The application of what has been said, is, that the Legislature, perceiving the _corporeal_ as well as _intellectual_ differences of Negroes from other people, knowing the irreclaimable savageness of their manners, and of course supposing that they were an inferior race of people, the conclusion was, to follow the commercial genius of this country, in enacting that they should be considered and distinguished (as they are) as articles of its trade and commerce only[17]. Thus, my Lord, borne on the wings of Fancy, and led by Imagination’s wily train, have I ventured in untrodden paths to trespass on philosophic ground; to which offence, however, pleading guilty at your Lordship’s bar, I submit to the justice of the sentence, be your Lordship’s judgment whatever it may. But having now discussed the _physical_ motive, which, as it is apprehended, might have occasioned the _civil_ existence, if I may so say, of Negroes in this kingdom; the _political_ consideration proposed comes next in the order of enquiry. It must be observed, my Lord, that if the cause already assigned be the real cause, whatever is to be advanced on this head, is useless and superfluous. Both causes cannot be true at one and the same time. They are meant and must be received in the alternative; or as the two strings of Nimrod’s bow, of which if either failed, the other supplied the want; and of whom Mr. Pope thus speaks: “Bold Nimrod first the savage chace began, A mighty Hunter, and his _game_ was _man_.” Now the physical motive supposes a difference of species among men, and an inferiority of that species in Negroes: whereas the political consideration, on the other hand, infers an universal sameness in human nature; that is to say, in fact, that Englishmen are Negroes, and Negroes are Englishmen, to all _natural_ intents and purposes. For what signifies the black skin, and the flat nose, as the great Baron Montesquieu would insinuate[18]? And yet methinks, if the Baron had had a black skin, and a flat nose, the world never would have had the benefit of his _Esprit des Loix_. Upon this ground then, the question that arises is, what could have given rise to this degradation and debasement of human nature? If these our fellow-creatures were instruments necessary for the colonizing of America, and to this end compulsory laws were expedient also, why were these laws not made suitable and suited to their nature? Why were Negroes ordained a _mortuum vadum_, instead of a _vivum vadum_, (so to speak for comparison sake) to those under whose dominion they came? Might not the laws of villenage have been revived _quoad_ them? Might not other laws of slavery have been enacted for their government?