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Primary source: Thornton Stringfellow, Slavery, its Origin, Nature and History: Its Relations to Society, to Government, and True Religion . . . , 1860.
Caption: In his 1860 book, Thornton Stringfellow explains what he sees as the biblical justification for slavery.
[Slavery] is branded by one portion of the people, who take their rule of moral rectitude from the Scriptures, as a great sin; nay the greatest of sins that exist in the nation. And they hold the obligation to exterminate it, to be paramount to all others.
If slavery be thus sinful, it behooves all Christians who are involved in the sin, to repent in dust and ashes, and wash their hands of it, without consulting with flesh and blood . . . .
I propose, therefore, to examine the sacred volume briefly, and if I am not greatly mistaken,
I shall be able to make it appear that the institution of slavery has received, in the first place, 1st. The sanction of the Almighty in the Patriarchal age.
2d. That it was incorporated into the only National Constitution which ever emanated from God.
3d. That its legality was recognized, and its relative duties regulated, by Jesus Christ in his kingdom; and
4th. That is full of mercy. . . .
[The abolitionists'] hostility must be transferred from us to God, who established slavery by law in that kingdom over which he condescended to preside; and to Jesus, who recognized it as a relationship established in Israel by his Father, and in the Roman government by men, which he bound his followers to obey and honor.
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Thornton Stringfellow, Slavery, its Origin, Nature and History: Its Relations to Society, to Government, and True Religion . . . , (Alexandria, Va.: Virginia Sentinel Office, 1860).
Courtesy of The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.
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