If he wished to know
my views of what is right and proper as to the marriage relation of our
slaves, he should have put the question in a different shape. But first,
Sir,' said I, 'if he dislikes the twenty-first chapter of Exodus, his
controversy must be with his God, not with me. Sinai was, let me remind
him, more of a place than Bunker Hill. I am not a friend of "oppression"
any more than the gentleman; but I trust that had I lived in Israel, I
should never have thought of being more humane than my Maker.'
"I then proceeded to say that (as before remarked to you) we are not
warranted by the Bible to make men slaves when we please; nor, if
slavery exists, are we commanded to adopt the rules and regulations of
Hebrew slavery.
"But we do learn from the Bible that property in man is not in itself
sinful,--not even to say of a man, 'He is my money.'
"Were it intrinsically wrong, God would not have legislated about it in
such ways; for granting, if you please, the untenable distinction about
his 'not appointing' slavery, but 'finding it in existence' and
legislating for it, what necessity could there have been for making such
a law as that relating to the boring of the ear, rather than giving the
slave his wife and children and suffering them all to go free?
"No, Mr.
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