To our own country, indeed, it is invaluable. We
have lived, in consequence of it, to see the day, when it has been recorded
as a principle in our legislation, that commerce itself shall have its
moral boundaries. We have lived to see the day, when we are likely to be
delivered from the contagion of the most barbarous opinions. They, who
supported this wicked traffic, virtually denied, that man was a moral
being. They substituted the law of force for the law of reason. But the
great Act now under our consideration, has banished the impious doctrine,
and restored the rational creature to his moral rights. Nor is it a matter
of less pleasing consideration, that, at this awful crisis, when the
constitutions of kingdoms are on the point of dissolution, the stain of the
blood of Africa is no longer upon us, or that we have been freed (alas, if
it be not too late!) from a load of guilt, which has long hung like a
mill-stone about our necks, ready to sink us to perdition.
In tracing the measure still further, or as it will affect other lands, we
become only the more sensible of its importance: for can we pass over to
Africa; can we pass over to the numerous islands, the receptacles of
miserable beings from thence; and can we call to mind the scenes of misery,
which have been passing in each of these regions of the earth, without
acknowledging, that one of the greatest sources of suffering to the human
race has, as far as our own power extends, been done away? Can we pass over
to these regions again, and contemplate the multitude of crimes, which the
agency necessary for keeping up the barbarous system produced, without
acknowledging, that a source of the most monstrous and extensive wickedness
has been removed also? But here, indeed, it becomes us peculiarly to
rejoice; for though nature shrinks from pain, and compassion is engendered
in us when we see it become the portion of others, yet what is physical
suffering compared with moral guilt? The misery of the oppressed is, in the
first place, not contagious like the crime of the oppressor.
Pages:
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518