"You do not deny," and here Mr. Trueman's tone was elevated and a little excited, "that the first of those who reached this country were stolen in Africa. Now, for the sake of the argument merely, I will admit that they were slaves at home. If they were slaves at home--it matters not whether by 'right or conquest,' or 'in pursuance of _the curse_,' they must have been the property of somebody, and those who stole them and sold them into bondage in America could give no valid title to their purchasers; for by the theft they had acquired none themselves. Hence, if ever they were slaves, they are still the property of their masters in Africa; but, if your interpretation of "the curse" is correct, those masters were also slaves, and, being such, under the principle of law which you have quoted, they could not for this reason hold property. Therefore, those oppressed and outraged, though benighted people, who were first sold into slavery, to the eternal disgrace of our land, were, in sheer justice, either _free_, or the property--even after the sale--of their African masters, if they had any; in neither case could they belong to those of our citizens who were unfortunate enough to buy them. They were not slaves of African masters: for, according to your argument, all of the race are slaves, and slaves cannot own slaves any more than horses can own horses; therefore, since no other people claimed dominion over them, they were, necessarily, free. You cannot escape from this dilemma, and the choice of either horn is fatal to your cause. Being free, might they not have held property like other nations? And, had any of it been stolen from them by those who are amenable to our laws, would not consistency compel us, who recognize the just principle I have quoted, to restore it to them? This is the course pursued among ourselves; and it ceases not with restoration; but on the offender it proceeds to inflict punishment, to prevent a repetition of the offence. This is the course we should pursue toward that down-trodden race whose greatest guilt is 'a skin not colored like our own.'