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What light does the whole history now throw upon slavery? It is plain the curse was a judicial act of God concerning Canaan. It follows that conquest with extermination or servitude was a judgment of God, which he appointed his chosen people to execute. It follows further, that those, who, without his commission, reduce to bondage men who are not descendants of Canaan, do inflict a curse on those whom he has not cursed; and thus virtually assume his most awful prerogative as the Judge of guilty nations.

We then inquire whether the States of the South have received warrant for enslaving any portion of mankind. Has God given them the African race as property? Where is the commission? The argument fails to justify modern slavery for the same reason identically that it fails to justify offensive war and conquest. God has not given the right–has neither proclaimed the curse, nor commissioned the agent of the curse. Christian States in America seize it, and lay it upon those whom he has not cursed. The passage of his word which has been considered affords them no sanction.

We proceed to another passage. It is supposed by many to be an incontrovertible defence of modern slavery, that the Hebrews were authorized to buy bondmen and bondmaids of the heathen round about them. Let us candidly examine this defence.

Why were the Hebrews authorized by God in express terms to buy servants, and possess them as their “money?” Evidently because they did not otherwise have this authority. Human beings, as we have seen, were not “given” in the grant of property. They do not, therefore, fall within the scope of the general laws of property. If they had so fallen, the special statutes, by which the Hebrews purchased them, would have been as gratuitous as special enactments for buying animals, trees, and minerals. Of all nations they only have possessed this right; for they only received it by special bestowment. The rest of mankind have ever been prohibited from assuming it by fundamental laws. If ever there was a case in which the exception proves the rule, that case is before us; and therefore a chasm yawns between the premise and the conclusion defensive of slavery, which no exegesis and no logic can bridge over.

To illustrate the strength of this argument, let the fact be observed, that, if it could be set aside, it would follow, by parity of reasoning, that the clergy of our country, regardless of fundamental laws, have right to take possession of a tenth part of the estates and incomes of their fellow-citizens, because the Levites in this manner received their inheritance among their brethren. It is plain, however, that, as in regard to other interests no less important than liberty or slavery, so also in regard to slavery itself, the special laws of the Old Testament are no longer in force; whence it follows that the vital doctrine of the system, “masters have the same right to their slaves which they have to any other property,” is totally erroneous. The institution which claims solid foundation here is built on nothing.

We cannot forbear to adduce an instance of unexceptionable testimony to the validity of this reasoning. In one or two famous articles on slavery and abolitionism, the Princeton Repertory adopts it, with another application, and says, “So far as polygamy and divorce were permitted under the old dispensation they were lawful, and became so by that permission; and they ceased to be lawful when that permission was withdrawn, and a new law given. That Christ did give a new law is abundantly evident.” In the same manner, ‘so far as’ slavery ‘was permitted under the old dispensation it was lawful, and became so by that permission; and it ceased to be lawful when that permission was withdrawn, and a new law given.’ It is true, however, only in a qualified sense, that Christ gave “a new law” concerning polygamy and divorce. His law restored the original institution of marriage, as in Eden; and this was “new” to the Jews, because there had been departure from it. In like manner the New Testament, if not the very words of Christ, now gives a new law concerning slavery in the same sense; that is, as will appear, in the sequel, the Christian precepts restore the original institution concerning property as well as concerning marriage. The laws which allowed polygamy and slavery, and therefore the right, passed away together.