ownership.  The eighth commandment presupposes and assumes the right of every man to his powers, and their product. Slavery robs of both.  A man’s right to himself is the only right absolutely original and intrinsic—­his right to whatever else that belongs to him is merely relative to his right to himself—­is derived from it, and held only by virtue of it.  SELF-RIGHT is the foundation right—­the post in the middle, to which all other rights are fastened.  Slaveholders, the world over, when talking about their RIGHT to their slaves, always assume their own right to themselves.  What slaveholder ever undertook to prove his own right to himself?  He knows it to be a self-evident proposition, that a man belongs to himself—­that the right is intrinsic and absolute.  The slaveholder, in making out his own title to himself, makes out the title of every human being to himself.  As the fact of being a man is itself the title, the whole human family have one common title deed.  If one man’s title is valid, all are valid.  If one is worthless, all are.  To deny the validity of the slave’s title is to deny the validity of his own; and yet in the act of making him a slave, the slaveholder asserts the validity of his own title, while he seizes him as his property who has the same title.  Further, in making him a slave, he does not merely unhumanize one individual, but UNIVERSAL MAN.  He destroys the foundations.  He annihilates all rights.  He attacks not only the human race, but universal being, and rushes upon JEHOVAH.—­For rights are rights; God’s are no more—­man’s are no less.

[Footnote A:  The Bible record of actions is no comment on their moral character.  It vouches for them as facts, not as virtues.  It records without rebuke, Noah’s drunkenness, Lot’s incest, and the lies of Jacob and his mother—­not only single acts, but usages, such as polygamy and concubinage, are entered on the record without censure.  Is that silent entry God’s endorsement?  Because the Bible, in its catalogue of human actions, does not stamp on every crime its name and number, and write against it, this is a crime—­does that wash out its guilt, and bleach it into a virtue?]

The eighth commandment forbids the taking of any part of that which belongs to another.  Slavery takes the whole.  Does the same Bible which forbids the taking of any thing belonging to him, sanction the taking of every thing?  Is it such a medley of absurdities as to thunder wrath against him who robs his neighbor of a cent, while it bids God speed to him who robs his neighbor of himself?  Slavery is the highest possible violation of the eighth commandment.  To take from a man his earnings, is theft.  But to take the earner, is compound, superlative, perpetual theft.  It is to be a thief by profession.