overed so as to be made
punishable, while the testimony of any number of the oppressed is invalid
against the oppressors, however they may be offences against the laws. And,
lastly, we are to see their innocent offspring, against whose personal
liberty the shadow of an argument cannot be advanced, inheriting all the
miseries of their parents' lot.

The evil then, as far as it has been hitherto viewed, presents to us in its
three several departments a measure of human suffering not to be
equalled--not to be calculated--not to be described. But would that we
could consider this part of the subject as dismissed! Would that in each of
the departments now examined there was no counterpart left us to
contemplate! But this cannot be. For if there be persons, who suffer
unjustly, there must be others, who oppress. And if there be those who
oppress, there must be to the suffering, which has been occasioned, a
corresponding portion of immorality or guilt.

We are obliged then to view the counterpart of the evil in question, before
we can make a proper estimate of the nature of it. And, in examining this
part of it, we shall find that we have a no less frightful picture to
behold than in the former cases; or that, while the miseries endured by the
unfortunate Africans excite our pity on the one hand, the vices, which are
connected with them, provoke our indignation and abhorrence on the other.
The Slave-trade, in this point of view, must strike us as an immense mass
of evil on account of the criminality attached to it, as displayed in the
various branches of it, which have already been examined. For, to take the
counterpart of the evil in the first of these, can we say, that no moral
turpitude is to be placed to the account of those, who living on the
continent of Africa give birth to the enormities, which take place in
consequence of the prosecution of this trade? Is not that man made morally
worse, who is induced to become a tiger to his species, or who, instigated
by avarice, lies in wait in the thicket to get possession of his
fellow-man? Is no injustice manifest in the land, where the prince,
unfaithful to his duty, seizes his innocent subjects, and sells them for
slaves? Are no moral evils produced among those communities, which make war
upon other communities for the sake of plunder, and without any previous
provocation or offence? Does no crime attach to those, who accuse others
falsely, or who multiply and divide crimes f