Page:An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans.djvu/118

104 great law of creation; and no human enactment can render it null and void. "If," says Price, "you have a right to make another man a slave, he has a right to make you a slave;" and Ramsay says, "If we have in the beginning no right to sell a man, no person has a right to buy him."

Am I reminded that the laws acknowledge these vested rights in human flesh? I answer, the laws themselves were made by individuals, who wished to justify the wrong and profit by it. We ought never to have recognised a claim, which cannot exist according to the laws of God; it is our duty to atone for the error; and the sooner we make a beginning, the better will it be for us all. Must our arguments be based upon justice and mercy to the slave holders only? Have the negroes no right to ask compensation for their years and years of unrewarded toil? It is true that they have food and clothing, of such kind, and in such quantities, as their masters think proper. But it is evident that this is not the worth of their labor; for the proprietors can give from one hundred to five and six hundred dollars for a slave, beside the expense of supporting those who are too old or too young to labor. They could not afford to do this, if the slave did not earn more than he receives in food and clothing. If the laws allowed the slave to redeem himself progressively, the owner would receive his money back again; and the negro's years of uncompensated toil would be more than lawful interest.

The southerners are much in the habit of saying they really wish for emancipation, if it could he effected in safety; but I search in vain for any proof that these assertions are sincere. (When I say this, I speak collectively; there are, no doubt, individual exceptions.)

Instead of profiting by the experience of other nations, the slave owners, as a body, have resolutely shut their eyes against the light, because they preferred darkness. Every change in the laws has rivetted the chain closer and closer upon their victims; every attempt to make the voice of reason and benevolence heard has been overpowered with threatening and abuse. A cautious vigilance against improvement, a keen-eyed jealousy of all freedom