fallacies. A great variety of conditions, relations, and tenures,
indispensable to the social state, are confounded with slavery; and thus
slaveholding becomes quite harmless, if not virtuous. We will specify
some of these.
1. _Privation of suffrage._ Then minors are slaves.
2. _Ineligibility to office._ Then females are slaves.
3. _Taxation without representation._ Then slaveholders in the District
of Columbia are slaves.
4. _Privation of one's oath in law._ Then disbelievers in a future
retribution are slaves.
5. _Privation of trial by jury._ Then all in France and Germany are
slaves.
6. _Being required to support a particular religion._ Then the people of
England are slaves. [To the preceding may be added all other
disabilities, merely _political_.]
7. _Cruelty and oppression._ Wives, children, and hired domestics are
often oppressed; but these forms of cruelty are not slavery.
8. _Apprenticeship._ The rights and duties of master and apprentice are
correlative and reciprocal. The claim of each upon the other results
from his _obligation_ to the other. Apprenticeship is based on the
principle of equivalent for value received. The rights of the apprentice
are secured, equally with those of the master. Indeed, while the law is
_just_ to the master, it is _benevolent_ to the apprentice. Its main
design is rather to benefit the apprentice than the master. It promotes
the interests of the former, while in doing it, it guards from injury
those of the latter. To the master it secures a mere legal
compensation--to the apprentice, both a legal compensation and a virtual
gratuity in addition, he being of the two the greatest gainer. The law
not only recognizes the _right_ of the apprentice to a reward for his
labor, but appoints the wages, and enforces the payment. The master's
claim covers only the services of the apprentice. The apprentice's claim
covers _equally_ the services of the master. Neither can hold the other
as property; but each holds property in the services of the other, and
BOTH EQUALLY. Is this slavery?
9. _Filial subordination and parental claims._ Both are nature's
dictates and intrinsic elements of the social state; the natural
affections which blend parent and child in one, excite each to discharge
those offices incidental to the relation, and constitute a shield for
mutual protection. The parent's legal claim to the child's services,
while a minor, is a slight return for the care and t
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