Let us suppose then an African prince, disdaining for once the idea of emolument:  let us suppose him for once inflamed with the love of his country, and resolving to punish from this principle alone, “that by exhibiting an example of terrour, he may preserve that happiness of the publick, which he is bound to secure and defend by the very nature of his contract; or, in other words, that he may answer the end of government.”  If actuated then by this principle, he should adjudge slavery to an offender, as a just punishment for his offence, for whose benefit must the convict labour?  If it be answered, “for the benefit of the state,” we allow that the punishment, in whatever light it is considered, will be found to be equitable:  but if it be answered, “for the benefit of any individual whom he pleases to appoint,” we deny it to be just.  The state[051] alone is considered to have been injured, and as injuries cannot possibly be transferred, the state alone can justly receive the advantages of his labour.  But if the African prince, when he thus condemns him to labour for the benefit of an unoffended individual, should at the same time sentence him to become his property; that is, if he should make the person and life of the convict at the absolute disposal of him, for whom he has sentenced him to labour; it is evident that, in addition to his former injustice, he is usurping a power, which no ruler or rulers of a state can possess, and which the great Creator of the universe never yet gave to any order whatever of created beings.

That this reasoning is true, and that civilized nations have considered it as such, will be best testified by their practice.  We may appeal here to that slavery, which is now adjudged to delinquents, as a punishment, among many of the states of Europe.  These delinquents are sentenced to labour at the oar, to work in mines, and on fortifications, to cut and clear rivers, to make and repair roads, and to perform other works of national utility.  They are employed, in short, in the publick work; because, as the crimes they have committed are considered to have been crimes against the publick, no individual can justly receive the emoluments of their labour; and they are neither sold, nor made capable of being transferred, because no government whatsoever is invested with such a power.

Thus then may that slavery, in which only the idea of labour is included, be perfectly equitable, and the delinquent will always receive his punishment as a man; whereas in that, which additionally includes the idea of property, and to undergo which, the delinquent must previously change his nature, and become a brute; there is an inconsistency, which no arguments can reconcile, and a contradiction to every principle of nature, which a man need only to appeal to his own feelings immediately to evince.