235), _when men_--the negro--erected the _first_ altar on earth; _they_ had seen Adam, Cain, Abel, and Seth, erect altars and call on the name of the Lord. They, too, could _imitate_ them; they _did_ then _imitate_; they then built _their_ altars; they _then_ called an the name of the Lord; they are yet _imitating_; they are _yet profaning_ the name of the Lord, by calling on his name. And _you_, the people of the United States, are upholding _this profanity_. Who was it that caused God to repent and to be grieved at his heart, that he had made _man_? Will _you_ place yourselves alongside of that being, and against God? All analogy says _you will_! But remember, that the righteous will escape--the hardened alone will perish. The ways of God are _always consistent, when understood_, and always just and reasonable. It is a curious fact, but a fact, nevertheless, and fully sustained by the Bible; and that fact is this; That God _never conferred_, and never _designed_ to _confer_, any great _blessing_ on the human family, but what he _always_ selects or selected a white _slaveholder_ or one of a white _slaveholding nation_, as the _medium_, by or through which _that blessing_ should reach them. Why he has done so, is not material to discuss now; but the _fact_, that he _always_ did so, the Bible abundantly proves. Abraham, the father of the faithful, and in whom and his seed all the families of the earth were to be blessed, is a notable instance of this truth. For Abraham owned three hundred and eighteen _slaves_. And the Saviour of the world was of a white _slaveholding nation_; and they held slaves by God's own laws, and not by theirs. And how has it been in respect of our own nation and government, the United States? A government now declared by thousands of lips, latterly, to be the best, the very best, that has ever been in the world. Who made this government? Who established it and its _noble principles_? Let us appeal to history. The first attack on British power, and the aggressions of its parliament, ever made on this continent, was made by a slaveholder, from a slave state, Patrick Henry, May 30, 1765. The first president of the first congress, that ever assembled on this continent, to consider of the affairs of the thirteen colonies, and which met in Philadelphia, September 5, 1774, was a slave owner from a slave state, Peyton Randolph. The only secretary that congress ever had, was a slave owner from a slave state, Charles Thompson. The gentleman who was chairman of the committee of the whole, on Saturday, the 8th of June, 1776, and who, on the morning of the 10th reported the resolutions, that the thirteen colonies, of right ought to be free and independent _states_, was a slaveholder from a slave state, Benjamin Harrison. The same gentlemen again, as chairman of the committee of the whole, reported the Declaration of Independence in form; and to which he affixed his signature, on Thursday, July 4, 1776.