laughter.] If the Hebrew servant is bought one year before the jubilee, then "forever" means one year! If it was only three months, then three months was forever! Verily, if abolitionism continues much longer, I should not wonder if "forever" should come to mean nothing at all. [Laughter.]

But he tells us, that Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth, had servants of his own. The probability is, that before having servants of his own, he had obtained his freedom. On this subject, however, we have no information; and, therefore, the fact stated is a poor offset to the plain declarations of the Bible I have produced.

Servants among the Jews, the gentleman tells us, owned property, and therefore were not slaves. And what evidence does he produce, that they held property? Why, the servant who accompanied Saul in searching for his father's asses, had "the fourth part of a shekel of silver," of which Saul had no knowledge!

This servant could not be a slave, because he had in his pocket the quarter of a silver shekel (worth about five cents). Indeed! Why, there is scarcely a slave in Kentucky, but has as much as that, and more. Some of them can show you laid up in a chest in their quarters, a hundred dollars, besides a horse and saddle of their own, purchased out of their little savings. They sometimes buy themselves and their wives too. Yet because this servant of Saul had a little bit of silver, unknown to his master, he was "protected in the sacred right of property," which is the mark of a free man, and he could therefore be no slave! Why the gentleman is proving, very fast, that there is no slavery in the United States, nor in the whole world.

Aye, but they enjoyed liberty! liberty! Yes; and so do the slaves in our country, about to the same extent. What liberty did they enjoy? What does the brother mean by the term? If he means, that the servant could go where he pleased, serve whom he pleased, and obey or not, as he pleased then, I say, he had not his liberty. If a man can

1

buy me if I am his possession-if he can bequeath me to his children-if he can beat me with a rod, only so that I do not die under his hand-will the gentleman say I am free?

He says that the Jewish servant labored under no disabilities he was a man. The truth, however, is, that the servants among the Jews were bought from the heathen—that they were held as a possession-that they could be bequeathed, and be inherited—that they could be personally chastised—and that they are designated by a word which uniformly means slave. Whether, in view of these facts, they were apprentices, hired servants, or slaves, I leave you to judge.

The gentleman has been threatening us all along with his two speeches of an hour-and-a-half, on the Bible argument; and when they come, he tells me, all my Hebrew and Greek will be called into requisition. Well: I have not had much use for the Hebrew and Greek as yet; but I shall wait calmly and patiently for those powerful speeches.

He has repeatedly insisted, that the word eved does not mean slave; because the translators of our English Bible did not so render it. He says, they did use the word slave twice. But does he not know, that the word servant, derived from the Latin-servus-a slave, originally, and at the time our translation was made, signified a slave? True, the translators use the word slave twice; but what does this prove? Does not the word they have translated slave, occur more than twice? And did they not, in translating this word, as in many others, render it by different words having the same meaning? But the abolitionists admit, that doulos is translated servant, when it means a slave; as in 1 Tim. vi, 1, 2. "Let as many servants (doulous) as are under the yoke," &c. "Art thou called being a servant (doulos), care not for it." Now let me turn the gentleman's question against himself, by asking,―if, as abolitionists admit, the word doulos, in these passages, means slave, why was it not so translated? It does mean slave in these passages, abolitionists themselves

being judges; the translators render it "servant," which, according to the gentleman, they never could have done, if it meant slave! Again, I am irresistably reminded of the sign"all sorts of twisting and turning done here." And is this the best that can be done to show that there was no such thing as slavery among the Jews?

In reply to Mr. B.'s denial, that the Hebrew word eved means slave, I asked him a plain question; he has not answered it; and I fear he won't. When the Hebrews meant to speak of a slave, what word did they use? I must insist upon an answer. I hope he will not refuse; yet, I do confess, I greatly fear he will forget it. I am really in earnest, and shall be truly gratified to hear his answer.

