21 scientious means by which some of the proudest of them procured the rebellion — means involving breaches of trust, violations of truth, and other huge dishonesties, that entitle them to take rank with any of the robber knights who stood foremost in the semi-barbarous chivalry of the middle ages. It is strange, too, that thinking men with an open Gospel should have dared to re-affirm a system of bondage which stands in essential antagonism to the spirit and power of Christianity. For no matter what defences of slavery may be extorted by elaborate inferences from the Bible, there is one simple and indisputable principle in the code of Jesus Christ, which condenses the argument and the refutation into the briefest form: “ Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so unto them, for this is the law and the prophets.” It is simple, it is comprehensive, it is universal. It liquidates all sophistry, and escapes all entanglement. It determines involuntary servitude to be wrong, unless every master is willing to exchange places with his slave. “ Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.” There is but one escape from the searching exaction, and that is to deny that the slave is a man. How then could such a system make head against the spirit of such a Gospel. It was a huge mistake, demonstrated to be such by the overruling power, that has already turned
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