kindness, too, forbids it. Paul commanded the church to deliver a certain one to Satan, not because he was a devil and hopeless, but "for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit might be saved."

It is perfectly consistent with brotherly kindness and charity to tell slave-holders, at the threshold of the church, "You will not be justified in entering this church till you get out of your sins- till you shake yourselves from what you know is evil." This is traducing nobody-slandering nobody either South or North. It is simply disallowing the entrance of sin into the house of God, not slave-holding alone, but sin of any and every description; and thus by setting Christianity against the wrong practices of men, allow it to act, as the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

And I will here take leave to add, that all I have said in this debate has tended to this one point-the very question before us. Yet my brother has told you, I know not how many times, that I have uttered nothing on the question. My friend rises to address you-strikes the hour of the debate as regularly as a clock-crying: "So many hours of the debate gone, and nothing on the question yet." "Take notice, the gentleman has not done this; and the gentleman has not done that!!"

Now I confess I have but one mouth, and that, perhaps, not a very fluent one. But I shall use it to the very best purpose I can, and do some things if not others. Now, Gentlemen Moderators and Fellow-Citizens, let me say, that, while we do hold slave-holding to be a sin, we do not take this ground, in the words put into our mouths by others, viz: "that it is sin under all circumstances." That phrase is deceptive. It is not true, taken one way, and yet it is true if understood another. I will illustrate.

James G. Birney went to Louisville, Kentucky, to receive his portion of an estate. He took his share of the slaves, and set them free: then went to the other heirs and told them that he would receive his whole portion of the estate

in slaves, which he did; giving them all the money. He took his entire share in slaves, and set them all free. Now after he came in possession of these slaves, and before he had made out their free papers, he was not a slave-holder, but a redeemer, in the very act of redeeming men from slavery. It is a gross perversion of speech to call that slave-holding. Yet some delight to seek out such temporary transition instances, and use them to prove that "slave-holding is not a sin in all circumstances." It is sin wherever it is slave-holding. But suppose 50 rods of Kentucky soil intervene, and he must lead them over the line to free them. Is he a slaveholder while they walk that 50 rods? Surely not. The state is in transitu; and no man can call it slave-holding, unless he is quibbling, without feeling that he gives it a name which does not belong to it. The act is redemption, and the man, a redeemer of his species from bondage.

Yet it is from instances in the nature of this, they draw all their examples to prove that "slave-holding is not a sin under all circumstances." If you will keep this in mind, you will have no difficulty in understanding what we mean by the proposition, "Slave-holding is sin:" not the relation when in the article of death-but living, actual slave-holding; such as exists in ours and all other slave States.

And, respected fellow-citizens, I feel as if I could cheerfully lay down my life at the close of this hour, could I, on that condition, have the intellect and utterance of an angel, to transfer to the mind of this large assembly, the truth which presses and burns upon my own-the one great truth that God is to rule and shape the practical affairs and relations of men; and that, consequently, where there is no every-day justice among men, there can be no religion. God wishes to control the great mass of daily and hourly doings of men. The question whether slave-holding is sin, therefore, does not turn on the hinges of extreme and supposititious cases of slavery-it is not to be decided by the one case to ninetynine, but by the ninety-nine cases to one. It is a practical

question. What we wish to know, is, whether the mass of slave-holders sin in holding slaves.

I have already said that the man who has set his face steadfastly to free his slaves, though still in the legal relation of a slave-holder, is not a slave-holder in the eye of law, or of reason for the common law always allows a "reasonable time" for transacting business, and the relation expires from the time the first step in the business of emancipation is taken; and the matter is in a transition state, till completed. The individual emancipating is simply, and from the outset, a redeemer. But a slave-holder, is one who holds slaves, and uses them under the chattel statute.

And that there may be no mistake as to the persons meant, I remind you of Smylie's testimony, that "three-fourths of the Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Baptists, and Methodists, of the slave States are slave-holders for gain." Not threefourths of the people, as he stated in his reply, but of the Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, and Episcopalians in eleven States. These are the slave-holders, whose slaveholding is meant.

