James Foster, D.D. in his discourses on natural religion and social virtue also shews his just indignation at this wicked practice; which he declares to be "a criminal and outrageous violation of the natural right of mankind." At page 156, vol. 2 he says, "Should we have read concerning the Greeks or Romans of old, that they traded with a view to make slaves of their own species, when they certainly knew that this would involve in schemes of blood and murder, of destroying, or enslaving each other; that they even fomented wars, and engaged whole nations and tribes in open hostilities, for their own private advantage; that they had no detestation of the violence and cruelty, but only feared the ill success of their inhuman enterprises; that they carried men like themselves, their brethren, and the off-spring of the same common parent, to be sold like beasts of prey, or beasts of burden, and put them to the same reproachful trial, of their soundness, strength, and capacity for greater bodily service; that quite forgetting and renouncing the original dignity of human nature, communicated to all, they treated them with more severity, and ruder discipline, than even the ox or the ass, who are void of understanding—should we not, if this had been the case, have naturally been led to despise all their pretended refinements of morality; and to have concluded, that as they were not nations destitute of politeness, they must have been entire strangers to virtue and benevolence?
"But notwithstanding this, we ourselves (who profess to be christians, and boast of the peculiar advantage we enjoy, by means of an express revelation of our duty from heaven) are, in effect, these very untaught and rude heathen countries. With all our superior light, we instill into those, whom we call savage and barbarous, the most despicable opinion of human nature. We, to the utmost of our power, weaken and dissolve the universal tie, that binds and unites mankind. We practise what we should exclaim against, as the utmost excess of cruelty and tyranny, if nations of the world, differing in colour, and form of government, from ourselves, were so possessed of empire, as to be able to reduce us to a state of unmerited and brutish servitude. Of consequence, we sacrifice our reason, our humanity, our christianity, to an unnatural sordid gain. We teach other nations to despise, and trample under foot, all the obligations of social virtue. We take the most effectual method to prevent the propagation of the gospel, by representing it as a scheme of power and barbarous oppression, and an enemy to the natural privileges and rights of men.
"Perhaps all that I have now offered, may be of very little weight to restrain this enormity, this aggravated iniquity; however, I still have the satisfaction of having entered my private protest against a practice, which, in my opinion, bids that God, who is the God and Father of the Gentiles, unconverted to christianity, most daring and bold defiance, and spurns at all the principles both of natural and revealed religion."
EXTRACT
From an ADDRESS
in the
VIRGINIA GAZETTE,
of MARCH 19, 1767.
Mr. RIND,
Permit me, in your paper, to address the members of our assembly on two points, in which the public interest is very nearly concerned.
The abolition of slavery, and the retrieval of specie in this colony, are the subjects on which I would bespeak their attention.—
Long and serious reflections upon the nature and consequences of slavery have convinced me, that it is a violation both of justice and religion; that it is dangerous to the safety of the community in which it prevails; that it is destructive to the growth of arts and sciences; and lastly, that it produces a numerous and very fatal train of vices, both in the slave and in his master.
To prove these assertions, shall be the purpose of the following essay.
That slavery then is a violation of justice, will plainly appear, when we consider what justice is. It is truly and simply defined, as by Justinian, constans et perpetua voluntas ejus suum cuique tribuendi; a constant endeavour to give every man his right.