7956. SLAVES, Duty to.—
My opinion
has ever been that, until more can be done for
them, we should endeavor, with those whom
fortune has thrown on our hands, to feed and
clothe them well, protect them from ill usage,
require such reasonable labor only as is performed
voluntarily by freemen, and be led by
no repugnances to abdicate them, and our duties
to them. The laws do not permit us to
turn them loose, if that were for their good;
and to commute them for other property is to
commit them to those whose usage of them we
cannot control.—
To Edward Coles.
Ford ed., ix, 479.
(M.
1814)
