THE
SLAVERY QUESTION.

BY

JOHN LAWRENCE,
AUTHOR OF “PLAIN THOUGHTS ON SECRET SOCIETIES,” AND “BRIEF
TREATIES ON AMERICAN SLAVERY.”

THIRD EDITION.

THE DISCUSSION OF SLAVERY WILL PROCEED, WHEREVER TWO OR
THREE ARE GATHERED TOGETHER—BY THE FIRESIDE, ON THE HIGHWAY,
AT THE PUBLIC MEETING, IN THE CHURCH. THE MOVEMENT
AGAINST SLAVERY IS FROM THE EVERLASTING ARM.

CHARLES SUMNER.

DAYTON, O.,
PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE TRUSTEES OF THE CONFERENCE PRINTING
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE UNITED BRETHREN IN CHRIST.
VONNIEDA & KUMLER, AGENTS.
1854.

Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1854, by
VONNIEDA & KUMLER,
in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of Ohio.

[PREFACE.]

American slavery is a great sin—a complicated iniquity—a gigantic barbarism—and it “is evil, only evil, and that continually.” But the depth of this wickedness is not very frequently sounded, if, indeed it can be sounded. The magnitude of this crime is not often measured, if, indeed it is possible to determine its dimensions.

Slavery has narcoticized the consciences of the American people to a most alarming extent. A deep sleep has come over the moral sense, which it would seem cannot be broken by the cries and entreaties of three millions of wretched bondmen. Are we not in imminent danger of being cursed with Pharaoh’s hardness of heart? May we not be visited speedily with judicial blindness such as was inflicted upon the doomed nations and cities of antiquity?

The standard of national morality has been degraded to the level of an infamous lower law enacted by scheming political traders.

Our national government, in all its departments—Executive, Judicial and Legislative—has been transformed into a pliant tool in the hands of an unscrupulous oligarchy.

The powerful American Churches have ceased to be asylums for the oppressed, defenders of the down trodden, uncompromising foes of tyranny, and they have become, on the contrary, the apologists of oppressors, a terror to the oppressed, and the only reliable bulwark of American slavery.

The author has aimed to present in the following pages such a discussion of the general subject of slavery as would be calculated to awaken the thoughts, and feelings, especially of those who have not had an opportunity of examining this question in larger and more ably written productions. There are thousands of honest people who would take a decided position on a Christian anti-slavery platform, and throw their whole influence in the right direction if they were made acquainted with slavery as it is, and with their duties religiously and politically in relation to it. It is with the design of benefiting the common people—the people of plain sense—who are not offended at plain talk and plain facts, that the following work is published. If the workingmen of the free and slave States can be aroused into action, slavery must fly from the churches and perish from the nation.

With this purpose in view, we have sketched a history of the African slave trade, showing how slavery originated; have defined slavery—proving that its essential principle is property in a human being; and laws, facts and incidents have been adduced to illustrate the system so that even a child may see and feel its enormity.

And, as a corrupt moral sense has been still more corrupted by efforts to bring revealed religion to the support of slavery, particular pains have been taken to prove that not a single word, nor precept, nor example can be adduced from the Bible which sanctions any such system; and that the whole spirit of religion as revealed under the old economy and the new, is utterly and irreconcilably opposed to all slavery.

It has been thought proper to present a concise view of the position occupied by the American Churches upon this question. No church can complain when its ecclesiastical action on so grave a subject is re-published. And besides, it is quite necessary for honest people to know on what platforms the religious denominations of the country stand.

The true position of a religious society or church in relation to slavery is exhibited. This is a point of more than ordinary importance. The doctrine is maintained that the honor of the Bible, the purity, power, peace, and success of the Church, its duty to God, to freedom, to slaveholders and especially to slaves, demand that it have no fellowship with slaveholding.

Particular pains have been taken to point out the political duties of Christians in relation to slavery.

The inquiry, “how are we to get rid of slavery?” is taken up, and the position assumed and defended that it ought to be abolished immediately.

The book closes with a glance at the prospects. The watchman tells us that the sky from many points of observation is dark, but still that there are some very encouraging indications. The uncorrupted conscience, reason, truth, Christianity and prayer, are on the side of the oppressed; and God, who is love, is their hope, and cannot fail to come to their help and bring them forth with a mighty hand and an out-stretched arm.

Quite a number of works on slavery have been consulted in the preparation of this discussion, among which may be mentioned, “American Slave Code” by Mr. Goodell; “Barnes on Slavery;” “Bible Servitude,” by E. Smith; “Elliott on American Slavery;” “Slavery and the Church,” by Mr. Hosmer; “Debate on Slavery by Blanchard & Rice;” “Non-fellowship with Slaveholders,” by Mr. Fee; “Sermon on the Slave Trade” by Jonathan Edwards; and “Thirteenth Annual Report of the American and Foreign Anti-slavery Society.”

No “mealy words” have been used in this book. I have only aimed to present the plain truth, and shall be rewarded in whatever mite of influence it may cast on the side of liberty.

[CONTENTS.]

[CHAPTER I.]
ORIGIN OF AMERICAN SLAVERY.
THE SLAVE TRADE.

