their inferiors, taking advantage either of their weakness or their necessity, to impose unequal conditions upon them, and such as they can not bear without their detriment or ruin, contrary to that law which God gave his people." (Lev. xxv, 14; Hopkins, p. 72.) The application of the above to slavery is easy.

(9.) Indeed, the great wickedness of holding property in man is so manifest, that God punished either the stealing, or trading, or holding man as property, with a rigor beyond that of any other kind of theft. Death was the punishment for stealing a man, or for dealing in the stolen property, either as a seller, a purchaser, or a holder. The simple ground, therefore, on which slavery is to be placed, is, that it is, of itself, a CRIME of the greatest enormity, besides the parent of innumerable other crimes. It is an outrage on every principle of humanity and justice, and a flagrant violation of the spirit and precepts of Christianity. Therefore, nothing remains to be done by a Christian government, but to pronounce its immediate and utter extinction, accompanying the measure with wise and just precautions.

(10.) Some examples, or cases, of actual theft might be given, to show how deeply slavery is involved in theft and robbery.

We quote the following from the "Report on the Free People of Color of Ohio," as a specimen of kidnapping, very common among slaveholders. It is copied in the Antislavery Record, vol. iii, p. 76.

"Mary Brown, another colored girl who was kidnapped in 1830, was the daughter of free parents in Washington City. She lived with her parents till the death of her mother; she was then seized and sold. The following are the facts as she stated them. One day when near the Potomac bridge, Mr. Humphreys, the sheriff, overtook her, and told her that she must go with him. She inquired of him, what for? He made no reply, but told her to come along. He took

Her

her immediately to a slave auction. Mary told Mr. Humphreys that she was free, but he contradicted her, and the sale went on. The auctioneer soon found a purchaser, and struck her off for three hundred and fifty dollars. master was a Mississippi trader, and she was immediately taken to the jail. After a few hours, Mary was handcuffed, chained to a man slave, and started in a drove of about forty for New Orleans. Her handcuffs made her wrists swell so that they were obliged to take them off at night, and put fetters on her ankles. In the morning her handcuffs were again put on. Thus they traveled for two weeks, wading rivers, and whipped up all day, and beaten at night, if they did not get their distance. Mary says that she frequently waded rivers in her chains, with water up to her waist. It was in October, and the weather cold and frosty. After traveling thus twelve or fifteen days, her arms and ankles became so swollen that she felt that she could go no farther. Blisters would form on her feet as large as dollars, which at night she would have to open, while all day the shackles would cut into her lacerated wrists. They had no beds, and usually slept in barns, or out on the naked ground; was in such misery when she lay down that she could only lie and cry all night. Still they drove them on for another week. Her spirits became so depressed, and she grieved so much about leaving her friends, that she could not eat, and every time the trader caught her crying, he would beat her, accompanying it with dreadful curses. The trader would whip and curse any of them whom he found praying. One evening he caught one of the men at prayer; he took him, lashed him down to a parcel of rails, and beat him dreadfully. He told Mary that if he caught her praying he would give her hell! (Mary was a member of the Methodist Church in Washington.) There were a number of pious people in the company, and at night, when the driver found them melancholy, and disposed to pray, he would have a

fiddle brought, and make them dance in their chains. It mattered not how sad or weary they were, he would whip them till they would do it.

'Mary at length became so weak that she could travel no further. Her feeble frame was exhausted and sunk beneath her accumulated sufferings. She was seized with a burning fever, and the trader, fearing he should lose her, carried her the remainder of the way in a wagon.

"When they arrived at Natchez, they were all offered for sale, and as Mary was still sick, she begged that she might be sold to a kind master.. She would sometimes make this request in presence of purchasers, but was always insulted for it, and after they were gone the trader would punish her for such presumption. On one occasion he tied her up by her hands, so that she could only touch the end of her toes to the floor. This was soon after breakfast; he kept her thus suspended, whipping her at intervals through the day; at evening he took her down. She was so much bruised, that she could not lie down for more than a week afterward. He often beat and choked her for another purpose, till she was obliged to yield to his desires.

But

"She was at length sold to a wealthy man of Vicksburg, at four hundred and fifty dollars, for a house servant. he had another object in view. He compelled her to gratify his licentious passions, and had children by her. This was the occasion of so much difficulty between him and his wife, that he has now sent her up to Cincinnati to be free."

9. Slaveholding is contrary to the ninth commandment, which says: "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." This commandment requires the maintaining of truth between man and man. But slaveholding prevents the slaves from bearing testimony before any court in their own defense, or in the cause of any other person, in clearing the innocent or condemning the guilty.

10. Slavery is contrary to the tenth commandment, which

!

says, “Thou shalt not covet." By the law of God, every person, under God, is his own owner; the owner of his body, limbs, and faculties; the owner of his own time, industry, strength, and skill; the owner of his wife and children; the owner of his own rights, his security, his liberty, his property, etc.; and all as the gift of God to him, and to none other. Now, slavery usurps all these--first covets them, and then seizes them-and it is, therefore, a breach of the tenth commandment.

It

11. Slavery is against all just laws, human and divine. That it is contrary to the moral law, has been abundantly shown. The Gospel contains the great constitutional principles of right, and not mere statutory enactments. proclaims great general rules, adapted to particular cases, public and private. The mere names of sins may not be mentioned--for the names of many are recent--but then the principles, or elementary character of these sins, are very clearly pointed out. A great many vicious practices are not condemned by name in Scripture, such as counterfeiting, forgery, arson, theatres, gambling, piracy, etc. So slavery in modern phrase may not be mentioned; yet all that was pronounced against the slavery of Joseph, the Hebrews in Egypt, and others in the old Testament, is confirmed in the new; and principles and practices inculcated which could never originate slavery, and which, if applied, would soon destroy it in the United States where it exists, as it has done already in other states and other countries.

CHAPTER V.

SLAVERY CONTRARY TO THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTIANITY.

THE principles, claims, and legal practice of slavery, are antagonistic to the principles, dispositions, claims, and practices of pure Christianity. In the support of this, we furnish the following:

1. The right, such as the master claims over the slave, is never acknowledged in the word of God. No such right is recognized by the Mosaic institutions, so that the master, without the consent of the servant, could exact services from him, prevent him from marriage, break up his family by sale, etc.

In the New Testament servants are exhorted to obey their masters. (Eph. vi, 5-8; Col. iii, 22-24; 1 Tim. vi, 1; Tit. ii, 9, 10; 1 Pet. ii, 18-25.) The reasons for obedience are such as these: that servants may please God; that they may receive from him the reward of the inheritance; that the name of God and his doctrine may not be blasphemed; that they may adorn the doctrine of God, their Savior, in all things; that they may imitate the patience of Christ, etc. In no place is the master's right of property in them adduced as a reason for the obedience of a slave. Nor is the obedience of a slave enjoined on any of those who are called servants. Where are such rights recognized as to sell a fellow-man; to buy him from another; to use or treat him as an article of merchandise; to rob him of his children, his wife, and all his goods; to prevent him from worshiping God, improving his mind? These assumed rights of the slaveholders are sought in vain from the beginning of the Old Testament to the conclusion of the new.

2. The absolute power of the master is utterly repugnant to the spirit of Christianity. That one man should be the