countries, is proof enough of this. He is born to subjection as he is born in sin and ignorance. To make any considerable progress in knowledge, the continued efforts of successive generations, and the diligent training and unwearied exertions of the individual are requisite. To make progress in moral virtue, not less time and effort, aided by superior help, are necessary; and it is only by the matured exercise of his knolwedge and his virtue, that he can attain to civil freedom. Of all things, the existence of civil liberty is most the result of artificial institution. The proclivity of the natural man is to domineer or to be subservient. A noble

instances of knowledge and virtue, the Creator, for his own purposes, has set a limit beyond which we cannot go.

them, would exist in fact under the freest and most and destiny. Man is born to subjection. Not only popular form of government that man could devise. during infancy is he dependant and under the control of But what is the foundation of the bold dogma so confi- others; at all ages, it is the very bias of his nature, that dently announced? Females are human and rational the strong and the wise should control the weak and beings. They may be found of better faculties and the ignorant. So it has been since the days of Nimrod. better qualified to exercise political privileges and to at-The existence of some form of slavery in all ages and tain the distinctions of society than many men; yet who complains of the order of society by which they are excluded from them? For I do not speak of the few who would desecrate them; do violence to the nature which their Creator has impressed upon them; drag them from the position which they necessarily occupy for the existence of civilized society, and in which they constitute its blessing and ornament-the only position which they have ever occupied in any human society to place them in a situation in which they would be alike miserable and degraded. Low as we descend in combatting the theories of presumptuous dogmatists, it cannot be necessary to stoop to this. A youth of eigh-result indeed, but in the attaining of which, as in the teen may have powers which cast into the shade those of any of his more advanced cotemporaries. He may be capable of serving or saving his country, and if not permitted to do so now, the occasion may have been lost forever. But he can exercise no political privilege or aspire to any political distinction. It is said that of necessity, society must exclude from some civil and political privileges those who are unfitted to exercise them, by infirmity, unsuitableness of character, or defect of discretion; that of necessity there must be some general rule on the subject, and that any rule which can be devised will operate with hardship and injustice on individuals. This is all that can be said and all that need be said. It is saying, in other words, that the privileges in question are no matter of natural right, but to be settled by convention, as the good and safety of society may require. If society should disfranchise individuals convicted of infamous crimes, would this be an invasion of natural right? Yet this would not be justified on the score of their moral guilt, but that the good of society required, or would be promoted by it. We admit the existence of a moral law, binding on societies as on individuals. Society must act in good faith. No man or body of men has a right to inflict pain or privation on others, unless with a view, after full and impartial deliberation, to prevent a greater evil. If this deliberation be had, and the decision made in good faith, there can be no imputation of moral guilt. Has any politician contended that the very existence of governments in which there are orders privileged by law, constitutes a violation of morality; that their continuance is a crime, which men are bound to put an end to without any consideration of the good or evil to result from the change? Yet this is the natural inference from the dogma of the natural equality of men as applied to our institution of slavery—an equality not to be invaded without injustice and wrong, and requiring to be restored instantly, unqualifiedly, and without reference to consequences.

This is sufficiently common-place, but we are sometimes driven to common-place. It is no less a false and shallow than a presumptuous philosophy, which theorizes on the affairs of men as of a problem to be solved by some unerring rule of human reason, without reference to the designs of a superior intelligence, so far as he has been pleased to indicate them, in their creation

But he who is most advanced in knowledge, is most sensible of his own ignorance, and how much must forever be unknown to man in his present condition. As I have heard it expressed, the further you extend the circle of light, the wider is the horizon of darkness. He who has made the greatest progress in moral purity, is most sensible of the depravity, not only of the world around him, but of his own heart and the imperfection of his best motives, and this he knows that men must feel and lament so long as they continue men. So when the greatest progress in civil liberty has been made, the enlightened lover of liberty will know that there must remain much inequality, much injustice, much slavery, which no human wisdom or virtue will ever be able wholly to prevent or redress. As I have before had the honor to say to this society, the condition of our whole existence is but to struggle with evils-to compare them-to choose between them, and so far as we can, to mitigate them. To say that there is evil in any institution, is only to say that it is human.

