“Whereas it is observed that some persons in this Colonie having purchased Negro or Malatta Servants or Slaves, after they have spent the pricipall part of their time and strength in their masters service, doe sett them at liberty, and the said slaves not being able to provide necessaries for themselves may become a charge and burthen to the towns where they have served:  for prevention whereof,

“It is ordered and enacted by this Court and the authority thereof:  That every person in this Colonie that now is or hereafter shall be owner of a negro or mulatta servant or slave, and after some time of his or her being taken into imployment in his or her service, shall sett such servant or slave at liberty to provide for him or herselfe, if afterwards such servant or slave shall come to want, every such servant shall be relieved at the onely cost and charge of the person in whose service he or she was last reteined or taken, and by whome sett at liberty, or at the onely cost and charge of his or her heirs, executors or administrators, any law, usage or custome to the contrary notwithstanding."[439]

Massachusetts had acted and did act very cowardly about this matter.  But Connecticut showed great wisdom and humanity in making a just and equitable provision for such poor and decrepit slaves as might find themselves turned out to charity after a long life of unrequited toil.  Slavery was in itself “the sum of all villanies,”—­the blackest curse that ever scourged the earth.  To buy and sell human beings; to tear from the famishing breast of the mother her speechless child; to separate the husband from the wife of his heart; to wring riches from the unpaid toil of human beings; to tear down the family altar, and let lecherous beasts, who claim the name of “Christian,” run over defenceless womanhood as swine over God’s altar!—­is there any thing worse, do you ask?  Yes!  To work a human being from youth to old age, to appropriate the labor of that being exclusively, to rob it of the blessings of this life, to poison every domestic charity, to fetter the intellect by the power of fatal ignorance, to withhold the privileges of the gospel of love; and then, when the hollow cough comes under an inclement sky, when the shadows slant, when the hand trembles, when the gait is shuffling, when the ear is deaf, the eye dim, when desire faileth,—­then to turn that human being out to die is by far the profoundest crime man can be guilty of in his dealings with mankind!  And slavery had so hardened men’s hearts, that the above act was found to be necessary to teach the alphabet of human kindness.  No wonder human forbearance was strained to its greatest tension when masters, thus liberating their slaves, assumed the lofty air of humanitarians who had actually done a noble act in manumitting a slave!