even
ready to die for it, as an invaluable blessing? We trust that "no man,"
that "no rational and immortal being," will ever be so ungrateful as to
complain of those who have withheld from him that which is "worse than
nominal," and a curse. For if such, and such only, be his inalienable
birthright, were it not most wisely exchanged for a mess of pottage? The
vagrant, then, should not be consulted whether he will work or not. He
should be "confined and compelled" to work, says Dr. Channing. Nor
should the idle and the vicious, those who cannot be induced to work by
rational motives, be asked whether they will remain pests to society, or
whether they will eat their bread in the sweat of their brow. "For they,
too," says Dr. Channing, "should be compelled to work." But how? "The
slave should not have an owner," says Dr. Channing, "but he should have
a guardian. He needs authority, to supply the lack of that discretion
which he has not yet attained; but it should be the authority of a
friend, an official authority, conferred by the State, and for which
there should be responsibility to the State." Now, if all this be true,
is not the doctrine of equal rights, as held by Dr. Channing, a mere
dream? If one man may have "a guardian," "an official authority,"
appointed by the State, to compel him to work, why may not another be
placed under the same authority, and subjected to the same servitude?
Are not all equal? Have not all men an equal right to liberty and to a
choice of the pursuits of happiness? Let these questions be answered by
the admirers of Dr. Channing; and it will be found that they have
overthrown all the plausible logic, and blown away all the splendid
rhetoric, which has been reared, on the ground of equal rights, against
the institution of slavery at the South.

We are agreed, then, that men may be compelled to work. We are also
agreed that, for this purpose, the slaves of the South should be placed
under guardians and friends by the authority of the State. Dr. Channing
thinks, however, that the owner is not the best guardian or the best
friend whom the State could place over the slave. On the contrary, he
thinks his best friend and guardian would be an official overseer, bound
to him by no ties of interest, and by no peculiar feelings of affection.
In all this, we think Dr. Channing greatly mistaken; and mistaken
because he is an utter stranger to the feelings usually called forth by
the relation of master