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Show 12-1 NOTES ON passage is quoted by Rev. Albert Barnes, and on it he says, (page 140) :-"I am willing to admit that the command probably re.lates only to the slaves which escaped to the country of the Hebrews from surrounding nations; and that in form it did not contemplate the runaway slaves of tho Hebrews in their own land." (See Fletcher's Studies on Slavery, p. 119.) Now what Mr. Barnes is ready to admit as the p1·obable interpretation, we may safely assume to be the true one; cspecia.lly when, as in the present case, the whole connec~ tion, and, indeed, the language itself, shows it to be so. For, it will be observed, the language is, "the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee; he shall dwell with thee, even among you, * * * * in one of thy ga tcs." All the pronouns I have italicised, refer not to one tribe, but to the whole nat-ion of Israel, as will be seen by the preceding verses; the master, therefore, from whom" the slave escaped to the nation of Israel, must have been himself outside that nation; in other words, a foreigner and a heathen; this last circumstance was the reason why the slave was not to be delivered up. But exceptio probat regularn, and the very exception, therefore, in the present case, shows tho.t in all other cases, he was to be delivered up. The direct argument from Holy Scripture having thus failed the Abolitionists, they have recourse to the indirect: t hey quote the passage, Whatsoever yc would that men should do to you, &c., and try to work on our sympathies: "Folks don't run away," they tell us, "when they nrc happy." Of course, they don't, unless, indeed, they are enticed off. But " folks" arc not always happy when they ought to be: children arc sometimes unhappy under the benignant restraint of kind parents; apprentices nrc sometimes unhappy under the benignant restraint of kind em· U NC J, & '1'0 ,\1 's C ABIN. 125 ployers; idlers and vagabonds arc sometimes unhappy under the benignant restraint of kind laws; and in the sa.mc way, _slaves ~rc sometimes unhappy under the benignant restramt of kind masters. ~rho truth is, some "folks" don't like work of ;my kind, and arc never happy when they arc compelled to it. B~t, there arc, no doubt, now and then cases,-possibly one m ten, more probably, not one in twenty,*-whcre slaves have run away on account of cruel treatment. 1\' hat arc we to sny of such cases? I think I conld anS\\'('1' this question very easily; luckily, howerer, the Commonwealth, of J\Iay 2, 1853, has s:-tved me the trouble by answering it for me. The Post and the Courier, it seems, had been advising the Free-Sailers instead of wasting their resources in tho Quixotic attempt to abolish slavery, to apply those resources to the redemption of individual slaves. 1,hereupon, tho Commonwe<1lth thus discoUJ ·scth :-" Foliowing up this scheme, the very men who 1mve slJo,~·n tlw.t they would favor the indefinite spread and pcrp:t~at.wn of slaYcry, coolly bring subscription papers to AbolitiOnists to ransom slaves, and evidently consider the measure of our liberality as the test of sirlfil,Crity in the anti-slavery cause. It is time such hypocrisy was properly met. "In the flrst plnce it is time for the Cow·ic1·, P ost, and poop!? of th.at sort, to understand that we do not recognize the nght of man to hold property in man. And unless a very strong case is made out, it is by no mca.ns a duty to • Is one in twenty of tho cases of runftway npprcnt.ices, that wo frequently sec adrcrtiscd in the new:o;papcrs, under the heading, " A basket of chips reward!" ''One cent reward, and no charges paid I" :\ case of running: ~\wny from cnwl treatment? God help Northern masters, if it is! L* |