Seven millions of slaves in America—Slavery originated in the African slave trade—Slave-trade unprovoked—Excited by lust for gold—Commenced by the Portuguese in 1434—Spaniards in 1511—English in 1556—President Edwards quoted—100,000 annually destroyed—Report made to the British House of Commons—Startling statistics—A slave ship described—Slave-trade declared to be piracy and abolishedpage 13

[CHAPTER II.]
SLAVERY DEFINED.
PROPERTY IN A HUMAN BEING.

A slave is a chattel—Authorities quoted—Advertised and sold as property—Facts adduced—sale of a boy—a woman with an infant in her arms—a mother—American slave-code identical in principle with the Romanpage 30

[CHAPTER III.]
SLAVERY ILLUSTRATED.
THE CHATTEL PRINCIPLE IN PRACTICE.

Slaves denied an education—Laws—Instances—Slavery disregards matrimonial connections—Painful factspage 41

[CHAPTER IV.]
SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

Slavery disregards the parental and filial relations—Facts—Slave-mother’s lamentpage 56

[CHAPTER V.]
SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

Slavery utterly impoverishes its victims—Exposes them to unbridled lust—unrestrained passion—irresponsible tyranny—Heart-rending incidents!page 64

[CHAPTER VI.]
SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

Severity of laws against slaves—partial—unreasonable and cruel—Practice worse than the laws—Burning of slaves—Horrible examplespage 80

[CHAPTER VII.]
SLAVERY AND RELIGION.

Curse of Canaan—Doubtful authority—Did not allude to slavery—A mere prediction at best—Africans not the descendants of Canaanpage 88

[CHAPTER VIII.]
SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

Patriarchal servitude and slavery—No patriarch ever owned a slave—Slavery had no existence in the time of the patriarchs—Diodorus, Athenæus and Rollin quoted—The Hebrew word SERVANT not equivalent to the English word SLAVE—Abraham’s servants converts from idolatrypage 94

[CHAPTER IX.]
SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

Law of Moses and slavery—Levitical statutes not perfect—Allowed what it would now be wrong to practice—Dr. Stowe quoted—Servitude under the law of Moses essentially different from American slavery—Meaning of “buy,” “heathen,” “bondmen,” and “forever,”—Servants not stolen—Voluntary—Provision for religious improvement—Kind treatment—Could not be sold—Equal to their masters—Certain emancipation—Salvation of the heathen the primary design of introducing foreign servantspage 107

[CHAPTER X.]
SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

New Testament and slavery—Servants mentioned but not SLAVES—Doulos does not mean SLAVE—New Testament does not regulate slavery because it cannot be regulated—Slaveholders not addressed by the Apostles—Onesimus not a slave—Character of Roman slavery—Contrary to the fundamental principles of revealed religion—The character of God—Common origin of man—General Redemption—Moral precepts—And is necessarily unjust and unequalpage 124

[CHAPTER XI.]
AMERICAN CHURCHES AND SLAVERY.
THE POSITION THEY OCCUPY.

Presbyterians (O. S. and N. S.)—Congregational—Methodist Episcopal, North and South—Methodist Protestant—Wesleyan Methodist Connection—Baptist, Regular—Freewill—Seventh Day—Evangelical Association—United Brethren—Various Churches—Summary Viewpage 149

[CHAPTER XII.]
SLAVERY AND THE CHURCH.
NON-FELLOWSHIP WITH SLAVEHOLDERS.

Scriptural view—Church must keep slaveholders out—If they get in, it must expel them—If the Church sanction slavery officially or practically, withdraw from it—Non-slaveholding required that it may be holy—The pillar of truth—That it may honor the Scriptures—Convert the world—Be faithful to slaveholders and to slaves—Non-fellowship required by decency—humanity—If fellowshiped, we shall have slaveholding preachers, and women-sellers and cradle-plunderers for class-mates—Cases givenpage 169

[CHAPTER XIII.]
SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.
OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

Kind slaveholders—Examples—Excusable slaveholders—Slavery a political matter—Fault of the public corruption—Fault of the laws—Slaveholders from necessity—Slaves their property—All right ONLY this one thing—Take them in to convince them of the wrong—Mr. Fee’s opinionpage 184

[CHAPTER XIV.]
POLITICAL DUTIES OF CHRISTIANS.
EXTIRPATION OF SLAVERY FROM THE WORLD.

Necessity of government—Obligation of political action—Voters responsible for slavery—United States Constitution does not endorse slavery—Founders of the Republic intended that slavery should die out speedily—Character of the government changed—Great work for Christian citizens—Slavery in the District—Territories—Slave States—Throughout the worldpage 195

[CHAPTER XV.]
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY.
IMMEDIATE EMANCIPATION.

The duty plain and scriptural—Break every yoke—proclaim a year of Jubilee—Slavery cannot be reformed—Slaves prepared for freedom—Free people of color—Fugitives in Canada—West India emancipation—Colored people not dangerous when free—Amalgamation—Our fears originate in our guilt—Colonization scheme impracticable—Wrong—Watkins quoted—All objections mere excuses—We must emancipate to escape the judgments of God—Too long delayed—A good examplepage 206

[CHAPTER XVI.]
WHAT OF THE NIGHT?
THERE IS HOPE IN GOD ONLY.

