We have
changed all this; and, to say the truth, it was high time to discover
that the negro-trade forms a charming chapter in the history of Europe,
and that the protracted efforts to put it down were unchristian and
unstatesmanlike. Pitt, Roscoe, Wilberforce, Burke, Washington, Franklin,
Madison, Adams, Lowndes,--puny names! short-sighted men! By the African
slave-trade, creatures that are hardly deserving the name of men, on
account of organic, intellectual, and moral incapacity, are forcibly
carried into the regions of Christian religion and civilization, there
to become civilized in spite of their unfitness for civilization. The
mariners, usually occupied in risking life or health merely for the
sake of base traffic and filthy lucre, are suddenly transformed into
ministering agents of civilization and religion. It gives a priestly
character to the captain of a slave-ship,--to him that is willing to
break the laws of his country, even daring the gallows, for the benefit
of the sable brother, and of his law-abiding conservative society. How
different from those dark times when the poet could say, _--Homo ignoto
homini lupus est!_ The missionary only endeavors to carry the Church to
Africa; the slave-trader carries Africa to the Church, to civilization,
and to the auction-table.
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