81. It was a wise sentiment of the late Dr. Benjamin Rush, that "Nothing can be politically right that is morally wrong; and that no necessity can sanctify a law that is contrary to equity." It is morally and politically wrong both, (and without necessity too,) that an innocent, "feeble and untutored people"[34] should be detained by a powerful and enlightened people, professing superior honour and justice, in a state of beastly, unwilling, unrequited servitude, and indescribable moral and physical degradation! But let not the fell stigma be attached entirely to the present retainers of the slaves. Every citizen of the republic, entitled to the right of suffrage, is responsible for his proportionable quota of the miseries inflicted on the defenceless Africans, in our privileged country. Human nature is such, that a large proportion of men, will improve every means within their reach, for advancing their fortunes, indulged by political laws. In this country the laws emanate primitively from the people. The outrage upon the rights of our present slave population originated in Africa. Our laws have, from their infancy, until recently, sanctioned the perpetration of that outrage, in Africa, by permitting its principles and products to be transferred to, and adopted in, our own country; and they still sanction their continuance. Laws ought to be responsible for their own operations and results. If a law were enacted authorizing the sale of all the debtors now in prison in the United States, for unconditional and perpetual servitude, with their posterity, and they should be accordingly sold, it would be morally unjust, with respect to the purchasers, but not the slaves, to proclaim an immediate emancipation, without restoring the purchase money: that is, it would be unjust not to restore it. Hence the people of the United States, considered collectively as a nation, having confirmed and _legalized_ the transfer, (or abdication) of the assumed power of African despots and banditti, to their assigns in America, and now holding the sovereignty over the laws in their own hands, are the _master aggressors_ upon the victims of those savage tyrants, and are bound to make them appropriate reparation. While justice is rendered to the slave, remuneration is due to the holder, for the loss he sustains in consequence of his prior confidence of the continuation of his legal power over him. It would be necessary and right, probably, until several successive rising generations shall have been moralized by education, that the government should retain, or leave with their present possessors a rational and definite civil guardianship over the persons of these national prisoners. The redemption of the existing population of slaves would preclude the necessity of purchasing any of their descendants; and thus the blessings of freedom and moral improvement might be guaranteed to unknown millions of unborn members of the human family.