n his slave, and that moment the slave race is placed
upon a common level with all other competitors for the rewards of merit;
but as the slaves are inferior in the qualities which give success among
competitors in our country, extreme poverty would be their lot; and for
the want of means to rear families, they would multiply slowly, and die
out by inches, degraded by vice and crime, unpitied by honest and
virtuous men, and heart-broken by sufferings without a parallel.

So long as States let masters alone on this subject, good men among
them, both in the church and out of it, will struggle on, as experience
may dictate and justify, for the benefit of the slave race. And should
the time ever come, when emancipation in its consequences, will comport
with the moral, social, and political obligations of Christianity, then
Christian masters will invest their slaves with freedom, and then will
the good-will of those follow the descendants of Ham, who, without any
agency of their own, have been made in this land of liberty, their
providential guardians.

Yours, with affection,
THORNTON STRINGFELLOW.

[It is or ought to be known to all men, that
African slavery in the United States originated
in, and is perpetuated by a social and political
necessity, and that its continuance is demanded
equally by the highest interests of both races.
All writers on public law, from Drs. Channing and
Wayland, among the abolitionists, up to the
highest authorities on national law, admit the
necessity and propriety of slavery in a social
body, whenever men will not provide for their own
wants, and yield obedience to the law which guards
the rights of others. The guardianship and control
of the black race, by the white, in this Union, is
an indispensable Christian duty, to which we must
as yet look, if we would secure the well-being of
both races.]

FOOTNOTE:

[230] These letters were first published in the _Religious Herald_,
Richmond.

STATISTICAL VIEW OF SLAVERY.

To satisfy the conscientiousness of Christians, I published in the
_Herald_, some years past, Bible evidence, to prove slavery a lawful
relation among men. In a late communication you[231] refer to _this
essay_, and express a wish that it should be republished. Many have
expressed a simi