and broken heart ;' without any will: all whose rights are robbed ;' whose uberty is despoiled, and whose li life is pro- loised at the caprice ofa tyrant. No difference is perceptible, between the trafic in human’) fics on the coast of Africa or in the interior | of America. Every slave in these Sta‘es 1s as: | i notoriously kednapped, as if they had becn | ; purloined from Guinea: aud he who claims ay coloured child as his property, and nurtures) |g and detains it in slavery, is equally a A/an-thief,) | % with the .Vegro-stealer on the Gold-Coast. |} } Those persons who denounce the income a Flesh. Merchant, and who seem to admit, that!)) § the imported souls could not have been justiti-| ably captivated, deny that they unrightcously | grasp their brethren, and denominate them- || ; selves “innocent Slave-holders : but this is ||} self- confutation Can that be innocence in the |} temperate zone which is the acme ofall guilt, near the equator? can that be honesty in one||| § meridian of longitude, which at 100 degrees) i La a os LAW- 29 gest, is the efimax of injustice ? and would es he, who appropriates to himself, all the ¢hildren born around him, immediately as | they enter the world, upon the same principles, make a descent upon Congo, and kidnap a ship load ? No real distinction exists between . fim, who steals the woman from her husband. fhe child from its parent, or the whole family, $2 the eastern or the western shores of the Ai- ) duntic, whether for eaportation or domestte ') passalage. 7. | i) He thet stealeth a man, and selleth him, or ti ur he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death. f “By this law, every man-stealer, and every receiver —ipfthe stolen person, lost his life: whether the latter ) Abtole-the man himself, or gave money to a Slave-Caft- | Wain or Vegro-Dealer to steal for him. All kidnapping Tend slave-dealing are prohibited, whether practised by j §ndividuals or the state.""§ 1 ji 7. These identical individuals would rage, “if it were Jattempted thus to exculpate any other Felon. Inno- ‘h rn Horse-Thief is more consistent language thar "i fgunocent Siave-holder ; for the crime of the latter ex- “ feeeds that of the former, as much as the limited and | #temporary powers of the animal are surpassed by the || Vextensive capacities and never-ending existence of man. ‘i4‘We know men to whom the truth is become unin- Trelligible, in consequence of the disguise in which ) they have ‘taken the pains to clothe it ; and who have accustomed themselves to palliate vice, ull they are | \Gneapable of perceiving its turpitude.” Saurin. |] 4 Exodus 21. 16. § Adam Clarke. id C eat i Bie i Hi 1) | nh ; y i " on i ; 26 rHE LAW eF a if " - tea of ment? || Reron indize of him, or selleth him, then that | THIEF shall die. bt “Chrisuanity fas annihilated that distir ction of na. tions which was once established : every man is now | our brother, whatever be his nation, coinplexion. orp erecd How then can the merchandize of men and)_\, women be carried on, without transgressiny this com-) | mandment, or abetting those who do? If a man steal) a horse or sheep, he is condemned ; but af he steal ore | purchase of those who steal, hundreds of men rat woren, he not only escapes wi h en punity; but ErOWS | great by this unnatural commerce! According to the)? | law of God, whoever stole cattle restored four or fivell ae fold; whoevcr stole one human being, though ax id} jot or an infant, must die. He who stole any one off. the human species, in order to make a slave of him. or to sel] him for a slave, whether the Thicf had ac- tually sold him, or whether he continucd in his pos; session, was punished with death: but if we are sri Christians, we shall have no occasion for penal stat- utes to restrain us from stealing or enslaving our) brethren a the human species, and ¢rading the bod | Smee ae aE Thou shalt not delver unto his master, the; i servant whe is escaped from his master unite! | thee : He shall dwell with thee, even among?) | you. in that place which he shall choose, in it one of thy gates where it liketh him best: thou shalt not oppress him. David said to the, Egyptian, canst thou bring me down to this com-\ pany ? und he said, swear unto me by God, that) , thou wi!t neither kill me, nor deliver me into) | the hands of my master, and I will bring thee} \j § Deuteronomy 24. 7. " Scott, SOD AND SIAN. Pai | | Ky} } flown to this company Take counsel, execute —Gudgment ; make thy shadow as the night in the ‘ynidst of the noon-day : hide the outcasts, bewray eiot him who wandereth. Chou shouldest not have |. (stood in the cross way, to cut off those wha did jescape ; neither shouldest thou have delivered ‘up those who did remain in the day of distress. \ GAs thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee: || “thy reward shall return upon thine own head. * 4 These scriptures proctaim that slave-holding |) 3js an abomination in the sight of God : for _ Git justifies the slave in absconding from his Tyrant, and enjoins upon every man to faci- - Mitate his escape, and to secure his freedom. “i 1 Does this injunction comport with a Chris- \ jtian’s advertising as a fugitive criminal, a mar ; \ywho has merely fled from his cruel captivity, jor with his aiding to trace and seize him who {had thus burst from “‘durance vile” ? It isa 4 rciteration of the theft: yet he professes to be ("5 Ky influenced by the Gospel! 8. | 4. But the Man-stealer states, that this is in- ,_ | piustice, as it destroys his property ; and that V fit is base to aid a slave to fly from his chains, ‘| or not to assist in recapturing him. Were the i | Master placed in similar misery with the vic- ee et : oh —— \ ie * Deuteronomy 23. 15, 16 1 Samuel 30 10—16. j © Ieaiah 16 3. Obadiah 14, 15. | t 4 8 “Well may we blusi:, when we hear a man boast- ‘ ing of his rights as an American, and of his citizen- it j4 ship among the Saints, with a whip in one hand, a | |) ,))}} chain ip the other, and before him, a Negro flayed vl | |) from the head to the loins !” | Hid hii ii Pia -vioiating the law of love, and the commanc «8 THE Law oF tim of his cruel avarice, and he should es | cape ; rather than be seized, he would slay the j) assailant; his heroism would be honoured, , and his contest for freedom being righteous. 4) he would be exonerated: but if a colourec {) person should wound a Aianapper, he is igno. ») miniously executed, and almost without form: 4 for the trial of Negros is the highest burlesque ri i i upon the administration of justice, that des. ©} ) ! potism ever devised. “For tis establish’d by your partial laws, No slave bears witness in a white man’s cause. Beings you deem them of inferior kind, Denied a human or a thinking mind. Pe \ ¥ I!appy for Negros were this doctrine true, 1 r Were feelings lost to them, or given to you /” A man cannot assist in seizing a slave, ; || and robbing him again of his hberty or life) J when he ,is inculpable before society, withou: “ of God. “Slavery ! virtue dreads it as her grave: Patience itself is meanness in a slave. oa i Yet if the will and sovereignty of God, Bid suffer it awhile, and kiss the rod, Wait for the dawning of a brighter day, And snafi the chain the moment when you may t” eli | = |} Ezekiel 27. lbh a GoD AND MAN. ie 29 ) ‘The gospel censures these sinners with ce- Nestial authority. Paul characterizes the Rom- Jans “sho were Slave-holders. as mventors of ¢- Jul things. without natural affection, implacable, and unmerciful.* “ Among the most corrupt transgressors, he classes ‘ Mar-Stealers.t This crime among the Jews exposed “the perpetrators of it to copital punishment ; and the Apostle classes them with sinners of the first rank. ’Yh: word he uses, in its original import, compres ends all who are concerned in bringing any of the ‘human race into slavery, or in detaining them in it. - | Stealess of men are all those, who bring off slaves or 4 § freemen, and keep, sell or buy them. © To steal a 1 Freeman is the highest kind of theft.§ In other steal or retain men in slavery, we seize those wio In common with ourselves, are consiituted by the original 4 grant. Lords of the earth.{ 9 | “® Man-stcalers!—The worst ef all thieves ; in com- parison of whom, highway robbers and house-breakers + are inuocent ! What then are traders in Negros, ane ') iustances we only steal human property, but when we ti p “Men-Scalers are inserted among these daring _ criminals, against whom the law of God directed its | awful curses. These kidnapped men to sell them for | slaves; and this practice seems inseparable from the other iniquities and oppressions of slavery; nor can a slave-dealer keep frec from this criminality, if “the | receiver be as bad as the thief.’ || procurers of servants for America ''"§ A f { f i i ~ They who make war, for the inhuman purpose & of selling the vanquished as slaycs, are really iei- lo — } * Romana |. 30. t+ 1 Timothy 1. 10. § Grotius. ) $ Presbyterian Confession of Laith. |) 9 With this doctrine, as his avowed creed, can @ i Presbytirian Siave-driver charitably be decimed a sin- yi.cere Ciutstiau ? G dohn Mesley, — {| Score. 2 rs = ae ee errs ene oe -(I rity ii i it if i ( I 30 TRE LAW of : IR! i i| “HH My stealers. And they who encourage that wchristias. ! 1, ij trafic by purchasing the slaves which they know to i, | | | ° . | ‘ be thus unjustly acquired are partakers in their | | crime.” } { i } of men.* a | “ To number the ficrsons of men with beasts, shecp,, | and horses, as the stock of a farm, or with bales of | goods, as the cargo of a ship, is a most detestable’ || @ and antichristian practice.’* i ni te ‘ “« Shall Protestants renounce that merchandize of! if Rome, which consists of odours, and ointments, and} \ chariots, and purple, and silk and scarlet, and continue | {| ‘hat more scandalous traffic in slaves and souls of | a men 2?*+ } | | “In ages to come, it will scarcely meet with credit, | |) } t | | | | ‘hat we who boast ourselves of being a free nation, | | i ‘ha Hl should have been capable of buying and selling aouls.| |i iit and it is the introduction and profession of that gospel, | | ‘(fl which render the dealing in slaves so cnormously | fii wicked! A Christian buying and selling slaves! A} | ‘nau, who professes that the leading law ot his life,’ | is to do as he would be done by, spending his time, | ||) i ‘and amassing a fortune in buying and selling his fele | 9 at Zowemen '§ bY ; ‘ i Is there not some chosen curse, Some hidden thunder in the stores of heaven, Red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man, 3Vho gains his fortune from the blood of soule?’*'$ ij % Macknight. * Revelation 18. 13. || Scor?. i. bi 4. Robineon. § Simpson. t Cowper. } i BOD ANB MAS. Ge The Methodist discipline asserts, that thee “js “one only condition previously required of | those who Wish admission into these socictics, -'g desire to flee from the wrath to come, and to the saved from their sins.” But how shall they : evidence that their desire is real and genuine ? | “By aveiding evi of every kind, especially that © Which Is most generally practised : the buying or selling of men, women, or children, with an “\\\catention to enslave them. Notwithstanding, | Methodist Christians engage 1 this evils can . they, in the exercise of evangelical charity, be "| pronounced acceptable members ? ‘) Vhe ancient Jews understood the words in , ithe decalogne, Thou shalt not steal, of maiie | {stealing ; and chought that the otner sorts of ‘ shalt not covet ~ Under the Dfosaic law, man- i] 1 ) by the claimant, or purchased eee Ee ae $ Exodus 20. 15—1¥, Ne a I ER EE Path { were implied in the last precept, Thor ‘stealing was the ouly capital robbery + for the ‘theft of property was expiated by ample resti- ‘iution. But to enslave a Jew, was deemed an ) equal crime with murder ; and as it virtually || involves the same consequences, it insured the } > same punishment : and it. was no subject of in- | quity, whether the slave was actually kidnaped from another ; put if it could be manifested, that such a per- son was detained by him contrary to the law of _ God, no alternative existed, degth was his 1m- 1, mediate portion. THE LAW OF ght to buy slaves, is any! Other or better, ‘han that of the seller. They are} verily guilty i whose hand the slave is found No! plea can excuse the pracsice of detaining in slavery | the children of those who have been brought from Atrica; or give a right to seil them, as any other article of property." ~ The all-wise Creator of mankind never intended, that one pertof the human race should sell fer lucre the other. Lrading the fcrsons of men is altogether & repugnant to the doctuines taught by our Lord him sell, and to the dictates of the glorious yospel of : peace. Which preaches universa! philantiropy anc «nod wil to men = Paul, with reference to the detestable custom of kidnafifiing ».en, for the hurpose of carry- ing them into slavery, classes man-stealing sith those crimes which are most detestable in the cye of God, Mot pernicious to society, and most deserving of dean by the swo:dof the magistrate. Man-stealing,” and ail elave-holding is man-stcaling, * must there- fore be considered a ross evil, in every age, and every nation. This practice is a clime of the first mMavuitude against our neighbour. If he who pilfers another’s property, steals a sheep, robs on the high road, or commits a burglary, be considered and treated as a thief, a robber, a Pest to sucie.y, of what cn- crmoue villainy must he be guilty, who kidnafis my tonest neighbour, my Saithful servant, my dutiful child, or my uffectionate wife, to transport the one er i —— a a er ort — I OR ok x eae —_ H SE ET TET teak Gain oc aa * Brown's Dictionary of the Holy bible. TRS 2 | 10D AND MAN. 33 the other to a country entirely unknown, and never thence to return ! ‘his eutrage on the sacred rights jof liberty, of justice and of humanity is greatiy ene thanced, if that worst of thieves intend, either to treat ‘them himself as the most abject slaves; or to sell ‘them for that cruci and infamous purpose.” But it ‘liffers not, whether he steals the frarents in Guineg tor the children in hig own Aouse, or ensiaves them ' ‘Qimself, or transfers them to others for that nefarious jobject. * In either case, and much more when they ‘tare united, reason and conscience, the common Bcotle Jments aod feelings of mankind, will all unite, if not jdebauched by avarice, or blunted by habit. ts approve lof Jehovah’s law as just He that stealeth a man, and jsclieth him, or if he be found in hie hand; he shak ‘surely be fut to death™ Nor is there a man upon ‘l earth, not even among those who are grown hoary in \the iniquitous trade of kidnapping and man-stealing, '* or bartering brandy and baubles for human flesh and | l blood, that would ‘not execrate the character of himiy to whose power or subtlety he had fallen a victim for similar purposes, and that would not pronounce him worthy of death. But if there were no receivers, there wouid be no thieves ; and he who recetves the etoler bodies of men, ought to be punished with death ace cording to the law of the - ord, because they are found in Ais hand Low insulting to méral justice, and hew affronting to common sense, that those: persons Whe would be immured in” the penitentiary, “¢ for secretly purchasing a few shillings’ worth of property, kaow= ing it to have been stolen, should have it in their power publicly to buy andysell whole familes of” coloured people,'* with comptere impunity, and with out violating any pronibitory law of the land! aa if rectitude aid sobbery were local things: the former losing its respectability, and the latter its turpitude, whenever the liberty and the lives of harmlesa negros become the object of avarice ' = eS es IN 2 Se ge tow _ = EO EASES I aL at ca ae = peters =—J ame RE Bota Peet 2 * Exodus 31. 16. ; = THR LAW OF “The Bible is not in any caanner # favourer off the system of enslaving mankind — It forbids nothing |] to the African, that is equitable in the conduct {| the American, It knows vo more of a white mars |) buying and enslaving a black one, than it doce ofal black man buying and enslaving the white. In its {I impartial estimate, and under its commanding power. |} § Fagane and Christians are all ona level. Uf theft | lawfulness of purchasing innocent persons, for the Ti most cruel and degrading slavery. exist among men, |) i it must be a common right and equally possessed | | ih by all ations. 41 mankind might be taken to the ; i) bert market for the human species; exfoeed in the hg moet indecent manner to frublic sale; handled and || | examined like so many head of cattle by their fur- | | | chaecs ; consigned over, with their unborn frosterity, | ih fo the most cruel slavery. from generation to gencra- i tion ; and for what? Here let Aumanity blusn, mercy | sweef, and justice be roused into indignation. As it is impossible to prove that the natural nmghts of man @re not equally sacred in Africa as they are in America i would the law of this country fiermit, the trafficker | in souls would no more scrupile to kidnap, or fur- Chase the son of his next neighbour, than he would the inbabitants of a remote continent or their descen- dante.""* Mhe principles of moral right and wrong are | invariable. They are not circumscribed by ge. ographical boundaries, or particular periods of time; but apply to every individual, of all com- munities, and in every age. Praetices condem- Jned among the Israeiites, upon the basis of e- ternal rectitude, never can be justified: and Jewish aberrations from the requisitions of their own heavea promulged jaw, instead of furnishing us an example to copy, provide 3 beacon for alarm and insiruciion. ee * Woed's Dictionary of the Holy Bible. 2 i GOD AND MAX. <5 ‘3 The public formuiries of the United States VA sfexhiui the vasi Contradiction etween our doce “itrine apd practice with oracular authority. } pe a a | (if © We hol these truths to be s«clf-cvident—that af ee “men are created equal, that they ave endowed by their i Creator with certain unalienable richts; that smong these are life, libery aod the vuraait of hapaincss.”” « All men are born equally tee and incepcndents all men have certain natural, essential and inherent rihts—among which are, the enjoying and cefe> ing life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, an protecting preperty 3 aud in a word, of seeking and obtaining wt happiuess. Among the vatural rights some are ih their yer) nature unalienable, because no equivalent can be given or received for them. Of this kind are the } Rights of Conscience.’’¢ “ Aj] men are born free and equal, and have cer- ; tain natural, essential and unalienable rights : among Pan which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and de- eae fending their lives and liberties ; and that of acquiring, if poxsessing, and protecting property ; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness.”’} “ All men are born cqually free and incepencent, a and have certain inherent and indefcisible rights, a- mong which are those of enjoying and defending life iy}! and liberty, of acquiring, possessing and protecting ; pruperty and reputation, and of pursuing their own . | happiness.”’|] : “Through divine goodness, all men have by nature, Bey - the rights of worshipping and serving their Creator according to the dictates of their consciences, of ene ‘ joying and defending life and liberty, and acquiring pad and protecting reputation and property, and in general, { j of attaining objects suitable to their condition, withe - fag eut injury by one to another; and these Tights are Fe essential to their welfare.’’§ | Pa eel ae oy a Serpe reese nt re tere aes be PT Sm cesar bln 5 anaes no nna ba btaedbalhed mae _® Declaration of Indefiendence. + New-Hampaihire.- $ Massachusetts. || Pennsylvania. §& Delaware Tif LAW oF « All man are by nature equally free and inde pendent, and have certain inherent rights ; of which when they enter into a state of society, they cannot,| by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity namely the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the woeans of acquiring and possessing pioperty, and pur-}) suing and obtaining happiness and safety "4 [ “All men are born equally free and independent, | and have certain -natural, inherent and unalienable th rights. among which are the enjoying and defending life and liberty. acquiring, possessing and protecting |, property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and}, safety ’’** been duly convicted. i « All men are born equally free and independent, |! and nave certain natural, unalienable rights, among |) which are the enjoying and defer.ding life and liberty, f) acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and | pirsuing and obtaining happiness and safety. There shal be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in this state. ’t Thus saith the BOOK; butthe laws which sanction the slavery of Negros, deny this doc- trinc, and consequently are a LIE ! How cailous must that heart be to all shame ! which notwithstanding these self-evident traths, can gravely mammtain the neccssiiy of protruct- ing slavery, and uphold its horrors by his acte ual participation : for every liberal mind is tho- roughly convinced, of the unrighteousness and inexpediency of this, the most cruel, detest. able and consummately wicked measure that eee q Virginia. ¥® Permont, ® North Western Territory. t Ohio. EE TEPER TT TT Nt GOD AND MAN. 37 _ has been ever devised by mercantile avarice, or sanctioned by a sordid, narrow and mis- _- guided policy. of : iy ‘What hypocrisy and villany, to profess that we are | ) votaries of liberty, while we encourage or countenance ; / the most ignoble slavery.* We cannot form to ours P selves an idea of an object more ridiculous, than ap + American fatriot signing declarations of Indcfiendence © avivy one hand, and with the other, brandishing hie | Fi pwhif over his affrighted slave. + ¥) How awfully deluded must he be, who, ~“ || | | wilfully closing his eyes to the splendour of — | divine illumination, and shielding his soul ik ) from all the arrows of conviction, will con- ¥ sider himself Messiah’s disciple, though by the Book, his conscience, his own theological and. republican creed, and the supreme law of the i Hland, he stands condemned: for injustice and fr “inhumanity, before the Church and the World. i cruel man-stealing Christian / 10. } t | ae * Brannagan. Ht !1)} 10. We combat not the theft of Negros on the coast Bay Hot Africa, and the transportation o! them to the United _[Staes. Che wholesale Man-stealer, like Cein, brars ) ‘ithe mark in his Forehead; he is a fugitive and « } t »Gies, by dissolving ail domestic relations. and by transe fplanting fom one state to avother these wretched jfreatures, because they have a different tinge from imself, is the primeval Murderer’s own offspring. j rap xamine his face, it 1s tie exhibition of every in- | W\iernal passion: -Aie Acart ! ! ho | Wi Dd « These same Slave-holders would wade throvgn seas of the blood of white men, as well as black «en, to gratify their despotic propensities if they were not) restrained : it is the fear not the love of either God.” or man, that restrains them.’’