RIGHTS.
I now proceed to the second division of the subject. I am to show, that
man has by nature received sacred, inalienable Rights, which are
violated by slavery. Some important principles, which belong to this
head, were necessarily anticipated under the preceding; but they need a
fuller exposition. The whole subject of Rights needs to be reconsidered.
Speculations and reasonings about it have lately been given to the
public, not only false, but dangerous to freedom, and there is a strong
tendency to injurious views. Rights are made to depend on circumstances,
so that pretences may easily be made or created for violating them
successively, till none shall remain. Human rights have been represented
as so modified and circumscribed by men's entrance into the social
state, that only the shadows of them are left. They have been spoken of
as absorbed in the public good; so that a man may be innocently
enslaved, if the public good shall so require. To meet fully all these
errors, for such I hold them, a larger work than the present is
required. The nature of man, his relations to the state, the limits of
civil government, the elements of the public good, and the degree to
which the individual must be surrendered to this good,--these are the
topics which the present subject involves. I cannot enter into them
particularly, but shall lay down what seem to me the great and true
principles in regard to them. I shall show that man has rights from his
very nature, not the gifts of society, but of God; that they are not
surrendered on entering the social state; that they must not be taken
away under the plea of public good; that the Individual is never to be
sacrificed to the Community; that the Idea of Rights is to prevail above
all the interests of the State.
Man has rights by nature. The disposition of some to deride abstract
rights, as if all rights were uncertain, mutable, and conceded by
society, shows a lamentable ignorance of human nature. Whoever
understands this must see in it an immovable foundation of rights. These
are gifts of the Creator, not grants of society. In the order of things,
they precede society, lie at its foundation, constitute man's capacity
for it, and are the great objects of social institutions. The
consciousness of rights is not a creation of human art, a conventional
sentiment, but essential to and inseparable from the human soul.
Man's rights belong to him as a Moral Being, as capable of perceiving
moral distinctions, as a subject of moral obligation. As soon as he
becomes conscious of Duty, a kindred consciousness springs up, that he
has a Right to do what the sense of duty enjoins, and that no foreign
will or power can obstruct his moral action without crime. He feels that
the sense of duty was given to him as a Law, that it makes him
responsible for himself, that to exercise, unfold, and obey it is the
end of his being, and that he has a right to exercise and obey it
without hindrance or opposition. A consciousness of dignity, however
obscure, belongs also to this divine principle; and though he may want
words to do justice to his thoughts, he feels that he has that within
him which makes him essentially equal to all around him.
The sense of duty is the fountain of human rights. In other words, the
same inward principle, which teaches the former, bears witness to the
latter. Duties and Rights must stand or fall together. It has been too
common to oppose them to one another; but they are indissolubly joined
together. That same inward principle, which teaches a man what he is
bound to do to others, teaches equally, and at the same instant, what
others are bound to do to _him_. That same voice, which forbids him to
injure a single fellow-creature, forbids every fellow-creature to do
_him_ harm. His conscience, in revealing the moral law, does not reveal
a law for himself only, but speaks as an Universal Legislator. He has an
intuitive conviction, that the obligations of this divine code press on
others as truly as on himself. That principle, which teaches him that he
sustains the relation of brotherhood to all human beings, teaches him
that this relation is reciprocal, that it gives indestructible claims as
well as imposes solemn duties, and that what he owes to the members of
this vast family, they owe to him in return. Thus the moral nature
involves rights. These enter into its very essence. They are taught by
the very voice which enjoins duty. Accordingly there is no deeper
principle in human nature than the consciousness of rights. So profound,
so ineradicable is this sentiment, that the oppressions of ages have no
where wholly stifled it.
Having shown the foundation of human rights in human nature, it may be
asked what they are. Perhaps they do not admit very accurate definition
any more than human duties; for the Spiritual cannot be weighed and
measured like the Material. Perhaps a minute criticism may find fault
with the most guarded exposition of them; but they may easily be stated
in language which the unsophisticated mind will recognise as the truth.
