system. Had they been moralists, or ministers of Christ, their practice might affect the value of their testimony.

I have now done with authorities. If the gentleman reads any more, I advise you to consider, well, who is the author of the book from which he reads, and to what class of writers he belongs, that you may know what consideration his opinion deserves.

I now come to the last argument, which, if I had placed them in the order of their importance, would have been first. With God's help, I mean not to leave one stone upon another of his argument from scripture which shall not be thrown down. I have once read the texts upon which he founds his doctrine, and it is not necessary to re-read them. I attempted to show, first, that, even though the Hebrew bond-servants had been slaves, that would not answer the purpose of justifying Kentucky slavery, any more than would the fact that the Israelites were permitted to borrow jewels from the Egyptians without returning them, justify modern swindling or stealing. I will now state my reasons for my belief, that the Hebrew bond-servants were not slaves.

It is plain that they were not slaves from the fact that they were not hereditary or perpetual bondsmen. Slaves are men held in hereditary and perpetual bondage: they are “property to all intents and purposes forever. That is slavery. Slaves are property, as cattle are property, and the progeny of cattle are perpetually the property of him who owns the dam. "Partus sequitur ventrem." I will refer you to a pamphlet by Dr. J. L. Wilson, the venerable pastor of the First Presbyterian church in this city, and a man who, when right, is very hard to get wrong, and when wrongI will not say whether he is hard to get right or not. [A laugh.]

Dr. Wilson, in his pamphlet on the "Relation of Master and Servant," declares in his own decided manner, that "he must be a blind guide," who supposes that the Hebrew servants, obtained from foreign tribes, were held in perpetual bondage—and that the jubilee of the 50th year did not ap

ply to them. And the same doctrine, that the jubilee freed all the Hebrew servants, the ear-bored bondmen and all, has been laid down by one of the Bench of Bishops, speaking in the English House of Lords, and nowhere, so far as I know, successfully contradicted. And because they were not perpetual and hereditary bondmen, they were certainly

not slaves.

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Again: It is plain that they were not slaves, because the law of returning property did not apply to them. "If thou see thine enemy's ox or his ass go astray, thou shalt surely fetch him back to him," but, if a slave were to run into their nation from the tribes outside of Judea, they were to permit him to dwell with them. This law shows that slaves were not considered the propety of their masters. And Dr. Rice says, by his practice, amen to this law. For, says he, "I have SEEN SLAVES RUNNING AWAY from their masters, and I would not interfere to send them BACK. But why, if the slave is the just property of the master, he must send him back when he sees him running off, or else he is neither an honest Christian, or Christian minister. But whatever be true of Dr. Rice, this law, given of God to the Jews, shows that these servants were not slaves in God's account. See Deut. xxiii, 15. “Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant that is escaped," etc.

Another important fact, showing that the Hebrew bondmen were not slaves, is the one already once referred to; that the forty-seven learned and pious translators of the Bible, in 1607, (the year that Jamestown, Va., was settled,) at a time when our forefathers were driven by religious persecution, to seek an asylum for liberty in the wilderness of America, a time of great religious agitation throughout Christendom, and when the Bible was eagerly and very generally studied, never once called the Hebrew bond-servants, slaves.

Forty-seven of the ablest men, and the best Hebrew and Greek scholars that could be found in that age, were set to translate the Bible into English. They met together, divi

ded the original Hebrew and Greek text into parts, each taking his portion; and when they met again, each read his part, while the rest criticised his translation. There never was such a translation made of a book. It may be said of it, that, like God's works, "it is good," for I believe that He aided by his spirit the men who made it. It will stand as long as the pillars of the earth stand. Now, what I wish to fasten on your memories is, the fact that they never once translate the Hebrew word "ebedh," A SLAVE!-never once in the whole book. Yet, Dr. Rice says, "it is the very word there is another word ("saukir,") which

for slave,” and that is the word for hired servant. Nor did they translate the Greek word (doulos) "slave," in the whole of the New Tes

tament.

Dr. Rice against our Bible translation !

