Some propose, that the advantages of the great and little, the served
and the servant, the good and the bad, should be reciprocal; that that
which is used is, or should be, as much advantaged in the using as is
the user. I would ask them--what particular advantage it is to the
oyster to be devoured? or what return can the earth make to the sun
for his rays, constantly poured upon it? Some assert that every human
being is unqualifiedly endowed by nature with the right of individual
freedom. This we deny. We assert that barbarism is not humanity, and
cannot claim to exercise the prerogative of civilization, which it has
ignored, or which it never knew. We assert that the murderer has
forfeited that right; and more than this, with the element of murder
developed in him, originally, he never was entitled to freedom.
Prisons, and even dungeons, are as necessary and proper as schools and
colleges, but not more so than servitude to the barbarian. They are
all appliances of right and justice and civilization, not to make the
good subserve the bad, but to make the bad subserve the good.