are brethren with us of one family. The hand of the Creator may have imprinted on their features, a hue and complexion less delicate than ours. Man's rapacity may have torn them from their native land, and reduced them to the condition of slaves and menials here. And weighed down by oppression, bereft of hope, and having none to care for their souls, they may, too often, have sunk into vice and debasement. But, my friends, standing in this holy place-in his immediate presence, who has made of one blood all the nations of the earth, and given his Son to be a ransom for the inhabitants of every one alike; I can listen to no such facts as an excuse for apathy or avarice. If this unfortunate people have a physical nature less perfect than ours, God forbid that this, their misfortune, should be imputed to them as their crime. Still they have all the attributes of men-"the same organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions. They are fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer," that the white man is. And if degraded or depraved, as is so often alleged in extenuation of our neglect, ought that to deprive them of our commiseration? Such reasoning might have befitted the lips of the haughty pharisee; it might well have comported with his character to say to the poor publican, stand off, for I am holier than thou! to boast even in the temple his fancied superiority, and to shut up the bowels of his compassion from him. But in their mouths who profess to be disciples of a Saviour, who was emphatically the friend of sinners-who went about doing good, especially to the forsaken and the guilty, how must such an argument seem? And how, above all, would it seem if we were standing before Christ in judgment? Yes; what would be his reply, if when this same Saviour says, "I was naked and ye clothed me not, sick and in prison and ye visited me not,"—we were to answer, "when saw we thee naked, or sick, or in prison, and ministered not to thee?" could not discern thy form in the person of a poor, degraded negro. We could not sympathise with thy wants, disguised as they were beneath a sable skin, and an out-cast life. Oh! at such a plea, how would that eye which once "melted with pity over doomed Salem," kindle with wrath, and that bosom which gave its last thoughts to his murderers, and spent its last strength in a prayer for their forgiveness, how would it swell with righteous indignation?-Discourse before the African School Society, Schenectady N. Y. We WILLIAM E. CHANNING. Slavery strips man of the fundamental right to inquire into, consult, and seek his own happiness. His powers belong to another, and for another they must be used. He must form no plans, engage in no enterprises, for bettering his condition. Whatever be his capacities, however equal to great improvements of his lot, he is chained for life WILLIAM E. CHANNING. 115 by another's will to the same unvaried toil. He is forbidden to do for himself or others the work, for which God stamped him with his own image, and endowed him with his own best gifts. Again, the slave is stripped of the right to acquire property. Being himself owned, his earnings belong to another. He can possess nothing but by favor. That right on which the development of men's powers so much depends, the right to make accumulations, to gain exclusive possessions by honest industry, is withheld. "The slave can acquire nothing," says one of the slave-codes, "but what must belong to his master;" and however this definition, which moves the indignation of the free, may be mitigated by favor, the spirit of it enters into the very essence of slavery. Again, the slave is stripped of his right to his wife and children. They belong to another, and may be torn from him, one and all, at any moment, at his master's pleasure. Again, the slave is stripped of the right to the culture of his rational powers. He is in some cases deprived by law of instruction, which is placed within his reach by the improvements of society and the philanthropy of the age. He is not allowed to toil, that his children may enjoy a better education than himself. The most sacred right of human nature, that of developing his best faculties, is denied. Even should it be granted, it would be conceded as a favor, and might at any moment be withheld by the capricious will of another. Again, the slave is deprived of the right of self-defence. No injury from a white man is he suffered to repel, nor can he seek redress from the laws of his country. If accumulated insult and wrong provoke him to the slightest retaliation, this effort for self-protection, allowed and commended to others, is a crime for which he must pay a fearful penalty. Again, the slave is stripped of the right to be exempted from all harm except for wrong-doing. He is subjected to the lash, by those whom he has never consented to serve, and whose claim to him as property we have seen to be an usurpation; and this power of punishment, which, if justly claimed, should be exercised with a fearful care, is often delegated to men in whose hands there is a moral