CHAPTER XIV.

Slavery considered-A violation of the rights of Man-Remarks of Milton -Condemned by Pope Leo X.-Remarks of Bishop Warburton-How can Christians continue to be its upholders?-Guilt of Britons and Americans- -Expiation of our sin by a noble sacrifice-We can never repay the debt we owe to Africa-White Man instilling into those he calls 66 savages" a despicable opinion of human nature-We practise what we should exclaim against-No tangible plea for Slavery-Criminal to remain silent spectators of its crimes-We cannot plead ignorance as an excuse for silence or inactivity-Seven millions of human beings now in Slavery-Four hundred thousand annually torn from Africa-Slavery a monstrous crime-A robbery perpetrated on the very sanctuary of man's rational nature—A sin against God-America's foul blot-Slaves represented as happy!-Remarks on this.

Although the consideration of the subject of Slavery is not altogether within the province of this work, I shall not feel satisfied without making some allusion to it in a few words; seriously putting the question to all those who are concerned in the system, directly or indirectly, whether, in the face of what has already been cited, they can still, with an easy conscience, look down with an eye of scorn upon their fellow-creatures of a darker hue, or continue to hold them in unwilling bondage, or depress them as they do, with the iron hand of Slavery.

Claims to personal liberty are the birthright of every human being, irrespective of clime or of colour;-claims which God has conferred, and which man cannot destroy without sacrilege, nor infringe without sin. They have claims which are anterior to all human laws, and which are superior to all political institutions,-immutable in their Thus writes our great poet Milton :

nature.

"O execrable man, so to aspire

Above his brethren, to himself assuming
Authority usurpt, from God not given;
He gave us only over beast, fish, fowl,
Dominion absolute; that right we hold

:

By his donation; but man over men

He made not lord, such title to himself
Reserving, human left from human free."

Many condemnations against the system of one class of men oppressing another might be adduced. Pope Leo X., when the question was referred to him, declared "That not only the Christian religion, but nature herself cried out against Slavery." The continuance of the unmerited and brutish servitude of the Negro, is undoubtedly nothing short of a criminal and outrageous violation of the natural rights of man." Gracious God!" exclaims Bishop Warburton, "to talk of men as of herds of cattle, of property in rational creatures, creatures endowed with all our faculties, possessing all our qualities but that of colour, our brethren both by nature and by grace, shocks all the feelings of humanity, and the dictates of common sense! Nothing is more certain in itself and apparent to all, that the infamous traffic in Slaves directly infringes both divine and human law. Nature created man free, and grace invites him to assert his freedom."

How can Christian professors,-professors of a religion breathing love and good will to man, continue to be the undisguised and guilty supporters and advocates of the atrocious system of Slavery? themselves the owners, and the dealers in these "human chattels ;" who, as if in mockery of the sacred name of liberty, are exposed for sale within the very precincts of those

"Council Halls,

Where freedom's praise is loud and long,
While close beneath the outward walls

The driver plies his reeking thong

The hammer of the man-thief falls!"

It makes one's very blood to boil, it makes one tremble to think, that we Britons and our American descendants, with all their boastful cry of "Liberty," are so guilty; but it is some consolation to reflect that we at least, have made

a greater sacrifice than was ever made by any nation to expiate our sin. "On the page of history," it has been said, "one deed shall stand out in whole relief-one consenting voice pronounce-that the greatest honour England ever attained, was when, with her Sovereign at her head, she proclaimed, the Slave is Free!"-Yes, "in the pages of history," says the estimable Hugh Stowell," this act will stand out the gem in our diadem."

Yet all the efforts we can make for the civil and religious welfare of the Negro family will never repay the debt we owe to the whole race of Africa for having robbed her of her children, under every aggravated form of cruelty, to increase our own comforts, to augment our private wealth, and add to our public revenues, by toils which imposed a daily stretch upon their sinews; a task which had no termination, but with their lives.

