But on this point reasoning is needless. I appeal to my text. “ALL _men are created equal_,” said our forefathers, “_and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; among these are life_, LIBERTY _and the pursuit of happiness_.” For the space of fifty years we have been reiterating the same maxim and at the same time declaring that it is “a self-evident truth.” Now, I say, let us aim at consistency of character. Let us reduce the principle to practice, and prove to the world that we believe what we say, or blot it out from the declaration of our rights and privileges. We may abhor the tyranny of kings and emperors, and commiserate the degraded state of their oppressed subjects, but a greater incongruity cannot be found in any nation than that which exists in our own. In one hand we hold the protestation that all men are equal, and entitled to the enjoyment of life and liberty; and in the other, we firmly grasp the chains of slavery and wield the goads of correction. We proclaim to the world that we are the only nation of freemen on earth, and yet daily practise the most absolute despotism. It is frequently the case that the same publick newspaper which unblushingly asserts the equality of our rights, and the justice of our institutions, advertises a whole village of _human beings for sale_. Again I say, let us aim at CONSISTENCY: either acknowledge to the world that we are tyrants and despots, or act according to our professions. That my text contains a correct assertion, I am not disposed for a moment to question: and I should surely be employed to no purpose in attempting to prove to others, what they have asserted for half a century, to be “a self-evident truth.” If then, all men are, by their birth, entitled to the same natural rights and privileges, they can be divested of them only by the authority of Him who has the power of life and death in his hands. The God of nature has a perfect right to authorize one nation to subjugate another, as he delivered the Canaanites into the hands of Israel. But surely this is no argument in favour of American slavery. When we have found a “_Thus saith the Lord_” for the subjugation of Africans, then, and not till then, shall we have a right to make them our slaves. A man may also forfeit his liberty, and even his life, by the commission of crimes against the interests of society. And in all such cases, every nation on the globe has a charter from the King of heaven to inflict merited punishment. But surely no man of common sense will pretend that this authorizes any individual or commonwealth to reduce to perpetual bondage, and entail the same on their posterity, those who have never violated a single law of the land.