"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." "These rights,” (natural rights,) says Blackstone, " may be reduced to three primary articles, the right of personal security, the right of personal liberty, and the right of private property." The preceding remarks respecting the native equality, freedom and rights of mankind, apply with full force to the Africans, as well as to the Asiatics, Europeans, and Americans. Let it not be said that the blacks on account of their color are not descended from the same original stock as the whites. It is agreeable to Scripture and general acknowledgment, that Africa was at first peopled by Ham and his descendants. From these, the present inhabitants, generally speaking, have derived their origin. But a question here arises: If the first inhabitants of the earth were white, why are any of their posterity of a different complexion? The reason of this most evidently is, climate and habits of living. These natural causes are amply sufficient to account for this effect without attributing it to any miraculous interposition of God. This is the opinion of Mr. Clarkson, Abbe Raynal, Dr. Mitchell, Dr. Beattie, the late Dr. Smith, President of the College of New Jersey, and many others of high distinction. The color of the Africans was attributed by Aristotle, Strabo, and most of the ancient philosophers, merely to the heat of the sun. This view of the subject is strikingly confirmed in the Jews. They have one acknowledged descent, are scattered over the face of the whole earth, and yet remain completely a distinct people from all the rest of the world. And yet nothing is more certain than that the English Jew is white, the Portuguese swarthy, the Armenian olive, and the Arabian copper-colored. In short, there appears to be as many species of Jews as

there are countries in which they reside. It is a known fact, that "the nations from Germany to Guinea have complexions of every shade from the fairest white to a jetty black." Hence may we not reasonably conclude that the great human family are children of the same original parents, and that the difference in their complexion arises only from climate and habits of living.

Here let it be remarked, that inequality in rank or station is necessary in society.

"Order is heaven's first law, and this confest,

Some are and must be greater than the rest.”

Nevertheless in this there is no surrendry of life, liberty, or property. We maintain, that neither individuals nor governments have a right to sell or buy the lives or liberty of their own species; for these are neither purchasable, nor saleable. We condemn not that servitude which is founded on voluntary contract by the parties concerned, and is of temporary duration. This in the nature of governments and society must exist. But this is not slavery. Slavery may be defined, "an obligation to labor for the benefit of the master without the contract or consent of the servant." This never was, and never can be, right in the nature of things. From these considerations, does it not clearly appear that all mankind are by nature equal and free.

II. It is proposed to show, that African slavery is unjust, sinful, and infamous.

If all mankind, the blacks as well as the whites, are by nature equal and free, then the slavery of the former is as unlawful as that of the latter. The whites have no more right to enslave the blacks, than the blacks have to enslave the whites. In either case slavery is as really unjust, and wrong, as stealth, robbery, and murder. In no instance is

slavery just, except the subject of it has by his voluntary conduct forfeited his freedom. And in this respect, the loss of liberty rests on the same basis as the loss of life. One principle should govern in both cases. The slavery of the Africans then, is a criminal and outrageous violation of their natural rights. It involves the innocent in hopeless misery. It degrades to brutes beings possessed of rational and immortal powers. The children of slaves, generation after generation, are born and spend their whole earthly existence, deprived of that freedom, to which the God of nature has given them an equal right with the rest of their fellow creatures. Well might President Jefferson say in relation to the whole subject of slavery, "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that his justice cannot sleep forever. The Almighty has no attribute which can take sides with us in this unrighteous work." The wickedness and hatefulness of slavery will appear by attending to the treatment of those in bondage. They are compelled to drag out their lives in toil and misery. Speaking of the African slaves, the philanthropic Cowper has justly characterized their cruel

usage.

"Thus man devotes his brother and destroys,
And, worse than all, and most to be deplored,
As human nature's broadest, foulest blot,
Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat
With stripes, that mercy with a bleeding heart
Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast."

Mr. Pitt, in his speech in the British Parliament, in favor of the abolition of the slave trade says, "Five hundred out of one thousand, who are obtained in this way, perish in this scene of horror; and are brought miserable victims to their graves. The remaining part of this wretched group are tainted, both in body and mind, covered with disease and infection, carrying with them

the seeds of pestilence and insurrection." Judge Story, in an address to a Circuit Court of the United States, upon the slave trade observes:-"It begins in corruption, and plunder, and kidnapping. It creates and stimulates unholy wars for the purpose of making captives. It desolates whole villages and provinces for the purpose of seizing the young, the feeble, the defenceless, and the innocent. It breaks down all the ties of parent, and children, and family, and country. It shuts up all sympathy for human suffering and sorrows. It manacles the inoffensive females and the starving infants. It forces the brave to untimely death, in defence of their humble homes and firesides, or drives them to despair and self-immolation. It stirs up the worst passions of the human soul, darkening the spirit of revenge, sharpening the greediness of avarice, brutalizing the selfish, envenoming the cruel, famishing the weak, and crushing to death the broken-hearted. This is but the beginning of the evils. Before the unhappy captives arrive at the destined market, where the traffic ends, one quarter part at least, in the ordinary course of events, perish in cold blood, under the inhuman or thoughtless treatment of their oppressors." Strong as these expressions may seem, and dark as is the coloring of this statement, it is short of the real calamities, inflicted by this traffic. All the wars that have desolated Africa for the last three centuries, have had their origin in the slave trade. The blood of thousands of her miserable children has stained her shores, or quenched the dying embers of her desolated towns, to glut the appetite of slave dealers. The ocean has received into its deep and silent bosom, thousands more who have perished from disease and want, during their passage from their native homes to the foreign colonies. I speak not from vague rumors or idle tales, but from authentic documents, and the known historical details of the traffic-a traffic that

carries away at least fifty thousand persons annually from their homes, and their families, and breaks the hearts, and buries the hopes, and extinguishes the happiness of more than double that number. "There is," as one of the greatest of modern statesmen has declared, something of horror in it that surpasses all the bounds of imagination." Verily, slavery is repugnant to reason and Revelation, and intolerable to the tender sympathies of our nature. It is unjust, sinful, and infamous in the highest degree. And let us not repress the shameful acknowledgment, that the great receptacles of this unhappy race have been the West Indies, and the United States.

III. African slavery is impolitic, in a civil point of view. It depraves the morals of a people, discourages industry, diminishes the white population, and enfeebles the community where it exists.

Says Montesquieu, "It is not useful, either to the master or to the slave; to the latter, because he can do nothing by virtue; to the former, because he contracts with his slaves all sorts of evil habits, inures himself insensibly to neglect every moral virtue, and becomes proud, passionate, hard-hearted, violent, voluptuous and cruel." It banishes the noblest incentives to religion, hardens the heart, begets indolence, haughtiness, and a domineering spirit, and must therefore be detrimental to society. "Liberty and property," says Le Poivoire, "form the basis of abundance and good agriculture. I never observed it to flourish, where these rights of mankind were not firmly established. The earth which multiplies her productions with profusion under the hands of the free born laborer, seems to shrink into barrenness, under the sweat of the slave." Besides, in a warm climate, no person will labor for himself, who can make another labor for him. Consequently, a very small proportion of the