y possesses
the power to contravene the principles of justice. In other words, it
should be observed that no unjust law can ever promote the public good.
Every law, then, which is not unjust, and which the public good demands,
should be enacted by society.

But we have already seen and shall still more fully see, that the law
which ordains slavery is not unjust in itself, or, in other words, that
it interferes with none of the inalienable rights of man. Hence, if it
be shown that the public good, and especially the good of the slave,
demands such a law, then the question of slavery will be settled. We
purpose to show this before we have done with the present discussion.
And if, in the prosecution of this inquiry, we should be so fortunate as
to throw only one steady ray of light on the great question of slavery,
by which the very depths of society have been so fearfully convulsed, we
shall be more than rewarded for all the labor which, with no little
solicitude, we have felt constrained to bestow upon an attempt at its
solution.

Sec. VII. _Conclusion of the first chapter._

In conclusion, we shall merely add that if the foregoing remarks be
just, it follows that the great problem of political philosophy is not
precisely such as it is often taken to be by statesmen and historians.
This problem, according to Mackintosh and Macaulay, consists in finding
such an adjustment of the antagonistic principles of public order and
private liberty, that neither shall overthrow or subvert the other, but
each be confined within its own appropriate limits. Whereas, if we are
not mistaken, these are not _antagonistic_, but _co-ordinate_,
principles. The very law which institutes public order is that which
introduces private liberty, since no secure enjoyment of one's rights
can exist where public order is not maintained. And, on the other hand,
unless private liberty be introduced, public order cannot be
maintained, or at least such public order as should be established;
for, if there be not private liberty, if there be no secure enjoyment of
one's rights, then the highest and purest elements of our nature would
have to be extinguished, or else exist in perpetual conflict with the
surrounding despotism. As license is not liberty, so despotism is not
order, nor even friendly to that enlightened, wholesome order, by which
the good of the public and the individual are at the same time
introduced and secured. In other words, what is t