ings. Our very virtues, even purity, may direct to error; and may not our best intentions lead down to woe? Read again from Channing;

"It is a fact worthy of serious thought and full of solemn instruction, that many of the worst errors have grown out of the religious tendency of the mind. So necessary is it to keep watch over our whole nature-to subject the highest sentiments to the calm, conscientious reason. Men, starting from the idea of God, have been so dazzled by it as to forget or misinterpret the universe."-Channing, vol. 1, p. 14. [After reading Mr. Fletcher's introductory approach to his subject, and the generous, if not strictly just, appreciation of Channing's noble and enthusiastic and pure character, the warmest friend of the latter cannot fear ungenerous treatment from Mr. Fletcher, toward the fame or the principles of the great ethical writer, whose volumes will descend to posterity among the richest in our language.

In the second volume of his writings, Dr. Channing lays down, at page fourteen, eight propositions:

1. Man cannot be justly held and used as property.

2. Man has sacred rights, the gift of God, and inseparable from human nature, of which slavery is the infraction.

3. Offer explanations to prevent misapplication of these principles.

4. Unfold the evils of slavery.

5. Consider the argument which the Scriptures are thought to furnish in favor of slavery.

6. Offer remarks on the means of removing it.

7. Offer remarks on abolition.

8. Reflections on the duties belonging to the times.

In the commencement of his "Studies on Slavery," Mr. Fletcher assails the foregoing assumptions of Dr. Channing. He contends that God alone, and not man, is possessed of indestructible rights. He impugns Channing's views of the sovereignty and infallibility of conscience; notes the eloquent Doctor's surrender of his own doctrine on the moral consciousness; gives the Scriptural proof, at large, of the right of property in man, to be held by his fellow man, and, finally, elaborates a brilliant argument, that the declared economy of the government of God requires the existence of slavery, until the close of the probationary state of mankind. Mr. Fletcher's knowledge of the Hebrew language, and the power and accuracy of his exegesis, make this part of his argument unanswerably convincing.

In extracting from the manuscript before us, we shall take a continuous portion, commencing at the thirty-fifth page, and devoted to the consideration of Dr. Channing's second proposition, to wit: Man has sacred rights, the gifts of God, and inseparable from human nature, of which slavery is the infraction."]

"In proof of this," Dr. Channing writes (p. 32, vol. ii), "Man's rights belong to him as a moral being, as capable of perceiving moral distinctions, a subject of moral obligations. As soon as he becomes conscious of a duty, a kindred consciousness springs up, that he has a right to do what the sense of duty enjoins, and that no foreign will or power can obstruct his moral action without crime."

Suppose a man has rights as described; suppose he feels conscious.

as Dr. Channing says, does that give him a right to do wrong, because his sense of duty enjoins him to do so? May he not be prevented from so doing? and is it, indeed, a crime to prevent him? Was it a crime, in the Almighty, to turn the counsel of Ahitophel into foolishness?

In the same volume of Channing, page 33, he says: "That same inward principle which teaches a man what he is bound to do to others, teaches, equally and at the same instant, what others are bound to do to him."

Suppose a few Africans, on an excursion to capture slaves, find that this "inward principle" teaches them that they are bound to make a slave of Dr. Channing, if they can; does he mean that, therefore, he is bound to make slaves of them?

From the same page in Channing, we extract the following: "The sense of duty is the fountain of human rights. In other words, the same inward principle which teaches the former, bears witness to the latter."

If the African's sense of duty gives the right to make the Doctor a slave, we do not see why he should complain, since, by the Doctor's rule, the African's sense of duty proves him to possess the right which his sense of duty covets.

"Having shown the foundation of human rights in human nature, it may be asked, what they are.

They may all be comprised in the right, which belongs to every rational being, to exercise his powers for the promotion of his own and others' happiness and virtue. His ability for this work is a sacred trust from God-the greatest of all trusts. He must answer for the waste or abuse of it. He, consequently, suffers an unspeakable wrong, when stripped of it by others, or forbidden to employ it for the ends for which it is given."-Page 34.

We regret to say, that we feel objections to the Doctor's argument and mode of reasoning, for their want of definiteness and precision. If what he says on the subject of slavery was merely intended as eloquent declamation, addressed to the sympathies and impulses of his party, we should not have been disposed to make such an objection. But his work is urged on the world as sound logic, and as of sufficient force to open the eyes of every slaveholder to the wickedness of the act, and to force all such, through the medium of their "moral sense," instantly to set free their slaves.

A moral action must not only be the voluntary offspring of the actor, but must also be performed to be judged by laws which shall determine it to be good or bad. These laws, man being the moral agent, we say, are the laws of God; by them man is to measure his

conduct. Mr. Locke says: "Moral good and evil is the conformity or disagreement of our voluntary actions to some law, whereby good or evil is drawn upon us from the will or power of the lawmaker." But the doctrine of Dr. Channing seems to be, that this law is each man's conscience, moral sense, sense of duty, or the inward principle. If the proposition of Mr. Locke be sound logic, what becomes of these harrangues of Dr. Channing?

