Our National Slave Trade
Here isa monopoly, compared with which, tha wo--sf monopolies ot the old world sink intó insignihcance. Never, under the blessed light of Heaven, was thcre a legalized business of equnl atroaty. Fnihers sell their öwn children, brothen (heir own i-Ãáters, (it mny be tbr infomous purpoaes,) without much disrepute. Why should they not? lThe most enlightened and virtuous nation üpon earth" licenses it. Her officers and asrents assist in it. Accordihg to her own writers Virginia has become anothèr Guinea, and Maryland and North Carolina no better ft is known :hat sons and daughiers of distingushed citizens and high officers of this republic, have been sold and transponed from Maryland. Virginia, the Dislrict of Columbia, and the Carolinas, to tho cotton, rice, and silgar plnntations of the southwest. Is this "to secure the blessings of liberty" to the men of the rcvolution, and to "their posterity?" Ãndoubtedly it wasmainly this featuro of the trade which made Mr. Ranllolph, living and spejkinsr on the spot, denounce it as icorsl than lite Afiican. The Rev. John Nación, whoresided nine years on the coast of Ãfrica, asa 9Ãavc tradfÃr, declared that he never knew, nor heard of parents sel ling their children there.- In short, things have now come to that pass, that the re-opening of the ports of the United Stntes to the foreign ölave trade, wouJd be both just and humane, a real amelioraiion of the moral condition and polhical prospecta of the Union. Because it would destroy a giant monopoly and prive to II who wish to particÃpate in slave trading, an equal chanco; because it would substituto a trade less demoralizing than the present; and becnuse it would overthrow slavery in the old slaveSiates, ly destroying the óreedirsr evstem..
Article
Subjects
Signal of Liberty
Old News