The government intensely pro-slavery—Political horizon lowering—The great denominations and benevolent societies heartily supporting slavery—Ecclesiastical heavens dark—Deep prejudices in the masses of the people—Douglass quoted—God is on the side of the oppressed—He is stirring the nation—Question cannot rest—Agitation goes on—Truth is on the side of the slave—Literature coming to his aid—A pure Church arising to plead his cause—“Toil and trust.”page 219

[AMERICAN SLAVERY.]

[CHAPTER I.]
Origin of American Slavery.
THE SLAVE TRADE.

On the continent of America and adjacent Islands there are more than seven millions of slaves. Between three and four millions of these are enslaved by the most liberal, enlightened and prosperous nation on the Globe. The American Republic is a great slaveholding nation, and, viewed in its slaveholding character, might fitly be termed also, the American Despotism. The highest form of freedom is here enjoyed by about twenty millions of persons and the lowest type of slavery suffered by more than three millions. One seventh of all born under our Democratic Constitution and under our world-renowned stars and stripes, are hereditary slaves.

American slavery has flourished three hundred years, being coeval with the Reformation, and running back over one twentieth part of the whole period of time since Adam. Nine generations of slaves, under a crushing weight of despotism, have toiled and suffered on through a wretched life, and have gone murmuring down to the grave.

We shall now inquire into the origin of this immense iniquity. American slavery originated directly in the African slave trade; a trade most dishonorable to human nature, bad as that nature is admitted to be, and most disgraceful to christian civilization. Its history, although not fully written, except by heaven’s recording angel, cannot be read by a humane person, even in its fragmentary form, without the deepest sorrow. It is a history of villainy, of relentless cruelty, of raging, hollow-hearted avarice and of unmitigated diabolism on the one side; and of wrongs, wretchedness and writhing anguish on the other.

Nothing had occurred to provoke a marauding attack upon the Africans. They were a peaceable and harmless people, and had no means of exciting either the jealousy or the displeasure of Europeans. They had not violated treaties, nor declared wars. The bloody wars among the African tribes, of which we hear so much from those who would palliate the atrocities of the slave trade, were excited by the traders themselves, and so far from palliating, only add blackness to the darkness of their crimes. The old Roman soldier, who enslaved a national enemy whom he valiantly met and conquered in what is called honorable warfare, might have claimed, with the semblance of plausibility, that the life he had spared legitimately belonged to him. But the African slave trader could not plead even this unmanly and unmerciful apology. The Africans were not national enemies, and were not in arms.

No, it was not revenge, ambition, or patriotism, but CUPIDITY which prompted the slave trade—

“The lust of gold, unfeeling and remorseless!

The last corruption of degenerate man.”

Avaricious men launched and manned the slave ship, unfurled the sails and stood at the helm. In their perilous voyage over the wide ocean, amid storms and tempests, not one noble impulse swelled their bosoms; not one philanthropic purpose strengthened their courage; not one humane pulsation throbbed in their hearts. The slaver went on its long voyage under the patronage of the Prince of darkness, for the one and only purpose of making gold out of the sale of the bodies and souls of men; of distilling wealth from blood and tears and agony. Montgomery said truly—

“Cruel as death, insatiate as the grave,

False as the winds that round his vessel blow;

Remorseless as the gulf that yawns below,

Is he who toils upon the wafting flood,

A Christian broker in the trade of blood!”

But it was not avarice in the crew of the slave ship alone which incited and drove this iniquitous business. The prime movers were the owners of the estates to be worked. Had those men been unwilling to grow rich upon unrewarded toil, the slaver never would have sailed to Africa and plundered its shores. But the piratical crew and the purchasers of the victims of their nefarious traffic were in a villainous co-partnership.

When the slaver had reached its destination and had anchored off the slave coast, the following methods were employed in securing a cargo. 1st. Declarations of friendship were made and many of the unsuspecting natives were induced, out of curiosity or for trade, to go aboard the vessel, and when there were suddenly confined and permitted no more to return. 2d. Parties of the crew were sent out to surprise and carry off innocent children and youth as they went to the fields or gathered in groups to play in the groves. Think of the anguish of those African mothers and of the distress of their affrighted children! 3d. Villages were fired in the night, and as many of the defenseless inhabitants as could be captured by force of arms were carried off. 4th. The chiefs of different tribes were hired to act as the agents of the slaver in procuring slaves. Rum, of which all savages are extremely fond, was the principal incentive. Inflamed by this demon, the native chiefs made war upon each other, and sold the prisoners captured to the traders for a fresh supply of rum.

The African slave trade was commenced on a small scale a few years before the discovery of America. We learn from the Encyclopedia Americana “that, in 1434, a Portuguese captain name Alonzo Gonzales, landed in Guinea, and carried away some colored lads, whom he sold advantageously to Moorish families settled in the South of Spain. Six years after, he committed a similar robbery, and many merchants imitated the practice, and built a fort to protect the traffic.”

After a discovery of the Gold Mines of America, quite a number of negroes were imported, first by the Portuguese then by the Spaniards, to labor in those mines. In 1511 Ferdinand, King of Spain, authorized the importation of a large number. About this period it is said, and generally believed that Bartolomeo las Cas, a Catholic Priest, influenced by a feeling of pity toward the Indians, whom the Spaniards were enslaving, proposed to Ximenes the regular importation of negroes. Whether this be true or not, Charles the V. in 1517, granted the privilege to Lebresa, of importing 4000 slaves to America annually. Lebresa sold his right to import to Genoese merchants, for about $25,000. These merchants now commenced the slave trade in earnest.

