cruelly punished for their dereliction of duty. Ah! well do I
recollect the time when the months of Southern clergyman were closed,
when rigid laws were enacted--when so many restrictions were thrown
around slaveholders. I then saw, and deplored the evil, and hoped, but
hoped in vain, that Northern men would desist from a procedure, so
fraught with mischief to masters and servants--so contrary to the laws
of God--so opposed to every principle of humanity, justice, truth and
righteousness. I must refer the reader to chapter three, and return to
the proposition under investigation, that slavery is not, an evil
under all circumstances.

The peculiar condition of an individual may be such, that he is fit
for nothing but a slave. He maybe physically, mentally, and morally
disqualified for any other condition or station in life. To such an
individual slavery is not necessarily an evil; but, on the contrary,
to him it may be a blessing and not a curse. He may be utterly
incapable of making provision for his own wants. Servitude may be the
only condition or station in life, in which he could be provided for,
and enjoy happiness. The disabilities of such an individual is a
misfortune; or, as it is generally termed, a curse, an evil; but the
evil consists in the incompetence of the individual, and not in that
condition or station in life, to which his incompetency subjects him.
It is, (to use common parlance), a curse, or an evil, to be
physically, mentally, and morally disqualified to enjoy the rights,
privileges and immunities of a free man; but if such be the condition
of the individual, slavery to him is a blessing. It is, at least the
only condition or station in life, adapted to his peculiar
circumstances, and the only one in which he would be likely to enjoy
happiness. I have shown in chapter eight, that African slavery
originated in the inferiority of the African race, and that their