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vided for the nurture and education of the human family, and which constitutes an essential part of Civilization itself And yet, by the law of Slavery — happily beginning to be modified in some places — this relation is set at naught, and in its place is substituted the arbitrary control of the master, at whose mere command little children, such as the Saviour called unto hin, though clasped by a mother's arms, may be swept under the hammer of the auctioneer. I do not dwell on this exhibition. Sir, is not Slavery barbarous?
Fourthly. Slavery paints itself again in closing the gates of knowledge, which are also the shining gates of civilization. Under its plain unequivocal law, the bondman may, at the unrestrained will of his master, be shut out from all instruction; while in many places, incredible to relate! the law itself, by cumulative provisions, positively forbids that he shall be taught to read. Of course, the slave can not be allowed to read, for his soul would then expand in larger air, while he saw the glory of the North Star, and also the helping truth, that God, who made iron, never made as lave; for he would then become familiar with the Scriptures, with the Decalogue still speaking in the thunders of Sinai; with that ancient text, “He that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hands, he shall surely be put to death;" with that other text, “Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal; "with that great story of redemption, when the Lord raised the slaveborn Moses to deliver his chosen people from the house of bondage; and with that sublimer story, where the Saviour died a cruel death, that all men, without distinction of race, might be saved — leaving to mankind commandments, which, even without his example, make Slavery impossible. Thus, in order to fasten your manacles upon the slave, you fasten other manacles upon his soul. Sir, is not Slavery barbarous?
Fifthly. Slavery paints itself again in the appropriation of all the toil of its victims, excluding them from that property in their own earnings which the law of nature allows, and civilization secures. . The painful injustice of this pretension is lost in its meanness. It is robbery and petty larceny, under the garb of law. And even its meanness is lost in the absurdity of its associate pretension, that the African, thus despoiled of all his earnings, is saved from poverty, and that for his own good
