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Show 88 LIBERTY AND SLAVERY. the power to raise an arm. lie may work it into a house or into a piece of fumiture, or he may lay it on the fire, and reduce it to ashes. He may, we repeat, do just exactly what be pleases with his own, if his own be such a thing as a tree, for a tree has no rights. It is far otherwise with a brute. The owner of a horse, for example, may not do what he pleases with his own. liere his property is not absolute; it is limited. lie may not beat his horse ,vithont mercy, "for a good man is merciful to his beast." lie may not cut his horse to pieces, or burn him on the fire. For the horse has rights, which the owner himself is bound to respect. The horse has a right to food and kind treatment, and the owner who refuses these is a tyrant. Nay, the very worm that crawls beneath our feet has his rights as well w monarch on his throne ; and just in so a-•• as these rights are disregarded by a man is at man a tyrant. lienee even the brute may not be regarded or treated as a mere thing or a tree. Re can be owned and treated no otherwise than as a bl'Ute. The horse, for example, may not be left, like a tree, without food and care ; but he may be saddled and rode as a horse; or he may A ROUMENTS OF ADOLITIONISTS. 89 be hitched to the plough, and compelled to do his master's work. In like manner, a man cannot be owned or treated as a horse. He caunot be saddled or rode, nor hitched to the plough and be made to do the work of a horse. On the contrary, he should be treated as a man, and required to perform only the work of a man. The right to such work is all the ownership which any one man can rightfully have in another; and this is all which any slaveholder of tho South needs to claim. The real question is, Oan one man have a right to tlte personal service or ob~dience of another without !tis consent? We do not intend to let the abolitionist throw dust in our eyes, and shout victory amid a clamor of words. We intend to hold him to the point. Whether he be a learned divine, or a distinguished senator, we intend he shall speak to the point, or else his argument shall be judge not according to tho eloquent noise it makes r the excitement it produces, but according to the sense it contains. Can a man, tlten, have a right to the labor or obedience of another without !tis consent? Give us this right, and it is all we ask. We lay no claim to tho soul of tho slave. We g rant s• |