Three Prize Essays on American Slavery

A benevolent individual, who has numerous friends and acquaintances both North and South, and who has had peculiar opportunities for learning the state and condition of all sections of the nation, perceiving the danger of our national Institutions, and deeply impressed with a sense of the importance, in this time of peril, of harmonizing Christian men through the country, by kind yet faithful exhibitions of truth on the subject now agitating the whole community, offered a premium of $100 for the best Essay on the subject of Slavery, fitted to influence the great body of Christians through the land.

The call was soon responded to by nearly fifty writers, whose manuscripts were examined by the distinguished committee appointed by the Donor, whose award has been made, as their certificate, here annexed, will show.

PREMIUM AWARDED.

The undersigned, appointed a Committee to award a premium of one hundred dollars, offered by a benevolent individual, for the best Essay on the subject of Slavery, "adapted to receive the approbation of Evangelical Christians generally," have had under examination more than forty competing manuscripts, a large number of them written with much ability. They have decided to award the prize to the author of the Essay entitled, "The Error and the Duty in regard to Slavery," whom they find, on opening the accompanying envelope, to be the Rev. R. B. THURSTON, of Chicopee Falls, Mass.

They would also commend to the attention of the public, two of the remaining tracts, selected by the individual who offered the prize, and for which he and others interested have given a prize of one hundred dollars each. One of these is entitled, "Friendly Letters to a Christian Slave-holder," by Rev. A. C. BALDWIN, of Durham, Conn.; the other, "Is American Slavery an Institution which Christianity sanctions and will perpetuate?" by Rev. TIMOTHY WILLISTON, of Strongsville, Ohio.

ASA D. SMITH, MARK HOPKINS, THEODORE FRELINGHUYSEN.

May, 1857.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

I. THE ERROR AND THE DUTY IN REGARD TO SLAVERY, 1

II. FRIENDLY LETTERS TO A CHRISTIAN SLAVE-HOLDER, 39

III. IS AMERICAN SLAVERY AN INSTITUTION WHICH CHRISTIANITY SANCTIONS AND WILL PERPETUATE, 99

FOOTNOTES

THE ERROR AND THE DUTY

IN

REGARD TO SLAVERY.

BY

REV. R. B. THURSTON.

The great and agitating question of our country is that concerning slavery. Beneath the whole subject there lies of course some simple truth, for all fundamental truth is simple, which will be readily accepted by patriotic and Christian minds, when it is clearly perceived and discreetly applied. It is the design of these pages to exhibit this truth, and to show that it is a foundation for a union of sentiment and action on the part of good men, by which, under the divine blessing, our threatening controversies, North and South, may be happily terminated.

To avoid misapprehension, let it be noticed that we shall examine the central claim of slavery, first, as a legal institution; afterwards, the moral relations of individuals connected with it will be considered. In that examination the term property, as possessed in men, will be used in the specific sense which is given to it by the slave laws and the practical operation of the system. No other sense is relevant to the discussion. The property of the father in the services of the son, of the master in the labor of the apprentice, of the State in the forced toil of the convict, is not in question. None of these relations creates slavery as such; and they should not be allowed, as has sometimes been done, to obscure the argument.

The limits of a brief tract on a great subject compel us to pass unnoticed many questions which will occur to a thoughtful mind. It is believed that they all find their solution in our fundamental positions; and that all passages of the Bible relating to the general subject, when faithfully interpreted in their real harmony, sustain these positions. It is admitted that the following argument is unsound if it does not provide for every logical and practical exigency.