Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1856-01-03


A Northern Presbyter---No. b.
"He carelessly
Inquired, and something other the word
OF God received into his cheated faith"
1t was in the sixteenth century, when the 10
man Pontiff prescribed the religious faith and
governed the nations of Chrislendom when
perjury was absolved for 9s., and the murder OF
layman, for Is 3d., that Leo y. publicly de-
clared that, d" Not the Christian Religion only,
but nature herself, cried out against The state Of
Slavery" But Northern Presbyter would
have us believe that the voice Of Nature and
Religion cries out in behalf of Slavery. He
not only condemns the system of philanthropy
taught by Christ, but calls the Shareholder a
" benefactor Of the ,corld."
After making the inquiry, whether the curse
of Ham (er Slavery 4" did not fall on him and
on his posterity both on account of his personal
obliquties, and through his forbidden intermar-
riage with the wicked and accursed race of Cain,
he asks whether the like of this does not appear
on the whole face of Scripture, and particular
ly in the history of Melchisedek, Abraham and
other patriarch of the race Of Shem, who bought
and held and aienated slaves!
The interrogatoriss of the Presbyter are to
be considered equivalent to positive affirmation !;
hence, he virtually afirms;
|. That Ham married descendant of Cain
@ That this marriage was forbidden. 3. That
it appears on the whole face of Scripture that
Melchisedek was of the race of Shem, and
bought, held and alienated slaves
l. Is there any historical evidence that Ham
married descendant of Cainl Is it not conce~
ded in general, that the entire posterity of Cain
persisted in the deluge! Was not the deluge
specially designed for the destruction of the
wickedl Is it, then, reasonable to suppose that
the Almighty should have preserved the wife of
Ham, had she inherited the dcprayity of Cain
The special destruction of the wife of Lot,
might seem to initiate against this supposition.
Nor would Ham have been permitted to enter
the Ark, were he guilty of Il forbidden inter-
marriage Win y tne Wlckeu anu dccurScu ruco
of Cain"
According to Nicholas of Damascus, it was
supposed that some of the antediluvians saved
themselves at the time of the delugc, by ascend
Mount Baris. The Presbytcr might have in
quired, whether this supposition, together with
the supposition that the colored races of Africa
descended from these " wicked and accursed ref
ugees, and the more popular supposition that
children by nature inherit the depravity of their
parents, does not authorize the perpetual en-
slavcment of those degraded races And wheth-
cr Negro slavery should not, therefore, be con-
sidered by the Christian and philanthropst, as
a mercful Communication of deserved punishment!
2. Intermarriage with the posterity of Cain
was not prohibited. On what authority, then,
docs the Presbyter call the marriage Of Ham
forbidden I" If, in violation of divine laws,
he had married descendant of Cain, by what
known law, Or on what principle of justice
would the natural rights of his posterity been
forfeited? 1t is universally admitted that the
Etheopians descended from Ham If the pos
terity of Ham were justly doomed to slavery be.
cause he married a descendant of Cain, then an
intermarriage with descendant of Ham would
have merited punishment of equal severity.
But one of the wives of Moses was an Etheopi-
ana descendant of Ham; therefore, accord
ing to the learned Presbyter, this intermarriage
was forbidden, and his posterity should have
been enslaved We must either admit the con-
clusion or deny his groundless assertion. Inter-
marriage with certain races, was not prohibited
for about one thousand years subsequent to the
marriage Of Ham. Nor were the descendants
of those who disresarded this divine prohibition
subjected to slavery as punishment During
the seventy years captivity of tile Jews at Ba-
byon, they were found guilty OF intermarriages
with the Heathen nations. After their return
to Judea, they repudiated their strange and un-
lawful wives, and according to the Presbyter's
views of divine justice, should have sold their
offspring by these wives, into perpetual bondage,
and thus visited the niquity Of the fathers upon
the children, even to the hundred'h generation
of those who did, or did not hate the Almighty
1t is fortunate for the cause of justice, and the
protection Of innocence, that Presbyters of such
obliquity of mind, and strange views Of punt
tive Justice, are not invested with absolute pow
j or.
8. There is no proof nor have we right to
suppose that Mechisedek was stakeholder
We have no history of the life of that remark
able parsonage. We are, however, informed by
the sacred writers, that he was king of Salem,
or Jerusalem, and priest Of the most high God
that he met Abraham on his return from an ex-
petition against the kings Of ASsyra that he
furnished him provisions, blessed him, and re-
ceived 1.-THE of the spols, or prey he had ac-
CURED To infer from these facts, that Mel
chisedek was stakeholder, is reproach upon
his memory-a libel on the dead 1t is said in
Genesis, that Abraham gave him 'hhes Of ALL"
But tithes of all, did not include part of his
trained servants who accompanied him in his
expedition. ST. Paul referring to this decima-
ton of property, says, that Abraham gave Mel
chisedek the tenth of the spois;' and Jo-
scphus says. that he gave tithes of the prey"
All historians, and indeed, all photographers
make distinction between the spoils, and the
captives of war. But the Presbyter in his blind
zeal to justify Slavery by the example of patri-
archs and priests, would deny the eternal and
scf-evident distinction between persons and
property.
Melchisedek wasa Canaanite-a descendant
of the " accursed" Ham, and, according to the
Presbyter's standard Of divine justice, should
have been enslaved for the sins of his ancestors