Page:An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans.djvu/168

154 to regulate murder." It is a disease as deadly as the cancer; and while one particle of it remains in the constitution, no cure can be effected. The relation is unnatural in itself, and therefore it reverses all the rules which are applied to other human relations. Thus a free government, which in every other point of view is a blessing, is a curse to the slave. The liberty around him is contagious, and therefore the laws must be endowed with a tenfold crushing power, or the captive will break his chains. A despotic monarch can follow the impulses of humanity without scruple. When Vidius Pollio ordered one of his slaves to be cut to pieces and thrown into his fish pond, the Emperor Augustus commanded him to emancipate immediately, not only that slave, but all his slaves. In a free State there is no such power; and there would be none needed, if the laws were equal,—but the slave owners are legislators, and make the laws, in which the negro has no voice—the master influences public opinion, but the slave cannot.

Miss Martineau very wisely says; "To attempt to combine freedom and slavery is to put new wine into old skins. Soon may the old skins burst! for we shall never want for better wine than they have ever held."

A work has been lately published, written by Jonathan Dymond, who was a member of the Society of Friends, in England; it is entitled "Essays on the Principles of Morality"—and most excellent Essays they are. Every sentence recognises the principle of sacrificing all selfish considerations to our inward perceptions of duty; and therefore every page shines with the mild but powerful light of true christian philosophy. I rejoice to hear that the book is likely to be republished in this country. In his remarks on slavery the author says: "The supporters of the system will hereafter be regarded with the same public feelings, as he who was an advocate of the slave trade now is. How is it that legislators and public men are so indifferent to their fame? Who would now be willing that biography should record of him,—This man defended the slave trade? The time will come when the record,—This man opposed the abolition of slavery, will occasion a great deduction from the public estimate of weight of character."