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capitally. We are told of a certain Vedius Pollio, who, 

 in the presence of Augustus, would have given a slave 

 as food to his fish, for havino- hroken a glass. With the 

 Romans, the reirular method of takino- tlie evidence of 

 their slaves was under torture. Here it has been thought 

 better never to resort to their evidence. When a mas- 

 ter was murdered, all his slaves, in the same iiouse, or 

 within hearing, were condemned to death. Here pu- 

 nishment falls on the guilty only, and as precise proof 

 is required against him as against a freeman. Yet not- 

 withstandinnf these and other discouran^ing circumstan- 

 ces among the Romans, their slaves were often their 

 rarest artists. They excelled too in science, insomuch 

 as to be usually etnnloved as tutors to their masters' 

 chddren. Epictetus, Terence, and Phaedrus, were slaves. 

 But they were of the race of whites. It is not their 

 condition then, but nature, which has produced the dis- 

 tinction. Whether further observation will or will not 

 verify the conjecture, that nature has been less bounti- 

 ful to them in the endowments of the head, I believe 

 tliat in those of the heart she will be found to have done 

 themjustice. That disposition to theftwith which they 

 have been branded, must be ascribed to their situation, 

 and not to any depravity of the moral sense. The man, 

 in whose favour no laws of property exist, probaiily 

 feels himself less bound to respect those niade in favour 

 of others. When arguing for ourselves, we lay it down 

 as a fundamental, that laws, to be just, must give a re- 

 cif)rocation of right ; that, without this, they are mere 

 arbitrary rules of conduct, foimded in force, and not in 

 conscience: and it is a problem which I give to the 

 master to solve, whether the religious precepts against 

 the violation of {)roperty were not framed for him as 

 well as his slave ? And whether the slave may not 

 as justifiably take a little from one, who has taken all 

 from iiim, as he may slay one who would slay him.'' 

 That a change in the relations in which a man is placed 

 should change his ideas of moral right or wrong, is 

 neither new, nor peculiar to the colour of the blacks. 

 Homer tells us it was so 2600 years ago. 

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