" They were, it is true, a part of Ham's
posterity; but to call them "_the_ posterity of Ham," is to speak as
though he had no other child than Canaan. The fifteenth to nineteenth
verses of the tenth chapter of Genesis teach us, beyond all question,
that Canaan's descendants inhabited the land of Canaan and adjacent
territory, and that this land is identical with the country afterwards
occupied by the Jews, and known, in modern times, by the name of
Palestine, or the Holy Land. Therefore, however true it may be, that a
portion of Ham's posterity settled in Africa, we not only have no
evidence that it was the portion cursed, but we have conclusive evidence
that it was not.
But, was it a state of slavery to which Canaanites were doomed? I will
suppose, for a moment, that it was: and, then, how does it appear right
to enslave them? The curse in question is prophecy. Now prophecy does
not say what ought to come to pass: nor does it say, that they who have
an agency in the production of the foretold event, will be innocent in
that agency. If the prediction of an event justifies those who are
instrumental in producing it, then was Judas innocent in betraying our
Saviour.
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