Moses _protected servants_ in their _rights as men and women_, guarded them from oppression and defended them from wrong. The Code Noir of the South _robs the slave of all his rights_ as a _man_, reduces him to a chattel personal, and defends the master in the exercise of the most unnatural and unwarrantable power over his slave. They each bear the impress of the hand which formed them. The attributes of justice and mercy are shadowed out in the Hebrew code; those of injustice and cruelty, in the Code Noir of America. Truly it was wise in the slaveholders of the South to declare their slaves to be "chattels personal;" for before they could be robbed of wages, wives, children, and friends, it was absolutely necessary to deny they were human beings. It is wise in them, to keep them in abject ignorance, for the strong man armed must be bound before we can spoil his house--the powerful intellect of man must be bound down with the iron chains of nescience before we can rob him of his rights as a man; we must reduce him to a _thing_ before we can claim the right to set our feet upon his neck, because it was only _all things_ which were originally _put under the feet of man_ by the Almighty and Beneficent Father of all, who has declared himself to be _no respecter_ of persons, whether red, white or black.

But some have even said that Jesus Christ did not condemn slavery. To this I reply that our Holy Redeemer lived and preached among the Jews only. The laws which Moses had enacted fifteen hundred years previous to his appearance among them, had never been annulled, and these laws protected every servant in Palestine. If then He did not condemn Jewish servitude this does not prove that he would not have condemned such a monstrous system as that of American _slavery_, if that had existed among them. But did not Jesus condemn slavery? Let us examine some of his precepts. "_Whatsoever_ ye would that men should do to you, do _ye even so to them_," Let every slaveholder apply these queries to his own heart; Am _I_ willing to be a slave--Am _I_ willing to see _my_ wife the slave of another--Am _I_ willing to see my mother a slave, or my father, my sister or my brother? If _not_, then in holding others as slaves, I am doing what I would _not_ wish to be done to me or any relative I have; and thus have I broken this golden rule which was given _me_ to walk by.

But some slaveholders have said, "we were never in bondage to any man," and therefore the yoke of bondage would be insufferable to us, but slaves are accustomed to it, their backs are fitted to the burden. Well, I am willing to admit that you who have lived in freedom would find slavery even more oppressive than the poor slave does, but then you may try this question in another form--Am I willing to reduce _my little child_ to slavery? You know that _if it is brought up a slave_ it will never know any contrast, between freedom and bondage, its back will become fitted to the burden just as the negro child's does--_not by nature_--but by daily, violent pressure, in the same way that the head of the Indian child becomes flattened by the boards in which it is bound. It has been justly remarked that "_God never made a slave_," he made man upright; his back was _not_ made to carry burdens, nor his neck to wear a yoke, and the _man_ must be crushed within him, before _his_ back can be _fitted_ to the burden of perpetual slavery; and that his back is _not_ fitted to it, is manifest by the insurrections that so often disturb the peace and security of slaveholding countries. Who ever heard of a rebellion of the beasts of the field; and why not? simply because _they_ were all placed _under the feet of man_, into whose hand they were delivered; it was originally designed that they should serve him, therefore their necks have been formed for the yoke, and their backs for the burden; but _not so with man_, intellectual, immortal man! I appeal to you, my friends, as mothers;