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Untitled Article
racter of a moral philosopher . The combination of " inward and moral" with " outward good" is contended for by the best expositors of the system ; and , indeed , without such comprehension it would be utterly indefensible .
The third chapter is entitled " Explanations , " and is chiefly a warning against inferring the wickedness of slave-owners from the wickedness of slavery . The author inculcates that " guilt is to be measured , not by the outward act , but by unfaithfulness to conscience ; and that the consciences of men are often darkened by education , and other inauspicious influences / ' On this principle , Saul the persecutor was
perfectly innocent , and when he became Paul the Apostle , grievously erred in describing himself as having been " the chief of sinners . " The fallibility of the moral sense , and its liability to ' violate many important precepts , " are sore deductions from its worth . If it can only become a safe guidance when directed by the calculations of utility , it may well be dispensed with altogether . But let it not be imagined that the suggestion just
quoted is made in any spirit of compromise with oppression . The chapter ends with a passage not surpassed in its kind since the Hebrew prophets of old poured forth the awful denunciations of the divine oracle , and commanded earth to hear the word of the Lord .
i ( There is however , there must be , in slave holding communities a large class which cannot be too severely condemned . There are many we fear very many , who hold their fellow-creatures in bondage , from selfish , base motives . They hold the sla \ e for gain , whether justly or unjustl y they neither ask nor cure . They clui £ to him as property , and have no faith in the principles which will diminish a man ' s wealth . They hold him , not for his own ^ ood or the safety of the state , but with precisely the same views with which they bold a laboring horse , that is , for the profit which they wrinj * from him . The } ' will not hear a word of ins wrongs ; for , wionged or not , they will not let him go . lie is their property , and they mean not to he poor for righteousness' sake . Such a class there
undoubtedly » s among slave-holders ; how large , their own consciences must determine . We sire sure of it ; for under such circumstances human nature will and must conic to this mourntul result . Now , to men of this spirit , the explanations we have made do m no degree apply . Such men ought to tremble before the rebukes of outraged humanity and indignant viitue . Slavery , upheld for g « i "» is a great crime . He , who lias nothing to urge against emancipation , but that
it will make him poorer , is bound to Immediate Emancipation . He has no excuse for wresting from his brethren tin ir rights . The plea of benefit to the slave and the state avails him nothing . He extorts by the lash , that labor to which be has no chum , through a base selfishness . Kvery morsel of food thus forced from the injured , ought to be bitterer than gnll . His gold i » cankered . The sweat of the sluve taints the luxuries for which it streams . Better were it for the selfish wrong-doer of whom I speak , to live a * the sluve , to clothe
Untitled Article
Oiannwg ' cm Slavery . 197
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1836, page 197, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2656/page/5/
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