} rH As these are the unadulterated truths of (3k the Gospel, how can a follower of the meck and lowly Jesus, be connected with asystem, » which essentially generates such malevolent? | ii}, principles, and such barbarous conduct? Yet)” Church-Officers display a predominant insen- sibility to this complicated turpitude. The. Hi quintessence of all absurdity is to hear an}. |] Oppressor, in the name of him “ who touched) - Isaiah’s hallowed lips with fire,” expatiate up) Hy F on the poox delivered to Jesus in Nazareth.) © « A person cannot be a child of God, and live in) | the practice of that which his. reason, his conscience, || and Scripture disallow : and a man must be intel-) |] lectually blind, not to sce that all these faithful monitors) ) absolutely and unequivocally condemn slavery and inst 4 abettors. + blk As equity and injustice, philanthropy - and barbarism, vice and religion, cannot coalesce ;\ | every Officer and Member of the Church, | @ who steals slaves, although he professes tol; believe and inculate the evangelic charity which | f he does not exemplify, is equally culpable | with the Cgiite, who kidnapped their African) |) 9 ancestors. eh —— } Brannagan. § Luke 4. 16—32. 4+ Brannagan. 4 a CHAP TER) Wik SLAVERY IS IMPIOUS, CRUEL, FALSE AND UNJUST- ai ii Slavery of our species combines every iF base characteristic. When that august period ~ shall have arvived, that the total extinction of this monster shall be celebrated with the ‘iG triu mphs of Christianity—the inscription which "will narrate its existence will simply record— u i { | Here lies the enemy of man, whose principles ) were irreligion, whose dispositions were cruelty, whose language was falsehood, whose conduct | was injustice, and whose pretensions were ‘hypocrisy. An impious, barbarous, and de- | ceitful Thief !¥ Yet this Idol has usurped a |)prominent station in the temple of God, and ‘silences the voice of those who minister and {) serve in the Sanctuary—until the Blind are leading the Blind into the ditch of perdition. i Slavery is impious, for it directly subverts i )jiethe divine authority, The supremacy of the iy ereat Jehovah ts denied, and lis government . . ys . . . . i iol the human family catircly wrested from | . j ae by this vile usurpation, Every principle \ rE which dignifies, every affection which refines, t Ae Ce i vu pot, who would overthrow God’s jurisdicdon) SLAVERY but all these are extinguished as soon as man ‘| is degraded to abrute. No alternative exisis; inferiors in wealth and civil stations must be> t considered as moral agents, or must be classed with the focks and herds of the field. Hence,).’} | slavery involves the most awful conse. | fi) uences, and wretchedness irremediable. It) |} is a wilful disobedience to the commandments: — of Go; and not only exposes the criminal! H to the wrath of the Judge, but is a most, |) artful and diabolical invention to exclude even: the sufferer by this ungodly machination| from the celestial regions of bliss ) He who has scrutinized the uniform tenden. cy of involuntary servitude ; who examines — the unvarying practice of those who ingulph): } the bodies and souls of men in the net of their} selfishness and insensibility ; and who, with) the cye of Christian philanthropy, has investi, gated the moral charicter of the servants)! knows; thata S/ave-holder 1s av unfeeling des: Very few Men Stealers comparativel: are? eyen ziominal Chrisiian Believers. How can). a person pretend to be a disciple of the crUucl-), fied Jesus, who hinders his worship and con) 7, s . [ ai travenes his commands ; in whom all cvan:) gelical charity is extinct; and who will | neither enter the kingdom of heaven, nor -per-/ mit those to approach who would crave ad-} mission at the gate? The spirit of Christi anity and the practices of Men-thieves are ath. total oppugnation ; and consequently they exer!) ae DELINEATED. 4k || their energies to counteract the progress of ev and undefiled religion.’ By their iexample and influence, they endeavour to di- 1; "| minish all regard for sacred institutions, to . impede the acquisition of all necessary know- | ledge, and to obstruct their slaves from listen- ‘a Bling to the admonitions of divine truth. | Christianity promuiges liberty to the captive ; it depicts all the misery which must neces- iat he }sarily follow an equitable remuneration, if God / ||) Tequites the Slave-holder, as he has abused "| |%his fellow-man; it inculcates the doctrines of vii 1 justice which the Man stealer ever violates; } I) of mercy, which never regulate his intercourse | Aen others ; of Jove, which are swallowed up 4 (by an avaricious, dissipated extinction of fcel- I Ming ; and of religious Jear, which has been i! exterminated from bis heart, by his delibcrate “| Tejection of the light to hfe, and by his ob- duracy in opposing ** the truth as it is in Jesus;”” because it condemns his theft and barbarity. . Hence the Sabbath is disregarded, the means of grace are neglected, and the Gospel ceases at all to interest, until the candlcstick is re- moved from its place, and both the Tyrant avd the Slave, realizing a marble-hearted in. 4 difference, mingle the same profane exccra- tions, exhibit an identical dishonour of God, 4 and manifest an equal insensibility to worlds verlasting. But if the Slave, convinced of the value of his soul, and solicitous to be ‘ tescucd from the wrath vo come, is desirous 0 receive gospel instruction, it is altogether Nes 2 batt | 4 I i i , # k o- 42 SLAVERY denied him, or his attendance at the house of prayer is so restricted, that it includes all Ei the qualities of a total prohibition. 11. The law of Virginia denominated a varicty of meetings by the coloured people, unlawful 5 | but the clause was so indeterminate. that it | empowered the Magistrate to decide what as- | semblies subjected the attendant to fine and a punishment. By an act of the year 1804, | | # all night-meetings upon whatever pretext, ine | sured the parties, if convicted, a whipping : i but this act being a direct violation of re- | ligious freedom, it was subsequently amended and explained: and a higher stigraa upon legislation, if the clause is viewed in con. nection with the relation which man sustains | trying or permitting his, hcr or their slave or slaves to go with him, her or them, or with any | vart of his, her or their white family, to any | worship; provided, that such worship be con- ducted by a regularly ordained or licensed place whatever for the purpose of religious | a white minister.’’£ Ait. ae 11. All those masters who neglect the religious and Hi moral instruction of their siaves, add a heavy i ul of ft guilt to that alrcady incurred, by their s are un this 7) i unjust and inhuman traffic. Wakefield, $+ Reyised Code, ; me} Ha t f ie || ieee A | 4, ie coe NN Me LT it cy ee ab ie VE F | | DELINEATED. 43 He | The total obstruction, is not one jot more j - thostile to the progress of the Gospel, more | ‘subversive of every natural right, or more a8 +) daring in its defiance of Jchovah’s supremacy. ‘How men who swear by the Book, to per- “form their official dutics, could enact such ) st regulations for the government of immortal ‘souls, cannot be explained upon any principle, | 18) Lei y : ra | which does not overwhelm them with the Mt “outmost disgrace. 12. Y {Even those who have a small portion of \ SEA . ech aie = . . i || jeonscience remaining, display their depravity 5 4 1) for their pride revolts, if the descendants of ret f ‘Africa are seen within the walls of the temple ; ts i Hagencrally no convenient stations are provided ‘hi mai || jfor slaves, that they may hear the truih; and ie where a man contrives to preserve the forms Wj i Hot domestic worship with the stealing and traf- ‘; «| | feking of human flesh; the victims of his Ald (tad Nt ale I 1 a ras ie! it (him, is inexplicable upon any principle of iI i ie , feeling, aff.cuon, or Christianity! ‘Phe Hie fd unconcern which slave-holding produces in Hf | i \the ‘Iyrants, with respect to the eternal pcace Hi | ji—— = z hy 14 i | \44 12 Planters prevent their negros from being ine ae structed in a religion which proclaims the equality mM of ali men; all proceeding froma common stock, all hit parte: pating the benefits of creation, and amon. womy Pia | with the Father of men, there is ne ace: paren of Lee persons. Slavery is therefore an outage Upy. —urtse uanity. Robinson, ei il Pia i‘ f tt ii | F i ih N 44 SLAVERY ry Kp! | | \\\ i e . A Pa | ad! of their own children, and the salvation of the | ih wreich:d objects of their compound avarice,” it aud cruelty, evince, that slavery is zmpious, | Siuce it tends to exterminate the authority of | |i} | / Jeaovah. la | i This subversion of the divine government. | ji, » ¥ Recessarily follows from the adoption of the || fi} LIE, that one man can justifiably be so reduced |} - to the command of another, as to have no will | but that of his director. a Man owes to his Creator and Judge duties! i" it from the performance of which no terrestrial) | 1H fl power can possibly absolve him. Among these! } | Hi are the cultivation of devotional tempers and| 1a Hit the fulfilment of Christ’s requisitions. ‘The! | lI Lt existing relation between the Slave-driver and | | Cat his vassal, proclaims the impracticability of | | i | pi a compliance with his obligations, and con. || i ah sequenily, that he who steals a man or keeps [| ii him in his hand, is a bold usurper of eciestal )} | it jurisdiction, and a merciless violator of human | | # } rght, freedom and responsibility. Does not |)! i t hae ; j i the absolute uncontrouled dominion which the | Master possesses over his slave, render even t the existence of spiritual-mindcdness almost | | | impossible ; by opposing to a regular use of | N the means necessary to strengthen a pious | aot disposition, vast obstructions which counter- | i baiance, if not destroy the force of — the Savionr’s claim, and make his commands nu- , gatory 2 When the injunction of God and the order of the Slave-tyrant are directly at vari- ; } DELINEATED. 45 é ; vance, when the law of heaven and the man- | date of the Negro- Thief are both compulsory atthe same period, to the earthly authority ) the slave must primarily submit ; and when ay the everlasting welfare of the servant’s soul, "and to facilitate the sensual gratifications a | his barbarous despot, are placed in competition, | -both parties may be condemned by the Most |) High, but the doubly cruel Voluptuary must ‘not be disappointed. Slavery is impious, because it strikes directly at jj} ithe paternal government of the adorable Father of hut ankind, who made nf one blood all the natione Kt fi guhon the face of the earth, and who, having fired fe ete bounds of their habitations, fills (oar hearte Ae with food and gladness.t ie Negros are in all respects, except in regard to life i HR ‘and death, cattle, They are bougnt and sold, fed or jah: ‘kept hungry, clothed or reduced to nakedness, beats hd ten, turned out to the fury of the elements, and torn Hi y , sit} from their dearest connections, with as little remorsc, 1 Han jas if they were beasts of the field. ))\ Vheir situation is rendered far more miserable than meet they were brutes. Their food is so coarse and bad, jj) ithat nothing but necessity could compsi them to cat it; while their labour and their punishments are s¢- oe and cruel.t i Are slaves taught to read, so that thev can \Kipernse the divine records ? If one of ten thou- {f sand has attained sufficient learning to spell ‘the plainest passage of Chrisiian instruction, ii # is not the labour which attends it, an obstacle ito the acquisition of necessary knowledge al- dmost in ,uperable 2? But so few of the wale i} f GSnethin, Acta 14, 17, and (7.26. ¢ Rowland Hill. 46 shavekt body of the coloured race have arrived eve} at this stage of illumination, that they are in}) a great measure incapacitated to comprehend the force of the most homely and common}) illustrations of the BOOK.13. At the commencement of the vear 1805, and while the Legislature were influenced by}, the same spirit, which uniformly has directed}, all their disgraceful proceedings respecting the unfortunate creatures who have been kidnapped, and enslaved —in an act concerning these etry) of misery a clause was inserted particularly} relating to free coloured children, which de}. monstrates an unwavering resolution in the civil authwities to impede every possible me} lioration of she degraded state of these rational, cattle. “ It shall not be lawful for the overseers || of the poor who may hereafter bind out anyj\ black or mulatto orphan, to require the mastel\)\| or mistress to teach such orphan, reading, writ), ing or arithmetic.”’* What must be the un) avoidable result of this impenetrable ignorance. How highly must the wrath of Heaven be 13. This torturing system has been pursued so far a: to prevent the developement of the mental facultiesp) In Vieginia, they are no allowed to learn to reac. To) have b-en able to read cost a black mas his lite He demanded, that the Africins should share the ben: fits which American liberty p'o nised, ‘and he supported}) ‘this demas) by the BULL ve RicHrs Che ar.cument} was without refily. Vy such cases, where refutarionl |) ie impossible, ALL TYRANNIES having features w hich} resemble each over; the NEGRO suffred on thhy gallows. Gregoire. ® Kevisea Cods}} 9 i DELINEATED. 47 provoked against us, ior such flagrant dis- | honour ©o his name, and such ciucl mjusuce to the Gbjccts of his paternal care! | The pica of slavery is noi offered ; these > are free children, bereft of all parental affections, the management and control of whose tender years are assumed by the public ; and that ) ) guthority which proffers them its guardian pro- tection and solicitudes, grasps them for no other purpose, than to nurture them in re- ) mediless degradation, What vile hypocrisy ! » what unfechng despotism ! what daring im- | piety 1 what tremendous rational guilt does ; 4, ; 7 . , | this corruption involve! We stead the Parents; 1 Providence liberates them Irom servitude 3 1) God calls them to his dread bar 5 their children )burvive them ; and in offering the fricndless Lai prphans the tokens of our mercy, we deny “them the noblest privilege of man, we refuse ‘them all intellectual expansion, we doom them I to disgrace during their mortal pilgrimage, H the youth whom we have adopted as pat' of 43 | laine 4} George III. made their yoke insupportably grievous 5 Ha but the little finger of some Legislatures is thicker Mi thay the British Tyraat’s loins “He chastised them AP with whips,’ these REHOBLAMITES “chastise with § 1 Kings 12. I-15. «ote “ 48 SLAVERY With a fatigued body and a dispirited mind, brok n with incessant jabour, tamed by a constant privation of every comfort, and often | lacerated with severity unmingled with mercy, the slave can feel little anxicty to devote any | part of that time which ts indispensable to rest — his wearied and tortured frame, to the care of his soul. How can he be solicitous to mingle — with the worship of God inthe -amily where 1@ he resides, if devotional forms are maintained! |) Ifhe can ascertain the meaning of the Bi. Vd ble or the Hymn, or the petitions to the | j throne of grace, he must perceive that every) || | portion of the exercises condemns the nefar+ H | ious temper and the barbarous heart which) | reduced him to bondage ; that all which | Christianity includes and commands is a con-| i tradiction to all that he suffers and that his) | Master practises ; and convinced therefore, that |} such a profession of religion is delusion or! | hypocrisy, he begins to consider Christianity) | itself as nothing more than a form d: vised! br by corrupt men, to conceal their cruel insidious! designs and to cloak their malignant actions, | he Lord’s day is generally devoted to)— pursuits, occupations and pleasures so on sonant from the sacred injunction, that the de-| J based servant cannot even enjoy it as relaxae| i tion from labour. He has no choice: the) filth of the week must be his companion,’ or the hours must be devoted to necessary) || k ablutions ; and thus the opportunities of evan-) | E ‘ : | ei | . Foal) DELINEATED, 49 f } ' [pa petical instruction are inevitably lost : and can | Te be ready to attend public worship in duc Vt HAS cason, the haughty looks end the contempt. | : 4 yous aversion of the Christian AZan-stealers / ) @ivho are assembled, are of equal validity with | “ita formal vote of exclusion from the synagogue. | 3) Hence the slave abscnts himself altogether ) 9 sfroma fruitless attendance upon the house of ; | 8 0} l Nat “pray rer; and thus is banished from the enjoy- it (a | “'Gnent of that illumination which is indispens- i ibs Tuble to the soul’s peace temporal and ever. » Masting. If the Son,of Man by his Spirit gra- Piciousty maintains the sense and life of god- otfiness in the slave’s heart, every thing con- | nected with him constantly counteracts the 1 dwery exterior appearance, as well as the in- Ht \{fernal predominance of Religion. ‘The igno- » & ie and profane creatures “who are his as. iF “\tsociates ; their bestial mode of life by pro- i | tmiscuous cohabitation ; the want of requisite precy for meditation and prayer ; the con- } stant loss of all those means of grace which are fi tuecessary and favorable to religious mecliora- ion, and the endless disquietude which he si. tmust feel, when he endeavors to concatenate hi sincere profession of the Christian religion, F lneekness and philanthropy, with the turbulent espotism and the unmereiful exhibitions of his Master, all must, if not totally eradicate ithe love of that which is good, so diminish its influence, that God is robbed of his glory, ‘the Saviour of the affection due to him, re- . Ba Seen as astates i 4 b oh ear oa et ae ~ = ic ~—— ~ RET EIA DOE TT IS eee a ae wie soeaaniagaag SS ena eR I —) - EE SEE eh Pa Er ee Sa a See 50 SLAVERY | t f ligion of its ornament, the churcii of tie ser! vices of her members, the world of its sai! and light, and the soul of the peace which!) Christianity was revealed to bestow. Hence, as slavery unavoidably extinguishes all religior in those who are made wretched by its sway’ over them ; the jurisdiction which is claimed) and exercised, is. an impious usurpation oj} the divine supremacy. «Slavery is made upof evcry crime that treachen cruelty and murder can invent; and mer-sfealers arp the very worst of thieves. \S hat an universal uprea} it would make in this land if but one poor child wer kidnapped from his parents!" and yet this didnot jing is aregular practice among professing Christians « These are the people whom the Scripture, describe: a3 being fast feeling. The most knavish tricks arti | practised by these dealers i human fesh—and if thetd # slaves think of our general character, they must sup | pose that Christians are Deviis, and that Christianity | was forged in IIcll. These slave-purchascrs talk cj. a damaged slave, as of a damaged horse ; some war | mworking-slavcs, and others éreediug-siaves ; for th children of slaves are not, according to the law ¢}| nature, the property of their parents, but of the’ owners ; and when the planters and their overse have children by these negros, instead of regard the offspring of their vicious passions, they breed and sell their own children in slavery like others— | What a dishonour in us to carry on such an abominablt ¢vaffic and to attemptto vindicate or even to pallisit, it, when every principle belonging to it is founded) upon incurah/e injustice 4 Shall we call ourselver Christians or Devils? can a race of Devils art # ) gainst us worse than we do against them? In ar + | @ and wickedness, as it relates to our principle ani. | practice, we abundantly exceed. The horrid busines! i DELINEATED. a) ve mene i wt slavery in the whole of its establishment is founded / {4 on the “ mammon of unrighteousness,” on a selfish Ait) cig love of the world; and the result of this infernal traf- | Lic is, a regular system of wholesale licensed thievcry % a wd murder. Instead of supposing the principles of mit Christianity for a moment allow such a hellish com- Ahi f aneree in human blood ; directly as we are made by ¥ the flower of the gospel, what we should be by the ¥etter of the law, we are blessed with the spirit of ‘universal love. ee Shaveks ae Who bear thy saered name, our God, Should dare one single man enslave, Or shed one drop of human blood.’’* ne bh Ae "We blush with holy shame, that men ay nN —— a ae zak ue LE aw: “The case now lies fully before us ; and we have omake our choice, either to join ourselves to these ‘Manufacturers of human wo, or to renounce the horrid sssociation. If we adopt the former, let us avow our conduct inits real deformity. Let us not affect to ‘Replore the calamities attendant on slavery ; nor let is pretend to exccrate the conduct of the slave-dealer, age slave-halder, or the slavewiiver; but apologize for them a our partners in iniquity : and if we now ake our share in the transaction, with as little come Function we should take theirs ; unless we can sup- pose, that we should beconze virtuous, in proportion 3 the temptation to vice increased: and then, we hould not be destituce of subterfuges to destroy the scclings of our minds and the convictions of our cons WUkciences, Ve are now called upon to redress evils, tao comparison with which, all that exist besides, sinks beneath our notice. If we refuse, can we form the fast firetence to a moral character? if these be de- aie Pir Weare ee Se ore i a ao A a ete ey Sy Sr erent ae SLAVERY a religious profession to diminish the extent, or wv weaken the force and obligation of moral dutics.