OCR Text |
Show 82 J~IllERTY AND SLAVERY. abolitionists. Et"e the subject of slavery was agitated by them, thct"c were many loose, floating notions among us, as well as among them~ selves, respecting the nature of liberty, which were at variance with the institution of slavery. But since this agitation began, we have looked more narrowly into the grounds of slavery, as well as into the character of the arguments by •·hich it is assailed, and we have found the first as solid as adamant, the last as unsubstantial ns moonshine. If Mr. J efterson had lived till the present day, thet"e can be no doubt, we think, that he would have been on the same side of this great question with the Calhouns, the Clays, and the W ebsters of the country. We have known many who, at one time, fully concurred with Mr. Jefferson on this subject, but are now firm believers in the perfect justice and humanity of negro slavery. § IX. The ninth fallacy of the abolitionist. We have already seen that the abolitionist argues the queJltion of slavery as if Southerners were proposing to catch ft·cemcn and reduce them to bondage. He habitually overlooks the fact, that slavery results, not from the action of the individual, but from an AU.GUMENTS OF ABOLITIONISTS. 83 ordinance of the State. lie forgets that it is a civil institution, and proceeds to argue as if it were founded in individual wrong. And even when he rises-as he sometimes doesto a contemplation of the real question in dispute, he generally takes a most narrow and one-sided view of the subject. For he generally takes it for granted that the legislation which ot·dains the institution of slavery is intended solely and exclusively for the benefit of the master, without the least regard to the interests of the slave Thus says Dr. Wayland: "Domestic slavery proceeds upon the principle that the master bas a right to control the actions -physical ttnd intellectual- of the slave for his own (that is, the master's) individual benefit,"* &c. .A.nd again : " It supposes that the Creator intended one human being to govern the physical, intellectual, and moral actions of as many other human beings as, by purchase, he can bring within his physical power; and that one l.uman being may thus acquire a right to aacrifice the happineas of any number of other human beings, for the purpoae of promoting hiB * Moral Science, Po.rt ii. chap. i. soc. 2. |