was as
innocent in hewing "Agag in pieces," as is the tree that falls upon the
traveler. It may be remarked, in this connexion, that the fact that God
gave a special statute to destroy some of the tribes of the Canaanites,
argues the contrariety of the thing required to the morality of the
Bible. It argues, that this morality would not have secured the
accomplishment of what was required by the statute. Indeed, it is
probable that it was, sometimes, under the influence of the tenderness
and mercy inculcated by this morality, that the Jews were guilty of
going counter to the special statute in question, and sparing the
devoted Canaanites, as in the instance when they "spared Agag." We might
reason, similarly to show that a special statute, if indeed there were
such a one, authorizing the Jews to compel the Heathen to serve them,
argues that compulsory service is contrary to fundamental morality. We
will suppose that God did; in the special statute referred to, clothe
the Jews with power to enslave Heathens, and now let me ask you, whether
it is by this same statute to enslave, that you justify your neighbors
and yourself for enslaving your fellow men? But this is a special
statute, conferring a power on the Jews only--a power too, not to
enslave whomsoever they could; but only a specified portion of the human
family, and this portion, as we have seen, of a stock, other than that
from which you have obtained your slaves. If the special statutes, by
which God clothed the Jews with peculiar powers, may be construed to
clothe you with similar powers, then, inasmuch as they were authorized
and required to kill Canaanites, you may hunt up for destruction the
straggling descendants of such of the devoted ones, as escaped the sword
of the Jews. Or, to make a different interpretation of your rights,
under this supposition; since the statute in question authorized and
required the Jews to kill the heathen, within the borders of what was
properly the Jews' country, then you are also authorized and required to
kill the heathens within the limits of your country:--and these are not
wanting, if the testimony of your ecclesiastical bodies, before referred
to, can be relied on; and, if it be as they say, that the millions of
the poor colored brethren in the midst of you are made heathens by the
operation of the system, to which, with unparalleled wickedness, they
are subjected.

If then, neither Noah's curse, nor the special statute in