has existed from the
days of those GOOD OLD SLAVEHOLDERS AND PATRIARCHS, Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob, who are now in the kingdom of Heaven."

Abraham receives abundant honor at the hands of slave-holding divines.
Not because he was the "father of the faithful," forsook home and
country for the truth's sake, was the most eminent preacher and
practiser of righteousness in his day; nay, verily, for all this he gets
faint praise; but then he had "SERVANTS BOUGHT WITH MONEY!!!" This is
the finishing touch of his character, and its effect on slaveholders is
electrical. Prose fledges into poetry, cold compliments warm into
praise, eulogy rarifies into panegyric and goes off in rhapsody. In
their ecstasies over Abraham, Isaac's paramount claims to their homage
are lamentably lost sight of. It is quite unaccountable, that in their
manifold oglings over Abraham's "servants bought with money," no
slaveholder is ever caught casting loving side-glances at Gen. xxvii.
29, 37, where Isaac, addressing Jacob, says, "Be _lord_ over thy
brethren and let thy mother's sons _bow down_ to thee." And afterwards,
addressing Esau, he says, speaking of the birth-right immunities
confirmed to Jacob, "Behold I have made him thy _Lord_ and all his
brethren have I GIVEN TO HIM FOR SERVANTS!"

Here is a charter for slaveholding, under the sign manual of that "good
old slaveholder and patriarch, Isaac." Yea, more--a "Divine Warrant" for
a father holding his _children_ as slaves and bequeathing them as
property to his heirs! Better still, it proves that the favorite
practice amongst our slaveholders of bequeathing their _colored_
children to those of a different hue, was a "Divine institution," for
Isaac "_gave_" Esau, who was "_red_ all over," to Jacob, "_as a
servant_." Now gentlemen, "honor to whom honor." Let Isaac no longer be
stinted of the glory that is his due as the great prototype of that
"peculiar domestic institution," of which you are eminent patrons, that
nice discrimination, by which a father, in his will, makes part of his
children _property_, and the rest, their _proprietors_, whenever the
propriety of such a disposition is indicated, as in the case of Jacob
and Esau, by the decisive tokens of COLOR and HAIR, (for, to show that
Esau was Jacob's _rightful_ property after he was "given to him" by
Isaac "for a servant," the difference in _hair_ as well as color, is
expressly stated by inspiration!)

One prominent feature of patriarchal exa