ion.
These instincts seem to whisper that "all men are born free and equal;"
equal, not in intellect, or in the petty distinctions of parentage,
property, or power; but having, as the creatures of one God, an equal
right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Job's moral
instincts taught him, that the fact of all men's having one and the same
Creator gave his servants a right to contend with him, when wronged; and
that, if he "despised their cause," he must answer it to his God and
theirs. That men of all races and grades are essentially equal before
God; that every man has a right to himself, to the fruits of his toil,
and to the unmolested pursuit of happiness, in all lawful ways; and
hence, that slavery, as existing in these States, is a gigantic system
of evil and wrong,--are truths which the moral sense of men is
everywhere proclaiming with much emphasis and distinctness. If it be not
so, what means this note of remonstrance, long and loud, that comes to
our ears over the Atlantic wave? Why else did a Mohammedan prince,[I]
(to say nothing of what nearly all Christian governments have done,)
put an end to slavery in his dominions before he died? And how else
shall we account for that moral earthquake which has for years been
rocking this great republic to its very centre? One cannot thoughtfully
observe the signs of the times,--no, nor the workings of his own heart,
methinks,--without perceiving that slavery is at war with the moral
sense of mankind. If there be any conscience that approves, it must be a
conscience perverted by wrong instruction, or by a vicious practice. And
can that be a good institution, and worthy of perpetuity, which an
unperverted conscience instinctively condemns?

Third. The bad character of slavery becomes yet more apparent, if we
consider the manner in which it has chiefly originated and been
sustained. Did God institute the relation of master and slave, as he did
the conjugal and parental relations? It is not pretended. In what, then,
did slavery have its beginning? Doubtless the first slaves were
captives, taken in war. In primitive ages, the victors in war were
considered as having a right to do what they pleased with their
captives; and so it sometimes happened that they were put to death, and
sometimes that they were made to serve their captors as bondmen. Thus
slavery was at first the incidental result of war. But as time rolled
on, the love of power and of gain prompted m