phraseology more unequivocal could be employed. Let us carefully examine it.

There were among the Hebrews, several classes of servants distinct from each other.

1. There was the hired servant, who was called sakir. He was a free man, and his wages were to be paid promptly. The wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning." Levit. xix: 13.

and in the seventh he shall

2. The Jew who had become poor and sold himself for six years, and who was to be treated, not as a slave, but as a hired servant. Levit. xxv: 40. This class is spoken of also in Exod. xxi: 2, as follows: "If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If her master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters: the wife and her children shall be his master's, and he shall go out by himself." Here, by the way, we find the legal principle so abused by the gentleman, "partus sequiter ventrem.”—the state of the offspring is governed by the state of the mother. A servant of this class, though originally bought only for six years, might voluntarily become a bondservant during The law is as follows:

life.

"And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free. Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door-post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him forever." Exod. xxi: 5, 6.

The same law is repeated, more fully, in Deut. xv: 12. "And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years: then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee. And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty: thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy wine-press: of

that wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him. And thou shalt remember that thou was a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee: therefore I command thee this thing to-day. And it shall be, if he say unto thee, I will not go away from thee; because he loveth thee and thine house, because he is well with thee: then thou shalt take an awl, and thrust it through his ear unto the door, and he shall be thy servant forever. And also unto thy maidservant thou shalt do likewise."

3. The Gibeonites, who by treachery had obtained an oath from the children of Israel to spare their lives, were, for their deceit, made "hewers of wood and drawers of water to the congregation, and for the altar of the Lord, even unto this day, in the place which he should choose." I do not say, they were slaves in the same sense with others; but they were condemned to involuntary servitude. The principle of bond-service was there.

4. There was still a fourth class of servants, who were bought of the heathen. These were all slaves during life. "Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you: of them shall buy bondmen and bondmaids, &c."

It is evident, that these were slaves, from several considerations::

1. They were bought with money, which certainly was not the case with hired servants. My brother will here tell you, that the Hebrews were accustomed, sometimes, to buy their wives. I do not deny that they sometimes did so, but when a man bought a woman as a wife, she was his wife; and when a man bought persons, male or female, for servants, or bondmen, they were his bondmen or slaves. bondmen here spoken of, were bought for servants.

The

2. The bondmen and bondmaids here spoken of, are not only distinguished from, but put in contrast with hired servants; "And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to

serve as a bond servant, but as an hired servant, and as a sojourner shall he be with thee." The words used to designate these two classes of servants, are different. The hired servant is called sakir; and the bond servant, or slave, is called eved.

3. The contrast in which the hired servant is here placed with reference to the bondservant, as well as the words by which the two are respectively designated, proves beyond question, that the latter was a slave. For if both were hired servants, how could Moses command that the Jewish servant should be treated, not as a bond servant, but as a hired servant? Will the gentleman please to explain?

The same contrast is found in Exod. xii. 44, 45, where Moses gives directions concerning those who might or might not partake of the Passover. But every man servant that is bought for money, when thou hast circumcised him, then shall he eat thereof. A foreigner and an hired servant shall not eat thereof." The servant bought with money, belonged to the family, and might, therefore, partake of the Passover; but the hired servant, temporarily in the family, could not.

4. The servants thus bought, are declared to be the posSESSION of their masters, and the INHERITANCE of their children. The words here translated possession and inheritance, are constantly used with reference to landed estate, or any other property. No stronger expression can be found in the Hebrew language, to express the claim of the master to the services of those bought with his money.

5. It is further evident that these servants were slaves, because they might be compelled to obey their masters, not by law, as a debtor might be compelled to pay his debts, but by chastisement; and that might be very severe without exposing the master to the penalty of the civil law. The law on this subject is in Exod. xxi: 20. "And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand he shall be surely punished: notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two he shall not be punished; for he is his money."

Can any one believe that this language was meant to apply to a free man, hired for his labor? Do you call your hired servants your money? Or do you claim authority to punish them with a rod?

6. That these servants were not free men, is equally manifest from Exodus xxi: 26. "If a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that it perish; he shall let him go free, for his eye's sake; and if he smite out his man servant's tooth, he shall let him go free for his tooth's sake."

How could liberty be granted to them in consequence of the loss of a tooth or of an eye, if they were free before? [Time expired.

Friday, 4 o'clock, P. M., Oct. 3, 1845.

[MR. BLANCHARD'S TENTH SPEECH. ]

Gentlemen Moderators, and Gentlemen and Ladies, FellowCitizens:

While the house is getting quiet I will glance hastily at some points which my friend has raised. I request your careful attention while I do so.

My brother would have you think that the action of the Scotch General Assembly is the same in principle with the action of the Old School Assembly, which lately met in this city-whose report, written by Dr. Rice himself, contains not one word condemnatory of slavery or of those who practice it. I will read one part of the Scotch Assembly's Report which brother Rice omitted.

"All must agree that whatever rights the civil law may give a master over his slaves as chattels personal,' it cannot but be a sin of the deepest dye in him to regard or treat them as such: and whosoever commits that sin in any sense, or deals otherwise with his fellow men, whatever power the law may give him over them, ought to be held disqualified for Christian communion."

That is far enough from his Assembly's action.

He has presented for the third or fourth time, the proposition that men are not fundamentally wrong on one point, and fundamentally sound on all others. He evidently attaches some importance to this point, from which affirmation (for it is but assertion) he wishes to infer that slave-holders, being admitted to be sound on other points, cannot be sinning in holding slaves.

In answer, I observe that Rev. John Newton, while right in every other point of faith and practice, was engaged in the slave-trade on the coast of Africa. We all agree that the slave-trade is piracy. He therefore was unsound on one point while sound on all others.

Moreover, sinners commonly become blind to the truth point by point. They fall before some one temptation, and seek to find a creed which will fit that one indulgence; so that his argument does not hold, being defective in his main proposition. It is not true that men are never found sound on all points but one and defective in that.

He seemed to say something in reply to what I advanced showing that the doctrine, that slave-holding is sin, was the potent principle which abolished Roman slavery. His remark was, I think, that there was no comparison between Roman slavery and ours because Roman slaves were not colored persons. In this he is mistaken, as to fact, Africa was one chief source of slaves sold in the Roman market. And great numbers of African females especially, were kidnapped and sold in the Balerian Isles, at the highest price commanded by Roman slaves.

I was glad to hear my brother avow himself a gradualist, opposed to slavery, and approving of its abolition in New Jersey and other northern States, where it is either abolished or fast perishing by the operation of anti-slavery laws. I could not help reflecting, however, that an expression of his deep hostility to slavery would have been highly appropriate in his report to his last General Assembly. But no, not one sentence or word or syllable does that report contain ala

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