James, and Charles, and George, opened a market for them in the English colonies?—­what though modern Dracos have “framed mischief by law,” in legalizing man-stealing and slaveholding?—­what though your ancestors, in preparing to go “to their own place,” constituted you the owner of the “neighbors” whom they had used as cattle?—­what of all this, and as much more like this, as can be drawn from the history of that dreadful process by which men “are deemed, sold, taken, reputed, and adjudged in law to be chattels personal?” Can all this force you to put the cap upon the climax—­to clinch the nail by doing that, without which nothing in the work of slave-making would be attempted? The slaveholder is the soul of the whole system.  Without him, the chattel principle is a lifeless abstraction.  Without him, charters, and markets, and laws, and testaments, are empty names.  And does he think to escape responsibility?  Why, kidnappers, and soul-drivers, and law-makers, are nothing but his agents.  He is the guilty principal.  Let him look to it.

[Footnote A:  You join with them in their bloody work.  They murder, and you bury the victims.]

But what can he do?  Do?  Keep his hands off his “neighbor’s” throat.  Let him refuse to finish and ratify the process by which the chattel principle is carried into effect.  Let him refuse, in the face of derision, and reproach, and opposition.  Though poverty should fasten its bony hand upon him, and persecution shoot forth its forked tongue; whatever may betide him—­scorn, flight, flames—­let him promptly and steadfastly refuse.  Better the spite and hate of men than the wrath of Heaven!  “If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee; for it is profitable for thee, that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.”

Prof.  Stuart admits, that the Golden Rule and the second great commandment “decide against the theory of slavery as being in itself right.”  What, then, is their relation to the particular precepts, institutions, and usages, which are authorized and enjoined in the New Testament?  Of all these, they are the summary expression—­the comprehensive description.  No precept in the Bible enforcing our mutual obligations, can be more or less than the application of these injunctions to specific relations or particular occasions and conditions.  Neither in the Old Testament nor the New, do prophets teach or laws enjoin, any thing which the Golden Rule and the second great command do not contain.  Whatever they forbid, no other precept can require; and whatever they require, no other precept can forbid.  What, then, does he attempt, who turns over the sacred pages to find something in the way of permission or command, which may set him free from the obligations of the Golden Rule?  What must his objects, methods, spirit be, to force him to enter upon such inquiries?—­to compel him to search the Bible for such a purpose?  Can he have good intentions, or be well employed?  Is his frame of mind adapted to the study of the Bible?—­to make its meaning plain and welcome?  What must he think of God, to search his word in quest of gross inconsistencies and grave contradictions!  Inconsistent legislation in Jehovah!  Contradictory commands!  Permissions at war with prohibitions!  General requirements at variance with particular arrangements!