Witness the treatment of the Chinese, of the tribes of India, and
of our own American Indians.
But still there is in Anglo-Saxon blood, a vigorous sense of justice,
as appears in our habeas corpus, our jury trials, and other features
of state organization; and, when this is tempered, in individuals,
with the elements of gentleness and compassion, and enforced by that
energy and indomitable perseverance which are characteristic of the
Anglo-Saxon mind, they form a style of philanthropy peculiarly
efficient. In short, the Anglo-Saxon is efficient, in whatever he sets
himself about, whether in crushing the weak or lifting them up.
Thomas Clarkson was born in a day when good, pious people imported
cargoes of slaves from Africa, as one of the regular Christianized
modes of gaining a subsistence and providing for themselves and their
households. It was a thing that every body was doing, and every body
thought they had a right to do. It was supposed that all the sugar,
molasses, and rum in the world were dependent on stealing men, women,
and children, and could be got in no other way; and as to consume
sugar, molasses, and rum, were evidently the chief ends of human
existence, it followed that men, women, and children must be stolen to
the end of time.
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