Page:Bible Defence of Slavery.djvu/129

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FORTUNES, OF THE NEGRO RACE.
115

and, therefore, of necessity, proves that the term signified no other race, but that of the whites.

This verse, therefore, the 45th, of the 25th of Leviticus, must be considered as the context or guide, in relation to the word stranger on this subject; consequently, in verse the 46th, the one which follows the text above quoted, is qualified by the first. If so, then the word stranger, there used, refers not to any of the Shemite or Japhethic races, but only to the heathen race of Ham.

With this view, all is made right, the stranger of Exodus xxii, 21, signifying all people not of the negro race; while the stranger of Leviticus xxv, 45, refers to all negroes, or people of Ham, though not strictly Canaanites, as, doubtless, there were among the Canaanites always, more or less, people, families, and even whole tribes, of the other families of Ham's lineage, such as Egyptians, Lybians and Ethiopians, who might properly be denominated strangers in Canaan, or heathens of those descents from other countries than those of Canaan. Thus we have reconciled the two contradicting passages, as we believe, in the estimation of all candid men.

Having thus cleared up a difficulty in the law of Moses, which has misled many a fierce abolition writer, and probably others, we pass to the main subject, that of ascertaining whether the law of Moses did indorse and inculcate the doctrine of the curse of Noah upon the children of Ham, which we affirm was the fact. The proof of this is direct and unequivocal, furnished from the law of that great legislator of the Jews, Moses, who was the immediate agent