It was enacted, "That, if any Negro or
other slave should withdraw himself from his master for the term of six
months; or any slave, who was absent, should not return within that time,
every such person should suffer death." There was also another West Indian
law, by which every Negro was armed against his fellow-negro, for he was
authorized to kill every runaway slave; and he had even a reward held out
to him for so doing. Let the House now contrast the two cases. Let them ask
themselves which of the two exhibited the greater barbarity; and whether
they could possibly vote for the continuance of the Slave-trade, upon the
principle, that the Africans had shown themselves to be a race of
incorrigible barbarians?
Something like an opposite argument, but with a like view, had been
maintained by others on this subject. It had been said, in justification of
the trade, that the Africans had derived some little civilization from
their intercourse with us. Yes: we had given them just enough of the forms
of justice to enable them to add the pretext of legal trials to their other
modes of perpetrating the most atrocious crimes. We had given them just
enough of European improvements, to enable them the more effectually to
turn Africa into a ravaged wilderness.
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