Sir John Hawkins has the honor of being the first English captain who engaged in the business of stealing negroes. In 1556 he made an unsuccessful effort at negro catching near Cape Verd. He made another effort at a different point; and after burning the towns, was so bravely resisted by the inhabitants, that he lost seven men, and only captured ten. He continued his depredations until his ship was loaded with human beings, which he sold in America.[1] The trade was now vigorously prosecuted by the christian nations of Europe. It is said that Charles the V., Louis XIII. and Queen Elizabeth had some trouble with their consciences about this horrible trade, but they were quieted by the argument that it brought the African into a good situation to be converted! Pope Leo X. declared that “not only the christian religion but nature itself cried out against a State of slavery.”

These feeble expressions of disapprobation were scarcely heard and the trade went on vigorously—cupidity triumphing over conscience and silencing almost, for many years, the voice of humanity and religion.

An extract from a sermon preached on the slave trade by President Edwards, in the year 1791 will now be quoted. At the time this good man lifted his voice against this traffic, it will be remembered that it was authorized by the Constitution of the United States, and was a source of great profit to those engaged in it.

“The slave trade is wicked and abominable on account of the cruel manner in which it is carried on. Beside the stealing or kidnapping of men, women and children, in the first instance, and the instigation of others to this abominable practice, the inhuman manner in which they are transported to America, and in which they are treated on the passage and in their subsequent slavery, is such as ought forever to deter every man from acting any part in this business, who has any regard to justice or humanity. They are crowded so closely into the holds and between the decks of vessels, that they have room scarcely to lie down, and some times not room to sit up in an erect posture, the men at the same time fastened together with irons, by two and two: and all this in the most sultry climate. The consequence of the whole is, that the most dangerous and fatal diseases are soon bred among them, whereby vast numbers of those exported from Africa perish in the voyage; others in dread of that slavery which is before them, and in distress and despair from the loss of their parents, their children, their husbands, their wives, all their dear connections, and their dear native country itself, starve themselves to death, or plunge themselves into the ocean. Those who attempt in the former of those ways to escape from their persecutors, are tortured by live coals placed to their mouths. Those who attempt an escape in the latter and fail, are equally tortured by the most cruel beating. If any of them make an attempt as they sometimes do, to recover their liberty, some, and as the circumstance may be, many, are put to immediate death, others, beaten, bruised, cut and mangled in a most inhuman and shocking manner, are in this situation, exhibited to the rest, to terrify them from the like attempt in future: and some are delivered up to every species of torment, whether by the application of the whip, or of any other instrument, even of fire itself, as the ingenuity of the ship master, or of his crew is able to suggest, or their situation will admit; and these torments are purposely continued for several days before death is permitted to afford relief to these objects of vengeance.

“By these means, according to the common computation, twenty-five thousand, which is a fourth part of those who are exported from Africa, and by the concession of all, twenty thousand, annually perish, before they arrive at the places of their destination in America.”

The same writer computed that of the one hundred thousand slaves annually exported, 60,000 were captives taken in war, and that ten persons were killed in the capture of one. Sixty thousand then in the time of Jonathan Edwards were slain in battle, 40,000 destroyed on the voyage and in the seasoning, making an annual destruction of 100,000 men, woman and children, in order to procure 60,000 slaves! This computation may be relied upon, as Jonathan Edwards was a careful writer, and no enthusiast.

For three hundred years this horrible traffic had been prosecuted before Mr. Edwards delivered the sermon from which we have quoted, and at that period the annual slaughter was 100,000, and the annual enslavement 60,000! How many perished during those three hundred years God only knows. Rum had excited wars among the natives, and the whole coast, and far into the interior was turned into a battle field. No one was safe. The poor African could not lie down securely at night, for men-stealers were ransacking the country watching for their prey like hungry tigers; villages were burned, property destroyed, and the wretched inhabitants, either captured, killed, or caused to fly from their homes, and perish perhaps with famine.

In a report made to the British House of Commons, it was estimated that from 1807 to 1847, including a period of only forty years, ten millions of persons had been made the victims of this traffic! Ten millions; one-half of whom were murdered in Africa; one fourth during the “middle passage;” and the remaining fourth reduced to property and doomed, with their posterity, to a life of degradation, suffering and toil! And all this gigantic robbery and murder perpetrated in the favored nineteenth century!

Permit me to direct your attention to a single slave ship which sailed only a few years ago. This ship was examined by the officers of a British man-of-war. The following is from the pen of Mr. Walsh, an eye witness of what he relates.

“The ship had taken in, on the coast of Africa, 336 males and 226 females, making in all 562, and had been out 17 days, during which she had thrown overboard fifty five!