Volumes could not do justice to them; and yet perhaps they may be
comprehended in one sentence. They may all be comprised in the Right,
which belongs to every rational being, to exercise his powers for the
promotion of his own and others' Happiness and Virtue. These are the
great purposes of his existence. For these his powers were given, and to
these he is bound to devote them. He is bound to make himself and others
better and happier, according to his ability. His ability for this work
is a sacred trust from God, the greatest of all trusts. He must answer
for the waste or abuse of it. He consequently suffers an unspeakable
wrong, when stripped of it by others, or forbidden to employ it for the
ends for which it is given; when the powers which God has given for such
generous uses are impaired or destroyed by others, or the means for
their action and growth are forcibly withheld. As every human being is
bound to employ his faculties for his own and others' good, there is an
obligation on each to leave all free for the accomplishment of this end;
and whoever respects this obligation, whoever uses his own, without
invading others' powers, or obstructing others' duties, has a sacred,
indefeasible right to be unassailed, unobstructed, unharmed by all with
whom he may be connected. Here is the grand, all-comprehending right of
human nature. Every man should revere it, should assert it for himself
and for all, and should bear solemn testimony against every infraction
of it, by whomsoever made or endured.
Having considered the great fundamental right of human nature,
particular rights may easily be deduced. Every man has a right to
exercise and invigorate his intellect or the power of knowledge, for
knowledge is the essential condition of successful effort for every
good; and whoever obstructs or quenches the intellectual life in another
inflicts a grievous and irreparable wrong. Every man has a right to
inquire into his duty, and to conform himself to what he learns of it.
Every man has a right to use the means, given by God and sanctioned by
virtue, for bettering his condition. He has a right to be respected
according to his moral worth; a right to be regarded as a member of the
community to which he belongs, and to be protected by impartial laws;
and a right to be exempted from coercion, stripes, and punishment, as
long as he respects the rights of others. He has a right to an
equivalent for his labor. He has a right to sustain domestic relations,
to discharge their duties, and to enjoy the happiness which flows from
fidelity in these and other domestic relations. Such are a few of human
rights; and if so, what a grievous wrong is slavery!
Perhaps nothing has done more to impair the sense of the reality and
sacredness of human rights, and to sanction oppression, than loose
ideas as to the change made in man's natural rights by his entrance
into civil society. It is commonly said that men part with a portion of
these by becoming a community, a body politic; that government consists
of powers surrendered by the individual; and it is said, "If certain
rights and powers may be surrendered, why not others? why not all? What
limit is to be set? The good of the community, to which a part is given
up, may demand the whole; and in this good, all private rights are
merged." This is the logic of despotism. We are grieved, that it finds
its way into republics, and that it sets down the great principles of
freedom as abstractions and metaphysical theories, good enough for the
cloister, but too refined for practical and real life.
Human rights, however, are not to be so reasoned away. They belong, as
we have seen, to man as a moral being, and nothing can divest him of
them but the destruction of his nature. They are not to be given up to
society as a prey. On the contrary, the great end of civil society is to
secure them. The great end of government is to repress _all wrong_. Its
highest function is to protect the weak against the powerful, so that
the obscurest human being may enjoy his rights in peace. Strange that an
institution, built on the idea of Rights, should be used to unsettle
this idea, to confuse our moral perceptions, to sanctify wrongs as means
of general good.
It is said that in forming civil society the individual surrenders a
part of his rights. It would be more proper to say that he adopts new
modes of securing them. He consents, for example, to desist from
self-defence, that he and all may be more effectually defended by the
public force. He consents to submit his cause to an umpire or tribunal,
that justice may be more impartially awarded, and that he and all may
more certainly receive their due. He consents to part with a portion of
his property in taxation, that his own and others' property may be the
more secure. He submits to certain restraints, that he and others may
enjoy more enduring freedom. He expects an equivalent for what he
relinquishes, and insists on it as his right. He is wronged by partial
laws, which compel him to contribute to the state beyond his proportion,
his ability, and the measure of benefits which he receives. How absurd
is it to suppose, that by consenting to be protected by the state, and
by yielding it the means, he surrenders the very rights which were the
objects of his accession to the social compact!
The authority of the state to impose laws on its members I cheerfully
allow; but this has limits, which are found to be more and more narrow
in proportion to the progress of moral science. The state is equally
restrained with individuals by the moral law. For example, it may not,
must not on any account, put an innocent man to death, or require of
him a dishonorable or criminal service. It may demand allegiance, but
only on the ground of the protection it affords. It may levy taxes, but
only because it takes all property and all interests under its shield.
