e disrespect shown toward him by Ham. We have no
reason to suppose that there was any abatement of parental solicitude,
for the future welfare of this ungodly son and his posterity. He was
moved by the Holy Ghost, and uttered but a prophecy, which entailed
slavery on the posterity of Ham, as a consequence of wilful
disobedience of God's just and righteous laws. He uttered but a fact
_in futuro_, which had been revealed to him by an omniscient God. How
fully the above prediction has been verified, is familiar to every
historian. The continent of Africa was principally peopled by the
descendants of Ham; and for ages, the better part of that country was
under the dominion of the Romans; then of the Saracens; and more
recently of the Turks; and the fact, that the slave trade has been
carried on for hundreds of years with all its horrors, iniquities,
cruelties and abominations, is familiar to every one. A large portion
of the children of Ham have existed in a state of slavery for more
than three thousand years. It is said that more than nine-tenths of
the whole sixty millions of Africa are slaves. Negro slavery existed
in the colonies of Greece for ages before the Christian era. All other
races of mankind have enslaved the African. The phraseology of Noah's
prediction is a little remarkable. The children of Ham were not only
to be servants, but "a servant of servants." It is true that
unconnected with all other races, one portion of the negro race have
been enslaved to another, ever since the earliest dawn of history, and
that in a greater proportion too, than to any other race. It is
recorded by historians, that there are perhaps twenty negro masters in
Africa to every white one in the United States, and that they hold in
bondage at least ten times as many slaves. It is moreover stated, that
those portions of Africa where the slave trade with the white man is
unknown, are the most inveterate slave regions. In the negro islands
of the Indian Archipelago, the negro is enslaved to the negro.

Some are, no doubt, ready to ask, how is it that Africans became
slaves to their own race? Many of them were taken captives in war and
subjected to slavery. The different tribes in Africa have in all ages
engaged in predatory warfare, and the captives taken in those wars
became slaves. Necessity may have forced many of them to subject
themselves to servitude. Negroes have not that aversion to slavery,
that many suppose who are unacquainte