country which they now occupy, industrious and happy free laborers. He shows, with much clearness, what can be done by individual slaveholders to promote the general abolition of the system; and, in the sixteenth letter, concludes with an eloquent array of "motives to immediate effort," drawn from the doctrine of God's retributive dispensations, and from the certainty that dreadful judgments must fall upon a country so laden as ours with the guilt of slavery, unless they are averted by a speedy repent

ance.

This book is a fair specimen of that sort of discussion on the subject of slavery, which we wish to see more of. The author does not bluster, like some eminent philanthropists in our part of the country; he does not attempt to mystify and madden the minds of inflammable readers, with the stereotype talk about "immediate abolition;" he writes like a man who knows whereof he affirms, and who knows precisely what prejudices and errors he has undertaken to combat; he aims directly at the instruction and conviction of those slaveholders who imagine that there is no wrong in slavery, and that nothing is to be done but to hand down the system, just as it is, to other generations ;-and such is the coolness and clearness, and at the same time the pungency, of his statements and arguments, that slaveholders, meeting with the book, cannot refuse to read, and reading, cannot easily avoid being convinced. We hope the book may have a wide circulation in that part of the country for which it was especially designed. We hope it may be replied to; and that the author may thus have occasion to come out again, with his

strong appeals to undeniable facts and self-evident principles.

In saying all this, however, we do not make ourselves responsible for everything which the author has said. Here and there, if it were worth our while, we might find fault with a position or an argument; but those slips and errors-if they are such-do not affect the great conclusions to which he wishes to conduct his readers. For example: we have our doubts whether the exegesis by which he would get rid of some passages of Scripture often adduced in defence of slavery, is in every instance correct. Yet the general position, that the Bible does not justify or authorize slavery, he defends successfully; for he brings forward the great principles of Christian morality, and applies them to the question in such a manner as leaves no doubt on the mind of the unbiased reader, that, whatever difficulties there may be with the exegesis of particular passages, the Bible is irreconcilably at war with such a constitution of society.

Taking leave, now, of Mr. Paxton and his book, but not of the subject, we propose to occupy a few pages with a scriptural inquiry respecting the morality of slavery.

To many who will read these pages, the question is one of direct practical importance. We have readers, not a few, who are the hereditary masters of bondmen, or who live in the midst of a slaveholding community. And besides these, many of our readers in our own part of the country, will probably be living, by and by, where the laws establish slavery, and where every man, whose circumstances permit

him to employ a servant, is called upon to decide for himself, whether he will be a slaveholder or not. Thousands of the natives of the north-young men, and men more advanced-men in every business and profession--are continually becoming citizens of the south, and there find that the question of the morality of slavery is to them a question personally and immediately practical.

The subject is important to us all, in another aspect. We at the north, are fellow-citizens with slaveholders; and between us and them, as fellowcitizens, there is, and must be, a constant intercourse. We and they not only meet by our representatives in the national legislature, but meet personally, both in our part of the country and in theirs. Many slavemasters are associated with us, in our various benevolent and Christian enterprises. Often individuals from among them, brought hither by business, or in pursuit of health, come and worship with us in our temples, or as members of sister churches, sit down with us at the table of the Lord. Not less often, one and another from among us, finds himself carried by his business, or is driven by disease, into those parts of the country where slavery prevails; and there slaveholders not only offer him the civilities of ordinary hospitality, but, if he is a professor of religion, invite him to worship with them in their families and in their temples, and to commune with them in all religious ordinances. Thus, it is an important question to all, how ought we to regard these fellowcitizens? And this is only another form of the question respecting the morality of slavery. On the one hand, we are urged to believe that they are without

any responsibility, in relation to the existence and continuance of slavery among them. On the other hand, we are visited by traveling lecturers on slavery, and inundated with pamphlets and papers, urging us to believe that every slave-master is, as such, a criminal of the deepest die, a "felon in heart and deed," whose crime is only inferior "to intentional and malignant murder," a "thief," a "robber," a "tyrant," who deserves to be regarded as the common enemy of the human race. These circumstances certainly give great importance to the inquiry respecting the morality of slavery.

First of all, in this inquiry, it is necessary to define distinctly the subject in debate. What is slavery?

Before attempting a direct answer to this question, it is to be remarked, that there are many varieties of slavery; that the laws of different countries and ages limit and modify the relation of master and slave, in many different degrees; and that, therefore, the answer ought to include slavery in all its forms. There may be slavery, where the master has, by the law, an absolute irresponsible power over the persons and lives of his slaves; and there may be slavery, where the master has no power to put his slave to death, and if he inflicts any punishment beyond a certain measure of severity, he must be called to account at a public tribunal. There may be slavery, where the slave is by the law incapable of acquiring property, incapable of marriage, incapable of testifying in a court of justice, incapable of complaining to a magistrate against the cruelty of his master or of any other person; and there may

be slavery, where the slave is invested with all these rights, and protected in them. There may be slavery, where the slave is allowed to be sold like a horse, at the pleasure or necessity of his master, and to be torn away by force from all the objects of his natural affection; and there may be slavery, where the slave cannot be transferred from one proprietor to another, except with his own consent. There may be hereditary slavery, entailed upon unborn generations; and there may be slaves, whose children are free-born. There may be a slavery for life; and there may be a slavery limited to a term of years. We say, therefore, the definition of slavery ought to include all the varieties of servitude which the word slavery properly denotes, and ought to exclude everything else.

Shall it be said, then, as is often said by those who talk most on this subject, that, for a man to have property in his fellow-men, is slavery? How are we to understand this definition? Has not the master a property in his apprentice-the father in his children-not to say the husband in his wife, and the wife in her husband? Is all the property which one human being may have in another, slavery? Who is he that would abolish slavery, by proclaiming it as an axiom, that it is a crime for one human being to claim property in another? Let him preach that doctrine, if he will be consistent, to his apprentices, or to the apprentices of his neighbor, and exhort them to make the application for themselves. Will it be said, that the master cannot sell his apprentice as the slaveholder can sell his slave? We ask in reply, Is there no slavery where the slave.