Many slaveholders and their apologists have sought to find authority for the “enormity and crime” of slavery, in the Holy Bible. And we are not surprised that the vile oppressor, smarting under the lashings of a guilty conscience, and condemned by the united voice of reason and humanity, should fly for refuge from public scorn and condemnation, to a shelter, however insecure, erected by a perversion of the writings and example of those remarkable men, who fill a prominent place in sacred history. How consoling it must be to the slaveholder, while standing upon the neck of an unresisting[Pg 89] brother, and crushing his humanity into the dust with heartless cruelty, to hear from a doctor of divinity that Noah countenanced the enslavement of a part of his posterity, that Abraham was an extensive slaveholder, that Moses incorporated the system into the only government ever instituted by direct authority from Heaven, and that it received, in its very worst form, under the Roman government, the tacit, if not positive sanction of Jesus and the apostles.

My observation sustains me in saying that no class of slaveholders are more pertinacious and incorrigible than the religious class—the scripture-quoting class. If we are to believe them, slaveholding is not a sin PER SE, but of itself is a perfectly innocent thing. The very best of men hold slaves, yea, it is, they tell us, the duty of good men under some circumstances to hold slaves. To be sure THEY do not hold slaves for “gain,” but from motives of pure “charity,” or from stern “necessity.” They and their slaves are ALWAYS in such peculiar cases that emancipation would be impolitic, impracticable, even a sin! Still, from all appearances, they are as careful to keep their slaves from running off as common sinners are—their slaves are fed, clothed, whipped, worked, robbed and used up precisely as are the slaves of the most notorious publicans.

[Pg 90]

After having seen how slavery originated, and what it is in theory and practice, it may seem useless if not impious to inquire seriously whether a system so manifestly unjust, cruel and diabolical, is sanctioned in the Bible; but the confidence with which slaveholders and their apologists quote it in defense of slavery, and the recklessness with which it is denounced by a class of infidel abolitionists, impel us to enter into this inquiry; and in pursuing it we shall endeavor to examine carefully all the arguments relied upon by the advocates of human bondage. The first passage in order is found in Genesis 9: 25. “And he said, cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren.”

It is assumed that this curse was pronounced by divine authority; that the servitude here mentioned is identical with slavery; that the prediction of the oppression of a people justifies their oppressors; and finally, that American slaves are the identical posterity of Canaan.

1. As it respects the authority of this curse, there is a circumstance intimately associated with its utterance which excites a shadow of doubt with regard to its inspiration. “And Noah awoke from his wine” and pronounced this malediction. Is it not possible that these words were the hasty expression of excited feel[Pg 91]ing and not the solemn enunciation of a divine anathema?

2. But in order to prove the validity of the argument, it must be proved that servitude and slavery are relations of essentially the same character, and this cannot be done. Neither philology nor h............