We say that the law, rule or power, deciding good or evil, must be from a source far above ourselves; for, if otherwise, the contradictory and confused notions of men must necessarily banish all fixed ideas of good and evil from the earth. In fact, the denial of the elevated, the divine source of such law, is also a denial that God ernment without law is a contradiction.

governs-for gov

th

11

If the "conscience," as Dr. Channing thinks, or his other equiva lents, be the guide between right and wrong according to the law of God, then the law of God must be quite changeable. The minds of men differ; each makes his own deductions; therefore, in that case, the law of God must be what each one may severally think it to be; which is only a declaration, in other language, that there is no law at all: "Every way of a man is right in eyes" (Prov. xxi, 2), but "The statutes of the Lord are (Psalms xix, 8). The laws of God, touching the subject of slavery, are spread through every part of the Scriptures. Human reason may do battle against them, but the only result will be the manifestation of human weakness. The institution of slavery must, of necessity, continue in some form, so long as sin shall have a tendency to lead to death; so long as Jehovah shall rule and exercise the attributes of mercy to fallen, degraded man.

But let us, for a moment, view the facts accompanying the slavery, of the African race, and compare them with Dr. Channing's assertion, page 35, that every slave suffers "a grievous wrong," and, page 49, that every slave owner is a "robber," however unconcious he may be

So far as history gives us any knowledge of the African tribes, for the last four thousand years, their condition has been stationary; at least, they have given no evidence of advancement in morals or civilization beyond what has been the immediate effect of the exchange of their own slaves for the commodities of other parts of the world. So far as this trade had influence, it effected almost a total abolition of cannibalism among them. That the cessation of cannibalism was the result of an exchange of their slaves as property for the merchandise

of Christian nations, is proved by the fact, that they have returned to their former habits in that respect upon the discontinuance, by those nations, of the slave trade with them. Which is the greatest wrong to an African, to be continued a slave or to be butchered for food because his labor and person are of no value to his owner?

No very accurate statistics can be given of African affairs: the population has been computed at 50,000,000; and to have been about the same for many centuries; a population, of which, even including the wildest tribes, far over four-fifths have ever been slaves amongst themselves. The earliest and most recent travelers among them agree as to the facts: that they are cannibals; that they either are idolaters or have no trace of religion whatever; that, with them, marriage is but promiscuous intercourse; that little or no affection exists between husband and wife, parent and child, old or young; that, in mental and moral capacity, they are but a grade above the brute creation; the slaves and women alone do any labor, and they, often, not enough to keep them from want; that their highest views are to take slaves or massacre a neighboring tribe; that they evince no desire for improvement, or to ameliorate their condition; in short, that they are, and ever have been, from the earliest knowledge civilized nations have had of them, savages of a most debased character. The proofs of all these assertions have been previously given in another section of these studies.

Will any hesitate to acknowledge that, to them, slavery, regulated by law among civilized nations, is a state of moral, mental and physical elevation? A proof of this is found in the fact, that the descendants of such slaves are found to be, in all things, their superiors. If their descendants were found to deteriorate from the condition of their parents, we should hesitate to say that, to them, slavery was a blessing. Which would be considered by man the most like an act of mercy in Jehovah, to continue them in their state of slavery to their brother African and master, or to order them into that condition of slavery in which we find them in these States? Which state of slavery, to the savage or the civilized master, would be preferable?

The Hebrews, Medes, Persians, Chaldeans, Syrians, Greeks and Romans, have, on the borders of Africa, to some extent, amalgamated with them, from time immemorial. But such amalgamation has never been known to attain to the position, either physically, mentally or morally, of their foreign progenitors-perhaps superior to the interior tribes, yet often scarcely exhibiting a mental or moral trace of their foreign extraction. The thoughtless, those of slovenly morals, or those

of none at all, from among the descendants of Japheth, have commingled with them in the New World; but the amalgamation never exhibits a corresponding elevation in the direction of the white progenitor. The connection may degrade the parents, but never elevates the offspring. The great mass look upon the connection with abhorrence and loathing, and pity or contempt always attends the footsteps of the aggressor. These feelings are not confined to any particular country or age of the world. Are not these things proof that the descendants of Ham are a deteriorated race? Will the declaration of a few distempered minds as to their religion, feelings and taste, weigh in contradiction? What was the judgment of Isaac and Rebecca on this subject? (See Genesis xxvi, 35; xxvii, 46; also, xxviii, 1.) Since the days of Noah, where are their monuments of art, religion, science and civilization? Is it not a fact that the highest moral and intellectual attainment which the descendants of Ham ever displayed, is now, at this time, manifested among those in servile pupilage? The very fact of their being property gives them protection. What, he their "robber" who watches over their welfare with more effect and intensity than all their ancestry together since the days of Noah? By the contrivance of making them "property," has God alone given them the protection, which four thousand years of sinking degradation demands, in an upward movement toward their physical, mental and moral improvement their rational happiness on earth and their hopes of heaven. What, God's agent in this matter a "robber" of them?

Let us assure the disciples of Dr. Channing, that there are thousands of slaves, too accurate observers of truth to come to such a conclusion; who, although, from human frailty, may sometimes seem to suffer an occasional or grievous wrong, can yet give good reason, in proof, that slavery is their only safety.

Let us cast the mind back to a period of five hundred years ago. A Christian ship, intent on new discoveries, lands on the African coast. The petty chieftain there is about to sacrifice a number of his slaves, either to appease the manes of his ancestors, to propitiate his gods, or to gratify his appetite by feasting on their flesh. Presents have been made to the natives; it is thought their friendship has been secured; the Christians are invited to the fete; the participants are collected; the victims brought forward, and the club uplifted for the blow. The Christians, struck with surprise, or excited by horror, remonstrate with the chief; to which he sullenly replies: "yonder my goats, my village; all around my domain; these are my slaves!" meaning that, by the morals and laws that have, from time immemorial, prevailed there, his rights are absolute; that he feels it as harmless to kill a slave as a