Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1842-01-10


ness shall be as the noon day. Slavery appears to
me to violate these and similar divine precepts, in
creating cruel prejudice against the color Of the
bondmen-against the condition and mental SER
uice of The bondmen, and the race 10 utich dey be-
iong-n prejudice which holds them in great con-
tempt, degradation and misery.
| have now gone as far in showing the scrip
ture authority of abolitonists for alleging that sa-
very is inherently and intrnscally sinful, n
lum in Sc, MS | have time to write, and perhaps
far you will have time to read. These argu-
nen,s led ine 10 conclude years since, that
the abouoniss are right in alleging That Ameri-
can slnvery is system of wrong and outrage-is
inherently slniul-and, consequently that 1t ought
to he Immediately abolished. And have noticed
that others-eminent statesmen, philanlhropists
and diynes-faye also pronounced slavery 10 he
intrinsically and pre-eminently sinful | will now
briefly advert TO some Of their opinions, giving
the reference where happen to have il.
Gov. Everett, in his inaugural address before
the Massachusetts Legislature, Jan. 1886, says,
In this Stae, and in several OF our sisters States,
slavery has long been held in public estimation ny
an evil of the first magnitude
Bolirar says, Slavery is an infringement of all
laws.
John jar Of revolutionary memory, in his adj
dress before the Convention of New York. called
Dec. l776, to adopt St0te Constitution, says,
We have the highest reason to believe that the
Almighty will not suffer slavery and the gospel to
20 hand in hand 1t cannot, will not be-
Burke says, Slavery is n state so improper, so
degrading, SO runous to the feelings and capaci-
ties of hnman nature, that it ought not 10 be suf-
| fered to exist
DR.. johnson says, No man is 10y nature the pro-
perty of another. The rights OF nature must be
some way forfeited, before they can be Justly ta-
ken away
MonieSquieu says, sarcastcally at is impossible
that we should suppose the slaves to be men be-
cause if they are men, il would begin to be be-
leved that we are not chrstians'-[a prophecy
now fnlilling.l -,a
JeGerson, in his notes on Virginia, says what
an incomprehensble machine is man who can
endure toll, famine, stripes, Imprisonment and
death ITSELF in vindication of his own liberty, and
the next moment be deaf to all those motives
whose power supported him in his trial, and in
hict on his felow-men a bondage, one hour of
which is fraught with more misery than ages of
that he rose in rebellion to oppose
He further says, The whole commerce be-
tween master and slave, is a perpetual exercise of
the most boisterous passion, tho most unremtng
despotsm on one part, and degrading submission
on the other The parent storms, the
child looks on, catches the neaments of wrath,
puts the same airs in circles Of smaller slaves,
gives loose to his worst OF passions, and thus
nursed, educated, and daily exercised in Tyranny,
cannot bur be stamped by il with odous peculiar.
tiles. The man must be prodigy, who can re-
tain his manners and morals undcpraved by such
circumstances
DIR. ADAM CLARKE says, Those who carry on
the traffic in human flesh and blood those who
steal person in order to sell him into bondage;
or those who buy such stolen men or women, no
matter of what color, or of what country; or the
nations who legalize or cOnnive at such traffic,
all these men-stealers, and God classes them
with the most fagitious of mortas. In
heather countries, slavery was in some sort ex-
cusable; but among Christians, it is an enornity
aud crime, for which perdition has scarce an
adequate place of punishment
JOHN WESLEY. Man-stealers! The worst of
all thieves, in comparison with whom highway
robbers and house-breakers are innocent-and
men-buyers are exactly on a level with men steal
ers. That execrable Of all villanes, COM
monty called the slave trade-I read Of nothing
like it in the heather world, either ancien, mo-
dern And it infinitely exceeds in every instance
of barbarity, whatever Christian slaves suffer in
Mohammedan countries
DR.. Thomas ScoTT. Men.sealers are insert
ed among these daring criminals, Il Tim. J. 9,
, l00 against whom the law of God directed its
awful curses, These kidnapped men, in order TO
sell them for slaves and this practice seems in
seporahle from other impurities and expressions
of slavery; nor can slave dealer keep free from
this crimnality, il "the receiver is as bad as the
thief"
: MAcKNIGHr. sThey who make war, for the
purpose of selling the vanquished slaves are
mens,eaers. And they who encourage that un-
:
, acquired, are parakeis in their crime.
PRESBYTERIAN CONFESSION OF FAITH. Steal
ers of men are all those who bring off slaves or
freemeD, and keep, sell, or buy them. To steal q
freeman is the highest kind Of theft. The word
used here, II Tin. /. l0.) in lis original import,
comprehends all VINO are concerned in bringing
any of the human race into slavery, or in detainJ
ing them in it,
The Original draft Of The Declaration of .4o,eri-
can Independence, is said TO have contained The
following paragraph, erased by slaveholding in
huence. lie king George] has waged cruel war
against human nature itself, violating its most sa-
cred rights OF life and liberty, in the persons of a
distant people who never offended him, capturing
and carrying them into slavery into another hem
isphere or to incur miserable death in their trans
portalion thither That practical warfare, the OPP
probum of infde powers is the warfare of a
Christian king of Blitain. Determined to keep
an open market where MEN should be bought and
sold he has prosttuted his negative for suppress
ing every legislative attempt TO prohibit or 10 re-
strain that execrabe commerce. And that this
assemtage of horrors might want no fact of dis
tinglshed dye, he is now exciting those very peo-
Pile TO rise in arms against us, and TO purchase
that liberty of which he has deprived them, by
numbering the people, upon whom he has obtrud
ed them, thus paying off former crimes commit
ted against the liberties of one people, with the
crimes which he urges them to commit against
the lpes of another
VI Oh"hhinS, III MS "ea'ise U" slavery; says
'We can apply to slavery no worse name than its
own. Men have always shrunk instinctiyey from
, this state, as the most degraded. No punishment,
save DEATH has been more dreaded, and to avoid
il, death has often been endured = = Whips,
imprisonments, and even the horrors Of the mid
die passage, are not to be named in comparison
with the extinction of The proper consciousness Of
a human being-wth the degradation of man
into brute. Slavery and knowledge
cannot live together. To enlgh,en the slave is
to break his chain. To make him harmless, he
must be kept blind Slavery compels
the master to degrade systematically the mind OF
the slave to war against human nteliigenncei TO
resist that improvement which is the end OF the
Creator. q The domestic relations pre-