The power of freedom may be taken away by force from parents and their children forever, but the right of freedom cannot be taken away from either parents or children. Should slaveholders insist that the right of freedom can be taken away without any criminal forfeiture, it may be asked by what law can it be taken away? It cannot be taken away by the moral law, which forbids stealing, and says In all things whatsoever you would that men should do unto you, do ye also to them. It cannot be by the authority of the civil law, for the civil law has no power to interfere with men's private rights to either tolerate the enjoyment of them or take them away. The people, the constituents of civil government, never transferred or could transfer to their representatives a power over the private rights of men; and certain it is that civil rulers can never give a legal power to others which they do not possess themselves.

Therefore the right of freedom cannot be taken away, except in the case of a criminal forfeiture. And if it cannot be taken away by any lawful authority, it supposes that in the case of African slavery, the power of freedom is all that is taken away. The African slaves have a right to be free, but the power of enjoying it, is by vio. lence withheld from them, which supposes slaveholding to be downright theft and robbery. It is theft, as it is a most flagrant instance of fraud and robbery, as it is a direct instance of violence without the shadow of justice; but it is an aggravation of the sin of robbery, far beyond any kind or degree of this species of crime which can come under our observation. As, 1st. If it is a crime deserving of corporeal punishment to steal part of a man's property, it must be a crime still greater to steal it all. 2d. The crime in the first instance must be the same in degree to take away by fraud and violence all a man's property, or to take a man from all his property, the loss is the same to the owner; but slaveholding takes a man from all his property, and absolutely prevents him from possessing more until the day of his death. Common robbery is apt to be a mere transient act, but this is perpetual while the sufferer lives. Other cases of robbery or theft only deprive a man of his outward substance, but slaveholding robs the person of a man soul and body.

As, 1st. It is robbing him of his God, so that he has no power either to read his word or to attend to the other duties of religion, but at the discretion of his master. 2d. It is robbing him of all his relations and friends. It by no means lessens the crime of manstealing, that the present holders of slaves did not in their own persons take them by violence from their own native land, but have obtained them by purchase or gift, because the crime of manstealing by no means derives its chief aggravation from the mere circumstance of removing persons from their native soil, which is but a small matter; but it consists chiefly in robbing a man of his liberty, of his wages, his friends and relatives, and a depriving him of the right of relative duties both towards God and man.

2d. No man can transfer to another a right to an article which he never legally possessed. The first man-thief had no right to deprive the Africans of liberty, wages, or the right of private relative duties, therefore could not transfer such a right to others; so that the business of retaining them in bondage is a recognition of the first act of stealing them.

A

Every infant that is born of an African slave, is stolen from its parents; which is as plain and direct an act of manstealing as the first. Considering then the true nature of slaveholding as it deprives a man of all his natural rights during life, and taking into view the dignity of human nature, or high rank of man in the scale of created existence, compared with the most noble of the brute creation, it may be safely concluded that the crime of slaveholding is a degree of theft as much more aggravating than horse stealing, as a man is better than a horse. horse is of no intrinsic value in creation, but as it is made subservient to man's benefit. But a man's value in the scale of being must be estimated by his relation to God, as a subject of his law, and by his eternal existence. 1st. If we take a view of man in his relation to God, we will find he is of more value than a whole universe of brute creatures, together with the whole inanimate creation. The earth, sun, moon and stars, with all the different tribes of brute animals were all made to subserve the good of man, that is to be instruments and means to preserve him, and to afford him motives to glorify God, and to prepare for eter.

nal happiness; therefore a man is of more value than the sun, moon, earth, stars, and all the brute creation; because every thing which is made to subserve the interest of another, supposes that other being or object to be in value above that which is only made to subserve its advantage; so that to steal a man, or hold a slave, which is the same thing, is as much more criminal in the sight of God than the crime of stealing a horse, as all the horses in the world, all the brute creation, the globe of the earth, the sun, moon, and stars, are in value above the price of one horse. If the value of a man was to be estimated by his mere temporal existence, and his enjoyment of sensual gratifica. tions, it would not far transcend the value of a horse; but when we consider that the moral end of his creation was to glorify God and enjoy him forever that he must spend eternal ages in a state of either happiness or misery, the event of which is to rest upon his improvement of time in this world, his value must be estimated by his moral worth; that is by the value of that tribute of praise which he owes to God, and the value of his eternal happiness. Compared with his eternal misery, if the crime of slaveholding only deprived a man of mere earthly enjoyments, its degree of criminality might be calculated by comparing his privations with the damage sustained by the stealing of a horse, but when we consider that slaveholding neces sarily deprives the slave not only of his independent right of earthly privileges, but also of the indefeasible right of glorifying God, of using the means of salvation, and of improving those means in preparation for eternal life, then the comparison lies between the mere felonious act of depriving a man of his horse, and robbing God of that tribute of praise which the slave owes to him, and a slave of that happiness in heaven which he has a right to seek after, by reading, meditation and prayer.

