Slavery ~ Paperback ~ David Rice

Excerpt from Slavery: Inconsistent With Justice and Good Policy; Proved by a Speech Delivered in the Convention, Held at Danville, Kentucky Mr. Chairman, I rise, Sir, in support of the motion now before you. But my reverence for this body, the novelty of my present situation, the great importance and difficulty of the subject, and the thought of being opposed by gentlemen of the greatest abilities, have too sensible an impression on my mind. But, Sir, I know so much of my natural timidity, which increases with my years, that I foresaw this would be the case; I therefore prepared a speech for the occasion. Sir, I have lived free, and in many respect happy for near sixty years: but my happiness has been greatly diminished, for much of the time, by hearing a great part of the human species groaning under the galling yoke of bondage. In this time I lost a venerable father, a tender mother, two affectionate sisters, and a beloved firstborn son; but all these together have not cost me half the anxiety as has been occasioned by this wretched situation of my fellow-men, whom without a blush I call my brethren. When I consider their deplorable state, and who are the cause of their misery; the load of misery that lies on them, and the load of guilt on us for imposing it on them; it fills my soul with anguish. I view their distresses, I read the anger of Heaven, I believe that if I should not exert myself, when, and as far as, in my power, in order to relieve them, I should be partaker of the guilt. Sir, the question is, Whether Slavery is confident with justice and good policy? But before this is answered, it may be necessary to enquire, what a slave is? A slave is a human creature made by law the property of another human creature, and reduced by mere power to an absolute unconditional subjection to his will. This definition will be allowed to be just, with only this one exception, that the law does not leave the life and the limbs of the slave entirely in the master's power: and from it may be inferred several melancholy truths, which will include a sufficient answer to the main question. In order to a right view of this subject, I would observe, that there are some cases where a man may justly be made a slave by law. By vicious conduct he may forfeit his freedom; he may forfeit his life. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.