give no sanction to the
employment of any and every means which cruelty, suspicion, or jealousy
may choose to deem necessary, nor of any which would be productive of
greater general evil than the forfeiture of the rights themselves.
According to the ancient law even among the Jews, the power of life and
death was granted to the parent; we concede only the power of
correction. The old law gave the same power to the husband over the
wife. The Roman law confided the person and even life of the debtor to
the mercy of the creditor. According to the reasoning of Dr. Wayland,
all these laws must be sanctioned if the rights which they were deemed
necessary to secure, are acknowledged. It is clear, however, that the
most unrighteous means may be adopted to secure a proper end, under the
plea of necessity. The justice of the plea must be made out on its own
grounds, and can not be assumed on the mere admission of the propriety
of the end aimed at. Whether the slaves of this country may be safely
admitted to the enjoyments of personal liberty, is a matter of dispute;
but that they could not, consistently with the public welfare, be
intrusted with the exercise of political power, is in on all hands
admitted. It is, then, the acknowledged right of the state to govern
them by laws in the formation of which they have no voice. But it is the
universal plea of the depositaries of irresponsible power, sustained too
by almost universal experience, that men can be brought to submit to
political despotism only by being kept in ignorance and poverty. Dr.
Wayland, then, if he concedes the right of the state to legislate for
the slaves, must, according to his own reasoning, acknowledge the right
to adopt all the means necessary for the security of this irresponsible
power, and of consequence, that the state has the right to keep the
blacks in the lowest state of degradation. If he denies the validity of
this argument in favor of political despotism, he must renounce his own
against the lawfulness of domestic slavery. Dr. Wayland himself would
admit the right of the Emperor of Russia to exercise a degree of power
over his present half civilized subjects, which could not be maintained
over an enlightened people, though he would be loth to acknowledge his
right to adopt all the means necessary to keep them in their present
condition. The acknowledgment, therefore, of the right to hold slaves,
does not involve the acknowledgment of the right to adop