t profess reverence
for the Scriptures," being at war with and destroyed by the principles
of the gospel. What sad confusion of thought the pro-slavery influences,
to which some great divines have yielded, have wrought in them!

I will proceed to argue, that the institution in the Southern States
called "slavery," is radically unlike any form of servitude under which
Jews were held, agreeably to the Divine will; and also radically unlike
any form of servitude approved of God in the patriarchal families.

1st. God does not contradict Himself. He is "without variableness or
shadow of turning." He loves his word and has "magnified it above all
his name." He commands his rational creatures to "search the
Scriptures." He cannot, therefore, approve of a system which forbids the
searching of them, and shuts out their light from the soul; and which,
by the confession of your own selves, turns men in this gospel land into
heathen. He has written his commandment against adultery, and He cannot,
therefore, approve of a system, which induces this crime, by forbidding
marriage. The following extract from an opinion of the Attorney General
of Maryland, shows some of the consequences of this "forbidding to
marry." "A slave has never maintained an action against the violator of
his bed. A slave is not admonished for incontinence, or punished for
fornication or adultery; never prosecuted for bigamy." Again, God has
written his commandment, that children should honor their parents. How,
then, can He approve of a system, which pours contempt on the relation
of parent and child? Which subjects them to be forcibly separated from
each other, and that too, beyond the hope of reunion?--under which
parents are exposed and sold in the market-place along with horses and
cattle?--under which they are stripped and lashed, and made to suffer
those innumerable, and some of them, nameless indignities, that tend to
generate in their children, who witness them, any feelings, rather than
those of respect and honor, for parents thus degraded? Some of these
nameless indignities are alluded to in a letter written to me from a
slave state, in March, 1833. "In this place," says the writer, "I find a
regular and a much frequented slave market, where thousands are yearly
sold like cattle to the highest bidder. It is the opinion of gentlemen
here, that not far from five hundred thousand dollars are yearly paid in
this place for negroes; and at this moment, I can