spoken. But the reasoning from
such to the great mass of mankind, is most fallacious. To these, the
supply of their natural and physical wants, and the indulgence of the
natural domestic affections, must, for the most part, afford the
greatest good of which they are capable. To the evils which sometimes
attend their matrimonial connections, arising from their looser
morality, slaves, for obvious reasons, are comparatively insensible. I
am no apologist of vice, nor would I extenuate the conduct of the
profligate and unfeeling, who would violate the sanctity of even these
engagements, and occasion the pain which such violations no doubt do
often inflict. Yet such is the truth, and we can not make it otherwise.
We know that a woman's having been before a mother, is very seldom
indeed an objection to her being made a wife. I know perfectly well how
this will be regarded by a class of reasoners or declaimers, as imposing
a character of deeper horror on the whole system; but still, I will say,
that if they are to be exposed to the evil, it is mercy that the
sensibility to it should be blunted. Is it no compensation also for the
vices incident to slavery, that they are, to a great degree, secured
against the temptation to greater crimes, and more atrocious vices, and
the miseries which attend them; against their own disposition to
indolence, and the profligacy which is its common result?

But if they are subject to the vices, they have also the virtues of
slaves. Fidelity--often proof against all temptation--even death
itself--an eminently cheerful and social temper--what the Bible imposes
as a duty, but which might seem an equivocal virtue in the code of
modern morality--submission to constituted authority, and a disposition
to be attached to, as well as to respect those, whom they are taught to
regard as superiors. They may have all the knowledge which will make
them useful in the station in which God has been pleased to place them,
and may cultivate the virtues which will render them acceptable to him.
But what has the slave of any country to do with heroic virtues, liberal
knowledge, or elegant accomplishments? It is for the master; arising out
of his situation--imposed on him as duty--dangerous and disgraceful if
neglected--to compensate for this, by his own more assidious
cultivation, of the more generous virtues, and liberal attainments.

It has been supposed one of the great evils of slavery, that it affords
the slav