Nearly allied to this is that law of Virginia: “After proclamation is issued against slaves that run away, it is lawful for any person whatsoever to kill and destroy such slaves, by such ways and means as he shall think fit.”
We have seen already some of the ways and means which have been thought fit on such occasions. And many more might be mentioned. One Gentleman, when I was abroad, thought fit to roast his slave alive! But if the most natural act of “running away” from intolerable tyranny, deserves such relentless severity, what punishment have these Law-makers to expect hereafter, on account of their own enormous offences?
IV.
1. This is the plain, unaggravated matter of fact. Such is the manner wherein our African slaves are procured: such the manner wherein they are removed from their native land, and wherein they are treated in our plantations. I would now enquire, whether these things can be defended, on the principles of even heathen honesty? Whether they can be reconciled (setting the Bible out of the question) with any degree of either justice or mercy?
2. The grand plea is, “They are authorized by law.” But can law, Human Law, change the nature of things? Can it turn darkness into light, or evil into good? By no means. Notwithstanding ten thousand laws, right is right, and wrong is wrong still. There must still remain an essential difference between justice and injustice, cruelty and mercy. So that I still ask, who can reconcile this treatment of the negroes, first and last, with either mercy or justice?
Where is the justice of inflicting the severest evils, on those that have done us no wrong? Of depriving those that never injured us in word or deed, of every comfort of life? Of tearing them from their native country, and depriving them of liberty itself? To which an Angolan, has the same natural right as an Englishman, and on which he sets as high a value? Yea, where is the justice of taking away the lives of innocent, inoffensive men? Murdering thousands of them in their own land, by the hands of their own countrymen: many thousands, year after year, on shipboard, and then casting them like dung into the sea! And tens of thousands in that cruel slavery, to which they are so unjustly reduced?
3. But waving, for the present, all other considerations, I strike at the root of this complicated villany. I absolutely deny all slave-holding to be consistent with any degree of natural justice.
I cannot place this in a clearer light, than that great ornament of his profession, Judge Blackstone has already done. Part of his words are as follows:
“The three origins of the right of slavery assigned by Justinian, are all built upon false foundations. 1. Slavery is said to arise from captivity in war. The conqueror having a right to the life of his captive, if he spares that, has then a right to deal with them as he speaks. But this is untrue, if taken generally, That by the laws of nations, a man has a right to kill his enemy. He has only a right to kill him in particular cases, in cases of absolute necessity for self-defence. And it is plain, this absolute necessity did not subsist, since he did not kill him, but made him prisoner. War itself is justifiable only on principles of self-preservation. Therefore it gives us no right over prisoners, but to hinder their hurting us by confining them. Much less can it give a right to torture, or kill, or even enslave an enemy when the war is over. Since therefore the right of making our prisoners slaves, depends on a supposed right of slaughter, that foundation failing, the consequence which is drawn from it must fail likewise.”
“It is said secondly, Slavery may begin, by one man’s selling himself to another. And it is true, a man may sell himself to work for another; but he can not sell himself to be a slave, as above defined. Every sale implies an equivalent given to the seller, in lieu of what he transfers to the buyer. But what equivalent can be given for life or liberty? His property likewise, with the very price which he seems to receive, devolves ipso facto to his master, the instant he becomes his slave: in this case therefore the buyer gives nothing. Of what validity then can a sale be, which destroys the very principle upon which all sales are founded?”