And can we doubt but that this long discipline and laborious process, by which men are required to work out the elevation and improvement of their individual nature and their social condition, is imposed for a great and benevolent end? Our faculties are not adequate to the solution of the mystery, why it should be so; but the truth is clear, that the world was not intended for the seat of universal knowledge or goodness or happiness or freedom.

Man has been endowed by his Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. What is meant by the inalienable right of liberty? Has any one who has used the words ever asked himself this question? Does it mean that a man has no right to alienate his own liberty--to sell himself and his posterity for slaves? This would seem to be the more obvious meaning. When the word right is used, it has reference to some law which sanctions it, and would be violated by its invasion. It must refer either to the general law of morality or the law of the country-the law of God or the law of man. If the law of any country permitted it, it would of course be absurd to say that the law of that country was violated

by such alienation. If it have any meaning in this respect, it must mean that though the law of the country permitted it, the man would be guilty of an immoral act who should thus alienate his liberty. A fit qustion for schoolmen to discuss, and the consequences resulting from its decision as important as from any of theirs. Yet who will say that the man pressed by famine and in prospect of death, would be criminal for such an act? Self-preservation as is truly said, is the first law of nature. High and peculiar characters, by elaborate cultivation, may be taught to prefer death to slavery, but it would be folly to prescribe this as a duty to the mass of mankind.

or enslaved; would they not have the right to enslave them, and keep them in slavery so long as the same danger would be incurred by their manumission? If a civilized man and a savage were by chance placed together on a desolate island, and the former, by the superior power of civilization, would reduce the latter to subjection, would he not have the same right? Would this not be the strictest self-defence? I do not now consider, how far we can make out a similar case to justify our enslaving of the negroes. I speak to those who contend for inalienable rights, and that the existence of slavery always, and under all circumstances, involves injustice and crime.

As I have said, we acknowledge the existence of a moral law. It is not necessary for us to resort to the theory which resolves all right into force. The existence of such a law is imprinted on the hearts of all human beings. But though its existence be acknowledged, the mind of man has hitherto been tasked in vain to discover an unerring standard of morality. It is a common and undoubted maxim of morality, that

not do injustice or commit an invasion of the rights of others, for the sake of a greater ulterior good. But what is injustice, and what are the rights of others? And why are we not to commit the one or invade the others? It is because it inflicts pain or suffering, present or prospective, or cuts them off from enjoyment which they might otherwise attain. The Creator has sufficiently revealed to us that happiness is the great end of existence, the sole object of all animated and sentient beings. To this he has directed their aspirations and efforts, and we feel that we thwart his be nevolent purposes when we destroy or impede that happiness. This is the only natural right of man. All other rights result from the conventions of society, and these, to be sure, we are not to invade, whatever good may appear to us likely to follow. Yet are we in no instance to inflict pain or suffering, or disturb enjoy. ment for the sake of producing a greater good? Is the madman not to be restrained who would bring destruction on himself or others? Is pain not to be inflicted on the child, when it is the only means by which he can be effectually instructed to provide for his own future happiness? Is the surgeon guilty of wrong who amputates a limb to preserve life? Is it not the object of all penal legislation, to inflict suffering for the sake of greater good to be secured to society?

