for the misfortune of his ancestors?"

"Birth in slavery long established makes all the difference in the
world, Mr. North," said I. "If I am born in slavery, under a government
ordaining slavery, that is a different case from that of one taken out
of a passenger ship and sold as a slave."

"Then if you and your wife," said he, "were taken out of a passenger
ship, and you should happen to have a child born in slavery, that child
must remain a slave, even if you go free?"

"No, Sir," said I; "the child born under such circumstances is as
rightfully free as its parents. But take this case: I, being captured
and held as a slave, my master gives me a wife, lawfully a slave. Then,
the child born of her is lawfully a slave. You see the distinction. God
recognized it. The condition of both is a limitation and qualification
of natural rights. So the lapse of time qualifies the right to collect
debts, bring suits for libel, or slander, and for the right of way, or
for the possession of land. Will we live under law? or shall each man
or any set of men set up laws for their own conscience?"

"Then," said he, "If a slave-trader lands a cargo of slaves from Africa,
at Florida, I have no right to buy them; they are not lawfully slaves.
Is that your belief?"

"Assuredly," said I; "and if the fugitive whom I have supposed you to be
sending back to the gentleman at New Orleans, were a fugitive from the
cargo just imported from Africa, you would be sustained by the law of
the land in delivering him from bondage; he was piratically taken; the
laws would make him free, and punish his captors, if the laws were
faithfully executed."

"But a poor fellow born in slavery must remain a slave!" he replied.

"He is not lawfully a slave," I said, "if his parents were both of that
cargo. But if his father had received a wife from his master, then the
child is lawfully a slave."

"How do you establish that distinction?" said he.

"The child is born of one known to be, herself, lawfully a slave. It is
born under a constitution of government which recognizes slavery; while
that government provides for slavery, the child must submit or violate
an ordinance of God, unless freedom can be had by law, or by justifiable
revolution."

"I feel constrained," said Mr. North "to hold that liberty is the
inalienable right of every human being, except in cases of crime."

"You mean," said I, "that every human being is entitled to all the civil
rights a