ROBERT J. BRECKENRIDGE.

What, then, is slavery? for the question relates to the action of certain principles on it, and to its probable and proper results; what is slavery as it exists among us? We reply, it is that condition enforced by the laws of one-half the states of this confederacy, in which one portion of the community, called masters, is allowed such power over another portion called slaves; as,

1. To deprive them of the entire earnings of their own labor, except only so much as is necessary to continue labor itself, by continuing healthful existence, thus committing clear robbery;

2. To reduce them to the necessity of universal concubinage, by denying to them the civil rights of marriage; thus breaking up the dearest relations of life, and encouraging universal prostitution;

3. To deprive them of the means and opportunities of moral and intellectual culture, in many states making it a high penal offence to teach them to read; thus perpetuating whatever of evil there is that proceeds from ignorance;

4. To set up between parents and their children an authority higher than the impulse of nature and the laws of God; which breaks up the authority of the father over his own offspring, and at pleasure separates the mother at a returnless distance from her child; thus abrogating the clearest laws of nature: thus outraging all decency and justice, and degrading and oppressing thousands upon thousands of beings created like themselves in the image of the Most High God!

This is slavery as it is daily exhibited in every slave state. This is that "dreadful but unavoidable necessity," for which you may hear so many mouths uttering excuses, in all parts of the land. And is it really so? If indeed it be; if that "necessity" which tolerates this condition be really "unavoidable," in any such sense, that we are constrained for one moment, to put off the course of conduct which shall most certainly and most effectually subvert a system which is utterly indefensible on every correct human principle, and utterly abhorrent from every law of God, then, indeed, let ICHABOD be graven in letters of terrific light upon our country! For God can no more sanction such perpetual wrong, than he can cease to be faithful to his own throne.

He who is higher than the highest, will, in His own good time and way, break the rod of the oppressor and let all the oppressed go free. He has indeed commanded servants to be obedient to their masters ; and it is their bounden duty to be so. We ask not now, what the servants were, nor who the masters were. It is enough that all masters are commanded to "give unto their servants that which is just and equal;" and to what feature of slavery may that description apply? Just and equal! what care I, whether my pockets are picked, or the proceeds of my labor are taken from me? What matters it whether my horse is stolen, or the value of him in my labor be taken from me? Do we talk of violating the rights of masters, and depriving them of their property in their slaves? And will some one tell us, if there be any thing in which a man has, or can have, so perfect a right of property, as in his own limbs, bones, and sinews? Out upon such folly! The man who cannot see that involuntary domestic slavery, as it exists among us, is founded upon the principle of taking by force that which is another's, has simply no moral sense.

We utter but the common sentiment of mankind when we say, none ever continue slaves a moment after they are conscious of their ability to retrieve their freedom. The constant tendency for fifty years has been to accumulate the black population upon the southern states; already in some of them the blacks exceed the whites, and in most of them increased above the increase of the whites in the same states, with a ratio that is absolutely startling; (the annual increase in the United States is sixty thousand ;) the slave population could bring into action a larger proportion of efficient men, perfectly inured to hardships, to the climate, and privations, than any other population in the world; and they have in distant sections, and on various occasions, manifested already a desperate purpose to shake off the yoke. In such an event we ask not any heart to decide where would human sympathy and earthly glory stand; we ask not in the fearful words of Jefferson, what attribute of Jehovah would allow him to take part with us; we ask only-and the answer settles the argument-which is like to be the stronger side?

Nature, and reason, and religion unite in their hostility to this system of folly and crime. How it will end, time only can reveal; but the light of heaven is not clearer than that it must end.-African Repository, Jan. 1834.

FRANCIS WAYLAND.

Its effects must be disastrous upon the morals of both parties. By presenting objects on whom passion can be satisfied without resistance and without redress, it cultivates in the master, pride, anger, cruelty. selfishness, and licentiousness. By accustoming the slave to subject his moral principles to the will of another, it tends to abolish in him all moral distinction, and thus fosters in him, lying, deceit, hypocrisy, dishonesty, and a willingness to yield himself up to minister to the appetite of his master. - Moral Science.

ALONZO POTTER.

Brethren, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. This is the argument on which I would rely, in asking your charity this evening. The neglected and ill-fated race for whom I plead, are brethren with us of one family. The hand of the Creator may have imprinted on their features, a hue and complexion less delicate than ours. Man's rapacity may have torn them from their native land, and reduced them to the condition of slaves and menials here. And weighed down by oppression, bereft of hope, and having none to care for their souls, they may, too often, have sunk into vice and debasement. But, my friends, standing in this holy place-in his immediate presence, who has made of one blood all the nations of the earth, and given his Son to be a ransom for the inhabitants of every one alike; I can listen to no such facts as an excuse for apathy or avarice. If this unfortunate people have a physical nature less perfect than ours, God forbid that this, their misfortune, should be imputed to them as their crime. Still they have all the attributes of men-"the same organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions. They are fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer," that the white man is. And if degraded or depraved, as is so often alleged in extenuation of our neglect, ought that to deprive them of our commiseration? Such reasoning might have befitted the lips of the haughty pharisee; it might well have comported with his character to say to the poor publican, stand off, for I am holier than thou! to boast even in the temple his fancied superiority, and to shut up the bowels of his compassion from him. But in their mouths who profess to be disciples of a Saviour, who was emphatically the friend of sinners-who went about doing good, especially to the forsaken and the guilty, how must such an argument seem? And how, above all, would it seem if we were standing before Christ in judgment? Yes; what would be his reply, if when this same Saviour says, "I was naked and ye clothed me not, sick and in prison and ye visited me not," - we were to answer, "when saw we thee naked, or sick, or in prison, and ministered not to thee?" We could not discern thy form in the person of a poor, degraded negro. We could not sympathise with thy wants, disguised as they were beneath a sable skin, and an out-cast life. Oh! at such a plea, how would that eye which once "melted with pity over doomed Salem," kindle with wrath, and that bosom which gave its last thoughts to his murderers, and spent its last strength in a prayer for their forgiveness, how would it swell with righteous indignation?-Discourse before the African School Society, Schenectady N. Y.

