Because a practice had existed, did it necessarily
follow that it was just? By this argument every crime might be defended
from the time of Cain. The slaves of antiquity, however, were in a
situation far preferable to that of the Negros in the West Indies. A
passage in Macrobius, which exemplified this in the strongest manner, was
now brought to his recollection. "Our ancestors," says Macrobius,
"denominated the master father of the family, and the slave domestic, with
the intention of removing all odium from the condition of the master, and
all contempt from that of the servant." Could this language be applied to
the present state of West India slavery?
It had been complained of by those who supported the trade, that they
laboured under great disadvantages by being obliged to contend against the
most splendid abilities which the House could boast. But he believed they
laboured under one, which was worse, and for which no talents could
compensate; he meant the impossibility of maintaining their ground fairly
on any of those principles, which every man within those walls had been
accustomed, from his infancy, to venerate as sacred. He and his friends too
laboured under some disadvantages.
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