believe, if they could do it with a reasonable prospect of improving the condition of their slaves, would gladly manumit them and support themselves by daily labor at the North. Such men and women do honor to human nature. They are the true friends of their race. I am pained at the circumstances in which they are placed; but being so placed, I know not how they could act more worthily.

This is one extreme. Here, as in the previous case, there is another extreme. No one will deny that there are slaveholders of a very different character from these to whom I have now alluded. There are men who love the very law which gives them the power over their fellow-men; who daily strive to render that law more stringent; who, without regard either to the rights of man or the law of God, use the power which the law has given them over the slave, to the uttermost; and who resist by menace and outcry every modification of the law by which those who think differently from them shall be enabled to act towards their slaves as their consciences shall dictate.

Here then we have men who are slaveholders equally in form, but of the most dissimilar moral character. The one class may be honestly and prayerfully laboring, to the best of their ability, to obey the Christian precept, "As ye would. that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them." The other class allow no law, human or divine, to interfere with the exercise of their oppressive and tyrannical will. And between these extremes, as I said before, how many gradations of guiltiness may intervene !

Here then, again, is there room for the exercise of charity. I am not so simple as to believe, because there are some slaveholders of the first class, that all slaveholders are such; nor do I hold that the existence of slavery under some circumstances without moral guilt, proves that slavery under other circumstances is innocent; or that by the innocency of the one, the guilt of the other is in the smallest degree diminished. I do, however, believe, that we should look at the facts as they are, and instead of dealing in wholesale denunciation, until we can find a better rule, treat that man as a Christian in whom we can recognise the spirit of Christ.

While, however, I thus state the grounds of Christian charity, I hope that no one will suppose for a moment that I mean to extenuate the moral wrong of slavery. Should a man enslave me or my family, I should consider it the greatest wrong that he could inflict upon us. It is just as great a wrong to enslave any other family as to enslave mine. Nor would the wrong rendered be less, but in fact greater, were he so to stupify and debase us, that we were willing to submit our whole nature, physical, intellectual, and moral, to the will of a master. Still, were this done to me, I can conceive that the guilt of the oppressor might be and would be materially affected by his knowledge, his means of information, and the laws of the society to which he was obliged for the present to submit.

I remark again, that these modifications of the guilt of slavery can avail only where they exist. A man who knowingly, or with the power of

knowing, voluntarily does wrong, is guilty for the full amount of that wrong; and, at the bar of God, he must answer for it. The only plea in abatement of guilt is, that a man has not the means of knowing better; or, that it is physically out of his power to obey the precept. But, while this abatement may be pleaded when it actually exists, it furnishes ground for no plea of abatement beyond the precise limits of its existence. If therefore a man allow that slavery is a violation of right—a violation of the law, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself"-before he can plead that he is guiltless, he must show that he has done, and is doing, every thing in his power to discontinue and make reparation for the wrong.

Once more. In what I have said above, I have alluded to the course which a slaveholder might be supposed to pursue, and be innocent of the guilt of slavery. I have, however, in these remarks, referred only to his conduct as an individual. There remains yet to be considered his duty as a member of society. If the laws are wrong, he, as a member of society, is bound to exert his full constitutional power to effect their abolition. If the moral sentiment of the State is wicked, he is bound to labor with his whole power to correct it. If his fellow-citizens oppress him, he is called upon by every sentiment of manliness, constitutionally to resist this oppression. If they oppress his fellowmen, he is bound by every sentiment of philanthropy to defend the oppressed and raise up the down-trodden. Unless he do this, he cannot, as a member of the society, be free from the guilt of the wrong which the society perpetrates. There

is, however, no opportunity in this letter to discuss this part of the subject. It may present itself again, at a later period of our inquiry.

In the above remarks I have endeavored to illustrate the principles by which the personal guilt of holding a man in bondage may be modified. In what degree they apply to the case of every separate individual, can be known only to the Searcher of hearts. You and I, however, my brother, believe in the moral corruption of the human soul. We have been taught by the Bible that men are by nature influenced by direful passions and unholy lusts; by an insane love of wealth and a reckless desire for power. We know, too, how universally these corrupt affections darken the understanding and stupify the conscience. Taking these truths into view, we may form some estimate of the proportion of cases in which, on the above principles, the holding of slaves does or does not involve guiltiness; in how far insensibility to duty results from a want of knowledge, and in how far it results from a selfish and sinful indisposition to know the truth. You, who are well acquainted with slavery in all its phases, can form, I presume, a more correct judgment in this matter than myself. Of one

thing, however, there can be no doubt. So far as slavery is a wrong perpetrated by society, no modification of guilt can arise from the want of power to remedy it. The power resides in the society. Its members have placed themselves in their present position in regard to slavery. They can, whenever they please, change that position. And for not changing it, every member of the so

ciety who has not exerted his full constitutional power to remove it, must at the bar of God be held guilty.

I am, my dear brother, yours with every sentiment of Christian affection

THE AUTHOR OF THE MORAL SCIENCE.

LETTER IV.

TO THE REV. RICHARD FULLER, D. D.

MY DEAR BROTHER

In my last two letters I have attempted to show what I mean when I assert that slavery is a moral evil. I have wished to make it clear that slavery, or the holding of men in bondage, and "obliging them to labor for our benefit, without their contract or consent," is always and everywhere, or, as you well express it, semper et ubique, a moral wrong, a violation of the obligations under which we are created to our fellow-men, and a transgression of the law of our Creator, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself; that, however, while this is true, it is also true that the guilt of any individual doing this wrong may be modified by his means of obtaining a knowledge of his duty, and also by the laws of the community of which he may chance to be a member.

The objection to this view of the subject is founded on the precept and example of the Old