love our neighbors as
ourselves, and, as we would that men should do to us, do "also to them
likewise," and "remember them, that are in bonds as bound with them,"
and "give unto servants, that which is just and equal"--not a vestige of
this abomination will remain.

For the sake of the argument, I will admit, that the Apostles made no
specific attack on slavery[A]; and that they left it to be reached and
overthrown, provided it be sinful, by the general principles and
instructions which they had inculcated. But you will say, that it was
their practice, in addition to inculcating such principles and
instructions, to point out sins and reprove them:--and you will ask,
with great pertinence and force, why they did not also point out and
reprove slavery, which, in the judgment of abolitionists, is to be
classed with the most heinous sins. I admit, that there is no question
addressed to abolitionists, which, after the admission I have made for
them, it is less easy to answer; and I admit further, that they are
bound to answer it. I will proceed to assign what to me appear to be
some of the probable reasons, why the Apostles specified the sins of
lying, covetousness, stealing, &c., and, agreeably to the admission,
which lays me under great disadvantage, did not specify slavery.

[Footnote A: This is no small admission in the face of the passage, in
the first chapter of Timothy, which particularizes manstealing, as a
violation of the law of God. I believe all scholars will admit, that one
of the crimes referred to by the Apostle, is kidnapping. But is not
kidnapping an integral and most vital part of the system of slavery? And
is not the slaveholder guilty of this crime? Does he not, indeed, belong
to a class of kidnappers stamped with peculiar meanness? The pirate, on
the coast of Africa, has to cope with the strength and adroitness of
mature years. To get his victim into his clutches is a deed of daring
and of peril demanding no little praise, upon the principles of the
world's "code of honor." But the proud chivalry of the South is securely
employed in kidnapping newborn infants. The pirate, in the one case,
soothes his conscience with the thought, that the bloody savages merit
no better treatment, than they are receiving at his hands:--but the
pirate, in the other, can have no such plea--for they, whom he kidnaps,
are untainted with crime.

And what better does it make the case for you, if we adopt the
translation of "