ilosophy, and utterly false in
its application to general nature, or the mass of human kind, which
teaches that existence is not the greatest of all boons, and worthy of
being preserved even under the most adverse circumstances. The strongest
instinct of all animated beings sufficiently proclaims this. When the
last red man shall have vanished from our forests, the sole remaining
traces of his blood will be found among our enslaved population.[236]
The African slave trade has given, and will give, the boon of existence
to millions and millions in our country, who would otherwise never have
enjoyed it, and the enjoyment of their existence is better provided for
while it lasts. Or if, for the rights of man over inferior animals, we
are referred to revelation, which pronounces--"ye shall have dominion
over the beasts of the field, and over the fowls of the air," we refer
to the same, which declares not the less explicitly--

"Both the bond-men and bond-maids which thou shalt have, shall be of the
heathen that are among you. Of them shall you buy bond-men and
bond-maids."

"Moreover of the children of strangers that do sojourn among you, of
them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they
begot in your land, and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take
them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them by
possession. They shall be your bond-men forever."

In moral investigations, ambiguity is often occasioned by confounding
the intrinsic nature of an action, as determined by its consequence,
with the motives of the actor, involving moral guilt or innocence. If
poison be given with a view to destroy another, and it cures him of
disease, the poisoner is guilty, but the act is beneficent in its
results. If medicine be given with a view to heal, and it happens to
kill, he who administered it is innocent, but the act is a noxious one.
If they who begun and prosecuted the slave trade, practiced horrible
cruelties and inflicted much suffering--as no doubt they did, though
these have been much exaggerated--for merely selfish purposes, and with
no view to future good, they were morally most guilty. So far as
unnecessary cruelty was practiced, the motive and the act were alike
bad. But if we could be sure that the entire effect of the trade has
been to produce more happiness than would otherwise have existed, we
must pronounce it good, and that it has happened in the ordering of
God's