5. THE COMMANDMENTS ARE ALL AGAINST SLAVERY. "Honor thy father and thy mother." But slavery places the master between the child and the parent, and makes it impossible for the child practically to obey this command, in the performance of those duties which cheer the hearts and lighten the burdens of parents, especially in old age. "Thou shalt not kill." But slavery authorizes in many cases the killing of slaves. "In North Carolina, any person may lawfully kill a slave who has been outlawed by running away or lurking in the swamps." "By a law of South Carolina, a slave endeavoring to entice another slave to run away, if provisions, etc., be prepared to aid in such running away, shall be punished with death." "Another law of the same State, provides that if a slave when absent from the plantation, refuse to be examined by any white person, such white person may seize and chastise him; and if the slave shall _strike_ such person, he may be _lawfully killed_."--"Thou shalt not commit adultery." But female slaves are compelled to commit adultery. The law places them wholly within the power of their masters and overseers, and they dare not, they cannot resist their demands. "Thou shalt not steal." But slavery exists by theft. Every slave is a stolen man. Every slaveholder is a man-stealer. The slave was stolen from Africa, or stolen from his rightful owner, himself, in America. No sophistry can make it plausible that the African slave trade is piracy, and that the _perpetuation_ of slavery is an innocent business. It is theft as clearly to go to the negro hut in Virginia and steal a babe as to go to a hut in Africa and do the same deed. Certainly a child born in our happy Republic is as free in the sight of God as one born under the rule of the King of Dahomey! "All are created free," hence the holding of any one as a slave is _theft_ persevered in. "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." But slavery does bear false witness against the slave, who is our neighbor. It denies his natural equality, his right to liberty, property--in short, his manhood. This is all as _false_ as false can be. "Thou shalt not covet." But slavery covets not only a man's property, but the man himself. We see that slavery violates every commandment of the second table of the Decalogue, and indeed violates every precept of the first table, as might readily be shown.