"It is saying, in other words, that the privileges in question are no matter of natural right, but to be settled by convention, as the good and safety of society may require. If society should disfranchise individuals convicted of infamous crimes, would this be an invasion of..-"
Conversation
"-natural right? Yet this would not be justified on the score of their moral guilt, but that the good of society required or would be promoted by it."
Later on:
"Man is born to subjection. Not only during infancy is he dependent, and under the control of others; at all ages...
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"it is the very bias of his nature, that the strong and the wise should control the weak and the ignorant."
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"So when the greatest progress in civil liberty has been made, the enlightened lover of liberty will know that there must remain much inequality, much injustice, much slavery, which no human wisdom or virtue will ever be able wholly to prevent or redress."
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He goes on to list a bunch of ways in which society already restricts rights and liberty (including animals) and why we think that's fine and why it's super necessary, and why are you suddenly getting mad about *slavery*?
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Lol he weirdly argues against utilitarianism by saying how can you compare the pleasure and suffering of a man with cultivated and nuanced taste to a man with dull and simple taste?
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He says civilized society all have their own evils to make them run, that doing a few not-ideal things is the cost of flourishing and happiness, and that "we need say nothing of the evils of savage life."
He also says slavery is harder for 'employers':
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"In [non-slave places] when a business becomes unprofitable, the employer dismisses his laborers or lowers their wages. But with us, it is the very period at which we are least able to dismiss our laborers; and if we would not suffer a further loss, we cannot reduce their wages."
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"That there are great evils in a society where Slavery exists, and that the institution is liable to great abuse, I have already said. To say otherwise, would be to say that they were not human. But the whole of human life is a system of evils and compensations."
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"Who but a driveling fanatic has thought of the necessity of protecting domestic animals from the cruelty of their owners ? And yet are not great and wanton cruelties practised on these animals ?"
Oh man dude, so close.
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"[whipping] would be degrading to a freeman, who had the thoughts and aspirations of a freeman. In general, it is not degrading to a slave, nor is it felt to be so. The evil is the bodily pain. Is it degrading to a child?"
Replying to
"I have heard of complaint made by a free prostitute, of the greater countenance and indulgence shown by society towards colored persons of her profession, (always regarded as of an inferior and servile class, though individually free,) than to those of her own complexion...
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"The colored prostitute is, in fact, a far less contaminated and depraved being."
"Under these circumstances, with imperfect knowledge, tempted by the strongest of human passions... can it be matter of surprise that [colored women] should so often yield to the temptation?"
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This particular one is surprising to me. I had heard vaguely of racist stereotypes of black women as sexually depraved but this makes it seem super real.
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"But I do not hesitate to say, that the intercourse which takes place with enslaved females, is less depraving in its effects, than when it is carried on with females of their own "
??? ok I was trying to maintain empathy for the author but it's getting seriously harder
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I'm gonna stop reading now, but this was super interesting. Most of his arguments rely on inconsistency - he points out all the ways in which abolitionists are hypocritical. He also relies a lot on how sometimes bad things are necessary and inevitable.
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