Page:The Barbarism of Slavery - Sumner - 1863.pdf/21

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15 vided for the nurture and education of the human family, and which constitutes an essential part of Civilization itself. And happily beginning to be modified yet, by the law of Slavery this relation is set at naught, and in its place in some places

substituted the arbitrary control of the master, at whose mere command little children, such as the Saviour called unto him, is

though clasped by a mother's arms, may be swept under the hammer of the auctioneer. I do not dwell on this exhibition. Sir, is

not Slavery barbarous ?

Fourthly. Slavery paints itself again in closing the gates of knowledge, which are also the shining gates of civilization.

Under

its

plain unequivocal law, the

bondman may,

at the un-

restrained will of his master, be shut out from all instruction while in many places, incredible to relate the law itself, by !

he shall be taught be allowed to read, for glory his soul would then expand in larger air, while he saw the of the North Star, and also the helping truth, that God, who made iron, never made a slave for he would then become famicumulative provisions, positively forbids that

Of

to read.

course, the slave can not

with the Scriptures, with the Decalogue still speaking in " He that steal the thunders of Sinai with that ancient text, eth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hands, he " with that other text, " Masters, shall surely be put to death; " with give unto your servants that which is just and equal

liar

-

Lord raised the slavethe house of bondfrom born Moses to deliver his chosen people Saviour died a the where age and with that sublimer story, race, might be of distinction cruel death, that all men, without even withwhich, commandments, leaving to mankind savecl that great story of redemption,

when

the

out his example, make Slavery impossible. Thus, in order to fasten your manacles upon the slave, you fasten other manacles upon his soul. Sir, is not Slavery barbarous ?

Slavery paints itself again in the appropriation of all property in the toil of its victims, excluding them from that and civiliallows, nature of law the which their own earnings Fifthly.

zation secures. in

its

,

The

meanness.

garb of law.

And

painful injustice of this pretension is lost robbery and petty larceny, under the

It is

even

its

meanness

is lost

in the absurdity of

despoiled of all its associate pretension, that the African, thus good his earnings, is saved from poverty, and that for his own