certainty of its abuse. With the free we are to plead his cause. And this is peculiarly our duty, because we have bound ourselves to resist his efforts for his own emancipation. We suffer him to do nothing for himself. The more, then, should be done for him. Our physical power is pledged against him in case of revolt. Then our moral power should be exerted for his relief. His weakness, which we increase, gives him a claim to the only aid we can afford, to our moral sympathy, to the free and faithful exposition of his wrongs. As men, as Christians, as citizens, we have duties to the slave, as well as to every other member of the community. On this point we have no liberty. The eternal law binds us to take the side of the injured; and this law is peculiarly obligatory, when we forbid him to lift an arm in his own defence. Let it not be said that we can do nothing for the slave. We can do much. We have a power mightier than armies, the power of truth, of principle, of virtue, of right, of religion, of love. We have a power, which is growing with every advance of civilization, before which the slave-trade has fallen, which is mitigating the sternest despotisms, which is spreading education through all ranks of society, which is bearing Christianity to the ends of the earth, which carries in itself the pledge of destruction to every institution which debases humanity. Who can measure the power of Christian philanthropy, of enlightened goodness, pouring itself forth in prayers and persuasions, from the press and pulpit, from the lips and hearts of devoted men, and more and more binding together the wise and good in the cause of their race? All other powers may fail. This must triumph. It is leagued with God's omnipotence. I am aware that it will be replied to the views now given of slavery, that persons living at a distance from it cannot comprehend it, that its true character can be learned only from those, who know it practically, and are familiar with its operations. To this I will not reply, that I have seen it near at hand. It is sufficient to reply, that men may lose the power of seeing an object fairly, by being too near as well as by being too remote. The slaveholder is too familiar with slavery to understand it. To be educated in injustice, is almost necessarily to be blinded by it more or less. To exercise usurped power from birth, is the surest way to look upon it as a right and a good. The slaveholder tells us that he only can instruct us about slavery. But suppose that we wished to learn the true character of despotism; should we go to the palace and take the despot as our teacher? Should we pay much heed to his assurance, that he alone could understand the character of absolute power, and that we in a republic could know nothing of the condition of men subjected to irresponsible will ? No man who seriously considers what human nature is, and what it was made for, can think of setting up a claim to a fellow-creature. What! own a spiritual being, a being made to know and adore God, and who is to outlive the sun and stars! What, chain to our lowest uses a being made for truth and virtue! Convert into a brute instrument that intelligent nature, on which the idea of duty has dawned, and which is a nobler type of God than all outward creation! Should we not deem it a wrong which no punishment could expiate, were one of our children seized as property, and driven by the whip to toil? And shall God's child, dearer to him than an only son to a human parent, be thus degraded? Every thing else may be owned in the universe; but a moral rational being cannot be property. Suns and stars may be owned, but not the lowest spirit. Touch any thing but this. Lay not your hand on God's rational offspring. The whole spiritual world cries out, Forbear! The highest intelligences recognise their own nature, their own rights, in the humblest human being. By that priceless, immortal spirit which dwells in him, by that likeness of God which he wears, tread him not in the dust, confound him not with the brute. A human being cannot rightfully be held and used as property. So. WILLIAM E. CHANNING. 117 No legislation, not that of all countries or worlds, could make him Let this be laid down, as a first, fundamental truth. Let us hold it fast, as a most sacred, precious truth. Let us hold it fast against all customs, all laws, all rank, wealth, and power. Let it be armed with the whole authority of the civilized and Christian world. I have taken it for granted that no reader would be so wanting in moral discrimination and moral feeling, as to urge that men may rightfully be seized and held as property, because various governments have so ordained. What! is human legislation the measure of right? Are God's laws to be repealed by man's? Can government do no wrong? What is the history of human governments but a record of wrongs? How much does the progress of civilization consist in the substitution of just and humane, for barbarous and oppressive laws? Government, indeed, has ordained slavery, and to government the individual is in no case to offer