in Maryland, (from its first settlement), 31 years; and in North Carolina there was no colonial definition at all!

But the dates and the various provisions of the several colonial enactments, admitting them to have been constitutionally valid, become important historical facts in another point of view, not only as bearing upon the inquiry, Who were, legally, slaves, but also on the question, What was the slavery under which they were thus legally held, and When was it, that that slavery, as thus legislatively defined, became legalized?

For, if it were clearly ascertained and established, that "SLAVERY," in general terms, had been legalized by valid and constitutional enactments of the colonial legislatures, in the first commencement of their authority, the question would still remain whether the slavery thus legalized was identical with the slavery defined many years afterwards, or whether it was altogether another thing, though known by the same name. The South Carolina enactment of 1740, and the Georgia enactment of 1770, would tell us, distinctly enough, what was the slavery of those colonies at those periods: but they could not tell us whether the slavery legalized in those colonies (if, indeed, there were any) sixty-nine, and twentyfive years previous, was precisely the same thing. It might have been only the bond-service of Massachusetts, in 1641, defined by "the law of God established in Israel," and which, if followed out, would have secured "a jubilee throughout the land, to all the inhabitants thereof," long ago. In Georgia, as we have seen, the first slavery was the hiring of slaves for short periods, then for one hundred years-then buying, then importing them, and thus the whole system was changed.

When we are told of the inherited, imprescriptible, timesanctioned, and guarantied rights of the present American slaveholder, it becomes a matter of the deepest interest to learn, if we may, the origin, the date, the tenure, and the description of those rights, as originally defined. Between the right to import Africans into the colonies, with "their own. free consent" in the times of Queen Elizabeth or James I.,

and the right to hold the descendants of those Africans, and of all the nations of Europe, as chattels personal, in the present American States, there seems a perceptible chasm, and before the latter can be inferred from the former, some attention must needs be paid to the various arches of the bridge by which this chasm is conceived to have been spanned. A few missing links and bolts might endanger the safety of the transition. Into the requisite examination we cannot now enter. We only indicate the field of inquiry, and note down a few obvious facts.

In consulting Stroud's Sketch of the Slave Laws, one is struck with the fact that most, if not all of the colonial enactments cited, bear date many years after the practice of slaveholding is known to have been introduced, and after the slaves must have become numerous. From this fact, and from the implications or statements in the preambles to those acts, it appears evident that the usages of slavery grew up first, and that the colonial legislation came in, to sanction and shelter them, afterwards, indicating the fact of a previously existing slavery without statute, and consequently ILLEGAL, since no one maintains that it could have originated in natural right, or in the principles of common law.

Thus, in Virginia, where slavery, in fact, commenced in 1620, the first slave law cited by Stroud or by Spooner, is that of 1670, and most of the acts defining slavery are, perhaps, since 1700.-Of the slave laws of Maryland, (which was settled in 1632,) the first cited is that of 1663, and the remainder are from 1715 to 1751.-Of those of South Carolina, where slavery commenced in 1671, the first cited bears date 1695,-the remainder from 1711 to 1740, at which latter date the "peculiar institution" evidently received, (so far as the statute is concerned,) its full proportions and shape. Of those of North Carolina, settled about 1650, the first cited is that of 1729, and the remainder bear date from 1741 to 1743, about which time the definition of slavery appears to have been settled, upon very nearly its present basis, in that Colony.— Of those of Georgia, where slavery commenced prior to 1743,

the first and only distinct reference is to the law of 1770, by which, very manifestly, the cardinal features of the slave law, in that Colony, were determined.-These eras in colonial slave legislation are too distinctly marked to be mistaken or forgotten by the student of American slave law; though, doubtless, there must have been some earlier acts, not noticed by Judge Stroud, and some of his references are to Digests and Manuals, in which the dates of legislation are not given.

Slave legislation, since the American Revolution, has made some important strides. Virginian slavery reposes on her revised code of 1819, and is what that makes it, without dreaming of any hazard to the venerable antiquity of her claims.