[Time expired:

[MR. RICE'S THIRTEENTH SPEECH.] Gentlemen Moderators, and Fellow-Citizens:

I am truly gratified to perceive that my friend, by having had time allowed him to recruit his bodily powers, has likewise, gained time to recruit his ideas, and has come here with a written reply to my arguments, (either prepared by himself or supplied by some other hand,) carefully drawn out. I will attend to its leading points before I enter on the Bible argument from the New Testament.

He first replies to my argument showing that the relation between master and slave is not in itself sinful, because it is often formed at the earnest request of the slave, and so as really to improve his condition. His answer is—if a man buy a slave for the purpose of liberating him, he does not sin; but if this be not the object, he does sin. He, then, admits, that the legal relation may be formed, and may exist for the time being, and yet not be sinful. But his assertion that if it be not the object of the purchaser to liberate the man, he sins, labors under this very important difficulty, viz: it is

ཎྞཱ

without proof, unless his mere assertion be regarded as proof, as it might be, if the Rev. Mr. Blanchard were Pope!

But he says, the purchaser holds the slave in a condition in which he is liable to be sold into merciless hands. And I ask, whether a man's own children, should he die, may not suffer a like misfortune by being put under the care of wicked men? If I buy a slave at his own request, thereby improving his condition, I am not responsible for any misfortune which may afterwards befall him, and which I could not prevent. When I have purchased such a slave, I have certainly, at least for the present, improved his condition, so far as other paramount duties will permit; and it will require something more than the gentleman's assertion to prove, that in so doing I am guilty of sin. If, in such a case, I have committed sin, it is in taking a fellow-man out of bad hands, or in preventing him from falling into such. This, if I have sinned, is my crime !

In regard to the duty of the Presbyterian elder and the Boston man to whom fell a large number of slaves of different ages and conditions, he says, they ought by all means to have manumitted them. What, then, I ask, as I have before asked, would become of the aged who could not support themselves by labor, and of the women and children in a similar condition?

But if they could not free them legally, they were bound, he says, to have called them in, and told them, they were free, and paid them wages. He did not tell us, however, what amount of wages would be due to that company of them who, as the elder said, were eating him up. Besides, all this is mere assertion, wholly unreasonable. Suppose a master in one of the slave States should call in his servants, and tell them they are free; would this make them free? It would not; for the laws of the State say, they shall not be liberated in the State, or at any rate, not until bond and security are given for their future support. They would be liable, therefore, immediately to be taken up, and sold, and might be sold into cruel hands. As to wages, that matter must depend up

on circumstances. It is clear, that in the cases referred to, and in all similar cases, masters are doing their duty, when they live with their slaves, and do what they can for their present and future happiness.

In reply to his assertion, that slave-holding is but kidnapping"stretched out," I remarked, that such a principle, if admitted, would require all those farmers who own lands taken from the Indians by fraud or force, to restore them to their original owners. But he says, the original owners cannot be found. This, however, is not precisely true; for a number of the Indian tribes from whom land has been taken unjustly, can be found-especially the Cherokees in the South, concerning whose wrongs so much excitement prevailed a ew years ago.

Will the gentleman, then, set out on a crusade in behalf of Indian rights, with the same zeal he manifests in the cause of abolition, and urge the owners of their lands to turn themselves out of house and home, because they have got only a "kidnapper's and robber's title" to their land? Will he carry out his own principle? It would be a curious spectacle: I do not think he would be quite as popular with the abolitionist farmers, as he is at present.

There is a distinction between the sins of a nation, and the sins of individuals in that nation. Individuals cannot help the sins which the nation, of which they form a component part, has committed; and how great soever they may be, every individual citizen is not to be held responsible for them.

He says, that if Hagar was Abraham's property, and, when running away from her mistress, was advised by an angel to return, I am bound to follow the angel's example, and turn back all runaways. I reply, that, when they are running from masters like Abraham, I would give them the same advice the angel gave to Hagar. I would tell them, what I sincerely believe, that their condition was not likely to be bettered by their flight to Canada. But even if it were, all who so run off make the condition of their brethren, remaining in slavery, so much the harder; and, there