“The slaves were all enclosed under grated hatchways between decks. The space was so low, that they sat between each other’s legs, and they were stowed so close together, that there was no possibility of their lying down, or at all changing their position by night or day. As they belonged to, and were shipped on account of different individuals, they were all branded like sheep, with the owner’s marks of different forms. These were impressed under their breasts or on their arms, and as the mate informed me, with perfect indifference, quiemados pelo ferro quento—burnt with the red hot iron. Over the hatchway stood a ferocious looking fellow with a scourge of many twisted thongs in his hand, who was the slave driver of the ship; and whenever he heard the slightest noise below, he shook it over them, and seemed eager to exercise it. As soon as the poor creatures saw us looking down at them their dark and melancholy visages brightened up. They perceived something of sympathy and kindness in our looks which they had not been accustomed to, and feeling instinctively, that we were friends, they immediately began to shout and clap their hands. One or two had picked up a few Portuguese words, and cried out Viva! viva! The women were particularly excited. They all held up their arms; and when we bent down and shook hands with them, they could not contain their delight, they endeavored to scramble upon their knees, stretching up to kiss our hands; and we understood that they knew we had come to liberate them. Some, however, hung down their heads, in apparently hopeless dejection, some were greatly emaciated, and some, particularly children, seemed dying. But the circumstance which struck us most forcibly, was, how it was possible for such a number of human beings to exist, packed up and wedged together as tight as they could cram, in low cells, three feet high, the greater part of which, except that immediately under the hatchways, was shut out from light or air, and this when the thermometer, exposed to the open sky, was stand-in the shade, on our deck at 89°. The space between the decks was divided into two compartments, three feet, three inches high; the size of one was 16 feet by 18 feet, and of the other 40 feet by 21 feet; into the first there were crammed the women and girls, into the second the men and boys; 226 fellow beings were thus thrust into one space 288 feet square, and 336 into another 800 feet square, giving to the whole an average of 23 inches, and to each of the women, not more than thirteen. The heat of these horrid places was so great and the odor so offensive, that it was quite impossible to enter them even had there been room. They were measured as above when the slaves had left them. The officers insisted that the poor suffering creatures should be admitted on deck to get air and water. This was opposed by the mate of the slaver, who, from a feeling that they deserved it, declared they would murder them all. The officers (of the Eng. ship,) however, persisted, and the poor beings were all turned up together. It is impossible to conceive the effect of this eruption; 507 fellow creatures of all ages and sizes, some children, some adults, old men and women, all in a state of total nudity, scrambling out together to taste a little pure air and water. They came swarming up like bees from the aperture of a hive, till the whole deck was crowded to suffocation, from stem to stern; so that it was impossible to imagine where they could all have come from, or how they could all have been stowed away. On looking into the places where they had been crammed, there were found some children next the sides of the ship, in the places most remote from light and air; they were lying in nearly a torpid state, after the rest had turned out. The little creatures seemed indifferent as to life or death; and when they were carried on deck, many of them could not stand. After enjoying, for a short time, the unusual luxury of air, some water was brought; it was then that the extent of their sufferings was exposed in a fearful manner. They all rushed like maniacs toward it. No entreaties, or threats, or blows could restrain them; they shrieked, and struggled, and fought with one another, for a drop of this precious liquid, as if they grew rabid at the sight of it. When the poor creatures were ordered down again, several of them came, and pressed their heads against our knees, with looks of the greatest anguish, at the prospect of returning to the horrid place of suffering below.”[2]

But the English ship was obliged to release the slaver and abandon to despair those defenseless victims, as it was found upon examination that it had not violated a vile privilege then allowed Brazilian ships to obtain slaves south of a certain line.

It is a humiliating fact that for a period of three centuries the whole christian world was engaged in plundering a heathen shore of its inhabitants, speculating in their bodies and souls and spreading amongst them intemperance, war and all unutterable woes. The history of this wickedness will never be fully known until the general judgment. Then will the ocean have a tale to tell of the thousands who were smothered in the slave prisons which floated upon her bosom, and of the multiplied thousands who were famished and buried in her deeps. The sea will send up her witnesses, and Africa, wet with tears and blood, will bear a testimony before God in that day which will make the ears of all that hear it to tingle!

But let us glance at a more hopeful view of the subject. In 1783 a petition was addressed to the house of Parliament, Great Britain, for the abolition of this trade. Thomas Clarkson was the mover, and the great champion of the cause. In 1788 Mr. Pitt presented a petition against the trade and introduced the subject of its abolition into the house of Commons. The opposition to this measure was united, powerful and violent. At length in 1792 the house of Commons passed a bill for the abolition of the slave trade to take place in 1795. This bill was rejected in the House of Lords. About this time the National Assembly in France, declared all the slaves in the French colonies free. Mr. Wilberforce brought into the British Parliament another bill in 1796, which provided that this trade should be abolished forever after 1797—but this bill was lost also. The efforts of the friends of humanity were redoubled, and in “1806 Fox moved that the House of Commons should declare the slave trade inconsistent with justice, humanity and sound policy, and immediately take effective measures for its abolition.” This measure passed by a large majority—and Jan. 1808 was fixed as the time for its abolition. In 1824 a law was passed declaring the trade to be piracy. Portugal provided for the total abolition of this trade in 1823. France in 1815—Spain in 1820—Netherlands in 1818—Sweden in 1813—Brazil in 1830—Denmark in 1804. The United States prohibited it by Constitution in 1809—and in 1814 engaged by the treaty of Ghent to do all in her power for its entire suppression.

But, notwithstanding these praiseworthy efforts, the trade continued, and with increased barbarity, and is even yet carried on to some extent in defiance of all the navies of the world.

