15

Equality

CHAPTER 15|Document 47

A Freeman, Maryland Gazette

Let me, without any appearance of prejudice, to or against features, hair or colour, ask, what kind of freedom [for the manumitted slave] would it be, and what right have we to bring it about "on exportation?" We have no just right to export [or] banish any man, unless he previously violates some law, which inflicts transportation as a just punishment for his crime.--A different sentiment cannot correspond with the idea, that "all men are born equally free, and in point of human rights to liberty, stand on equal ground." But where would you export them to? They are as much Americans now as we, and we as much Europeans as they are Africans.--Nothing but a mind influenced by prejudice or partiality can countermand or contemn this idea or argument.

The Founders' Constitution
Volume 1, Chapter 15, Document 47
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch15s47.html
The University of Chicago Press