To insist upon man's Natural Rights, and to lose sight of the corresponding Obligations, is not the tendency of the Humanity of a moral man.

518. Such Natural Rights as we have mentioned, are sometimes spoken of as indefeasible, and inalienable. When, by such expressions, it is meant that no act, either of a man's own or of other men, can make it cease to be an object of Humanity that he should possess such Rights, the expressions are just. No constraint and violence, actually exercised upon men, can prevent the humane man from desiring that they should have Rights which may protect them from such inflictions; and even if a man, for himself, renounce the Rights which are requisite to his being a moral agent, the humane man must still desire that they should be restored to him. If these Rights are taken away, or given away, it is right that they should be given back to every man; and in this sense, they are indefeasible and inalienable.

But if it be meant, that when the Law takes away, or the act of the individual gives away, these Rights, the Law and the Act are not to be regarded, this application of the words is not admissible. The Laws of every State have their validity; and if these Laws are contrary to Humanity or to Justice, such vices of the Laws are to be remedied, not by the Moralist declaring such Laws null and void of themselves; but by the Legislator annulling them, or substituting better Laws in their room. And although it may be humane and right, that the Laws should not sanction Contracts by which a citizen renounces the fundamental Rights of man; yet if such a Contract is made according to Law, the Law enforces it, and the Moralist, as before, may say that the Law ought to be changed; but he may not say that, till changed, it ought not to be executed.

519. Thus, those which we have called the Natural

Rights of man, may be, for a time at least, superseded by their not being Civil Rights. They may be Rights in the eye of Humanity; that is, such as ought to be the Rights of all members of every community; but not Rights in the eye of Law, that is, such as are the Rights of all members of a given community. Natural Rights are the Ideal conditions of moral society; they may be suspended in Fact; the Idea being imperfectly realized. When this is so, it is the business of all good men constantly to make the Fact approach to the Idea; to make Law agree with Humanity to make Civil Rights coincide with Natural Rights.

In many communities, this task may at the present, or at any given time, be imperfectly fulfilled; and in such cases, there exist Classes of the Society which possess, in an imperfect degree, or in no degree, the Natural Rights of Man. It will be proper to examine more particularly some of these States of Society, with their characteristic Classes: and to consider the manner in which they exemplify the doctrine which we have been propounding.

CHAPTER XXIV.

SLAVERY.

520. IN ancient nations, we find the existence of Slaves everywhere familiar. Bondmen and Bondwomen, and the buying and selling of men, occur frequently in the Books of Moses. In Homer, and the Greek tragedians, domestic slavery is contemplated as the general lot of those conquered in war, their wives and children. The slaves, thus obtained, were employed, both in the business of the house, in the labours of agriculture, and as workmen in various handicrafts.

They were so universally thus employed, that they

were considered as a necessary portion of society. A State, says Aristotle, consists of Families; a Family, of Freemen and Slaves. And in like manner, the Roman Law lays this down as the primary division of persons†, "Omnes homines aut liberi sunt aut servi." Slavery, thus derived from the ancient world, was, in the course of time, nearly extinguished in Christian States. But in modern times, a new form of slavery has grown up; the slavery of the negroes, who are carried from Africa to America; and employed there, they and their descendants, as domestic servants and agricultural labourers.

521. The character of complete Slavery is, that the Slave has no Rights. And this complete kind of Slavery has been recognized and ordained by the Laws of many nations. Gaius, the Roman Jurist, says, "In potestate sunt servi dominorum. Quæ quidem potestas juris gentium est; nam apud omnes peræque gentes animadvertere possumus dominis in servos vitæ necisque potestatem fuisse, et quodcunque per servum acquiritur id domino acquiri.' Thus the Slave had neither the Right of protection from extreme violence and death, inflicted by his master, nor the Right of property in anything which he might happen to produce or acquire. The Slave is the property of the Master, in the same manner as a horse or a cart is. And these maxims are promulgated in modern Laws. "A Slave," says the Louisiana Code §, "is in the power of the Master to whom he belongs. The Master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry, his labour; he can do nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire anything but which must belong to his master." The Laws

‡ Dig. 1. 6. 1. Among the "things in our power" are the slaves of which we are masters. And this "power" is a general institution of nations; for we may observe that in all nations alike the master has the power of life and death over the slave; and whatever is acquired by the slave, is acquired for the master.

§ Channing's Works, Vol. 11. p. 17.

of South Carolina say, "Slaves shall be deemed, taken, reported and adjudged, to be chattels personal in the hands of their Masters, and possessions to all intents and purposes whatsoever." Accordingly, it is held in America that the cohabitation of slaves, being limited by the pleasure of the master, cannot be marriage; and that a slave cannot be guilty of theft; just as dogs and horses cannot marry and cannot steal. It is true, that in some countries, in which the most complete slavery prevails, the master is not allowed by the Laws to put his slave to death; and some punishment is inflicted if he does so. But such a Law does not invest the slave with any Rights. It is only a Law against what is shocking to the general feeling, like the English Laws against cruelty to animals. It is now penal in this country to torture a horse or a dog; but a horse or a dog are still only objects of possession, without any Rights or any acknowledged moral nature.

522. Slavery is contrary to the Fundamental Principles of Morality. It neglects the great primary distinction of Persons and Things (45); converting a Person into a Thing, an object merely passive, without any recognized attributes of Human nature. A slave is, in the eye of the State which stamps him with that character, not acknowledged as a man. His pleasures and pains, his wishes and desires, his needs and springs of action, his thoughts and feelings, are of no value whatever in the eye of the community. He is reduced to the level of the brutes. Even his Crimes, as we have said, are not acknowledged as Wrongs; lest it should be supposed that, as he may do a Wrong, he may suffer one. And as there are

for him no Wrongs, because there are no

Rights; so there

is for him nothing morally right; that is, as we have seen, nothing conformable to the Supreme Rule of Human Nature; for the Supreme Rule of his condition is the will of his

master. He is thus divested of his moral nature, which is contrary to the great Principle we have already laid down; that all men are moral beings;-a Principle which, we have seen (510, 514), is one of the universal Truths of Morality, whether it be taken as a Principle of Justice or of Humanity. It is a Principle of Justice, depending upon the participation of all in a common Humanity: it is a Principle of Humanity as authoritative and cogent as the fundamental Idea of Justice.

523. All men are moral beings, and cannot be treated as mere brutes and things, without an extreme violation of the Duties of Humanity. In some communities, the Conception of Humanity may be dimly and vaguely developed; and the guilt of this violation of Duty, in this as in other cases, may be modified by this circumstance. The offense of the defender and promoter of Slavery, may not be that of acting against Conscience, but of not enlightening his Conscience; of not raising his standard of morality. And this offense, again, may be modified by the circumstances in which a person is placed. In the ancient world, especially in the earlier periods, when the friendly intercourse of nations was rare, the feeling of Humanity very imperfectly unfolded, and the thoughts by which such feelings are fostered and supported not yet familiar among men; the opportunity of enlightening the conscience and raising the moral standard were wanting; and if, in such cases, virtuous men practised slavery without doubt or misgiving; and with the natural mercy, in their treatment of slaves, which benevolence cultivated in the other relations of life would usually produce in this; we may pronounce them to have been excusable, on the ground of the defects of their national standard of morality (453): though upon such men, and upon all men, there was a duty incumbent, of raising the national standard of Morality. But now, after morality and