I would be understood as referring for proof of this summary, to my first as well as my present essay.
When I first wrote, I did suppose the Scriptures had been examined by leading men in the opposition, and that prejudice had blinded their eyes. I am now of a different opinion. What will be the effect of this discussion, I will not venture to predict, knowing human nature as well as I do. But men who are capable of exercising candor must see, that it is not against an institution unknown to the Bible, or declared by its author to be sinful, that the North is waging war.
Their hostility must be transferred from us to God, who established slavery by law in that kingdom over which he condescended to preside; and to Jesus, who recognized it as a relation established in Israel by his Father, and in the Roman government by men, which he bound his followers to obey and honor.
In defending the institution as one which has the sanction of our Maker, I have done what I considered, under the peculiar circumstances of our common country, to be a Christian duty. I have set down naught in malice. I have used no sophistry. I have brought to the investigation of the subject, common sense. I have not relied on powers of argument, learning, or ingenuity. These would neither put the subject into the Bible nor take it out. It is a Bible question. I have met it fairly, and fully, according to the acknowledged principles of the abolitionists. I have placed before my reader what is in the Bible, to prove that slavery has the sanction of God, and is not sinful. I have placed before him what I suppose to be the quintessence of all that can be gleaned from the Bible to disprove it.
I have made a few plain reflections to aid the understanding of my reader. What I have written was designed for those who reverence the Bible as their counsellor—who take it for rules of conduct, and devotional sentiments.
I now commit it to God for his blessing, with a fervent desire, that if I have mistaken his will in any thing, he will not suffer my error to mislead another.
Thornton Stringfellow.
[The following letter, in substance, was written to a brother in Kentucky, who solicited a copy of my slavery pamphlet, as well as my opinion on the movement in that State, on the subject of emancipation.]
Dear Brother:—