of a
foreboding that we shall be led to conclusions which we would be glad to
avoid.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident;--that all men are created
equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness."

These significant words are inscribed upon the scroll of our nation's
history, and there they will remain till time shall be no longer. They
need no glossary or explanation. He who runs may read them, and he who
reads can understand them. The sentiment they embody it is impossible to
mistake; it stands out in bold relief, like the sun in the heavens. It
is, that every man has received, from a higher than earthly power, a
charter, which secures to him the unalienable right of life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness. It is impossible for the most ultra
advocate of "human rights" to paraphrase these words, or give them a
rendering so as to make them support his dogmas more strongly than they
now do. On the contrary, he would only weaken their force by the
attempt.

Now, my dear brother, I would candidly, seriously ask you--I would ask
all your southern friends--I would ask everybody, Can the sentiment of
that Declaration be consistent with American slavery? Are not slaves
men? Do color and degradation change a creature of God from a human
being to a soulless brute? No; our southern brethren would as
indignantly repudiate this infidel view as we at the North. Now if a
slave is a man, he has received from his Creator an unalienable right to
liberty if he chooses to avail himself of it, or else the first
principle laid down in our revered Declaration of Independence, so far
from being "self evident," is in fact untrue, and ought at once to be
taken from its honored position in the archives of these United States,
and consigned to the heaps of rubbish of the dark ages.

But does the slave enjoy this liberty? or is it within his reach? It
will not be pretended. The very name by which his class is designated
forbids it. The term free slave is a solecism. His liberty consists in
the freedom to do as he is told to do, or suffer punishment for his
disobedience, and he can pursue happiness only in accordance with the
will of his master.

There is the same incongruity between slavery and that clause in our
constitution which stipulates that "no person shall be deprived of life,
liberty, or property, without due process of law."