We had two ideas of justice,
first, as it belonged to society by virtue of a social compact; and,
secondly, as it belonged to men, not as citizens of a community, but as
beings of one common nature. In a state of nature, man had a right to
the fruit of his own labour absolutely to himself; and one of the main
purposes, for which he entered into society, was that he might be better
protected in the possession of his rights. In both cases therefore it
was manifestly unjust, that a man should be made to labour during the
whole of his life, and yet have no benefit from his labour. Hence the
Slave Trade and the colonial slavery were a violation of the very
principle, upon which all law for the protection of property was
founded. Whatever benefit was derived from that trade, to an individual,
it was derived from dishonour and dishonesty. He forced from the unhappy
victim of it that, which the latter did not wish to give him; and he
gave to the same victim that, which he in vain attempted to show was an
equivalent to the thing he took,--it being a thing for which there was
no equivalent; and which, if he had not obtained by force, he would not
have possessed at all. Nor could there be any answer to this reasoning,
unless it could be proved, that it had pleased God to give to the
inhabitants of Britain a property in the liberty and life of the natives
of Africa.
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