A Kentucky Protest Against Slavery (Classic Reprint)
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| Stand: | 2015-08-04 03:50:33 |
Produktbeschreibung
Excerpt from A Kentucky Protest Against Slavery Mr. Chairman, I rise, Sir, in support of the motion now before you. But my reverence for this body, the novelty of my present situation, the great importance and difficulty of the subject, and the thought of being opposed by gentlemen of the greatest abilities, has too sensible an impression on my mind. But, Sir, I know so much of my natural timidity, which increases with my years, that I foresaw this would be the case; I therefore prepared a speech for the occasion. Sir, I have lived free, and in many respects happy, for near sixty years; but my happiness has been greatly diminished, for much of the time, by hearing a great part of the human species groaning under the galling yoke of bondage. In this time I lost a venerable father, a tender mother, two affectionate sisters, and a beloved first born son; but all these together have not cost me half the anxiety as has been occasioned by this wretched situation of my fellow-men, whom, without a blush, I call my brethren. When I consider their deplorable state, and who are the cause of their misery, the load of misery that lies on them, and the load of guilt on us for imposing it on them; it fills my soul with anguish. I view their distresses, I read the anger of Heaven, I believe that if I should not exert myself when, and as far, as in my power, in order to relieve them, I should be partaker of the guilt. Sir, the question is, Whether slavery is consistent with justice and good policy? But before this is answered, it may be necessary to inquire, what a slave is? A slave is a human creature made by law the property of another human creature, and reduced by mere power to an absolute unconditional subjection to his will. This definition will be allowed to be just, with only this one exception, that the law docs not leave the life and the limbs of the slave entirely in the master´s power: and from it may be in ferred several melancholy truths, which will in elude a sufficient answer to the main question. In order to a right view of this subject, I would observe, that there are some cases, where a man may justly be made a slave by law. By vicious conduct, he may forfeit his freedom; he may forfeit his life. Where this is the case, and the safety of the public may be secured by reducing the offender to a state of slavery, it will be right; it may be an act of kindness. In no other case, if my conceptions are just, can it be vindicated on principles of justice or humanity. As creatures of God we are, with respect to liberty, all equal. If one has a right to live among his fellow creatures, and enjoy his freedom, so has another; if one has a right to enjoy that property he acquires by an honest industry, so has another. If I, by force, take that from another, which he has a just right to, according to the law of nature, (which is a divine law) which he has never forfeited, and to which he has never relinquished his claim, I am certainly guilty of injustice and robbery; and when the thing taken is the man´s liberty, when it is himself, it is the greatest injustice. I injure him much more, than if I robbed him of his property on the high-way. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intenti
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