of particulars, each separating infinitely MEN from brutes
and things! 1. "_Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels."_
Slavery drags him down among _brutes._ 2. _"And hast crowned him with
glory and honor."_ Slavery tears off his crown, and puts on a _yoke_. 3.
_"Thou madest him to have dominion_[A] OVER _the works of thy hands."_
Slavery breaks his sceptre, and cast him down _among_ those works--yea,
_beneath them_. 4. _"Thou hast put all things under his feet_." Slavery
puts HIM under the feet of an "owner." Who, but an impious scorner, dare
thus strive with his Maker, and mutilate HIS IMAGE, and blaspheme the
Holy One, who saith, _"Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of
these, ye did it unto ME._"

[Footnote A: "Thou madest him to have dominion." In Gen. i. 28, God says
to man, _"Have dominion_ over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of
the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth," thus
vesting in _every_ human being the right of ownership over the earth,
its products and animal life, and in _each_ human being the _same_
right. By so doing God prohibited the exercise of ownership by man over
_man_; for the grant to _all_ men of _equal_ ownership, for ever _shut_
out the possibility of their exercising ownership over _each other_, as
whoever is the owner of a _man_, is the owner of his _right of
property_--in other words, when one man becomes the property of another
his rights become such too, his _right of property_ is transferred to
his "owner," and thus as far as _himself_ is concerned, is annihilated.
Finally, by originally vesting _all_ men with dominion or ownership over
property, God proclaimed the _right of all_ to exercise it, and
pronounced every man who takes it away a robber of the highest grade.
Such is every slaveholder.]

In further prosecuting this inquiry, the Patriarchal and Mosaic systems
will be considered together, as each reflects light upon the other, and
as many regulations of the latter are mere _legal_ forms of Divine
institutions previously existing. As a _system_, the latter alone is of
Divine authority. Whatever were the usages of the patriarchs God has not
made them our exemplars.[B] The question to be settled by us, is not
what were Jewish _customs_, but what were the rules that God gave for
the regulation of those customs.

[Footnote B: Those who insist that the patriarchs held slaves, and sit
with such delight under their shadow, hymning the p