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our duty. Duties, Your Lordships well know, are divided bymoralists into duties of perfect and of imperfect obligation ; butChristians scarcely allow this distinction, and even Heathens donot approve it; for they tell us, that to be innocent according tolaw is but a narrow principle of virtue. Augusta est innocentia adlegem bonum esse, says Seneca, when he observes that piety, pity,humanity, persuade men to the performance of many actions, allof which are extra publicas tabulas. The constable cannot seize aman, the magistrate cannot commit him, the country will not tryhim, and even Your Lordships will not question him at your bar,for the total neglect of actions which at another bar the mostmerciful of all judges will condemn him for not having performed;when he will say to those on his left, hand, — “ Inasmuch as yedid it not to one of the least of these my brethren, (a poor, despised,abused African, will not be excluded from this brotherhood,) yedid it not unto me.”

“ As to the political consequences which will attend our abo-lition of the Slave Trade, no human eye can foresee them all: Ihave a perfect persuasion that they will be beneficial to humankind, for I am certain that they spring from a root of undissem-bled piety and humanity.

“ I never asked a question concerning the abolition of the SlaveTrade except one, and that in the very beginning of the business.The question was put to a witness at Your Lordships’ bar, a veryrespectable West-India planter of the name of Franklin. Thequestion was this, Is it cheaper to breed and rear a slave or tobuy a slave ? The answer, after some hesitation, was, It ischeaper to buy than to breed a slave. From that moment Ithought, and have continued to think, that if means could be

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