66

were considered as a necessary portion of society. A State, says Aristotle, consists of Families; a Family, of Freemen and Slaves. And in like manner, the Roman Law lays this down as the primary division of persons†, Omnes homines aut liberi sunt aut servi." Slavery, thus derived from the ancient world, was, in the course of time, nearly extinguished in Christian States.

But in modern times, a new form of

slavery has grown up; the slavery of the carried from Africa to America; and employed there, they and their descendants, as domestic servants and agricultural labourers.

the slavery of the negroes, who are

521. The character of complete Slavery is, that the Slave has no Rights. And this complete kind of Slavery has been recognized and ordained by the Laws of many nations. Gaius, the Roman Jurist, says, "In potestate sunt servi dominorum. Quæ quidem potestas juris gentium est; nam apud omnes peræque gentes animadvertere possumus dominis in servos vitæ necisque potestatem fuisse, et quodcunque per servum acquiritur id domino acquiri." Thus the Slave had neither the Right of protection from extreme violence and death, inflicted by his master, nor the Right of property in anything which he might happen to produce or acquire. The Slave is the property of the Master, in the same manner as a horse or a cart is. And these maxims are promulgated in modern Laws. "A Slave," says the Louisiana Code §, "is in the power of the Master to whom he belongs. The Master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry, his labour; he can do nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire anything but which must belong to his master." The Laws

+ Inst. 1. 3.

* Polit. 1. 2. Dig. 1. 6. 1. Among the "things in our power" are the slaves of which we are masters. And this "power" is a general institution of nations; for we may observe that in all nations alike the master has the power of life and death over the slave; and whatever is acquired by the slave, is acquired for the master.

$ Channing's Works, Vol. 11. p. 17.

of South Carolina say, "Slaves shall be deemed, taken, reported and adjudged, to be chattels personal in the hands of their Masters, and possessions to all intents and purposes whatsoever." Accordingly, it is held in America that the cohabitation of slaves, being limited by the pleasure of the master, cannot be marriage; and that a slave cannot be guilty of theft; just as dogs and horses cannot marry and cannot steal. It is true, that in some countries, in which the most complete slavery prevails, the master is not allowed by the Laws to put his slave to death; and some punishment is inflicted if he does so. But such a Law does not invest the slave with any Rights. It is only a Law against what is shocking to the general feeling, like the English Laws against cruelty to animals. It is now penal in this country to torture a horse or a dog; but a horse or a dog are still only objects of possession, without any Rights or any acknowledged moral nature.

522. Slavery is contrary to the Fundamental Principles of Morality. It neglects the great primary distinction of Persons and Things (45); converting a Person into a Thing, an object merely passive, without any recognized attributes of Human nature. A slave is, in the eye of the State which stamps him with that character, not acknowledged as a man. His pleasures and pains, his wishes and desires, his needs and springs of action, his thoughts and feelings, are of no value whatever in the eye of the community. He is reduced to the level of the brutes. Even his Crimes, as we have said, are not acknowledged as Wrongs; lest it should be supposed that, as he may do a Wrong, he may suffer one. And as there are Rights; so there

for him no Wrongs, because there are no

is for him nothing morally right; that is, as we have seen, nothing conformable to the Supreme Rule of Human Nature; for the Supreme Rule of his condition is the will of his

master. He is thus divested of his moral nature, which is contrary to the great Principle we have already laid down; that all men are moral beings;-a Principle which, we have seen (510, 514), is one of the universal Truths of Morality, whether it be taken as a Principle of Justice or of Humanity. It is a Principle of Justice, depending upon the participation of all in a common Humanity: it is a Principle of Humanity as authoritative and cogent as the fundamental Idea of Justice.

