fore, a regard for those in bondage with them, should prevent them from taking this course.

The brother tells you, that when Constantine enacted the laws I read, against separating married slaves from each other, he was engaged in "killing slavery" throughout the Roman empire. I ask where is his proof of this? At all events, slavery did not die in the empire for centuries after; no, not till the thirteenth century, as the gentleman himself admits. This was, to say the least, a very slow death.

He says, again, that the law of the Presbyterian church, forbidding the separation of husband and wife in the sale of slaves, is a dead letter, and totally inoperative. He asserts this; I deny it. He has told us of the Danville case; but in that case the law was fully operative, for the church session did discipline the member so offending.

He proves slavery to be sinful by the fact, that the Kentuckian holds his slaves by a law that does not recognize their marriage as valid. Very well: the Hindoo holds his wife under a law which does not recognize women as having souls, and which treats them as incapable of religion. Is marriage, therefore, among the Hindoos, in itself a sin? The Roman law gave a father the right of life and death over his child: was it sin, therefore, in a Roman to have a son? The argument is just as logical in the one case as in the othar.

I pressed him with the inconsistency of his abolitionist friends in insisting with such uncompromising zeal on setting the slave free from his master, and then stopping short and refusing him the boon of a freeman in the right of suffrage; and how does he reply? Oh, he leaves all that to the politicians! he has nothing to do with that. Nothing to do with it? As an abolitionist, pleading for human freedom, he has much to do with it. Does he call him a free man for whom others make laws at their pleasure, he having no voice in the enactment of the laws or in the choice of the lawmakers? Yet where is the abolitionist press in Ohio that pleads for this vital element of freedom in the case of the

colored man? If he must be set free, why not make him free indeed? Ah, that would not do: and so that is none of their concern-they leave that to the politicians!

The gentleman has at last made one attempt to answer my argument based on the truth, that the great principles of the moral code are obvious, and commend themselves at once to the conscience of every enlightened man; connected with the fact, that men the most enlightened have failed to see or feel that slave-holding is in itself sinful. And what is his answer? Why, he says, all do see it to be wrong, when brought home to themselves; for, if a man should seize on one of my daughters, and make a slave of her, I would instantly feel that the act was a heinous sin. And does the brother really regard this as an answer? He offers it as an answer to my argument. But are we discussing the question, whether seizing on a free human being and reducing him by force to a state of slavery, is sinful? Who would argue such a question for one moment? I certainly would not. Yet that is his only answer! We are not enquiring whether it is sin to reduce men to slavery, but what a man is bound to do with those who are in slavery already, and were born slaves. What has this to do with the act of a man who would seize on my daughter, born free, in a land of freedom, and by force make a slave of her? Suppose I could show that the wise and good, of all ages and lands, thought stealing not to be wrong; would it be an answer to say, "ah, but if a man should rob you, you would then think it a sin ?"

My friend has made a brief reply to my argument on the golden rule. He says that God has made of one blood all men to dwell under the face of the whole heaven; and as they are of one blood, they are by nature equal, and so must be equal in their condition; and therefore it is a sin, under any circumstances, for one to hold another as a slave. Admitting the inference to be sound, it is against himself and his friends, who assert that the politicians may deprive one class of men, on account of their color, of all political rights.

[Mr. BLANCHARD rose to explain. I never said that. I said that, as moralists, and as ministers of Christ, when we have freed the slaves from their masters, abolitionists have done with them.]

Yes, that is, when, as moralists, and ministers, and zealous abolitionists, they have restored to the slave one half his rights, they have done with him, and very coolly leave the rest to politicians! They do not even aim to secure, or pretend to claim, for him, all his rights. The gentleman is prudent. He saw the trouble into which his doctrine would plunge him, if he took another step, and he stops short. Oh, prudent abolitionists! Then complete freedom, it seems, belongs to privileged classes only. He admits that politicians may deprive the slave of some of the dearest of his rights all his life long, and yet their task as advocates of human liberty, will have been fully accomplished. "Abolitionists have done with them." If he were the African, would he be satisfied with such principles?

