aw of morality, or the law of the country--the law of God or
the law of man. If the law of any country permitted it, it would of
course be absurd to say that the law of that country was violated by
such alienation. If it have any meaning in this respect, it must mean
that though the law of the country permitted it, the man would be guilty
of an immoral act who should thus alienate his liberty. A fit question
for schoolmen to discuss, and the consequences resulting from its
decision as important as from any of theirs. Yet who will say that the
man pressed by famine, and in prospect of death, would be criminal for
such an act? Self-preservation, as is truly said, is the first law of
nature. High and peculiar characters, by elaborate cultivation, may be
taught to prefer death to slavery, but it would be folly to prescribe
this as a duty to the mass of mankind.

If any rational meaning can be attributed to the sentence I have quoted,
it is this:--That the society, or the individuals who exercise the
powers of government, are guilty of a violation of the law of God or of
morality, when, by any law or public act, they deprive men of life or
liberty, or restrain them in the pursuit of happiness. Yet every
government does, and of necessity must, deprive men of life and liberty
for offenses against society. Restrain them in the pursuit of happiness!
Why all the laws of society are intended for nothing else but to
restrain men from the pursuit of happiness, according to their own ideas
of happiness or advantage--which the phrase must mean if it means any
thing. And by what right does society punish by the loss of life or
liberty? Not on account of the moral guilt of the criminal--not by
impiously and arrogantly assuming the prerogative of the Almighty, to
dispense justice or suffering, according to moral desert. It is for its
own protection--it is the right of self-defense. If there existed the
blackest moral turpitude, which by its example or consequences, could be
of no evil to society, government would have nothing to do with that. If
an action, the most harmless in its moral character, could be dangerous
to the security of society, society would have the perfect right to
punish it. If the possession of a black skin would be otherwise
dangerous to society, society has the same right to protect itself by
disfranchising the possessor of civil privilege, and to continue the
disability to his posterity, if the same danger would be