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Table of Contents:
Lecture
VI
: the abstract principle of slavery discussed on
Scripture grounds
, and misrepresentations of the principle examined.
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we revilingly say, with some of their ungrateful descendants, that the good sense and love of liberty which had so lately driven them from their fatherland, to find an asylum here from the galling yoke of British oppression, had been so entirely absorbed in the passion for gain, as to cause them to be deaf to the claims of justice and humanity in behalf of the African!
Shame on their graceless accusers!
No: their good sense forbade that a race of barbarous Pagans, who could not be absorbed by intermarriage, but who must continue to exist amongst them as a separate and inferior race, should be placed on a common platform with free citizens!
Their humanity, no less than their good sense, induced them to adopt the plan of domestic government, or slavery, sanctioned by the usages of all civilized nations in similar circumstances.
If, for any cause, a horde of barbarians should be introduced into New England in the present day, in numbers too great to be absorbed without injury, and in a physical condition making it improper to permit their absorption by intermarriage with themselves, as in the case of the Africans, does any man in his senses pretend to believe that those States would confer on them either social equality or political freedom?
They would certainly consider it due to them-selves, no less than to the barbarians, to place
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