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In our examination of the right by which the children, born in our country, of African slaves, are retained in slavery, two points naturally present for consideration.

1. The rights of persons. 2. The rights of property.

"We

The rights of persons are evidently first, both in regard to importance and in order of time. The nature and foundation of these rights can hardly be expressed in more concise and appropriate terms, than in the celebrated declaration of independence. hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights: that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just power from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter, or Vol. I.-41

abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." Natural liberty, the gift of the Creator, is not therefore to be restrained by human authority, any further than the security and happiness of society shall require. As governments originated in the vices of mankind, their use is to restrain those vicious propensities, and neutralize the passions by which the peace of society is disturbed. If any portion of the human family had been endowed by their Creator with a complete exemption from human infirmity, so as to be inaccessible to error or to crime, this portion might have been considered as clothed with a natural right to govern the rest, while they were themselves exempted from the control of government. But as we are unable to select from the mass of the community, such a privileged class, the wisdom of nations has

been employed in so adjusting the balance of power, that the interests and passions of men, like the antagonist muscles in the animal system, may counterbalance each other. Governments deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, can possess no other rights than those which are composed of the individual rights that have been surrendered for the sake of security, and the peaceable enjoyment of the rest. In the formation of society no natural rights would be surrendered, unless with the view of increasing, in a corresponding degree, the value of those which are reserved. To render governments a blessing, the members of civil society must possess rights superior to those which were held in a state of nature. Therefore the rights of individuals can be justly curtailed only upon principles common to the whole community, for men are created equal; and with a view to promote the general happiness, for the promotion of general happiness is the legitimate object of government. If, therefore, any portion of the community have fewer natural rights than others, the difference must be owing to the forfeiture of a part of those rights. Personal liberty being the gift of the Creator, remains in the original possessor, till justly forfeited, upon general principles, and for the general good and till thus forfeited, no right, incompatible with this, can vest in another.

When, therefore, any person is claimed as a slave, we might, upon general and evident principles, resist the claim, by denying that the person in question had forfeited his freedom, and demanding the proof. We are not bound to prove his freedom, for that is a natural right. Neither are we bound

vertible evidence of freedom, until the forfeiture of that freedom is proved. That forfeiture must be evident, and deduced from the firmest principles of the social compact. No arbitrary and constructive forfeiture can counterpoise the overwhelming testimony of nature.

If we next inquire what is the foundation of the right of property, it will probably be found substantially the same as the foundation of our personal rights. Man owes his rights, as well as himself, to divine benefaction. It will probably be difficult to find a more solid foundation for the right of property, than the gift to Noah and his sons immediately after the flood. This ample donation, including the whole habitable globe, with the various tenants of its fields and floods, was conferred, without partiality, upon the fathers of our race. The world was open before them, to be, occupied and improved as convenience or fancy might suggest. No right could then be less disputable than that which every man must be supposed to have asserted to the produce of his own labour or ingenuity. The fruit which he had collected, the beasts which he had taken, or the fish that he had caught, must have been exclusively his own. When he erected a shed to cover him from the storm, he could not, without a breach of the moral law, be dispossessed, unless with his own consent. The rights of personal property were thus the immediate growth of personal rights.

When any portion of land, not pre

viously occupied, was taken possession of, a temporary right was derived by simple occupancy; for the occupant could not be dispossessed without an act of violence. When a man had cleared and sown a field, he was unquestionably entitled to the produce; but this could be secured only by the exclusive possession of the field, till the fruit was gathered. As long as mankind retained the hunting or the pastoral state, and a sufficient extent of country was before them to supply their simple demands, it is probable that few claims were set up to an exclusive right in the soil. The history of the patriarchal ages, as well as the nature of the case, supports the belief, that the immediate products of ingenuity and labour were held as the property of their producers, long before an exclusive right to the permanent possession of any particular portions of the earth was established. As the population thickened, and attention to agriculture increased, the labour bestowed upon the various improvements, which this state of things required, and which were fixed to the spot, soon became too 'great to be willingly endured, without a prospect of permanent advantage. A house would hardly be built, or a well dug, to be hastily abandoned, without compensation, to a succeeding occupant. Experience would demonstrate, that the wants of a dense population could not be supplied, without allowing to the cultivators of the soil, a permanent and exclusive property in the land. The right of property in land is, therefore, partly an artificial right, the creature of society; and partly a natural right, as being blended inseparably with the labour, or rather the products of the labour, by which it is improved.

The right of property, either real or personal, is therefore secondary and subordinate to personal rights. If the latter were annihilated, the former could not possibly exist. To suppose a right of property in one human being, which should absorb and annihilate the personal rights of another, is to suppose an effect destructive of its cause; to suppose the major merged in the minor. If the rights of property are sacred, the rights of persons, from which they spring, must be more so: Propter quod unumquodque est tale, illud ipsum est magis tale.*

Our rights, whether personal or those of property, being the gift of the Creator, and governments being instituted to secure those rights, it follows as a necessary consequence, that the justice of any laws which governments may frame, depends upon their conformity to the will of their Creator. That will is inferred, from the works of creation, and the general sense of mankind, to be highly benevolent; hence laws, incompatible with this character, are universally acknowledged to be' unjust. And it is generally admitted that no legislature has a right to enact an unjust law. "The will of the Maker," says judge Blackstone, "is called the law of nature. This law of nature being coeval with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries and at all times; no human laws are of any validity if contrary to this; and such as are valid, derive all their force and all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original."+

*That for which a thing is such, is itself more such.

