further refutation. For we acknowledge that the slave
has rights; and the limited or qualified property which the master
claims in him, extending merely to his personal human labor and his
lawful obedience, touches not one of these rights.

The fourth argument of Dr. Channing is identical with the second. "That
a human being," says he, "cannot be justly held as property, is apparent
from _the very nature of property_. Property is an exclusive right. It
shuts out all claim but that of the possessor. What one man owns cannot
belong to another." The only difference between the two arguments is
this: in one the "_nature of_ property" is said "to annul all rights;"
and in the other it is said "to exclude all rights!" Both are based on
the same idea of property, and both arrive at the same conclusion, with
only a very slight difference in the mode of expression!

And both are equally unsound. True; "what one man owns cannot belong to
another." But may not one man have a right to the labor of another, as a
father to the labor of his son, or a master to the labor of his
apprentice; and yet that other a right to food and raiment, as well as
to other things? May not one have a right to the service of another,
without annulling or excluding all the rights of that other? This
argument proceeds, it is evident, on the false supposition that if any
being be held as property, then he has no rights; a supposition which,
if true, would exclude and annul the right of property in every living
creature.

Dr. Channing's fifth argument is deduced from "the universal indignation
excited toward _a man_ who makes another his slave." "Our laws," says
he, "know no higher crime than that of reducing a man to slavery. To
steal or to buy an African on his own shores is piracy." "To steal a
man," we reply, is one thing; and, by the authority of the law of the
land, to require him to do certain labor, is, one would think, quite
another. The first may be as high a crime as any known to our laws; the
last is recognized by our laws themselves. Is it not wonderful that Dr.
Channing could not see so plain a distinction, so broad and so glaring a
difference? The father of his country held slaves; _he did not commit
the crime of man-stealing_.

The sixth argument of Dr. Channing, "against the right of property in
man," is "drawn from a very obvious principle of moral science. It is a
plain truth, universally received, that every right supposes or involves