32/47 They are wicked, but not equally so with you. They are treacherous, because they are under no obligation to speak truth to their tyrants. They acknowledge the superiority of our understanding, because we have abused their ignorance. They allow the justice of our authority, because we have abused their weakness." "But these Negroes, it is further urged, were born slaves. Barbarians! will you persuade me that a man can be the property of a sovereign, a son the property of a father, a wife the property of a husband, a domestic the property of a master, a Negro the property of a planter ?" But I have no time to follow this animated author, even by short extracts, through the varied strains of eloquence which he displays upon this occasion. |