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But is it not consonant with justice, with the common principles of humanity, not to mention Christianity, to abolish this abominable mischief? [1]There is not one argument, one invective, levelled by you at the confiscators of the church revenue, which could not, with the strictest propriety, be applied by the planters and negro-drivers to our Parliament, if it gloriously dared to shew the world that British senators were men if the natural feelings of humanity silenced the cold cautions of timidity, till this stigma on our nature was wiped off, and all men were al-
- ↑ 'When men are encouraged to go into a certain mode of life by the existing laws, and protected in that mode as in a lawful occupation–when they have accommodated all their ideas, and all their habits to it,’ etc–‘I am sure it is unjust in legislature, by an arbitrary act, to offer a sudden violence to their minds and their feelings, forcibly to degrade them from their state and condition, and to stigmatize with shame and infamy that character and those customs which before had been made the measure of their happiness.’ Page 230.
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