William A. Smith, DD. President of Randolph-Macon College , and Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy., Lectures on the Philosophy and Practice of Slavery as exhibited in the Institution of Domestic Slavery in the United States: withe Duties of Masters to Slaves.

[120] of civilization; because it is an inequality founded in that difference of condition, against which no government can provide, nor was it intended that it should provide. We notice,

2. That government should secure to him all those political rights to which he is entitled by making a proper use of his essential rights.

We need not specify all the political rights which may be regarded acquired rights. It is sufficient to consider this topic in regard to the question of sovereignty. We say, that all the members of a given society, having a common interest in that society, are entitled to share the sovereignty of its government on certain conditions, and on no other conditions. We take the ground that mere humanity, in itself considered, does not entitle any one to the rights of political sovereignty. If this were so, we should be bound to place females, together with minors of both sexes, and the inmates of State prisons, among the sovereigns of society. They are all perfect specimens of humanity. Of the first it may be said, they are often equal in intellect with the other sex, and in other respects are generally superior specimens of humanity. These all have an interest in society common to all other members of it, and yet it is admitted that they should not be numbered among the sovereigns of the land. What is it,