Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/22

 the ever prominent "slavery question"; and every important measure seems to have had a "slavery issue" involved in it.

Meantime, and while awaiting the advent of a regular "philosophical" historian of slavery, we present an imperfect, but, we trust, useful compilation. The greater part of the volume is devoted to the Political History of Slavery in the United States. The legislation of congress upon subjects embracing questions of slavery extension or prohibition, has been faithfully rendered from the record; and the arguments used on both sides of controverted questions have been impartially presented. The parliamentary history of the abolition of the African slave-trade has been made to occupy considerable space, chiefly in order to lay before the reader the views upon the subject of slavery entertained by that class of unrivaled statesmen which embraced the names of Pitt, Fox, Burke, and others not unknown to fame. The history of the legislation of our own country upon subjects in which slavery issues were involved, will also bring before the reader another array of eminent statesmen, with whose familiar names he is accustomed to associate the idea of intellectual power. Chapters upon slavery in Greece and Rome have been introduced into the book, as various opinions seem to prevail in regard to the forms, features, laws, extent and effects of ancient slavery. Some point with exultation to the prosperity of imperial Rome with her millions of slaves; others with equal exultation point to her decay as the work of the avenging spirit of slavery. Others, again, contend that slavery was confined to but a small portion of the empire, and had small effect upon its prosperity or adversity.

To gratify a class of readers to whom the relation of exciting incidents is of more interest than the details of legislative action, we have devoted a space to the abominations of the old legalized slave traffic, and to the increased horrors of the trade after it had been declared piracy by Christian nations. It is a fearful chapter of wrong, violence and crime.

"According to an enlightened philosophy," we quote from the Conversations Lexicon, "each human being retains inherently the right to his own person, and can neither sell himself, nor be legally bound by any act of aggression on his natural liberty. Slavery, therefore, can never be a legal relation. It rests entirely on force. The slave being treated as property, and not allowed legal rights, cannot be under legal obligations. Slavery is also inconsistent with the moral nature of man. Each man has an individual worth, significance, and responsibility; is bound to the work of self-improvement, and to labor in a sphere for which his capacity is adapted. To give up this individual liberty is to disqualify himself for fulfilling the great objects of his being. Hence, political societies which have made a considerable degree of advancement do not allow any one to resign his liberty any more than his life, to the pleasure of another. In fact, the great object of political institutions in civilized nations is to enable man to fulfill most perfectly the ends of his individual being. Christianity, moreover, lays down the doctrine of doing as we would be done by, as one of its fundamental maxims, which is wholly opposed to the idea of one man becoming the property of another. These two principles of mutual obligation, and the worth of the individual, were beyond the comprehension of the states of antiquity, but are now at the basis of morals, politics, and religion."