Many of the foregoing conditions and relations are appendages of slavery, and some of them inseparable from it.  But no one, nor all of them together, constitute its intrinsic unchanging element.

We proceed to state affirmatively that,

ENSLAVING MEN IS REDUCING THEM TO ARTICLES OF PROPERTY, making free agents chattels, converting persons into things, sinking intelligence, accountability, immortality, into merchandise.  A slave is one held in this condition.  He is a mere tool for another’s use and benefit.  In law “he owns nothing, and can acquire nothing.” His right to himself is abrogated. He is another’s property.  If he say my hands, my feet, my body, my mind, MY_self_; they are figures of speech.  To use himself for his own good is a CRIME.  To keep what he earns is stealing.  To take his body into his own keeping is insurrection.  In a word, the> profit of his master is the END of his being, and he, a mere means to that end, a mere means to an end into which his interests do not enter, of which they constitute no portion[A].  MAN sunk to a thing! the intrinsic element, the principle of slavery; MEN sold, bartered, leased, mortgaged, bequeathed, invoiced, shipped in cargoes, stored as goods, taken on executions, and knocked off at public outcry!  Their rights another’s conveniences, their interests, wares on sale, their happiness, a household utensil; their personal inalienable ownership, a serviceable article, or plaything, as best suits the humor of the hour; their deathless nature, conscience, social affections, sympathies, hopes, marketable commodities!  We repeat it, the reduction of persons to things; not robbing a man of privileges, but of himself; not loading with burdens, but making him a beast of burden; not restraining liberty, but subverting it; not curtailing rights, but abolishing them; not inflicting personal cruelty, but annihilating personality; not exacting involuntary labor, but sinking him into an implement of labor; not abridging his human comforts, but abrogating his human nature; not depriving an animal of immunities, but despoiling a rational being of attributes, uncreating a MAN to make room for a thing!

[Footnote A:  Whatever system sinks man from an END to a means, or in other words, whatever transforms him from an object of instrumentality into a mere instrumentality to an object, just so far makes him a slave.  Hence West India apprenticeship retains in one particular the cardinal principle of slavery.  The apprentice, during three-fourths of his time, is still forced to labor, and robbed of his earnings; just so far forth he is a mere means, a slave.  True, in all other respects slavery is abolished in the British West Indies.  Its bloodiest features are blotted out—­but the meanest and most despicable of all—­forcing the poor to work for the rich without pay three-fourths of their time, with a legal officer to flog them if they demur at the outrage, is one of the provisions of the “Emancipation Act!” For the glories of that luminary, abolitionists thank God, while they mourn that it rose behind clouds, and shines through an eclipse.]