2-949-926 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Short observations on slavery: introductory to some extracts from the writing of the Abbe Raynal, on that important subject, 1783. 'When the General Congress first assembled, they prefaced the reason of their separation from Great Britain with the following sentence, 'We hold these truths to be self evident, That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator, with certain unaliable rights; that amongst these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'. And in the declaration of the 6th of July 1775, Congress have in very forcible language declared their opinion 'that it was contrary to the intent of the Divine Author of our existence, that a part of the human kind should hold an absolute power over others, marked out by infinite goodness and wisdom, as the objects of a Legal Domination...'. The American Declaration of Independence ignored slavery: liberty for all was thus meaningless.