— Do we mean to insult the God whom we pretend t: worship, by supplicating him to have mercy upon alll 3 prisoners and captives, and to defend and provide fos} , the fatherless, widows, and al] that are desolate an oppressed? lt Christians, after an impartial examin tion, are satisfied that slavery is a fair and honest and lawful commerce, they ought to encourage it, and to reprobate this work as an attcmpt to slande: good men, aad to injure their froferty, by holdin: it out to the public as the firroduce of robbery ar: murder. But if the arguments be valid, will thef’ presume to treat the subject with cool indifference and continue a criminal practice? However obvioy: the duty, yet the mind, hardened hy habit, admits wit difficulty the conviction of guilt; and sanctioned bh. a cominon practice, we may commit the grossc): violations of duty without remorse. It is therefor more peculiarly incumbent on us in such situat to examine our conduct with the utmost suspicic fk and to fortify our minds with moral principles. at the sanctions of religion. In proportion as we are w der their influence, we shall cxert ourselves to rence there evils, knowing that our example, our adob tions, our inducnce may produce remote effects, °F which we can form no estimate: and which, alich 4 having done our duty, must be let! to Mim, who Kaverty all things after the counsel of his own mutes All those who devise or exccute any in quitous measures, by which men are impedey ae from honoring God, and from performing thy duties which they owe to him and their on}. souls in their moral relation to their Creatoy. are the most contemptuous rebels against hij authority : and if they superadd a claim if ———s ® Braunagar. er DELINEAtER. ve competition with the command oi Jehovah, chery exeniplify the audacity o£ Satan, who was hurled to everlasting despair for attempting to dethrone the Sovereign ofthe Universe. ‘This charge anplics to every Slave-holder 5 {or ser- vices totally incompatible with the devotional exercises of the Believer are invariably, at the most unseasonabie hours, and during the day of rest, required of these unfortunate victims of that Savegencss, which by a most diabolical infatuation, has been combined with Christi- : auity ; and which has long exposed the truths ‘ of religion to reproach, the sacred cause to rt ridicule, the solemnities of the House of Praver to contumely, and the very character of a be- jiever to suspicion. While therefore, a power ; is usurped and legalized which enables its possessor to defy the law of God and to ob- f struct the duties of men; and unqualified sub- eb mission to every arbitrary, unjust and irre- an ligious mandate cannot be evaded, without the sacrifice of mortal existence ; slavery must be nb the acme of all impiety ; consequently, it is bis impossible that a Slave-holder can be a sincere fad Christian. Bi Slovery is the climax of cruelty. By it 7 ef | every affection of the soul is exterminated. It Mt PEAR CAA i Aa RAD SD "RR PRD TAR ti AS ik gence cal dala aS cay uSdabhaltea rs ho linalits ae SONS pedis eels anes Gap aCe a lanes seen SST Oo en eee gi WeTSAL er ae SS ee See Sn ee FEE PF a ay png ae wa Oe ea de ne ~ severs al natural tics, and separates all social | relations. Matrimonial engageinents, when it commands, are dissolved; the chain which links parents and children, by its touch, is shivered to atoms; and at its approach, every domestic 9 oe aA aaa Kit See } 4B | fl v ia SS Sei = Se Fain PS 54 SLAVERY duty dies. Hearts, animated by the most de- licate love, indulge their mutual affection, not for a Vather’s and Mother’s gratulations, but for a Jyrant’s gain. Brothers and_ Sisters mingle their fraternal sensibilities, not in fu. turity to bless each other by reciprocal aid, but to increase their unmitigated torments, Seldom do they reside many years in the same habitation; a transfer is necessary; and it is made not according to family or moral con. nections, but by the proportionate value in different markets. What are the pungent feelings and exacer- lations of the Slave in every part of his exist- ence! Doomed from the earliest period of youth to toil, with no necessary relaxation, for the gratification of another’s inordinate de- sires; pinched by hunger, bereft of raiment, denied requisite accommodations at night to repose his enervated and emaciated frame ; and for the most trifling inadvertency or the Most innocent indulgence, scourged by a cruel and mercenary Task-Master, unul his stripes incapacitate him from active duties ; impeded from all religious instruction ; tortured with every agonizing anticipation; and terrified by the prospect of pain, labour and bereavement, ‘the miseries of which are diminished by no hope of melioration, he travels the pilgrimage of life, forgetful of God, himself, and eternity ; until the lacerations of his heart urge Him to the crime for which by the sacrifice of his mortal existence, he atones; or combined with yy ‘ pesuetes! Srp eats ay et. es ew SO FOR ALOR ITE a ca ea pp ede pr aw PoE DELINEATED. 35 4 diseased body, he drags out his icmporal robation amid the unfeeling complaints of his Avdnapper, that he can no longer force him to fulfil the daily “Pask; the neglect of all around him ; and the want of every consola- tion both internal and external, which might enable him with patience to bear his com- plicated affliction. « Slavery or the holding of a fellow-creature and his posterity in perpetual bondage, is a source of al} kinds of cruelty; and is a peculiarly unmerciful sysiem. It exposes a man to disgrace, and triumphs in his fall ‘Toat slaves are ignorant, barbarous. and unpiincipled is the consequenee of their condition. Men revard their own interest before the interest of their fellow-creatures ; and in despite of ali the rizhts * SORE thei am OR ssstecaiasal . - me~se re | of humanity, have forced them across the ocean, and ‘@ bound them and their posterity to the severest labour. | Immortal souls in slavery! Subjects of the grace of 4) God, and the purchase of the precious blood of Christ, ‘in siavery! Beings capable of all the blessings of _ civil society, deprived of thein all, to administer to the vices and picasure of others! If this ve mercy, _ what is not? Hail ye sons of Benevolence ! will you sing ?* That mercy I to others showy That mercy show to me!” “ Take a single slave from the millions, who are now immured in bondage ; read in his wo-worn face, a bricf and striking history of his misfortunes, of his antecedeut subjugation and subsequent degradation; torn from his friends, how wishlully he takes a lune, a last, an cager look at his violated wite and screaming children, while the tears trickle down his sable checks; he is forced from their embraces, while the atmosphere reverberates with theit shricks and groans. When — == ® Snethin. ee SLAVEBY I bring my wife and children in view, and consiic; what I should suffer were [ in his situation, my heart weeps blood. Passing by his accumulated exci uciation while under the whip of his task-master, depict him}. in his smoky hut. after the toils of the day ; see th tears begin to flow, when he thinks of his wife, his children and friends; he lifts his eyes to heaven, sighs, and looks at his homely fare, the day’s allowance of meal, and bursts into tears. He loaths his daily food, as his bodily anguish and mental despair vanquish his con.titution. He is languid and feverish 3 yet he has no friend, no relative to give him any assistance ; again he thinks.on iis family ; but the thought az- giavates his malady, and accelerates his end. Ex- change cenditions with this siave, and thou canst no: bear the picture of his death :”* Persons called Christians and Officers of the Church, buy and sell the stolen coloured people, with little or no regard to their wishes or}: alficctions. The debased Servants are deprived} of necdtul sustenance, are supplied with little and very insufficient raiment, and possess no suitable conveniencies for refreshing rest.— ‘Fhey are unmercifully and in general unde- servedly chastised ; their health, intellects, re- ligion, morals, peace and comfort are all dis- regarded, except the Despot’s interest woul be affected by neglecting them : and this dia. bolical machination cannot exist, without the perpetual exhibition of this malignity by the Slave- Tyrant. Does this degradation include no cruelty 2. Do these privations result from the pure and undefiled Religion which Jesus taught his disciples on the mount? Is this —— * Brannagan. | DELINEATED. 57 | j) that lucid proof of condescending love to the i |) Brethren which your Master demands ? Is if (Soll this the justice that the two commandments | on which hang all the Law and the Prophets inculcate 2 Is this the merey which the Book enjuins us to display to the wretched, the tn- digent, and the oppressed? And can that main, whose heart with perennial uniformity : pole } | ? i . : s angles | evinces the predominance of those principles | chat produce stich consequences, Mor entarily | believe, upon scriptural authority, that he 1s | transformed into the similitude of His who | was meek and lowly in heart ; or tan he une . | feignedly afirin, i know, that Lam passed front Ms | death unto life, because | love the brethren? 15. | For this thing which it cannot bear, the earth /. | 4 a Pierre oe ee arn eee = i ee ee sm orn eee ee % Lar Sere ae Tieetiie a Seana © Cab Ts ES ie oe } i | is cisguieted. Phe Gospel of Peace and Mercy preacicd by him who steals, buys and sells | the purchase of Messiah?» biood !—Ruters of } j i erty a. the Church enakiig merchancize of their bre- —— 15. © Thou wordling, who, with a prudence trulg raat infernal, hast the art to give a beautiful tint to the % most odious objects; who appearest not to hate thy i neighbour, because thou dost not openly attack him ; the. not to falsify thy promise, because thou. hast the art of eluding it ; not to oppress thy dependents, becase ihe thou knowést how to impose silence on them; J sazy ay thee, when thou gavest those secret stabs, when thou wi didst receive bribes, when thou cidst negociate the Wy blood of the miserable, when thou didst trafic the a blood of the oppressed, and didst accuirulate those ; weees of unrighteousness, which cry for vengeance “tj against thes.’ Sauriz. iyi ar a Se mae — re ee == = - = : ane 58 SLAVERY éhren’s souls !—and Christians trading the pres sons of men!—Logers of ther own selves: Covetous; Proud; Fierce; Men of corrupt | minds, who resist the truth ; Having a form | af godliness, but denying the power ihereof— trom such turn away.* The Slave-holder’s claim is founded on false. hood. So completely have the varied vicious dispositions which ettend man-stealing blinded the eves and indurated the hearts of Flesh- Merchants that they converse respecting slaves as their property, with as much gravily, as if they were honestly acquired. and as if so law had been violated. ‘This infatuation has infected not the open reprobate only, who neither fears God nor regards man, but the professed believer in Christianity, thereby de. monstrating the evil nature, the hardening, blinding tendency, and the consummat: deceit: fulness of sin. He who steals his brethren, and selis them, and makes merchandize of them pleads : that the victim of wrong is legalized porperty ; that the slave is equally a transferable pos- session with any other acguisition; that he is chargeable with no crime for having invested some of his money in souls and hands ; that all the progeny of the creatures whom he originally purchased of right belong to him ; and that he violates no rule of equity, ne moral principle, and no Christian affection by accumulating wealth through this medium, * 2 Timothy 3. 2~2 eS ee DELINEATED. 4S On the contrary, we asseverate ; that no -yational being can, by any transmutauion pos- sible, ever become property ; that no terrestrial legislators, without the most diabolical im- piety, can legalize this claim upon the human family ; that to trafhe in flesh and blood ant. mated by the reasoning capacities Is the greatest practicable indignity which can be ofied to mon as iMertals 5 that he purchased ap are iticle, which be kiew at the time of the pre- i tended transfer was stolen ; that every coloured chiid born in his house, whic he claims and holds as his property is shamelessiv kidnap. /ped; and that every principle of justice, de- cency, order, rectitude and religion, is annulled by this most unrighteous claim and its eflvc!s, Nothwithstanding, he demands to be recogni. Noe Bae eee SES Se a i eee no et ne SSS sa OSES crest ae zed as a sincere, consistent Christian ! 16, 16. “Tt is in a high degree unjust and cruel, to reduce one human creature to such an abject state, that he may minister to the ease, luxury or avarice of another? Has not that other the same right to have him reduced to this state, that he may minister /‘o his interest or pleasure? On what is this right founded? Whence was it derived? Didit come from ’ heaven, from earth or from hell? Has the great King of Heaven, given this extraordinary right to white over black men? Where is the charter? In whose hands is it ledged ? Thus reducing men, is an indignity, a degradation to our own nature. When we plead _ for slavery, we plead for the disgrace and ruin of our | OWn nature. If we are capable of it, we may hereafter ' claim kindred with the brutes, and renounce our own | Saperior dignity.” ‘ Rice. : Ah | —— v 60 SLAVERT «© Ina state of nature, no man has a right to seize upon another, and to compel him by force to Jabour for bis subsistence. But independent communities stand to cach other in the very same relation that individuals do in a state of nature ; and therefore if th= man of greater bodily strength or mental sagacity would have no right to convert his weaker neighbour into personal property, neither can the more powerful and enlightened nation have a right to carry off by force or entice by fraud, the subjects of a weaker and more barbarous community, for the purpose of re- ducing them to a state of servitude. Hence, the American right to purchase cannot be better than the African rightto self ; and no man can offer the shadow of a reason, why one African has a right to sell an- other. The right cannot be natural ; because natural rights are those which a man has to his life, limbs and liberty, to the produce of his personal labour, and to the use in common with otheis of air. light and water; but these privileges are inalicnable. That every man has a natural richt or just clarm to these things is evident from their being absolutely necessaty enable him to «uswer the purpose for which he was made a living aud rational being. This shews un- deniably that the Author of his nature designed that he should have the use of them, and that the man who wantonly deprives him of any one of these is guilty of a breach of the divine law. When slaves are brought to Market, no questions are asked about the origin or justice of the vendor's title; but they are piaced for life in subjection to a dominion and system of laws, the most merciless and tyrannical that ever were tolerated upon the face of the earth ; and the inordinate authority which the Jaws conler upon the Slave-holder is exercised with the utmost rigour and brutality. The right cannot be adventitious ; for adventitious rights are immediately derived from the municipal law, which is the public will of the state. Bat the state has no just authority to deprive an ins Le ae “A, Dank tater nore er DELINEATED. 6 jocent man of his personal freedom, or of the produce of his own labour; for it is only to secure these, by protecting the weak from the vislence of the strong. that states are formed and individuals united under / civil government. “ Tt may perhaps be said, that by patiently sub- mitting to governments which authorise the traffic ip ‘human flesh, men virtually give up their personal liberty, and invest their governors wtth a right to sell “them as slaves: but no man can invest another with aright which he possesses not himscif: and in a state of nature, where all have equal rights, no individual can submit himself to the absolute disposal of another without being guilty of the greatest crime. From the relation in which men stand to one another as fellow-creatures, and to God as their common Creator, there are duties incumbent upon each peculiar te himseif; in the perfermance of which, he can be guided only by his own reason, which was given hin fcr that very purpose. But he who renounces his . personal freedom, and submits unconditionally to the _ caprice of a master, impiously attempts to set himseif ‘free from the obligation of that law which is inter woven with his very being, and chooses a director ot Wis conduct different from that which God has as- signed him. A man therefore cannot reduce himseli ' to a state of uncondition:] servitude, and what he can- aot do for himself, he cannot authorize others to-do for him, by a tacit or an open ‘consent.’”’F These principles result from our situation as rational creatures. Human life is altogether placed out of the controul of any terrestrial power, except in those exireme cases, where for the welfare of the body politic, it is in- dispensable to extirpate a pest. But the + Encyclopedia Brittanica. ig SLAVERY teans necessary to preserve that existence, and to execute the varicd duties for which it was originally imparted, are equally requis- ite to its possessor. Slavery annihilates all, Man is justly subjected to moral law: but property, a slave who has no wall, cannot be the proper object of rewards and punish- ments. “ A young woman, in the state of servitude, would not be able to maintain her virtue against the solicita- tions of a niaster who should promise her liberty, or d remission of toil, upon ber yielding to his desiices ;” and for such refusal, many chaste females have been most barbarously lacerated, until agony forced a re- Juctant compliance with the debauched tyrant’s lust. ‘4 slave would not strenuously object to the per- petiation of any wickedness to obtain his freedom, or even a diminution of j.is daily task: indecd those temptations might be thrown in bis way, which human natuie could not resist, but by means of the most yracious principles; even then he might be scourged into compliance ; or his labour might be so increased as to make him, for a little respite eagerly embrace the most nefarious proposal which his master could offer ; for being absolute pioperty, there is no earthly tribunal to which he could appeal for justice; and very few slaves support theniseives under their trials by the recollection of a future judgment.’’* | ee ETE gg be SAS eS Slaves after having thus perpetrated the crimes projected by their despots, have been arraigned upon the charge and evidence of - their merciless tyrants, have been feloniously condemned and ignominiously deprived of life; to screen the master from disgrace, and for * Encyclopedia Brittanice. az tat wen etna ame a Ee ee a EO Ny an et ik Sr LN Bp 9 a otunnGhages eT SELINEATED, OL . the aake of the value which is allowed to every individual, for the criminal whom he had previously seduced to violate the law, and then contrived under the sanction of its forms, to murder, "Vhe legislative act which allows the master an adjudged price for his guilty slave, is the very compound of all un- righteousness. “ Some Slave-holders have been insticated by avarice and other worse principles, to compel the creatures who are so absolutely their dependents, to engage in deeds of darkness too hazardous for themselves. The , moralfty or the immorality of any action and the moral fitness of any state are to be judged by their moral tendency, if the one were universally practised, and the other universally prevalent; and as the natural - tendency of absolute domestic slavery among such creatures as men is to throw the most powerful tempta- tions to vice in the way both of Master and Slave ; slavery must be in every instance, inconsistent with the fundamental principles of moral virtue.”’$ “ It is the double curse of slavery, to degrade all who are concerned with it doing or suffering; and the slave himsel! is the dowest in the scale of human beings except the Slave-Dealer.t”’ Seer ae “The Negro, spoil’d of all that nature gave The free-born man, thus shrunk into a slave, His passive limbs to measured tasks confined, Obeys the impulse of another’s mind ; Denied, though sought with tears, the sad relief : That misery loves, the fellowship of grief. Not for himself he wakes at morning-light, Toils the long day and seeks repose at night ; His rest, his labour, pastime, strength and health, Are only portions of a master’s wealth ; er t Encuclonedia Brittanica, + Montgomery. a a eee See ere Re a= ee ee ‘ | i f t | § fi ae I 4 SLAVERY His love! © name not love, when Christians doom, The fruit ef love to slavery from the womb. “ Lives there a savage ruder than the slave? Cruel as death, insatiate as the grave, Js he who toils upon the wafting flood, A Christian Broker in the trade of blood 5 Boisterous in speech, in action prompt and bold, He buys, he sells—he steals, he kills for gold. “ Lives there a reptile baser than the slave? Loathsome as death, corrupted as the graves See the dull Creole,f at his pompous board, Attendant vassals cringing round their Lord 5 He stalks abroad; through ali his wonted rounds, The Negro trembles, and the lash {>sounds. This is the veriest wretch on natu’: § face, Own’d by no country; spurn’d hy every race. His soul;—has he a soul; whose sensual breast OF selfish passions is a serpent's vest? Whose heart mid scenes of suTeving senseless grown. E’er in his Mothber’s inp was c'/!"d to stone; Whose torpid soul iv C izs Move ; A stranrer to the te.derisess of love. His motley baram chirms his gtoating eyes Where ebon, biow. and olive beauties vie ; His children, sprung alike from sloth and vice, Ave born his slaves, acd loved at market firtce » Has he a soul ?—With his departing breath, A form shall hail him at the gates of death, “Tire spectre Conscience,—shrieking threuzh the gloom, Man, we shall meet again beyond the tomb.” § A human creature is not an article of trafic. for the law of God gives not the absolut disposal of one man’s life and freedom t another. What he has not made an objec of donation, can never be bestowed by a cres ture; and as no person can possibly offt: ¢ Man-thief or Slave-holder. § Montgomery, DELINEATED. 95 | amy equivalent for a human soul, no purchase iy ‘|. could ever be honestly made of a rational bes. i! /to\) ing; and of course, he never could be even . } | || alaimed, much less stolen and transferred witn- | out the highest degree of iniquity: for no terrestrial power can possibly legalize that’ which God has peremptorily prohibited. 