+ Com. Introd. 40.

Laws, therefore, incompatible with general benevolence, and destructive of individual and general happiness, being radically unjust, are destitute of the essential foundation of law, and consequently can vest no right. Those who suffer by the operation of unjust laws, may be bound to submit, for the sake of the peace of society, yet this obligation does not change or diminish the injustice. We might therefore decide, without further inquiry, that the holding of a portion of the human family in perpetual and hereditary slavery, was unlawful; because the practice is inconsistent with that universal benevolence, which the general sense of mankind ascribes to the Creator; because it encroaches upon those personal rights with which all men are endowed by the same beneficent hand; because it is destructive of the happiness and morality which it is the design of governments to secure and promote; and more than all, because slavery unavoidably degrades its victims below the proper level of humani"ty, and prevents the due expansion of the faculties bestowed upon man, and the performance of the social and relative duties attached to our state. We might safely conclude that a right of a secondary nature, capable of annihilating others of a primary order, cannot possibly exist; and that, however such imaginary rights may be entrenched in legislative enactments, the laws, by which they are supported, must be radically defective.

This is the conclusion to which we should unquestionably arrive, if we could examine the question from distant and neutral ground. If the system of hereditary slavery could be contemplated, not as an existing, but an intended institution, the rights of

ownership would be considered as totally destitute of rational foundation. And I would seriously inquire whether this is not the ground that we ought to assume, if we desire to form a judgment clear of the influence of local habits, prejudices, and interests? I shall however give the subject a more distinct examination.

The right by which the great mass of slaves, now in the United States, are held, is founded on the slavery of : their mothers. Those mothers were held either justly or unjustly. Could a right to enslave the offspring result from either? At whatever point we begin our inquiry, it is important to remember that negroes are human beings, possessing, in a state of nature, the same rights as ourselves; and that their liberty must, in some way, have been forfeited, before they can become a subject of property. If the freedom of the mothers has not been justly forfeited, the circumstance of their slavery proves nothing as to the right.* If

*Grotius observes: "If the cause of the war be unjust, though it be undertaken in a solemn manner, yet all the acts of hostility done in it are unjust in themselves. Therefore God himself declares their fasts to be unacceptable to him who detained their captives unjustly taken. The king of Nineve, proclaiming a fast to his subjects, commands them to restore what they had taken by rapine; acknowledging, by the guide of natural reason, that all repentance without such a restitution would be but pretended, and to no purpose. And not only the Jews and Christians are of this opinion, but even the Mahometans themselves.The Samnites in Livy say,' We have restored the plundered goods of our enemies, which by the law of arms seemed to be ours: seemed only, he saith, because the war was unjust, as the Samnites had before acknowledged.'

the imported slaves have not forfeited their natural rights, holding them in slavery is an obvious violation of the laws of nature and of nations, and therefore a right to hold their offspring in slavery cannot be derived from that polluted source. The first link being broken, the chain is destroyed. Can every part depend and not the whole? But it was shown, I trust, conclusively, in the preceding number, that no right to the persons of the imported slaves, is vested in the importers, and consequently none was transferred, or could possibly be transferred, to the purchasers. We are therefore driven to the conclusion, that all the rights

he is

"But further, though a man has not done the damage himself, or if he did it without any fault of his, but keeps in his possession a thing taken away by another in an unjust war, obliged to restore it; because there can be no reason produced naturally just, why the other should be deprived of it. Not unlike this is that of Valerius Maximus. The people of Rome, saith he, when P. Claudius publicly sold some Camerine prisoners taken in the war, when he was general, though they found their treasury filled with the money, and the borders of the empire enlarged, yet because they were not fully convinced of the justice of that expedition, they with the utmost diligence having sought out the prisoners, redeemed them, and restored them their lands. Thus, by the decree of the Romans, even their public liberty was restored to the Phocians, and also their lands, which had been taken from them. And afterwards the Ligurians, who had been sold by M. Pompilius, (their ransom being paid to the purchasers,) were restored to their liberty, and their goods carefully returned. The senate declared the same in favour of the Abderites, adding this reason for it, because the war made upon them was unjust." Rights of War and Peace, book iii. chap. 10.

derived from this originally defective claim, are themselves defective.

I may perhaps be here met by the declaration, that in whatever light the African slave trade is now viewed, and whatever principles of legislation our cotemporaries may have adopted respecting it, the ancestors of a large part of the present generation of slaves were imported under the sanction of law. The trade was formerly adjudged both lawful and expedient, and the slaves then imported, were considered as merchantable property, held and protected as such by the authority of governments. Hence an inference may probably be drawn that the rights thence derived must be considered as lawful. This argument unquestionably has its force, when two parties only are considered. In a question between the government and the purchasers of imported slaves, or the heirs and representatives of purchasers, this implied guarantee ought not to be overlooked. But the question under consideration involves the interests and personal rights of a third party, who were the objects, not the agents, of this implied agreement. And let it not be forgotten, that the whole force of the argument depends upon the neglect or denial of the rights of this party. We tacitly suppose a right vested in the government, which was originally vested in each individual, and has not been proved to be forfeited; and by this assumption, endeavour to establish a right in the grantee, which the grantor has not been proved to possess. This is neither more nor less than begging the question. When the great northern powers of Europe formed a treaty for the division of Poland, the provisions of the treaty, however binding upon those who made it, could impose no obliga