Again, he says, my argument from the golden rule, is a petitio principii—a begging of the question-that it assumes that there is nothing wrong in holding a man in slavery. It assumes no such thing. If I purchase a slave at his own earnest request, that his condition may be improved, I do not thereby say, that he, or his ancestors were justly enslaved. But I do deny, that I have violated that rule, when I comply with his request, and so place him in a better condition; or that I am bound to make him a present of four or six hundred dollars. If I purchase him at his own request, I confer on him a favor; he so regards it. I may not be able, without disregarding other paramout duties, to set him free; but I do for him the best that, under the circumstances, I am able. Is it begging the question to say, that in so doing, I commit no sin?

But the brother says, my argument gives me the benefit of my own wrong. I deny it. I have done the man, whom I purchase, no wrong. Admitting that, in some cases, a man may be responsible for the wrong done by his father,

my father has done this man no wrong. The original wrong was committed long ago. What can we now do to remedy all the evils of generations gone by? They who enslaved our blacks, had gone to their account, long before we were born. We find them in slavery; what ought we to do for them? That is the question, and the only question.

The brother applies to slave-holders the language of our Lord to the Jews, where He told them that their fathers killed the prophets, and they garnished their sepulchres. But the cases are not analogous. They would be if we were answering those who stole and enslaved the blacks, or if we ourselves were to steal and enslave others. The Jews said, if they had lived in the days of their fathers, they would not have slain the prophets; while they themselves persecuted and put to death Christ and his apostles. Thus, they did indeed fill up the measure of their fathers. But what analogy is there between this case, and that of a man who buys a slave at his own earnest request? Did a prophet ever come to a Jew, and say,-" pray, do persecute me a little?" [A laugh.] I do not claim the right of going to Africa and purchasing slaves on speculation. The case the brother has brought, is as far from ours as the poles.

And now for his replies to my argument from the Old Testament.

He says my argument is bad, because the position I take is equivocal: at the North it is understood, that slavery is not wrong because God permitted, that, is, did not hinder it among the Jews; while at the South, it goes the whole length of maintaining that God sanctioned slavery among them. Is this a candid statement? Have I ever said that God permitted slave-buying to the Jews, in the sense of not hindering it, as he did not hinder polygamy? Never. The brother knows, and you know better. My position was, and is, that God expressly permitted it in the words of the Jewish law, given from himself by Moses. No in his man, understand the argument as meaning simply that God did not hinder the Jews from buying and holding slaves. No,

senses,

could

my position is not equivocal; it is plain, open, and above board. It means at the North what it means at the South: it means at the South just what it means at the North, and no more, viz: that God gave the Jews permission to buy and hold slaves, because, as I suppose, their condition would be thereby improved.

As to the brother's quotation from the Alabama Baptist, I have only to say, I have nothing to do with it. I never have said that slavery is no evil; nor is that my belief. But on this subject the gentleman flatly contradicted himself, by saying, at one time, that my doctrine was highly agreeable to southern slave-holders, and at another, that they could not endure it. He changes his position more frequently than the wind changes its course.

In reply to my argument from authority, he says that the able scholars and critics to whom I referred, were misled by Dr. Paley. Now it happens, somewhat unfortunately for this reply, that they lived, (at least many of them,) before Paley. [A laugh.] And besides, Dr. Paley himself, though a pleasant and ingenious writer, never was regarded as a giant on questions of morals. There is no evidence that the eminent and able men, with whom I agree, and from whom Mr. Blanchard differs, in their exposition of the passages I quoted from the Old Testament, were misled, or in the least influenced by Dr. Paley.

But he says, that they looked at slavery through "slaveholding spectacles." Well, and where is the evidence of this? Why, Matthew Henry wrote his Commentary not more than 30 miles from Liverpool, where slave-ships were fitted out for the African trade; and he was afraid to speak out his real sentiments on the subject! The gentleman pays quite a compliment to that eminently good and wise man! But there may have been much sin beside slave-dealing committed in less than thirty miles of him. Was he afraid to expose this? But he has told us what persecution he endured in consequence of his fidelity to the truth. How faith