17. Many persons propagate the notion, that | the acts of earthly Lawgivers can make any practice legal, however base and corrupt its tendency : upon the validity of this sentiment, | the superstructure of “detaining men in sla- i very? is founded. How does the dove of i0- mee ney destroy the vision and deaden the sen- sibilities of those who are delivered over to Ra isway boo er, ts Our civil institutions are professedly es- yo} tablished upon their conformity with the word of God : and the fundamental principles of the 17. Human legislators should remember, that they i act in subordination to the great Ruler of the Uni- , <8} verse, that they have no power to take the govern- ass ment out of his hand, or to enact Jaws contrary to aS his mandates; that if they atiempt it, they cannot make , that right which he has declared wrorg 5 and that hd they cannot dissolve the allegiance of his subjects qty] and transfer it to themselves and thereby frec theme | 4 selves or the people from their obligations to obey | hel ean re Pane oS ome ae Minas Rnd the laws of nature. Legislatures have vot this authori i; * ty; and a thousand laws can never make that znno- ih cent, which the divine law pronoun:es criminal; of vce |, give them a right to that which the divine law for~ ee _ bids them to claim.” Rice. : 2. ie SSeS SLAVERY social compact, as they are declared in the Bills of Rights adopted by the several states, are generally in unison with the decisions of the sacred volume. But ali these standard declarations of liberty and justice directly con. demn the terrestrial authority which infringes § | the 1ights of man, and presuppose, if ther do not openly avow, our dependence upon God, and the obligation to obey his law, to be par. amount to any other claim or relation. ‘The B & Leaders of the last generation are chargeable fF @ with the most consummate hypocrisy. Be- [| fore the world, they boldly denounced the ‘l’y- rant of Great-Britain; that he would force § the introduction of Africans into these states, f as slaves. Having thus solemnly challenged mankind to the contemplation of his unrigh. tecous conduct, whose “ insupportable despo- tism,”? they forcibly rejected ; they authorized the importation of kidnapped Africans during a period of thirty years; the whole union is included in the stigma of having licensed the enormities of this complicated system of mora: turpitude, and national infamy, this most in- iquitous traffic of “incurable injustice” and barbarity ; anda system which afforded ample subject for the display of eloquent invective when applicd to a foreign Despot, is still sanc- tioned by the law of the land, and the a- varicious, dissipated propensities of the citi- zens, although it is directly opposed to truth, decency, virtue, conscience and God. 18, trac i Tp A { fat ja 4 a ee ed ven, aA hoe: aa irae Ivers Foie ae Sa eee Le ~ o7 | DELINEATED. cx Every ramification of the doctrine, that one yational creature can become the property of 1 |) another, 3» totally repugnant to the rule of (1+ equity, the rights of nature, and the existence 1), of civil society. ‘Terrestrial governments are | established for no other purpose, than to ex- “hi ecute the divine will, to secure our individ. wal immunities, and to promote the harmony and prosperity of those, whose national affairs they direct. Hence, the atrocious crime for which the men of 1776 declared George IIL. a tyrant, unworthy to reign over a free people, may be retorted upon themselves, and with the additional obloquy that results from their own censures attached to its per- petration. Every attempt to palliate this enormity 1s nugatory. Of all his natural and inahenable privileges, the slave is virtually, if not actually divested ; his life is of no value to him for he cannot devote it to anv useful purposes; his liberty has altogether flown, for he is in- carcerated only in an enlarged prison; and he is defrauded of all ability or capacity or opportunity to pursue the innocent and lau- daile enjoyments, which Providence ma) place within his attainment. Whatever may be the England, she declared that all men have the same rights. After having manifested her hatred against tyrants, ought ‘she to have abandoned her principles ? Othello. .; 18 When Columbia opposed the pretensions of — ee Sen LF TR? a RE Scan elect > 0 ew i733} SLAVERY legislative decision or permision, with what. ever impious usurpations those who assen- ted to it may be chargeable, the claim to a fellow-creature as property originated in the vilest depravity of man, is perpetuated by the hard-heartedness and self-delusion of sinners, and cannot be justified by the acts, however formal and numerous of any terrestrial gov- ernment. The cxhibition of our Brethren and Sisters in a public market for sale and hire; the ex- amination to which they must submit that their condition may be ascertained, and the remarks which they must hear upon their va- ried capacities, are the greatest insult to de- corum, the highest violation of rectitude, and the vilest outrage which can be offered to humanity. Justice frowns upon the obdu- rate transgressor, who has so far obliterated his senses as to be unable to distinguish ra- tional creatures from Horses and Cows; yet these displays, transfers of human flesh ani- mated by an immortai spirit, professed Chris- tians behold without any pungency of soul; until the beneficence of the Gospel has van- ished, and sordid gold becomes the centre of every affection and desire. Reciprocity is a principle acknowledged by all mankind, incorporated with all our fcel- ings, and adopted in all our intercourse, and when it is equitably and impartially admin- éstered, it furnishes a safe ground of conduct an ere SS sete = = ' = = Nn ag mre ai ek eo == x 2 Se DELINEATED. £9 sa all our relative acts. As thou hast done, shall be done unto thee; thy rewird shall return upon thine own head.* ‘This retalia- tory docirine, demonstrates that the bondage af the huinan species, must be contradictory to truth and right; because they who are guilty of the highest oppression, would not admit the validity of the claim, were an at- tempt-made to enforce it upon themselves 19. What an intolerable evil! How incredibie ! How disgraceful! that men in the Land of Liberty and filling official stations under the authority of the Boox, require to be instruc- ted, that to steal, buy and sell men, women and children is contrary to the Gospel; that +o defraud the labourer of his hire, to robs the mind of necessary heht and the heart of . indispensable melioration, and’to doom the ha- man race to labour lasting as their existence, without food, raiment, a habitation, and other — * Obadiah. 5. 19. Taere is nothing useful but what is just there is no law of nature which makes one individual de- pendent on 3nother: ana all those laws which reasom disavows, have no force. Every person brings witk him into the world his title to freedom. Social con- yentions have circumscribed its use, but its limits ought to be the same for all the members of the comunity, whatever be their origin, colour or religion.t If you have a right to make another rhan a slave, he has a right to make you a slave. If we have no right to sell him, no one has a right to puechase him.§ t Be Gente. $ Rice. § Rameay ij c "SLAVERY necessaries to support life and recruit vatare i; exhausted by endless fatigue; are totally in- | compatible with the precep:, do justly, love " mercy, and walk humbly with God;* and i that all who engage in this odious and most | crimimal violation of the eighth commandment, i) Should cease every pretension to Christianity, M" Should Providence ever permit the same ,! misery and Wrens, in One insiance only, to Nh assail us which we have inflicted, the He nation would as one manrise to arms. Could i a single vessel from the Gold-coast arrive on our shores, with impunity escape, and carry | away a hundred families of our white popu- lation; the injustice, the enormity, the hae | elty and the abomination of the act wuld be fuk dilated upon, until language had lost the Trac. ii ticability of illustrating the subject, and el. 1 Oquence itself had ceased to interest. But i nearly 200 years was this disgraceful proce. | dure, tolerated and legalized, by successive generations of Columbians ;—for a long time they declared that it was against th¢ir con. Sent, the practice being enforced by foreign arbitrary power: but their insincerity is ap- Parent; for as soon as Providence enabled them to discard all external jurisdiction, they voluntarily imbued their hands in Negro blood, and voraciously grasped the price of Alrican souls, 20. il Se * Micah 6. 8. 20. Is it not shameful to speak as a philosopher, _—— a 6 REED On SE peeks ————— SEAS e Ey waite a RR PR A ATEN poems " 5 ] o> ; DELINEATED: y° Retaliation! How complete would be the petrifaction of a feeling heart, io see his wife and daughter in the rude hands of an unfecling, mercenary debauchee, maintained, as long a> conyenicnt, for impure indulgen- ces, and then transferred by the wretch, with the offspring of his illicit intercourse, Ars own * children, to anothcr unprincipled ‘Tyrant, trom him to receive similar insults, with him to realize the same degradation. You cannot contemplate without horror, the involuntary ‘transportation of your family to Guinea; there tobe debased in multiform wretchcdness with- aut hope, each member of the family severed from vou at an impassable distance, «an d vou obliged to form an unwilling connection wih another, that you may gencrate rational rattle like to yoursclf, for the increase of your 'Tyrant’s wealth, From this view, you with abhorrence avert your cyes; you shudder at the mention of such detestable atrocity ; you declare that e- very claim upon you, marked by such char- acteristics, is totally null, because it is foun- ded upon a fe; you aver that all the con- stituted authorities, even all the people of every aation in Africa combined, could never trans- ——= and to act as a despot; to make fine discourses on slavery, and to annex as a commentary, an actual ppression. The tegislative system oueht to harmonize with the principles of the government Docs. thiy Marmony exist in a constitution reputed free, if slavery S sanctioned by authority ! Pinkney. —— Ses arr ee = pp heeame iF. > ener a ‘Vv were Christian cannet engage in this malev. %2 SLAVERY form this fiction into verity, and this velest of all thefts ito justice 5 and you would resent. | fully complam, ihat ‘ this mischievous kidnap. ping, purchase, sale and transfer of me, as if 1 were a horse or an ox mercly for la- bour, while ] am not treated with as much care and kindness as that to which those beasts — | are accustomed, is the very quintessence of § Hii) all infernal brutality.” Your doctrine is ir- Bj refutable ; it is se/f-evident ; it is so true, that B: Hi it can neither be denied nor proved. Can you, therefore, hold a slave 2? 1 sin. olent commerce; this compound of all turpi- & tude. A Preacher of the Gospel ought not to F be patiently listened to-even, who eloquently B depicts the blessings of that Liberty with which Christ hath made us free, while he holds his F fellow-disciple, him to whom he administers F the symbols of a Saviour’s redeeming love, & | in a most dreadful and lacerating bondage. An officer of the Church cannot without the f most deplorable ignorance of himsclf, pretend f to belicve and solemnly cngage to imculeate the doctrines of the Presbyterian Confession of Faith, and the Methodist Discipline, who enslaves, purchases, transfers, whips, neglects, starves, and by these accumulated wrongs, f - probably kills the purchase of Messiah’s blood? F | Th: Pulpit is dumb and the Lord’s Tablets f polluted; because Preachers aud Lay -Officers § need to be taught that the greatest possible th) \ i ’ eS ie ee ! ones : E it DELINEATED. 5 b | “i violation of the eighth commandment, cannot Pe uiat . . . } “yi without the most awful delusion be reconcil- } -| ed with a credible profession of Christianity. +8 ‘“¢ rom what class of persons however low and un. educated, can you find men so generally dull and | senscless as to have no feeling to the wretchedness ‘ of personal slavery? What arrogance and blasphemy | it i3 it to suppose that Providence has nut endowed J) men with equal feelings in all countrics! Let us ‘son to the words of cur Saviour; let us deeply weigh one cf the most sp!endid doctrincs of ine Christian _ dispensation, a doctrine, which served more than any ne ub} / 1.) other to illustrate the wnparallelled beauty and grand- ty { et) cur of that most araiable of all religions; a doctrine, ya very Ht : before which slavery was forced to fy; and to which doctrine, I attribute the memorable and slorious fact,’ that soon aficr the establishmicnt of Christianity in : Europe, human slavery was abolished. This doctrine ‘ isy high and low, rich and fost, ere equal in the sight of God! This is a doctrine which requires only to de ‘daily imapressed on the heart of man ¢o extinguish the term of slave; ana accordingly, what all the an« cient systems failed to do, Christianity accomplished ; 1 and, yet we find in’ the ancient systems of philosophy, _ a liberality and views of human rights as perfect as ‘in any theories of the present day. ‘Lo the pure lighe Which this great doctrine of our Saviour diffused cyer the heart of man, the avolition of Slavery must be “i ascribed. ’’Y rat Let Alric’s sons before his image bow, pi _ And weave their palmy garlands for his brow, } _ Who crown’d the work that Clarkson’s zeal began, And raised the negro to the rights of man. Fox, call’d to office in an arduous hour, Employ’d his ebb of life-shis span of power, - 4 To hush the stovm of nations to repose, ut Se SSeS _ To heat the Jong afflicted Lybian’s wos, § Charles James Fox. G | irae csaeees ne ly ail reir ee ae eel " { i i} ' ref SLAVERT \ hi ; A it ¥rom Christian’s brows to wipe the sanguine sti, WM \ Awd free his country from the curse of Cain.’ Uh “J rest this question on the ground of Religion ty snd justice. A spirit of fanaticism and bigotry may Ih ve fairly urged on my opponents and not on me. Hf Yheirs ave the very principles on which have been vested the grossest systems of bigotry and supersti- ti, tion that ever disgraced the annals of mankind. On what other principles was it that Mahomet sent forth i his Mussulmen to ravage the world? Was it not Hy these that lighted the fires of the inguisition f Ilave i not both of these systems been founded cn the notion , (ee of your having a right to violate the laws of justice, 1h for the purposes of humanity? Did they net both Fm plead that they were promoting the eternal happiness of mankind; and that their proceedings were there- i fore to be justified on the cictates of true and enlarged va Senevolence? But the relicion I profess is of an- | other naire; it teaches me first to do justice, and next to Jove mercy; not that the claims of these two will ever be reaily found to be jarring and inconsistent. | When you obcy the law of God, when you attend to | if the clainis of justice, you wili then also best consult if and most advance the happiness of mankind. This fy | is true, this is cnlarped benevolence ; whose seat is i the bosom of God, her yoice the harmony ofthe world: § i all things in heaven and earth do her homage ; the — very least as ficling her care, the greatest as not i exempted from her influence: all with uniform con- vl aan sent, admiring her as the mother of their peace and oi on tn * Some persons declare without reserve, that religion, a and justice, and humanity command the abolition of slavery, but that they must oppose the meastire be- ' cause it is inconsistent with the national interest. What is this but to establish a compegition between God | il — i) t Martin Archer Skee. aerate tae ee a new eis c ~ a eS ee ee ee oe DELINEATED. BE tise aod Mamionu, avd to adjudge the preference to the ‘ater £° What but to dethrone the moral Governor of the World, and to fall dowa and worship the idol of Interest? Come, learn a now cole of morality ! We have discarded our old prejudices; we have dis- covered that reliyion, and justice and humanity, are mere rant and rhapsody. These are principles which Epicurus would have rejected for their impiety, and Machiavel and Borgia would have disclaimed as too infamous for avowal, and soo lajurious to the reneral interests of mankiod. “If God inj his aner would pu. nish us for this formal renunciation of his authority, What severer vengeance could be inflict than our suc. cessful propagation of these accursed maxims? If we determine to surrender ourselycs without re- Serve to the domination of hard, unfeeling avarice ; to sell ourselves for gain; let us achieve some clearly profitable villany, some masterstroke of wickedness; we shall then be justified on our own principles ; but Slavery incurs the utmost guilt in pursuit of the smallest aod most questionable profit, and discredits not your hearts only, but your understandings. As slavery ougit indisputably ta be considered a Most €normous crime ; it is our Cuty to prohibit and — puaish, if we cannot effectually annihilate the perpe- tration of it. I can admit of no compromise when the commands of equity and philanthropy are so imperious. . I wash my hands of the blood that will be spilled. I protest against it, as the most flagrant violation of every principle of justice and humanity, I never will desert the cause. In my task it is impossible to ttre ; it fills my mind’ with complacency and peace. At night I lie down with composure, and rise to it i I never will desist ta the morning with alacrity. from this blessed work. Wilberforce. Fa OE SE LENT EOI eee —— ee tI) | thay ii 1 Al 4 aanced Sg ies ts ns ob CR aR Pic << "6 ~LAVENYS "Theft is the acquisition of another's goa, without returning him a satisfactory equiva. tent: but the worst of all robbers is he whe steals not the bodies only, but the life and the souls of men; and for this felony, no restituti- on or remuneration can be made. Every African: introduced into this country /V was kidnapped. They never voluntarily entered ¢ a slave-ship ; and had they even contracted to sell their personal freedom, and that of their posterity for ever, the contract was void ; for by no compact, could they alienate their inhe- rent rights. But the theft of the Father and ‘Mother, in a Slave-holder’s system of morals, authorizes him to stea/ the son and the daugh- ter, through all generations. Our horror at the robbery of the Negros in Congo, is mitigated by the distance at which the villany is performed ; but how can men, § who have been kidnapping coloured people, § from their infancy in America, be so misera- bly self-deluded, so awfully blinded, as not to know that the highest sin on the Gold-Coast, when perpetrated in Columbia, is vastly ag- gravated, by the splendid illumination which § we enjoy on all religious subjects—how cat Christian Professors expose themselves to de- rision, by gravely declaring that Hawkins and his gang were Negro- Thieves, 300 years af° F * on the coast of Africa, but they who have f practised his abominations, through all suc: ceeding ages here. are innocent Slave-holders? | eT ee —= cape as DELINEATED. 77 How dure Expositors of the Boox attempt to persuade persons who hold Slaves, that the proceeds of man-stealing are now transformed into honest acquisitions ; that incurable injust- ice on the Windward shore, by a voyage over. the ocean, is transmuted into Christian integ. rity; and that a man who kidnaps a Parent is a Monster of Hell; but if he steals chil. dren, he is an Heir of Heaven ? 2), 31. Every Slave in the Union, has been barbar- ously stolen; all che traffic in Slaves is irreconcilable with the principles Of justice and humanity ; and ey- ery Vegro- Dealer, as Moses and the Supreme law of the land pronounce, is a cruel THIEF, A man who would buy a stolen horse, when he Was privy to the robbery, is innocent, compared with a Slave-furchaser ; for the former, if convicted, will acknowledge his Built; but the latter, with his accu- mulated iniquity, pleads that *e is not guilty, while he kidnaps his ucighbour ; and that he abets not theft, by receiving woods Knowing them to be stolen, though © he beheld the Trader rod the froferty. From the woinb, the child is doomed to all the horrors of bondage, and its birth excites joy, only because it aggrandizes wealth; for a Tyrant grasps it, notwithstanding a Father’s claim, a Mother’s affec- tion, and in Opposition to the command of God, the law of nature, the dictates ef equity, and the thun- der of conscience. Thus Professors act, and seduce their progeny into the ungodly practice. 4 Sinner redeemed by grace divine! A chimera! His portion ‘in Jesus délivered him not from man-stealing, and if there were no Penitentiary, he would Purloin a horse or an estate: and to steal @ beast, or to defraud a Man of a section of land, is a vastly inferior crime, iN the balance of the Sanctuary, than to kidnap, buyy tell, or hold @ Slave, ; 2 i a eA PEE aes my Ec ganna en Se agette mens = i ih nea! me \ i ney fil 78 SLAVERY Slavery is unlawful and unscriptural. A Chiistiat. must do unto others, What he would that others should do unto him; but no slave-holder would have others to enslave himself; therefore slavery is contrary to Christianity. Love worketh no tll to his neighbour ; put slavery works the greatest ill: it is contrary to love. “You are a professor of Religion; you believe that all mankind are brethren ; that God is their Father; that Jesus Christ died for men; that men ought to glorify hima in body and spirit; that it is just and merciful to keep the purchase of the blood .of Christ in slavery! You are a Professor of Religion ; you believe that every man is accountable to God, and that all mankind must stand befure the judgment seat af Christ, to give an account for the deeds done in ‘he body s—can you answer for the consequences of slavery? Alas! is there no contradiction in this pro- rogsion ? Can reason and conscience reconcile such a scheme? You are a professor of religion ; you be- lieve that love to God and all mankind is the true spirit of Christianity; that this commandment have we from him; that he who loveth God, love his brother also; and that to detain your fellow-creatures in sla- very, is the most excelient way to shew your love to them? Is it love to litile children to keep them in ignorance and nakeduess, to grow up like the svild ass’ colt, while you are forcing their parepts to jabour for you and your’s? Is it kindness to women that induces you to trample upon virgin modesty, and all the maternal affections? Is it your love to It is of no importance by what means the Slave was acquired; whether by our own robbery, purchase from the Thicf, donation from the primary kidnapper or from him to whom he was transferred, or by be- guest; the guilt is identical : if the rational creature, « Slave be found in our hand; we are involved in all the criminality of man-stealing, and shall not ¢s- cape the retribution of God, when in rightcousncsss the Son of Man shall judge the world. Vil DEL(NEATED. 