If there is one subject which, above all others, may be regarded as of national interest at the present time, it is the subject of Slavery. Wherever we go, north or south, east or west, at the fireside, in the factory, the rail-car or the steamboat, in the state legislatures or the national Congress, this "ghost that will not down" obtrudes itself. The strife has involved press, pulpit, and forum alike, and in spite of all compromises by political parties, and the desperate attempts at non-commi

What, then, is chattel slavery as understood in American law? 1. It is not the relation of wife or child. In one sense a man may be said to "possess" these; but he can not buy or sell them. These are natural relations; and he who violates them for the sake of gain is branded by all as barbarous and criminal. 2. Not the relation of apprentice or minor. This is temporary, having for its primary object, not the good of the master or guardian, but that of the apprentice or minor, his education and p

The Hebrew terms used in reference to this subject are עָבַד , auvadh , "to serve;" the noun, עֶבֶד , evedh , "servant" or "bondman," one contracting service for a term of years; שָּׂכִיר , saukir , a "hired servant" daily or weekly; אָמָה , aumau , and שִׁפְחָה , shiphechau , "maid-servant" or "handmaid;" but there is no term in Hebrew synonymous with our word slave , for all the terms applied to servants are, as we shall show, equally applicable and applied to free persons. The verb עָבַד , au

We first meet with the term "servant" in the oft-disputed passage, Gen. 9:25-27: "Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.... Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant." ... Now, as we have no state of servitude in the context or the usage of the times with which to compare this, and as only Canaan and his descendants are included in the curse, we must look to their subsequent history for the fulfillment of the prophecy, and the kind of servit

The next example of the word "servant" brings us to that epoch in relation to which the Harmony Presbytery of South Carolina says, "Slavery has existed from the days of those good old slaveholders Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, (who are now in the kingdom of heaven,) to the time when the apostle Paul sent a runaway home to his master Philemon, and wrote a Christian and paternal letter to this slaveholder, which we find still stands in the canon of the Scriptures." The account we have of Abraham's se

We come next to the sanction and authority of chattel slavery claimed to exist in the laws and economy of these people just escaped from bondage, and framed by him who had shown his displeasure against slavery by nearly destroying a nation of slaveholders for holding and catching slaves. The arguments for this claim are—1. That the term "servant" or "bondman" used in the Mosaic law means chattel slavery; 2. That in certain cases the Hebrews might hold their brethren as slaves for ever; 3. They m

But lest oppression should trample upon the rights of the laboring classes, and aim at their enslavement,—which actually happened afterward, and was one of the principal items of God's indictment (Jer. 22:3; 34:8-22) against the Jews prior to their destruction by Nebuchadnezzar,—three special enactments were made to prevent such iniquity, and break up any attempt at chattel slavery in the nation. First. The law against kidnaping. —Ex. 21:16, "He that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be f

Ages pass, the Jews are restored to their land, but the Roman eagle overshadows it and all the civilized world. Despotism is enthroned; and the idea that the world and its people are the property of Rome and its citizens is questioned only in murmuring whispers. All the relations of Roman life partake of this idea of absolutism; slavery is every where, liberty nowhere. Then the glad tidings of Messiah's coming is announced to an expectant world. Whom will he side with—the crushed and despairing

The result of their teaching in Judea is given in Acts 4:32-35—"And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and one soul; neither said any of them that aught of the things he possessed was his own ; but they had all things common. Neither was there any among them that lacked; for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold and laid them down at the apostles' feet, and distribution was made to every man according as he

Before the New York Court of Appeals, on the "Lemmon Slave Case." "I submit most respectfully that the only desire I have manifested here or elsewhere, in reference to the question, has been to draw the mind of the court and the intelligent mind of the American people, to the true question which underlies the whole conflict, and that is the question to which my friend (W. W. Evarts, Esq.) has addressed the best, and, in my judgment, the finest part of his very able argument. * * * My friend deno