We have now seen that avarice was at the bottom of the slave trade; that it was an unprovoked and unparalleled outrage upon the Africans; that it was prosecuted without the slightest regard to the comfort or lives of the captured; that the whole civilized world, after an experience of centuries, became horrified at its terrible iniquity; that now the trade is declared to be PIRACY; that the slave-ship can be protected by no flag under heaven; and that all who engage in the trade may be captured and hanged up by the neck as the most execrable wretches.

Thus a traffic which received the sanction of the Pope of Rome, and was prosecuted under the immediate auspices of Christian kings and governments for three centuries, was attacked by Clarkson, Wilberforce and other agitators, and, though powerfully defended by avarice and interest; though hoary with age; though protected by statesmen, by the commercial and planting interests, that attack was vigorously followed up until reason, religion and humanity felt outraged by it, and demanded in a voice which rulers dared not refuse to hear, that it be at once and forever abolished. So much for agitation! Thank God for this progress!

[CHAPTER II.]
Slavery Defined.
PROPERTY IN A HUMAN BEING.

That we may proceed intelligently in the discussion of the subject upon which we have entered, it is important to understand precisely what American slavery is. Some learned men have confused this subject by confounding the relation of the slave with other relations from which it essentially differs. An apprentice, a miner, hired laborer, serf or a villein is not a slave. All these relations lack, as we shall see, the distinguishing feature of slavery. The slave is placed in a condition far removed from any other class of human beings in enlightened, civilized, or savage society. He stands in a legal relation below all others.

The American slave code describes the slave and slavery with remarkable precision and horrible distinctness. According to that code a slave is a CHATTEL. He is, body, soul and spirit, to all intents and purposes whatsoever, PROPERTY—the property of the master to whom he belongs; and slavery is that “peculiar institution” which, originating in piracy, systematically despoils human beings of their manhood—of all inborn rights, degrades them to the state of chattelhood, and forcibly detains them in that degradation. Property in a human creature is the essential and peculiar principle of slavery. This is the basis of the system, and all laws, regulations, usages, deprivations, wrongs, sins, sufferings and miseries which belong to the system are built upon this foundation. Numerous and cruel systems of oppression have existed but not one of them has ventured to lay sacrilegious hands upon “the image of God,” and convert it into a thing to be bought, sold, executed for debt, willed, and used as an article of merchandise. Slavery alone has done this. Some authorities will now be cited to prove the correctness of this definition.

“The cardinal principle of slavery, that the slave is not to be ranked among sentient beings but among things, obtains in all these (slave) states.” (Judge Stroud.)

“Slaves shall be claimed, held, taken, reputed, and adjudged in law, to be chattels personal in the hands of their owners and possessors, and their executors, administrators and assigns to all intents and purposes whatsoever.” (Law of South Carolina.)

“A slave is one who is in the power of the master to whom he belongs; the master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry, and his labor; he can do nothing, possess nothing nor acquire anything but what must belong to his master.” (Law of Louisiana.)

“A slave is in absolute bondage; he has no civil rights, and can hold no property, except at the will and pleasure of his master; a slave is a rational being, endowed with understanding like the rest of mankind; and whatever he lawfully acquires, and gains possession of by finding or otherwise, is the acquirement and possession of his master.” (Wheeler.)

A law of Mississippi reads thus: “When any sheriff or other officer shall serve an attachment upon slaves, horses, or other live stock,” etc. “Being property, slaves may be bought and sold by persons capable of buying and selling other property.” (Hon. J. K. Paulding.)

Henry Clay said—“I know that there is a visionary dogma which holds that negro slaves cannot be the subject of property. I shall not dwell on the speculative abstraction. That is property which the law declares to be property. Two hundred years of legislation have sanctified and sanctioned negro slaves as property.”

Any one who will take up a southern newspaper will soon discover from the manner in which slaves are advertised for sale, that the laws which reduce them to chattels are not dead statutes. An advertisement in the Richmond (Va.) Whig, is headed thus:

“Large sale of negroes, horses mules and cattle.” Among the articles to be sold are, 175 negroes, among whom are some carpenters and blacksmiths, 10 horses, 33 mules, 100 head of cattle, 100 sheep and 200 hogs. “The negroes will be sold for cash, the other property on a credit of nine months.”[3]

Whole volumes of such advertisements might be collected from the most respectable and widely circulated southern journals, and I have seen a few advertisements for the sale of men women and children, hogs, corn and cattle promiscuously, in respectable religious papers, sustained by churches whose leading avowed object is, to “spread scriptural holiness over these lands.”

And slaves are not only advertised but actually sold as property is sold. Raising slaves for the market, selling them, speculating upon them and driving them from one State to another, creates an extensive and lucrative trade. The Virginia Times estimated that in 1836 the number of slaves exported from Virginia alone was forty thousand—worth $24,000,000. The Natchez Courier estimated that in 1836 two hundred and fifty thousand slaves had been imported into Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas, from the more Northern States. The Baltimore Register said, “Dealing in slaves has become a large business; establishments are made in several places in Md. and Va. at which they are sold like cattle.” Prof. Dew said in 1831; “Virginia is in fact a negro raising State for the other states.” Judge Upshur of Va. said in the Va. Convention, 1831; “The value of slaves as an article of property, depends much on the state of the market abroad. If it should be our lot, as I trust it will be, to acquire the country of Texas, their price will rise again.” “From the single port of Baltimore,” says Mrs. Stowe “in the last two years, a thousand and thirty slaves have been shipped to the southern market.” Slaves now bring a very high price in cash. Only the other day a brick-layer in S. C. sold for $1,905; three others at the same sale brought over $1000 each.