It may pass laws, but only impartial ones, framed for the whole and not
for the few. It must not seize by a special act the property of the
humblest individual, without making him an equivalent. It must regard
every man, over whom it extends its authority, as a vital part of
itself, as entitled to its care and to its provisions for liberty and
happiness. If, in an emergency, its safety, which is the interest of
each and all, may demand the imposition of peculiar restraints on one or
many, it is bound to limit these restrictions to the precise point which
its safety prescribes, to remove the necessity of them as far and as
fast as possible, to compensate by peculiar protection such as it
deprives of the ordinary means of protecting themselves, and, in
general, to respect and provide for liberty in the very acts which for a
time restrain it. The idea of Rights, I repeat it, should be fundamental
and supreme in civil institutions. Government becomes a nuisance and
scourge, in proportion as it sacrifices these to the many or the few.
Government, I repeat it, is equally bound with the individual by the
moral law. The ideas of Justice and Rectitude, of what is due to man
from his fellow-creatures, of the claims of every moral being, are far
deeper and more primitive than Civil Polity. Government, far from
originating them, owes to them its strength. Right is older than human
law. Law ought to be its voice. It should be built on and should
correspond to the principle of justice in the human breast, and its
weakness is owing to nothing more than to its clashing with our
indestructible moral convictions.
That government is most perfect, in which Policy is most entirely
subjected to Justice, or in which the supreme and constant aim is to
secure the rights of every human being. This is the beautiful idea of a
free government, and no government is free but in proportion as it
realizes this. Liberty must not be confounded with popular institutions.
A representative government may be as despotic as an absolute monarchy.
In as far as it tramples on the rights, whether of many or one, it is a
despotism. The sovereign power, whether wielded by a single hand or
several hands, by a king or a congress, which spoils one human being of
the immunities and privileges bestowed on him by God, is so far a
tyranny. The great argument in favor of representative institutions is,
that a people's rights are safest in their own hands, and should never
be surrendered to an irresponsible power. Rights, Rights, lie at the
foundation of a popular government; and when this betrays them, the
wrong is more aggravated than when they are crushed by despotism.
Still the question will be asked, "Is not the General Good the supreme
law of the state? Are not all restraints on the individual just, which
this demands? When the rights of the individual clash with this, must
they not yield? Do they not, indeed, cease to be rights? Must not every
thing give place to the General Good?" I have started this question in
various forms, because I deem it worthy of particular examination.
Public and private morality, the freedom and safety of our national
institutions, are greatly concerned in settling the claims of the
"General Good." In monarchies, the Divine Right of kings swallowed up
all others. In republics the General Good threatens the same evil. It is
a shelter for the abuses and usurpations of government, for the
profligacies of statesmen, for the vices of parties, for the wrongs of
slavery. In considering this subject, I take the hazard of repeating
principles already laid down; but this will be justified by the
importance of reaching and determining the truth. Is the General Good,
then, the supreme law to which every thing must bow?
This question may be settled at once by proposing another. Suppose the
Public Good to require that a number of the members of a state, no
matter how few, should perjure themselves, or should disclaim their
faith in God and virtue. Would their right to follow conscience and God
be annulled? Would they be bound to sin? Suppose a conqueror to menace a
state with ruin, unless its members should insult their parents, and
stain themselves with crimes at which nature revolts? Must the Public
Good prevail over purity and our holiest affections? Do we not all feel,
that there are higher goods than even the safety of the state? That
there is a higher law than that of mightiest empires? That the idea of
Rectitude is deeper in human nature than that of private or public
interest? And that this is to bear sway over all private and public
acts?
The supreme law of a state is not its safety, its power, its prosperity,
its affluence, the flourishing state of agriculture, commerce, and the
arts. These objects, constituting what is commonly called the Public
Good, are, indeed, proposed, and ought to be proposed, in the
constitution and administration of states. But there is a higher law,
even Virtue, Rectitude, the Voice of Conscience, the Will of God.
Justice is a greater good than property, not greater in degree, but in
kind. Universal benevolence is infinitely superior to prosperity.
Religion, the love of God, is worth incomparably more than all his
outward gifts. A community, to secure or aggrandize itself, must never
forsake the Right, the Holy, the Just.
