views, have done and are doing incalculably more to improve their condition, than the abolitionists; that wherever slavery has been abolished, it has been effected, not by the principles of modern abolitionism, but by the principles we advocate. We take the Bible of God as our guide; and to its plain teachings we confidently appeal. The question is not, as already remarked, whether the oppressed shall find in Christianity an asylum; but shall we condemn those whom God has not condemned? Shall we denounce and excommunicate persons of such character as were admitted to fellowship by the inspired Apostles of Christ? Shall we preach the gospel to slaves, and thus secure to them happiness here and glory hereafter; or shall we run a few of them to Canada, where their condition, instead of being improved, is made worse, and where they will rarely, if ever, hear the sound of the gospel? If I believed the doctrine so zealously propagated by the gentleman and his abolitionist brethren, tended to abolish slavery, and improve the condition of the slave, I should be slow to oppose it. But most fully am I convinced, that its tendency is precisely the reverse; and, therefore, as the friend of the slaves I oppose it. [Time expired.

Wednesday, P. M., 4 1-2 o'clock.

[MR. BLANCHARD'S SECOND SPEECH.] Gentlemen Moderators and respected Fellow-Citizens: There are some things which have fallen from my brother which require a brief passing notice before I resume the thread of my remarks. He has quoted two authorities. With regard to the first, Mr. Foster, it is proper that I should say he is doubtless a sincere and well-meaning man, and he is as ardently opposed to the anti-slavery men with whom I act, as he is to slavery itself. His feelings have been exasperated, and some have said, his reason shaken. He has often been imprisoned in the jails of the Eastern

States. Whether his reason is affected or not, persecution sometimes "maketh a wise man mad," and friend Foster has had a good deal of it. I will also quote authority; (and I promise not to go to the jails or mad houses for it.) As to Rev. James Duncan, whom he has quoted, he was the father of Dr. DUNCAN our late representative in Congress and he wrote his book in Kentucky, and published it at Vevay, Indiana, in 1824, eight years previous to the first modern anti-slavery society; after preaching as a pastor at Warsaw, in Kentucky. I cordially recommend to all to read it as the production of an able and profound mind. Dr. Duncan, in conversation respecting his deceased father, declared to me that he held all the sentiments of the book on the subject of slavery.

My brother is not pleased with my making slow progress in this debate. I confess I can scarcely hope to please him. I fear that he will find my course of argument more and more in his way the farther we proceed. As he has told you some half dozen times, I have not yet got through the preliminaries. Some one reproached the Grecian painter, Apelles, it is said, because he worked so slowly. He replied in Greek; "True, I paint in a long time, but I paint FOR a long time.” He intended his work should stand.

One or two other things fell from my friend which I cannot stop to notice. I must here say, I wish we could each correct the other, as we go along. He has doubtless unintentionally misstated two of my propositions which were somewhat important. Now, if I happen to misstate him, I wish to be put right at the instant, for nothing is gained in discussion either by exaggerated or by false statements.

My friend condemns, he says, the holding of slaves for gain; and the buying and selling of them. He thinks he condemns these things as much as we do. If he acts up to these words I can show you that he is an abolitionist, in respect to southern slavery.

I read from a pamphlet, not of my afflicted friend Foster, but from the Rev. James Smylie, some time clerk of Amity Presbytery, Mississippi.

"If slavery be a sin, and if advertising and apprehending slaves with a view to restore them to their masters is a direct violation of the Divine law, and if the buying, selling and HOLDING SLAVES FOR THE SAKE OF GAIN is a heinous sin and scandal; then verily, three-fourths of all the Methodists, Episcopalians, Baptists, and Presbyterians in eleven States of the Union, are of the Devil. They hold, if they do not buy and sell slaves; and, with few exceptions, they hesitate not to apprehend and restore runaway slaves when in their power."-Smylie's pamphlet, 1837.