In the prosecution of this traffic the feelings and interests, the parental, connubial and filial relations of slaves are utterly disregarded. They are sold for the benefit of the master, as a horse is sold, and bought to suit the purchaser. To all intents and purposes slaves are daily bought and sold like cattle. Alas, that my pen is compelled to write this fact.

A respectable gentleman (Dr. Elwood) was an eye witness to a sale of slaves in Petersburg, Va., in 1846. He saw some old men and women go upon the auctioneer’s stand to be sold to the highest bidder. The case of a beautiful youth affected him most deeply. “His hair,” said Mr. E. “was brown and straight, his skin exactly the hue of white persons, and no discernible trace of negro features in his countenance. Some vulgar jests were passed on his color, and 00 was bid for him; but the audience remarked that was not enough to begin on for such a likely young negro; some said a white negro was more trouble than he was worth. Before he was sold his mother rushed from the house upon the portico, crying in frantic grief, ‘My son, O! my boy, they will take away my dear’—Here her voice was lost as she was rudely pushed back and the door closed. The sale was not for a moment interrupted, and none of the crowd appeared to be affected by the scene. The poor boy trembled and wiped the tears from his cheeks with his sleeves. He was sold for about 250 dollars.”

After this boy was sold a woman was called upon the stand. She had an infant in her arms, but she dared not take it with her. “She gave it one wild embrace, before leaving it with an old woman, and hastened mechanically to obey the call; but stopped, threw up her arms, screamed and was unable to move!” Those who know a mother’s love can understand the agony which raged in her maternal bosom.

The following is from the pen of an aged preacher, now living in Canada, who escaped from slavery some years since. When the master to whom he belonged died, he, with his fellow slaves, were put up for sale. Said he—

“My brothers and sisters were bid off one by one, while my mother, holding my hand, looked on in an agony of grief, the cause of which I but ill understood at first, but which dawned on my mind with dreadful clearness as the sale proceeded. My mother was then separated from me, and put up in her turn. She was bought by a man named Isaac R——, in Montgomery county, Md., and then I was offered to the assembled purchasers. My mother half distracted with the parting forever from all her children pushed through the crowd, while the bidding for me was going on, to the spot where R. was standing. She fell at his feet and clung to his knees, entreating him in tones that a mother only could command, to buy her baby as well as herself, and spare to her one of her little ones at least.” But this man thus appealed to “disengaged himself from her with such violent kicks and blows as to reduce her to the necessity of creeping out of his reach and mingling the groan of bodily suffering with the sob of a broken heart.”

These cases are presented as examples to show the meaning and intent of the code which declares that a slave is property—and has no rights or interests; and they are not rare and extreme cases brought in here only for effect, but are such as occur daily in all the slave states; and they are perfectly in keeping with the spirit of American slavery. Those persons were sold precisely as other property is sold.

From these authorities and facts it is clear that a slave occupies a relation as far beneath the apprentice, miner, hired laborer, or even the villein of the Feudal Age, or the Russian serf, as mere property is beneath manhood with all its possessions and God-like powers—as far as a brute is below a man “made in the image of God.”

The American slave code is almost an exact copy of the old savage Roman slave code, which was conceived in the dark night of heathenism, and brought forth reeking with blood in the unholy travail of sanguinary wars, before that empire had been enlightened and conquered by the peaceful and just Gospel of Christ. That it may be seen where English and American law-makers obtained the spirit of the American slave code, the following synopsis of the Roman law on slavery is inserted.

“By the Roman civil law, slaves were esteemed merely as chattels of their masters; they had no name but what the master was pleased to give them for convenience. They were not capable of personal injuries cognizable by the law. They could take neither by purchase nor descent, could have no heirs, could make no will. The fruits of their labor and industry belonged to their masters. They could not plead nor be impleaded, and were utterly excluded from all civil concerns. They were incapable of marriage, not being entitled to the considerations thereof. The laws of adultery did not (among themselves) effect them. They might be sold, transferred, mortgaged, pawned. Partus sequitur ventrem was the rule indiscriminately applied to slaves and cattle.” (Harris and McHenry.)[4]

At a glance it will be seen that the Roman and American slave codes are identical in spirit—that the distinguishing principle of both is property in man. Our christian legislators therefore must acknowledge themselves indebted to Pagan Rome for the type of slavery which they have instituted and maintained in Christian America. All the main features of cruelty, injustice and savageness, inherent in that ancient system of oppression, have been faithfully copied, and not in the slightest degree modified or softened.

Let us recapitulate. A slave is property. His bones and sinews, genius, skill, virtue, mind, soul; all he is, all he may be, all he acquires in this life, belongs to his master and is put down in his ledger as worth so many dollars. He is without choice as to what he will do, what amount of labor he will perform, or for whom he shall toil. He can own nothing, inherit nothing, will nothing. He cannot make a contract for himself, nor claim the protection of the laws as a man. He is wholly in the power of his master and totally defenseless against his lusts, avarice, or brutality. I defy human ingenuity, nay, if I may be so bold, I challenge Lucifer himself to invent a system of oppression which leaves a man more completely destitute, defenseless and degraded.

