In considering this question, I propose to offer the mere outline of an argument.

The question has two aspects: First, is the fugitive slave law constitutional? That is an inquiry with which I have nothing to do, in this place: although it would seem as if it required no great logical or legal acumen to settle it. But neither your opinion nor mine can settle it. It can be determined properly, effectively and finally, by the judiciary alone. I have no occasion to invade their high prerogative. The appeal to the tribunal is open to us all, on every point at which any citizen deems his constitutional rights invaded, or his conscience oppressed.*

But the real, moral question for us is that which relates to the equity of the constitution itself. Is it asked then, secondly, whether the constitutional provision respecting the delivery of fugitive slaves, which is the real point of attack, is or is not in conflict with the scriptures? The prominent argument against this provision, and against the law enforcing it, is derived from the well-known passage in Deuteronomy, xxiii. 15, 16: "Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee: He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that place which he shall choose, in one of thy gates, where it liketh him best thou shalt not oppress him." Now, on this passage, I observe,

1. Is this precept binding on us at all? It was

*See Acts xix. 38-40, for an example of most sensible ad

vice.

a part of the municipal law of the Jews, which was confessedly temporary. Yet, as it is alleged that it involves a great moral principle for all time, let us consider it as such; and then,

2. It is manifest, from its very terms, that it does not refer to the escape of a slave from one tribe of Israel to another, as from Reuben to Naphtali, or from Zebulon to Judah,-but to the slave who had escaped from the neighbouring heathen nations to the sanctuary of the land of Israel, where he might be instructed in the true religion, and come to a participation of the privileges of the chosen people. This is no interpretation newly invented to meet a particular emergency; but it is borne to us on the whole current of calm, abstract exposition and commentary that has flowed down to us from other days.* But

*The following are but specimens taken from such authors as are most accessible while I am writing.

"That is, a servant who left an idolatrous master that he might join himself to God and to his people. In any other case, it would have been injustice to have harboured the run-a-way."Adam Clarke.

"A slave who had fled from another nation and sought a refuge among the Hebrews, was to be received and treated with kindness, and not to be forcibly returned back again.”—Jahn's Archæol. § 171.

"If a slave of another nation fled to the Hebrews, he was to be received hospitably, and on no account to be given up to hist master."-Horne, Introd.

"We cannot suppose, that this law required the Israelites to entertain slaves, who had robbed their masters, or left their service without cause; but such only as were cruelly treated and fled to them for protection, especially from the neighbouring na

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whatever may have been the intent of the precept, the interpretation which restricts it to cases of escape from the oppressive and idolatrous heathen, is justified by the unquestionable fact, that the Divine Lawgiver, while He forbade the "bondage" of an Israelite, (Leviticus xxv. 39–43,) did, in specific contrast with the limited servitude of an

tions. To such they were commanded to afford shelter, and show great kindness; both in order to recommend their religion, and to give them an opportunity of learning it."-Scott.

"The land of Israel is here made a sanctuary or city of refuge, for servants that were wronged and abused by their masters, and fled thither for shelter from the neighbouring countries. We cannot suppose that they were hereby obliged to give entertainment to all the unprincipled men that ran from service; Israel needed not, (as Rome at first did) to be thus peopled."-Henry. "The Hebrew doctors understand this of a servant of another nation who was become a Jew. Whom his master, if he went to dwell out of Judea, might not carry along with him against his will; and if he fled from him, when he had carried him, he might not be delivered to him, but suffered to dwell in the land of Israel. Which they understand also of a servant that fled from his master out of any of the countries of the gentiles into the land of Israel; which was to be a safe refuge to him, (see Selden, lib. vi. De Jure Nat. et Gent. juxta Discipl. Hebr. cap. 8, p. 711.) (a.)-Patrick.

(a) Selden observes :-" Neque licuit domino servum invitum in alienas terras comitem sibi adhibere, nec fugitivum inde, e terra sancta, si Judaismum susceperat, reducere. Sic intelligunt illud legis, Non trades servum domino suo qui apud te eripi cupit a domino suo, etc. (Deut. xxiii. 15.) Qui locus etiam de servo qui a domino gentili in terram Israeliticam, fugerat, capitur. Tutum nempe erat servo ejusmodi terra illa perfugium. Unde Onkelos ibi, Non trades servum gentium in manum domini ejus. Ex hisce pendere videtur quod apud Josephum notatur, (lib. xvi. cap. i.)

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Israelite, expressly permit the Israelites to hold in perpetual bondage slaves who were not of the children of Israel. "Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land, and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen forever:* but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigour." (Leviticus, xxv. 44-46.) Now, if God allowed this relation to exist in Israel, by express law,-and I may add, if He regulated it,-if He recognized it in the fourth commandment, and especially, in the tenth commandment

The whole policy of the law seems to have been to invite foreigners to become Israelites, while the extradition of the fugitive was forbidden because it sent him back to idolatry. And in this partly, if not entirely, consisted the heinousness of the offense of man-stealing, i. e. the abduction of a free-born Israelite, (see Note to page 39,) who could not easily have been made, or sold as a slave, in Israel, but for the purpose of sending him out of the land, and of course to servitude among the heathen. Hence the prohibition, alledged by Selden, restraining the master of a slave from removing him out of the land. The whole chapter from which I have quoted is very instructive. See Selden de jure. lib. vi. cap. 8. p. 645. (Opera omnia; vol. i. Londini, 1726.) *«Ye shall serve yourselves with them."-Margin.

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recognized the servant as the property of his master,-can it be presumed for a moment that the Divine Lawgiver did, in the very same breath, intend to sanction the escape of the same bond-slave by forbidding the fugitive to be delivered up? It is not my business here, either to approve or condemn slavery as it exists in America. That is not the question under discussion. But, I am meeting the argument, fetched from the law of Israel, for the emancipation of fugitives, by confronting with it the plain and unquestionable fact, which nullifies that argument, viz., that slavery was a "domestic institution" of the Israelites, actually recognized and allowed by the God of Israel. Did He, by the same law, both permit slavery, and enjoin the emancipation of the fugitive? The idea is absurd, and the assertion makes Jehovah contradict himself.

And, even in regard to fugitives from the heathen, it has been well observed, that the precept forbidding their extradition, could not have been designed to make the land of Israel a refuge for all the vicious and "unprincipled who might run from service."* There was this stinging point of insult in the churlishness of Nabal toward David, that when he reproached him, saying, "There be many servants now-a-days that break away every one from his master," he charged him with being a mere worthless runaway slave, whom he ought not to harbour.

3. But there is some light reflected upon this * Matthew Henry.