But some person, perhaps, will make an objection to one of the former arguments.  “If men, from superiority of their nature, cannot be considered, like lands, goods, or houses, among possessions, so neither can cattle:  for being endued with life, motion, and sensibility, they are evidently superiour to these.”  But this objection will receive its answer from those observations which have been already made; and will discover the true reason, why cattle are justly to be estimated as property.  For first, the right to empire over brutes, is natural, and not adventitious, like the right to empire over men.  There are, secondly, many and evident signs of the inferiority of their nature; and thirdly, their liberty can be bought and sold, because, being void of reason, they cannot be accountable for their actions.

We might stop here for a considerable time, and deduce many valuable lessons from the remarks that have been made, but that such a circumstance might be considered as a digression.  There is one, however, which, as it is so intimately connected with the subject, we cannot but deduce.  We are taught to treat men in a different manner from brutes, because they are so manifestly superiour in their nature; we are taught to treat brutes in a different manner from stones, for the same reason; and thus, by giving to every created thing its due respect, to answer the views of Providence, which did not create a variety of natures without a purpose or design.

But if these things are so, how evidently against reason, nature, and every thing human and divine, must they act, who not only force men into slavery, against their own consent; but treat them altogether as brutes, and make the natural liberty of man an article of publick commerce! and by what arguments can they possibly defend that commerce, which cannot be carried on, in any single instance, without a flagrant violation of the laws of nature and of God?

* * * * *

CHAP.  V.

That we may the more accurately examine the arguments that are advanced on this occasion, it will be proper to divide the commerce into two parts; first, as it relates to those who sell, and secondly, as it relates to those who purchase, the human species into slavery.  To the former part of which, having given every previous and necessary information in the history of servitude, we shall immediately proceed.

Let us inquire first, by what particular right the liberties of the harmless people are invaded by the prince.  “By the right of empire,” it will be answered; “because he possesses dominion and power by their own approbation and consent.”  But subjects, though under the dominion, are not the property, of the prince.  They cannot be considered as his possessions.  Their natures are both the same; they are both born in the same manner; are subject to the same disorders; must apply to the same remedies for a cure; are equally partakers of the grave:  an incidental distinction accompanies them through life, and this—­is all.