If any rational meaning can be attributed to the sentence I have quoted, it is this:--That the society, or the individuals who exercise the powers of government, are guilty of a violation of the law of God or of morality, when by any law or public act, they deprive men of life or liberty, or restrain them in the pursuit of happiness. Yet every government does, and of ne cessity must, deprive men of life and liberty for offences against society. Restrain them in the pursuit of hap-you shall not do evil that good may come. You shall piness! Why all the laws of society are intended for nothing else but to restrain men from the pursuit of happiness, according to their own ideas of happiness or advantage-which the phrase must mean if it means any thing. And by what right does society punish by the loss of life or liberty? Not on account of the moral guilt of the criminal-not by impiously and arrogantly assuming the prerogative of the Almighty, to dispense justice or suffering, according to moral desert. It is for its own protection-it is the right of self defence. If there existed the blackest moral turpitude, which by its example or consequences, could be of no evil to society, government would have nothing to do with that. If an action, the most harmless in its moral character, could be dangerous to the security of society, society would have the perfect right to punish it. If the possession of a black skin would be otherwise dangerous to society, society has the same right to protect itself by disfranchising the possessor of civil privileges, and to continue the disability to his posterity, if the same danger would be incurred by its removal. Society inflicts these forfeitures for the security of the lives of its members; it inflicts them for the security of their property, the great essential of civilization; it inflicts them also for the protection of its political institutions; the forcible attempt to overturn which, has always been justly regarded as the greatest crime; and By what right is it that man exercises dominion over who has questioned its right so to inflict? "Man can- the beasts of the field; subdues them to painful labor, not have property in man"--a phrase as full of meaning or deprives them of life for his sustenance or enjoy. as, "who slays fat oxen should himself be fat." Cer-ment? They are not rational beings. No, but they tainly he may, if the laws of society allow it, and if are the creatures of God, sentient beings, capable of it be on sufficient grounds, neither he nor society do suffering and enjoyment, and entitled to enjoy according to the measure of their capacities. Does not the And is it by this-as we must call it, however re-voice of nature inform every one, that he is guilty of commended to our higher feelings by its associations wrong when he inflicts on them pain without necessity well-sounding, but unmeaning verbiage of natural or object? If their existence be limited to the present equality and inalienable rights, that our lives are to be life, it affords the stronger argument for affording them put in jeopardy, our property destroyed, and our politi-the brief enjoyment of which it is capable. It is be cal institutions overturned or endangered? If a people had on its borders a tribe of barbarians, whom no treaties or faith could bind, and by whose attacks they were constantly endangered, against whom they could devise no security, but that they should be exterminated

wrong.

cause the greater good is effected; not only to man but to the inferior animals themselves. The care of man gives the boon of existence to myriads who would never otherwise have enjoyed it, and the enjoyment of their existence is better provided for while it lasts. It

has given, and will give the boon of existence to millions and millions in our country, who would otherwise never have enjoyed it, and the enjoyment of their existence is better provided for while it lasts. Or if, for the rights of man over inferior animals, we are referred to revelation, which pronounces-"ye shal! have dominion over the beasts of the field, and over the fowls of the air," we refer to the same which declares not the less explicitly—

"Both the bond men and bondmaids which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are among you. Of them shall you buy bondmen and bondmaids."

"Moreover of the children of strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begot in your land, and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them by possession. They shall be your bondmen forever."

belongs to the being of superior faculties to judge of the relations which shall subsist between himself and inferior animals, and the use he shall make of them; and he may justly consider himself, who has the greater capacity of enjoyment, in the first instance. Yet he must do this conscientiously, and no doubt, moral guilt has been incurred by the infliction of pain on these animals, with no adequate benefit to be expected. I do no disparagement to the dignity of human nature, even in its humblest form, when I say that on the very same foundation, with the difference only of circumstance and degree, rests the right of the civilized and cultivated man, over the savage and ignorant. It is the order of nature and of God, that the being of superior faculties and knowledge, and therefore of superior power, should control and dispose of those who are inferior. It is as much in the order of nature, that men should enslave each other, as that other animals should prey upon each other. I admit that he does this under the highest moral responsibility, and is In moral investigations, ambiguity is often occasionmost guilty if he wantonly inflicts misery or privation ed by confounding the intrinsic nature of an action, on beings more capable of enjoyment or suffering than as determined by its consequences, with the motives of brutes, without necessity or any view to the greater the actor, involving moral guilt or innocence. If poison good which is to result. If we conceive of society be given with a view to destroy another, and it cures existing without government, and that one man by his him of disease, the poisoner is guilty, but the act is superior strength, courage or wisdom, could obtain the beneficent in its results. If medicine be given with a mastery of his fellows, he would have a perfect right view to heal, and it happens to kill, he who administo do so. He would be morally responsible for the use tered it is innocent, but the act is a noxious one. If of his power, and guilty if he failed to direct them so as they who begun and prosecuted the slave trade, to promote their happiness as well as his own. Mo-practised horrible cruelties and inflicted much sufferralists have denounced the injustice and cruelty which | ing—as no doubt they did, though these have been much have been practised towards our aboriginal Indians, by exaggerated-for merely selfish purposes, and with no which they have been driven from their native seats and exterminated-and no doubt with much justice. No doubt, much fraud and injustice has been practised in the circumstances and the manner of their removal. Yet who has contended that civilized man had no moral right to possess himself of the country? That he was bound to leave this wide and fertile continent, which is capable of sustaining uncounted myriads of a civilized race, to a few roving and ignorant barbarians? Yet if any thing is certain, it is certain that there were no means by which he could possess the country, without exterminating or enslaving them. Savage and civilized man cannot live together, and the savage can only be tamed by being enslaved or by having slaves. By enslaving alone could he have preserved them.* And who shall take upon himself to decide that the more benevolent course and more pleasing to God, was pursued towards them, or that it would not have been better that they had been enslaved generally, as they were in particular instances? It is a refined philosophy, and utterly false in its application to general nature, or the mass of human kind, which teaches that existence is not the greatest of all boons, and worthy of being preserved even under the most adverse circumstances. The strongest instinct of all animated beings sufficiently proclaims this. When the last red man shall have vanished from our forests, the sole remaining traces of his blood will be found among our enslaved population.† The African slave trade

