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