t_ to his crime, atone for it? my partnership in his guilt,
blot out his part of it? The slave's willingness to be a slave, so far
from lessening the guilt of his "owner," aggravates it. If slavery has
so palsied his mind that he looks upon himself as a chattel, and
consents to be one, actually to hold him as such, falls in with his
delusion, and confirms the impious falsehood. These very feelings and
convictions of the slave, (if such were possible) increase a hundred
fold the guilt of the master, and call upon him in thunder, immediately
to recognize him as a MAN, and thus break the sorcery that cheats him
out of his birthright--the consciousness of his worth and destiny.

Many of the foregoing conditions are _appendages_ of slavery, but no
one, nor all of them together, constitute its intrinsic unchanging
element.

ENSLAVING MEN IS REDUCING THEM TO ARTICLES OF PROPERTY--making free
agents, chattels--converting _persons_ into _things_--sinking
immortality into _merchandize_. A _slave_ is one held in this condition.
In law, "he owns nothing, and can acquire nothing." His right to himself
is abrogated. If he say _my_ hands, _my_ body, _my_ mind, MY_self_, they
are figures of speech. To _use himself_ for his own good, is a _crime_.
To keep what he earns, is _stealing_. To take his body into his own
keeping, is _insurrection_. In a word, the profit of his master is made
the END of his being, and he, a _mere means_ to that end--a mere means
to an end into which his interests do not enter, of which they
constitute no portion[A]. MAN, sunk to a _thing!_ the intrinsic element,
the _principle_ of slavery; MEN, bartered, leased, mortgaged,
bequeathed, invoiced, shipped in cargoes, stored as goods, taken on
executions, and knocked off at a public outcry! Their _rights_,
another's conveniences; their interests, wares on sale; their happiness,
a household utensil; their personal inalienable ownership, a serviceable
article or a plaything, as best suits the humour of the hour; their
deathless nature, conscience, social affections, sympathies,
hopes--marketable commodities! We repeat it, THE REDUCTION OF PERSONS TO
THINGS! Not robbing a man of privileges, but of _himself_; not loading
him with burdens, but making him a _beast of burden_; not restraining
liberty, but subverting it; not curtailing rights, but abolishing them;
not inflicting personal cruelty, but annihilating _personality_; not
exacting involuntary labor, but sinking