I refer to President Dew on this subject.

It is not uncommon, especially in Charleston, to see slaves, after many descents and having mingled their blood with the Africans, possessing Indian hair and features.

view to future good, they were morally most guilty. So far as unnecessary cruelty was practised, the motive and the act were alike bad. But if we could be sure that the entire effect of the trade has been to produce more happiness than would otherwise have existed, we must pronounce it good, and that it has happened in the ordering of God's providence, to whom evil cannot be imputed. Moral guilt has not been imputed to Las Casas, and if the importation of African slaves into America, had the effect of preventing more suffering than it inflicted, it was good, both in the motive and the result. I freely admit that, it is hardly possible to justify morally, those who begun and carried on the slave trade. No speculation of future good to be brought about could compensate the enormous amount of evil it occasioned.

If we should refer to the common moral sense of mankind, as determined by their conduct in all ages and countries, for a standard of morality, it would seem to be in favor of slavery. The will of God, as determined by utility, would be an infallible standard, if we had an unerring measure of utility. The Utilitarian Philosophy, as it is commonly understood, referring only to the animal wants and enjoyments, and physical condition of man, is utterly false and degrading. If a sufficiently extended definition be given to utility, so as to include every thing that may be a source of enjoyment or suffering, it is for the most part useless. How can you compare the pleasures resulting from the exercise of the understanding, the taste and the imagination, with the animal enjoyments of the senses— the gratification derived from a fine poem with that from a rich banquet? How are we to weigh the pains

and enjoyments of one man highly cultivated and of great sensibility, against those of many men of blunter capacity for enjoyment or suffering? And if we could determine with certainty in what utility consists, we are so short-sighted with respect to consequences-the remote results of our best considered actions, are so often wide of our anticipations, or contrary to them, that we should still be very much in the dark. But though we cannot arrive at absolute certainty with respect to the utility of actions, it is always fairly matter of argument. Though an imperfect standard, it is the best we have, and perhaps the Creator did not intend that we should arrive at perfect certainty with regard to the morality of many actions. If after the most careful examination of consequences that we are able to make, with due distrust of ourselves, we impartially and in good faith, decide for that which appears likely to produce the greatest good, we are free from moral guilt. And I would impress most earnestly, that with our imperfect and limited faculties, and short-sighted as we are to the future, we can rarely, very rarely indeed, be justified in producing considerable present evil or suffering, in the expectation of remote future good-if indeed this can ever be justified. In considering this subject, I shall not regard it in the first instance in reference to the present position of the slave holding states, or the difficulties which lie in the way of their emancipating their slaves, but as a naked, abstract question—whether it is better that the institution of praedial and domestic slavery should, or should not exist in civilized society. And though some of my remarks may seem to have such a tendency, let me not be understood as taking upon myself to determine that it is better that it should exist. God forbid that the responsibility of deciding such a question should ever be thrown on me or my countrymen. But this I will say, and not without confidence, that it is in the power of no human intellect to establish the contrary proposition-that it is better it should not exist. This is probably known but to one being, and concealed from human sagacity.

