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Show 102 LIBERTY AND SLAVERY. right of property in man as it could possibly be recognised in words. But it nowhere commits the flagrant solecism of supposing that this right of the master annuls or excludes all the rights of the slave. On the contrary, the rights of the slave are recognised, as well as those of the master. For, according to the law of God, though "a possession," and an "inheritance," n,nd "a bondman forever," yet is the slave, nevertheless, a man; and, ns a man, is he protected in his rights; in his rights, not as defined by abolitionists, but as recognised by the word of God. § XI. The seventeenth fallacy of the abolitionist; or the argument from t/w Declaration of Independence. This argument is regarded by the abolitionists as one of their great strongholds; and no doubt it is so in effect, for who can bear a superior? Lucifer himself, who fell fi.·om heaven because he could not acknowledge a superior, seduced our first parents by the suggestion that in throwing oft' the xoke of subjection, they should become "as gods." We need not wonder, then, if it should be found, that an appeal to the absolute equality of all ARGUMENTS OF ADOLITIO~TSTS. 103 men iA the most ready way to effect the ruin of States. We ca11 surely conceive of none better aclaptcd to su bvcrt all order among us of the South, involving the two racos in a servile war, and the one or the other in utter extinction. Hence we shall examine this argument from the equality of all men, or rather this appeal to all men's abhorrence of inferiority. This appeal is usually based on the· Decla•·Mion of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men m·e createrl equal ; that they are endowed by theit· Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." We do not mean to play upon these words; we intend to take them exactly as they are understood by our opponents. As they arc not found in a metaphysical document or discussion, so it would be unfair to suppose- as is sometimes done-that they inculcate the wild dream of IIelvetius, that all men are created with equal natural capacities of mind. They occur in a declaration of indopendence; and as the subject is the doctriu~ of human rights, so we suppose they mean to declat·e that all men are created equal with t·espect to natural rights. |