bag of stolen
coins than comported with the views of the robber, he was arrested with
the cry, "Why, man, have you no conscience?" You will perhaps inquire,
whether abolitionists regard all the slaves of the South as stolen--as
well those born at the South, as those, who were confessedly stolen from
Africa? I answer, that we do--that every helpless new-born infant, on
which the chivalry of the South pounces, is, in our judgment, the owner
of itself--that we consider, that the crime of man-stealing which is so
terribly denounced in the Bible, does not consist, as is alleged, in
stealing a slave from a third person, but in stealing him from
himself--in depriving him of self control, and subjecting him, as
property, to the absolute control of another. Joseph's declaration, that
he "was stolen," favors this definition of man-stealing. Jewish
Commentators authorise it. Money, as it does not own itself, cannot be
stolen from itself But when we reflect, that man is the owner of
himself, it does not surprise us, that wresting away his inalienable
rights--his very manhood--should have been called man-stealing.

Whilst on this subject of "the rights of property," I am reminded of
your "third impediment to abolition." This "impediment" consists in the
fact of the great value of the southern slaves--which, according to your
estimation, is not less than "twelve hundred millions of dollars." I
will adopt your estimate, and thus spare myself from going into the
abhorrent calculation of the worth in dollars and cents of immortal
man--of the worth of "the image of God." I thank you for your virtual
admission, that this wealth is grasped with a tenacity proportioned to
its vast amount. Many of the wisest and best men of the North have been
led into the belief that the slaveholders of the South are too humane
and generous to hold their slaves fur the sake of gain. Even Dr.
Channing was a subject of this delusion; and it is well remembered, that
his too favorable opinions of his fellow men, made it difficult to
disabuse him of it. Northern Christians have been ready to believe, that
the South would give up her slaves, because of her conscious lack of
title to them. But in what age of the world have impenitent men failed
to cling as closely to that, which they had obtained by fraud, as to
their honest acquisitions? Indeed, it is demonstrable on philosophical
principles, that the more stupendous the fraud, the more tenacious is
the hold upo