former part of this proposition has been so fully established by a writer of great power of thought-though I fear his practical conclusions will be found of little value that it is hardly necessary to urge it.* Property-the accumulation of capital, as it is commonly called, is the first element of civilization. But to accumulate, or to use capital to any considerable extent, the combination of labor is necessary. In early stages of society, when people are thinly scattered over an extensive territory, the labor necessary to extensive works, cannot be commanded. Men are independent of each other. Having the command of abundance of land, no one will submit to be employed in the service of his neighbor. No one, therefore, can employ more capital than he can use with his own hands, or those of his family, nor have an income much beyond the necessaries of life. There can, therefore, be little leisure for intellectual pursuits, or means of acquiring the comforts or elegancies of life. It is hardly necessary to say however, that if a man has the command of slaves, he may combine labor, and use capital to any required extent, and therefore accumulate wealth. He shows that no colonies have been successfully planted without some sort of slavery. So we find the fact to be. It is only in the slave holding states of our confederacy, that wealth can be acquired by agriculture-which is the general employment of our whole country. Among us, we know that there is no one, however humble his beginning, who with persevering industry, intelligence, and orderly and vir tuous habits, may not attain to considerable opulence. So far as wealth has been accumulated in the states which do not possess slaves, it has been in cities by the pursuits of commerce, or lately, by manufactures. But the products of slave labor furnish more than twothirds of the materials of our foreign commerce, which the industry of those states is employed in transporting and exchanging; and among the slave holding states is to be found the great market for all the productions of their industry, of whatever kind. The prosperity of those states, therefore, and the civilization of their There have existed in various ages, and we now see cities, have been for the most part created by the existexisting in the world, people in every stage of civiliza-ence of slavery. Even in the cities, but for a class of tion, from the most barbarous to the most refined. population, which our institutions have marked as serMan, as I have said, is not born to civilization. He is vile, it would be scarcely possible to preserve the ordiborn rude and ignorant. But it will be, I suppose, nary habitudes of civilized life, by commanding the admitted that it is the design of his Creator that he necessary menial and domestic service. should attain to civilization: That religion should be known, that the comforts and elegancies of life should be enjoyed, that letters and arts should be cultivated, in short, that there should be the greatest possible development of moral and intellectual excellence. It can hardly be necessary to say any thing of those who have extolled the superior virtues and enjoyments of savage life a life of physical wants and sufferings, of continual insecurity, of furious passions and depraved vices. Those who have praised savage life, are those who have known nothing of it, or who have become savages themselves. But as I have said, so far as reason or universal experience instruct us, the institution of slavery is an essential process in emerging from savage life. It must then produce good, and promote the designs of the Creator.

of

I add further, that slavery anticipates the benefits civilization, and retards the evils of civilization. The

Every stage of human society, from the most barbarous to the most refined, has its own peculiar evils to mark it as the condition of mortality; and perhaps there is none but Omnipotence who can say in which the scale of good or evil most preponderates. We need say nothing of the evils of savage life. There is a state of society elevated somewhat above it, which is to be found in some of the more thinly peopled portions of our own country-the rudest agricultural state— which is thus characterized by the author to whom I have referred. "The American of the back woods has often been described to the English as grossly igno rant, dirty, unsocial, delighting in rum and tobacco, attached to nothing but his rifle, adventurous, restless,

*The author of "England and America." We do, however, most indignantly repudiate his conclusion, that we are bound to submit to a tariff of protection, as an expedient for retaining our slaves "the force of the whole union, being required to preserve slavery, to keep down the slaves."

tence.

more than half savage. Deprived of social enjoyments | swelling the amount of their capital, and increasing or excitements, he has recourse to those of savage life, inequality. The process still goes on. The number and becomes (for in this respect the Americans degene- of laborers increases until there is a difficulty in obrate) unfit for society." This is no very inviting pic-taining employment. Then competition is established. ture, which though exaggerated, we know not to be The remuneration of the laborer becomes gradually without likeness. The evils of such a state, I suppose, less and less; a larger and larger proportion of the will hardly be thought compensated by unbounded product of his labor goes to swell the fortune of the freedom, perfect equality, and ample means of subsis- capitalist; inequality becomes still greater and more invidious, until the process ends in the establishment of such a state of things, as the same author describes as now existing in England. After a most imposing picture of her greatness and resources; of her superabounding capital, and all-pervading industry and enterprize; of her public institutions for purposes of art, learning and benevolence; her public improvements, by which intercourse is facilitated, and the convenience of man subserved; the conveniences and luxuries of life enjoyed by those who are in possession of fortune, or have profitable employments; of all, in short, that places her at the head of modern civilization, he proceeds to give the reverse of the picture. And here I shall use his own words. "The laboring class compose the bulk of the people; the great body of the people; the vast majority of the people-these are the terms by which English writers and speakers usually

