The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1859-04-20

would not be permitted to hire or to own and
quietly enjoy pew in the broad aisle of any
fashionable church In the West, where your
soil is more fertile, and where more free color
ed men would be likely to go, you are more
stringent; and the black laws of Ohio Illinois,
Iowa, Oregon, and the still more expulsive To
peka Constitution of Kansas-for which, be-
lieve, you and all your Republican associates
Voted--proclaim, as with trumpet-tongue, the
innate and ineradieable prejudice against the
African, lurking, as it still does, in the bosom
of those whose tongues are eloquent for his
rights. ~
I am not little surprised at the manner in
which you speak of Noah. The Bible calls
him '.just mar, and perfect in his generation,
and yet because he, by Divine inspiration and
4 by Diyine.command, foretold the slavery of the
children of Ham, you give him some very hard
thrusts and leave him on the pages of your
speech with character by no means so fair as
that given him by the sacred historian. Was
Noah in the way of your theory, that you strike
at him SO vigorously, as though you would hew
him down? You say he mistook Canaan for
Ham. Suppose he did, the prediction and the
curse rest somewhere-on some nation. The
principle is the same in the Divine administra-
/ ton. Who are the children of Canaan? Ira
dition and history unite in the belief that they
inhabit the continent of Africa. Their condi-
ton fulflls, with remarkable fidelity the pro-
/ phecy of that righteous man and preacher of
| righteousness, Noah. ga servant of servants
wus the double curse, which has rested on that
continent and race for many centuries. It is
covered with network of double slavery
Eevery chief having his retinue of slaves, while
he pays tribute to some higher chief or petty
king.
You seem to lay great stress upon the fact
that the Canaanites were not black. How do
you know? DIR. Thompson, who has written
1 perhaps, the most thorough work Syria and
| Palestine that has ever been published, says
the ancient inhabitants of that country came
| from Africa The great painting of Samson
grinding in the mill shows his fhilistinc dri-
vers very dark, if not black. But you miss
the point of the Scriptural precedent and ex-
ample for slavery. You prove, as you think,
that the Canaanites were not black, and then
jump at once to the conclusion that, if they
were not black they must have been enslaved,
because they were taborin9 men. This does
/ very we'll to stir up prejudice at the North;
but is it the truth? The Israeltes were per-
mitted to enslave the Canaanites not because
they were laboring men, but because they were
.heathen and thereby SO degraded that trans
fifer to the Hebrew Commonwealth, where the
| true God was worshiped, was privilege and
! blessing. -A @
This furnishes the parallel point on which
auieticdH- SlsNc rely Win SIcdt GULL
| dence The Africans were taken from the
most degraded heathenisni, and are here taught
to worship the true God; and in the opinion
of every Bible man, more of them have been
| fitted for and gone to heaven from the thou
sands in America than from the millions of
Africa. DR.. Dwight said after long experience
and wide observation that he never knew but
one lazy converted. And as God had
some chosen people in Africa, it was necessary
~ 81, 49,
their conversion. But in the South they are
not allowed to read the Bible. Well, in Afri-
ca, they neither read it, hear of it, nor from it.
Faith cometh by hearing and is it not better
to hear the truth than to live entirely destitute
of it?
You quote the eighth commandment as a
prohibition of slavery. This is Singular
Were your ancestors thieves? They brought
or assented to the bringing of slaves to this
country. 1t is singular fact, that while we
boast of our Puritan ancestry, the laws of the
present day would hang half the men that
lived hundred years ago, as engaged in the
slave traffic, directly or Indirectly; and anoth-
er law would imprison all the men who lived
| forty years since. The eighth commandment
was given on the way out of the Hebrew nation.
All these ether laws were controlled by the
Decalogue. Well, now whate Why, they
had slaves by Divine permission under this
character. How could they, if the eighth
commandment forbids it.? But are the slaves
stolen? Certainly not by Americans. They
buy them, pay for them, transfer them, and
provide for them, in the only and most benevo-
lent manner in which it can be DONE As to
the metaphysical abstraction, that man cannot
have property in man, it has been contradicted
from the foundation of the world to the pres
ent time. Holding, use, and transfer, are the
elements of property; and this has been done
by men to men in all ages; and yet you say
that there is no word in the good old Hebrew
tongue that conveys the idea of property in
man. When a master Inadvertently killed his
slave, no blood was to be shed for she acos has
money" Does that not mean property?
It cannot be denied that the idea of sla-
very runs all through the Bible; it is stamped
upon the entire history of the Jewish nation,
and upon the history of every vigorous nation
upon the face of the earth; indeed, strongly
suspect this is the normal condition of large
portions of depraved race, and can readily
believe that man may sustain the relation of
STAKEHOLDER, in all good conscience, and with
the entire Divine appreciation. There are els |
i6le footprints Of Gods disappro6dtton Of the
16olitionisnr of this country, Look at the
iocks of unclean beasts and birds that have /
come up out of its train. 1nfields that curse |
God, abuse every man of good character, and
then praise humanity in general to eounterbal- |
ance their malignity and blasphemy. Out of
the ABSTRACT rights of man have grown the
more abstract rights of woman; and once re-
spectacle wives call St. Paul crusty old bach
eior, and Abraham tyrant, because Sarah
obeyed him, and Paul makes mention of the
fact. The second edition of the rights of wo-
man is divorce, s'affinity," and universal con-
cubinarc. We have far more of these immor-
al tendencies in the Northern States than they
have at the South. Is it not time to look at
home?
The Truth is, we have been wont to contem-
plate the condition of the slaves at the South
from wrong point of view. We compare
them with races or nations more highly civil
fzed. and their condition seems harsh and de-
graded one; but what were they when the
Christian nations took them by the hand and
led them across the ocean American slavery
has produced and cultivated more African in