Now, my brother, does
it not require considerable ingenuity and special pleading to avoid
conclusions to which unbiased common sense would arrive in an instant,
in the application of these declared rights to persons held as slaves? I
am not going to inflict upon you a dissertation, or a series of
syllogisms on this hackneyed subject, but I beg that you and your
friends will calmly look again at what, I doubt not, you have seen
before,--the palpable incongruity between the system of holding persons
perpetually in slavery without their consent, and those declared,
self-evident, heaven bestowed, unalienable rights professedly secured to
all men in these United States by our glorious constitution. Said that
great statesman and patriot, Henry Clay: "We present to the world the
sorry spectacle of a nation that worships Slavery as a household
goddess, after having constituted Liberty the presiding divinity over
church and state."

Surely something must be out of joint here. I have looked again and
again at this matter, I think with perfect candor, and I have tried to
the utmost of my ability to reconcile these apparent inconsistencies,
but I cannot do it. Can you?

Believe me, as ever, your sincere friend and

CHRISTIAN BROTHER.

LETTER IV.

SLAVERY TRANSFORMS MEN TO CHATTELS.--SOUTHERN
LAWS.--SLAVE-AUCTIONS.--MEN PLACED ON A LEVEL WITH BRUTES.--NO
REDRESS FOR WRONGS.--IGNORANCE PERPETUATED BY LAW.

MY DEAR CHRISTIAN FRIEND,--A second characteristic of American slavery
is, It regards human beings, declared to be in the "image of God," as
"chattels,"--things or articles of merchandise. "Slaves," say the laws
of South Carolina and Georgia, "shall be deemed, sold, taken, reputed,
and adjudged in law to be chattels personal in the hands of their owners
and possessors, and their executors, administrators and assigns, to all
intents, constructions, and purposes whatsoever."[D] "A slave," says the
code of Louisiana, "is one who is in the power of his master, to whom he
belongs. The master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry,
and his labor; he can do nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire any
thing, but what must belong to his master."[E]

Thus, rational, immortal beings, children of our common Father in
heaven, are taken from the exalted scale in which God placed them, and
degraded to that of the brute creation. They are, as you know,
advertised, mortgaged, attached, inherited, leased, bought, and sold