With regard to the degradation of the African slave, that is admitted;
but at the same time his position as an accessory to civilization is
far higher than that wherein he was wholly the subject of barbarism.
Now, he is dignified to the useful avocations of the civilized race;
learns their rudimental arts and customs, and methods of subsistence;
is subject to, and protected by law; becomes semi-civilized, and in
rare, individual instances, as a _lusus naturæ_, even aspires to the
nobler prerogatives of mind. The meanest slave that wears the shackle
or feels the whip of civilization, in the reluctant performance of
coerced labor, is a far nobler being than the African barbarian in his
native wilds.