_Fourthly._ Slavery paints itself again _in closing the gates of knowledge_, which are also the shining gates of Civilization. Under its plain, unequivocal law, the bondman, at the unrestrained will of his master, is shut out from all instruction; while in many places--incredible to relate--the law itself, by cumulative provisions, positively forbids that he shall be taught to read! Of course the slave cannot be allowed to read: for his soul would then expand in larger air, while he saw the glory of the North Star, and also the helping truth, that God, who made iron, never made a slave; for he would then become familiar with the Scriptures, with the Decalogue still speaking in the thunders of Sinai,--with that ancient text, “He that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death”[40]--with that other text, “Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal,”[41]--with that great story of Redemption, when the Lord raised the slave-born Moses to deliver his chosen people from the house of bondage,--and with that sublimer story, where the Saviour died a cruel death, that all men, without distinction of race, might be saved, leaving to mankind a commandment which, even without his example, makes Slavery impossible. Thus, in order to fasten your manacles upon the slave, you fasten other manacles upon his soul. The ancients maintained Slavery by chains and death: you maintain it by that infinite despotism and monopoly through which human nature itself is degraded. Sir, is not Slavery barbarous? _Fifthly._ Slavery paints itself again _in the appropriation of all the toil_ of its victims, excluding them from that property in their own earnings which the Law of Nature allows and Civilization secures. The painful injustice of this pretension is lost in its meanness. It is robbery and petty larceny under garb of law. And even the meanness is lost in the absurdity of its associate pretension, that the African, thus despoiled of all earnings, is saved from poverty, and that for his own good he must work for his master, and not for himself. Alas, by such fallacy is a whole race pauperized! And yet this transaction is not without illustrative example. A sombre poet, whose verse has found wide favor, pictures a creature who “with one hand put A penny in the urn of poverty, And with the other took a shilling out.”[42] And a celebrated traveller through Russia, more than a generation ago, describes a kindred spirit, who, while devoutly crossing himself at church with his right hand, with the left deliberately picked the pocket of a fellow-sinner by his side.[43] Not admiring these instances, I cannot cease to deplore a system which has much of both, while, under affectation of charity, it sordidly takes from the slave all the fruits of his bitter sweat, and thus takes from him the main spring to exertion. Tell me, Sir, is not Slavery barbarous?