To excite, by a proclamation issued by your Majesty's governor, an universal insurrection of negro slaves in any of the colonies is a measure full of complicated horrors, absolutely illegal, suitable neither to the practice of war nor to the laws of peace.
Burke condemns the idea of inciting slave insurrections as both illegal and horrific.
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They look upon the legal hereditary succession of their crown as among their rights, not as among their wrongs,--as a benefit, not as a grievance,--as a security for their liberty, not as a badge of servitude.
As he is not to obey us, but we are to obey the law in him, our Constitution has made no sort of provision towards rendering him, as a servant, in any degree responsible.
Who could flatter himself that these men, suddenly, and as it were by enchantment, snatched from the humblest rank of subordination, would not be intoxicated with their unprepared greatness?
If all the absurd theories of lawyers and divines were to vitiate the objects in which they are conversant, we should have no law and no religion left in the world.
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