upon whom no curse was pronounced. By these antiquarians Cush is supposed to have been the ancestor of the Ethiopian or negro portion, and Phut of the Carthaginian or Moorish portion, of the ancient and modern inhabitants of Africa. But be these conjectures as they may, it is certain that since the African posterity of these patriarchs have never yet been conquered and subjected in their own country, either by the descendants of Shem or by any others, if the curse pronounced upon Canaan was intended to attach to them or to their posterity, it remains thus far yet to be fulfilled. If, as some contend, the condition of enslavement be indicative of descent from Canaan, the rule will render a large portion of the present English and Americans such descendants, for it is only a few years since a multitude of their British ancestors were absolute slaves under the name of "villeins"—also the same rule will render most of the present Russians, Poles, Georgians, Circassians, Turks, &c., lineal descendants of Canaan and Ham.

CHAPTER VI.

RULES OF CONSTRUCTION.

As in the investigation which is to follow, it will be necessary, in order to avoid perversion and ascertain the truth, to put different constructions on certain words and phrases, such as the subject matter and the context will clearly direct and require, it is proper here to specify certain rules of critical construction, which have been long since approved and universally adopted by critical

commentators.

I. That the letter of a statute or other law be so construed, whenever it has different meanings in different uses and connections, as to harmonize with the spirit or general and collective meaning of the whole connection to which it belongs.

II. Where a double or different construction of the letter is admissible, that shall always be preferred which is most consistent with natural liberty, justice and righteousness, provided the general spirit of the law permit such construction.

III. All parts of every code or collection of laws or system of ethics are to be thus harmonized by construction, unless the express letter as well as the general spirit of the same prevent such harmony by such construction, in which case alone we are to allow that there is a conflict of laws in such code or collection. It is to be presumed that no fault will be found with these just and equitable rules, nor with their just and equitable application to the present important subject matter now under consideration.

MULTITUDES of pro-slavery advocates contend, that because the words "buy" and "sell" are used in describing some of the customary legal Hebrew servitudes, the latter must necessarily have been slavish, and such seems to be the general belief or impression even among preachers of the gospel and professors of religion. But this proposition must as a certain and infallible rule necessarily be false, because the same words are oftener used in the Scriptures to describe free and voluntary service, than they are to describe slavish service or slavery. Thus, in such passages as Gen. Xxxvii. 27, 28, 36; Ex. xxi. 16; Deut. xxiv. 7, &c., they are undoubtedly used to describe the condition of slavery, while in Gen. xlvii. 19-23; 1 Kings xxi. 20, 25; 2 Kings xvii. 17; Isa. 1. 1, lii. 3; Acts xx. 28; Rom. vii. 14: 1 Cor. vi. 20, vii. 23; 2 Pet. ii. 1, &c., the same words are just as certainly used to describe free and voluntary service, as their context clearly proves, and as is universally admitted among Bible commentators and critics. So sensible are the advocates of slavery of the truth of these propositions, that they never dare to compare such cases as those contained in Gen. xxxvii. and xlvii., in Ex. xxi. 2-16, and Deut. xv. 12, and xxiv. 7; because if they admit a difference between them, that difference can only be the same as between free service and slavery, which contradicts and ruins the whole theory of Bible slavery; while if they assert the identity of the practices described, the ready inquiry instantly occurs, why did God, who never does anything in vain, regulate and thereby ap

prove and sanction a practice in the passages first quoted, but condemn it in those last quoted under the penalty of death? This inquiry is so distressing to the advocates of slavery that they always avoid it if possible by neglecting and refusing to notice such passages as Gen. xxxvii. 27, 28, 36; Ex. xxi. 16; Deut. xxiv. 7; 1 Tim. i. 9, 10, and other passages which describe and condemn such slavery as one of the greatest crimes or violations of the moral law ; but simply content themselves with obstinately asserting, that the passages describing the Patriarchal and Hebrew servitudes where these words "buy" and "sell" are used, describe slavery and nothing else.

