SELF-RIGHT is the
_foundation right_--the _post is the middle_, to which all other rights
are fastened. Slaveholders, when talking about their RIGHT to their
slaves, always assume their own right to themselves. What slaveholder
ever undertook to prove his 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. In making out his own title, he makes
out the title of every human being. 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 a man 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 disfranchise the humanity of _one_ individual, but of
UNIVERSAL MAN. He destroys the foundations. He annihilates _all rights_.
He attacks not only the human race, but _universal being_, and rushes
upon JEHOVAH.
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