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for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: II.
Is tbcre any geod renson why men should not be nllowcd to soil
their liberty? Is it wise, politic or humane, to prevent the man,
who sees his family starving around him, from hiring himself so as
to bind his person, even for a day, a week, or a month, to save
himself and family from death ? Could the poor Irish sell
themselves and fnmilics for a term of years, to the farmers of our
Northwestern .States, in order to pay their passage to this
country, and secure them from want on their arrival, would there be
any tiling unwise or unmerciful in the laws which permitted it? The
law did once permit it, for Virginia was in great Part w"'C(l by
indented servants, and by the descendants of girls bought up ir.
London and sold to the planters here for wives. Indeed, all women
literally sell their libertics when they marry, and very few repent
of the bargain. Among the civilized States of antiquity, the right
to sell one's liberty, we belicve, was universal. Is it not a
curtailment of liberty to deny the right ? The starving poor would
often think so. To the victim of intemperance who has; just
recovered from an attack of delirium trcmcns, such a right would bo
worth all the temperance societics in the world. His enervated will
can no longer control him, and the law will not permit him to adopt
the will of another. The law thus murders thousands annually,
pretending all the while to guard and protect their rights. The
army, the navy and the merchant service are filled with men of this
description. It is the only refuge the law allows them. Those who
were fittedfor liberty would not sell it, or if in somo moment of
misfortune they did, they would buy that liberty agnin by the
exercise of great economy: md industry. The right to purehase their
own liberty has, in other countries, been a...
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