79 i Was | the American Black-man which gives rise to those } RE institutions which consign him to eternal servitude ? | hil You are a Minister of the Gospel; you preach de- e) liverance to the captives ; Peace and sulyation to g “| Ha fallen world through Jesus Christ; you denounce the ay vi wrath of God which is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrightcousness of men who hold \| the truth in unrighteousness ; and yet you hold your fellow-creatures in slavery? Zhou that condcemnest others and dost the same thing thyself, thinkest thou i that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? You j are a Minister of the Gospel! you are chraged to recommend the religion of the meck and iowly Jesus, , both by precept and example—does slavery yive man- kind the highest idea of the exceiluncy of religion ? + Ah! where is glorying now 2 What advantage [a hath the Christian Slave-holder over the Scepuc Pier losopher, the Jew, the Turk, or the Pagan? Whae * reward have ye ? whet do ye more than others? do ~ “ot even the Publicans, all the nations, the seme 2 i Slavery is the esurce’ of ail kinds of injustice s for Tj it is incompatiite with equity and civil rights. and is Ae the greatest of all tyrannies. The monarchies and are uit istocracics which have been so often decried by pol- wt iticians, as oppressive and violent, are independence, — at in comparison of that bondage, in which the Ameri- Ly can Black-man is kept. It exterminates the rights of Bh Women and children; for it is a mere state of bar- if | barism, in which neither the delicacy and chastity of aie sex, nor the debility and ignorance of children, are regarded. All the physical and commercial distincti- ons of labour and property are destroyed by it; for a slavery is a monopoly, which takes from another cae Wa What one has no right to claim, and witholds that unt which belongs to him.” * >= 4 . ; 5 * Sneckin, a je a en ee SLAVERY What conformity with the moral code, does a Flesh-dealer exhibit 2 Thou shalt not kill: slavery in its most benign form, is slow-paced murder. Thou shalt not steal : this law, in the comprehension of the Israelites, solely prohi-, bits man-theft, detaining persons in perpetual bondage. Thou shalt not bear Salse witness a- gainst thy neighbour : no man can possess a slave, until he has virtually sworn, that men, women and children are brutes. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house. thon shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife. nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox. nor his ass, nor any thing which is thy neighbour's ;* the Slave-holder not only sinfully desires, but act- ually steals them, with his neighbour also ; thus consummating his guilt by the most dar- ing rebellion and transcendent depravity. Every diciate of God’s word is flagrantly disobeyed ; for reciprocal equity is banished, as soon as slavery appears. Thou shalt not de- fraud thy neighbour, nor rob him: this uncea- sing cheating and robbery commence when ‘he child first breathes, and ends only at his death.+ Thou shalt not oppress kim who is poor and needy, lest he cry against thee unto the Lord, and it be a sin unto thee ; is stealing a man, and giving him no necessaries, oppres- sion ?2{ Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor *® Exodue 20. 13—17. + Leviticus 19. 13. t Deuteronomy 24. 14, 15. LeESINEATELD. 3S aE vppress him; they kidnap the Stranger, te 9.) fy fi chain him in endless vexations and calamities. § H 4 | Behold, the hire of the labourers who have rea- ih | ped down your fields, which 1s of you kept back re | Of fraud. crieth: and the cries of them who | have reaped are entered into the ears of the ‘el | Lord of Sabaoth + the Slave-Tyrant’s reapers “4 /|) are never paid.* Ye shall not afflict any wid- i || ow or fatherless + the incessantly «fictive exe ie perience of coloured females and orphans, nei- ther eloquence can display, nor imagination ‘/2 |) comprehend.+ JZ will come near to you to judg. ia i |) ment; and TI will be a swift witness against ; || false-swearers, and against those who oppress Nl the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the i fatherless, and who turn aside the stranger” from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord of fosts; with this menace, the Slave-holder, | according to his morality, has no connection ; TE _. fora slave is not a hireling, and being a brute, : can neither be a widow nor fatherless, and he eit cannot be a stranger turned aside from his itt _ tights, he never possessed one, and he was born he on the plantation : but the Man. Thief may re- Pi | collect, that his fulse-swearing affords him the ‘| only basis for these excuses.|| Jn the midst of it thee, have they dealt by oppression wiih the | stranger: is it oppression or Christianity, to kidnap men, and ceaselessly torment them, # | ! | i) § Exodus 22. 21. * James 5. 4, F 4 | t Exodus 22, 22, || Malachi 3. 5. ay ————— SS Pe Gre Ai Dak A RE RPE ar ctr ad ne . La ceo ee me ES Mie me 8. SLAVBRE until they die.q Rob not the poor, because hie :s poor ; nor oppress the afflicted in the gate ; for the Lord will plead their cause, and spot the soul of those who spoiled them: are slaves rich 2? is not oppression daily added to their distresses ? has a Slave-holder the fear of God before his eyes ? does he anticipate remunera- tion, with the measure that he meted misery ?* Loose the bands of wickedness, undo the heavy burdens, let the oppressed go free, take away the yoke: if the Lord had commanded Filesh- Merchants to act precisely contrary, how ex- actly would they have complied ! They bind the bands of wickedness they aggravate the heavy burdens, they incarcerate the oppressed, they increase every yoke, they starve the hun- gry, they banish the poor, they pillage the na- ked, they despise their brethren, they contemn the African, they converse in lies, and they multiply the afflictions of the wretched. Yet they have the impudent hypocrisy to pretend that they are Messias’ Disciples! $ 22. q Ezekiel 22.7 ® Proverbs 22. 22, 23. ¢ Isaiah 58. 6, 7, 9, 10. 22. But the hiring of slaves involves the sin of stealing them, as it is an encouragement for the kid- napper to repeat his crime : and the payment of the _ Labourer as well as the Master will not exonerate any man from a participation in the guilt. He aids the Man-thief ; tor he snpports another who defrauds his neighbour. who robs him ‘of his wages, and who thereby perpetuates his oppressions. Sere a tat Se Se a a = = ee a eee ——— = SS eset — eee ee Sas eee Sea oy —— = ———— 1 When he sees a thicf, then he consents ‘own theft, he unites with a Man-Merchan DELINEATEG. From the dawning of life wutii aged decre- itude, barbarity, and Injustice, are the Siave’s uniiorm portion ; bis existence is abbreviated, and dissolution is his only comfort. His ter. restrial pilgrimage is toil and pain ; his corse is interred without sympathy ; no Christian recollections mingie around the grave which entombs the sleeping dust; he lived in scorn, his death excites no regret but the loss of gain, and he is deposited in oblivion, until the mor. ning of the resurrection. 23, The Renter cf Slaves is generally more severe €ven than the Kidnapper himself: for the latter shcws them, the kindness which is indispensable to promote his interest, and thus in some measure and- at certain intervals adinits one cheering ray into the gloom : but the flirer’s sole study is to zscertain by what process he can drive the poor creatures so as ‘9 procure from them, during the period of posses sion, for their death he is not responsible, the utmost quin‘um of labour, at the least practicable expence. Although he retains no slaves as the produce of his t, Days Hine for his iniquity, and Joins to defraud the poor of his rigid and | Tecompeuse, and to augment the agonies of the miser- | able. Some other cause, and not religion or conscience hinders him from Ni gro-stealing ; and he who rents ‘slave, is partaker of his crime who stole him, and can inake no juster pretensions to the character of a Christian than the Kidnafiper himself: fe: he hates "struction, and casts the words of God bchind him i i vith him ; he gives his mouth to evil, and his tongue frames _ teceitt «Therefore he is a wicked sinner. t Psalm 50. 17—19. °3. Z'o phe law and to the testimony : if they . 85 : awe ‘= OE a ee Sa rer tail 84 SLAVERY Notwithstanding all the political evils in oy country combined are trifling, when contrasted with the social mischief which slavery dif- fuses ; and although its compound iniquity far exceeds any other sin against God and our neighbour that we can possibly practise ; for it is a most audacious rebellion and false- hood against Jchovah ; it is impious disobe- dience to the Saviour, and it is cruelty, pol- — sfieak not according to this word, it is because they have no light in them. Isaiah 5. 20, 23- Isaiah 5. 8. Ezc kic! 22. Jsaiah 59. 3, 4, 6, 75 8, feniah) te 4. 4. Isaiah 10)),)2. 12, 18. Jeremiah 22. 13.¢ 17. 18, 14, 15. Luke 11. 46, 52. Joc] 3. 6—8 Jeremiah 5. 26, 27. Isaiah 56. 11. Feremiah 5. 60) Slo 5 tsaiah 29. 15. Amos 1. 6, J—11. and 2, 6) 75 12- and 4. 1-5, 12. and 8 4—6. Zechariah 7. 8; 10. and 8. 16, 17- Jeremiah 7. 4—6, g—il. Jeremiah 6. 13—15. Ezekiel 22. 235--Sl. Isaiah 1, 11, 12—20, 25, 28. The delineation of Jewish Man-stealers, 2500 years since, is a most graphical portraiture of Christian Negro«Pedlars ! and it might be presumed, that these prophetical narrations of the iniquity which existed among the children of Israel, with the denunciations | that accompany them, were recorded for imitation and an encouragement to duty, rather than for admo- nition and an impediment to crime. Tie serious Inquirer for ¢ruth, ought to peruse most attenuvely every Scripture which is alluded to f or cited. Scott, in his Commentary, boldly affirms, lucidly explains, and irrefragably demonstrates our doctrine. nee t + This single text might convince any Christian of the iniquity of Slave-holding. - Garretson: ! Sen eatar ws ee Nishi apes Aa ee Se ca a ae a a ee ne ee —_= — = = neeaipineninntnitinic — —— pn a rn DELINEATED. ir BF ‘ution, anc improbity towards man; yet Preachers, Church-Officers and Christian Pro- fessors either participate in these enormities, or palliate them to disguise their horrors, or by their silence connive at the perpetrators, and by acknowledging thern as Messias’ disciples, sanction their ungodly transactions. Many transgressions incompatible with the dicta of the Boor, may be upbraided with all apostolic fervor: but if a Preacher desirous that he may be pure from the blood of all men, shuns not to declare the whole counsel of God ; introduces .Negro-stealing, within the walls of the temple ; the reproaches, the contempt, the hatred,the persecution and the menaces which overwhelm him, evince that Siavery isa Le. gion of Devils. O Jesus, Son of the most High Go’, send them into the swine ! It is impossible to amalgamate a system which boldly aims to overthrow the jurisdic. tion of Heaven, with due submission to Jehe. vah’s authority, or to prove him who joins in such audacity, the humble docile follower of the Lamb ;—much less can the quintes- sence of cruelty be combined with the bene- ficence of the Book, or a man void of all sensibility be animated with Apostolic love ; equally inefficient would be every attempt, te connect the perennial impudent falsehoods of Slavery, with the unimpeachable uniform vera- city of divine Revelation, or to demonstrate that an unvarying Falsifier is an acceptable H ia y 4 SLAVEAE co ©) Disciple of the heart-searching God, wiv de. sires truth in the inward parts ;—and not less preposterous would be the endeavour, to cement the continual unrightcous impositions of Man-stealing with the constant unbounded §) rectitude of heart, lip, and life, of body, soul, and spirit, which the Gospel demands, or to evince that the same mind is in him which was also in Christ Jesus, and that Paul’s in. tegrity directed the malign proceedings of an émpenitent, ceaseless, cruel Thief! That Man-stealers can possibly dectare be- fore the Church, that they believe the Presby- terian Confession of Faith, and the Methodist Dicipline ; that they can venture to preach concerning justice, mercy, and pardon upon evangelical principles ; that they can unblush- ingly presume to serve at the Table of the Lord; or that they can calmly seat them. selves around the sacred board—is a manifest]. demonstration of that obduracy of heart, which gin naturally engenders, and of that blindness} of vision, which nothing but the Holy Spirit’s energy can practicably remove. Our life past may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles: now it is high tune to awake out of sicep, to discard this iniquity, to repent, and to reform this atrocity 5 or we may fearfully anticipate that, He who holdetht the seven stars in his right hand, who walkethi, in the midst of the seven golden, candlesticks will come unto us quickly, and will removed iy } tt : ” iit | sELINEALED. Sy : if i | tur candlestivic out of his place, except we re- : | pent; that he will lay his ax unto the root | of the tree, hew it down, and cast it into the fires and that He whose fun is in his hand, | nil thoroughly purge his floor and gather ‘his wheat into ‘the garner; but he oH durn V (|), ap the chaff with 1 unquenchable Sire. ‘ Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do / | wen gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ? : || Even so every good tree bringeth forth good frueé; but a corrupt tree bringreth forth evil ho futt. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, ‘oe wither can a corrupt tree bring forth good | ruit. Lvery tree that bringeth not forth i ruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Vherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. The fruit is a destruction of every devotional emper, the trec is daring impiety : the trec 3 incessant cruelty, the fruit ts unparalleled nsensibility to human wo; the tree is in- BA) | ariable deception, the fruit is unintermitted ni } | ilsehood ; and the fruits are every diversi- | el unrighteousness, the tree is uninterrupted | ajustice: therefore, as all the fruits are atro- ey ‘iously and detestably corrupt, the tree itself ine! lust ‘be incorrigibly rotten. ni | As no participant in this complicated enor- | sey can possibly be innocent of the guilt Ht |; “hich it comprises; every Slave-holding Pro- nt | vssor, is either so wretchedly besotted by de influence of sin as to be wilfully ignorant of Pia! - te true nature and requisitions of the Gospel, - Remy fi = ea a a a ab { ig =. Be ‘| %¢ VW | 38 SEAVERY DELINEATED. ie or he has assumed a profession of Christianity i as a cloak for his malignant and ungodly con- ‘ | ithe duct; hence, whether he be perversely de- Pts} . . . jut juded, or a contumacious deceiver, unless ii he manifest a sincere contrition, by immediate- bination of impiety, barbarism, falsehood and dishonesty, he ought de facto, to be excom- municated from the Church of God. ly desisting from all concern with a com- ‘ a Se ee — a Seine 4 ian rote ae ba 2 Fist '¢ Hie 1 9s? f 5 any ii] : Aa ts ab Tie tee fit eh ' $ mith ah hay ap es . +e % 41 | f ty Saul , Bis} ale 43 —o:@: ed SLAVERY INCOMPATIBL® WITH THE GOSrEL, | ait SLAVERY is adverse to all the princtples | and requisitions which the Scriptures reveal. The purchase, or sale, or vassalage, or in- voluntary hire of men or women destroys the I’ tights which are granted to the human family by the God of Nature ; extinguishes all capz- «city for the fulfilment of terrestrial duties and a compliance with divine injunctions ; nulit- fes the evangelic law of love and equity, "and is unequivocally denounced by the Holy Bible, as the highest degree of criminality connected with this temporal state of pro- ® bation. “The holder of Sleyves supposes, that no other i rights belong to them than those of natural life, with -) the food aud raiment necessary to their subsistence.. But scripture and reason concur in teaching us that | various other rights belong to them. It cannot be: "dented that the labour of a grewa person under a ¥ proper direction, is of far more value than so much food and raiment as are necessary to his subsistence ;: and that he is, therefure, entitled, to moce than Uicse as bis wages. Whoever denies him this right violates the law aud exposes himsclf to the curse of Gort. | Musters, give unto your scrvaics tliat which io just ¢ and equal: knowing that ye a'so have « Alastir ie 4 Acaven.* ‘Che children of a slave have the’saine right = * Coleesianve 4. 1, e- of 90 SLAVERY to receive a religious education from him, which the children of any other person have to reccive that benefit from their parent, who is bound to bring them upft in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.t Es very person as a rational creature, has a right to be excmpted from the ordinary engagements of his secular business, during the time which he ought to employ in the public and private excrcises of God’s worship. When mastcr pretends to have the power of keeping one whem he calls his slave from a due attendance on God in his ordinances, he blasphemously assumes the power of robbing God. He is chargeable with the crime of Pharoah, in refusing to let Israel «go, and serve the Lord. Negros have the same right svith others, to be freed from restraints that are un- necessary to any good end, or in matters of mere undifference, in which the word of God has left men iree. Such privileges may be sometimes allowed to slaves by way of special indulgence ; but their claim to them as thcir just right, is not admitted by the system of slavery which now exists; and the enjoy- nent of some of them is evidently incompatible with the system.} “ All things whatsoever ye cvould that men should do to you, do ye even so to them. lt is a golden rule which ought to be constantly in the minds of all men; it recommends itself to every man’s reason and conscience, as completely wise and good. Every yne implicitly appeals to it as worthy of the highest regard, when his own rights are violated by his neigh- pour; nor must the slave-merchants be considered as snsensible to the excellence of this morat precept, when their own persons, families or interests are con- cerned. Nay, would not the indignation and anguish of the Slave-Merchant himself be almost inexpressiblc, were his affectionate wife and dutiful children stolen ——_ + Ephesians 6. 4 4 Brown's Dictionary of the Holy Bibte, - Se beer nae ANTI-CHRISTIAN. 9! | fram his bosom, and sold as slaves for the remainder : of their lives; and surely if any man upon carth ; deserves to be so treated, it must be who has made it his business to ¢rade in the fiersons of men,* and _ to enslave his innocent fellow-creatures. But if the ' Sovereign Lord of all regard the cry of the prisoner, the voice of the captive, the lamentation of human misery; if he avenge the blood of his servants so iia . cruelly tortured and murdered, by the hard-hearted task-masters appointed overthem; and if he say, G li earth, cover not thou their blood.+ “ The unreasonableness of perpetual unconditional slavery may easily be inferred from the righteous and benevolent doctrines and duties taught in the New id f Testament. It is contrary to that excclient precept +} Jaid down by the divine Author of the Christian in- stitution, Whatsoever ye would that men should do _ unto you, do ye even so to them. A precept so finely | calculated to teach the duties of justice, to enforce | their obligation and induce the mind to obedience, \ + that nothing can excel it No man, when he views > the hardships, the sufferings, the excessive labours, | t the unreasonable chastisements, the separation between | husbands and wives, between parents and childrea, »; can say, Were I in their place, I should be contented > | ’ Iso far approve this usage, as to belicve the law _ | that subjects me to it, to be perfcctly right: that ~ [and my posterity should be denied the protection {of law, and be exposed to suffer allihese calamities; though I never forfeited my freedom, nor merited such treatment, more than others. No; there is an honest Something in our breasts which bears testimony against this as unreasonable and wicked. I find it in my own breast, through all the changes of time, the influence of custe:n, the arts of sophistry, and the | fascination of interest. It is a law of my nature; a ae * Ezekiel 27. 15. + Wood’s Dictioncry of the Holy Bib!e. at ti rae saa Ha Ua | Wal ah i é i 4 a a are Sota ae SLAVERY law of move ancient date than any act of parliament, and which no legislature can ever repeal. It is a law inscribed on every human heart; and may there be seen in legible characters, unless it is blotted by vice, or the eye of the mind blinded by interest Should 1 do any thing to countenance this evil, I should fight against my own heart; should I not use my influence to annihilate it, my own conscience would condemn me.” “ Slavery naturally tends to destroy all sense of justice and equity. It puffs up the mind with pride; teaches youth a habit of looking down upon their fellow creatures with contempt, esteeming them &s Dogs or Devils, and imagining themsclves beings of superior dignity and importance, to whom ail ave in- debted. nis banishes the idea, an\ unquatifies the mind ‘for the practice of common justice. If T have all my days, been accustomed to live at the expence of a black man, without making him any compensa- tlon, or considering myself at all in his debt, 1 can- pot think it any great crime to live at the expence of a white man. If Ireb a black man without guili, 1 shall contract no great guilt by robbing a white nan. If I have been accustomed to think a bleck snan was mace for mic, i may easily take it into my head io think so of a white man. If I have no sense of obiigation to do justuce toa black man, i can have little to do justice to a white man. In this case, the tinge of our skins, or the place of ours nativity, can make but little difference. If I am in principle a {friend to slavery, I cannot, to be consistent, think it” any c-ime to rob my country of its property and free- dom, whenever my iutcrest calls, and | find it in way power. If 1 make any diffevence here, it must we owing to a vicious education, the force of preju dice, or pride of heart. If io principle a friend to slavery 1 camot feel myscif obliged to pay tae debt due to my acightour. If 1 can wrong him of all he possessions, and ayaid the law, all is Weals o Rice, Se ~ Seer eee } | (& ligion, is almost universally neglected. Hence, espe- aed \f cially’ where they are numerous, they are grossly Wilt {8 ignorant of religion and openly immoral in their prac- Wl) 3 tice. lus a race of heathens or infidels is propa- if a gated ; whose example and conversation must be an Ws infectious and destructive plague to the rest of the ‘| 2% inhabitants of the land. Nor is there any reasonable 4 j| (iP prospect of the reformation of Negies in a state cr } U— slavery ; for the masters are generally possessed with tn) fon | ny. i i * | Peter 2.17%. 