lutely proscribed. Let avarice
defend it as it will, there is an honest reluctance in humanity
against buying and selling, and regarding those of our own species as
our wealth and possessions." Beautiful sentiments! Eloquent testimony
against the crime of the ages! At first blush the student of history
is apt to praise the sublime motives of the "trustees," in placing a
restriction against the slave-trade. But the declaration of principles
quoted above is not borne out by the facts of history. On this point
Dr. Stevens, the historian of Georgia, observes, "Yet in the official
publications of that body [the trustees], its inhibition is based only
on political and prudential, and not on humane and liberal grounds,
and even Oglethorpe owned a plantation and negroes near Parachucla in
South Carolina, about forty miles above Savannah."[514] To this
reliable opinion is added:--

"The introduction of slaves was prohibited to the colony of
Georgia for some years, not from motives of humanity, but
for the reason it was encouraged elsewhere, to wit: the
interest of the mother country. It was a favorite idea with
the 'mother country,' to make _Georgia_ a protecting blanket
for the Carolinas, against the Spanish settlements south of
her, and the principal Indian tribes to the west; to do
this, a strong settlement of white men was sought to be
built up, whose arms and interests would defend her northern
plantations. The introduction of slaves was held to be
unfavorable to this scheme, and hence its prohibition.
During the time of the prohibition, Oglethorpe himself was a
slave holder in Carolina."[515]

The reasons that led the trustees to prohibit slavery in the colony
are put thus tersely.--

"1st. Its expense: which the poor emigrant would be entirely
unable to sustain, either in the first cost of a negro, or
his subsequent keeping. 2d. Because it would induce idleness
and render labour degrading. 3d. Because the settlers, being
freeholders of only fifty-acre lots, requiring but one or
two extra hands for their cultivation, the German servants
would be a third more profitable than the blacks. Upon the
last original design I have mentioned, in planting this
colony, they also based an argument against their admission,
viz., that the cultivation of silk and wine, demanding skill
and nicety, rather than strengt