refore the fact well authenticated,
as it relates _to original Government grants and permissions_, that the
owners of many of the Creole slaves in our colonies have no better title
to them as property, than as being the descendants of persons forced
away from their country and brought thither by a traffic, which had its
allowed origin in _fraud and falsehood_.

Neither have the masters of slaves in our colonies any title to their
slaves on account of any _charters_, which they may be able to produce,
though their charters are the only source of their power. It is through
these that they have hitherto legislated, and that they continue to
legislate. Take away their charters, and they would have no right or
power to legislate at all. And yet, though they have their charters, and
though the slavery, which now exists, has been formed and kept together
entirely by the laws, which such charters have given them the power to
make, this very slavery _is illegal_. There is not an individual, who
holds any of the slaves by a _legal_ title: for it is expressed in all
these charters, whether in those given to William Penn and others for
the continent of North America, or in those given for the islands now
under our consideration, that "the laws and statutes, to be made there,
are _not to be repugnant_, but, as near as may be, _agreeable, to the
laws_ and statutes of this our _kingdom of Great Britain_." But is it
consistent with the laws of England, that any one man should have the
power of forcing another to work for him without wages? Is it consistent
with the laws of England, that any one man should have the power of
flogging, beating, bruising, or wounding another at his discretion? Is
it consistent with the laws of England, that a man should be judged by
any but his peers? Is it consistent with the same laws, that a man
should be deprived of the power of giving evidence against the man who
has injured him? or that there should be a privileged class, against
whom no testimony can be admitted on certain occasions, though the
perpetrators of the most horrid crimes? But when we talk of consistency
on this occasion, let us not forget that old law of Barbadoes, made
while the charter of that island was fresh in every body's memory, and
therefore in the very teeth of the charter itself, which runs thus: "If
any slave, under punishment by his master or by his order, shall suffer
in life or member, no person shall be liable to any fine