1 Thessalonians 3. 12. wi: | Wes) bal | ‘ | " ANTA-CHAISTIAN- “ The holding of Negros in perpetual slavery is inconsistent with the honour and brotherly love. whieh Christians acknowledge to be due to all men. Honour ail mene The Lord make you to increase and ajound Hy in love to one another and to all men.* We are to love and honour all men as partakers of the same human nature, as descended from the same original parent. God hath made of one blood all nations, and jath determined the bounds of their habitations. Also as having immortal souls capable of saving grace, ; capable of being members of Christ and temples of the Holy Ghost. But the slavery, in which the negros are now detained, indicates hatred and contempt, in- - | stead of honour and love; while it is invidiously ree stricted to those of aceitain country and complexion ; it deprives them of several of the common rights of man; and exhibits them to be bought and sold like beasts. “ The evil consequences which have constantly at- tended the slavery of Negros, are sufficient to make every Christian abhor it. It is shocking to relate the ats many instances, disgraceful to human nature, of the a dreadful punishment inflicted on these miserable cap- tives for slight offences, of the excessive labour to which they are compelled, of the scanty and unwhole- some allotment that is given them of the necessaries of life, and of other sorts of crucl treatment. The education of slaves in the principles of our holy Re- i iv Ca Seas a A nr RO Cee tat ltl 4 bie a Wal { ti | tH {3 | $4 SLAVERY | \ ae ir i i a notion, that Negros are unteachable, and that Lnow- #gHf i} A ledge would render them more intractable ; and the | ; ii} negros are naturally prejudiced against the instructions f } iH, i of their oppressors.’’* ‘ | iy “ Liberty conducts to every thing thatis sublime fii) Ve in genius and virtue, while slavery extinguishes all. (i) Ly | What sentiments of dignity or of respect, can thosc fii), Th mortals have for themsclyes, who are considered as | : éattle, and who are often staked, by their masters, at | it cards or billiards, against barrels of rice or other mer- at be chandize. What can individuals perform when de- Fy ——— ee Oe a Ne ue iV re + ae —-> oils os ne a aterm tem —— aa ee ee A ee a eres sre a _ Or by the sacred organs of his word, graded below the condition of brutes, overwrought, covered with rags, famished by hunger, and for the slightest fault torn by the bloody whip of an Oversecr?! Slavery supposes all the crimes of tyranny, and com. monly engenders all its vices ; virtue can hardly thrive among men who have no consideration, who are soured by misfortune, dragged into corruption by the example of crimes, driven from all honourable or sup- portable ranks in society, deprived of religious and moral instruction, placed in a situation where it is impossible to acquire knowledge, or struggling against obstacles which oppose the developement of their faculties. In their place, perhaps, we should have been less virtuous, than the virtuous among them, and more yicious than their worst characters; for their vices are the work of the nations called Christian.”} “« Where is the charter found to sanctify Despotic, base, anqualified controul, O’er strength and will, by man enthroned o’er Man: In Revelation’s code you find it not, Nor in Creation’s multifarious laws. The will of Heaven, when unreveal’d by Christ, Is sought and found in the primeval light, Which Nature sheds through her expanded spheres. But when with Gospel-day this light combines, ——=s * Brown's Dictionary of the Bible. + Gregoire. co see ee — =: Se _ * ~~ — a at i a Sina 7 LW All eee hie Meee re _ = ee ot Fa paseo = 104 SLAVERY such inexpressible flugitiousness be Christ ians ? 25. The Boox condemns this turpitude as the most atrocious criminality: and no man can momentarily admit, that unerring rectkude sanctions a system of iniquity. Whether we advert to the motives, the objects, or the re- sults of slavery, it is totally incompatible with Christianity. Slave-holding is a substitution of Mammon for God. Avarice originated and perpetuates man-stealing. Wealth is the sole desire of every fcsh-merchant ; and all Vraders in the persons of me:i, exhibit conduct. which is as essentially different from the devotional, phi- lanthropic, and equitable demands of the gos- pel, as the purity of Paradise is dissimilar to the depravation of Pandemonium, Are any persons so lamei.tably blind, that they cannot discern the anti-christianity of robbing the rights of man, the impiety of turning the blind from the way, disobedience in rendering all sacred ordinances a nullity, cruelty in the diversified pain with which they have burdened their servants, and dishonesty in falsehood, fraud, and stealing, who should —— 25. Sceptics, Infidels, aud Worldlings ridicule the ‘endeavour to combine Slavery and Christianity ; and acknowledge that it is utterly impracticable, to com- pound Gospel Morality, Columbian Republicanism, Justice and Humanity, with the trafic in humas flesh, and blood, and souls. ; . rasa ANTI CURISTIAN. Piers sxpose their delusions, and rouse them from iheir stupor? The Minister of the Sanctuary.26. Persons through Satanic delusion, will hear the most solemn verities, unaffected. An Ex- positor of the scriptures may enforce justice and mercy ; but the Slave-holder avows, that he is a righteous man, for he only bought his Negro and kidnapped the children; he did not j\q sail to Africa and transport them: he alleges, a that he is merciful, for he bestows upon his JG slaves, meat once daily, his neighbours give them none. A’ Preacher should demonstrate, - that his pretended justice is a cheat ; his mer- cy Is Savageness ; and that he who turns away j§ dis ear from hearing the law. even his prayers ij are an abomination to the Lord. He regards in- iguity in his heart, the Lord will not hear him. Buc ifthe Putprt, the Trumpet gives an un- erréain sound, none can prepare himself for the battle. | «6 To pray and kidnap £ to commune and rob 4) men’s all! to preach justice, and steal the la- Wy borer with his recompence! to recommend “i mercy to others, and exhibit cruclty in our i? own conduct! to explain religious duties, and - ——= 26. The clergy, by their vocation, are the messen= gers of truth ; they ought to watch society, to ex- pose its errors, and bring the wicked back to truth and virtue ; if their conduct be otherwise, the public sins will fall on their head. They know not the ‘}M truth, or they dare not reveal it, and are therefore, i) partners in national crimes. Cugoano, eet ty. | mi 4 it | . i) 4 F il {| 156 SLAVERY (; . rel y inculcate every social affections and instantly | exterminate them ! to expatiate upon bliss et- ernal, and preclude sinners from obtaining it! to unfold the wos of ‘Tophet, and not diag ‘ \ ever impede the performance oi them: to pro uj)» pound the exaimple of Christ and his Apostles, Hh * and declare that a Slave-holder imitates them ! ii to enjoin an observance of the Lord’s day, and Ais \| drive the slaves from the temple of God ! to 4 4 men from its fire ! are the most preposterous : i HY delusion, and the most consummate mock- fail cry. 27. | _ Slavery is a flagrant violation of every law 21 of God, nature, and socicty It cannot be rece ii onciled with the gospel ; and he who ever acts iB in direct opposition to the Messias’ govern. fiji i Gs ment, and who indurates his soul against the § lid a! impressions of that Licur, which would con- ‘) ay vict and regenerate him, cannot be a genuine Teh disciple of HIM, who when the hour was tut a i come, invoked his Father, Sanctify them fh through’ thy truth ; thy word is truth! Pe = Hl yy 27. These reficctions are calculated to disoblige those ve ae who are interested: but regardless of consequences, kW a without the least dislike to any man living, and act- 4) hi uated only by a love to truth, and the advancement de iy of Christianity, I protest against such abuses. T have § ( He. _ received no affront, conceived no disgust, I have jj i Sainte pleaded the example of others. I have soothed my- § auld self, I have endeavoured to reconcile my conscience, @ oY i but what is man firofited, if he shall gain the whol @ | a! ‘i world, and lose his own soul ? Simpson, i tind i ; ed eh 3 he | ‘ fy if 4 a AR Fa | . ~ * + ee cee CHAP Ti he. ——=e ik Excuses ror SLAVERY EXAMINED. Tae whole defence of Slavery is comprizea ina plea of right or apology. Every argu- ment upon these principics is nugatory ; and many of them may be effectually retorted. They all may be reduced to these allegations. The antiquity and extensiveness of man- ants of Ham should be servants of servants ; Jewish example ; the silence of the New-Tes- tament upon slavery; the title acquired by purchase ; the injustice of depriving men of property without an equivalent ; the legal im- pediments to emancipation; the dangers at- tending a general liberation ; and the imprac- ticability of safely effecting a manumission. Ancient and universal practice justifies no transgression ; prophecy is neither the rule of duty nor a vindication of crime; Christ is our exemplar ; the Boox condemns involuntary servitude ; no claim to man as property is valid; men should resign their thefts, and make restitution ; all civil Jaws which annul the ordinances of God, are a non-entity ; the ath of duty is safety; and tyranny with avar- ice predominates ; therefore, no method is de- vised by which Columbian Slaves ! may en- joy the rights of man. : stealing ; the design of God that the descend. . v Ee EF i rant See ee eee fd on eee Se a 308 EXCUSES: % Negros being descendants of Ham, some have thought their contemptuous treatment of them coun- tenanced by Noah's curse.* But this prophecy does not include ali Ham’s posterity, and will not serve as a warrant to enslave them: because it is not a rule for the direction of our practice; but the prediction of a future event. The greatest crimes have been foretold ; the treachery of Judas and the crucifixion of Christ; but the wickedness of committing these sins was not lessened. “ It is much insisted on that the Israelites held slaves, either bought or taken captive ; whom their masters kept. exchanged or disposed of, as their own goods! But the Jews where not allowed to hold any of their brethren in perpetual slavery ; but individuals only of heathen nations. The moral law of love to mankind was not less obligatory under the old Testa- ment dispensation, than it is under the New ;_ but God granted the members of the Jewish State a right to the perpetual service of those idolatrous individuals, whom they*should buy t But this will no more war- rant people of other states to hold their fellow-men in perpetual slavery, than the grant which God made the Israelites of the jewels of the Egyptians, or of the iands inhabited by the nations of Canaan, will authorize any people to take possession of the lands or wealth of their neighbours. God may give a posi- tive: command which is an exception from: the moral law with regard to human property or lite; but this is his prerogative ; and if Creatures pretend to do so, they impiously affect equality with God.” { “ The example of faithful Abraham,§ and the law of Moses, |j are adduced. It is argued, that since Abraham had servants born in his house and bought with money, they must have been servants for life, **® Genesis 9. 25. ¢ Levitious 25. 44—<46, $ Brown’s Dictionary of the-Haly Gible. - § Genesis 17. \] Leviticus 29. set RACUSES: © 1Q9 like Gur negros: and hence it is concluded, that it is lawful for us to purchase heathen servants, and ik they have children born in our houses, also to make them slaves. From the law of Moses, the advocates for perpetual slavery contend, that the Israelites were authorized to leave the children of theie servants, a3 an inheritance to their own children for ever: ané hence, it is inferred, that we may leave the children of our slaves as an inheritance to our children for ever. If this was immoral in itself, a just God would never have given it the sanction of his authority ; and if lawful in itself, we may safely follow the example of Abraham, or act according to the law of Moses. Abraham was commanded to circumcise all who were ‘arn in his house, or bought with mavcy : he obeyed ce command without delay, and actually circumcised every mele in bis family. This law of circumcision continued in force ; and by the law of Moses, it wae not repealed, but confirmed. Now, to the circumcised were committed the oracles of God; and circumcision was a token of that covenant, by which, among other things, the land of Canaan, and their various privileges in it) were promiscd to Abraham and his seed; to all‘ who were included in that covenant. But all were included, to whom circumcision, the token of the covenant, agreeably to God’s command, was adminis- ceved. By divine appointment, not only Abraham and his natural seed, but he who was bought with money of any stranger that was mot of his sced, was cir- cumcised. Since the seed of the stranger received the token of this covenant, he was included and in- terested in it; and the benefits promised were con- ferred upon him. Those persons bought with money were no longer looked upon as uncircumcised and unclean, as aliens and strangers; but were incorporated with the church and nation of the Israelites: and be- came one peopie with them, God’s covenanted people. The divine Jaw enjoined upon the Israelites, thus to circumcise all the males born in their houses; then ‘fthe purchased servants had any children, their masters 110 EXCUSZ3. were bound Ly the law to incorporate tiem into the’s i shurch and naticn. These children then were the | iW J servants of the Lord, in the same sense as the natural 9} | | i M SS See t= descendants of Abraham were; and therefore accord- ine to the law they could not be made slaves." Instead i) i of being authorized, the Israclites were evidently for. ift } bidden to enslave their servant’s children ; and there- Y fore so far from proving the lawfulness of our enslaving é i the children of the Africans, the practice is clearly | Hee’ condemned as criminai. Inthe law of Moses, no men- i A tion is made of the children of these servants, or i 1e that they should Fe servants, or any thing concerning them; because they were already provided fer by the Jaw of circumcision. The word forever is evidently limited by the nature of the subject ; and the sense is, they shall serve you and your children as long as they live, or untif the Jubilee. These scripiures have been frequently and qwicked/y pressed into the servicc of Mammon: but this formidable artillery may be Bs fairly wrested from the enemy, to the destruction of | ‘fl he hosts of Mammonites.’ ¢ a capte g = S merece ae SS “ No formal reproof of slavery occurs in the New i Testament. Other vices prevailed at that period, wi i it Ks ‘which are not expressly reproved: but they were cer- it Uh tainly condemned by the Redeemer anc his Disciples, ni a as evidently contrary to their doctrine. Polygamy and M a i divorce were allowed and practised, yet no express rae prohibition of them is recorded ; but in many passages ae i of the Gospel it is necessarily impliec. To detain | wi} our fellow-men in perpetual slavery is unjust, from 4 iy 6 many scriptures, particularly from the Apostle’s ex- ji it ti hortation : Masters, give unto your servants that which Hy t | wera: is just and equal: knowing that ye also havea Master & in heaven: neither is there respect of persons with him.t The word translated equal, significs egualily : importing that masters ought to behave towards their servants not only with strict justice, but with miid- ness and benignity, as man ought to deal with man.’ § * Leviticus 25. 38—55. + Rice. | Colossians 4. |. Ephesians 6.9. § Brown’s Dictionary of the Bible id UN CUSES. baa ‘this command alone is sufficient to confute und denounce every Man- Thief. A Slave-hol- der’s gustice d-frauds his neighbor, ofhis wife, his children, aad their labour, geese: them of ali religious instruction, and robs them of e- very terrestrial comfort. His equalizing benefi- cence destroys in all civil and moral relations, his stolen dependents. Notwithstanding he si- mulates that he is the follower of those, who continued in the Apostles’ doctrine and fellow- ship, and in breaking of bread and in prayers, and who parted their possessions and goods to all men. as every man had need.* Can it be beiiev- ed, that he who thus displays his nunconfarmity to Paul’s injunction, is an acceptable member of the same “church of Christ which daily im- proved not in numbers only, but in the zeal and fervour, holiness and charity of its mem. bers; beginning « kind of heavenly life upon rhe and being even in their w orldly goods, as well as in their hearts and affections, so per- fectly united, that they became the wonder of Vheir very enemies.’? Neither of the Apostles, nor of the Disciples, nor of the 120 nor of the 8000 Pentecost Converts, nor of the 50U0 Be- levers, who saw the miracle performed upon the lame man, vor of the multitudes who were of one heart.and one soul, nor of the Priests who were obcdient to the faith, were Afan- stealers.{ Peter and John were noé kidnappers ; —— * Acts 2. 40-—47. { Acts. 5S. 4, 5. Chapters, ENCUSES. silver and gold have I none. Joses Barnains, though a Cyprusian, and all those upon whom Was great grace, were not Negro- Pedlars ; they sold lands and houses, but vo souls. Paul was no Slave-Driver ; these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them who were with me: we wrought with labour and travail night and day.* A Slave-holder has no juster claim _ tothe Christian character, than Demas, who forsook the Apostle, for the love of the present world ; or Alexander the Copper-Smith, who did him mnch evil. Of whom be thou ware al. so; for he hath greatly withstood our words.} “ The Foox who doubts, who asks for clearer proof, Must hood-wink’d be, indeed, and darkness love.” This is the condemnation, that light is comé into the world, and men love darkness rather than light, bes cause their deeds are evil. The apologists for tyranny state, that Paul advised servants to be contented with their servitude, and obe- dient to their masters; whom, though he charges to use their slaves well, he commands not to set them free ; and that the Apostle exhorts bond-servants of slaves to abide with God in that condition: whereas if slavery be sinful, they should not remain in vase salage.§ “ Christians were at that period under the Roman yoke, the government of the heathen ; who were watch- ing every opportunity to charge them with designs ‘against the government, to justify their bloody pcre secutions. In such circumstances had the Apustle proclaimed liberty to the slaves, many of them would have been exposed to certain destruction, and tne. so “ ® Acts 20. 34. 2 Thessalonians $. 8. Philippians 3. \T. +2 Zimothy 4. 10, 14, 15. § 1 Corinthians 7. 20—24, ai ee RS See = od a = Sa et ee SE Ra ee ee Perr ates oes EXCUSES. Hs christian cause might have been ruined, without freeing a single man: this would have been the heighth of madness and cruelty. It was wise and humane merely to hint, If thou mayest be made ‘ree, use it rather.”’¢ “ This clearly intimates that the persons in slavery whom he addressed might yse the means to ebtain their freedom. But although a man, trom the impossibility of procuring his liberty, mav continue with patience and holy contentment in bondage ; yet he who detains him in that state, is chargeable with injustice and oppression.” ¢ No Man-stealer could have belonged to the church of Christ which was at Corinth : for this admonition which is triumphantly adduced as an unanswerable defence of Slave-hoiders is almost equivalent to the law of Moses, which prohibits any person from attempting to ob- struct a slave in his escape, and enjoins upon all to aid his flight from bondage. Paul knew that the exactions and degradation of captivity were totally incompatible with his preaching ; he therefore advised slaves, to proctre their frecdem without delay; the means their own judgment might regulste, in subordination to the dictates of the Boox. he wee!thy primi- tive Christians bought the liberty of converted slaves ; but though they were thus purchased, Paul instructs the buyers, that they were not property ; tor he commands the manumited brethren to be no longer unconditional servants, as they were the Lord’s freemen. He who at- tempts to arrcst a run-away shave, is a cruel $ Rice. ~ Brown's Dictionary of the Holy Bibdié, 2 : Sep Ee ee —e 5 EXCUSES. and base .Vegro-Thief; and not less culpabic than the Tyrant, who scourges his returned slave to an inanimate corpse ; for he ts an ac- cessory. Vhe bondage of Onesimus and the high character of Philemon are often cited io sanc- tion the abominations of slavery. Onesimus was a scrvant for debt, who absconded previ. ous to its discharge ; yet evangelical philanthro. py exonerated him fron all obligation.f When a Chris'ian kidnapper! can prove that his slaves owe him any thing, the plea derived from the servitude of Qnesimus shall be heard; but while he has done all possible wrong to his brother, and has stolen his life, his liberty, and his happiness ; as long as his whole conduct ts “incurable injustice ; we shall affirm, that Man. stea'ers apd thcir co-adjutors are the 6. learned and unstable, who wrest this, as they do also the other scriptures to their own des: truction : and that like Simon Magus, Slave. holders and their abcttors. have neither part nor lot in the matter ; but are in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity; for thee hearts. are not right in the sight of God. “It is asserted, that Negros were made slaves by law, they were converted into froferty by an act cf the legislature ; and. under the sanction o that law they were purchased ; they therefore became my pro- perty, I have a legal claim to them. To repeal th‘s - Jaw, to annihilate slavery, would be violently to de = ‘4 Paul’s efistle fo Philemon... LIED AO SEE SEI ELV EES samen ee eee ear i IT rere EXCUSES, 1{$ stray what I legally purchased with my moncy, or inherit from my Father. It would be equally unjust with dispossessing me of my horses, cattle, or any any other species of property. To dispossess me of their offspring would be injustice equal-to disposses- sing me of the annual profits of my estate.” “Many years ago, men, being deprived of theiv natural right to frecdom, were m ide slaves, and by law converted into property. This law was wrong, for it established iniquify; it was against the law of humanity, of common sense, of reason, and of cor- science - It was however a faw; aud under the sanc- ticn of it. a nuinber of men, revardicss of its ini- quity, purchased these slaves, and made their fellow- men their property. Tne quesilon is concerning tke the liberty of ama. He himself ciamis itas his own property. He pleads that it was otiginaliy his own: that he has never forfeited, ne could wor alienate it; and therefore by the commen laws of justice and hunanity, it is stil his own The purchaser of the siave claims the same property. He p'cads, that he purchased it under the sanction of a law, cnacied by has the bestclaim? Did tois property beieng to the lecislature £ Was it vested in them? If legislatures are possessed of such properiy @s this, may another never exist !’