RESS

in the

VIRGINIA _GAZETTE_,

of MARCH 19, 1767.

Mr. RIND,

Permit me, in your paper, to address the members of our assembly on two
points, in which the public interest is very nearly concerned.

The abolition of slavery, and the retrieval of specie in this colony,
are the subjects on which I would bespeak their attention.--

Long and serious reflections upon the nature and consequences of slavery
have convinced me, that it is a violation both of justice and religion;
that it is dangerous to the safety of the community in which it
prevails; that it is destructive to the growth of arts and sciences; and
lastly, that it produces a numerous and very fatal train of vices, both
in the slave and in his master.

To prove these assertions, shall be the purpose of the following essay.

That slavery then is a violation of justice, will plainly appear, when
we consider what justice is. It is truly and simply defined, as by
_Justinian, constans et perpetua voluntas ejus suum cuique tribuendi_; a
constant endeavour to give every man his right.

Now, as freedom is unquestionably the birth-right of all mankind,
_Africans_ as well as _Europeans_, to keep the former in a state of
slavery, is a constant violation of that right, and therefore of
justice.

The ground on which the civilians who favour slavery, admit it to be
just, namely, consent, force, and birth, is totally disputable; for
surely a man's own will and consent cannot be allowed to introduce so
important an innovation into society, as slavery, or to make himself an
outlaw, which is really the state of a slave; since neither consenting
to, nor aiding the laws of the society in which he lives, he is neither
bound to obey them, nor entitled to their protection.

To found any right in force, is to frustrate all right, and involve
every thing in confusion, violence, and rapine. With these two, the last
must fall; since, if the parent cannot justly be made a slave, neither
can the child be born in slavery. "The law of nations, says Baron
_Montesquieu_, has doomed prisoners to slavery, to prevent their being
slain; the _Roman_ civil law permitted debtors, whom their creditors
might treat ill, to sell themselves. And the law of nature requires that
children, whom their parents, being slaves, cannot maintain, should be
slaves like them. These reasons of the civilians are not just; it is not
true that a captive may be slain, unless in a case of absolute
neces