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Show 20 danger of his practice, we only add another to the list of those delusions with which a man more easily deceives himself than the world. "Dr. C. takes it for granted that no reader would be so wanting in moral discrimination and moral feeling, as to urge that men may rightfully be seized and held as properly because various governments have so ordained." This is a departure from the question. The conformity of human law to the supposed will of God is one thing, the operation of actual existing law is another. Property is the result of human legislation, and not of divine command, and whether men or beasts are or are not property, may or may not be property, can or cannot be used, treated, held, sold or bartered as property, is a question solely referable to the law of the Janel. This idea of going behind and beyond the law to find a a rule for human action in civil society is getting to be somewhat alarming One man thinks the Jaw of marriage is a monopoly and should be abolished ; another thinks a distillery is an abomination in the eye of Heaven and that its owner is out of the protection of all human law, though it includes him in its terms. Some men believe that there ought to be a community of goods, by a plain indication of Providence, and some who do not care much about Pwvidence, join in the denunciation of the laws. Some men think that the transportation of the Sunday mail is a great violation of holy time, and if they had their way would lay a weekly embargo on the post office. Some men think that the law which punishes a felon with death involves the whole country in the guilt of murder. Indeed there is no end to the vagaries of the human intellect. If we once go beyond the law to ascertain in what property or rights consist, we put every thing in society or, the wild ocean of uncertainty. The law is the expression of public wisdom- when in public judgment it is wrong it will b~ changed. Dr. C. probably means to say that the law which makes property of a slave is inconsistent with the law of God. In I ' 21 deciding this question the Doctor is not to be sole judge. It is a question about which other men quite as eminent have the same right of opinion. Its true solution is to be ascertained by the condition and c ircumstances of the case. As a general proposition this is declared to be false by the universal past legislation of the world, and by no men more emphatically than by our own eminent civilians and jurists. If our Supreme Court could be asked the question whether human law could convey any right of property against the principles of sound morality, religion and the will of God, I have no doubt they would by an unanimous opinion decide that it could not. If they had to adjudicate on the question whether the law of Massachusetts before the constitution of 1780 did make property of a slave, they would as readily decide that it did. They have done so again and again. CHAPTER III. There are those among us who are ready to exclaimWhat are consequences to us ? Are we not free men ? l\fav we not publish the truth ? H ave we not the right of free di;cussion, as one of the elements of public liberty? I admit, in its fullest and broadest latitude, the legal •~ght of free discussion ; but I insist that this, like all other human rights, is to be controlled by a high moral responsibility. While the legal right may be admitted, in its fullest and most perfect existence, the expediency of the exercise of such a right is a matter of the most grave consideration. All that is legally right is not expedient ; and whatever is clearly and palpably inexpedient, ceases for the time to be morally right. It would be a shameful abuse of political liberty to do, at all times and under all circumstances, everything that is not prohibited by public law. The commands of honor, of conscience, and of duty, are as strong in a republic as in a des- |