? Amen and Amen. © No incividual of their costituents could claim itas their inherent right 5 it was not in them collectively ; and therelore they could not convey it to their representatives. Was it ever known, that a people chose representatives. to create and transfer this kind of propery ? The legislature were not, could not be possessed of it; and thercfore could not transfer it to another ; they could not give what they themselves had not. Does the property belong to him, who received it from a legislature that had it not to give, and bya law which they had no right to enact; orto the original owner, who could never forfeithis right? Ifalaw the lecislature ; and therefore it became his. Who: s i ty. | Pr eS ee Pa TEER ee ee ye ih 1 Hi 4 H ii ae AB 116 EXCUSES. j i Rt i should pass to sell an innocent man’s head, and { val should purchase it: have [I in consequence of this Ate law and this purchase, a better claim to the man’s Tei head that he has himseif? To call our fellow-men, Na our property, is a gross absurdity, a contradiction to qt | common sense, and an indignity te haman nature, i fae The owners of slaves are then licensed robbers, and i not the just proprietors of what they claim: freeing | them is not depriving them of property, but restoring it to the right owner; it is suffering the unlawful ss ee Wet a ee - oe : ple tas i Pianantee: fi! 4 captive to escape. [It is not wronging the master, 1g 4 but doing justice to the slave, restoring him to himsclf. ih i} « You say, that emancipation would be unjust, be- #7 ‘te 4 i, cause it woukd deprive men of their’ property : but Hit i}, is there no injustice on the other side? Is noboay 9yih La entitled to justice, but slave-holders ? Let us weigh @f { i ; the injustice in an even balance. Here is a man de- i Hi prived of all property, of all capacity to possess ] {i at Property, of his own free agency, of the means of if) Vics instruction, of his wite, of his children, and of every If bl thing dear to him; and aman deprived of 8U or a 16U pounds. Who is the greatest sufferer, anc wien is treated with the greatest in/ustice ? Emancip ition would only take away property that is 1s Owl pro- sae ii } Ht ' Ht Ri perty, and not ours ; property that has the same right 7 a " 10 possess us, as we have to possess it: property 9 Vd, that has the same right to convert our chi.dren into iy} th a doys, and calves and colts, as we have to convert ; ba Bes ae _ theirs into these beasts = property that may transfer fat} ri i i! our children to strangers, by the same right that we fi) ( ae transter their’s. iit 1 id is “In America, a slave is a standing monument of ie | Haas, the tyranny and inconsistency of human governments. j if He is declared by the united voice of America, to be ff | t by nature free, and entitled to the privilege of ac- Hay quiring and enjoying property ; aud yet by laws passed and enforced in these states, he is retained in slavery) fj, and dispossessed of all property and Capacity of acquit’ ing any. They have furnished a sttiking instance of & = peas ee ss EXCUSES L17 a poopie carrying on a war in defeace of principles, — which they are actually and avowedly destroying by leral force; thus using one measure for themselves and another for their neighbours. Ali men are by nature free, and entitled to freedom, until they fors feit it. Now to enact that men are slaves, is to fly in our own face, to contradict ourselves; to proclaim before the world our inconsistency, and to warn men to reposeno confidence in us? What credit can we ever expect? What confidence can we repose in each other? None.” “ Are werulers? How can the people confide in us, after we have thus openly declared that we are void of truth and sincerity ; and that we are capable of enslaving mankind in direct contracdiction to our own principles? \Vhat confidence in legislators, who are capable of declaring their constituents all fiee men in one breath; and in the next, enacting them all slaves? In one breath, declaring that they have a right to acquire and posscss property; and, in the next, that they shall neither acquire nor posscss it during their existence here? Can I trust my life, my liberty, my property in such hands as these ?t Will the colour of my skin prove a suflicicnt de- fence against their injustice and cruclty ? ¢ Wiallthe particular circumstance of my ancestors being born in Europe, and no: in Africa, defend me?§ Will straight Aair dcéfend me trom the blow that falls so heavy on the woolly head ?|| Iff am a dishonest man, * The Legislatures of the Slave-holding States have not the confidenee of Christians, because they believe not the BOOK t You are an IDIOT, if you trust men who swear that a Negro its property. $¢ They would faint you black, or stval you white, if they dared. § They would rather kidnap you, than an Africans | Yse, until they are not afraid to strike, ite pee es en ee eg ene ee eae = SH ry or > Po a ee ek reap apm enue es gece = a. rls KRXCUSES. if gain is my Goad, and this may be acquired oy suc an unrighteous law, I may rejoice to find it cnacted,; but I never can believe that the legislature were honest men; or repose the least confidence in them, when their own interest leads them to betray it. | ‘never can trust the integrity of that jadge who caa ‘sit upon the scat of justice and pass an unrighteous judgment, |] because it is agreeable to law; when that Jaw itself is contrary to the light and law of nature.’% “ Justice ought to extend her protection with rigid impartiality to the rich and to the poor, to the powerful and to the humble. A legislative coatract for tue continuance of slavery must have been void, even from t'e beginning ; for it is an outrage upon justice, acd only another name for fraud, robbery and inur- der; as well might an individual think himself bound by a promise to commit an assasinauon. Our pro- ceeding on such grounds, would infringe all the prip- ciples of law, and subvert the very foundation of morali- ty. Slavery is a mass, a system of enormitics, which incontroyertibly bid defiance to every regulation which ingenuity can devise, or power cffect, but a toil estincUon.’’* “ Man-stealers excuse themsclves upon the pla, that if the slaves were emancipated, they ceuld harcly be restrained from disorders which might cad ange: the public peace—No apprehension of this kind cau excuse our continuing in an unjust and inhu.nan prac- tice. The fear of man bringeth a snare. Wh-n the path of duty is plain, Christians should resolut ly ad- here to it, leaving the event to the Providence of God.’’+ “© OF two evils, we should chuse the least: this is a good rule, when applied to natural evils; but with meral evils, it has nothing to do, for of these we C. use Neither ; af one be natural and the other a moral eyil. || Vertcr, they are “ik OGUES ALL.” 4G Rice. * William Pitt. { Browa’s Dictionary of the Holy Bible. EXCUSES, ins we must always chuse tic natural evil; for moral evil, sin. can never be an object of choice. Evshs ing Mf our fellow-creatures is a moral evil; and the na oval H evil cffects of emancipation can never be a balince ‘iq for the moral evils of slavery. These evils are charges able on us. Hence, we should be seusible of the euilt of our conduct, and persist in It no longer —= This is a very powerful arguinent asainst slavery, a convincing proof of its imquity. It ruins God’s j creatures whom he has made tree moral agents, and accountable beings ; who sull belong to him. and who are not left to us to ruin at our pleasure.’’§ “ Why ought slavery to be abolished? Because itis incurable injustice. Why is injustice to remain for a single hour?’ Tf the situation of Negros were as happy as servitude could make them, I must not commit the enormous crime of sclling man to @man; for which not one reason can be given, that iB is consistent with Poricy, Humanity or Jusricn.’’t UW“ Never was a system so big with wickecness or cruclty ; in whatever part of it you direct your view, Veithe eye finds no comfort, no satisfaction, no relief, iW It is the prerogative of slavery to separate from evil i# its concomitant good, and to reconcile discordant mise chiefs ; it robs war of its generosity, it deprives peace V4 of its security. You have the vices of polished socirty Without its knowledge or its comforts; and the evils ot barbarism without its simplicity Its ravages are constant and unintermitted in the extent; in the con- ‘inuance, universal and indiscriminate. No age, no sex, 10 rank, no condition is exempt from the fatal influence iH of this wide-wasting calamity! ‘Thus it is the full 49 Measure of pure, unmixed, unsophisticated wickedness ; and scorning all competition or comparison, it stands Without a rival in the secure, undisputed possession of its detestable pre-eminence.’’} —— in «§ Rice. § William Pitt. 1: Charles James Fox. $ William Wilberforce, ee ~— 9 et Rg I LS ‘it ; qi (ise EXCUSES. ire af = . x e- = Hah} Yet in Columbia! Gospel Ministers and » if ii) / Piofessing Chii-ians not defend only, but i engage in this unparallelled villany ALY a! , iH 3 bowels, my bowels ! Lam pained at my very ev heart ; my heart maketh a roise in me: I can- Fe 40 J (ah not hold my peace. Constantine, in the year 313, published an if edict ; which declared all those free, who had ail been condemned to slavery by Maxentius ; ifs commanding, under the severest penalties, all Aged who held them in captivity to restore them | if ti to their liberty. In the year 316, he enacted Th another law, and addressed it to Protogenes, lig Bishop of Smyrna; by which he permitred all masters to enfranchise their slaves in the a presence of Christians, assembled with their H pastors in the church, without recurring to the pretors and consuls. ‘* Thus the manu- mission of slaves, which before was attended with great difficulties and -expence, became easy, and not chargeable ; the masters being obliged to attend only at the church.” Chri- stianity will always abolish slavery ; no danger | attaches to an immediate and universal eman- | cipation ; and the only effectual mode to era- dicate the evil, is to destroy thieving by law; 5 a et to fellow Constantine’s example; to dreak rf i: fi - every yoke ; to let the oppressed go frees d 1 et to folfl Paul’s direction, et Aam that siole, a steal no more.* y f ay _ * Ephesians 4 28, SE EXCUSES. ‘The ancient and universal extension of sla- yery is an effectual argument against the sys- tem. Its origin in days of moral darkness af- fords a powerful plea against its equity and continuance ; and the support which modern Man-stcalers derive from this example is visi- onary. Servitude in Abrahim’s family was ve- ry different from the degradation of our color- ed population. Eliezer of Damascus was the Patriarch’s steward, and his servants, had he died childtess, would have been his heirs.* But as they worshipped Abraham's God, and were included in the covenant made with him, by circumcision, they were governed with pa- ternal benevolence. Vhe Heads of Families, when they lived a wandering life, were civil governors of all who served them. 23. From the conduct of Isaac and Jacob, no principle can be deduced in defence of slavery, Modern Slave-holders shall have all the conso- lation Which they can extract from the long. protracted generality of man-stealing, when they can evidence their title to the approbation which the Lord expressed of Abraham. | 28. The original Ilebrew states not, that the Do- mestics whom Abraham bought with his money, or who were descended from them, were involuntary servants: for the word includes no such idea, as mo- dern slavery. Our Jaws, opinions, practice and man- agement of these degraded sons of wretchedness, all leciare, that in our judgment, they are merely cattle buman shape. * Genesis 15 3 t Genesis 18. 16—19. L.- — Aer Je V2 i EXCUSES By uviversaiantiguiry, an incessant violation of every law of decency, virtue, and religion inight be established as the highest duty of min. [low astonishing the fact! Professing Chris- Y Gans transform che Book into a minister of un- TIGhTEOUSNESS 5 and.when impelicd from one subterfuge resort to another. lf Nimrod’s op- pressions are urged against their impicty, they take refuge in Abrahams faith ; and if the Pa- i triarch’s justice and judgment which they ne- a ver exemplify, tculcate their condemnation, \, they shelter themselves under the prediction ‘of Noah, which denounced seryitude as the in- iit heritance of Canaan’s posterity : thus pervert it ing the word of God, into a sanction of their Ee ection s The declaration that Canaan’s descendents i ) shal} be servants is thrice repeated ; but Haim’s other posterity are not included 3; for Ham’s - name is pot even introduced.{ The denunciati- Son of Noah has been remarkably verified im the history of the Canaanites, who from the pe- riod when the iniquity of the Amorites was full, have seldom been released from the exactions of foreign tyrants. But if the prophecy be ree ferred to the descendants of Ham generally, the curse has not becn experienced by the people, "She partial slavery of Negros will not invall- date the truth; because no ancient and accvssi- 3 Genesis 9. 25—27. a a ee =. Sea on > = a ~ — => i | a hd ins CAS Bee nS ameter ne = = EXCUSES. bea ote partot tac mihabited globe is su completely unknown, as the terior of Africa. 29. Wonld the passage bear the construction which Siave-@.ders assert; their criminality would not be diminished. “Che mercy of God as not revealed tous, the knowledge of future occurrences, if the actions which shall produce the events detailed include guilt in the perpe- trator, that we may unite inthe completion of ‘hem ; but that the truth of the Scriptures may be indubitably established. ‘Yhis transmutation of the word of God, by claiming a prophetic curse, or a controverted doctrine, or a dubious scripture, as a rule for our actions, and a defence of our sins, thereby authorizing any, man to distort the Book, into a prediction of crimes which he had resolved tocommit, is a most dangerous and reprehense ible delusion. God has most emphatically at. tested, that his wrath shall be effused upon Babylon ; but the persons who execute the judgment will doubtless’ perform the grand design, from selfish and ambitious views. Christians will mark the progress of the ven- 29. How many Negros are sold and bought like By ecasts in a market, and conveyed from one quarter ef the world, to do the work of beasts in another ! This however in no measure vindicates the covctous eigend barbarous oppression of those, who thus enrich themselves with the products of their sweat and blood. God will severely punish such cruel injustice. How ‘an it consist with love to our neighbours, to hold “Ohem in slavery ? Score, ie y i ge atm ji4 EXCUSES® geance, and rejoice in the destruction, but tacy will not actively participate in the horrors of the tremendous overthrow. 50. Negro-dealers udduce the Mosaic law and Jewish example as an excuse for their avarice ; but this originates in ignorance of the ancient economy, or misinterpretation of the Book, or a falsification of the facts, or corrupt deducti- ons from the scriptural narrative. Livery practice which requires a sophisticat interpretation of the sacred volume to counte- nance it, must be sin. ‘The path of duty is il- # jumination : and in morals and religion, any if action which obliges us to search after argu- ments to pacify us in the perpetration of it, is transgression of the divine conimand. The theocratical establishment was appoint- ed by. God,. to preserve the children of Israei a distinct nation. ‘To them were committed the divine oracles, that the fundamental princi- Le 30. Martin Luther and Henry VIII. were employ: ed in diminishing the Papal supremacy The Refor- mer engaged the anti-christian rule with the armour of God; his was a bloodless contest, waged from ce: lestial motives, conducted with evangelic ardour, pro- #}}} ductive of the most glorious triumphs, and rewarded #}]) with honour and immortality. A Tyrant’s acts, through the dispensations of an ail-benevolent God, involved j a similar result: but his arms were terrestrial pow- @} er, his war, a combat for superiority, his impulse, lasciviousness, his fervor, the offspring of ambition and sensuality, and his memory is consigned to unmitig: @] able execraticn. ~ pa Ege SS} SE SES ts ar tt J eed {2 : Y sanctioned in enslaving their children. * The % off-pring could not have been retained in bon- i. dage ; because every child born in the family i! was circumcised at 8 days old, became a mem- ber of the \fovenant, and was heir to all the a bie blessings of Palestine, as much as a real dcs- PY cendent of the Father of the faithful. A Jew | ih could nor steal, sell, or make merchandize of i I one of these, more than he could have violent- in ty ty transported one of his brethren for sale to the ae jand of the Ishmaelites. YB gti Jewish history affords an insurmountable ob- a) jection to slavery. Joshua and the Elders, te “a punish their deception, doomed the Gibcon- ites to perpetual attendance at the temple ; but a Saul’s oppression of their descendents was the | fi cause of a three years’ dearth in the land.t ‘The | ; sword, pestilence, and famine, were all den- | ounced against Judah, in consequence of their # unrighteous exactions from the widow, the or- | }} = phan, -the impoverished, the stranger, and # 4 those whom they had enslaved. How seduc- § 4 tive is avarice | Notwithstanding the Jews had sich { ; not long been released from Chaldean vassalage, aH speedily after their return to Canaan, they be- | Pe i) ——— ‘ : ‘| * Leviticus 25. 44—46. + Joshua 9. 3—27. mr sree ne Se some neat aE NNN a Samucl 21. I-14 ¢ Jeremiah 34. 8—22- EE a ee ™ = EXCUSES. 127 gan to oppress the poor, and to defraud the wretched ; contrary tothe law of Moses, and in direct defiance of their own sensibilities, a- gitated stull with the remembrance of the mis- erics which in banishment they bad endured.* If involuntary servitude be defensible upon moral principles, high example would sanction it; but it world not be known that slavery ex- isted among the Jews, ifthe Prophets had not menaced them for this atrocious criminality. So far is the Mosaic code from legalizing the cruelty which Slave-dcalers constonsly exhibit, that a considerable proportion of the Jewish Legislator’s mandates are solely directed to the inculcation of merciful tempers, and the exhi- bition of generous affections towards inferinrs. To impress the children of Israel with a per- manent sense of all the horrors of captivity, to imbue them with the most active sympathy for human wo, and to nurture the most ardent de- sires and zeal to mitigate the distresses of their fellow-men ; they were. continually reminded of the degradation, wretchedness, and oppres- sions, under which their ancestors in Egypt so long groaned, and whence they were delivered solely by the mighty arm of SchovahNissi. The recollection of their former national servitude, and the miracles which were requisite to deliv- erthem from their Task-masters, niust have inspired in every pious Jew, a holy and insup- ne * Nehemiah. 5 l—13. Oe = nee Sa Ee Se 128 EXCUSES¢ erable aversion from the principle and practice of slavery, and of every iniquitous approach to the infliction of the wo. Soul.Merchants can designate no H-eaven-delegaied Prophet, no ex- emplaryv Priest, 00 Christian Apostle, no mar- tyred Disciple of the Lamb that was slain, and neiihcr ot them upon whom was great grace, of whon the world was not worthy, strangers and pilgrims on earth, who was a Man stealer’s co-adjutor. From the exalted abodes of peren- nial felicity, in waich the spirits of the just made perfect dwell, if they know what passes upon earth, they must feel all holy indignation, that men of corrupt minds, destitute of the truth, who suppose that gain is godliness, should per- vert their characters, opmions, and example, into a mass of hard-heartedness, worldly equi- vocations, and the “highest kind of theft,” with the direct view of procuring a sanction from the pious dead, for the iniqaitous practi- ces of the ungodly living. ~ Columbians plead justification for stealing and enslaving Africans; they are of a different colour, and not Christians, therefore we are authorized to kidnap them for our avarice and luxury. Such is an Algerine’s defence for selling every ‘Infidel dog’ whom he can grasp; they are not Mussulmen ; the tinge of his skin shews that he is not of the Prophet's family ; steal and torment him. ‘hus men depart from the wavs of righteousness ! their principles are deceptive ; their desires are after covetousness 3 ——— es ee sce iy LAC USES, Ezy their solicitudes are earthly, sensual, devilish ¢ and to them the gospel is hid, because the god of this world hath blinded their minds ! Christ and the Apostles are our sole pattern, The admission of varied temporary indulgences among the Israelites, as a basis for our con- duet, would totally destroy socicty. If the ex- ample of David, Solomon and others, is to be valid, in cases where they acted without or a- gainst the directions of the Mosaic code,* the gospel is nugatory, and Christ has died in vain. At the promulgation of the law from Mount Sinai, to render its prescriptions more authori- tative, the Lord enforces its requisitions by re- minding them of his mercy and power, and of their misery ; claiming obedience for his char- acter, his loving-kindness, and their deliver- ance. Fain the Lord thy God. who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.t A company of Ishmaelites, with a horde of stolen captives, approach the habitation of a man who conscientiously desires to fulfil the law of God ; they offer to sell him an Egyptian ; a Levite accosts him, and asks, if he can rec- oncile the purchase of that man as his slave, with all the horrors which are included in the declaration of Jehovah, as the exordium of the law, and with the mercy which the code inva- riably requires ; with this recollection could he buy a bond-man ? eed * Deuteronomy 17. 17. ¢ Exodus 29. 