We have no reason to believe that Noah was moved by resentment to denounce the curse of slavery on the posterity of Canaan, in consequence of the disrespect shown toward him by Ham.  We have no reason to suppose that there was any abatement of parental solicitude, for the future welfare of this ungodly son and his posterity.  He was moved by the Holy Ghost, and uttered but a prophecy, which entailed slavery on the posterity of Ham, as a consequence of wilful disobedience of God’s just and righteous laws.  He uttered but a fact in futuro, which had been revealed to him by an omniscient God.  How fully the above prediction has been verified, is familiar to every historian.  The continent of Africa was principally peopled by the descendants of Ham; and for ages, the better part of that country was under the dominion of the Romans; then of the Saracens; and more recently of the Turks; and the fact, that the slave trade has been carried on for hundreds of years with all its horrors, iniquities, cruelties and abominations, is familiar to every one.  A large portion of the children of Ham have existed in a state of slavery for more than three thousand years.  It is said that more than nine-tenths of the whole sixty millions of Africa are slaves.  Negro slavery existed in the colonies of Greece for ages before the Christian era.  All other races of mankind have enslaved the African.  The phraseology of Noah’s prediction is a little remarkable.  The children of Ham were not only to be servants, but “a servant of servants.”  It is true that unconnected with all other races, one portion of the negro race have been enslaved to another, ever since the earliest dawn of history, and that in a greater proportion too, than to any other race.  It is recorded by historians, that there are perhaps twenty negro masters in Africa to every white one in the United States, and that they hold in bondage at least ten times as many slaves.  It is moreover stated, that those portions of Africa where the slave trade with the white man is unknown, are the most inveterate slave regions.  In the negro islands of the Indian Archipelago, the negro is enslaved to the negro.

Some are, no doubt, ready to ask, how is it that Africans became slaves to their own race?  Many of them were taken captives in war and subjected to slavery.  The different tribes in Africa have in all ages engaged in predatory warfare, and the captives taken in those wars became slaves.  Necessity may have forced many of them to subject themselves to servitude.  Negroes have not that aversion to slavery, that many suppose who are unacquainted with the peculiarities of negro character.  They are ignorant, indolent and improvident, and in many instances are neither competent nor willing to provide for themselves; and, therefore, they probably frequently became slaves to the more highly gifted and fortunate of their own race from necessity, and it may be from choice.