tlemen too, in supposing that it was Noah's curse, that
accomplished all this, for it was already done for the whole race--and
long before, by God himself. God cursed the serpent. Did the curse
produce this effect on him? He cursed Cain--did it affect his skin, his
hair, his forehead, his nose or his lips? These curses were all
pronounced by God himself and produced no such effects. But we proceed
and take up the holy men of God, the patriarchs and prophets, and see
what their curses produced. Did the curse of Jacob, produce this effect
on Simeon and Levi? did it produce this effect on the man who would make
a graven image? did it produce this effect on the man who would rebuild
Jericho? did it produce this effect on those, who maketh the blind to
wander out of the way? did it produce this effect on those, who
perverteth the judgment of the stranger, the fatherless and the widow?
_Cum multis aliis._ It did not. But if it did produce this effect in
these cases, then when we read, that Christ died to redeem us from the
curse, are we to understand, that he died to redeem us from a kinky
head, flat nose, thick lips and a black skin? But such curses, never
having produced _such_ effects, when pronounced by God, by patriarch, by
prophet, or by any holy man of God before or since, then we inquire to
know, on what principles of interpretation, grammar or logic it is,
that it can so mean in this case of Noah? There are no words in the
curse, that express, or even _imply_ such effects. Then in the absence
of all such effects, following such curses, and as they are narrated in
the Bible, whether pronounced by God or man; and there being nothing in
the language beside to sustain it, and if true, Ham's posterity must be
shown now, as its truthful witnesses, from this, our day, back to the
flood or to Ham; and which can not be done--and if this can not be done,
then all arguments and assertions, based on such assumptions, that Ham
was the father of the negro or black race, are false; and if false, then
the negro is in _no sense_, the descendant of Ham; and therefore, he
must have been in the ark, and as he was not one of Noah's family, that
he _must_ have entered it in some capacity, or relation to the other
beasts or cattle. For that he did enter the ark is plain from the fact,
that he is now here, and not of the family or progeny of Ham. And no one
has ever suspicioned either Shem or Japheth of being the father of the
negro; therefor