they are raised, are generally prone to vicious indulg ence, and many of them are exceedingly profligate: their master's children often mingle with them, and not only witness their vicious practices, but also listen to their lascivious conversation, and thus from infancy they become familiar with almost every thing wicked and obscene. And this, in connexion with easy access, becomes a strong temptation to lewdness. Hence it often happens, that the master's children practise the same vices which prevail among his slaves; and even the master himself is liable to be overwhelmed by the floods of temptation. And in some instances the father and his sons are involved in one common ruin; nor do the daughters always escape this impetuous fountain of pollution. Were it necessary, I could refer you to several instances of slaves actually seducing the daughters of their masters! Such seductions sometimes happen even in the most respectable slaveholding families!

Testimony of S. A. Forral, Esq.

Negresses, when young and likely, are often employed as wet nurses by the white people; as also, by either the planter or his friends, to administer to their sensual desires. This frequently is a matter of speculation; for if the offspring, a mulatto, be a handsome female, 800 or 1000 dollars may may be obtained for her in the New Orleans market. It is an occurrence of no uncommon nature, to see a Christian father sell his own daughter, and the brother his own sister, by the same father.

CHAPTER VI.

BEARING OF SLAVERY UPON THE MORAL CHARACTER OF SLAVEHOLDERS.

Testimony of Thomas Jefferson.

The whole commerce between master and slave, is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the

most unremitting despotism on one part, and degrading submissions on the other. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose to his worst of passions; and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances.

Testimony of Judge Tucker.

Judge Tucker, of Virginia, in a published letter to a member of the General Assembly of that commonwealth, in 1801, bears the following testimony to the demoralizing tendency of slavery.

I say nothing of the baneful effect of domestic slavery on our moral character, and of its inconsistency with the truest principles of republicanism: I forbear to enlarge on all these topics, equally copious and important, because they have been repeatedly discussed by abler pens than mine, and because I know you have been long sensible of their force. Page 21.

If a female negro is childless, it is the fault of nature alone. Ibid: Page 12.

Testimony of Mr. Johnson.

Mr. Johnson, in the Convention for revising the Constitution of Virginia, in 1829, said:

Slavery has been the foundation of that impiety and dissipation, which has been so much disseminated among our countrymen. If it were totally abolished it would do much good.-Debates in Virginia Convention, page

463.

Testimony of Mr. Moore.

Mr. Moore, in the Legislature of Virginia in 1832, said:

Permit me now, sir, to direct your attention to some of the evil consequences of slavery, by way of argument, in favor of your maturely deliberating on the whole subject,

and adopting some efficient measures to remove the cause from which those evils spring. In the first place, I shall confine my remarks to such of those evils as affect the white population exclusively. And even in that point of view, I think that slavery as it exists among us, may be regarded as the heaviest calamity which has ever befallen any portion of the human race. If we look back through the long course of time which has elapsed since the creation to the present moment, we shall scarcely be able to point out a people whose situation was not in many respects preferable to our own, and that of the other states in which negro-slavery exists.-Richmond Whig.

Testimony of Mr. Summers.

Said Mr. Summers, in the same great debate:

A slave population, exercising the most pernicious influence upon the manners, habits and character, of those among whom it exists. Lisping infancy learns the vo cabulary of abusive epithets, and struts the embryo tyrant of its little domain. The consciousness of superior destiny takes possession of his mind at its earliest dawning, and love of power and rule 'grows with his growth and strengthens with his strength.' When in the sublime lessons of Christianity he is taught 'to do unto others as he would have others do unto him;' he never dreams that the degraded negro is within the pale of that holy canon. Unless enabled to rise above the operation of powerful causes, he enters the world with miserable notions of self-importance, and under the government of an unbridled temper.-Ibid.

CHAPTER VII.

BIBLE ARGUMENTS, IN FAVOR OF AMERICAN SLAVERY, ANSWERED.

Examp e of the Jews.

1. The examples of the Jews, it is said, may be quoted in favor of American slavery.

But if so, why not quote the same authority, to justify exterminating wars, and poligany? Why not quote the Jewish example to compel every man to marry his brother's widow, in case his brother dies without children? Why not quote the same authority to prove that every man has a right to kill the murderer of his nearest relative, without any judicial process? Why not quote Jewish examples for putting a disobedient child to death?

Servants held as property.

2. Servants among the Jews, it is supposed, are spoken of as property, Ex. 21: 21. For he is his money. The meaning is, the servant's labor was to the master for the time being, the same as money. Servants among the Hebrews were not claimed, held, and treated as property, as we shall elsewhere show.

Christ did not condemn Slavery.

3. Again we are told, that Jesus Christ did not condemn slavery, by name. We answer, neither did he condemn offensive wars, gambling, lotteries, rum-making, and theatres, by name.

Servants mentioned in the New Testament not Slaves.

4. It is supposed, by some, that the words rendered servant in the New Testament, signify, invariably, such as were claimed, held, and treated as absolute property.

But this is by no means, the fact! The word generally rendered servant, in the New Testament, is δουλος. According to Parkhurst, it comes from the Hebrew dol, which signifies, weak, powerless, poor, exhausted. Hence, the first signification given to doulos by the best Greek Lexicographers, is, one in a servile state, a servant. This is the first definition affixed to this word, by Parkhurst, Ewing, Grove, and Greenfield, Editor of Bagster's Comprehensive Bible, Donnegan says it means a slave, a

servant.

This word occurs in the New Testament, one hundred and twenty-one times. It is applied to Christ, to Moses, and the Prophets, Phil. 2: 7. Rev. 10: 7. -15:3. In twelve instances it is applied to the Apostles; fourteen times it is applied to Christians; and six times to sinners. And in about seventy places it is used to designate one in a state of secular servitude, a servant.

That this word was not generally used by the Apostles to designate one who was claimed, held and treated as property, is farther evident from the following considerations. (1.) In the Greek language this word corresponds with our word servant; it does not necessarily signify one who was held and treated as property; but it was used to designate one in a servile state, most generally a slave.

(2.) In Athens, however, this word was not used to signify a slave properly so called. See Robinson's Antiq. of Greece, p. 30, and Potter's Gr. An. vol. 1. page 68, and the number of the Bib, Repository for Jan. 1835.

From these authorities we learn, that among the Athenians, slaves, or those who were the entire property of another, were called, oikɛrai, but after their freedom was granted them, they were named dovλor, not being then, like the former, a part of the