PHI LOS 0 P H Y . - Classic Works of Apologetics Online

Sil/r;)cry. 163
after all, what is the necessity? It has never been
proved that the land could net be cultivated lhere,
as it is here, by hired ser\~ants. It is said that it
could not be cultivated with quite the same convenienC)7
and cheapness, as by the labour of slaves: by
which means, a pound of sugar, \vhich the planter
now sells for six pence could not be afforded under
sixpence half-penny-and this is the llues.rity!
The great revolution \~hich has taken piace in
the \Vestern \V oild may probably conduce (and who
knows but that it ,vas designed?) to accel~rate the
fall of this aboDlinable tyrdnn}-: and nCI\V that this
contest, and tIle passions which attend it, are no
more, there ma)T sllcceed perhaps a season for reflecting,
whether a legislature, w}-ljch had so long lent
its assistance to the support of ~n instirution replete
with human misery, ,\~as fit to be tru~ted ,vith an
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empire, the most extensi,te that ever obtained in any
age or quarter of the world.
Sla\~ery \\9as a part of the civil constitution of most
countries, when Christianity appeared; yet no passage
is to be found in the christian scriptures, by
which it is condemned or prohil)ited. '!'his is true;
for Christianity, soliciting adnli5sion into all nations
of the \vorld, abstail1ed, as behoved it, from intermeddlinfr
with the civil institutions of any. But
r} J
does it follow, from the silence of scripture concerning
them, that all tIle ci\7il institutions \~111ich then
. prevailed, were right? or that the bad should 1101
be exchanged for better?
Beside this, the dischargitlg of slaves from all ob ..
ligation to obey their nlasters, which is the conspquence
of pronouncing slavery to be l1nlawfut
would have had no better effect, tilan to let loos('
one half of mankind upon the other. Slaves would
have been tempted to embr:1ce a rcIi~jon, which
asserted their right to freedom. Nla~ters would
hardI y have been pen:uaded to consent to claims
founded upon such authoritv. The most calamitou~;