SLAVERY. BY WILLIAM E. CHANNING. BOSTON: JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY. M DCCC XXXV. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1835, by JAMES MUNROE & CO., in the Clerk's office of the District Court of Massachusetts. CAMBRIDGE PRESS: METCALF, TORRY, AND BALLOU. CONTENTS. Page INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER I. Property 13 CHAPTER II. Rights 30 CHAPTER III. Explanations 54 CHAPTER IV. The Evils of Slavery 65 CHAPTER V. Scripture 108 CHAPTER VI. Means of Removing Slavery 116 CHAPTER VII. Abolitionism 130 CHAPTER VIII. Duties 149 NOTES 161 INTRODUCTION. The first question to be proposed by a rational being is, not what is profitable, but what is Right. Duty must be primary, prominent, most conspicuous, among the objects of human thought and pursuit. If we cast it down from its supremacy, if we inquire first for our interests and then for our duties, we shall certainly err. We can never see the Right clearly and fully, but by making it our first concern. No judgment can be just or wise, but that which is built on the conviction of the paramount worth and importance of Duty. This is the fundamental truth, the supreme law of reason; and the mind, which does not start from this in its inquiries into human affairs, is doomed to great, perhaps fatal error. The Right is the supreme good, and includes all other goods. In seeking and adhering to it, we secure our true and only happiness. All prosperity, not founded on it, is built on sand. If human affairs are controlled, as we believe, by Almighty Rectitude and Impartial Goodness, then to hope for happiness from wrong doing is as insane as to seek health and prosperity by rebelling against the laws of nature, by sowing our seed on the ocean, or making poison our common food. There is but one unfailing good; and that is, fidelity to the Everlasting Law written on the heart, and rewritten and republished in God's Word.