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Show 86 LIBERTY AND SLAVERY. equivocally set forth, that he who runs may read. Why, then, is it overlooked by Dr. Wayland? Why is he pleased to imagine that he is combatting Southern principles, when, in reality, he is merely combatting the monstrous figment, the distorted conception of his own brain,-namely, the right of one man to sacrifice the happiness of multitudes to his own will and pleasure? Is it because facts do not lie within the province of the moral philosopher? Is it because fiction alone is worthy of his attention? Or is it because a blind, partisan zeal has so far taken possession of his very understanding, that he finds it impossible to speak of the institution of slavery, except in the language of the grossest misrepresentation? § X. The tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth fallacies of the abolitionist; or his seven arguments against the right of a man to hold property in his fellow-man. "This claim of property in a human heing," says Dr. Channing, "is altogether false, groundless. No such right of man in man can exist. A human being cannot he justly owned." The only difficulty iu maintaining A RO UM ENTS OF ABOLITIONISTS. 87 this position is, according to Dr. Channing, "on account of its exceeding obviousness. It is too plain for proof. To defend it is like trying to confirm a self-evident truth," &c. &c. Yet he advances no less than seven "arguments," as he calls them, in order to establish this sclf.cvident position. We shall examine these seven arguments, and sec if his great confidence be not built on a mere abuse of words. "The consciousness of our humanity," says he, "involves the persuasion that we cannot be owned as a tree or a brute." This, as everybody knows, is one of the hackneyed commonplaces of the abolitionist. lie never ceases to declaim about the injustice of slavery, because it regards, 11s he is pleased to assert, a man as a mere thing or a brute. Now, once for all, we freely admit that it were monstro unjust to regard or treat a man otherwise ttnlll .. l!")o as a man. 'We freely admit that a human being "cannot be owned as a tree or a brute." A tree may be absolutely owned. That is to say, the owner of a tree may do what he pleases with bis own, provided he do no harm or inju•·y with it. lie may cut it down; and, if be please, he may beat it as long as he has |
