Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1845-08-28

their brothers" 10 mark them, when under
certain circumstances, they become perpetu-
al SLAVES: Elk xxi 6.
think, then, may safely conclude, and
firmly believe that American slavery is not
only not sin, but especially commanded
by God through Moses, and approved by
Christ through his Apostles. And here
might close its defence; for what God or
dams and Christ sanctifes, should surely
command the respect and federation of man.
But fear there has grown up in our time,a
transcendental religion which is throwing
even transcendental philosophy into the
shade-a religion too pure and elevated for
the Bible-which seeks 10 erect among men
Ia higher standard of morals than the Al
mighty has revealed or our Saviour preach
ed, and which is probably destined to do
more to impede the extension of Gods king
dom on earth than all the Infdels who have
ever lived. Error is error. 1t is as danger
Gus TO deyiate to the right hand as the left.
And when men protesting to be holy men,
and who are by numbers so regarded, de-
clare those things to be sinful which our
Creator has expressly authorised and nsti-
tuted, they do more to destroy His authori-
| ty among mankind than the most wicked
can effect by proclaiming that to be innocent
which He has forbidden. To this self
righteous and self-exalted class belong all
the Abolitionists whose writings have read.
With them it is no end Of the argument to
prove your proposition by the test of the
Bible, interpreted according to IFS plain and
! lpable meaning and as understood by all
nla mi
their time. They are more ingenious at
constituting and interpolating to accommo-
date it to their new-fangled and ETHEREAL
code of morals, than ever were Voltaire or
Hume in picking it to pieces to free the
world from what they considered delusion.
When the Abolilionists proclaim 'man-
stealing" to be sin, and show me that it is
50 written down by God, admit them to
be right, and shudder at the idea of such
crime. But when show them that to hold
'bond-men forever' is ordained by God,
they deny the Bible, and set up in It's place
la1c Of their oncn making. must then
the question. Our religion differs as wide
| ly as our manners. The Great Judge in
our day of final account must decide be-
tween us.
Turning from the consideration of slave
holding in its relations to man as an ac-
countable being, let us examine it in its in
1uence on his political and social state
Though, being foreigners to us, you are in
no wise entitled to interfere with the civil
institutions of this country, it has become
quite common for your countrymen to de-
cry slavery as an enormous political evil to
us, and even 10 declare that our northern
States ought to withdraw from the confed-
eracy rather than continue to be contamina-
ted by it. The American Abolitionists ap-
pear 10 concur fully in these sentiments, and
la portion at least of them are necessarily
threatening to dissolve the Union. Nor
should be at all surprised if they succeed.
1t would not be difficult, in my opinion, to
conjecture which region, the north or south,
would suffer most by such an event. For
one, should not object, by any means, 10
cast my lot in a confedefacy of States whose
citizens might all be shareholders. in
dorse without reserve The much abused sem
tlment of Governor McDutfie, that ''slavery
is the corner stone of our republican edifce;''
while repudiate, as ridiculously absurd, that
much lauded but nowhere accredited dog
ma of Mr.. Jefferson, that sail men are born
equal" No society has every existed
and | have already incidentally quoted the
highest authority to show that none will
ever exist, without natural variety of class
Ies. The most marked of these must, in a
country like ours, be the rich and the poor,
the educated anG the ignorant 1t will
scarcely be disputed that the very poor have
less leisure TO prepare themselves for the
proper discharge of public duties than the
rich; and that the ignorant are wholly unfit
for them at all. In all countries save ours
these two classes, or the poor rather, who
are presumed to be necessarily ignorant, are
by law expressly excluded from all partici-
patton in the management of public affairs.
In a republican government this cannot be
done. Universal suffrage, though not essen
tial in theory, seems to be in fact necessa-
ry aPPendaget to republican system. Where
universal suffrage obtains, it is obvious that
the government is in the hands of numeri-
cal majority; and it is hardly necessary to
say that in every part Of the world more
than half the people are ignorant and poor,
though no one Can lock upon poverty as a
crime, and we do not generally here regard
it as any objection to man in his indiyi-