Great events often hinge upon trivial circumstances; and I am persuaded that it is no vain fancy which gives me a premonition that this debate is to be one of those little pivot incidents upon which the mind of this city is turning from a wrong to a right state on the subject of our national sin of slave-holding. I know the people of this city better than you have known me. I know that a temporary prejudice has closed the minds of some to anti-slavery truth, and they in turn have helped to close the minds of many. But our people do not wish to remain in error, and the hour of darkness is fast passing away; and the day is near when every fair-minded person in Cincinnati shall be an abolitionist in understanding, as he is one already in heart. And though my labor here is almost done, and a few weeks closes my sojourn here forever; though in my short stay I shall not see the outward manifestation of this change of opinion, yet I am permitted to exult in the tokens of its coming, and I

trust in God that the results of this debate may herald its approach.

Suppose we had met in Sparta, some centuries ago, and the question for discussion had been-"Is stealing sinful!" Suppose my friend were in the negative of that question, and I upon the affirmative. You are aware, that in Sparta stealing was not only allowed, but, in certain cases, held honorable. You recollect the story of a youth, the son of noble parents, who having stolen a young fox, concealed it under his toga, and suffered it to gnaw into his bowels rather than, by complaining of the pain, be detected in the theft. It was honorable to steal adroitly, but a disgrace to be detected. And this child was a true Spartan. He would rather die than be brought out in his theft. Sparta was a military republic; and the object of this regulation was to accustom their young men to dexterity in foraging in war. Now, in this state of popular opinion respecting this crime, suppose there were a number of Spartans who thought that stealing was sinful, and, living in a particular district, they had an antistealing society of their own. I submit, whether every argument which my friend brings against abolitionists, and the doctrine that slave-holding is sinful, would not, in Sparta, have applied with equal force and justice against those who were enforcing the law, "Thou shalt not steal?" Many of the people might be sound in every point but this one. And then, he might say to these: "Why do you not go down there, where stealing is believed in, and preach to them?" "Why," says I, "I believe I would rather take my own way. We build our church upon non-stealing principles, and so far as it is respected our principles will be felt." Still, you can see, we should be reproached by all those whose character or connections predisposed them to condemn us. Everything, in short, said against abolitionists, could have been said against a Spartan anti-stealing society. "What! Do you mean to say that stealing in all circumstances is sinful? You will turn many of the most liberal, amiable, and, in other respects, pious men of Sparta out of

your church. How can our wars be carried on without foraging and plunder? What will you do with that lovely orphan girl who yesterday inherited a fortune which her father stole from still living heirs? Will you upturn society from its foundations, just to remove one practice which has evils connected with it?"

All this, and more, might be urged, but the answer to all such objections in favor of stealing, or slavery, is just this: that theft and oppression ought to exclude men from the church.

But look how the very principle of their objections proclaims their error, and proves our doctrine true, that slaveholding is sin. Their doctrine is, that slave-holding is not sinful in itself, and to prove it they bring up certain hard cases, as they suppose, where it would be cruel to condemn the slave-holder as sinning. But WHILE they justify stealing or slave-holding in certain extreme and unusual cases, they tacitly confess, that in all ordinary cases, they are sin! Else why not come square up to the point? Why slink and burrow in extreme or unusual cases-the nooks and corners of the slave-system? Why not meet it in the main; and say, "the thing is right, and I support it?"

No: they do not even pretend that out-and-out slave-holding can be justified. But to prove that slave-holding is not sinful, they commonly state cases where the own er (they say) has ceased to regard his slaves as property; and is waiting the first fair opportunity to set them free! That is, they scrape up their vindication of the relation out of the very circumstances which show that it is perishing! Thus they vindicate the relation from the charge of being sinful, as one would vindicate a man near you from the charge of being an ill neighbor, who should tell you that he could not be a bad neighbor, because he is in the consumption, and must soon die! "Slave-holding is not a sin under all circumstances," say they. "Very well; bring on your circumstances to justify it." They state them, and lo! every circumstance which they adduce, is tending from the re