Here is the declaration of no mean authority-of the clerk of a southern presbytery-that three-fourths of all the Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and Methodists in eleven of the United States, do hold slaves for gain. Now if men have a right to "hold slaves for gain," they may surely buy and sell them for like reason. Yet Dr. Rice assures us that he condemns these things as strongly as do abolitionists. I turn him over to his southern brethren. He has said in round terms, in this atmosphere of abolitionism, (or what is fast becoming so,) that he condemned a practice in which three-fourths of all his southern brethren (who regard him as their champion, and who know that, in heart, he is so) are engaged.

His skin argument, which is, that if slavery were abolished we might have colored governors and judges, &c., I do not know whether I should answer formally. He told us he was in favor of giving colored people political privileges as fast as they should be fitted to exercise them by elevation of mind and character: his only objection stated, was that they wanted the requisite information, and qualifications for self-government. So, it seems, he has not so great a horror of colored voters and rulers after all, since it is certain that colored people must eventually get sufficient knowledge to take part in politics.

In reply, I simply state the doctrine of abolitionists on this subject of the political rights of colored people.

There are three sorts of human rights. Political, Social

and Natural. Voting is a political right. Abolitionists hold that the right of suffrage is a commodity which the community have a right to dispose of with an eye to its preservation. That it is therefore properly left to be governed by wise and just political maxims, irrespective of color. The community has a right to protect itself. Foreigners, after coming to the United States, are not allowed to vote for one year, and, in some States, for seven years after they arrive. Yet, they are free from the instant they land on our shores. Now, abolitionists do not say that the State governments are sinful in not allowing unnaturalized foreigners to vote. The whole subject of political rights lies out side of this discussion. So also does that of the domestic or social rights. For example, a colored or white man might wish to marry your daughter. But if you or she determines that the match shall not take place, you do not rob him, or sin against his rights. Voting and marrying, then, are not of this discussion. Abolitionists take their stand upon the New Testament doctrine of the natural equality of man. bloodism of human kind:-and upon those great principles of human rights, drawn from the New Testament, and announced in the American Declaration of Independence, declaring that all men have natural and inalienable right to to person, property and the pursuit of happiness. only carry out the admitted truth that all are equal. My brother made a difficulty to see what the Roman and Greek slave systems had to do with the question before us. I answer that I adduce the Greek and Roman slavery, in order to show that they were identical with American slavery; and also to show that those who justify Roman slavery (which was the slavery of the Apostles' times) from the Bible, justify also our own slavery, auction-mart, plantation-discipline, and all, from the sacred word of God! For slavery is, here and every where, one.

The one

They

You will remember my brother told you he did not understand what is meant by "a system of slavery." I adduced the Greek and Roman systems to show him what "a

system of slavery" is, and surely he should count it a charity in me. To show, also, that Burgundian and Gothic, Grecian and Roman slavery are all one and the same thing, viz: the holding of men as property. That the condition of the slave, in law, as I will show more fully hereafter, is his condition in fact. And that a man, who pretends to oppose the cruel laws of slavery, and yet justifies slave-holding, appears to be plainly talking without intelligence or

reason.

To show that the slave's legal is his actual condition, I will refer in passing, to a case decided by Judge Crenshaw, 1 Stewarts' Rep. 320:

"A slave is in absolute bondage; he has no civil right, and can hold no property, except at the will and pleasure of his master. A slave is a rational being, endowed with understanding like the rest of mankind, and whatever he lawfully acquires and gains possession of, by finding or otherwise, is the acquirement and possession of the master. And in 5 Cowen's Rep. 397, the Court held that a slave at common law could not contract matrimony, nor could the child of a slave take by descent or purchase."-Wheeler's Law of Slavery, p. 7.

This is a reported case. It is not statute law, which may or may not be executed. It is a common law decision. It is the practice of the law, and shows how the law handles slaves whenever it touches them or their interests.

My friend justifies slave-holding, yet tells us he is opposed to the separation of man and wife! How absurd and irrational such a position is, the case cited shows.

I have already shown you that American slavery is identical with that of all other ages and nations. Our whole system is condensed into one single paragraph:

"Slaves shall be deemed, sold, taken, reputed, and adjudg ed in law, to be chattels personal, in the hands of their owners and possessors, and their executors, administrators, and assigns, to all intents, constructions, and purposes whatsoever."-2 Brev. Dig. 229.