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Show 30 A criminal relation cannot be made virtuous by the mode of sustaining it. Cresar was a clement dictator, but usurpation did not therefore cease to be a vice. It is no excuse for taking possession of a man, that we can make him happier. We are poor judges_of another's happiness. He was made to work it out for htms~lf. Our opinion of his best interests is particularly to be dt~truste.d, when our own interest is to be advanced by makmg lum our tool. Especially if, to make him happy, we must drive him as a brute, subject him to the lash, tt ts phmly ttme t_o give up our philanthropic efforts, and to let htm seek hts good in his own way. Allow that the sufferings of the slave are less than those of the free laborer. But these sufferings are Wrongs, and this changes their nature. Pain as pain, is nothing compared with pain when it is a wrong. A blow, gtven me by accident, may fell me to the earth ; but, after all tt ts a trifle. A slight blow, inflicted in scorn or with InJUTtous mtent, is an evil, which, without aid from my principles, I could not bear. Let God's providence confine me to my room by ·disease nod I more than submit, for in his dispensations I see pa;ental goodness seeking my purity and peace. But let man imprison me, without inflicting disease, and how intolerable my narrow bounds. So if the elements take away our property, we resign it without a murmur; but if man rob us of our fortune, poverty weighs on us as a mountain. Any thing can be borne, but the will and the power of the selfish, unrighteous man. There is also this difference between sufferings from God or nature, and sufferings from human injustice. The former we are almost always able to soften or remove by industry and skill, by studying the laws of nature, or by seeking aid and sympathy from men. These sufferings are intended to awaken our powers, and to strengthen social dependencies. Nature opposes us that we may resist her, and, by resistance, may grow strong. 31 But the owner of his fellow-creatures resents the resistance as a wrong, and cuts them off from help from their kind. It will be said, that the slave has nothing of this consciousness of his wrongs, which adds such weight to sufferings. He has no self-respect, we hear, to be wounded when he is lashed. To him, as to the ox, a blow is but a blow. And is this an apology for slavery, that it destroys all sense of wrongs, blunts the common sensibilities of human nature, makes man tamer than the nobler animals under inflicted pain ? It is this prostration of self-respect, and of just indignation for wrongs, which sets an additional seal on slavery as an outrage on humanity. But it is not true, that the spirit of a man is wholly killed in the slave. The moral nature never dies. He often feels a wrong in the violence which he cannot resist. He has often bitter hatred towards the cruel over~:~eer. He ponders in secret over his oppressed lot. There are deep groans of conscious injury and revenge, which, though smothered by fear, do not less agonize the soul. In these remarks, we have seen how much the slave may suffer, though little of what is called cruelty enters into his lot. My hostility to the system does not rest primarily on the physical agonies it inflicts, but on a deeper foundation; on its flagrant injustice, and on the misery necessarily involved in a system of wrong. Slavery, however, is not to be absolved from the guilt of cruelty. However tempered with kindness, it docs and must bear this brand: Who that knows human nature, can question whether irresponsible power will be abused ? Such power breeds the very passions which make abuse sure. Besides, it is exposed to great temptation. Slaves are necessarily irritating. Their laziness, thievishness, lying propensities, sulkiness, the natural fruits of their condition, are sore trials to those placed over them. Slavery necessarily generates in its victims the very vices, which are most fitted to fret and |