ct that the apostles enjoined
obedience to those who exercised it. Thus far the arguments are
analogous; and they prove that both political despotism and domestic
slavery, belong in morals to the _adiaphora_, to things indifferent.
They may be expedient or inexpedient, right or wrong, according to
circumstances. Belonging to the same class, they should be treated in
the same way. Neither is to be denounced as necessarily sinful, and to
be abolished immediately under all circumstances and at all hazards.
Both should be left to the operation of those general principles of the
gospel, which have peacefully ameliorated political institutions, and
destroyed domestic slavery throughout the greater part of Christendom.

The truth on this subject is so obvious that it sometimes escapes
unconsciously from the lips of the most strenuous abolitionists. Mr.
Birney says: "He would have retained the power and authority of an
emperor; yet his oppressions, his cruelties would have ceased; the very
temper that prompted them, would have been suppressed; his power would
have been put forth for good and not for evil."[267] Here every thing is
conceded. The possession of despotic power is thus admitted not to be a
crime, even when it extends over millions of men, and subjects their
lives as well as their property and services to the will of an
individual. What becomes then of the arguments and denunciations of
slaveholding, which is despotism on a small scale? Would Mr. Birney
continue in the deliberate practice of a crime worse than robbery,
piracy, or murder? When he penned the above sentiment, he must have seen
that neither by the law of God nor of reason is it necessarily sinful to
sustain the relation of master over our fellow creatures; that if this
unlimited authority be used for the good of those over whom it extends
and for the glory of God, its possessor may be one of the best and most
useful of men. It is the abuse of this power for base and selfish
purposes which constitutes criminality, and not its simple possession.
He may say that the tendency to abuse absolute power is so great that it
ought never to be confided to the hands of men. This, as a general rule,
is no doubt true, and establishes the inexpediency of all despotic
governments, whether for the state or the family. But it leaves the
morality of the question just where it was, and where it was seen to be,
when Mr. Birney said he could with a good conscience be a Roman e