t measures
adapted and intended to perpetuate their present mental and physical
degradation.

We have entered much more at length into the abstract argument on this
subject than we intended. It was our purpose to confine our remarks to
the scriptural view of the question. But the consideration of the
objections derived from the general principles of morals, rendered it
necessary to enlarge our plan. As it appears to us too clear to admit of
either denial or doubt, that the Scriptures do sanction slaveholding;
that under the old dispensation it was expressly permitted by divine
command, and under the New Testament is nowhere forbidden or denounced,
but on the contrary, acknowledged to be consistent with the Christian
character and profession (that is, consistent with justice, mercy,
holiness, love to God and love to man), to declare it to be a heinous
crime, is a direct impeachment of the word of God. We, therefore, felt
it incumbent upon us to prove, that the sacred Scriptures are not in
conflict with the first principles of morals; that what they sanction is
not the blackest and basest of all offenses in the sight of God. To do
this, it was necessary to show what slavery is, to distinguish between
the relation itself, and the various cruel or unjust laws which may be
made either to bring men into it, or to secure its continuance; to show
that it no more follows from the admission that the Scriptures sanction
the right of slaveholding, that it, therefore, sanctions all the
oppressive slave laws of any community, than it follows from the
admission of the propriety of parental, conjugal, or political
relations, that it sanctions all the conflicting codes by which these
relations have at different periods and in different countries been
regulated.

We have had another motive in the preparation of this article. The
assumption that slaveholding is itself a crime, is not only an error,
but it is an error fraught with evil consequences. It not merely brings
its advocates into conflict with the Scriptures, but it does much to
retard the progress of freedom; it embitters and divides the members of
the community, and distracts the Christian church. Its operation in
retarding the progress of freedom is obvious and manifold. In the first
place, it directs the battery of the enemies of slavery to the wrong
point. It might be easy for them to establish the injustice or cruelty
of certain slave laws, where it is not in their power t