e old Roman law,
and not upon any English law, that the planters found their right to the
services of such as are born in slavery. In conformity with this law
they denied, for one hundred and fifty years, both the moral and
intellectual nature of their slaves. They considered them themselves,
and they wished them to be considered by others, in these respects, as
upon a level only _with the beasts of the field_. Happily, however,
their efforts have been in vain. The evidence examined before the House
of Commons in the years 1789, 1790, and 1791, has confirmed the
falsehood of their doctrines. It has proved that the social affections
and the intellectual powers both of Africans and Creoles are the same as
those of other human beings. What then becomes of the Roman law? For as
it takes no other view of slaves than as _cattle_, how is it applicable
to those, whom we have so abundantly proved _to be men_?

This is the grand plea, upon which our West Indian planters have founded
their right to the perpetual services of their _Creole_ slaves. They
consider them as the young or offspring of cattle. But as the slaves in
question have been proved, and are now acknowledged, to be the offspring
of men and women, of social, intellectual, and accountable beings, their
right must fall to the ground. Nor do I know upon what other principle
or right they can support it. They can have surely no _natural right_ to
the infant, who is born of a woman slave. If there be any right to it by
_nature_, such right must belong, not to the master of the mother, but
to the mother herself. They can have no right to it again, either on the
score of _reason_ or of _justice_. Debt and crime have been generally
admitted to be two fair grounds, on which men may be justly deprived of
their liberty for a time, and even made to labour, inasmuch as they
include _reparation of injury_, and the duty of the magistrate to _make
examples_, in order that he may not bear the sword in vain. But what
injury had the infant done, when it came into the world, to the master
of its mother, that reparation should be sought for, or punishment
inflicted for example, and that this reparation and this punishment
should be made to consist of a course of action and suffering, against
which, more than against any other, human nature would revolt? Is it
reasonable, is it just, that a poor infant who has done no injury to any
one, should be subjected, _he and his posterity for ever_,