The December release of The American Slavery Collection, 1820-1922: From the American Antiquarian Society
includes both pro- and anti-slavery perspectives as well as a retrospective view of U.S. slavery at the close of the 19th-century.
A View of the American Slavery Question (1836)
By Elijah Porter Barrows, Jr., Pastor of the First Free Presbyterian Church, New York
Pastor Elijah Barrows prepared this discourse on slavery “with particular reference to the condition of his own church.” He notes that its members were “divided in their views, and disunited in their feelings, on this much agitated subject.” Hoping to unify his New York congregation in support of abolishing slavery, Barrows begins his argument by drawing attention to Louisiana Code, Article 3:
A slave is one who is in the power of a master to whom he belongs. The master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry, his labor; he can do nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire any thing but which must belong to his master.
Barrows then takes that definition to a logical and stark conclusion: