Slavery. By William E. Channing [pp. 268-306]

2S'lavery.
among us, to which we have little to object., When, however, the distinguished drafter of that address comes to
answer the objection, " God's word sanctions slavery, and it
cannot therefore be sinful," he forgets the essential limitation
of the proposition which he had undertaken to establish, and
proceeds to prove that the bible condemns slaveholding, and
not merely the kind or system of slavery which prevails in
this country.'The argument drawn from the scriptures, he
says, needs no elaborate reply. If the bible sanctions
slavery, it sanctions the kind of slavery which then prevailed; the atrocious system which authorized masters to
starve their slaves, to torture them, to beat them, to put them
to death, and to throw them into their fish ponds. And he
justly asks, whether a man could insult the God of heaven
woise than by saying he does not disapprove of such a system? Dr. Channing presents strongly the same view, and
says, that an infidel would be labouring in his vocation in
asserting that the bible does not condemn slavery. These
gentlemen, however, are far too clear-sighted not to discover,
on a moments reflection, that they have allowed their benevolent feelings to blind them to the real point at issue. No one
denies that the bible condemns all injustice) cruelty oppression, and violence. And just so far as the laws then existing,
authorized these crimes, the bible condemned them. But
what stronger argument can be presented to prove that the
sacred writers did not regard slaveholding as in itself sinful,
than that while they condemn all unjust or unkind treatment
(even threatening) on the part of masters towards their slaves,
they did not condemn slavery itself? While they required
the master to treat his slave according to the law of love, they
did not command him to set him free. The very atrocity,
therefore, of the system which then prevailed, instead of
weakening the argument, gives it tenfold strength. Then,
if ever, when the institution was so fearfully abused, we might
expect to hear the interpreters of the divine will, saying that
a system which leads to such results is the concentrated
essence of all crimes, and must be instantly abandoned on
pain of eternal condemnation. This, however, they did not
say, and we cannot now force them to say it. They treated the
subject precisely as they did the cruel despotism of the Roman emperors. The licentiousness, the injustice, the rapine
and murders of those wicked men, they condemned with the
full force of divine authority; but the mere extent of their
power, though so liable to abuse, they left unnoticed.
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