r, must be a
relation, which, to sustain it, requires the aid of wicked laws?--and,
how entirely out of place must it be, when you class it with those just
relations of life, that, certainly, require none of the support, which,
you admit, is indispensable to the preservation of the relation of
slaveholder and slave! It is true, that you attempt to justify the
enactment of the laws in question, by the occasions which you say led to
it. But, every law forbidding what God requires, is a wicked law--under
whatever pretexts, or for whatever purposes, it may have been enacted.
Let the occasions which lead to a wicked measure be what they may, the
wickedness of the measure is still sufficient to condemn it.

In the case before us, we see how differently different persons are
affected by the same fact. Whilst the stand taken against slavery by
Wesley, Edwards, and the other choice spirits you enumerate, serves but
to inspire you with concern for its safety, it would, of itself, and
without knowing their reasons for it, be well nigh enough to destroy my
confidence in the institution. Let me ask you, Sir, whether it would not
be more reasonable for those, who are so industriously engaged in
insulating the system of American slavery, and shrouding it with
darkness, to find less fault with the bright and burning light which the
writings of the wisest and best men pour upon it, and more with the
system which "hateth the light, neither cometh to the light."

You would have your readers believe, that the blessings of education are
to be withheld from your slaves--only "until the storm shall be
overblown," and that you hope that "Satan's being let loose will be but
for a little season." I say nothing more about the last expression, than
that I most sincerely desire you may penitently regret having attributed
the present holy excitement against slavery to the influences of Satan.
By "the storm" you, doubtless, mean the excitement produced by the
publications and efforts of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Now, I
will not suppose that you meant to deceive your readers on this point.
You are, nevertheless, inexcusable for using language so strikingly
calculated to lead them into error. It is not yet three years since that
Society was organized: but the statute books of some of the slave States
contain laws, forbidding the instruction of slaves in reading, which
were enacted long before you and I were born. As long ago as the year
1740,