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Show 168 DESPOTISi\1 IN Al\IERJCA, slave-holders, ajeu d'esprit of Tallcyrand' s. A certain person was complaining that every body co~ s Jdcred him a worth less, in famous fellow, yet s:ud the complainant, I do not kno~v why,. for ~'have, nev~ r committed but one fault 111 my hfe. Ah! sa1d Tallcyrand, "but when will that one fault be ended?" To those accustomed to look only at the outside of things, the results to which this ch~p~er ha~ brought us, will no doubt seem strange. It IS 1mposs1ble, they w1ll say, that men whose Clrcumstances_ are so_contradictory and whose whole appearance IS RO d1fferent, can aft~r all, be so much alike. Such readers will do well to call to mind the lines of Shakspeare,- Through ta.tter'd clothes small vices do appear i Robes and furr'd gowns, hide all. Plate sin with gold, And the strong lance of justice hurtlcss breaks Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw doth pierce it. That gold however, with which the system of southern slavery is plated, is not the true metal. 'Tis but a fairy, shadowy, imaginary g_old which cannot cross the running waters of truth, w1thout bemg changed back again to its original worthlessness. CHAPTER FIFTH. LEGAL DASIS 0.1? THE SLAVE-HOLDING SYSTEJ\I. SECTION I. Preliminary Observations. One main pillar of domestic slavery, as it now exists in the Uuited States, is the idea that it rests upon law. Law is regarded with veneration, and no where more so than in the United States, as the great foundation and gupport of the right of property, of personal rights, in a word-of social organization. Jurists, with a natural disposition to exaggerate the importance of a profession to which most of them have belonged, have been induced to overlook or to disregard the natural foundation of rights. Most of them represent the idea of property as resting on a merely artificial basis-the law; not the law of nature, but the law of convention. Upon that same artlficial basis, too, they arc inclined mainly to rest ~ven th~ most important of personal rights. 'fhese 1deas, w1dely spread through the community, greatly modify public opinion upon the question of slavery. ln. the abstract, slavery, all admit, is sheer cruelty and lnjushce. But slavery, as it exists in the United States, is supposed to be legal; and being legal, is supposed to acquire a certain character of right. To ~s.e our best eflOrts for the suppression of cruelty and ~nJustice, is admitted to be a moral duty. But then It IS a moral duty, and, in the opinion of many, a paramount duty, to obev the law. 15 - (169) |
