And as the right to slaves, because they were born slaves, cannot be defended either upon the principles of reason or of justice, so this right absolutely falls to pieces, when we come to try it by the touchstone _of the Christian religion_. Every man who is born into the world, whether he be white or whether he be black, is born, according to Christian notions, a _free agent_ and _an accountable creature_. This is the Scriptural law of his nature as a human bring. He is born under this law, and he continues under it during his life. Now the West Indian slavery is of such an arbitrary nature, that it may be termed _proper_ or _absolute_. The dominion attached to it is a despotism without control; a despotism, which keeps up its authority by terror only. The subjects of it _must do_, and this _instantaneously_, whatever their master _orders them to do_, whether it _be right or wrong_. His will, and his will alone, is their law. If the wife of a slave were ordered by a master to submit herself to his lusts, and therefore to commit adultery, or if her husband were ordered to steal any thing for him, and therefore to commit theft, I have no conception that either the one or the other would _dare_ to disobey his commands. "The whip, the shackles, the dungeon," says Mr. Steele before mentioned, "are at all times in his power, whether it be to gratify his _lust_, or display his authority[3]." Now if the master has the power, _a just, and moral power_, to make his slaves do what he orders them to do, even if it be wrong, then I must contend that the Scriptures, whose authority we venerate, are false. I must contend that his slaves never could have been born free agents and accountable creatures; or that, as soon as they became slaves, they were absolved from the condition of free-agency and that they lost their responsibility as men. But if, on the other hand, it be the revealed will of God, that all men, without exception, must be left free to act, but accountable to God for their actions;--I contend that no man can be born, nay, further, that no man can be made, held, or possessed, as a proper slave. I contend that there can be, according to the Gospel-dispensation, _no such state as West Indian slavery_. But let us now suppose for a moment, that there might be found an instance or two of slaves enlightened by some pious Missionary, who would refuse to execute their master's orders on the principle that they were wrong; even this would not alter our views of the case. For would not this refusal be so unexampled, so unlooked-for, so immediately destructive to all authority and discipline, and so provocative of anger, that it would be followed by _immediate and signal punishment_? Here then we should have a West Indian master reversing all the laws and rules of civilized nations, and turning upside down all the morality of the Gospel by the novel practice of _punishing men for their virtues_.