nefit, which no
one can sufficiently appreciate, who has not tasted of the bitter curse
of compulsory servitude. By excluding them from offices, the seeds of
ambition would be buried too deep, ever to germinate: by disarming them,
we may calm our apprehensions of their resentments arising from past
sufferings; by incapacitating them from holding lands, we should add one
inducement more to emigration, and effectually remove the foundation of
ambition, and party-struggles. Their personal rights, and their
property, though limited, would whilst they remain among us be under the
protection of the laws; and their condition not at all inferior to that
of the _labouring_ poor in most other countries. Under such an
arrangement we might reasonably hope, that time would either remove from
us a race of men, whom we wish not to incorporate with us, or obliterate
those prejudices, which now form an obstacle to such incorporation.

[Footnote 29: The immense territory of Louisiana, which extends as far
south as the lat. 25 deg. and the two Floridas, would probably afford a
ready asylum for such as might choose to become Spanish subjects. How
far their political rights might be enlarged in these countries, is,
however questionable: but the climate is undoubtedly more favourable to
the African constitution than ours, and from this cause, it is not
improbable that emigrations from these states would in time be very
considerable.]

But it is not from the want of liberality to the emancipated race of
blacks that I apprehend the most serious objections to the plan I have
ventured to suggest.--Those slave holders (whose numbers I trust are
few) who have been in the habit of considering their fellow creatures as
no more than cattle, and the rest of the brute creation, will exclaim
that they are to be deprived of their _property_, without compensation.
Men who will shut their ears against this moral truth, that all men are
by nature _free_, and _equal_, will not even be convinced that they do
not possess a _property_ in an _unborn_ child: they will not distinguish
between allowing to _unborn_ generations the absolute and unalienable
rights of human nature, and taking away that which they _now possess_;
they will shut their ears against truth, should you tell them, the loss
of the mother's labour for nine months, and the maintenance of a child
for a dozen or fourteen years, is amply compensated by the services of
that child for as many years m