ble view there is both a moral and political
propriety in prohibiting by energetic laws, the sexual commerce between
the descendants of Europe and Africa, either by marriage, _slavery_, or
otherwise. The extinction of slavery would promote this purpose far more
than its toleration. Uncontrolled slavery, as facts have manifested, in
the United States as well as the West Indies, facilitates and protects
licentiousness, and a species of brutal debauchery, the consequences of
which are deplorable and afflicting beyond description.[33]

81. It was a wise sentiment of the late Dr. Benjamin Rush, that "Nothing
can be politically right that is morally wrong; and that no necessity
can sanctify a law that is contrary to equity." It is morally and
politically wrong both, (and without necessity too,) that an innocent,
"feeble and untutored people"[34] should be detained by a powerful and
enlightened people, professing superior honour and justice, in a state
of beastly, unwilling, unrequited servitude, and indescribable moral and
physical degradation! But let not the fell stigma be attached entirely
to the present retainers of the slaves. Every citizen of the republic,
entitled to the right of suffrage, is responsible for his proportionable
quota of the miseries inflicted on the defenceless Africans, in our
privileged country. Human nature is such, that a large proportion of
men, will improve every means within their reach, for advancing their
fortunes, indulged by political laws. In this country the laws emanate
primitively from the people. The outrage upon the rights of our present
slave population originated in Africa. Our laws have, from their
infancy, until recently, sanctioned the perpetration of that outrage, in
Africa, by permitting its principles and products to be transferred to,
and adopted in, our own country; and they still sanction their
continuance. Laws ought to be responsible for their own operations and
results. If a law were enacted authorizing the sale of all the debtors
now in prison in the United States, for unconditional and perpetual
servitude, with their posterity, and they should be accordingly sold, it
would be morally unjust, with respect to the purchasers, but not the
slaves, to proclaim an immediate emancipation, without restoring the
purchase money: that is, it would be unjust not to restore it. Hence the
people of the United States, considered collectively as a nation, having
confirmed and _legalized_