WILLIAM E. CHANNING.

Slavery strips man of the fundamental right to inquire into, consult, and seek his own happiness. His powers belong to another, and for another they must be used. He must form no plans, engage in no enterprises, for bettering his condition. Whatever be his capacities, however equal to great improvements of his lot, he is chained for life by another's will to the same unvaried toil. He is forbidden to do for himself or others the work, for which God stamped him with his own image, and endowed him with his own best gifts. Again, the slave is stripped of the right to acquire property. Being himself owned, his earnings belong to another. He can possess nothing but by favor. That right on which the development of men's powers so much depends, the right to make accumulations, to gain exclusive possessions by honest industry, is withheld. "The slave can acquire nothing," says one of the slave-codes, "but what must belong to his master;" and however this definition, which moves the indignation of the free, may be mitigated by favor, the spirit of it enters into the very essence of slavery. Again, the slave is stripped of his right to his wife and children. They belong to another, and may be torn from him, one and all, at any moment, at his master's pleasure. Again, the slave is stripped of the right to the culture of his rational powers. He is in some cases deprived by law of instruction, which is placed within his reach by the improvements of society and the philanthropy of the age. He is not allowed to toil, that his children may enjoy a better education than himself. The most sacred right of human nature, that of developing his best faculties, is denied. Even should it be granted, it would be conceded as a favor, and might at any moment be withheld by the capricious will of another. Again, the slave is deprived of the right of self-defence. No injury from a white man is he suffered to repel, nor can he seek redress from the laws of his country. If accumulated insult and wrong provoke him to the slightest retaliation, this effort for self-protection, allowed and commended to others, is a crime for which he must pay a fearful penalty. Again, the slave is stripped of the right to be exempted from all harm except for wrong-doing. He is subjected to the lash, by those whom he has never consented to serve, and whose claim to him as property we have seen to be an usurpation; and this power of punishment, which, if justly claimed, should be exercised with a fearful care, is often delegated to men in whose hands there is a moral certainty of its abuse.

With the free we are to plead his cause. And this is peculiarly our duty, because we have bound ourselves to resist his efforts for his own emancipation. We suffer him to do nothing for himself. The more, then, should be done for him. Our physical power is pledged against him in case of revolt. Then our moral power should be exerted for his relief. His weakness, which we increase, gives hin a claim to the only aid we can afford, to our moral sympathy, to the free and faithful exposition of his wrongs. As men, as Christians, as citizens, we have duties to the slave, as well as to every other member of the community. On this point we have no liberty. The eternal law binds us to take the side of the injured; and this law is peculiarly obligatory, when we forbid him to lift an arm in his own defence.

Let it not be said that we can do nothing for the slave. We can do much. We have a power mightier than armies, the power of truth, of principle, of virtue, of right, of religion, of love. We have a power, which is growing with every advance of civilization, before which the slave-trade has fallen, which is mitigating the sternest despotisms, which is spreading education through all ranks of society, which is bearing Christianity to the ends of the earth, which carries in itself the pledge of destruction to every institution which debases humanity. Who can measure the power of Christian philanthropy, of enlightened goodness, pouring itself forth in prayers and persuasions, from the press and pulpit, from the lips and hearts of devoted men, and more and more binding together the wise and good in the cause of their race? All other powers may fail. This must triumph. It is leagued with God's omnipotence.

I am aware that it will be replied to the views now given of slavery, that persons living at a distance from it cannot comprehend it, that its true character can be learned only from those, who know it practically, and are familiar with its operations. To this I will not reply, that I have seen it near at hand. It is sufficient to reply, that men may lose the power of seeing an object fairly, by being too near as well as by being too remote. The slaveholder is too familiar with slavery to understand it. To be educated in injustice, is almost necessarily to be blinded by it more or less. To exercise usurped power from birth, is the surest way to look upon it as a right and a good. The slaveholder tells us that he only can instruct us about slavery. But suppose that we wished to learn the true character of despotism; should we go to the palace and take the despot as our teacher? Should we pay much heed to his assurance, that he alone could understand the character of absolute power, and that we in a republic could know nothing of the condition of men subjected to irresponsible will ?

No man who seriously considers what human nature is, and what it was made for, can think of setting up a claim to a fellow-creature. What! own a spiritual being, a being made to know and adore God, and who is to outlive the sun and stars! What, chain to our lowest uses a being made for truth and virtue! Convert into a brute instrument that intelligent nature, on which the idea of duty has dawned, and which is a nobler type of God than all outward creation! Should we not deem it a wrong which no punishment could expiate, were one of our children seized as property, and driven by the whip to toil? And shall God's child, dearer to him than an only son to a human parent, be thus degraded? Every thing else may be owned in the universe; but a moral rational being cannot be property. Suns and stars may be owned, but not the lowest spirit. Touch any thing but this. Lay not your hand on God's rational offspring. The whole spiritual world cries out, Forbear! The highest intelligences recognise their own nature, their own rights, in the humblest human being. By that priceless, immortal spirit which dwells in him, by that likeness of God which he wears, tread him not in the dust, confound him not with the brute.

A human being cannot rightfully be held and used as property.