Moral Good, Rectitude in all its branches, is the Supreme Good; by
which I do not intend that it is the surest means to the security and
prosperity of the state. Such, indeed, it is, but this is too low a
view. It must not be looked upon as a Means, an Instrument. It is the
Supreme End, and states are bound to subject to it all their
legislation, be the apparent loss of prosperity ever so great. National
wealth is not the End. It derives all its worth from national virtue. If
accumulated by rapacity, conquest, or any degrading means, or if
concentrated in the hands of the few, whom it strengthens to crush the
many, it is a curse. National wealth is a blessing, only when it springs
from and represents the intelligence and virtue of the community, when
it is a fruit and expression of good habits, of respect for the rights
of all, of impartial and beneficent legislation, when it gives impulse
to the higher faculties, and occasion and incitement to justice and
beneficence. No greater calamity can befall a people than to prosper by
crime. No success can be a compensation for the wound inflicted on a
nation's mind by renouncing Right as its Supreme Law.
Let a people exalt Prosperity above Rectitude, and a more dangerous end
cannot be proposed. Public Prosperity, General Good, regarded by itself,
or apart from the moral law, is something vague, unsettled, and
uncertain, and will infallibly be so construed by the selfish and
grasping as to secure their own aggrandizement. It may be made to wear a
thousand forms according to men's interests and passions. This is
illustrated by every day's history. Not a party springs up, which does
not sanctify all its projects for monopolizing power by the plea of
General Good. Not a measure, however ruinous, can be proposed, which
cannot be shown to favor one or another national interest. The truth is,
that, in the uncertainty of human affairs, an uncertainty growing out of
the infinite and very subtile causes which are acting on communities,
the consequences of no measure can be foretold with certainty. The best
concerted schemes of policy often fail; whilst a rash and profligate
administration may, by unexpected concurrences of events, seem to
advance a nation's glory. In regard to the means of national prosperity
the wisest are weak judges. For example, the present rapid growth of
this country, carrying, as it does, vast multitudes beyond the
institutions of religion and education, may be working ruin, whilst the
people exult in it as a pledge of greatness. We are too short-sighted to
find our law in outward interests. To states, as to individuals,
Rectitude is the Supreme Law. It was never designed that the Public
Good, as disjoined from this, as distinct from justice and reverence for
all rights, should be comprehended and made our end. Statesmen work in
the dark, until the idea of Right towers above expediency or wealth. Wo
to that people which would found its prosperity in wrong! It is time
that the low maxims of policy, which have ruled for ages, should fall.
It is time that Public Interest should no longer hallow injustice, and
fortify government in making the weak their prey.
In this discussion, I have used the phrase, Public or General Good, in
its common acceptation, as signifying the safety and prosperity of a
state. Why can it not be used in a larger sense? Why can it not be made
to comprehend inward and moral, as well as outward good? And why cannot
the former be understood to be incomparably the most important element
of the public weal? Then, indeed, I should assent to the proposition,
that the General Good is the supreme law. So construed, it would support
the great truths which I have maintained. It would condemn the
infliction of wrong on the humblest individual, as a national calamity.
It would plead with us to extend to every individual the means of
improving his character and lot.
If the remarks under this head be just, it will follow that the good of
the Individual is more important than the outward prosperity of the
State. The former is not vague and unsettled, like the latter, and it
belongs to a higher order of interests. It consists of the free
exertion and expansion of the individual's powers, especially of his
higher faculties; in the energy of his intellect, conscience, and good
affections; in sound judgment; in the acquisition of truth; in laboring
honestly for himself and his family; in loving his Creator, and
subjecting his own will to the Divine; in loving his fellow-creatures,
and making cheerful sacrifices to their happiness; in friendship; in
sensibility to the beautiful, whether in nature or art; in loyalty to
his principles; in moral courage; in self-respect; in understanding and
asserting his rights; and in the Christian hope of immortality. Such is
the good of the Individual; a more sacred, exalted, enduring interest,
than any accessions of wealth or power to the State. Let it not be
sacrificed to these. He should find, in his connexions with the
community, aids to the accomplishment of these purposes of his being,
and not be chained and subdued by it to the inferior interests of any
fellow-creature.
In all ages the Individual has in one form or another been trodden in
the dust. In monarchies and aristocracies he has been sacrificed to One
or to the Few; who, regarding government as an heirloom in their
families, and thinking of the people as made only to live and die for
their glory, have not dreamed that the sovereign power was designed to
shield every man, without exception, from wrong. In the ancient
Republics, the Glory of the State, especially Conquest, was the end to
which the individual was expected to offer himself a victim, and in
promoting which no cruelty was to be declined, no human right revered.
