clothed, &c.; but, sir, this is far from proving that negroes ought to be slaves.
The celebrated John Randolph, of Roanoke, said in Congress, on one occasion:
Sir, I envy neither the heart nor the head of that man from the North who rises here to defend slavery on principle.
The following lines from the will of this eccentric man show that this clear sense of justice, which is a gift of superior natures. at last produced some appropriate fruits in practice:
I give to my slaves their freedom, to which my conscience tells me they are justly entitled. It has a long time been a matter of the deepest regret to me, that the circumstances under which I inherited them, and the obstacles thrown in the way by the laws of the land, have prevented my emancipating them in my life-time, which it is my full intention to do in case I can accomplish it.
The influence on such minds as these of that kind of theological teaching which prevails in the majority of pulpits at the South, and which justifies slavery directly from the Bible, cannot be sufficiently regretted. Such men are shocked to find their spiritual teachers less conscientious than themselves; and if the Biblical argument succeeds in bewildering them, it produces scepticism with regard to the Bible itself. Professor Stowe states that, during his residence in Ohio, he visited at the house of a gentleman who had once been a Virginian planter, and during the first years of his life was an avowed sceptic. He stated that his scepticism was entirely referable to this one cause,—that his minister had constructed a scriptural argument in defence of slavery which he was unable to answer, and that his moral sense was so shocked by the idea that the Bible defended such an atrocious system, that he became an entire unbeliever, and so continued until he came under the ministration of a clergyman in Ohio, who succeeded in presenting to him the true scriptural view of the subject. He immediately threw aside his scepticism, and became a member of a Christian church.
So we hear the Baltimore Sun, a paper in a slave state, and no way suspected of leaning towards abolitionism, thus scornfully disposing of the scriptural argument:
Messrs. Burgess, Taylor & Co., Sun Iron Building, send us a copy of a work of imposing exterior, a handsome work of nearly six hundred pages, from the pen of Rev. Josiah Priest, A.M., and published by Rev. W. S. Brown, M.D., at Glasgow, Kentucky, the copy before us conveying the assurance that it is the "fifth edition—stereotyped." And we have no doubt it is; and the fiftieth edition may be published; but it will amount to nothing, for there is nothing in it. The book comprises the usually quoted facts associated with the history of slavery as recorded in the Scriptures, accompanied by the opinions and arguments of another man in relation thereto. And this sort of thing may go on to the end of time. It can accomplish nothing towards the perpetuation of slavery. The book is called "Bible Defence of Slavery; and Origin, Fortunes, and History, of the Negro Race." Bible defence of slavery! There is no such thing as a Bible defence of slavery at the present day. Slavery in the United States is a social institution, originating in the convenience and cupidity of our ancestors, existing by state laws and recognized to a certain extent—for the recovery of slave property—by the constitution. And nobody would pretend that, if it were inexpedient and unprofitable for any man or any state to continue to hold slaves, they would be bound to do so, on the ground of a "Bible defence" of it. Slavery is recorded in the Bible, and approved, with many degrading characteristics. War is recorded in the Bible, and approved, under what seems to us the extreme of cruelty. But are slavery and war to endure forever, because we find them in the Bible? Or, are they to cease at once and forever, because the Bible inculcates peace and brotherhood?
The book before us exhibits great research, but is obnoxious to severe criticism, on account of its gratuitous assumptions. The writer is constantly assuming this, that, and the other. In a work of this sort, a "doubtless" this, and "no doubt" the other, and "such is our belief," with respect to important premises, will not be acceptable to the intelligent reader. Many of the positions assumed are ludicrous; and the fancy of the writer runs to exuberance in putting words and speeches into the mouths of the ancients, predicated upon the brief record of Scripture history. The argument from the curse of Ham is not worth the paper it is written upon. It is just equivalent to that of Blackwood's Magazine, we remember examining some years since, in reference to the admission of Rothschild to Parliament. The writer maintained the religious obligation of the Christian public to perpetuate the political disabilities of the Jews, because it would be resisting the Divine will to remove them, in view of the "curse" which the aforesaid Christian Pharisee understood to be levelled against the sons of Abraham. Admitting that God has cursed both the Jewish race and the descendants of Ham, He is able to fulfil His purpose, though the "rest of mankind" should in all things act up to the benevolent precepts of the "Divine law." Man may very safely cultivate the highest principles of the Christian dispensation, and leave God to work out the fulfilment of His curse.
According to the same book and the same logic, all mankind being under a "curse," none of us ought to work out any alleviation for ourselves, and we are sinning heinously in harnessing steam to the performance of manual labor, cutting wheat by McCormick's diablerie, and laying hold of the lightning to carry our messages for us, instead of footing it ourselves as our father Adam did. With a little
more common sense, and much less of the uncom-
