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Subject Area: Economics
Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: War and Peace
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

Of the Negro Trade and Slavery. - Richard Price, Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution, and the Means of Making it a Benefit to the World [1784]

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Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution, and the Means of Making it a Benefit to the World. To which is added, a Letter from M. Turgot, late Comptroller-General of the Finances of France: with an Appendix, containing a Translation of the Will of M. Fortuné Ricard, lately published in France (London: T. Cadell, 1785).

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Of theNegro TradeandSlavery.

THE Negro Trade cannot be censured in language too severe. It is a traffick which, as it has been hitherto carried on, is shocking to humanity, cruel, wicked, and diabolical. I am happy to find that the united States are entering into measures for discountenancing it, and for abolishing the odious slavery which it has introduced. ’Till they have done this, it will not appear they deserve the liberty for which they have been contending. For it is self-evident, that if there are any men whom they have a right to hold in slavery, there may be others who have had a right to hold them in slavery.* —I am sensible, however, that this is a work which they cannot accomplish at once. The emancipation of the Negroes must, I suppose, be left in some measure to be the effect of time and of manners. But nothing can excuse the united States if it is not done with as much speed, and at the same time with as much effect, as their particular circumstances and situation will allow. I rejoice that on this occasion I can recommend to them the example of my own country.—In Britain, a Negro becomes a freeman the moment he sets his foot on British ground.

[* ]See a remonstrance, full of energy, directed to the united States on this Subject, by a very warm and able friend to the rights of mankind, in a Tract, entitled—Fragment of an original Letter on the Slavery of the Negroes; written in the year 1776, but published in 1784, by Thomas Day, Esq.