Patriarchal Servitude.

Coming, at length, directly to the divine oracles, you adduce the examples of the venerable patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in defence of American slaveholding. The fact of their slaveholding you consider settled, by the passages to which you refer; and of them say, “Jacob held slaves without the least remorse of conscience or reproof from God.” A remark which you undoubtedly intended to be applied to the others also, because if either conscience or God reproved them, their example should be avoided rather than imitated. That neither of these contingences occurred, even in the case of Jacob, must be ascertained, if it can be at all, from other sources than the passages to which you have referred us. The pith of your reasoning on this topic is evidently this, that whatsoever so good men as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob did without expressing sorrow, or receiving known reproof from God, was right; and furnishes you and others with a sufficient warrant to follow their example. Is this statement correct? If not, what relevancy or force is there in your reasoning from patriarchal example in defence of American Slavery? If the statement of your reasoning is correct, are you willing to abide all the legitimate conclusions, Do, dear brethren, consider well which horn of the dilemma is to be chosen.

Two things in regard to this matter merit special consideration. The first is the fact whether the patriarchs did hold slaves; and the other whether their example, provided they did, would justify other men in doing the same thing.

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Continued from: Reverend Silas McKeen to Thomas C. Stuart, August 20, 1839

SOURCE: Cyrus P. Grosvenor, Slavery vs. The Bible: A Correspondence Between the General Conference of Maine, and the Presbytery of Tombecbee, Mississippi, p. 35-7