“And he [Noah] said, Cursed be Canaan: a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant.”[6] That is all; and I need only read these words in order to expose the whole--transpicuous humbug. I am tempted to add, that, to justify this objection, it is necessary to maintain at least five different propositions, as essential links in the chain of the African slave: _first_, that by this malediction Canaan himself was actually changed into a _chattel_,--whereas he is simply made the servant of his brethren; _secondly_, that not merely Canaan, but all his posterity, to the remotest generation, was so changed,--whereas the language has no such extent; _thirdly_, that the African actually belongs to the posterity of Canaan,--an ethnographical assumption absurdly difficult to establish; _fourthly_, that each descendant of Shem and Japheth has a right to hold an African fellow-man as chattel,--a proposition which finds no semblance of support; and, _fifthly_, that every slave-master is truly descended from Shem or Japheth,--a pedigree which no anxiety or assurance can prove. This plain analysis, which may fitly excite a smile, shows the fivefold absurdity of an attempt to found this revolting wrong on any “successive title, long and dark, Drawn from the mouldy rolls of Noah’s ark.”[7]