as Palestine, if the slave could recover his
liberty by simply moving from one tribe to another over an imaginary
line, or even from the house of his master to that of his next neighbor.
Besides, how inconsistent is it in the abolitionists in one breath to
maintain that the laws of Moses did not recognize slavery, and in the
next, that the laws about the restoration of slaves referred to the
slaves of Hebrew masters. According to their doctrine, there could be
among the Israelites no slaves to restore. They must admit either that
the law of God allowed the Hebrews to hold slaves, and then there is an
end to their arguments against the sinfulness of slaveholding; or
acknowledge that the law representing the restoration of slaves referred
only to fugitives from the heathen, and then there is an end to their
argument from this enactment against the law under consideration.

The way in which abolitionists treat the Scriptures makes it evident
that the command in Deuteronomy is urged not so much out of regard to
the authority of the word of God, as an argumentum ad hominem. Wherever
the Scriptures either in the Old or New Testament recognize the
lawfulness of holding slaves, they are tortured without mercy to force
from them a different response; and where, as in this case, they appear
to favor the other side of the question, abolitionists quote them rather
to silence those who make them the rule of their faith, than as the
ground of their own convictions. Were there no such law as that in
Deuteronomy in existence, or were there a plain injunction to restore a
fugitive from service to his Hebrew master, it is plain from their
principles that they would none the less fiercely condemn the law under
consideration. Their opposition is not founded on the scriptural
command. It rests on the assumption that the master's claim is
iniquitous and ought not to be enforced.[258] Their objections are not
to the mode of delivery, but to the delivery itself. Why else quote the
law in Deuteronomy, which apparently forbids such surrender of the
fugitive to his master? It is clear that no effective enactment could be
framed on this subject which would not meet with the same opposition. We
are convinced, by reading the discussions on this subject, that the
immorality attributed to the fugitive slave law resolves itself into the
assumed immorality of slaveholding. No man would object to restoring an
apprentice to his master; and no one would qu