AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF SLAVERY. INTRODUCTION. PHILOSOPHY is the handmaid, and frequently the most successful expounder of the law. History is the groundwork and only sure basis of philosophy. To understand aright, therefore, the Law of Slavery, we must not be ignorant of its history. A detailed and minute inquiry into the history of slavery would force us to trace the history of every nation of the earth; for the most enlightened have, at some period within their existence, adopted it as a system; and no organized government has been so barbarous as not to introduce it amongst its customs. It has been more universal than marriage, and more permanent than liberty. All that we can propose for ourselves here, is a limited and brief glance at its existence and condition during the several ages of the world. Its beginning dates back at least to the deluge. One of the inmates of the ark became a "servant of servants;" and in the opinion of many the curse of Ham 1 See Bancroft's United States, vol. i, ch. v. "Liberty and Tyranny have kept pace with each other. The helots at Sparta, the slaves at Rome, the villains of the feudal system, bear testimony to this melancholy truth." Brown's Civil Law, i, 97. is now being executed upon his descendants, in the enslavement of the negro race. From the familiarity with which Noah spoke of the servile condition of his youngest son, it seems probable that the condition of servitude must have existed prior to the flood. In every organized community there must be a laboring class, to execute the plans devised by wiser heads: to till the ground, and to perform the menial offices necessarily connected with social life. This class have generally been slaves, and, in the opinion of Puffendorf, their bondage naturally arose, in the infancy of society, from their occupation. The poorer and less intelligent applied to the more opulent and intelligent for employment. The return was food and raiment, at a time when there was no currency. With the removal of the employer-mankind at that age having no permanent abode—the employee moved also, and with him his family. His children, as they grew to youth and manhood, naturally aided the parent in his labors, and received the same reward; and thus, either by express contract or custom, the one, with his descendants, became attached to and a part of the household of the other. Certain it is, that Abraham had his man-servants and maid-servants, born in his house and bought with his money; and that Sarah, his wife, was a hard mistress to Hagar, her handmaid, who became a fugitive from her hand, and returned only by the direction of the angel of the Lord. The slave-trade too, was of early origin, as we find Joseph sold to Midianitish merchants, and resold by them in Egypt. The transfer of slaves from parent to child, was of still earlier origin, as we find Rebecca, on her marriage to Isaac, carrying her damsels home with her; a custom followed by Laban, on the marriage of Leah and Rachel to Jacob. The slavery in these patriarchal days, was undoubtedly mild; and the relations between the master and slave, of the |