I take the liberty of appending, by way of note, a quotation from the same statesman, whose words I have already used, which shows that this idea of the connexion between DOMESTIC _slavery_ and MUNICIPAL _liberty_, is not new. Our _former oppressors_ were aware of it sixty years ago, and seriously meditated the destruction of the latter by the abolition of the former. The following extract may show where our _present oppressors_ got the first hint of that scheme of interested philanthropy which proposes to strip us of our property for the good of our souls.
Mr. Burke says, (in 1775) "With regard to the high aristocratic spirit of Virginia and the southern colonies, it has been proposed, I know, _to reduce it, by declaring a general enfranchisement of slaves_. This project has had its advocates and panegyrists; yet I never could argue myself into any opinion of it. Slaves are often much attached to their masters. A general wild offer of liberty would not always be accepted. History furnishes few instances of it. It is sometimes as hard to persuade slaves to be free, as it is to compel freemen to be slaves; and, in this auspicious scheme, we, should have both these pleasing tasks on our hands at once. But when we talk of enfranchisement, do we not perceive that the American master may enfranchise too, _and arm servile hands in defence of freedom?_ A measure to which other people have had recourse more than once, and not without success, in a desperate situation of their affairs.
"Slaves as these unfortunate black people are, and dull as all men are from slavery, must they not a little suspect an offer of freedom from that very nation which has sold them to their present masters? From a nation, one of whose causes of quarrel with those masters, is their refusal to deal any more in that inhuman traffic? An offer of freedom from England would come rather oddly, shipped to them in an African vessel, which is refused an entry into the ports of Virginia or Carolina, with a cargo of three hundred Angola negroes. It would be curious to see the Guinea captain attempting at the same instant to publish his proclamation of liberty, and to advertise his sale of slaves."
This last absurdity, our northern _guardians_, _pastors_, or _masters_, (I am not particular about the designation,) have wisely avoided. As long as the slave trade was allowed, they were only anxious to secure to themselves a monopoly of the advantage of carrying it on. Having lost this, they seek an equivalent by putting a new face on the matter.