We
are to see them again subject to individual persecution, as anger, or
malice, or any bad passion may suggest: hence the whip, the chain, the
iron-collar! hence the various modes of private torture, of which so
many accounts have been truly given. Nor can such horrible cruelties be
discovered so as to be made punishable, while the testimony of any
number of the oppressed is invalid against the oppressors, however they
may be offences against the laws. And, lastly, we are to see their
innocent offspring, against whose personal liberty the shadow of an
argument cannot be advanced, inheriting all the miseries of their
parents' lot.
The evil then, as far as it has been hitherto viewed, presents to us, in
its three several departments, a measure of human suffering not to be
equalled--not to be calculated--not to be described. But would that we
could consider this part of the subject as dismissed! would that in each
of the departments now examined there was no counterpart left us to
contemplate! But this cannot be; for if there be persons who suffer
unjustly there must be others who oppress: and if there be those who
oppress, there must be to the suffering, which has been occasioned, a
corresponding portion of immorality or guilt.
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