He was merged in a great whole, called the Commonwealth, to which his
whole nature was to be immolated. It was the glory of the American
people, that in their Declaration of Independence they took the ground
of the indestructible rights of every human being. They declared all men
to be essentially equal, and each born to be free. They did not, like
the Greek or Roman, assert for themselves a liberty, which they burned
to wrest from other states. They spoke in the name of humanity, as the
representatives of the rights of the feeblest, as well as mightiest, of
their race. They published universal, everlasting principles, which are
to work out the deliverance of every human being. Such was their glory.
Let not the idea of Rights be erased from their children's minds by
false ideas of public good. Let not the sacredness of individual man be
forgotten in the feverish pursuit of property. It is more important that
the Individual should respect himself, and be respected by others, than
that the wealth of both worlds should be accumulated on our shores.
National wealth is not the end of society. It may exist where large
classes are depressed and wronged. It may undermine a nation's spirit,
institutions, and independence. It can have no value and no sure
foundation, until the Supremacy of the Rights of the Individual is the
first article of a nation's faith, and until reverence for them becomes
the spirit of public men.
Perhaps it will be replied to all which has now been said, that there is
an argument from experience, which invalidates the doctrines of this
section. It may be said, that human rights, notwithstanding what has
been said of their sacredness, do and must yield to the exigencies of
real life, that there is often a stern necessity in human affairs to
which they bow. I may be asked, whether, in the history of nations,
circumstances do not occur, in which the rigor of the principles, now
laid down, must be relaxed? Whether, in seasons of imminent peril to the
state, private rights must not give way? I may be asked, whether the
establishment of martial law and a dictator has not sometimes been
justified and demanded by public danger, and whether, of course, the
rights and liberties of the individual are not held at the discretion of
the state. I admit, in reply, that extreme cases may occur, in which the
exercise of rights and freedom may be suspended; but suspended only for
their ultimate and permanent security. At such times, when the frantic
fury of the many, or the usurpations of the few interrupt the
administration of law, and menace property and life, society, threatened
with ruin, puts forth instinctively spasmodic efforts for its own
preservation. It flies to an irresponsible dictator for its protection.
But in these cases, the great idea of Rights predominates amidst their
apparent subversion. A power above all laws is conferred, only that the
empire of law may be restored. Despotic restraints are imposed only that
liberty may be rescued from ruin. All rights are involved in the safety
of the state; and hence, in the cases referred to, the safety of the
state becomes the supreme law. The individual is bound for a time to
forego his freedom for the salvation of institutions, without which
liberty is but a name. To argue from such sacrifices that he may be
permanently made a slave, is as great an insult to reason as to
humanity. It may be added, that sacrifices, which may be demanded for
the safety, are not due from the individual to the prosperity of the
state. The great end of civil society is to secure rights, not
accumulate wealth; and to merge the former in the latter is to turn
political union into degradation and a scourge. The community is bound
to take the rights of each and all under its guardianship. It must
substantiate its claim to universal obedience by redeeming its pledge of
universal protection. It must immolate no man to the prosperity of the
rest. Its laws should be made for all, its tribunals opened to all. It
cannot without guilt abandon any of its members to private oppression,
to irresponsible power.
We have thus established the reality and sacredness of human rights;
and that slavery is an infraction of these is too plain to need any
labored proof. Slavery violates not one, but all; and violates them not
incidentally, but necessarily, systematically, from its very nature. In
starting with the assumption that the slave is property, it sweeps away
every defence of human rights and lays them in the dust. Were it
necessary I might enumerate them, and show how all fall before this
terrible usurpation; but a few remarks will suffice.
