This curse, therefore, did not allude to slavery, but servitude; and as it is a mere prediction of what would be the relation of Canaan’s posterity it afforded no apology for the oppression of that posterity;[6] and finally the Africans and colored Americans are not the descendants of Canaan, and hence, the passage can have no application to them; and affords just as good authority for the enslavement of Englishmen, Dutchmen and Frenchmen as negroes.
How absurd is the attempt to take this anathema, construe it to mean and justify chattel slavery, and then stretch it over the posterity, not of Canaan, but of Cush even after the blood of the Cushites (Moses’ wife was a Cushite) has been mingled with the blood of the “first families” of Virginia, and of all the Southern states. A large number of slaves are white—much whiter than their masters and mistresses. The first Bible argument for slavery appears, when weighed,
“Light as a puff of empty air.”
Have slaveholders no better? We will see.
[CHAPTER VIII.]
Slavery and Religion—Continued.
PATRIARCHAL SERVITUDE AND SLAVERY.
The next Bible argument for slavery, usually adduced, is founded upon the assumption that the patriarchs were slaveholders, and particular stress is placed upon the example of Abraham, “the friend of God,” who, it is confidently asserted, was an extensive slaveholder.
The Harmony Presbytery, South Carolina, “Resolved, that slavery has existed from the days of those good old slaveholders and patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”
The Presbytery of Tombecbee said: “In the Bible the state of slavery is clearly recognized. Abraham the friend of God had slaves born in his house and bought with his money.”