"I do not understand, then, if that was their real opinion, how it was possible for them to continue to hold slaves. To say the least of it, their practice was not in accordance with their theory. Hence I said, that under certain circumstances and to serve a special purpose, they may have conceded slavery to be an evil. For my own part, if I were persuaded that this proposition is true, it would constrain me to liberate all my slaves, whatever may be my attachment to them or the loss I should necessarily suffer. Some of them have been acquired by purchase; others by inheritance: all of them seem satisfied with their treatment upon my estate; yet nothing could induce me to claim the property I have hitherto thought I possessed in them, when convinced of the evil which your proposition asserts." "Nothing could be fairer, my dear Mr. Winston. Your conviction will doubtless subject you to immense sacrifices: but these will only enhance your real worth as a man, and I am sure you will make them without hesitation, though it may be, not without reluctance. Now, it is a principle of law, well settled, that no person can in any manner convey a title, even to those things which are property, greater than that which he rightfully possesses. If, for instance, I acquire, by theft or otherwise, unlawful possession of your watch or other articles of value, which is transferred, by the operation of purchase and sale, through many hands, your right never ceases; and the process of law will enable you to obtain possession. Each individual who purchased the article, may have his remedy against him from whom he procured it, however extended the series of purchasers: but, since whatever right any one of them has was derived originally from me, and since my unlawful acquisition conferred no right at all, it follows that none was transmitted. Consequently, you were not divested, and the just spirit of law, continuing to recognize your property in the article whenever found, provides the ready means whereby you may reduce it once more to possession. This principle of law is not peculiar to a single locality; it enters into the remedial code of all civilized countries. Its benefits are accessible to the free negro in this land of the dark Southern border; and, I trust, it will not be long before those who are now held in slavery may be embraced in its beneficent operation. Whether it is recognized internationally, I am not fully prepared to say; but it ought to be, if it is not, for it is the dictate of equity and common sense. But, upon the hypothesis that it is so recognized, if the property of an inhabitant of Africa were stolen from him by a citizen of the United States, he might recover it. As for those people who, in the Southern States, are held as slaves, they or their ancestors came here originally not by their own choice, but by compulsion, from distant Africa. You will hardly deny, I presume, what is, historically, so