ed on in practice by the individual, and if a slaveholder, he ceases to be so at once; denied and not acted on by a community, and it ceases at once to be a slaveholding community; denied, and not acted on by the world, and arbitrary irresponsible power would cease to sway the sceptre or be the arbiter of right. Equity and justice would rise from the dead, and take the throne; and, instead of the death-knell, the shouts of freedom, triumphant over all oppression, would fill the earth. This one principle, then, that in some cases, the individual himself being judge in the case, it is lawful to hold man as property, is the ground and the whole ground of debate between the advocates of freedom and bondage the world over. Adopt this one principle as a correct one, and however you may contradict and give the lie to yourself in other ways, you do in reality take the side of slavery. You adopt and defend its fundamental principle, and thereby whatever your professions to the contrary, you really adopt the thing itself and become its apologist and defender. The main question then returns-Is slavery, or the holding of man as property, in all cases, a sin? The question, you observe, is not whether slavery in the general is a sin. In this sense it is so admitted, by universal consent. Put the question in the general abstract form, 'Is slavery a sin?' and every man's answer is, 'Yes.' There is no difference of opinion here. But come to a case in hand-touch the system of American slavery-and then, indeed, circumstances alter cases; and though it is very hard and very wrong that the poor slave should be kept out of his rights, still it would be just as hard, and far more wicked, to let him have them. Just at present, it really is not the master's duty to cease his oppression and forsake his wrong doing, by letting the oppressed go free. It would be a greater sin by far than to keep them as they are. How many reason thus!-I mean, talk thus! Absurd, however, as such talking is, it nevertheless proves one thing, viz. that there are multitudes, whose admission of the sin of slavery is a mere abstraction. Come to the case in hand, and they affirm and deny in the same breath. Sin though it be, and on their own admission, yet they will not apply that admission to any actual case. Slavery is always wrong in the abstract; but in practice-that, indeed, alters the case; in practice, it is never wrong; for in practice the justifying circumstances come in, so that the moment you attempt to catch the guilty creature he has evaporated. True, he is a great rogue, but you never can so identify him as to take him. The moment you attempt it, he is off deseruit tenuesque recessit in auras,' and your 'Ter couatus ibi collo dare brachia circum' will be sure to result in a Ter frustra comprensa manus effugit imago, There is no such thing as catching him. He is a mere abstraction, as empty as the wind. Now such talkers are plainly a contradiction to themselves. Their admission of the sin of slavery amounts to just nothing. For I hold it to be self-evident-to the child even-that, if in present circumstances it be not duty to emancipate, then not to emancipate is duty, and slaveholding, in these circumstances, is no longer sin, but duty. And where, I ask, was there ever a case of slavery in practice, in which these justi fying 'present circumstances' did not exist and were not plead? It is important then to sift the real question in debate-viz. whether slaveholding be not sin in all cases? I remark, then, 1. That slaveholding, in all cases, either is or is not sin. In the larger Catechism of the Presbyterian Church, the question is asked, 'What are the sins forbidden in the eighth commandment?' And man-stealing is mentioned as one. In a note the General Assembly describe man-stealing thus: The law is made-for men-stealers. This crime among the Jews, exposed the perpetrators of it to capital punishment; Ex. xxi. 16, 'He that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death :' and the apostle here (I Tim. i. 10) classes them with sinners of the first rank. The word he uses, in its original import, comprehends all who are concerned in bringing any of the human race into slavery, or DETAINING them in it. Hominum fures, qui servos vel liberos abducunt, retinent, vendunt, vel emunt. Stealers of men are all those who bring off slaves or freemen, and KEEP, SELL, or BUY them. To steal a man, says Grotius, is the highest kind of theft. In other instances we only steal human property, but when we steal or retain men in slavery, we steal those, who, in common with ourselves, are constituted by the original grant, lords of the earth. Gen. i. 28.' Such was the authorized doctrine of the Presbyterian Church on the subject of slavery, from 1789 up to 1818. At that time, indeed, the priests' lips ceased 'to keep knowledge.' They had become 'partial in the law.' Some of them, it is to be feared, like the sons of Samuel, 'walked not in ' their fathers' 'ways, but turned aside after lucre, and * took bribes and PERVERTED JUDGEMENT;' and through their influence this obnoxious article was blotted out. Be this, however, as it may, such was the doctrine of the Presbyterian Church on the subject; and now I maintain, that this doctrine is either true or false. If true, then slaveholding is in all cases wicked; unless, perchance, it be admitted that circumstances can change the very nature of things, so as to turn manstealing, the 'highest kind of theft,' into honesty and innocence. But can this be? Are sin and holiness chameleons? Or rather, is there magic in circumstances to change one into the other? Why not change -the devil then into a real angel of light, and done with it? Truly, there is no telling what the magic of circumstances and the process of time may do for him! For aught that appears, circumstances may alter cases with him as well as with the slaveholder! Why not?+ Plainly there is no alternative. A wicked thing, despite the mitigation of circumstances, is still a wicked thing. And slavery, therefore, either is or is not wicked in all cases-in one case as truly as in another. 2. Slaveholding is, in all cases, falsehood in theory. Its theory is, in all cases, a denial of self-evident truths. ? Married wool-sacks,' probably! Alas how many ministers of the gospel have done so, and thus come into the possession of slaves, and in this way been bribed-most effectually bribed-to pervert judgment. Brethren, those slaves will meet you at the bar of Christ. † American Christians seem to have forgotten, at least in respect to the matter of slavery, that the only circumstances, that can ever come in, in mitigation even of crime, (much less to change it into innocence,) are want of capacity and opportunity to know duty and want of natural power to do it; and that these circumstances, when light has come into the world and men have refused to come to it, and loved darkness rather than light, so far from mitigating, do but aggravate guilt and consequent condemWoe unto thee, Chorazin! Woe unto thee, Bethsaida'! nation. D Say the signers of the Declaration of American Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal-that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights—that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness: that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed: that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundations on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments long established should not be changed for light ·and transient causes; and accordingly, all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their RIGHT, it is their DUTY, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.' These, it seems, even to the 'right' and 'duty' of throwing off despotic and oppressive government, are all self-evident truths. But what one of these truths does slaveholding admit? Not one. Slaveholding, in theory and practice both, is built on a denial of the whole. It starts with the false assumption, that all men are not created equal, and are not endowed with certain inalienable rights; that there are cases, therefore, and those not cases of insanity or crime, in |