On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
84- Defence of Locke against Lord Eldon . nw
Untitled Article
of the cc Patriarchal' One Constitution declares , that < c all the leet-men shall be under the jurisdiction of the respective lords , without appeal ; nor shall any leet-man or leet-womai } have liberty to go off from the land of their particular lord without licence . " 'J bis Constitution , however rigorous ^ yet as to the original leet-man who voluntarily entered" himself- it is quite equitable , compared with the following;— -that * all the
children of leet-meii shall be kret-rnen , and so to all generations ! " Thus was a cast to be formed among the Whites—a constitution worthy' 6 f Hindoo superstition . As to the Blacks , afteF providing , what a West-Indian legislator would never have thought of—that c * slaves , as well as others , shall be' of what church or profession any of them shall think best /" and thereof be as fully meiiibers as any freeman '—r-there follows this truly abominable constitution : Every freeman of Carolinai shall have absolute power and authority 6 v . erhis negro slaves ^ of what opinion or religion soever . * ' : '> 'i
This , I am persuaded , must be the passage , and tpe only one , to which Lord Eldon alluded in t& ' e late debate . ' ' Til at his Lordship would seldom refer to such a writer as f ^ oqlce , except for sucli a purpose may be easily believed ; riot can " we fairly question the learned Lord's sincerity when he advo < iat 6 S the Slave-Trade , however we may have suspected tljat of the fate Premier in ' behalf of its abolition . To that titeksure Mv . f ^ itt afforded his eloquence , his vote , his persotial influelice | every thing but what it required—his influence as k ^ ltiist ^ r . Mr * Fox , on the contrary , made it almost the first act of his $ dministfation to commit the Parliament to an early fcotasidei-ation of a subject which , as we learn from Lord Holfancf , engaged the solicitude of his last hqurs . c
To return to the learned Peer . After every almwance for a long-formed forensic hiibit of endeavoqring ' to ma | ce c \ the worse appear the better cause , " when the interest of a client might require it , was it justifiable , even as a a ruse d ' e guerre , to make free with such a name as Locke on such equivocal authority ? The only qucstibp be f ore the Lords , the .. traffic in slaves ( including the unavoidable desolation of the ' African coast , and the horrors of the Middle Passage , ) did not come at all' before the legislator for Carolina , so far as appears by any of the Constitutions : and supposing these to have been , framed , not ., as is most prob a ble , in conceit with Lord Shaftcsbury , but by Mr , Locke alone , it should be considered that he was then httle rhore than thirty years of age , and had just Ifcit the practice of medicine for the studjy of politic ^ under t ^ c fci ^ roii age of t'hat " " Lord , a versatile fitatesni ^ to whoM'W
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1807, page 84, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2377/page/28/
-