But from the foregoing clear premises we discover, that from the mere scriptural use of these words alone in describing the condition of servitude or service, nothing can certainly be determined respecting its real nature, which, as in every similar case of critical doubt and construction, is to be ascertained, determined, and understood, by the subject matter, by the context, and by the general description or spirit of each passage, all taken in connection with the letter or language thereof. Such, when we are honest, is always our customary mode of examination or reasoning. Thus no person supposes from the description given in 1 Kings xxi. 20, 25, that Ahab was a slave or article of personal property, because we see from the context of his life, actions, and character recorded in the same and other books, that he was a king and absolute monarch. So no person supposes from the description in such passages as Acts xx. 28; Rom. vii. 14; 1 Cor. vi. 20, vii. 23; 2 Pet. ii. 1, that Paul and his converts were property or slaves, because the context describes them as free and voluntary servants of Christ. In a similar manner, though slaveholders customarily call their slaves their "servants," yet we know them to be slaves from the circumstances in which the word is used. On the contrary, in England and other free countries, we know the persons customarily called "servants" are not property or slaves, from the circumstances attending the customary use of the same word. It will no doubt be said in reply to these observations, that these words are employed in the passages here quoted in a typical or figurative sense merely, and do not in that sense mean slavish service or slavery. THIS PROPOSITION is true. In the passages under consideration these words are used in a typical or figurative sense, as descriptive of free and voluntary

service only. But the important inquiry immediately arises, where are the types or figures from which these free descriptions are copied to be found? For it should be specially noticed and remembered, that these types must have existed before the descriptions did, and been free also, because a free description can no more be taken from a slave type, than a slavish description can from a free type-every typical description in the Scriptures corresponds in its nature with its type. I answer, that the types or figures here sought after are these same Patriarchal and Hebrew servitudes, the nature of which is so much controverted, because all the types referred to in the New Testament are contained in the Levitical law and the lives of the Patriarchs, and nowhere else, and no other types suited to these descriptions except servitudes are to be found in either. But as these descriptions are all free, so these typical servitudes from which they are copied must have been free also. According to the descriptive testimony of the New Testament, therefore, all those servitudes were free and voluntary, and both Testaments thus far completely harmonized.

Nothing in this plain and decisive testimony ought to surprise us as strange or uncommon, because we ourselves, in common with the people of most other modern nations, customarily and familiarly use the same words "buy" and "sell" to describe free and voluntary service. Thus, we customarily say with respect to town or parish paupers, that they are "to be sold." We always customarily mean thereby, that their support and maintenance are to be sold to the lowest bidder. So we say figuratively from custom respecting poor foreign immigrants, that they are "sold," or that they "sell themselves" to pay for their passages. We always customarily and really mean by these expressions that they agree beforehand to let themselves out to labor after their arrival, in payment of the money advanced by their employers to pay for their passage; it being especially to be noticed in this connection and remembered by the reader, that the immigrants in this case receive the pay for the labor before the same is to be performed. With a similar meaning we customarily say of venal politicians, that they "sell themselves," and are bought" or "purchased" by their employers or patrons-nobody being in the least deceived in any of these cases by the use of this phraseology, into a false belief that slavish service was intended by it, or that the kinds of service described were not entirely free

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and voluntary. So where people are deceived and their interests betrayed by their representatives or public confidential agents, the same kind of phraseology is sometimes employed the more forcibly to express the baseness of the supposed treachery, or the greatness of the injury sustained. The histories of the revolution tell us that Benedict Arnold was "bought" by British gold, and that Williams, Paulding and Van Wart could not be bought by Major André. When a northern clergyman marries a rich southern widow, country gossip thus hits off the indecency: "The cotton bags bought him." Sir Robert Walpole said, "every man has his price, and whoever will pay it, can buy him,” and John Randolph said, "The Northern delegation is in the market; give me money enough and I can buy them." The temperance publications tell us that candidates for office buy men with whiskey. The same, or corresponding words and phrases, are employed for various purposes in other parts of the Scriptures, but generally to describe certain other free and voluntary customs of the ancient oriental nations. See Gen. xxix. 15-29, xxxiv. 11, 12; Ex. xx. 7, 11, xxii. 17, xxxiv. 20; Lev. xxvii. 2-8; Numb. xviii. 15, 16; Deut. xxii. 28, 29; Judg. i. 12, 13, ii. 14, iii. 8, iv. 2; Ruth iv. 10; 1 Sam. xviii. 25, 27; Hosea iii. 2, &c. I shall hereafter have occasion to remark upon the nature of the ancient Hebrew free custom, of buying and "selling" Hebrew wives, wards, and children.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE TRUE ISSUE.

FROM the premises already stated it clearly appears that Two ENTIRELY DIFFERENT MODES OR WAYS of buying and selling people, the one free and voluntary, and the other slavish, are plainly described in the Scriptures as having been in customary use among the ancients, just as they now are among the moderns. The real controversy between the Bible advocates of slavery and their opponents then is as follows, namely: Were the ancient Patriarchal and Hebrew servitudes in controversy, slavish or otherwise? Were Abraham's servants, said to have been "bought with his money," free