African slavery is exceedingly impolitic, as it discourages industry. Nothing is more essential to the political prosperity of any state, than industry in the citizens. But in proportion as slaves are multiplied, every kind of labor becomes ignominious; and in fact, in those of the United States, in which slaves are the most numerous, gentlemen and ladies of any fashion disdain to employ themselves in business, which in other states is consistent with the dignity of the first families and first offices. In a country filled with negro slaves, labor belongs to them only, and a white man is despised in proportion as he applies to it. Now how destructive to industry in all of the lowest and middle classes of citizens, such a situation, and the prevalence of such ideas will be, you can easily conceive. The consequence is, that some will nearly starve, others will betake themselves to the most dishonest practices, to obtain the means of living.

As slavery produces indolence in the white people, so it produces all those vices which are naturally connected with it; such as intemperance, lewdness, and prodigality. These vices enfeeble both the body and the mind, and unfit men for any vigorous exertions and employments, either external or mental; and those who are unfit for such exertions, are already a very degenerate race; degenerate, not only in a moral, but a natural sense. They are contemptible too, and will soon be despised even by their negroes themselves.

Slavery has a most direct tendency to haughtiness also, and a domineering spirit and conduct in the proprietors of the slaves, in their children, and in all who have the control of them. A man who has been bred up in domineering over negroes, can scarcely avoid contracting such a habit of haughtiness and domination, as will express itself in his general treatment of mankind, whether in his private capacity, or in any office, civil or military, with which he may be vested. Despotism in economics naturally leads to despotism in politics, and domestic slavery in a free government is a perfect solecism in human affairs.

How baneful all these tendencies and effects of slavery must be to the public good, and especially to the public good of such a free country as ours, I need not inform you.

In the same proportion as industry and labor are discouraged, is population discouraged and prevented. This is another respect in which slavery is exceedingly impolitic. That population is prevented in proportion as industry is discouraged, is, I conceive, so plain that nothing needs to be said to illustrate it. Mankind in general will enter into matrimony as soon as they possess the means of supporting a family. But the great body of any people have no other way of supporting themselves or a family, than by their own labor. Of course, as labor is discouraged, matrimony is discouraged and population is prevented. But the impolicy of whatever produces these effects will be acknowledged by all. The wealth, strength, and glory of a state depend on the number of its virtuous citizens; and a state without citizens is at least as great an absurdity as a king without subjects.

Having thus considered the injustice and ruinous tendency of the slave-trade, I proceed to attend to the principal arguments urged in favor of it.

The right of slavery is inferred from the instance of Abraham, who had servants born in his house and bought with his money. But it is by no means certain that these were slaves, as our negroes are. If they were, it is unaccountable that he went out at the head of an army of them to fight his enemies. No West India planter would easily be induced to venture himself in such a situation. It is far more probable, that, similar to some of the vassals under the feudal constitution, the servants of Abraham were only in a good measure dependant on him, and protected by him. But if they were to all intents and purposes slaves, Abraham's holding of them will no more prove the right of slavery, than his going in to Hagar, will prove it right for any man to indulge in criminal intercourse with his domestic.

From the divine permission given to the Israelites to buy servants of the nations round about them, it is argued, that we have a right to buy the Africans and hold them in slavery. See Lev. xxv, 44-47. But if this be at all to the purpose, it is a permission to every nation under heaven to buy slaves of the nations round about them; to us, to buy of our Indian neighbors; to them, to buy of us; to the French, to buy of the English, and to the English, to buy of the French; and so through the world. If then this argument be valid, every man has an entire right to engage in this trade, and to buy and sell any other man of another nation, and any other man of another nation has an entire right to buy and sell him. Thus, according to this construction, we have in Lev. xxv, 43, &c., an institution of an universal slave-trade, by which every man may not only become a merchant, but may rightfully become the merchandise itself of this trade, and may be bought and sold like a beast. Now this consequence will be given up as absurd, and therefore, also, the construction of Scripture from which it follows must be given up. Yet it is presumed, that there is no avoiding that construction or the absurdity flowing from it, but by admitting that this permission to the Israelites to buy slaves has no respect to us, but was in the same manner peculiar to them, as the permission and command to subdue, destroy, and extir pate the whole Canaanitish nation; and, therefore, no more gives countenance to African slavery, than the command to extirpate the Canaanites gives countenance to the extirpation of any nation in these days, by an universal slaughter of men and women, young men and maidens, infants and sucklings.

It is further pleaded, that there were slaves in the times of the apostles; that they did not forbid the holding of those slaves, but gave directions to servants, doubtless referring to the servants of that day, to obey their masters and count them worthy of all honor.

To this the answer is, that the apostles teach the general duties of servants who are righteously in the state of servitude, as many are or may be, by hire, by indenture, and by judgment of a civil court. But they do not say whether the servants in general of that day were

justly holden in slavery or not. In like manner they lay down the general rules of obedience to civil magistrates, without deciding concerning the characters of the magistrates of the Roman empire in the reign of Nero. And as the Apostle Paul requires masters to give their servants that which is just and equal, (Col. iv, 1,) so if any were enslaved unjustly, of course he in this text requires of the masters of such to give them their freedom. Thus the apostles treat the slavery of that day in the same manner that they treat the civil goyernment; and say nothing more in favor of the former, than they say in favor of the latter.

As to the pretence, that to prohibit or lay aside this trade, would be hurtful to our commerce, it is sufficient to ask, whether, on the supposition that it were advantageous to the commerce of Great Britain to send her ships to these states, and transport us into perpetual slavery in the West Indies, it would be right that she should go into that trade.

