to this very definition, the slave is held simply for the good of his master, to whose behest his life, liberty, and happiness are devoted, and by whom he may be bartered, leased, mortgaged, bequeathed, invoiced, shipped as cargo, stored as goods, sold on execution, knocked off at public auction, and even staked at the gaming-table on the hazard of a card or die. The slave may seem to have a wife; but he has not, for his wife belongs to his master. He may seem to have a child; but he has not, for his child is owned by his master. He may be filled with desire of knowledge, opening to him the gates of joy on earth and in heaven; but the master may impiously close all these gates. Thus is he robbed, not merely of privileges, but of himself,—not merely of money and labor, but of wife and children,—not merely of time and opportunity, but of every assurance of happiness,—not merely of earthly hope, but of all those divine aspirations that spring from the Fountain of Light. He is not merely restricted in liberty, but totally deprived of it,—not merely curtailed in rights, but absolutely stripped of them,—not merely loaded with burdens, but changed into a beast of burden,—not merely bent in countenance to the earth, but sunk in law to the level of a quadruped,—not merely exposed to personal cruelty, but deprived of his character as a person,—not merely compelled to involuntary labor, but degraded to a rude thing,—not merely shut out from knowledge, but wrested from his place in the human family. And all this, Sir, is according to the simple Law of Slavery.

And even this is not all. The law, by cumulative provisions, positively forbids that a slave shall be taught to read. Hear this, fellow-citizens, and confess that no barbarity of despotism, no extravagance of tyranny, no excess of impiety can be more blasphemous or deadly. “Train up a child in the way he should go” is the lesson of Divine Wisdom; but the Law of Slavery boldly prohibits any such training, and dooms the child to hopeless ignorance and degradation. “Let there be light” was the Divine behest at the dawn of Creation,—and this commandment, travelling with the ages and the hours, still speaks with the voice of God; yet the Law of Slavery says, “Let there be darkness.”

But it is earnestly averred that slave-masters are humane, and slaves are treated with kindness. These averments, however, I properly put aside, precisely as I have already put aside the multitudinous illustrations from the cruelty of Slavery. On the simple letter of the law I take my stand, and do not go beyond what is there nominated. The masses of men are not better than their laws, and, whatever may be the eminence of individual virtue, it is not reasonable to infer that the body of slave-masters is better than the Law of Slavery. And since this law submits the slave to their irresponsible control, with power to bind and to scourge, to shut the soul from knowledge, to separate families, to unclasp the infant from a mother’s breast, and the wife from a husband’s arms, it is natural to conclude that such enormities are sanctioned by them, while the supplementary denial of instruction gives conclusive evidence of their full complicity. And this conclusion must exist unquestioned, just so long as the law exists unrepealed. Cease, then, to blazon the humanity of slave-masters. Tell me not of the lenity with which this cruel law is tempered to its unhappy subjects. Tell me not of the sympathy which overflows from the mansion of the master to the cabin of the slave. In vain you assert these instances. In vain you show that there are individuals who do not exert the wickedness of the law. The law still endures. Slavery, which it defines and upholds, continues to outrage Public Opinion, and, within the limits of our Republic, more than three millions of human beings, guilty only of a skin not colored like your own, are left the victims of its unrighteous, irresponsible power.

Power divorced from right is devilish; power without the check of responsibility is tyrannical; and I need not go back to the authority of Plato, when I assert that the most complete injustice is that erected into the form of law. But all these things concur in Slavery. It is, then, on the testimony of slave-masters, solemnly, legislatively, judicially attested in the very law itself, that I now arraign this institution as an outrage upon man and his Creator. And herein is the necessity of the Antislavery Enterprise. A wrong so transcendent, so loathsome, so direful, must be encountered, wherever it can be reached; and the battle must be continued without truce or compromise, until the field is entirely won. Freedom and Slavery can hold no divided empire; nor can there be any true repose, until Freedom is everywhere established.

To the necessity of the Antislavery Enterprise there are two, and only two, main objections,—one founded on the alleged distinction of race, and the other on the alleged sanction of Christianity. All other objections are of inferior character, or are directed logically at its practicability. Of these two main objections let me briefly speak.

1. I begin with the alleged distinction of race. This objection assumes two different forms,—one founded on a prophetic malediction in the Old Testament, and the other on professed observations of recent science. Its importance is apparent in the obvious fact, that, unless such distinction be clearly and unmistakably established, every argument by which our own freedom is vindicated, every applause awarded to the successful rebellion of our fathers, every indignant word ever hurled against the enslavement of white fellow-citizens by Algerine corsairs, must plead trumpet-tongued against the deep damnation of Slavery, black as well as white.

It is said that Africans are the posterity of Ham, son of Noah, through Canaan cursed by Noah, to be the servant of his brethren, and that this malediction has fallen upon all his descendants, including the unhappy Africans,—who are accordingly devoted by God, through unending generations, to unending bondage. Such is the favorite argument at the South, and more than once directly addressed to myself. Here, for instance, is a passage from a letter recently received. “You need not persist,” says the writer, “in confounding Japheth’s children with Ham’s, and making both races one, and arguing on their rights as those of man broadly.” And I have been seriously assured, that, until this objection is answered, it will be vain to press my views upon Congress or the country. Listen now to the texts of the Old Testament which are so strangely employed.

That is all; and I need only read these words in order to expose the whole—transpicuous humbug. I am tempted to add, that, to justify this objection, it is necessary to maintain at least five different propositions, as essential links in the chain of the African slave: first, that by this malediction Canaan himself was actually changed into a chattel,—whereas he is simply made the servant of his brethren; secondly, that not merely Canaan, but all his posterity, to the remotest generation, was so changed,—whereas the language