2. CSD ee Nn er AN Sn EL BT =. Seger eA ROIS aves i a ee er Fa ep ‘ EXCOSES. Cainites witha number o! kidnapped .sfric- ans, trafiick slaves ata Coluinbian’s door. Say tohim, were not you oppressed by a foreign tyrant, you rebelled and obtained your freedom, how can you enthral these outcasts? dare you purchase these heirs of wo, who were stolen at their birth, and can you enslave them for ever? You swear, that all men are born free ; you be- lieve, that man-stealing is the greatest crime ; you know, that slave-holding ts contrary to e- uity, humanity, and reciprocal benevolence ; you feel, that you would most ardently repro. bate and resist such conduct if it were attempt- ed respecting you; and your conscience as- sures you, that God will requite you, as you have injured your fellow-man: but ie buys, and enslaves these wretched victims of avarice ! A Christian Republican ! No charity can induce | the belief that a man who ackowledges the ex- | cellence of pure and undefiled religion, can be so incurably blinded, or that the moral sense | can be so completely extinguished, that he is incapable to perceive the difference between e- vangelical righteousness, and incessant cruelty, rapine and oppression. No disciple of Messias can plead Jewish ex- ample. Cull no man Master upon earth. Negro- deilers must demonstrate, either that the Lord aud his primitive disciples were S!ave-holders, or that their doctrines and precepts countenance the systein, ie =~ see ae UXE@USES. ite As HE who had not where ts lay his head, or his Aposides were not human flesh weighers, Oppressors plead, that the New- festament is altogether silent upon slavery ; and if it were so condemnable, it would have been pointedly reprobated. Our Lord did not admonish Man- stealers, by their own appellation, to desist from theie ungodliness ; but he who can recon- cile the Redcemer’s doctrines, and Apostolic injunctions with American bondage, can join heaven and hell—to him, vice and virtuc, ee guity and injustice, kindness and cruelty, op- pression and benevolence, thieving and probi- ty, infidelity and religion, all are identical, 31, $31. All defence of slavery, upon the silence of the Wi) New-Testament respecting this crime. is baseless. Matthew 5. 7, 3l—48. and 6. 12, 14, 15, 19—21, “4. and 7 1, 2, 12, 16, 20. and It. SI—42. anc Ig. “135. and 19. 16—30. and 22 34—40. and 23. 25 “4. and 25. SI—46. Mark 10. 17—S1. andl 1s— 13. Luke 4, 16—22 aml 6. 27—38. and JO 25—37. Md 1) 46—352. and 12. 1S—21. and 18, 18—S80. and. 19. T="10. John iS) 1—20. and 15. 12—14. Acts D} - 41-47. and 4, 32—_37. and 17. 24—28 Romans E j-- I1—S, 17—29. and 12. 9, 10 and 13 g-~10. Corinthians 7 21—33. and 18. 4—7. Ephesians - 10. 2 Timothy $3. 2—8. Philemon 10—21, james 2. l—=10. and 5. 4 1 Peter 4 8. 1 John | Ws 25—-S2. and 6 9. Colossians 4. 1. 1 Timothy l J ; 2 15—-17. and 3. 1418. and 4. 20, 21. Revelati- Mii 18. 13 ; ALL things whatsoever ye would that men should 9 unto you, do ye even so unto them; for this is Whe LAW and the Profihets. If any man can deduce Hite injustice, the barbarity, and the oppressions of t/ Sree pee aa =: PS * sities = ————_—-~ on a es = ane te ele ir : + e plipnaln = a ———_ a ae ; SSS —— ae =H rnb ee ST sae a, = 5A 2 as SS hy SS See — by ae om na SRR SE eo Sere race ae ee a i areal as ee re Saat eee as & a3 EXCUSED, Negro: Dealers aver, that they have a jusi sitle to then slaves. How cana claim to the human race as property, be valid 2? All our terrestrial possessions were included in the ori. ginal grant made to Adam in Paradise,* and to Noul and his Sons after the deluge. { But human hfe, with all the concomitants which are necessary toa fulfilment of its objecis, was excepted + thes. fore, no tile, by any lapse of » time, or an; distance of transfer, or any tcrres- trial authority, ever could be made to the per- sons of men. ‘They innocently and honestly obtained pos: | session of their siaves, and if the State liber- a'e them, they ought to be remunerated.’ What + obduracy ! Men require to be paid for ceas- 1 ing from the highest kind of theft ; and demand | to be requited for delivering that which they stole. How cana Slave-Driver be innocent of honest, ia his connection with his dependents ? No domestic tyrant believes his own assertion, he feels, that he is a cruel Oppressor ! and it | —_ nian-stealing, from this fundamentul rule of social re- 4 ciprocity, his moral alembic must combine properties | vastly different from any extractor yet discovered. These citations either immediately reprobate cove- tousness, extortion, and tyranny, oF they inculcate | justice, philanthropy, and mercy ; and it is absolute: | ly impossible to conjoi these directions and examples | wtih the bondage of men, or to explain them in any | manner, by which Slave-holders are not most in- dignantly and awfully censured. * Genesis 1. 28—30. + Genesis 9. 17. _——~. -ae e SKXCUSES, 133 1s equitable, to manumit his slaves. Instead of rewarding men for stealing no more, the whole that they have jfilched from the poor Negro, with ample addition for all the misery i and cruelty which he has endured, should be righteously exacted. The Legislatures of some Statcs have ob- Mt structed the easy emancipation of slaves.—. Slave-holders elect men to enact iniquitous | aws, and exonerate themselves by the legisla- ‘| itive proceedings. [Every voter for a public i | | fijoflicer, who will not destroy the system, A | iis as culpable as if he participated in the evil, ij and is responsible for the protraction of the | Wicrime. If a slave cannot be hberated in one (| State, he may in another, and it is an individ- ual’s duty to exonerate himself. No human |!aw must be obeyed when it contravenes the divine command ; but slavery is the combina- i aition of all iniquity, and thercfore every man 4 | Gifis obligated not to participate in its corruption. : | Bi In all cases obedience to the divine wiil Micombines the most certain safety. God wilt | Wprotect those who act in comformity with his ‘icommands: and as no plea can avail for i ‘ithe continuance of slavery one moment, since |) Wits iniquity is so prodigious—the most secure i mode to be absolved from danger, is '‘* cease " to do evil and learn to do well.” ‘The national ‘|iidifficulty is not from emancipation, but from aj servitude. .Vegro. Pedlars say that ifthe colored __ people were free, the property, and livesof °° a : Is : | os Gi fcut off the right hand, and amputate the right ul] foot ; though thy: clavec lho eangl r precious as —‘ithese necessary corporeal members, ei.” —@i|pate them. It is more profitable to thee, Ito pass through life in penury and scorn, and at death, to enter the Paradise of the Blessed, than to « 9joy all earthly good, and at thy mortal dissolution, to be plunged into’ the abyss of wo—where their worm dieth not— i and whe fire 1s not quenched. | See eee wien Fasoeee te aN ——— we Te ea es Se SSS mie . = = is aces Ea Se nomen po = EN ere A ee | ee oe ie SS — Ss oar) | ee Tren POSTSCEI-LT. —w:°' OS ft THE animadversions upon Tucker’s Black- | stone, are omitted. Our kingdom is not of Hithis world, and The papers referred to, on Page 21, were TWby request expunged. BOOK OF STRIFE! ||Go FORTH: SLAY, BY THE TWO-EDGED diilsworp, ALL THE UNCIRCUMCISED PuIL- ee oe Seah 8 TN on egg Se eee es oe La ee SSeS Se ANIMADVERSIONS. — 3 aa THE authority of titled names should never im pede the censures of truth: and the sanction which is ziven by them to error, ought ever to excite the more resolute opposition of those who contend carn- estly for the fuith once delivered to the saints, ‘ Lec- tures on the subjects of Moral and Political Puilo- sophy, by Samuel Stanhope Smith, D. D. L. L. De are peculiarly deserving attention; as the doctrines advanced in them, uphold involuntary servitude. “Is Slavery on any ground consistent’ with the natural laws of justice and humanity ? Slavery is con- trary both to justice and humanity. The whole of the African trade for slaves, 1s among the most atro- cious inroads upon justice and humanity which have ever been practised in any age or by any nation. Tae hypocritical pretences which are made to justify ik are as impudent, as the traffic is inhuman. Men de- ceive themselves continually by false pretences, in order to justify the slavery which is convenient for them. Is that slavery which was unj: stin its o-giz, equally unjust in its continuance 2? All men condemn: thc barbarity of dragging the simple Africans from their Native country. To confer on our American slaves, liberty; and otherwise, to meliorate their condition, are certaiuly objects worthy of a humane legislation. But private jusuce,* and natural selfishness will oppose imsuper- able difficulties to its excution. The citizens of these states hold frofierty in slaves to a very large amount, acquired undef the sanction of the laws. The laws could not equitably compel thcm to make a sacrifice of so great value, to the convenience and comfort of * Either the Philosopher or the Printer omitted two letters of this word, it should read, injustice. M a a : mitted with impunity. What a burlesque ! Philosopiiy seriously declares; that a man who &as kidnapped all the caloured persons on his plantation, * has be- come the innocent possessor of that firofierty. Their numbers and strength augment; a sense of their power is also more dcefi-roorced, and permanent; ere long the day of deliverance for them must arrive, Their motto, “peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must.” & Let my profile go ;” was the demand of Moses, until the Red-Sea received the Tyrants who had oppressed the children of Israel. Slave-holders are heither in their devotional nor beneficent charac- teristics, much superior tothe Egyptian Task Mastere : ‘They are pre-eminent for infidelity, irreligion, dissi- pation, and insepsibility to the misery which their avarice and luxury generate The voice of onr Brother’s blaod cries to Heaver “rom the ground ; aud national reformation or national punishment, cannot be far removed We are sometimes to consider a nation in a moral light, as a person. consisting: of a body, a soul and a duration of life. All the people who compose this Natiun are considered as one body : the maxims which direct its conduct, constitute its spirit. The ages cf jis continuance are the duration of its life. On this principle, we attribute to those who. compose a nation Low, what agrecs with those only who formerly com- poserl it; and to this whole body, not only. those physi- cal, but even those moral acttons, which belong only to one part of it: and that part of a nation which con- tinues, is responsible for the crimes of that which sub- sists no more. Our Saviour considers a nation asa moral person, who is responsible at one time for crimes committed at another, who.hath been borne with, but hath abused that forbearance, and at length, is punished both for committing the crimes, and for abusing the forbearance that had been granted.* = 3 Matthew 23, 29, 30, Luke li, 47—51. a ~ “ If that part of a nation which subsists in one period. hath no union of time with that which sub- sisted in another pcriod, it may have even four dif- ferent unions of another kind. An union of interese, if it avail itself of the crimes of its predecessors ; an union of efi/robation, if it applaud the shameful causes of its prosperity; an union of emulation, if it follow such examples as ought to be detested ; and an union of accumulation, if instead of making amend for these: faults, it reward the depravity of those who commit them. If men peaceably enjoy the usurpations of their ancestors, they are usurpers, as their predecessors were, and the justice of God may make these responsible for the usurpations of those ; and tius it will be; if you avail yourselves of the crimes of your predeces- sors, if you extenuate the guilt, if you imitate the practice, and if you fill up the measure of their ini- quities. The prosperity of public bodies, when it is founded in iniquity, is an edifice, which with its basis wili be presently sunk and gone. t “ The trade in human flesh is so scandalous, that it is to the last degree infamous to suffer it to be carried on by the authority of the government of any country. With regard to a regulation of slavery, my destestation of its existence induces me to know no such thing asa regulation of robbery and a restriction of murder. There is no medium, the legislature must cither abolish it, or plead guilty to all the iniquity with which it is attended.” $ “ Have the recorded enormitics of slavery excited due compu:ction in the national conscience? Its evils and iniquity we have seen, we have professed to lament them; we have promised to forsake them. But what has been the result?) We cherish slavery; we hug it to our bosoms; and we think to sanction the foul embrace by pleading interesi in opposition to the un- + Saurin. Gq Charles James Fox. we eee as rim RSA OS Orit aes ee Se ee cua oh eR ee ee ne emitemi oat ste ie ee ee so" oo sy. a —- naan i tne a Naas tet in teat sittin ohegreqeene ant - rT TES am eS Sr ee : ‘ CS TET — = - “ sophisticated dictates of conscience, and the express and unequivocal commands of God. What is this but a deliberate rejection of the divine authority, anda deliberate preference of the service of Mammon to that of God? And whatever guilt ariscs from this source is properly, strictly and undeniably national.”’ § Dr. Smith asserts, that all the pretences to justify slavery are impudent hypocrisy, only equalled by the inhumanity of the traffic. If the Slave-holder offers one plea except the broad defence of open shameless depravity ; 1f he make a solitary excuse distinct from the inordinate jove of wealth ; all his equivocations are the summit of boundless dissimulation: and © if a Church-Officer were a foilower of Paul the aed, he would address such a man, especially if he seeks io turz anay others from the faith; O full of all subtility, and ali mischief, thou child of the Devil, thou ezemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to jier- vert the right ways of the Lord ?* Dr. Smith afirms, that the Slave-holder innocently possesses his property ; that justice, humanity and compassion require not the manumission of slaves, that a free people would not suffer a Legisiature thus to dispcse of any other portion of thei: property, and that the public safety necessarily prevents a speely accomplishment of the emancipation of tue coloured population, an event so desirable to humanity. How can a Christian possess that wiich he knew was stolen? He who would gravely profess, that a slave is honest froferty, is a subject tor the lunatic Hospital, not for moval discipline ? How can a Phi- ¥ Christian Observer. * Acts i3. 6—12. t Against euch,“ moral philosophy ;” he whose blood does not dnil with Christian indignation, is so far from being a discifle of that Jesus who pfironounced his Ayfocritical Auditors a generation of vipers, that he aught not to be denominated, man. losopier inculcate that Slavery is ihe most atrocious injustice, inbumanity and misery, and notwithstanding declare, that he who bas kidnapped his servants, is not bound, by justice and humanity to impoverish hine self for his Slave? How dare an Expositor of the Book sanction the detention of men in Slavery? “ What free people would allow their Legislature to dispose in the same manner, of any other portion of their property ?”? But Negros or their descendants never could be property. A frec people and hold slaves? Republicans, and traffic their fellow-creatures ! Democrats, and 4uslave those who are horn with natural, inherent and inalienable rights ! and Christians all — NO: such persons arc enemies of the Republic, humanity, religion and God. Dr. Smith avers, that it is unjust, inhuman and impracticalle to emancipate the slaves: but the Lec« ture’s equity and benevolence are totally indescribable. Theft is atrocious in’ Africa, but in America, it is innocent. Kidnapping is the most diabolical barbarity on the Gold Coast, but in Columbia, it is cruel to impede persons from perpetrating this enormity. “ To impoverish himself for the benefit of his slave | but this is nota case of charity. The slave was originally stolen ; all the produce of his labour except the most wretched and meagre fure and clothing has been pur- Joined; and the services of his children which ought to bave been benefited and requited tke Parent’s cure, have only added to a Tnicf’s riches. The wealth of every Siave-hoider in the World is as obviously, an unjust acquisition, as if he had enteved a Bank and escaped with a load of its nates: alas + the iater and the interior sin is punished, ard a mest Chormous crime which virtually includes the direct and simut- tancous transgression of the whole decalogue is le- galized and rewarded ; men being honorable in pro- portion to the magnitude of their robberies. Shall interest affect our person only? Which is most urijust, to manu:nita slave unrightcously doomed f ? ty e | and detained for servitude, or to sanction ihe endless deprivation of all his hopes and enjoyment? Which is most inhuman? To authorize the union of families and relations, or to sever them in eternal separation ; Is not the plea, that emancipation is impracticable, the most impudent hypocrisy, and the most glaring absurdity ever propounded for contemplation? Covetous men will not adopt the measure, but were every Slave-holder impressively certified of the iniquity and danver of his oppressions ; were he sensible that ex- clusion from heaven would attend a life and death in impenitence, after evangelical illumifation had devel- oped his guilt and its consequences; were he con- yinced that the day of retribution would unfold for him horrors inconceivable and everlasting; and did he realize equal conscientious smiting upon this sin, } which he has experienced upon other transgressions ; ult the Jubilee truinpet would soon proclaim universal i AES deliverance to the captive. Can any: suppositious ex- pediency, any dread of political disorder, or any pri- } vate advantage, justify the prolongation of corruption, the enormity of which is PY ami or repel the holy claim to its extinction? WThe system is so entirely | corrupt, that it admits of no cure, but by a total and : immediage, abolition. For a gradual eswancipation és / i a virtual recognition of the right, and establishes V9 q the rectitude of the practice. If it be just for one ee moment, it is hallowed for ever; and if it be inequit- ied able, not a day shouid it be tolerated, : No excuses for turpitude, no defence of crime can i possibiy be velid. For creatures under the govern- ment of divine Revelation, the question what is most Polisic, ouzht never to be asked; but what is our 9 ce duty?) No man can derive any self-justification from ; the apology, that the sin is strictly chargeable upon the nation, and that individuals are not incuipated in ~ a ’ the guilt; for ‘national regard to the externals of ) yee religion cannot avert national judgments, so long as rourder and crue) oppression, are sanctioned by law, or permitted to be perpetrated with impunity.” $ Dr. Smith is a lucid demonstration of Apostolic truth : evil communications corrufit good manners. The most inflexible opponent of Man-stealing, by a long residence among Slave-Holders, aithough he never actually participated in the traffic of souls, experiences a torpor of indignation, an insensibility to human wo, a deadness of evangelical philanthropy, and a dimie nution of his high sense of moral rectitude, which, were he to enter into a m:nute and sedulous investi- pation of his former conscientiousness, contrasted with his present indifference, reminds him of the indignant reply; What! is thy servant @ dog that he should do this great thing ? force the mortifying lamcntation ; Againet thee have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight ! and impel the melancholy prayer, Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God, thou God of my sal- vation ; then shall I 6c innocent from the great trans gression ! Dr. Smith’s natural feelings revolt from slavery ; but by vindicating its adherents, he has involved hime self in a labyrinth; from which by no ingenuity, can he be extricated. What more preposterous! an A- merican Republican, who boasts of his freedom, driving slaves. What more injurious! A Philosopher, in- culcating that the most atrocious inroad upon justice and humanity on the coast of Africa, is mildness, c- quity and benevolence ; in the interior of Coiumbia. What more contradictory! a Christian Minister’s “ Moral Philosophy,’ corfuting the self-evident vcri- ties of his own Confession of Faith! This inconsist- ency originates in that fear of man which bringeth a snare. Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God: whosoever therefore will be @ friend of the world, is the enemy of God Such a profession of the Gospel as gives no offence to a ce + Score. \ es ee world that lietit in wickedness, will leave a man te perish with the encmics of Christ ’+¢ Dr. ’Sniith’s palliations are inefficient. No sophistry can disguise the principle which he insinuates, the innocence of the present Slave-holder—the justice of his claim to the slaves, and the benignity with which they are maintained The Professor’s facts are as unaccountable as his morals and pelitics—in what sec- tio of the Union—all that Aumanity, miidness, rclaxa- ‘tion and amusements, but which he himself graphi- cally defines to be the drudgery of perpetual labour, ignorance, bestiality and despair—aie discernible, not only defies the researches of Philosophy, but the dis- coveries of Geography If they are circumscribed by Vii any department of literature, it is within the Astrono- iit mev’s circle :—LUNAR observations. In direct une- y| quivocal contradiction to Dr. Smith’s Philosophy ; we Be assert; that no Slave-holder is innocent; that he is an unjust, cruel, criminal Kidnapper, who is guilty of the most atrocious transgression against Goa and Man: that it is the most infatuated delusion for such men to believe, or the mostinipudent hypocrisy in them to profess themselves innocent, that whole counties may be traversed in which comparatively few persons can be traced, who distribute as many comforts or as much care to their slaves as their horses; that the gcneral management of the slave is a complication of indescribe abie barbarity: that Christian Professors are not exempt from the enormity of the crime, or the appli- cation of the charge; and «very MWan-stealer is DARED _either to refute the doctrine or to disfircoc the ac- cusation. ; 3 eee + Scott. ST aes —— mete or a 2 > ern SS ee ST SS i hr eet FINTIS, See 1) + t | “8 DATE DUE 6. 2 a rs ee eee wre | Fee). Oe ahi. oe ee Rae | fi ae a ee: | He Ae ee ae es Pee ee DEMCO 38-297 MIU AIELLO