Page:Criticism on the Declaration of independence, as a literary document (IA criticismondecla00seld).pdf/26

 We come now to an examination of the expression "right to liberty." It is true in this case, the right, under certain circumstances, may be worth something without the possession and in that particular the word as applicable to "liberty," has some meaning, but as applicable to "life" none; and herein in part consists the cheat of the sophistry under review. The right to liberty, in a given case, may be valuable just in proportion to the chances of obtaining actual possession. But an abstract right to what one has not got, and what there is no probability of his getting, seems worth no more than a right to be disappointed. To suppose our Creator makes endowments of that sort, is a presumption I would not like to answer for. "All men" includes black men!! Perhaps the reader ought to be informed that the above, is a self-evident truth otherwise he might possibly doubt its verity. The value then, of this right to liberty, which a South Carolina slave is endowed with, (if all men are,) may be calculated more easily than a nullifier can calculate the value of the Union. The value of this right, to the poor slave, according to my mathematics, is just the value nullification adds to that Union. The truth is, the value of the right, without the possession, exists only in theory, not in fact. To be endowed with a right to think, without being endowed with any mind to think with, would be just such another endowment—just such an one as the author of the Declaration must have contemplated, if he had any distinct idea of the subject. To this complexion it must come at last.

The point to be proved then was this, that the right to liberty, though nominally appreciable as a thing separate from the possession, is not in ninety-nine cases in a hundred, worth more than the right to life without the possession. To all practical intents and useful purposes, the word "rights" as connected with liberty, may be dropped from the text, and the idea will in fact be as little impaired, as I have shown it would be by omitting it before the word "life." The whole idea there was to be communicated, so far as life and liberty are concerned, might have been expressed without the word "rights" and would have stood thus—"endowed by their Creator with unalienable life, liberty," &c. If my reasoning on this subject has not been fair, I should not know how to appreciate that which was.