break the sorcery that cheats him
out of his birthright--the consciousness of his worth and destiny.

Many of the foregoing conditions are _appendages_ of slavery, but no
one, nor all of them together, constitute its intrinsic unchanging
element.

ENSLAVING MEN IS REDUCING THEM TO ARTICLES OF PROPERTY--making free
agents, chattels--converting _persons_ into _things_--sinking
immortality into _merchandize_. A _slave_ is one held in this condition.
In law, "he owns nothing, and can acquire nothing." His right to himself
is abrogated. If he say _my_ hands, _my_ body, _my_ mind, MY_self_, they
are figures of speech. To _use himself_ for his own good, is a _crime_.
To keep what he earns, is _stealing_. To take his body into his own
keeping, is _insurrection_. In a word, the profit of his master is made
the END of his being, and he, a _mere means_ to that end--a mere means
to an end into which his interests do not enter, of which they
constitute no portion[A]. MAN, sunk to a _thing!_ the intrinsic element,
the _principle_ of slavery; MEN, bartered, leased, mortgaged,
bequeathed, invoiced, shipped in cargoes, stored as goods, taken on
executions, and knocked off at a public outcry! Their _rights_,
another's conveniences; their interests, wares on sale; their happiness,
a household utensil; their personal inalienable ownership, a serviceable
article or a plaything, as best suits the humour of the hour; their
deathless nature, conscience, social affections, sympathies,
hopes--marketable commodities! We repeat it, THE REDUCTION OF PERSONS TO
THINGS! Not robbing a man of privileges, but of _himself_; not loading
him with burdens, but making him a _beast of burden_; not restraining
liberty, but subverting it; not curtailing rights, but abolishing them;
not inflicting personal cruelty, but annihilating _personality_; not
exacting involuntary labor, but sinking man into an _implement_ of
labor; not abridging human comforts, but abrogating human _nature_; not
depriving an animal of immunities, but despoiling a rational being of
attributes--uncreating a MAN, to make room for a _thing_!

[Footnote A: To deprive human nature of _any_ of its rights is
_oppression_; to take away the _foundation_ of its rights is slavery. In
other words, whatever sinks man from an END to a mere _means_, just so
far makes him a slave. Hence West-India apprenticeship retained the
cardinal principle of slavery. The apprentice, during three-fourths of
his ti