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Show 42 LIBERTY AND SLAVERY. enjoy the blessings, of the freedom which is so officiously thrust upon them. And if the Negro race should be moved by their fiery appeals, it would only be to rend and tear in pieces the fair fabric of American liberty, which, with all its shortcomings and defects, ·is by far the most beautiful ever yet conceived or constructed by the genius o{ man. ARGUMENTS OF ABOLITIONISTS. 43 CHAPTER II. TilE ARGUMENTS AND POSITIONS OF ABOLITIONISTS. HAVING in the preceding chapter discussed and defined the nature of civil liberty, as well as laid down some of the political conditions on which its existence depends, we shall now proceed to examine the question of slavery. In the proseeution of this inquiry, we shall, in the first place, consider the arguments and positions of the advocates of immediate abolition; and, in the second, point out the reaBOns and grounds on which the institution of slavery is based and its justice vindicated. The first branch of the investigation, or that relating to the arguments and positions of the abolitionist, will occupy the remainder of the present chapter. It is insisted by abolitionists that the institution of slavery is, in all cases and under all circumstances, morally wrong, or a violation of the law of Gcrd. Such is precisely the ground assumed by the one side and denied by tho other. |