523. All men are moral beings, and cannot be treated as mere brutes and things, without an extreme violation of the Duties of Humanity. In some communities, the Conception of Humanity may be dimly and vaguely developed; and the guilt of this violation of Duty, in this as in other cases, may be modified by this circumstance. The offense of the defender and promoter of Slavery, may not be that of acting against Conscience, but of not enlightening his Conscience; of not raising his standard of morality. And this offense, again, may be modified by the circumstances in which a person is placed. In the ancient world, especially in the earlier periods, when the friendly intercourse of nations was rare, the feeling of Humanity very imperfectly unfolded, and the thoughts by which such feelings are fostered and supported not yet familiar among men; the opportunity of enlightening the conscience and raising the moral standard were wanting; and if, in such cases, virtuous men practised slavery without doubt or misgiving; and with the natural mercy, in their treatment of slaves, which benevolence cultivated in the other relations of life would usually produce in this; we may pronounce them to have been excusable, on the ground of the defects of their national standard of morality (453): though upon such men, and upon all men, there was a duty incumbent, of raising the national standard of Morality. But now, after morality and

religion have so far raised the standard of morality in Christian nations, that among them, the Slavery which they inherited from the ancient world has been extinguished; Nations, which do not adopt the Standard of Morality thus elevated, are chargeable with a voluntary preference of inhumanity and injustice to humanity and justice (455).

524. A very little progress in humanity, is sufficient to lead men to see the cruelty and immorality of making slaves, of men of our own race. Plato* notices it as a necessary result of an improved morality, that Greeks should not make slaves of Greeks. This injunction had already been given to the Jews: If thy brother (which in this place and others means thy fellow-countrymen) be sold unto thee, thou shalt not make him serve as a bondman. No man can think it conformable to Justice and Humanity that he, or his Family, should be thrown into a state of slavery; and in considering his fellow-countrymen, he can readily sympathize with them, and identify his case with theirs; and thus, he acknowledges that to make them slaves, is inhuman and unjust. The Romans, as we have seen, extended this feeling to all the world; and their Jurists declared, that no man was a slave by nature. It is indeed plain that our Humanity, in order to be consistent, must extend to all men. To conceive slavery a cruel and unjust lot for our countrymen, but a reasonable and tolerable fate for foreigners, can arise only from dulness and narrowness of mind, and benevolence scantily cultivated. In the eye of Morality, all men are Brothers; and the crime of maintaining Slavery, is the crime of making or keeping a Brother a Slave.

525. There is one defense of negro slavery, which represents the negro as a being inferior to the white man in his faculties. He is asserted to approach in his nature to the inferior animals; and hence it is inferred that he + Levit. xxv. 39.

Rep. v. 14.

may be possessed as a Thing, like the animals. But this defense is manifestly quite baseless. The same faculties of mind have appeared in the negro, as in the white, so far as the condition of negro nations and negro classes has afforded opportunities for their development. The negroes do not appear to be duller, ruder or coarser, in mind or habits, than many savage white nations; or than nations, now highly cultured, were, in their early condition. The negro has a moral nature, and is therefore included in the consequences which follow from the Principle, that all men have a common nature. The negro has the same affections and springs of action as we ourselves. He loves his wife, his children, his home, and any security and stability which is granted him. He can buy and sell, promise and perform. He has, as much as any race of men, moral sentiments. He can admire and love what is good; he can condemn and hate what is bad. He has the Sentiment of Rights and Wrongs also. Though the Law allows him no Rights, he can feel bitterly the monstrous Wrong of the Law. His Reason is the Universal Reason of men. He understands the general and abstract Forms in which Language presents the objects and rules, with which Reason deals. He recognizes, as we do, a Supreme Rule of Human action and Human being; for, like us, he can direct his thoughts and acts to what is absolutely right. In short, there is no phrase which can be used, describing the moral and rational nature of man, which may not be used of the negro, as of the white. The assertion that there is, between the white and the black race, any difference on which the one can found a Right to make slaves of the other, is utterly false.

526. If it be said, that the negro approaches in his external form to some kinds of monkeys; and if it be asked how we draw the line between man and such inferior animals; we reply, that all beings are men, who have a