highest bidder. These worked hard the whole year to pay the pastor his $1,000 a year; and it was left to the caprice of their employers whether they ever heard one sermon, for which they toiled hard the whole year to procure. This was the church in which the professors of the seminary and of the college often officiated. Since the abolitionists have made so much noise about the connection of the Church with slavery, the Rev. Elisha Balenter informed me the Church had sold this property and put the money in other stock. There were four Churches near the college Church that were in the same situation with this, when I was in that country, that supported the pastor, in whole or in part, in the same way; namely, Cumberland Church, John Kirkpatrick pastor; Briny Church, William Plummer pastor, (since Dr. P., of Richmond;) Buffalo Church, Mr. Cochran pastor; Pisgah Church, near the peaks of Otter, J. Mitchell pastor." (Rev. J. Cable, of Ia., May 20, 1846, in a letter to the Mercer Luminary.)

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CHAPTER IV.

DEPRIVATION OF RIGHTS-MARRIAGE.

1. As slaves are the property of others, and therefore things, and as they themselves can own no property, and especially because they can make no contracts, they can not contract matrimony. The association which takes place among slaves, though sometimes called marriage, is not properly marriage, but contubernium-a relation which has no sanctity, and to which no civil rights are attached. The laws of the southern states do not recognize marriage among the slaves, and of course do not enforce any of its duties. Indeed, slavery will not admit of any legal recognition of the marriage rite; for the master's absolute right of property in the slaves must frustrate all regulations on the subject. In his disposal of them, were the laws of marriage in force, he would be no longer at liberty to consult merely his own interest. He could no longer separate the wife and husband, to suit the convenience and interest of the purchaser. And as the wife and husband do not always belong to the same owner, and are not often wanted by the same purchaser, the duties of marriage, if enforced by law, would frequently conflict with the interests of the master. Hence, all the marriage contracts that could ever be allowed to slaves would be "voidable" at the master's pleasure; and are constantly thus voided by slavery. Both slaves and the system of slavery consider the matrimonial engagement-as a thing not binding; and the practice is in accordance with the theory. The slaves, to use their own phraseology, “take up with each other," and live together, as long as suits their own inclinations and convenience.

The following is the law opinion of Mr. Dulaney, Attorney-General of Maryland: "A slave has never maintained an action against the violation of his bed. A slave

is not admonished for incontinence, or punished for fornication or adultery-never prosecuted for bigamy, or petty treason for killing a husband being a slave, any more than admitted to an appeal for murder." (See Stroud, p. 61.) 2. Slavery annihilates the right of marriage.

The master has power to prevent the marriage of his slaves, or separate them after marriage. This results from the right of property in man; for the right to buy a thing implies a right to sell it again. And as a man in purchasing one slave is under no obligation of purchasing another, though it be the wife or child of the former, so it is in regard to the sale. As in procuring slaves originally-whether by conquests in war, by kidnapping, by purchase, or by seizing innocent children, as now in the United States-no regard was paid to any of the relations of life, so no regard is had to these relations or their duties in the tenure by which slaves are now held. The slave laws do not recognize the relation of husband and wife, parent and child, brother and sister.

There are thousands of instances in which conscientious masters would not separate husband and wife, parents and children; but this can not be taken into the account in estimating the character of the system of slavery. If the master is in debt, the law, by its officers, separates man and wife, parents and children. If the owner of slaves dies, his children may separate the marriage contract; or the sheriff may do it by the strong arm of law, without asking the leave of heirs.

The power of the master over the slaves sets aside the duties of marriage as enjoined in the holy Scriptures, although the husband and wife are not actually separated. The husband is declared to be the "head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the Church," (Eph. v, 23; 1 Cor. xi, 3,) and as such, has a right to rule in his family. The wife is commanded to be subject to her husband, to love

him, to cherish him. “As the Church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing," Eph. v, 24 and 33; Titus ii, 4, 5; 1 Peter iii, 1. It is the master, not the husband, that has the supreme power over the wife of the slave. The master, too, has the power of enforcing obedience by punishments, in spite of the will of the husband. The power of the master extends, too, to her manner of employing her time, to her domestic arrangements, to her hours of labor and rest, to her food and raiment, etc.

Here, too, the power of the master may not be exercised. He may not interfere with the relative duties of marriage; but this is not to be traced to any mercy in the institution of slavery; for it has none. Nothing prevents the master from setting aside the whole law of God on the subject of matrimony. And the benevolence of humane masters, which prompts them to act toward slaves, not according to the essential laws of the system, but according to Scripture precepts, is one of the strongest protests against slavery in the world. Wherever Christian feeling and principles are at work, they rise up in array against the immorality and sin of parting husband and wife, or of obstructing the duties of the marriage relation. The same feeling and principles, properly carried out, would revolt-they do revolt-they will continue to revolt against the whole system of slavery; so that, finally, it will be rooted out of the earth. The opposition to the branches will, in time, be turned against the stem and roots, so as to extirpate this high injustice from the face of the earth; that is, to destroy its branches, cut down the trunk, and then root out every vital root belonging to it, so that it will never germinate again. So it will be, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. "They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord."

Mr. Rice, in answer to Mr. Blanchard's declaration, that

slaves can not contract marriage, and that their children are illegitimate, uses the following language: "The marriage of slaves is as valid in the view of God's law as that of their masters. Marriage is a Bible institution. Will the gentleman point us to the portion of Scripture which makes recognition of marriage by the civil law necessary to its validity?" (Blanchard and Rice's Discussion on Slavery, p. 35.) Again: he says, p. 55, "Point me to the part of Scripture which makes recognition of marriage by the civil law essential to its validity." Again: p. 75, "The marriage of slaves is, in God's law, as valid as that of their owners; and it is as truly a violation of that law to separate the former as the latter."

All this, on the whole, is true enough; but it evades the force of the argument. Allowing, as we readily do, that marriage needs not mere civil regulations to make it valid, the difficulty is not removed; for the civil laws of slavery, and the practice under them, completely annul marriage in three several ways: 1. By preventing, authoritatively, the slaves from entering into the marriage relation; 2. By interfering with the discharge of its duties, after entering on it; and, 3. By separating man and wife at the will of the master. All this is done. And Mr. Rice evades the argument of his opponent, on this point, as he constantly does, in the place of meeting him fairly; so that he is more the defender and apologist for slavery than any thing else.

3. Slavery tends to licentiousness, both among the slaves and their masters.

(1.) The general concubinage among the slaves produces revolting licentiousness. On this the synod of Kentucky say: “We are assured, by the most unquestionable testimony, that their [the slaves] licentiousness is the necessary result of our system, which, destroying the force of the marriage rite, and thus, in a measure, degrading all the