ee. In like manner, if he should require
him to violate the law of God, he would be guilty--far more guilty than
the slave himself--in the sight of heaven. These are truths which are
just as well understood at the South as they are at the North.

The master, we repeat, lays no claim to the soul of the slave. He
demands no spiritual service of him, he exacts no divine honors. With
his own soul he is fully permitted to serve his own God. With this soul
he may follow the solemn injunction of the Most High, "Servants, obey
your masters;" or he may listen to the voice of the tempter, "Servants,
fly from your masters." Those only who instigate him to violate the law
of God, whether at the North or at the South, are the men who seek to
deprive him of his rights and to exercise an infamous dominion over his
soul.

Since, then, the master claims only a right to the labor and lawful
obedience of the slave, and no right whatever to his soul, it follows
that the argument, which Dr. Channing regards as the strongest of his
seven, has no real foundation. Since the master claims to have no
property in the "rational, moral, and immortal" part of his being, so
all the arguments, or rather all the empty declamation, based on the
false supposition of such claim, falls to the ground. So the passionate
appeals, proceeding on the supposition of such a monstrous claim, and
addressed to the religious sensibilities of the multitude, are only
calculated to deceive and mislead their judgment. It is a mere thing of
words; and, though "full of sound and fury," it signifies nothing. "The
traffic in human souls," which figures so largely in the speeches of the
divines and demagogues, and which so fiercely stirs up the most
unhallowed passions of their hearers, _is merely the transfer of a right
to labor_.

Does any one doubt whether such a right may exist? The master certainly
has a right to the labor of his apprentice for a specified period of
time, though he has no right to his soul even for a moment. The father,
too, has a right to the personal service and obedience of his child
until he reach the age of twenty-one; but no one ever supposed that he
owned the soul of his child, or might sell it, if he pleased, to
another. Though he may not sell the soul of his child, it is universally
admitted that he may, for good and sufficient reasons, transfer his
right to the labor and obedience of his child. Why, then, should it be
thought impossible that