ORIGIN OF SLAVERY.
These preliminary remarks prepare the way for the subject to which I invite attention. Here I am naturally led to touch upon the origin of slavery, and the principles which lie at its foundation, before proceeding to exhibit the efforts for its abolition, and their final success in the Barbary States.
The word Slave, suggesting now so much of human abasement, has an origin which speaks of human grandeur. Its parent term, Slava, signifying glory, in the Slavonian dialect, where it first appears, was proudly assumed as the national designation of races in the northeastern part of the European continent, who, in the vicissitudes of war, were afterwards degraded from the condition of conquerors to that of servitude. The Slavonian bondman, retaining his national name, was known as Slave; and this term, passing from a race to a class, was afterwards applied, in the languages of modern Europe, to all in his unhappy lot, without distinction of country or color.[8] It would be difficult to mention any word which has played such opposite parts in history,—beneath the garb of servitude concealing its early robe of pride. And yet, startling as it seems, this word may be received in its primitive character, by those among us who consider slavery essential to democratic institutions, and therefore part of the true glory of the country. Lexicography, going beyond this historical illustration, announces that "most probably the original meaning was independent, free,"[9] thus making the slave distinctively the freeman. In the revolutions of society, and among the compensations of Providence for long-continued degradation, the slave might yet regain this original ascendency, if, in an era of justice, the highest condition were not where all are equal in rights.