[1] The following is a decision of the Supreme Court of Kentucky. Kentucky Reports, p. 644. JUDGE SHANNON—“Slaves, although they are human beings, are, by our laws, placed on the same footing with living property of the brute creation. However deeply it may be regretted, or whether it be politic or impolitic, a slave by our code is not treated as a person, but (_negotium_,) a thing, as he stood in the civil code of the Roman Empire.” FROM A SERMON BY REV. E. N. KIRK, D. D. In addition to the reasons urging to prayer for the extinction of slavery growing out of the character of the system, and the condition of the oppressed, there are other reasons derived from its influence upon the slave owners. Of these there are three classes: the unwilling master—the willing, but kind master—and the oppressor. 1. I know of no condition so full of trials as that of the slave-owner who abhors the relation, but does not see that he can properly terminate it. That there are many such can not be doubted. But what a life must a godly man lead who has come to comprehend its enormous wickedness! What must be his apprehensions of the wrath of God upon his people, his country! If a man of skeptical views, like Jefferson, could tremble for his country in remembering that heaven is just, what must he feel who fully believes that God is ruler among the nations, and that he hates oppression! How painful must be his unavailing sympathy for the poor oppressed beings whom he sees around him! How must his heart be burdened as he observes the demoralizing influences of slavery on both races; how often must his love of country be pained with that just contempt which slaveholding in America excites in every civilized nation under heaven; how painful must it be to see no relief in any quarter, but, on the contrary, everything indicating that the system is to be incorporated into the whole civil and social system of the nation! And to crown all, while many intelligent persons at the South would gladly abandon slavery, no man has the courage to utter his sentiments. This class of slave-owners demands our deepest and most compassionate sympathy. 2. There is another class who have been taught from infancy by their parents, teachers, and pastors, that slavery is a divine institution; they see no wrong in it, and consider all the evils as incidental, and not as legitimate consequences of the system. They are the most powerful upholders of it, because they believe it to be right, and are conscious of no other than kind sentiments towards their slaves. To such men and their sentiments the oppressor triumphantly appeals as an evidence that slaveholding is not injurious to character, nor repulsive to the feelings of good men.