The White Man may boast of his superior intellect, and the peculiar advantages he enjoys, of a written revelation of his duty from heaven, of which he has deprived the victims of his oppression; yet with all his vaunted superiority, he is instilling into the minds of those whom he chooses to call savages and barbarians, the very reverse of that which the Divine law inculcates, the most despicable opinion of human nature. To the utmost of our power do we weaken and dissolve the universal tie that should bind and unite mankind. We practise what we should exclaim against as the greatest excess of cruelty and tyranny, if nations of the world, differing in colour from ourselves, were able to reduce us to a state of similar unmerited and brutish servitude. We sacrifice our reason, our humanity, our Christianity, to an unnatural sordid gain. We teach other nations to despise and trample under foot all the obligations of social virtue. We take the most effectual method to prevent the propagation of the Gospel, by representing it as a scheme of power and barbarous oppression, and an enemy to the natural privileges and rights of man.

I assert, that there does not exist in nature, in religion, or in civil polity, a reason for robbing any man of his liberty; that there is neither truth, nor justice, nor humanity in the declaration, that Slavery is consonant with the condition of Negro-men. To devote one-fourth of the habitable globe to perpetual blood-shed and warfare-to give up the vast continent of Africa to the ravages of the man-robbers who deal in flesh and blood-the marauders who sack the towns and villages-the merchant-murderers who ply the odious trade, who separate the child from the mother, the husband from the wife, the father from the son, is a monstrous system of cruelty, which, in any of its forms is intolerable and unjust. "Cry aloud and spare not," was the language of one formerly; a language especially applicable at the present day on the question before us, in relation to which Benezet justly queries, "Can we be innocent, and yet silent spectators of this mighty infringement of every human and sacred right?"

There are questions affecting the highest interests of society, on which it is criminal to be silent. There are crimes and conspiracies against Man, in his collective and individual capacity, which strip the guilty of all the respect due to the adventitious circumstances connected with rank and station; and to know that such combinations exist, and not to denounce them, is treason against the throne of Heaven, and the immutable principles of Truth and Justice. We cannot plead ignorance as an excuse either for silence or inactivity:

"Behold the Negro !

-The curse of man his branded forehead bears,
His bosom with the scorching iron sear'd,
His fettered limbs defiled with streams of gore!"

"Hark! from the West a voice of woe;
Ah! yes; it echoes o'er the wide Atlantic's wave ;
We hear the knotted scourge, the dying cry;
Yonder the torturer's hands, the clanking chain;
Fly to the rescue! lingering loiterer fly!"

Behold them! men, women, and children, with tearful eyes, and with uplifted hands, with branded and bleeding bodies, with lacerated feet and clanking chains, supplicating, on bended knees, for the restoration of their rights!

"It is the voice of blood;-O think! O think!

Act-for the injured, dying Slave:

Nor let him linger longer-deeper sink

But haste to help-to save.

Let not his injuries plead in vain,
Lest haply in thy dying day,
Thy soul should bear a guilty stain,
Which nought can wash away.

O help him, lest in hall and bower,
His crying blood thy joys molest ;
Or, speaking through the midnight hour,
Chase like a ghost thy rest.

O help him—bless him--for ye can:
Hear Reason's-hear Religion's plea,
Declare to all-HE IS A MAN-

Therefore HE SHALL BE FREE!"

When we reflect that there are now in the world, upwards of SEVEN MILLIONS of human beings detained in Slavery; who are held as goods and chattels, the property of other human beings having similar passions with themselves ; that they are liable to be sold and transferred from hand to hand, like the beasts that perish; that more than 400,000 are annually sold and removed from the land of their birth, to distant regions; and this not in families, the nearest connexions of life being frequently torn asunder; and when we further reflect, that in several, if not in most of the Slaveholding States, the Slaves are systematically excluded from the means of improving their minds-that in some, even teaching them to read is treated as a crime; and that all these things exist amongst a people loudly proclaiming the freedom G and equality of their laws-a people professing subjection to the requirements of Christianity, whose lawgiver has taught us that he regards the injuries done to the least of