of great interests which he desired should be secured. There must be some declaration, or some arrangement, by which it may be fairly inferred that it is a good per se, and not such an institution that he would wish it to be removed. This might be inferred, if he made arrangements for its perpetuity; if he commanded a system or set of doctrines to be propagated which would lead to its perpetuity or the enlargement of its influence; if he instituted nothing to check it; if the fair operation of the institutions which he appointed should serve to perpetuate, and not to destroy it. But if none of these things occur, it is not fair to draw the conclusion that he is friendly to the institution. If, on the contrary, an entirely opposite set of arrangements shall be found all tending to destroy the system, it will not be unfair to conclude that he does not regard it as a good and desirable institution; or in other words, that the Mosaic arrangement is not to be interpreted as in favour of slavery. We infer that the church is an institution which God approves, because he has made arrangements for its perpetuity and enlargement on earth; he has appointed ordinances which suppose that it will always be in existence; he has commanded doctrines and principles to be inculcated which will always tend to its growth; and if his injunction should be fairly carried out, the growth of the church would never be checked, but its influence would continually expand until the earth would be covered with organizations of this kind. It will be necessary to find some such arrangement of permanency in the Mosaic laws in order to demonstrate that he regarded slavery as a good institution, and desired it to be perpetuated on the earth.

3. It is essential to this argument, in order to show that slavery is now right, or that the Bible sanctions it, to be able to argue from the Hebrew institutions to those in this country. It is necessary to show that the Mosaic arrangements in regard to the institution were such as to justify those which are found indispensable now for its perpetuity. It is

necessary to show that the laws respecting slavery under the Mosaic code and in this land are so similar that an argument which would prove that slavery was proper as it was then, demonstrates that it is proper as it is now. This is essential, because the very purpose for which an appeal is made to the Mosaic laws by the advocate of slavery is to show that it is right now, and as it exists in the United States. There must be, therefore, in order to make the argument valid, such a resemblance as to make it proper to reason from one to the other. If the Mosaic institution was a very different thing from slavery in our country; if it was organized on different principles and for different objects; if it varied essentially in its arrangements; and if it tended to a different result, it is evidently improper to argue from one to the other. In one word, if there was an arrangement in the one which tended to its speedy abolition, it is not fair to infer that the arrangements in the other which contemplate its perpetuity, are right.

4. It is essential to this argument from the Mosaic institutions, to prove that what is tolerated at one period of the world is always right; that what was tolerated three thousand years ago, under the Hebrew system of legislation, is proper under the Gospel. The argument implies that what is allowed at one period of the world, is right at all times, and in all places, and under all degrees of light and knowledge.

If these points could be made out, it would be necessary to admit the conclusiveness of the argument derived from the Mosaic institutions in favour of slavery now. The inquiry before us, therefore, is, were the arrangements among the Hebrews in regard to servitude such as to make this clear? This inquiry demands that we examine with care the laws which Moses made on the subject, and then compare them with those existing in our own land.

§ 2. The Mosaic institutions in regard to Servitude.

Previous to our entering on the inquiry proposed in this section, it is proper to remark that Moses did not originate the system of servitude which is recognised in his laws, and there is no reason to think that he would have done it. Whatever may be inferred respecting his views of the system, from his enactments, yet every thing in those enactments looks as if he found the institution of slavery already in existence.

That slavery had an existence when Moses undertook the task of legislating for the Hebrews, there can be no doubt. We have seen that servitude of some kind prevailed among the patriarchs; that the traffic in slaves was carried on between the Midianites and the Egyptians, Gen. xxxviii. 25— 28; xxxix. 1; and that it existed among the Egyptians. It was undoubtedly practised by all the surrounding nations, for history does not point us to a time when slavery did not exist. It was one of the earliest maxims that has come down to us, that by the common laws of war, the captive was to be a slave at the disposal of the victor. Thus the common law among the Romans says, a quo quis vincitur, ejus servus esse tenetur. Thus Thucydides says,t "We consider it to be of divine appointment, and conformable to reason, that one who has subdued another should have dominion over himοὗ ἂν κράτῃ, ἄρχειν. There is even evidence that slavery was practised by the Hebrews themselves when in a state of bondage, and that though they were, as a nation, "bondmen to Pharaoh," yet they had servants in their own families who had been "bought with money." This is manifest from Ex. xii. 43-45. Comp. 51. At the very time that the law was given respecting the observance of the Passover, and before the exode from Egypt, this statute appears among others: "This is the ordinance of the Passover: There shall no

stranger eat thereof: But every man's servant that is bought for money, when thou hast circumcised him, then shall he eat thereof. A foreigner and an hired servant shall not eat thereof." It is clear, from this, that the institution was already in existence, and that Moses did not originate it. The truth in regard to this point is, that Moses found servitude in existence, just as he did polygamy and the custom of divorce; that it can be no more inferred that he would have originated the one than the other; and that the fact that he legislated for the one can be no more regarded as evidence that he approved it as a good and desirable system, than the fact that he legislated for the other.

The condition of Moses as a lawgiver, in this respect, was not materially unlike that of the framers of the Constitution of the United States. When the Convention sat, in 1790, to frame that instrument, slavery existed in all the Southern states, and in not a few of the Northern states also, and had existed from the first settlement of the country. It was extensively interwoven with all the colonial institutions. The people had become habituated to it, and nearly all the existing laws tolerated it. The people of the colonies had, like the Hebrews in Egypt, been under oppression, but, like those same Hebrews, they had themselves held others in bondage. In these circumstances, it became a matter of necessity to legislate on the subject, and to admit some arrangements into the Constitution in regard to it. Hence the slave-trade itself was tolerated until the year 1808. Provision was made in the Constitution for restoring those who escaped, from one state to another, to their masters.* An important concession was made to the states where slavery existed, in regard to the ratio of representation. Though the word slave' was carefully avoided in the instrument, yet it was understood that the arrangements in the Constitution pertained to slavery, and in fact did really pertain to it. Yet it would be

very unfair to suppose from this that either the majority of the framers of that instrument were in favour of slavery, or the majority of the states which adopted it. No one would feel that he was reasoning safely, to infer from that fact that Washington, and Madison, and Franklin, and Adams were the friends of slavery, or that they would have originated the system, if it had not already been in existence. In fact, were there no other evidence in the case, it would not be difficult to make out an argument, from the very Constitution which they framed, to show that they looked on the whole institution with aversion; that they were not willing to defile the immortal instrument which they were framing with even the name of slavery; that they would be willing that future ages should not know, if possible, that they even tolerated it; and that they meant that the system should cease in the land as soon as possible. Why should we, then, any more infer that Moses was friendly to the system, from the fact that he tolerated it? Y

If it should be said here, that Moses had it in his power wholly to prohibit slavery in his institutions, and yet chose to admit it as a part of his system, and that therefore it is to be inferred that he regarded it as a good and desirable thing, I would make the following reply: (1) It is not absolutely certain that it could have been entirely prohibited with ease, and we know that some things were tolerated under his system which were not approved. Thus we are expressly told, on the highest authority, that the practice of divorce was permitted "on account of the hardness of the hearts" of the Jewish people, (Mat. xix. 8;) but that this was not according to the original arrangement when man was created, and was not an arrangement which God desired should be perpetuated on the earth. The Christian precept utterly abolished an arrangement sanctioned by the laws of Moses, on which he had carefully legislated, and which had been acted on, perhaps without suspicion of wrong, for many hundred years. Who can prove that slavery may not have been a case like we

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