[Footnote 1: It may be said that the laws of civilized war do not permit that prisoners be slain or incarcerated; for that if this be done, _the other party may retaliate_. This will prove, that he who is cruel to his prisoners, _does a wrong to his own people who may happen to be in his enemy's hands_; but that is all. The laws of civilized warfare acknowledge the right to retaliate, and therefore _make a case_, if there was no other, where slavery by conquest would be lawful. Even though he who first enslaves his prisoners be wrong; yet _ex concessis_ he who retaliates is right. Can Mr. Blackstone tell us which of the savage African chiefs began the game?]
When Col. Campbell, at the head of a few militia, stooped from the mountains of Virginia on Carolina, and bore off the corps of Col. Fergusson in his pounces, had he been pursued and overtaken by Tarleton, he must have killed his prisoners. He could not have held them, and to have enlarged them would have been to sacrifice the lives of thousands. He who doubts this, knows nothing of the horrors of the tory war that raged in that quarter. If he had had no place of refuge, he might have handed them over to any custody, civilized or savage, in which they might have been removed from the theatre of war. This is one example among ten thousand, to show that the captivity of an enemy by no means implies the security of the captor, should he allow his prisoner to go free. The snared tiger is in your power: you may kill him--you may cage him. "_Therefore_," says Mr. Blackstone, "you are under no necessity to do either, and the noble beast has a fair claim to his liberty."
But I have given too many words to the exposure of this grave sophistry. In self-defence it might have been pardoned; in crimination it is intolerable.
But, as I remarked in the outset, we have nothing to do with the origin of any particular _mode_ of slavery. In some shape or other it exists, and has existed every where, since first the decree went forth, which cursed the earth, and denounced to man, "that in the sweat of his face he should eat the fruit thereof." Here is its origin; and, as might be expected of any thing so originating, the thing is evil in itself, and in all its modes. The problem is to choose among them. To the practical man it is a thing of small difficulty; _left to itself_, it assumes, in every country, the form and texture best suited to the physical peculiarities of that country, and the condition of society there. But we have grown so wise, that we leave nothing to itself. The world is full of associations and combinations of men, who make it the business of their lives to regulate every thing but what concerns themselves. We every where find a sort of moral treasuries of supererogatory virtue, made up by voluntary contribution, for the benefit of all who do not affect to be wiser and better than their fathers. Turn where we will, we have the edifying spectacle of one half the world repenting for the sins of the other half.