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Show 216 DJ~SPO'f!Sl\1 a sovereign state like England,_ loo~ing quietly on, and allowing shtvr:!ry to prevail w~thout hn_v and arrainst law in her colonies, was qUite as gmlty of tl~c wrona as 1he colonies themselves, if not indeed more so. 0 That might ha.ve been a v.ery good reason why 1he act of parliament about wh1ch L ord l\Iansfteld had spoken, (though perhaps in a somewhat dif. fcrcnt sense,) when it came at length to be enactedand its passage was probably hastened by Lord Stowell's decision-took upon the mother country a Jarae share of the burden of the abolition of slavery. t:J And the same reasoning might be forcibly urged as between t he slave states and the frec_states of our American confederacy. But the question of the relative auilt of those who trampled on the weak and of thos~ who connived at it, and of the distribution between them of the burden of restitution, cannot in any way a!lect the legal status of those who, in the mean time, are deprived of their rights; nor can any distribution of the blame o f it !'ive to that dep· rivation any of the qualttws of lcgaltty. . Overlooking t his undeniable fac~, tl!e _ap_olog1sts for American slavery, not content w1~h Jlls lstmg_ ~hat the mother country con nived at, a1!d Jlldeed po.:nttv~ly authorized, its original introductwn, have gone still further, and have boldly asserted that slavery was forced upon the colonies by lhe mother country, against their will, at~d h~ spi~e of thcar eftorts to p:e· ve11t it. Bancroft, 111 hts Htstory, has labored, wlt_h his usual patriotic partiality, to give color to t_hl::i charge, which originated \~ith J efferson, and "~hJCI~ made its fust appearance 111 the drc~a~a~ory 1nt~o duction to the first constitution of VH~;nua. Jefler· son wh;hed to repeat it, in a still more dtrect and emphatic form in the Declaration of Independence; but it was ratl~cr too much to ask the delegates from Georgia to denounce the slave-trade as" a cruel wa~ a(Tai n::;t human nature, violating its most sa?r~ rig hts of life and liberty." !-laving struggled agal~::~ and finally defeated, the attempt to make her a IN Al\IERlCA. 217 communitj'", how _could Georgia charge the mother countrr, wtth forcmg upon her that "execrable commerce, the slave-trade? J efferson hated Britain he ~atcd_ slavery! ~tnd he wished to bring t hese hat;cds I~ to J?Xtat~OsJt_IOn; but to do so required a ve-ry ex· c1tcd 1magmatwn. Had any colony ever prohibited the mtroduct10n of negroes; had any colony ever enacted that . negroes should stand on the same ground as whrte servants, and be dischar(Tcd at t he end of seven years' service; and had the king vetoed such enactments-:-he might then have been justly charged With forc111g slavery on the colonies. But no. colony ~v.er passed any such law, or thought of dorng so. I he vetoes on which J efferson relied were of a very different s<;>rt. 'l'he colonies, especially those of the s?uth, ';' •shed to !aise a part of their revenue b_y duties on 1m ports, wtth the double object ?f hghtemng the burden of d~rect taxation, and giv· mg protectton to domestic manufactures. Amona the chief imports into the southern colonies wer~ negroes. But in seeking to impose a tax of a few pounds on each negro imported, the coloniallcgisla· tnres, as a general thing, no more intended to abolish o~ even to restr~ct slavery or the slave-trade, than CongresH, when It agreed to the square yard minimun~ duty upon cotton goods, intended to abolish or r~stnct the use of muslins and calicoes. 'l'he English merchants, in whose hands the commerce of the colonies was, were then, as now, advocates of free trade; they complained of these duties the 01~0 on r~egroes among the rest, as an interfe;ence With then commercial rights; and they had interest enou~;h ":tth the British government to procure a stand1ng mstruction to all the royal governors not i~ consent to such sort of taxes. Finally, however 1 e ~atter was compromised by a llowing the coloniai eg•s atu~es to impose such duty as they pleased on ~~roes Imported, provided it were made payable, tl by1 th? seller, the English trader, but by the buyer te co omst planter. ' 19 |