“_Man has rights, gifts of God, inseparable from human nature, of which slavery is the infraction._” By “human nature,” as here used, we understand _the condition or state of being a man_ in a general sense. Our inference is, then, that God has given man rights, that is, all men the same rights, which are inseparable from his state of being a man; consequently, if by any means these rights are taken from him, then his state of being a man is changed, or ceases to exist; and since slavery breaks these rights, therefore a slave is not a man. But the fact we find to be that the slave is, nevertheless, a man; and hence it follows that these _rights_ were not inseparable from his state of being a man, or that he had not the _rights_. If slavery is sinful because it infringes the rights of man, then any other thing is also sinful which infringes them. Will the disciples of Dr. Channing deny that these rights are infringed by the constitution of the civil government? The law gives parents the right to govern, command, and restrain minor children; to inflict punishment for their disobedience. Is parental authority a sin? Government, in every form, is found to deprive females of a large proportion of the rights which men possess. When married, their rights are wholly absorbed in the rights of the husband. This must be very sinful! Idiots have no rights. In reality, the very idea of rights vanishes away with the power to exercise them. But in a state of civil government, it is a mere question of expediency how personal rights shall be adjusted; which is very manifest, if we look at the different constitutions of government now in the world. In one, men who follow certain occupations have certain rights as a consequence. Men who are found guilty of certain breaches of the law lose a portion or all their rights. The president of our senate loses the right to vote, except under condition; and we agree that a mere majority shall rule. Thus forty-nine of the hundred cease to find their rights available. They must submit. Man, as a member of civil society, is only a small fraction of an unit, and has no right to exercise a right unconformably to the expression of the sense of the general good. Man has no right to live independent of his fellow-man, like a plant or a tree; consequently, his rights must be determined and bounded by the general welfare. Dr. Channing ceases to be enlightened by moral science when he announces that, because a man is “conscious of duty,” therefore, what he may think his right cannot be affected by others “without crime.” So reverse may be the fact, that it may be a crime in him to claim the right his conscious duty may suggest.