settlement. The law, as we have
seen, had been laid down as absolutely settled, that no man within the
precincts of the United Kingdom could be a slave; that, even had such
been his previous condition, the moment his foot touched English soil he
became a free man. By what process of reasoning, then, could it be
contended that his right to liberty according to English law depended on
what portion of the British dominion he was in--that what was
incompatible with his claims as a human being in Kent ceased to be so in
Jamaica? The sentiment that what was just or unjust in one place was
just or unjust in every place; that a man's right to freedom did not
depend on the country of his birth or the color of his skin, had
naturally and logically been widely diffused and fostered by the
abolition of the slave-trade. It was but a small step from admitting
that there could be no justification for making a man a slave, to
asserting that there was an equal violation of all justice in keeping
one in slavery; and this conclusion was strengthened by tales, which
were continually reaching those most interested in the subject, of
oppression and cruelty practised by the masters, or oftener by their
agents and overseers, on the unfortunate beings over whom they claimed
power and right as absolute as any owner could pretend to over any
description of property. They made so general an impression that, ten
years before the time at which we have now arrived, a society had been
formed in London whose object was the immediate extinction of slavery in
every British settlement; and Canning, then Secretary of State, had
entered warmly into the general object of the society; not, indeed,
thinking the instant abolition practicable, but inducing Parliament to
pass a body of resolutions in favor of at once improving the condition
of the slaves, as the best and necessary preparation for their entire
enfranchisement;[226] and the next year, 1824, the subject was
recommended to the attention of the Houses in the King's speech, and an
Order in Council was issued enjoining the adoption of a series of
measures conceived in the spirit of those resolutions, among which one
was evidently meant as a precursor of the slaves' entire emancipation,
since it gave the "negro who had acquired sufficient property" a title
"to purchase his own freedom and that of his wife and family." And it
was, probably, from regarding it in this light that the planters (as the
owners