Slavery strips man of the fundamental right to inquire into, consult,
and seek his own happiness. His powers belong to another, and for
another they must be used. He must form no plans, engage in no
enterprises, for bettering his condition. Whatever be his capacities,
however equal to great improvements of his lot, he is chained for life
by another's will to the same unvaried toil. He is forbidden to do for
himself or others the work, for which God stamped him with his own
image, and endowed him with his own best gifts.--Again, the slave is
stripped of the right to acquire property. Being himself owned, his
earnings belong to another. He can possess nothing but by favor. That
right on which the development of men's powers so much depends, the
right to make accumulations, to gain exclusive possessions by honest
industry, is withheld. "The slave can acquire nothing," says one of the
slave-codes, "but what must belong to his master;" and however this
definition, which moves the indignation of the free, may be mitigated by
favor, the spirit of it enters into the very essence of slavery.--Again,
the slave is stripped of his right to his wife and children. They belong
to another, and may be torn from him, one and all, at any moment, at his
master's pleasure.--Again, the slave is stripped of the right to the
culture of his rational powers. He is in some cases deprived by law of
instruction, which is placed within his reach by the improvements of
society and the philanthropy of the age. He is not allowed to toil, that
his children may enjoy a better education than himself. The most sacred
right of human nature, that of developing his best faculties, is denied.
Even should it be granted, it would be conceded as a favor, and might at
any moment be withheld by the capricious will of another.--Again, the
slave is deprived of the right of self-defence. No injury from a white
man is he suffered to repel, nor can he seek redress from the laws of
his country. If accumulated insult and wrong provoke him to the
slightest retaliation, this effort for self-protection, allowed and
commended to others, is a crime for which he must pay a fearful
penalty.--Again, the slave is stripped of the right to be exempted from
all harm except for wrong doing. He is subjected to the lash, by those
whom he has never consented to serve, and whose claim to him as property
we have seen to be a usurpation; and this power of punishment, which, if
justly claimed, should be exercised with a fearful care, is often
delegated to men in whose hands there is a moral certainty of its abuse.
I will add but one more example of the violation of human rights by
slavery. The slave virtually suffers the wrong of robbery, though with
utter unconsciousness on the part of those who inflict it. It may,
indeed, be generally thought, that, as he is suffered to own nothing, he
cannot fall, at least, under this kind of violence. But it is not true
that he owns nothing. Whatever he may be denied by man, he holds from
nature the most valuable property, and that from which all other is
derived, I mean his strength. His labor is his own, by the gift of that
God who nerved his arm, and gave him intelligence and conscience to
direct the use of it for his own and others' happiness. No possession is
so precious as a man's force of body and mind. The exertion of this in
labor is the great foundation and source of property in outward things.
The worth of articles of traffic is measured by the labor expended in
their production. To the great mass of men, in all countries, their
strength or labor is their whole fortune. To seize on this would be to
rob them of their all. In truth, no robbery is so great as that to which
the slave is habitually subjected. To take by force a man's whole
estate, the fruit of years of toil, would by universal consent be
denounced as a great wrong; but what is this, compared with seizing the
man himself, and appropriating to our use the limbs, faculties,
strength, and labor, by which all property is won and held fast? The
right of property in outward things is as nothing, compared with our
right to ourselves. Were the slave-holder stript of his fortune, he
would count the violence slight, compared with what he would suffer,
were his person seized and devoted as a chattel to another's use. Let it
not be said that the slave receives an equivalent, that he is fed and
clothed, and is not, therefore, robbed. Suppose another to wrest from us
a valued possession, and to pay us his own price. Should we not think
ourselves robbed? Would not the laws pronounce the invader a robber? Is
it consistent with the right of property, that a man should determine
the equivalent for what he takes from his neighbour? Especially is it to
be hoped, that the equivalent due to the laborer will be scrupulously
weighed, when he himself is held as property, and all his earnings are
declared to be his master's? So great an infraction of human right is
slavery!
In reply to these remarks, it may be said that the theory and practice
of slavery differ; that the rights of the slave are not as wantonly
sported with as the claims of the master might lead us to infer; that
some of his possessions are sacred; that not a few slave-holders refuse
to divorce husband and wife, to sever parent and child; and that in many
cases the power of punishment is used so reluctantly, as to encourage
insolence and insubordination. All this I have no disposition to deny.
Indeed it must be so. It is not in human nature to wink wholly out of
sight the rights of a fellow-creature. Degrade him as we may, we cannot
altogether forget his claims. In every slave-country, there are,
undoubtedly, masters who desire and purpose to respect these, to the
full extent which the nature of the relation will allow. Still, human
rights are denied. They lie wholly at another's mercy; and we must have
studied history in vain, if we need be told that they will be
continually the prey of this absolute power.--The Evils involved in and
flowing from the denial and infraction of the rights of the slave will
form the subject of a subsequent chapter.