CHAPTER IV.

EARLY TESTIMONIES AGAINST SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE

TRADE.

THE Dominicans in Spanish America, as related by Clarkson, "considered slavery as utterly repugnant to the principles of the gospel, and recommended the abolition of it." Being opposed by the Franciscans, “a controversy on the subject between them was carried to Pope Leo X. for his decision."

Pope Leo X. declared that "not only the Christian religion, but that nature herself cried out against slavery."

Charles V. (as before stated) bore testimony against slavery, by abolishing it in his dominions, in the year 1542.

Between A. D. 1670 and 1680, Godwyn, a clergyman of the Established Church, and Richard Baxter, the celebrated Non-conformist, bore strong testimony against these oppressions, the former, describing, with nervous eloquence, the brutality of slavery, as he had witnessed it in Barbadoes ;— the latter protesting against the traffic, and denouncing those engaged in it as pirates and robbers. These writers were followed by Southern, Hutcheson, Foster, Atkins, Wallis, and others. [Vide Clarkson.]

Bishop Warburton, in 1676, preached a sermon, denouncing, in strong language, those who "talk, as of herds of cattle, of property in rational creatures!"

Dr. Porteus, Bishop of London, said that the slave trade was contrary to the religion we professed. He vindicated the Bible against the assertion that it sanctioned slavery-"Nay," (said he) "it classed men-stealers or slave traders among the murderers of fathers and mothers, and the most profane criminals on earth."

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, who had witnessed the workings of slavery in our North American colonies and in the West Indies, declared "American slavery" to be "the vilest that ever saw the sun," and constituting "the sum of all villanies." Slave dealers, he denominated "man stealers; the worst of thieves, in comparison of whom high-way robbers

and house-breakers are comparatively innocent." buyers are exactly on a level with men stealers."

He adds: "And men

Jonathan Edwards, the younger, said: "To hold a man in a state of slavery, is to be, every day, guilty of robbing him of his.liberty, or of man stealing."

Bishop Horsley said: "Slavery is injustice, which no consideration of policy can extenuate."

Dr. Samuel Johnson said: "No man is by nature the property of another. The rights of nature must be some way forfeited before they can justly be taken away."

Edmund Burke said: "Slavery is a state so improper, so degrading, and so ruinous to the feelings and capacities of human nature, that it ought not to be suffered to exist."

Archdeacon Paley said: "Slavery is a dominion and system of laws, the most merciless and tyrannical that were ever tolerated upon the face of the earth."

Montesquieu ironically said: "If we allow negroes to be men, it will begin to be believed that we, ourselves, are not Christians!"

Blackstone, the jurist, sums up an elaborate scrutiny of the subject thus : "If neither captivity nor contract can, by the plain law of nature and reason, reduce the parent to a state of slavery, much less can they reduce the offspring."

William Pitt declared it to be " injustice to permit slavery to remain for a single hour."

Charles James Fox said: "With regard to a regulation of slavery, my detestation of its existence induces me to know no such thing as a regulation of robbery, and a restriction of murder." "Personal freedom is a right of which he who deprives a fellow-creature is criminal in so depriving him, and he who withholds is no less criminal in withholding."

Bishop Butler said: "Despicable as they" (the negroes) "may appear in our eyes, they are the creatures of God, and of the race of mankind, for whom Christ died, and it is inexcusable to keep them in ignorance of the end for which they were made, and of the means whereby they may become partakers of the general redemption."

Hannah More said: " Slavery is vindicated in print (1788), and defended in the House of Peers! Poor human reason! When wilt thou come to years of discretion ?"

Dr. Samuel Hopkins said: "Slavery is, in every instance, wrong, unrighteous, oppressive, a very great and crying sin, there being nothing of the kind equal to it on the face of the earth."

The learned Grotius said: "Those are men stealers who abduct, keep, sell or buy slaves or free men. To steal a man is the highest kind of theft."