The antithesis in the position of the two laws shows that these heathen slaves were not to go free at the year of Jubilee, like Hebrew slaves. They are to be bondmen forever. They and their children, slaves by birth, are to descend from father to son, as heritable property. There was to be "no seventh year freedom here; there is no Jubilee liberation." So says the learned divine, Moses Stuart, of Andover, himself an anti-slavery man. And so say all respectable Hebrew antiquaries. Indeed it would be hard to construct language defining more strongly and fully all those features of domestic slavery most contradictory to the theory of Abolitionists. They were to be bought and sold. They were heritable property: (Mr. Sumner would prove hence, "mere chattels.") Here is involuntary slavery for life, expressly authorized to God's own peculiar and holy people, in the strongest and most careful terms. The relation, then, must be innocent in itself. With what show of candour can men say, in the face of a sanction so full, so emphatic, so hearty, that Moses, finding the hoary institution of domestic slavery so deeply rooted that it would be impossible then to abolish it, tolerated it, and limited it by all the restrictions which he could apply, calculated to cut off its worst horrors? We ask, was Moses the author of these laws, or God? Does the Almighty, the Unchangeable, the Holy, connive at moral abuses, like a puny human magistrate, and content himself, where he dare not denounce a sin, with pruning its growth a little? We ask again: Is this gloss borne out by the facts? Was Moses, in fact, timid in assailing old and deeply-rooted vices, and in demanding that they should be eradicated wholly? Let his uncompromising legislation against Idolatry and Adultery answer. The truth is, such writers as use the above language know nothing about the true nature of domestic slavery, and draw their inferences only from their prejudices. God and Moses knew it well. They knew that it was an institution which, when not abused, was suitable to the character of the depraved persons for whom it was designed, and wholesome and benign. Hence, they prohibit all inhuman abuses of it; and then they do not tolerate it merely as an unavoidable wrong; but they expressly legalize it, as right. An honest mind can make nothing less of their words. But in Numbers xxxi. 25 to 30, and Joshua ix. 20 to 27, we have instances which are, if possible, still stronger. In the former passage the people of Midian had been conquered by God's command, and the captives and spoils brought home; the captives to be slaves for life according to the law of Leviticus, ch. xxv. The book of Numbers then proceeds: "And the Lord spake unto Moses saying, Take the sum of prey that was taken both of man and of beast, thou and Eleazer the priest and the chief fathers of the congregation; and divide the prey into two parts; between them that took the war upon them who went out to battle, and between all the congregation. And levy a tribute unto the Lord of the men of war which went out to battle: one soul of five hundred, both of the persons, and of the beeves, and of the asses and of the sheep: Take it of their half, and give it unto Eleazer the priest, for an heave-offering of the Lord. And of the children of Israel's half thou shalt take one portion of fifty, of the persons, of the beeves, of the asses and of the flocks, of all manner of beasts, and give them unto the Levites which keep the charge of the tabernacle of the Lord." In verses 40th and 46th, we read farther that the "Lord's tribute of the persons" of the first half, "was thirty and two persons," and of the second half, "three hundred and twenty." Here God commands a portion of these slaves to be set apart to a sacred use, and dedicated to himself, that they might become the property of the ministers of religion. The second instance is not contained in the books of Moses, but in the history of his successor Joshua: we group it with the former, for its similarity. In Joshua, ch. ix., we are told that while he was triumphantly engaged in the destruction of the condemned heathen tribes of Palestine, according to God's command, the people of Gibeon, a part of the doomed race, despairing of a successful defence, adopted this stratagem to save themselves. Under pretence that they were not of Palestine at all, but from a very distant place, their ambassadors obtained from the leaders of the Israelites a very stringent oath of amity. This pledge the elders incautiously gave, without seeking the divine direction. In a very few days they learned to their astonishment, that these Gibeonites lived in the very heart of Palestine, close to the spot where they were encamped, and that they were of the very race which they were appointed to destroy. But they had sworn in the name of Jehovah not to destroy them. In this state of things, the princes and Joshua determined to punish them for their falsehood, and at the same time substantially observe their oath, by leaving them unhurt, but reducing them to slavery as the serfs of the Tabernacle and its ministers. In verses 23d and 27th, Joshua told them: "Now, therefore, ye are cursed, and there shall none of you be freed from being bondmen," (Ebed, i. e., slaves,) "and hewers of wood and drawers of water for the house of my God." "And Joshua made them that day hewers of wood and drawers of water for the congregation and for the altar of the Lord, even unto this day, in that place which he should choose." This compact the Gibeonites seem gladly to have accepted. In 2d Samuel, ch. xxi., we find this same race of serfs still living among the Israelites, under the same compact. King Saul, David's predecessor, having broken it by killing many of them, God himself interposed, and required a satisfaction for the breach. Here we have evidence that the slaves of heathen origin were not freed by the Jubilee, for centuries had now elapsed and they were still slaves. We also see evidence that the contract made by Joshua was not regarded by God as unlawful. In this case, also, we find God accepting a religious offering of slaves for the service of his sanctuary. And these, while real slaves, did not belong each to an individual master, but were slaves to an institution and a caste, a form of bondage always justly regarded as less benevolent than the former.