The business of slaveholding is not only a continuance of theft and robbery during the natural life of the slaveholder, but it is an entailment of the same crime upon all his posterity after him, or charter given them to continue the practice to the end of the world, together with an exposure of himself and them to the vengeance of hell fire forever, and this complicated crime with all its aggravaions and horrid consequences, is augmented in proportion

to the number of slaves held in unjust bondage. It cannot alleviate the aggravation of the crime, that God may, as a God of sovereign mercy, save whom he will of the slaves, though they should be deprived of the ordinary means of salvation, because slavery, with its necessary appendages, has a direct tendency to prevent the salvation of its subjects. The whole force of the above reasoning depends on two things. The one is, whether the great moral end of man's existence was to glorify God and enjoy him forever. The other is, whether slavery tends to prevent or supersede that great end. That the great end of man's existence was to glorify God and to enjoy him forever, will hardly be denied by any one who believes in a future existence. That slaveholding has a direct tendency to prevent the slaves from fulfilling this two-fold end of their creation, and of exposing them to the vengeance of God for their sins, will be manifest from two reasons. The first is, that a state of profound ignorance of every branch of learning is a necessary appendage of slavery, without which it cannot be continued in any nation. The second is, that the authority of the master contravenes the law of God and the gospel of Christ relative to the slave, so that he cannot make use of the means of grace in order to reach the moral end of his existence, but at the discretion of his master. If, then, the fact of holding one man in a state of bondage and profound ignorance has a tendency to prevent him from answering the great end of his existence, and thence exposing him to eternal vengeance for his sin, what idea will it give of the crime of hereditary slavery, which entails the same evils upon the posterity of the slaves to perpetual generations. Lastly. The enjoyment of God forever is of infinite value to the creature; so that man's eternal existence, in connection with the two-fold end of his creation, gives the most perfect idea of the value of a man; which is amplified by the infinite loss he must sustain should he fall short of attaining the great end.

THE NINTH COMMANDMENT.

Sixteenth-That practice must be criminal which implies a violation of the ninth commandment, which is,

"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." But slaveholding is of that description.

1st. Slaveholding implies an assertion and plain decla. ration, that the master has a lawful right to take the slave's labor without wages, which is a bearing witness in direct contradiction to the word of God. Jeremiah xxii. 13: “ Woe unto him that useth his neighbor's service without wages, and giveth him nought for his work."

2d. It is bearing false witness against the slave, whose conscience testifies to him that he ought to be free, and to have wages for his labor.

But

3d. The ninth commandment requires the maintaining and promoting of truth between man and man. slaveholding of necessity prevents the slaves from bearing testimony before any court in their own defence, or in the cause of any other person, to either clear the innocent or condemn the guilty.

4th. The law of God, revealed in his word and in the book of nature, declares that every one who is not a disturber of the peace of society, ought without interruption to enjoy the right of acquiring knowledge, and the right of all private relative duties. But the power of the slave. holder denies to the slave any of these privileges except they enjoy them through their magisterial indulgence. Therefore slaveholding is a bearing false witness against all these precepts of the divine law, which bind all men to the performance of all private relative duties, and against the voice of nature, which teaches that all men have a right to fulfil all relative duties which natively flow from the natural relations in which they stand to one another.

THE TENTH COMMANDMENT.

Seventeenth-That practice must be criminal which implies a breach of the tenth commandment. But slavery is of that description.

The tenth commandment is, "Thou shalt not covet.' It requires full contentment with our own condition, with a charitable frame of spirit towards our neighbor and all that is his, and forbids all inordinate emotions and affections to anything that is his. But slaveholding implies discontentment with our own condition, and a want of that