"Of comprehensive words, the two most frequently used in English politics, are distress and pauperism. After these, of expressions applied to the state of the poor, the most common are vice and misery, wretchedness, sufferings, ignorance, degradation, discontent, depravity, drunkenness, and the increase of crime; with many more of the like nature."

But let us take another stage in the progress-which to many will appear to offer all that is desirable in existence, and realize another Utopia. Let us suppose a state of society in which all shall have property, and there shall be no great inequality of property-in which society shall be so much condensed as to afford the means of social intercourse, without being crowded, so as to create difficulty in obtaining the means of subsistence-in which every family that chooses may have as much land as will employ its own hands, while others may employ their industry in forming such products as it may be desirable to exchange with them. Schools are generally established, and the rudiments of education universally diffused. Religion is taught, and every village has its church, neat though humble, lifting its spire to Heaven. Here is a situation apparently the most favorable to happiness. I say apparently, | describe those whose only property is their labor." for the greatest source of human misery is not in external circumstances, but in men themselves—in their depraved inclinations, their wayward passions and perverse wills. Here is room for all the petty competition, the envy, hatred, malice and dissimulation, that torture the heart in what may be supposed the most sophisticated states of society; and though less marked and offensive, there may be much of the licentiousness. But apart from this, in such a condition of society, if there is little suffering, there is little high enjoyment. The even flow of life forbids the high excitement which is necessary for it. If there is little vice, there is little place for the eminent virtues, which employ themselves in controlling the disorders and remedying the evils of society, which like war and revolution, call forth the highest powers of man, whether for good or for evil. If there is little misery, there is little room for benevolence. Useful public institutions we may suppose to be created, but not such as are merely ornamental.jectors have devised as a remedy for all this evil to Elegant arts can be little cultivated, for there are no means to reward the artists nor the higher literature, for no one will have leisure or means to cultivate it for its own sake. Those who acquire what may be called liberal education, will do so in order to employ it as the means of their own subsistence or advancement in a profession, and literature itself will partake of the sordidness of trade. In short, it is plain that in such a state of society, the moral and intellectual faculties cannot be cultivated to their highest perfection.

But whether that which I have described be the most desirable state of society or no, it is certain that it cannot continue. Mutation and progress is the condition of human affairs. Though retarded for a time by extraneous or accidental circumstances, the wheel must roll on. The tendency of population is to become crowded, increasing the difficulty of obtaining subsistence. There will be some without any property except the capacity for labor. This they must sell to those who have the means of employing them, thereby

He goes on to give the details of this inequality and wretchedness, in terms calculated to sicken and appal one to whom the picture is new. That he has painted strongly we may suppose; but there is ample corroborating testimony, if such were needed, that the representation is substantially just. Where so much misery exists, there must of course be much discontent, and many have been disposed to trace the sources of the former in vicious legislation, or the structure of government; and the author gives the various schemes, sometimes contradictory, sometimes ludicrous, which pro

which flesh is heir. That ill judged legislation may have sometimes aggravated the general suffering, or that its extremity may be mitigated by the well directed efforts of the wise and virtuous, there can be no doubt. One purpose for which it has been permitted to exist is, that it may call forth such efforts, and awaken powers and virtues which would otherwise have slumbered for want of object. But remedy there is none, unless it be to abandon their civilization. This inequality, this vice, this misery, this slavery, is the price of England's civilization. They suffer the lot of humanity. But perhaps we may be permitted humbly to hope, that great, intense and widely spread as this misery undoubtedly is in reality, it may yet be less so than in appearance. We can estimate but very, very imperfectly the good and evil of individual condition, as of different states of society. Some unexpected solace arises to alleviate the severest calamity. Wonderful is the power of custom, in making the hardest condition tolerable; the most generally wretched life, has circum