Yet men say slavery is a wicked relation, which God only tolerated and curbed in the Old Testament. The Lord's claiming his tythe of slaves (as of cattle and wheat) seems to the candid man a strange way of expressing bare tolerance! Was it not enough to leave the laity of the "holy people" polluted with the sin of slaveholding, without proceeding by his own express injunction to introduce the "taint" into the still more sacred caste of the priesthood? Did the God of all holiness direct a part of the wages of iniquity to be set apart for his holy uses? Perhaps it may be said that He regarded the holy use as sanctifying the unholy source of the offering. The surmise is blasphemous. But see Deuteronomy xxiii. 18: "Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore or the price of a dog into the house of the Lord thy God for any vow: for even both these are abomination to the Lord thy God." To set apart to God's use property wickedly acquired was an insult to his holiness: and to offer Him even what was acquired by the sale of an animal ceremonially unclean, was resented as a type of the same sin. The consecration of these slaves to sacred uses is therefore the strongest possible proof that slaves are lawful property. To sum up: The divine permission and sanction of slavery to the very people whom God was setting apart to a holy life, the consecration of slaves as property to a sacred purpose, the regulating by law of the duties flowing from the relation, all prove that it was then a lawful and innocent one. Otherwise, we should have the holy God teaching sin. If it was innocent once in its intrinsic nature, it is innocent now, unless it has been subsequently prohibited by God. But no such prohibition can be shown.

§ 6. Slavery in the Decalogue.

Although the Ten Commandments were given along with the civil and ceremonial laws of the Hebrews, we do not include them along with the latter, because the Decalogue was, unlike them, given for all men and all dispensations. It is a solemn repetition of the sum of those duties founded on the natures of man and of God, and on their relations, enjoined on all ages alike. It contains nothing ceremonial, or of merely temporary obligation; (which is binding merely because it is commanded;) but all is of perpetual, moral obligation. It claims to be, rightly explained, a perfect and complete rule. Our Saviour repeatedly adopts it as the eternal sum of all duty, on which hang all the law and the prophets, that is, all Scripture. Accordingly, we find that the mode of its republication gave to this Decalogue a grandeur and weight shared by no secular or ceremonial precepts. Deuteronomy v. informs us that it was delivered first, thus receiving the precedence, that it was spoken by God himself in articulate words, heard by all the quaking multitude, in tones of thunder, from the smoking summit of Sinai, with the terrible concomitants of angelic hosts, devouring fire, lightnings and earthquakes; that God added no more, thus refusing to all the subsequent precepts the honour of such a publication, and that He himself then engraved it on stone, signifying by the imperishable material, the perpetuity of this law.

Hence, all the principles of right stated or implied in this Decalogue, are valid, not for Hebrews only, but for all men and ages. They rise wholly above the temporary and positive precepts, which were only binding while they were expressly enjoined. They have not been, because they cannot be, repealed or modified; they are as immutable as God's perfections. In our Saviour's words, "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle of this law shall not pass away."

