A direct attack on Roman slavery, as it would have called in question
the rightfulness of war--the leading policy of the Roman
government--would, of course, have been peculiarly perilous to its
presumptuous author. No person could have made this attack, and lived;
or, if possibly he might have escaped the vengeance of the government,
do we not know too much of the deadly wrath of slaveholders, to believe
that he could have also escaped the summary process of Lynch law? If it
be at the peril of his life that a Northern man travels in the Southern
States,--and that, too, whether he do or do not say a word about
slavery, or even whether he be or be not an abolitionist;--if your
leading men publicly declare, that it is your religious duty to put to
an immediate death, whenever they come within your power, those who
presume to say that slavery is sin (and such a declaration did a South
Carolina gentleman make on the floor of congress, respecting the
inconsiderable person who is addressing you);--and, if your professing
Christians, not excepting ministers of the gospel, thirst for the blood
of abolitionists[A], as I will abundantly show, if you require
proof;--if, in a gospel land, all this be so, then I put it to your
candor, whether it can reasonably be supposed that the Apostles would
have been allowed to attack slavery in the midst of heathen
slaveholders.
Pages:
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270