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Show 14 of alarm to him, and an inducement to greater care that it should not be circulated ? Nobody can doubt upon these points. The only remaining inquiry is, will the doctrines of this book reach the ears of the slaves ? Whether they do or not, Dr. C. is equally culpable, by his own system of morals. For, by printing the book, he has done what he can to give it to the world. But it will get to its destination. Sooner or later, its doctrines will reach the slave. The world is one great whispering- gallery, whose faintest echos are reverberated by the press. Slowly, but surely, whatever it publishes moves through inferior agents and reaches all ears deeply concerned in its relations. Now inquire what is the doctrine which the writer advances. Upon this, I have a word to say to him as a logician. He does not follow out his own premises. He disavows the conclusions, directly, plainly, irresistibly, deduced from his own positions, and appears to me to be oppressed with the horror, which no human being can escape from, who looks with steadiness and constancy on the immense moral evil, which, in the character of a Christian moralist, his doctrine is bringing on the country. I charge him- in spite of his disclaimer- with the doctrine of INSURRECTION. l-Ie inculcates the right of insurrection on the whole slave population of the United States. It is immaterial that he contradicts himself. It is in vain that he abjures this act in absolute terms. If the necessary and fair and only proper deduction from his principles is insurrection; if all sound reasoning from his declared principles leads to it ; if all rational men must so understand it ; if the stupidest slave would so receive it ; if it requires false logic and sophistry to escape from it ; - then it is insurrection that he preaches ; and for its horrors, when they come, and for their evils, in anticipation, he is answerable, to the extent of his exertion, at the tribunal of public opinion and the bar of God. This is a grave charge ; but it is easily demonstrated. 15 The whole doctrine of his book is, that man, under no possible circumstances, can be rightfully made a slave. On the twenty-ninth page, the position that has before been repeated in every form and with every variety of illustration, is summed up in the following forcible and impressive words: "'Ve have thus seen that a human being cannot rightfully be held and used as property. No legislation, not that of all countries or worlds, could make him so. Let this be laid down, as a fir:;t, fundamental truth. Let us hold it fast, a~ a most sacred, precious truth. Let us hold it fast against all customs, all laws, all rank, wealth, and power. Let it be armed with the whole authority of the civilized and Christian world." The negroes in the Southern States are made slaves by acts of legislation and the coercive power which is exercised under those acts. If these acts were repealed, every slave would be as free as Dr. Channing. But if these acts of legislation are already made void by a power superior to all human constitution; and governments, if they cannot accomplish what they propose to accomplish, they have done nothing- they no more operate upon the negro within their jurisdiction, than upon the white man beyond it. There is, then, no legal Slavery, and can be none. The force, therefore, that restrains the slave, is oppression, injustice, tyranny, despotism ; and if, against all this, a man may not rightfully rebel, if, when he is thus unjustly made a slave for life, and his wife and children are made slaves with him, he may not rise, in his strength or his madness, and shake off his chains, and stand guiltless before God, with the blood of his oppressor on his hands, it is in ,·ain to talk about human rights. It is absurd to tell of wrongs without remedy. For every human wrong there is a remedy; hy law, when the law provides one, and by resistance, when under the color of law, instead of a remedy we find only a wrong. Could we doubt a moment about this, if the law of Carolina should propose to detain every white trm·eller passing through its territory, and turn him on the plantation as a slave? In such case, the law would be no more invalid and unjust than Dr. C. represents the laws about negro slaves. But is there |
