SOLON ROBINSON, 1849 275 



country where we are told they are treated with such 

 horrid brutality, it seems that they did not avail them- 

 selves of the offered boon. 



When Gen. Jackson appealed to the patriotic spirits 

 of that region to aid him in the defense of New Orleans, 

 there were more than 5,000 slaves in and about Natchez, 

 and yet not an hundred able bodied men remained behind 

 to guard their own homes ; and the reason was that they 

 knew they had no foes to guard against. But it was a 

 strong manifestation of the instinct that has ever bound 

 the sons of Canaan to prefer a life of slavery, comfort 

 and plenty, and freedom from care, to the precarious 

 existence that attaches to him when free. 



Many of the present masters now in that region, were, 

 during this period, rocked in their cradles and nursed by 

 those who had the power in their own hands to have 

 closed their existence, and in one day to have blotted out 

 that terrible sin, which is said to be accursed of God: 

 though it seems he was not disposed to order the slave, 

 as some of his pretended friends would do, to blot it out 

 and wash himself free in the blood of his absent master's 

 wife and children. 



Historical facts like these go far to prove, that the doc- 

 trine so often preached is not, and cannot be, sustained, 

 that "slavery is sin," that "it is incompatible with repub- 

 licanism" and "inimical to religion," and that "God looks 

 with displeasure upon all those who," notwithstanding it 

 may be in conformity with Revelation and in fulfillment 

 of prophecy, "hold the Canaanite in slavery." 



I have only to say that if God is displeased, he has 

 given no evidence of it by continuing the guilty in the 

 enjoyment of a high state of prosperity, notwithstanding 

 their wickedness. 



I have heard men contend that the authority given in 

 the Bible for Japheth to hold Ham in subjection, has 

 expired by limitation; but how or when, they could not 

 tell, but believed it was so, because it was inconsistent 

 with their limited ideas of God's goodness and justice to 