resistance. But criminal legislation ought to be freely and earnestly exposed. Injustice is never so terrible, and never so corrupting, as when armed with the sanctions of law. The authority of government, instead of being a reason for silence under wrongs, is a reason for protesting against wrong with the undivided energy of argument, entreaty, and solemn admonition.. There is, however, there must be, in slaveholding communities a large class which cannot be too severely condemned. There are many we fear, very many, who hold their fellow-creatures in bondage, from selfish, base motives. They hold the slave for gain, whether justly or unjustly they neither ask nor care. They cling to him as property, and have no faith in the principles which will diminish a man's wealth. They hold him, not for his own good or the safety of the state, but with precisely the same views with which they hold a laboring horse, that is, for the profit which they can wring from him. They will not hear a word of his wrongs; for, wronged or not, they will not let him go. He is their property, and they mean not to be poor for righteousness' sake. Such a class there undoubtedly is among slaveholders; how large their own consciences must determine. We are sure of it; for under such circumstances human nature will and must come to this mournful result. Now, to men of this spirit, the explanations we have made do in no degree apply. Such men ought to tremble before the rebukes of outraged humanity and indignant virtue. Slavery, upheld for gain, is a great crime. He, who has nothing to urge against emancipation, but that it will make him poorer, is bound to immediate emancipation. He has no excuse for wresting from his brethren their rights. The plea of benefit to the slave and the state avails him nothing. He extorts, by the lash, that labor to which he has no claim, through a base selfishness. Every morsel of food, thus forced from the injured, ought to be bitterer than gall. His gold is cankered. The sweat of the slave taints the luxuries for which it streams. Better were it for the selfish wrong doer of whom I speak, to live as the slave, to clothe himself in the slave's raiment, to eat the slave's coarse food, to till his fields with his own hands, than to pamper himself by day, and pillow his head on down at night, at the cost of a wantonly injured fellow-creature. I know it will be said, "You would make us poor." Be poor, then, and thank God for your honest poverty. Better be poor than unjust. Better beg than steal. Better live in an almshouse, better die than trample on a fellow-creature and reduce him to a brute, for selfish gratification. What! have we yet to learn that "it profits us nothing to gain the whole world, and lose our souls?" Let it not be replied, in scorn, that we of the North, notorious for love of money, and given to selfish calculations, are not the people to call others to resign their wealth. I have no desire to shield the North. We have, without doubt, a great multitude, who, were they slaveholders, would sooner die than relax their iron grasp, than yield their property in men to justice and the commands of God. We have those who would fight against abolition, if by this measure the profit of their intercourse with the South should be materially impaired. The present excitement among us is, in part, the working of mercenary principles. But because the North joins hands with the South, shall iniquity go unpunished or unrebuked? Can the league of the wicked, the revolt of worlds, repeal the everlasting law of heaven and earth? Has God's throne fallen before Mammon's? Must duty find no voice, no organ, because corruption is universally diffused? Is not this a fresh motive to solemn warning, that, everywhere northward and southward, the rights of human beings are held so cheap, in comparison with worldly gain? JAMES G. BIRNEY. I. It would, in my judgment, produce great effect on the slaveholders, to promulgate at the North, the doctrine, that it is their duty immediately to emancipate their slaves. Many of them, doubtless, would be deaf to this admonition of Christian friendship, and repel it as officious and intermeddling; but I believe it would find access to the best consciences of the South, and that its tendency would be, still further to arouse consciences that are already a good deal agitated. II. The most effectual mode of preserving tranquillity among the slaves of the South will be, a knowledge of the fact, that efforts of a peaceful and Christian character are making in their behalf. Just in proportion as such efforts are urged, and give hope to the slaves, that the time of their deliverance draws nigh, will be their patient continuance in their present state-lest an act of indiscretion in them defeat what has been already gained, mortify and disappoint their friends, and discourage them from making renewed exertions. I doubt not that the tranquillity of the British West Indies, so far as it was preserved for the last ten years, was secured by the influence of the philanthropists in the mother country. The slaves with whom I |