enough to show, that slavery prevents
children from complying with the command to obey their parents. But, in
reply to what I have said of these outrages on the rights of husbands
and wives, parents and children, you maintain, that they are no part of
the system of slavery. Slaveholders, however, being themselves judges,
they are a part of it, or, at least, are necessary to uphold it; else
they would not by deliberate, solemn legislation, authorize them. But,
be this as it may, it is abundantly proven, that slavery is, essentially
and inevitably, at war with the sacred rights of the family state. Let
me say, then, in conclusion under this head, that in whatever other
company you put slavery, place it not in that of the just relations of
husband and wife, parent and child. They can no more company with each
other, than can fire with water. Their natures are not only totally
opposite to, but destructive of, each other.

6th. The laws, to which you refer on the sixty-eighth page of your book,
tend to prove, and, so far as your admission of the necessity of them
goes, do prove, that the relation of slaveholder and slave does not
deserve a place, in the class of innocent and proper relations. You
there say, that the writings of "such great and good men as Wesley,
Edwards, Porteus, Paley, Horsley, Scott, Clark, Wilberforce, Sharp,
Clarkson, Fox, Johnson, and a host of as good if not equally great, men
of later date," have made it necessary for the safety of the institution
of slavery, to pass laws, forbidding millions of our countrymen to read.
You should have, also, mentioned the horrid sanctions of these
laws--stripes, imprisonment, and death. Now, these laws disable the
persons on whom they bear, from fulfilling God's commandments, and,
especially, His commandment to "search the Scriptures." They are,
therefore, wicked. What then, in its moral character, must be a
relation, which, to sustain it, requires the aid of wicked laws?--and,
how entirely out of place must it be, when you class it with those just
relations of life, that, certainly, require none of the support, which,
you admit, is indispensable to the preservation of the relation of
slaveholder and slave! It is true, that you attempt to justify the
enactment of the laws in question, by the occasions which you say led to
it. But, every law forbidding what God requires, is a wicked law--under
whatever pretexts, or for whatever purposes, it may have been enacted.
Let