and slave. But, be this as it may, since such are
the concessions made by Dr. Channing, it is no longer necessary to
debate the question of slavery with him, on the high ground of abstract
inalienable rights. It is brought down to one of practical utility, of
public expediency.

And such being the nature of the question, we, as free citizens of the
South, claim the right to settle the matter for ourselves. We claim the
right to appoint such guardians and friends for this class of our
population as we believe will be most advantageous to them, as well as
to the whole community. We claim the right to impose such restraints,
and such only, as the well-being of our own society seems to us to
demand. This claim may be denied. The North may claim the right to think
for us in regard to this question of expediency. But it cannot be denied
that if liberty may be a curse, then no man can, in such case, have a
right to it as a blessing.

If liberty would be an equal blessing to all men, then, we freely admit,
all men would have an equal right to liberty. But to concede, as Dr.
Channing does, that it were a curse to some men and yet contend that all
men have an equal right to its enjoyment, is sheer absurdity and
nonsense. But Dr. Channing, as we have seen, sometimes speaks a better
sense. Thus, he has even said, "It would be cruelty, not kindness, to
the latter (to the slave) to give him a freedom which he is unprepared
to understand or enjoy. It would be cruelty to strike the fetters from a
man whose first steps would infallibly lead him to a precipice." So far,
then, according to the author himself, are all men from having an
"inalienable right" to liberty, that some men have no right to it at
all.

In like manner, Dr. Wayland, by his own admission, has overthrown all
his most confident deductions from the notion of equal rights. He, too,
quotes the Declaration of Independence, and adds, "That the equality
here spoken of is not of the means of happiness, but in the right to use
them as one wills, is too evident to need illustration." If this be the
meaning, then the meaning is not so evidently true. On the contrary, the
vaunted maxim in question, as understood by Dr. Wayland, appears to be
pure and unmixed error. Power, for example, is one means of happiness;
and so great a means, too, that without it all other means would be of
no avail. But has any man a right to use this means of happiness as he
wills? Most assuredly not.