It should be constantly borne in mind, that no man can be obliged either to become or continue a slaveholder. No man can make me a slaveholder or a landholder without or against my consent. Indeed, no gift to me of slaves or land is perfect, until I have accepted it. No man need accept an inheritance of slaves, or be a slaveholder any longer than he pleases to be. Where the law of his State permits, he may emancipate his slaves. If manumission is actually or virtually forbidden, he may take his slaves into a Free State; and, by such act alone, they become freemen. With full power, therefore, at any moment to dissolve the relation, Dr. Fuller voluntarily continues to hold slaves. All slaveholding is unnecessary, and none is involuntary on the part of the owner.
It should also be borne in mind, that a slave, under all circumstances, whether he be caressed or scourged, loved or hated, overworked or underworked, instructed or debased, is the property of his master, and, as such, is subject to all the legal incidents of property. Dr. Fuller's slaves are as much Dr. Fuller's property as his horse, his watch, the coat on his back, or the books on the shelves of his library; and, as property, their happy, elevated condition necessarily depends upon the accidents of Dr. Fuller's life, health, and wealth. When these fail, their condition will unquestionably be either very materially affected for the worse, or altogether changed.
And, first, if his wealth should fail from unforeseen calamities; so that from affluence, it may be, he should be reduced to real want, and be unable to pay the just claims of his creditors; the latter may satisfy their claims by a sale of his slaves. Nothing but payment of the debts could prevent such a catastrophe. Equally with his horses and theological library,[U] his slaves would legally constitute a fund out of which his creditors might satisfy their claims. Husband and wife, parent and child, the prattling infant and the old man of seventy winters, might legally be placed upon the auction-block, and sold to the highest bidder, singly or in lots to suit, as might seem most calculated to advance the interest of the creditors. Dr. Fuller's prayers and tears would avail nothing. His kind and humane treatment, continued through so many years, would then increase the market-value of his slaves; and that is all. Nothing that he could do would be able to save them from the auction-block. And what, under such circumstances, would become of their mental, moral, or even their physical condition? There would not be one chance in a thousand that all their new masters would be like Dr. Fuller, or that they would escape the lot of most other slaves,--a state of hopeless degradation!