Am I reminded that the _laws_ acknowledge these vested rights in human flesh? I answer the laws themselves were made by individuals, who wished to justify the wrong and profit by it. We ought never to have recognised a claim, which cannot exist according to the laws of God; it is our duty to atone for the error; and the sooner we make a beginning, the better will it be for us all. Must our arguments be based upon justice and mercy to the slaveholders _only_? Have the negroes no right to ask compensation for their years and years of unrewarded toil? It is true that they have food and clothing, of such kind, and in such quantities, as their masters think proper. But it is evident that this is not the worth of their labor; for the proprietors can give from one hundred to five and six hundred dollars for a slave, beside the expense of supporting those who are too old or too young to labor. They could not _afford_ to do this, if the slave did not earn more than he receives in food and clothing. If the laws allowed the slave to redeem himself progressively, the owner would receive his money back again; and the negro's years of uncompensated toil would be more than lawful interest. The southerners are much in the habit of saying they really wish for emancipation, if it could be effected in safety; but I search in vain for any proof that these assertions are sincere. (When I say this I speak collectively; there are, no doubt, individual exceptions.) Instead of profiting by the experience of other nations, the slave-owners, as a body, have resolutely shut their eyes against the light, because they preferred darkness. Every change in the laws has riveted the chain closer and closer upon their victims; every attempt to make the voice of reason and benevolence heard has been overpowered with threatening and abuse. A cautious vigilance against improvement, a keen-eyed jealousy of all freedom of opinion, has characterized their movements. There _can_ be no doubt that the _majority_ wish to perpetuate slavery. They support it with loud bravado, or insidious sophistry, or pretended regret; but they never abandon the point. Their great desire is to keep the public mind turned in another direction. They are well aware that the ugly edifice is built of rotten timbers, and stands on slippery sands--if the loud voice of public opinion could be made to reverberate through its dreary chambers, the unsightly frame would fall, never to rise again. Since so many of their own citizens admit that the policy of this system is unsound, and its effects injurious, it is wonderful that they do not begin to destroy the "costly iniquity" in good earnest. But long-continued habit is very powerful; and in the habit of slavery are concentrated the strongest evils of human nature--vanity, pride, love of power, licentiousness, and indolence.