Page:Copley 1844 A History of Slavery and its Abolition 2nd Ed.djvu/335

Clarkson's admirable pamphlet, "Thoughts on the Necessity," &c. Having first admitted the defeat of the sanguine hopes formerly entertained, that the abolition of the slave-trade would lead to the humane and enlightened treatment of slaves, and ultimately to their emancipation, he goes on to say, that, for the redress of the grievances which yet oppressed the injured African, it was in vain to look to West Indian legislature, the remedy could only be sought from a British parliament. He then proves that the planters can neither prove a moral nor a legal right in their slaves. Those of the slaves who were native Africans, were obtained by fraud or violence, and then sold; but as such a transaction could not deprive them of their own right in themselves, it could not confer that right on another. Birth could not confer it, because freedom is the native birthright of every rational creature; and if parents were subjected to slavery as a reparation for injury, or a punishment for crime, the infant had no part in the injury or the criminality; the master of the parent has no claim on him. Then, man's individual accountability proves that he cannot justly be so placed under the will of another, as to be compelled by him to do that which is in itself immoral and sinful; a compulsion frequently practised by slave masters, with the infliction of severe punishment, in case of disobedience on the part of the slave. He then brings the slave-holder's claim to the test of original grants, or permissions of government, acts of parliament, charters, or English laws. It has already been clearly shown, (pp. 111, 113,) that neither the African slave-trade nor West Indian slavery would have been allowed at