Greeks were called servants under the yoke. But by slavery, we mean that of involuntary, unmerited, perpetual, hereditary slavery, without any conditions or limitations, or supposed crimes to be a legal cause for that involuntary slavery. By slaves we mean such beings of the human race as are, with their offspring, to perpetual generations, considered as PROPERTY; compelled by superior force, unconditionally to obey their owners, liable to be given and received; to go and to come; to marry or forbear; to be separated when married; to eat, drink, sleep, labor, and be beaten at the discretion of their masters; this is slavery.

With slaveholders we do not class all that have the persons of slaves in their power, for some have them that are making conscience of educating them, and are disposed at some future time to set them at liberty. Others may not have come to a full discovery of the sin of holding slaves, yet are laying their minds open to conviction, and are striving, by reading, meditation, and prayer, to know their duty relative to the business of slavery. A real slaveholder is one who not only has the persons of slaves in his power, but has a full determination to retain them in bondage, and to bequeath them and their posterity to his succeeding heirs. By a slaveholder we mean one who has a power, without any control of man, to contravene all the preceptive obligations of the divine law relative to the slave, to intercept and prevent all the rela. tive duties which he owes to God and to his relations and neighbors. In short, it is a power over all those private inalienable rights and relative duties, which no civil authority upon earth has either a right to tolerate or prevent. It is no just objection to this definition of a slaveholder's power, that the laws of some slave states will punish the inan who kills his slave, because the same law admits him to exercise all that unlimited power which has been described, while the slave is alive, but takes no cognizance of his case till after he is killed.

APPENDAGES OF SLAVERY.

There are three things which are not in every possible case essential to the being of slavery, yet are essential to

its permanent existence, and to the stability of that gov ernment which authorises slavery. The first is, that the slaves must be kept in a state of ignorance of every species or branch of literature, to prevent them from being able to plead their right to freedom, and to prevent them from contriving any successful methods to escape from bondage.

The second is, the necessity of all slaves being outlawed, or excluded from the privilege of bearing testimony in any court, for or against any free man. This lays them open to all possible abuses which human depravity might suggest, and in particular subjects the female slaves to the lawless will of the master, to become his prostitutes at discretion.

The third thing is, that in the economy of slavery, no respect can, in ordinary cases, be had to any relation, nor to private relative duties; but the authority of the master comes in prior to any relative obligation. Though some masters may permit their slaves to live with their relations, and allow them the exercise of some relative duties, yet all these rights and privileges are liable to be suspended at the discretion of the master.

CHAPTER II.

HISTORY OF SERVITUDE.

II. A brief history of servitude.

THE ANTEDILUVIANS.

The first intimation of slavery is in Genesis vi. 11. "The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence." The business of slavery is not here mentioned, but it seems to be implied in the general expression. The earth was filled with violence, which is again repeated in the 13th verse. Violence signifies a forcible usurpation of power over the rights of others, which may imply either the right of property, or liberty, or both. As slavery is the highest degree of usurpation, and violence was the crying sin of that age, we have good

reason to believe that it was one capital ingredient of that enormous guilt which brought upon them the greatest stroke of divine vengeance that ever befel the human race since the fall of Adam.

NIMROD.

The next intimation is in Gen. x. 8. "And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord; wherefore it is said, even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord and the beginning of his kingdom was Babel," &c. Nimrod is not here literally termed a slaveholder; but he is represented as a cruel tyrant, whose business was that of hunting and enslaving mankind, even as slave traders do the Africans.

ABRAHAM.

In the history of Abraham, we have accounts of servants, but no account of slaves. Gen. xiv. 14. "He armed his trained servants, born in his house, three hundred and eighteen." That these were not slaves, but only common servants, is evident from their being trained to the use of arms, which was quite inconsistent with the condition of slavery.

Secondly. The age of Abraham was so recent a period from the universal deluge, that mankind were not all or ganized into political governments; so that patriarchal government was then necessary, which was no other than that of the great and wealthy presiding over, governing and defending such of the poorer class as were disposed to put themselves under their protection, to be their safeguard against lawless bands which might be disposed to live by plunder. That Abraham was one of those patri

"Hear us, my

archal rulers is evident from ch. xxiii. 6. lord, thou art a mighty prince among us; in the choice of thy sepulchres bury thy dead." This may be compared with the history of Job, as another example of patriarchal government, chapter xvii. Abraham was commanded to circumcise all born in his house, or bought with his money but this command, instead of recognizing the lawfulness of slaveholding, is pointedly against it. It first

supposes it lawful to purchase men for servants, which under peculiar circumstances is always lawful. 2d. Instead of riveting the chains of involuntary, unmerited, hereditary slavery upon them, they were to be circumcised, and thereby made members of the same church with their masters, and so made to have a right to the same privileges, both civil and ecclesiastical, which belonged to the Jews; one of which was exemption from a state of slavery; and this covenant obligation upon Abraham and his posterity to perpetual generations, absolutely precluded perpetual hereditary slavery from ever existing in the Jewish nations.

EGYPT.

The next account we have in scripture of servitude was that of Israel's bondage in Egypt, which was not complete slavery, neither was it to be compared to that which is practised in these United States, or in the West Indies. The Israelites were subject to cruel oppression in Egypt, but they had the privilege of residing on their own premises in the land of Goshen; and of domestic comfort with their own families, without being sold and scattered far away from each other. They also had their own individual property, as flocks and herds, and meat and drink in abundance, as appeared from their murmurings and expressions of regret for leaving the land of Egypt, Exodus xvi. 3. "And the children of Israel said unto them, would to God that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and where we had bread to the full." This was said on the fifteenth day of the second month, after they left Egypt, so that it was a matter fresh in their memories. Their bondage did not consist in being the private property of individuals throughout the nation, but in being subject to the arbitrary power of a tyrant, who had dominion over their bodies and lives at his pleasure; and although he did not hold them all at once in a state of actual servitude, yet he had carried on a constant practice of levying a tribute of laborers from among them, to be employed in mortar and brick, and in building store cities for Pharaoh, and were liable to be beaten and abused while employed in the service of the

public. These, together with the murder of their male children for a time, were the principal ingredients of that bondage which Israel suffered in Egypt, which all taken together were less intolerable than that complete slavery which is now practised in the United States.

JEWISH.

The next account of servitude is in Leviticus XXV. 44-46. "Both thy bondmen and bondmaids which thou shalt have shall be of the heathen that are round about you, of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you which they begat in your land, and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen forever." From this citation it is evident that servitude was admitted among the Jews, but it was materially different from modern slavery. As first-They were to be purchased from the heathens round about them, and neither stolen or taken by force. 2dThey were liable to be emancipated as soon as they com plied with the ordinances of circumcision, and if they did not comply with that rite, their children must of necessity have been free at the ordinary time of native Jews, because all the Jews were bound to circumcise all that were born in their houses, or bought with their money, in consequence of which they became Jews, who could not be retained in bondage more than six years. 3d--If such as were purchased in an adult age, refused to comply with the ordinance of circumcision, they were only subject to servitude until the year of jubilee; but in that case their bondage did not entail the same to their posterity. That all servants among the Jews in every age were initiated into the Jewish church by circumcision, is as clearly revealed in the word of God, as any one truth it contains. Gen. xvii. 10. "This is my covenant which ye shall keep between me and you and thy seed after thee. Every man child among you shall be circumcised-verse 12; and he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house or bought