against it, stands entirely unsupported either by positive proof or by rational probability.

The fourth objection is advanced by a multitude of excellent people, who are shocked at the institution of slavery because it involves the principle of property in man. Yet I have never been able to understand what it is that so disgusts them. No slaveholder pretends that this property extends any further than the right to the labor of the slave. It is obvious to the slightest reflection that slavery can not bind the intellect or the soul. These, which properly constitute the MAN, are free, in their own nature, from all human restraint. But to have a property in human labor, under some form, is an essential element in all the work of civilized society. The toil of one is pledged for the service of another in every rank of life; and to the extent thus pledged, both parties have a property in each other. The parent especially has an established property in the labor of his child to the age of twenty-one, and has the further power of transferring this property to another by articles of apprenticeship. But this, it may be said, ends when the child is of age. True; because the law presumes him to be then fitted for freedom. Suppose, however, that he belonged to an inferior race which the law did not presume to be fitted for freedom at any age, what good reason could be assigned against the continuance of the property? Such, under the rule of the Scriptures and the Constitution of the United States, is the case of the negro. God, in his wisdom and providence, caused the patriarch Noah to predict that he should be the servant of servants to the posterity of Japheth. And the same almighty Ruler, who alone possesses the power, has wonderfully adapted the race to their condition. For every candid observer agrees that the negro is happier and better as a slave than as a free man, and no individual belonging to the Anglo-Saxon stock would acknowledge that the intellect of the negro is equal to his own.

There have been philosophers and physiologists who contended that the African race were not strictly entitled to be called men at all, but were a sort of intermediate link between the baboon and the human being. And this notion is still maintained by some at the present day. For myself, however, I can only say that I repudiate the doctrine with my whole heart. The Scriptures show me that the negro, like all other races, descends from Noah, and I hold him to be a MAN AND A BROTHER. But though he be my brother, it does not follow that he is my equal. Equality can not be found on earth between the brothers even in one little family. In the same house, one brother usually obtains a mastery over the rest, and sometimes rules them with a perfect despotism. In England, the elder brother inherits the estate, and the younger brothers take a lower rank by the slavery of circumstances. The eldest son of the royal family is in due time the king, and his brothers forthwith become his subjects. Why should not the same principle obtain in the races of mankind, if the Almighty has so willed it? The Anglo-Saxon race is king; why should not the African race be subject, and subject in that way for which it is best adapted, and in which it may be more safe, more useful, and more happy than in any other which has yet been opened to it, in the annals of the world?

I know that there may be exceptions, now and then, to this intellectual inferiority of the negro race, though I belive it would be very difficult to find one, unless the intermixture of superior blood has operated to change the mental constitution of the individual. For all such cases the master may provide by voluntary emancipation, and it is notorious that this emancipation has been cheerfully given in thousands upon thousands of instances, in the majority of which the gift of liberty has failed to benefit the negro, and has, on the contrary, sunk him far lower in his social position. But no reflecting man can believe that the great mass of the slaves,

amounting to nearly four millions, are qualified for freedom. And therefore it is incomparably better for them to remain under the government of their masters, who are likely to provide for them so much more beneficially than they could provide for themselves.

The difference then, between the power of the Northern parent and the Southern slaveholder, is reduced to this, namely, that the master has a property in the labor of his slave for life, instead of having it only to the age of twentyone, because the law regards the negro as being always a child in understanding, requiring a superior mind to govern and direct him. But, on the other hand, the slave has just as really a property for life in his master's support and protection, and this property is secured to him by the same law, in sickness and in health, in the helplessness of old age, as well as in the days of youthful vigor, including, besides, a comfortable maintenance for his wife and family. Can any rational judgment devise a fairer equivalent ?

The fifth objection which often meets the Northern ear, proceeds from the overweening value attached, in our age and country, to the name of liberty, since it is common to call it the dearest right of man, and to esteem its loss as the greatest possible calamity. Hence we frequently find persons who imagine that the whole argument is triumphantly settled by the question: "How would you like to be a slave ?”

In answer to this very puerile interrogatory, I should say that whether any condition in life is to be regarded as a loss or an advantage, depends entirely on circumstances. Suppose, for example, that the Mayor of New-York should ask one of its merchant-princes: "How would you like to be a policeman ?" I doubt whether the question might not be taken for an insult, and some words of indignation would probably be uttered in reply. But suppose that the same question were addressed to an Irish laborer, with what feelings would he receive it? Assuredly with those of gratitude

and pleasure. The reason of the difference is obvious, because the employment which would be a degradation to the one, offers promotion and dignity to the other. In like manner, slavery, to an individual of the Anglo-Saxon race, which occupies so high a rank in human estimation, would be a debasement not to be thought of with patience for a moment. And yet, to the Guinea negro, sunk in heathen barbarism, it would be a happy change to place him in the hands of a Southern master. Even now, though the slaves have no idea of the pagan abominations from which their forefathers were taken, it is said that they usually value their privileges as being far superior to the condition of the free negroes around them, and prefer the certainty of protection and support for life, to the hazards of the liberty on which the abolitionist advises them to venture. How much more would they prize their present lot, if they understood that, were it not for this very institution of slavery, they would be existing in the darkest idolatry and licentiousness among the savages of Africa, under the despotic King of Dahomey, destitute of every security for earthly comfort, and deprived of all religious hope for the world to come!

If men would reflect maturely on the subject, they would soon be convinced that liberty is a blessing to those, and only those, who are able to use it wisely. There are thousands in our land, free according to law, but so enslaved to vice and the misery consequent on vice, that it would be a mercy to place them, supposing it were possible, under the rule of some other will, stronger and better than their own. As it is, they are in bondage to Satan, notwithstanding their imaginary freedom; and they do his bidding, not merely in the work of the body, but in the far worse slavery of the soul. Strictly speaking, however, the freest man on earth has no absolute liberty, for this belongs alone to God, and is not given to any creature. And hence it is the glory of the Christian to be the bond servant of the divine Redeemer

who "bought us to himself with his own precious blood." The service of CHRIST, as saith the Apostle, is "the only perfect freedom." All who refuse that service, are slaves of necessity to other masters; slaves to Mammon; slaves to ambition; slaves to lust; slaves to intemperance; slaves to a thousand forms of anxious care and perplexity; slaves at best to pride and worldly decorum, and slaves to circumstances over which they have no control. And they are compelled to labor without ceasing under some or all of these despotic rulers, at the secret will of that spiritual taskmaster, whose bondage does not end at death, but continues to eternity.

The sixth objection arises from the fact that slavery separates the husband from the wife and the parents from the children. Undoubtedly it sometimes does so from necessity. Before we adopt this fact, however, as an argument against slavery, it is only fair to inquire whether the same separation do not take place, perhaps quite as frequently, amongst those who call themselves free. The laboring man who has a large family is always obliged to separate from his children, because it is impossible to support them in his humble home. They are sent to service, therefore, one to this master and another to that, or bound as apprentices, as the case may be, and thus the domestic relations are superseded by strangers, for the most part beyond recovery. So among the lower orders, the husbands are separated from their wives by the same necessity. How many, even of the better classes, have left their homes to seek their fortune in the gold regions! How many in Europe have abandoned their families for Australia, or the United States, or the Canadas! How many desert them from pure wickedness—a crime which can hardly happen under the Southern system! But above all, how constantly does this separation take place amongst our soldiers and sailors, so that neither war nor foreign commerce could be carried on at