If

It is said, that some men are intended by nature to be slaves. this means, that the author of nature has given some men a license to enslave others, this is denied, and proof is demanded. If it means that God has made some of capacities inferior to others, and that the last have a right to enslave the first; this argument will prove, that some of the citizens of every country have a right to enslave other citizens of the same country; nay, that some have a right to enslave their own brothers and sisters. But if this argument means, that God in his providence suffers some men to be enslaved, and that this proves, that from the beginning he intended they should be enslaved, and made them with this intention; the answer is, that in like manner he suffers some men to be murdered, and in this sense he intended and made them to be murdered. Yet no man in his senses will hence argue the lawfulness of murder.

We all dread political slavery, or subjection to the arbitrary power of a king, or of any man or men not deriving their authority from the people. Yet such a state is inconceivably preferable to the slavery of the negroes. Suppose that in the late war we had been subdued by Great Britain, we should have been taxed without our consent. But these taxes would have amounted to but a small part of our property. Whereas the negroes are deprived of all their property; no part of their earnings is their own; the whole is their masters. In a conquered state we should have been at liberty to dispose of ourselves and of our property, in most cases, as we should choose. We should have been free to live in this or that town or place; in any part of the country, or to remove out of the country; to apply to this or that business; to labor or not; and excepting a sufficiency for taxes, to dispose of the fruit of our labor to our own benefit, or that of our children, or of any other person. But the unhappy negroes in slavery can do none of these things. They must do what they are commanded, and as much as they are commanded, on pain of the lash. They must live wherever they are placed, and must confine themselves to that spot on pain of death.

JONATHAN EDWARDS.

87

So that Great Britain, in her late attempt to enslave America, committed a very small crime, indeed, in comparison with the crime of those who enslave the Africans.

The arguments which have been urged against the slave-trade, are with little variation applicable to the holding of slaves. He who holds a slave, continues to deprive him of that liberty, which was taken from him on the coast of Africa. And if it were wrong to deprive him of it in the first instance, why not in the second. If this be true, no man has a better right to retain his negro in slavery, than he had to take him from his native African shores. And every man who cannot show, that his negro hath by his voluntary conduct forfeited his liberty, is obligated immediately to manumit him. Undoubtedly we should think so, were we holden in the same slavery in which the negroes are. And our text requires us to do to others as we would that they should do to us.

To hold a slave, who has a right to his liberty, is not only a real crime, but a very great one. Does this conclusion seem strange to any of you? You will not deny that liberty is more valuable than property; and that it is a greater sin to deprive a man of his whole liberty during life, than to deprive him of his whole property; or, that man stealing is a greater crime than robbery. Nor will you deny, that to hold in slavery a man who was stolen, is substantially the same crime as to steal him. These principles being undeniable, I leave it to yourselves to draw the plain and necessary consequence. And if your consciences shall, in spite of all opposition, tell you, that while you hold your negroes in slavery, you do wrong, exceedingly wrong; that you do not, as you would that men should do to you; that you commit sin in the sight of God; that you daily violate the plain rights of mankind, and that in a higher degree than if you committed theft or robbery, let me beseech you not to stifle this conviction, but attend to it, and act accordingly, lest you add to your former guilt that of sinning against the light of truth, and of your own consciences.

To convince yourselves, that your information being the same, to hold a negro slave is a greater sin than fornication, theft, or robbery, you need only bring the matter home to yourselves. I am willing to appeal to your own consciences, whether you would not judge it to be a greater sin for a man to hold you or your children during life in such slavery, as that of the negroes, than for him to indulge in one instance of licentious conduct, or in one instance to steal or rob. Let conscience speak, and I will submit to its decision.-The Injustice and Impolicy of the slave-trade and of the slavery of the Africans —a Sermon in New Haven, Sept. 15, 1791.

ELIAS HICKS.

We, in an enlightened age, have greatly surpassed, in brutality and injustice, the most ignorant and barbarous ages; and while we are pretending to the finest feelings of humanity, are exercising unprecedented cruelty. We have planted slavery in the rank soil of sordid avarice; and the product has been misery in the extreme.

The slavedealer, the slaveholder, and the slavedriver are virtually the agents of the consumer. Whatever we do by another, we do ourselves.

JESSE TORREY, JR.

To enumerate all the horrid and aggravating instances of manstealing, which are known to have occurred in the state of Delaware, within the recollection of many of the citizens of that state, would require a volume. In many cases, whole families of free colored people have been attacked in the night, beaten nearly to death with clubs, gagged and bound, and dragged into distant and hopeless captivity; leaving no traces behind, except the blood from their wounds.

During the last winter, the house of a free black family was broken open, and its defenceless inhabitants treated in the manner just mentioned, except that the mother escaped. from their merciless grasp, while on their way to the state of Maryland. The plunderers, of whom there were nearly half a dozen, conveyed their prey upon horses; and the woman being placed on one of the horses, behind, improved an opportunity, as they were passing a house, and sprang off. Not daring to pursue her, they proceeded on, leaving her youngest child a little farther along, by the side of the road, in expectation, it is supposed, that its cries would attract the mother; but she prudently waited until morning, and recovered it again in safety.

I consider myself more fully warranted in particularizing this fact, from the circumstances of having been at Newcastle, at the time that the woman was brought with her child, before the grand jury, for examination; and of having seen several of the persons against whom bills of indictment were found, on the charge of being engaged in the perpetration of the outrage; and also that one or two of them were the same who were accused of assisting in seizing and carrying off another woman and child whom I discovered at Washington. A monster in human shape was detected in the city of Philadelphia, pursuing the occupation of courting and marrying mulatto women, and selling them as slaves. In his last attempt of this kind, the fact having come to the knowledge of the African population of this city, a mob was immediately collected, and he was only saved from being torn in atoms, by being deposited in the city prison. They have lately invented a method of attaining their object, through the instru