Many slaveholders and their apologists have sought to find authority for the “enormity and crime” of slavery, in the Holy Bible. And we are not surprised that the vile oppressor, smarting under the lashings of a guilty conscience, and condemned by the united voice of reason and humanity, should fly for refuge from public scorn and condemnation, to a shelter, however insecure, erected by a perversion of the writings and example of those remarkable men, who fill a prominent place in sacred history. How consoling it must be to the slaveholder, while standing upon the neck of an unresisting brother, and crushing his humanity into the dust with heartless cruelty, to hear from a doctor of divinity that Noah countenanced the enslavement of a part of his posterity, that Abraham was an extensive slaveholder, that Moses incorporated the system into the only government ever instituted by direct authority from Heaven, and that it received, in its very worst form, under the Roman government, the tacit, if not positive sanction of Jesus and the apostles.

My observation sustains me in saying that no class of slaveholders are more pertinacious and incorrigible than the religious class—the scripture-quoting class. If we are to believe them, slaveholding is not a sin PER SE, but of itself is a perfectly innocent thing. The very best of men hold slaves, yea, it is, they tell us, the duty of good men under some circumstances to hold slaves. To be sure THEY do not hold slaves for “gain,” but from motives of pure “charity,” or from stern “necessity.” They and their slaves are ALWAYS in such peculiar cases that emancipation would be impolitic, impracticable, even a sin! Still, from all appearances, they are as careful to keep their slaves from running off as common sinners are—their slaves are fed, clothed, whipped, worked, robbed and used up precisely as are the slaves of the most notorious publicans.

After having seen how slavery originated, and what it is in theory and practice, it may seem useless if not impious to inquire seriously whether a system so manifestly unjust, cruel and diabolical, is sanctioned in the Bible; but the confidence with which slaveholders and their apologists quote it in defense of slavery, and the recklessness with which it is denounced by a class of infidel abolitionists, impel us to enter into this inquiry; and in pursuing it we shall endeavor to examine carefully all the arguments relied upon by the advocates of human bondage. The first passage in order is found in Genesis 9: 25. “And he said, cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren.”

It is assumed that this curse was pronounced by divine authority; that the servitude here mentioned is identical with slavery; that the prediction of the oppression of a people justifies their oppressors; and finally, that American slaves are the identical posterity of Canaan.

1. As it respects the authority of this curse, there is a circumstance intimately associated with its utterance which excites a shadow of doubt with regard to its inspiration. “And Noah awoke from his wine” and pronounced this malediction. Is it not possible that these words were the hasty expression of excited feeling and not the solemn enunciation of a divine anathema?

2. But in order to prove the validity of the argument, it must be proved that servitude and slavery are relations of essentially the same character, and this cannot be done. Neither philology nor history affords the slightest proof of the assumption that to be a servant of servants is equivalent to being a slave of slaves.

3. But does the prediction of the oppression of a people justify that oppression? Verily it does not. The Lord said unto Abraham that his seed should be afflicted in a strange land four hundred years. But who will pretend to justify the Egyptian task-masters on the plea that the affliction of Israel had been predicted? The divine prescience sees all things at one glance, and may inspire men to prophesy, but prophecy touches not the moral agency of men. When our Lord was crucified, the “scripture was fulfilled,” but they who crucified him were murderers, nevertheless. Hence, even should we admit that the curse pronounced on Canaan was of divine authority, and that it meant slavery, no stronger apology for slaveholding could be derived therefrom than Egyptian oppressors might have drawn from the words of Jehovah, for the affliction of Israel in Egypt four hundred years. The cases are parallel.

4. But the argument is utterly baseless because American slaves are not the posterity of Canaan, upon whom the curse was pronounced, and hence that anathema affords just as good an apology for the enslavement of Englishmen as colored Americans. Ham had four sons,—Cush, Misriam, Phut, and Canaan, and the curse was directed against Canaan or Canaan’s posterity. But, says one, are not the negroes children of Canaan? By no means. No scholar has ever pretended that Canaan was the progenitor of the negro race.

The sacred penman is very careful to put this matter beyond dispute. He says: “And Canaan begat Sidon his first born, and Heth, and the Jubisite, and the Amorite, and the Girgasite, and the Hivite, and the Arkite, and the Sinite, and the Arvadite, and the Zemarite, and the Hamathite; and afterward were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad. And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as thou comest to Gerar, unto Gaza; as thou goest unto Sodom and Gomorrah, and Admah and Zeboim, even unto Lasha.” Gen. 10: 15-19. Now these nations and boundaries were all located in Asia, and we have no evidence of the subsequent removal of any of the posterity of Canaan to Africa except it be the founders of Carthage,—a city which was long mistress of the sea, and the proud rival of imperial Rome. The Carthaginians were supposed to be the descendants of Canaan.

This curse, therefore, did not allude to slavery, but servitude; and as it is a mere prediction of what would be the relation of Canaan’s posterity it afforded no apology for the oppression of that posterity;[6] and finally the Africans and colored Americans are not the descendants of Canaan, and hence, the passage can have no application to them; and affords just as good authority for the enslavement of Englishmen, Dutchmen and Frenchmen as negroes.

How absurd is the attempt to take this anathema, construe it to mean and justify chattel slavery, and then stretch it over the posterity, not of Canaan, but of Cush even after the blood of the Cushites (Moses’ wife was a Cushite) has been mingled with the blood of the “first families” of Virginia, and of all the Southern states. A large number of slaves are white—much whiter than their masters and mistresses. The first Bible argument for slavery appears, when weighed,

“Light as a puff of empty air.”

Have slaveholders no better? We will see.