In the second place, those who found slavery on a doom pronounced against the negro race must say no more about the recognition of their institution by the law of Moses or by the New Testament, for the slavery recognised by the law of Moses and the New Testament was not that of negroes, but of other races.
But the truth is, that the words of Noah, to whomsoever they may apply, are no prophecy, but only a curse, couched in the language of Oriental malediction; and all curses have been taken away by Christ. This curse was taken away even before Christ, when Abraham was told that “in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed.”
To come, then, to that which is more to the purpose. The latest researches of historical philosophy seem to lead us back to the simplest and most natural theory of the origin of society, and to shew us that the political systems which now fill the world, with all their grandeur and complexity, once lay enfolded in the Patriarch’s tent. So that in the Patriarchal chief of an Arabian tribe we still see the father of Empires and Republics.[1]
While society was in the Patriarchal state, each family or tribe being independent of the rest, there was of course no general government. The only government was the family despotism, which, as we have already had occasion to observe, was prolonged among the Romans, through hatred of change and love of power, into a much later stage of civilization. The only law for every member of the famity was the
- ↑ See Maine’s Ancient Law, ch. v.
