It is only recently, and since they
have found that their system must be tested by the Bible, thoroughly and
in earnest--not merely for the purpose, as formerly, of determining
without any practical consequences of the determination, what is the
moral character of slavery--but, for the purpose of settling the point,
whether the institution shall stand or fall,--it is only, I say, since
the civilized world has been fast coming to claim that it shall be
decided by the Bible, and by no lower standard, whether slavery shall or
shall not exist--that your slaveholders have found it expedient to take
the ground, that slavery is not sin.
It probably has not occurred to you, how fairly and fully you might have
been stopped, upon the very threshold of your defence of slavery. The
only witness you have called to the stand to sustain your sinking cause,
is the Bible. But this is a witness, which slavery has itself impeached,
and of which, therefore, it is not entitled to avail itself. It is a
good rule in our civil courts, that a party is not permitted to impeach
his own witness; and it is but an inconsiderable variation of the letter
of this rule, and obviously no violation of its spirit and policy to
say, that no party is permitted to attempt to benefit his cause by a
witness whom he has himself impeached.
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