at issue between us. Let us then begin with Adam and examine the
charter of privileges which was given to him. "Have dominion over the
fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living
thing that moveth upon the earth." In the eighth Psalm we have a still
fuller description of this charter which through Adam was given to
all mankind. "Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy
hands; thou hast put all things under his feet. All sheep and oxen,
yea, and the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air, the fish of the
sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas." And after
the flood when this charter of human rights was renewed, we find _no
additional_ power vested in man. "And the fear of you and the dread of
you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and every fowl of the air,
and upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of
the sea, into your hand are they delivered." In this charter, although
the different kinds of _irrational_ beings are so particularly
enumerated, and supreme dominion over _all of them_ is granted, yet
_man_ is _never_ vested with this dominion _over his fellow man;_
he was never told that any of the human species were put _under his
feet;_ it was only _all things_, and man, who was created in the image
of his Maker, _never_ can properly be termed a _thing_, though the
laws of Slave States do call him "a chattel personal;" _Man_ then, I
assert _never_ was put _under the feet of man_, by that first charter
of human rights which was given by God, to the Fathers of the
Antediluvian and Postdiluvian worlds, therefore this doctrine of
equality is based on the Bible.

But it may be argued, that in the very chapter of Genesis from which I
have last quoted, will be found the curse pronounced upon Canaan, by
which his posterity was consigned to servitude under his brothers Shem
and Japheth. I know this prophecy was uttered, and was most fearfully