and
well he may. He owes the government. A century's work would not pay its
drafts on him. He will die a public defaulter. Because laws make men pay
their debts, shall those be forced to pay who owe nothing? The law makes
no criminal, PROPERTY. It restrains his liberty, and makes him pay
something, a mere penny in the pound, of his debt to the government; but
it does not make him a chattel. Test it. To own property, is to own its
product. Are children born of convicts, government property? Besides,
can _property_ be guilty? Can _chattels_ deserve punishment?

11. RESTRAINTS UPON FREEDOM. Children are restrained by parents, pupils,
by teachers, patients, by physicians, corporations, by charters, and
legislatures, by constitutions. Embargoes, tariffs, quarantine, and all
other laws, keep men from doing as they please. Restraints are the web
of civilized society, warp and woof. Are they slavery? then a government
of LAW, is the climax of slavery!

12. INVOLUNTARY OR COMPULSORY SERVICE. A juryman is empannelled against
his will, and sit he _must_. A sheriff orders his posse; bystanders
_must_ turn in. Men are _compelled_ to remove nuisances, pay fines and
taxes, support their families, and "turn to the right as the law
directs," however much against their wills. Are they therefore slaves?
To confound slavery with involuntary service is absurd. Slavery is a
_condition_. The slave's _feelings_ toward it cannot alter its nature.
Whether he desires or detests it, the condition remains the same. The
slave's willingness to be a slave is no palliation of the slaveholder's
guilt. Suppose he should really believe himself a chattel, and consent
to be so regarded by others, would that _make_ him a chattel, or make
those guiltless who _hold_ him as such? I may be sick of life, and I
tell the assassin so that stabs me; is he any the less a murderer? Does
my _consent_ to his crime, atone for it? my partnership in his guilt,
blot out his part of it? The slave's willingness to be a slave, so far
from lessening the guilt of his "owner," aggravates it. If slavery has
so palsied his mind that he looks upon himself as a chattel, and
consents to be one, actually to hold him as such, falls in with his
delusion, and confirms the impious falsehood. These very feelings and
convictions of the slave, (if such were possible) increase a hundred
fold the guilt of the master, and call upon him in thunder, immediately
to recognize him as a MAN, and thus