And now, let me urge my last argument from the scripture, to show, that the "servants" spoken of in the New Testament were slaves; and it is drawn from the directions which the apostles of Christ addressed to those persons. I say, they are directions suitable only to slaves: "Obey your own masters with fear and trembling." "Be subject to your masters with all fear;" and that not only “to the good and gentle, but to the froward." And it is added—" for this is thankworthy, if a man, for conscience toward God, endure grief, suffering wrongfully." Would the brother address exhortations like these to the hired servants in Ohio? Does he, as a minister, read to them these directions, as defining their duty? Would not any hired servant in the State, or in this country, deem it an insult to have such exhortations addressed to him? They are as free as their masters; they render quid pro quo for all they receive. Are they to obey "with all fear?"-to serve "with fear and trembling?" Are they bound to submit themselves to the froward, "enduring grief, suffering wrongfully?" If the gentleman's assertions be true, (for he says, these passages must apply fully and fairly to hired servants,) the apostles so exhorted such. Let this be known throughout free Ohio, as the abolitionist doctrine. I suspect, it will not be very

palatable, at least to hired laborers. I say, these exhortations were addressed to slaves, and that they are applicable to slaves alone. [Time expired.

Monday Evening, 7 o'clock

[MR. BLANCHARD'S FIFTEENTH SPEECH.] Gentlemen Moderators, and Gentlemen and Ladies, Fellow Citizens:

I will answer the question which my brother has urged so frequently, since he evidently deems it important, viz: "If the Hebrews wished to say 'slave,' what word would they employ?" I do not think of any single word at present, but I suppose that they employed a circumlocution analagous to the Greek phrase used to designate a slave in the New Testament, as in 1 Timothy vi, 1, doulos hupo zugon, “servants under the yoke," or under bondage to heathen masters who held them as slaves, and not servants to the children of God. No single word in the New Testament necessarily means "slave." It takes a "doulos under the yoke" to mean one.

When I sat down, I was in the midst of an argument to prove that the Hebrew bond-servants were not slaves because they had secured to them by law the three great fundamental rights of man; life, liberty, and property. I showed that they might be redeemed from their bond service by any of their relatives, or might redeem themselves if able, before the jubilee, and that they must therefore, (if allowed the latter privilege,) have held property while in their condition of bondservants. In answer to this, my friend states that the negroes in Kentucky often have money and other property of their own, and sometimes purchase themselves and their families. This argument seems cruel and unfeeling in him, when my brother knows that if they have acquired five hundred or a thousand dollars by their owner's permission, or indeed, any sum whatever, their masters can, and often do take the whole from them and sell them South. It often happens that when

a slave has agreed to pay six hundred dollars for his liberty, the master receives from him three, four or five hundred dollars of the amount, and afterwards sells him. And in doing this, the Kentucky master violates no law, but simply uses his slave-holding rights. If the poor slave has but a shilling it belongs to the master. Old Billy Cravens, a Methodist minister, who belonged, by family connexion, to the aristoc. racy of Virginia, and who preached many years against slavery to both slave-holders and slaves, had closed his sermon on one occasion; and, when the collection was being taken up, he saw the stewards going up into the gallery to circulate the plates among the slaves; "Stop!" cried Billy from the pulpit, with his stentorian lungs, "Stop!" "Dont go there! They hav'nt got any thing: They don't own their hats, their coats, or their bodies. No," (said he, raising his voice to the top,) "there is not a louse in their garments that don't belong to their masters." This is literally The master owns the body and the garment and all that is in it or upon it. Though sometimes, kind masters will permit them to have money, yet that is granted as a privilege and not as a right.

true.

But the Hebrew servant had a right to his property the same as his master, and if his master took it away from him he could recover it back by suit at law. That is, he was a man, with the rights and immunities of a man. While the slave has neither. You can all see the difference between a man's holding his money or his wife as long as I permit him, and holding them by a sacred right of which none can deprive him. One state is slavery, the other liberty. The slave is in the first condition. The Hebrew servant was, as

I have shown in the last, moreover, the Hebrew servant not only was a legal property holder, having access to the courts of justice to secure him in his rights, and to punish aggressors, who should trespass upon his rights; but, after his master's death, in certain cases a share of his goods fell to his servants. Abraham said, "I go childless, and one born in my house" (to wit: Eliezer) "is mine heir." So,