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Show CHAPTER III. EXPLANAT I ONS. I H.!.VE endeavoured to show in the preceding sections that slavery is a violation of sacred rights, the infliction of a great wrong. And here a question arises. It may be asked, whether, by this language, I intend to fasten on the slave-holder the charge of peculiar guilt. On this point great explicitness is a duty. Sympathy with the slave has often degenerated into injustice towards the master. I wish it, then, to be understood, that, in ranking slavery among the greatest \Vrongs, I speak of the injury endured by the slave, and not of the character of the master. These are distinct points. The former does not determine the latter. The wrong is the same to the slave, from whatever motive or spirit it may be inAicted . But this motive or spirit determines wholly the character of him who inflicts it. Because a great injury is done to another, it does not follow that he who does it is a depraved man; for he may do it unconsciously, and, still more, may do it in the belief that 55 he confers a good. We have learned little of moral science and of human nature, if we do not know that guilt is to be measmed, not by the outward act, but by unfaithfulness to conscience ; and that the consciences of men are often darkened by education, and other inauspicious influences. All men have partial consciences, or want comprehension of some duties. All partake, in a measure, of the errors of the community in which they live. Some are betrayed into moral mistakes by the very force with which conscience acts in regard to some particular duty. As the intellect, in gra sping one truth, often loses its hold of others, and by giving itself up to one idea, falls into exaggeration ; so the moral sense, in seizing on a particula• · exercise of philanthropy, forgets other duties, and will even violate many important precepts in its passionate eagerness to carry one to pe rfection. Innumerable illustrations may be given of the liableness of men to moral error. The practice, which strikes one man with horror, may seem to another, who was born and brought up in the midst of it, not only innocent, but meritoriou s. We must judge others, not by our light, but uy their own. We must take their place, and consider wbat allowance we in thei•· position might justly expect. Our ancestors at the North were concerned in the slave-trade. Some of us can recollect individuals of the colored race, who were |
