I assert the right and justice of slavery, and found my arguments on
the subject in right alone. If it can be shown to be right, then it is
expedient; if wrong, then it cannot be shown to be expedient, and, if
possible, it ought to be abolished. It is the _idea_ of the _wrong_ of
slavery which has misled, and is continuing to mislead, the American
mind.
By what process of reasoning, then, can slavery be shown to be just? I
answer, because RIGHT holds a just and hereditary control over
_wrong_. I answer, that it is right that barbarism should subserve
civilization. I assert that barbarism is _wrong_, and civilization is
RIGHT; that the former conduces to the misery and the latter to the
happiness of mankind. Barbarism--with its pagan idolatries, its
monstrous superstitions, its devil-worship, its false religious rites,
its heathen orgies, its cruelties, its cannibalism--is wrong. Who will
deny this? Who are its apologists and advocates? Let them stand forth
and show the right of barbarism! Let us have a homily on its beauties!
let them picture to us the meliorations of cannibalism! Will any one
do it? No; it is a self-evident wrong. To attempt, even, to prove it
wrong, would seem to be a work of supererogation. Barbarism it
repugnant to the common sense of the Anglo-Saxon race; a violation of
the conscience of civilization. Cannibalism is an almost inconceivable
outrage against all right, in moral, social, or even superior animal
existence. Few animals or even reptiles devour their kind. It is,
therefore, an act repugnant to human nature, and in violation of the
amenities even of a nobler animal existence. In a word, it is
unmitigated wrong, showing its subjects and votaries to be incarnate
devils.