providential view of the great subject, the assailants of slavery at the
North seem to me, some of them, almost insane, and others, even
ministers of the Gospel, shall I say it? more than unchristian;--there
is a sort of blind, wild, French Jacobinical atheism in their feeling
and behavior; while as to the rest, good people, they are misled by what
Mr. Webster, in one of his speeches in the Senate, called "the constant
rub-a-dub of the press,"--"no drum-head," he says, "in the longest day's
march, having been more incessantly beaten than the feeling of the
public in certain parts of the North." I cannot reason with these men,'
continued the Judge, 'for I confess, at once, that I cannot demonstrate,
either by logic or by mathematics, a modern quitclaim or warranty in
holding slaves. In combating their illogical and unscriptural positions,
I seem to them to be an advocate of the divine right of
oppression,--which I am not. That it is best, however, and that it is
right, for this relation to continue until God shall manifest some
purpose to terminate it consistently with the good of all concerned, I
am perfectly convinced and satisfied. I believe that it has reference
to the great plan of mercy toward our world, and that when the object is
accomplished, the providence of God will, in some way, make it known. It
may be the case, no candid man and believer in revelation and divine
providence will deny it to be possible, that this dispensation with
regard to this colored race will continue for long ages to come, in the
form of bondage. That they are now under a curse, and have been so for
centuries, is apparent. When the curse is to be repealed, God only
knows. I like to cherish the idea that some development is to be made of
immense sources of wealth in Africa, that we have an embryo nation in
the midst of us, whom God has been educating for a great enterprise on
that continent, and when, like California and Australia, the voice of
the Lord shall shake the wilderness of Africa, and open its doors, it
may appear that American slavery has been the school in which God has
been preparing a people to take it into their possession.
"'EMIGRATION, then,' said he, 'is the second of the three ways in which
this problem of slavery may have its solution.
"'In preparation for this, I say, God may keep these Africans here much
longer. He may need more territory on which to educate still larger
numbers; and we may see Him extending slavery still further in our land
and on our continent. So that there may be one other way in which the
purposes of God will manifest themselves with regard to the colored race
here, and that is by EXTENSION.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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