Now, our argument is, that in this short summary, the relation of master and slave is mentioned twice; and that in modes which are a recognition of its lawfulness. It is introduced as a basis of duties and rights founded upon it, and those rights are defended, and those duties enjoined. But if it were an unlawful relation, what rights could grow out of it except the slave's right to have it broken? And what duties of the master could be founded on it, except the duties of discontinuing, repenting of, and repairing its wrongs? In the 4th Commandment, Exod. xx. 10, it is made the master's duty to cause the slave to observe the Sabbath day. After the 8th Commandment had forbidden injury to our fellow-man's property in act, by overt theft, the 10th, (v. 17,) prohibits its injury even in thought by corrupt coveting. And in the enumeration of possessions thus carefully covered from assault, are men-servants (ebed) and maid-servants, along with real estate and cattle. If the reader would feel the strength of the argument implied in these facts, let him ask himself what would have been his amazement, if, after the description which God's word gives of the authority, righteousness, purity, and perpetuity of this Decalogue, he had read in it, that highwaymen and pirates are commanded to enforce Sabbath observance on their injured victims, and that we must not covet our neighbour's concubine, or the stolen goods in his possession? And this, without hint of the guilt of violence, concubinage, and theft. It would be impossible for either understanding or conscience to reconcile itself to the anomaly; he would feel, inevitably, that God was incapable of such implied sanction of sin.

§ 7. Objections to the Old Testament Argument.

To state the arguments from the laws of Moses and the Decalogue has not required a large space, because those conclusions are so plain and sound, that many words were not needed. But the cavils, objections and special pleadings of the Abolitionists teem like the frogs of Egypt, engendered in the mire of ignorance and prejudice, so numerous because so worthless. And when it is seen that we perhaps expend more space in their refutation than we did in the direct argument, the heedless reader may possibly be inclined to say to himself, that there must be something wrong in an argument to which so much can be objected. We beg him to observe then, that we pause to explode these objections, not because they are of any weight, but because we purpose to make thorough work with our opponents. When we have finished these rejoinders, we shall take the impartial reader to witness, that not only the weight, but the least appearance of plausibility in these cavils has been blown into thin air. And then we shall have the right to infer that their number indicates, not the questionable character of our positions, but only a fixed and blind prejudice against the truth in our adversaries.

It is objected that domestic slavery among the Hebrews was a much milder institution than in Virginia, and that, therefore, we have no right to argue from the one to the other. If it were true that Hebrew slavery was milder, it might show that we were wrong in the way in which we treated our slaves; but it could not prove that slaveholding was wrong. The principle would still be established, for the lawfulness of the relation. But let it be noted that the peculiar mitigations of slavery affected only slaves of Hebrew blood, not Gentiles. Whatever may have been the leniency of the system, the state of the Gentile slaves showed the essential features of slavery among us, the right to the slave's labour for life without his consent, property in that labour, the right to buy, sell and bequeath it; the right to enforce it on the slave by corporal punishments, which might have any degree of severity short of death. (See Exod. xxi. 20, 21.) Virginians had no interest to contend for any stricter form of slavery than this.

Second. It is said that the permission to buy, possess, and bequeath slaves of heathen origin, which we have cited, related only to the seven condemned tribes of Canaan, and was part of the divinely appointed penalty for their wickedness. Even such a man as Dr. Wayland, of Brown University, Rhode Island, has adopted this plea, thus justifying in a prominent instance the assertion that Abolitionism is grounded in a shameful ignorance of facts. The answer to the plea is, that it is expressly contrary to fact. The Hebrews were positively prohibited to reserve any of the seven condemned nations for slaves, and were enjoined to exterminate them all, lest the contagion of their vile morals should corrupt Israel. On the other hand, they were told that they might buy them slaves of any of the other Gentile nations around them, with whom they were to live on terms of national amity. (See Deuteronomy, xx. 10 to 18.) After directing the policy of the Hebrews towards conquered enemies from these nations, and permitting the enslaving of the captives, Moses proceeds: (v. 15.) "Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations. But of the cities of these people which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save nothing alive that breatheth; but thou shalt utterly destroy them, namely, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee; that they teach you not to do after all their abominations," etc. (See also, Josh. vi. 17 to 21; viii. 26; x. 28 to 32, etc., etc.)