Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: false parentage. The principle of the relation is wrong at bottom. The relation is forced and unnatural. Tt is unwarranted by scripture, having no foundation in the word of God. Hence it can give rise to no just claims nor obligations, because the relation itself is void in equity, ab initio, and, whatever claims exist, are rooted in a relation which is false. Now, take the relation of master and slave, and test it by this same analysis. Has God fitted one man to be property, and adapted another to be the property-holder of men ? is one man formed for fetters and a yoke, and another with a whip in his hand, and a spur on his heel ? Will my brother tell me, as the southern defenders of slavery argue in Congress, that the wise are the natural owners of the foolish, and the strong of the weak. Mr. Pickens, of South Carolina, stated in his place, in Congress, that " when once society is pressed down into its classifications, one class will always hold the other as property, in some form or other." Is that doctrine to find advocates in free Ohio? Sirs, if it be true that the strong are born to own the weak, why not put the weak slave-holder into slavery, and make the strong slave his master? If the unwise and the untalented are the natural slaves of the wise and capable, the moment when, by causes inseparable from slavery, the owner becomes the slave's inferior, that moment your rule gives the slave of strong and vigorous mind and athletic muscles, dominion over the master of weak intellect and emasculate person; and it is well understood that slavery deteriorates both the mind and body of the owner class. If the silly and weak are to be enslaved by the wise and strong, God help the cripple, the idiot, and'the weak-minded child! No, gentlemen, no, never. I will never admit the doctr...