[CHAPTER III.]
Slavery Illustrated.
THE CHATTEL PRINCIPLE IN PRACTICE.

We will now enter more definitely into an examination of that terrible institution which practically justifies the African slave-trade by holding on to its victims and substituting in its stead an inter-state slave-trade in moral turpitude fully equaling it; which, in a land of free institutions, holds in galling chains more than three millions of our dear fellow creatures; annually robs a hundred thousand American mothers of their babes; and despoils one hundred thousand children every year of that precious freedom which is their birthright and reduces them to a level with unreasoning beasts. Our task will be painful, but let us proceed.

1. Slaves are denied an education. I think it is universally admitted that education and slavery are utterly incompatible, and that total ignorance of letters and general imbecility of intellect are essential to its successful continuance, and indeed, its very existence in any country. Hence in the United States, where millions of dollars are annually expended for schools and colleges, and where it is almost universally believed that a sound education is conducive to good morals, the spread of civilization, the preservation of liberty and the progress of Christianity, even here nothing is done for the education of slaves. While millions of free children are annually gathered into schools and diligently instructed, the children of slaves, although equally capable, are permitted to grow up without the least attention to their mental culture. But this, though bad enough, is not the worst. If slaves were at liberty to follow out their own inclinations, they might many of them, even without encouragement or help, acquire a respectable education. But the laws punish the slave with great severity who, with any motive or under any circumstances, may attempt to learn to read or write, and also any person who may teach him.

Some of the laws and opinions relating to the education of slaves, (free negroes generally included) will now be cited. “Virginia Revised Code of 1819. That all meetings or assemblages of slaves or free negroes, or free negroes and mulattoes mixing and associating with such slaves at any meeting house or houses &c., in the night; or at any school or schools for teaching them reading or writing either in the day or night, under whatsoever pretext, shall be deemed and considered an UNLAWFUL ASSEMBLY; and any justice of a county wherein such assemblage shall be, shall issue his warrant, directed to any sworn officer or officers, authorizing him or them to enter the house or houses where such unlawful assemblages may be, for the purpose of apprehending or dispersing such slaves, and to inflict corporal punishment on the offender or offenders, at the discretion of any justice of the peace not exceeding twenty lashes.” (Goodell’s American Slave Code.)

No person in Virginia is allowed to open a school for the instruction of colored persons or to teach them to read and write under a penalty of $100 and six months imprisonment. It may be thought that these laws are not now enforced and stand as a dead letter upon the statute book. But the following cool item of news published in the Richmond Examiner under date of May 12th, 1853, will satisfy any one that they are enforced.

“Breaking up a Negro School.—The officers at Norfolk made a descent on Tuesday upon a negro school, kept in the neighborhood of the Stone Bridge, by a Mrs. Douglass and her daughter, and the teachers, together with their sable pupils, were taken before his Honor. They acknowledged their guilt, but pleaded ignorance of the law, and were discharged, on a promise to do so no more; a very convenient way of getting out of the scrape. The law of this State imposes a fine of one hundred dollars, and imprisonment for six months, for such offenses; is positive, and allows no discretion in the committing magistrate.”

If a free negro in North Carolina attempt to teach a slave to read, or if he give to a slave a religious tract, a spelling book or the bible, he may be imprisoned or take thirty-nine lashes! If a white person attempt to teach a slave the laws subject him to a fine of $200 for each offense.

“In Georgia, if a white teach a free negro or a slave to write he is fined $500, and imprisoned at the discretion of the Court; if the offender be a colored man, bond or free, he may be fined or whipped at the discretion of the Court. This law was enacted in 1829.” (Jay’s Inquiry.)

“In Louisiana the penalty for teaching slaves to read and write is one year’s imprisonment.”

“In North Carolina, the patrols were ordered to search every negro house for books or prints of every kind. Bibles and hymn books were particularly mentioned.” (Goodell.)

“We have,” said Mr. Berry in the Va. House of Delegates, “as far as possible closed every avenue by which light may enter their minds. If we could extinguish the capacity to see the light, our work would be completed; they would then be on a level with the beasts of the field and we would be safe! I am not certain that we would not do it, if we could find out the process, and that on the plea of necessity.”

When Frederick Douglass was a slave and belonged to Mr. Auld, his mistress, who had been lately married, manifested toward him true womanly kindness and commenced to teach him the art of reading. “But when my master heard of it,” says Douglass in his Narrative, “he at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further, telling her among other things, that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe to teach a slave to read. To use his own words further he said, ‘If you give a nigger an inch he will take an ell. A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master—to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best negro in the world. Now, said he, if you teach that nigger (speaking of myself,) how to read there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself it would do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy.’”

Is not that a terrible institution which can only be sustained by enchaining the immortal mind and withholding entirely the advantages of education? Think of it. A slave’s soul, as is often the case, is possessed with an unquenchable passion for improvement. He has a mind in constant unrest—active, elastic, aspiring. A benevolent friend engages to instruct him at night in the rudiments of learning, but while engaged in this good work the law seizes them, and hurries the slave to the whipping-post and the friend to prison. Twenty, thirty or forty lashes on the bare back are rather poor encouragement to the student, and a heavy fine and long imprisonment with felons hard pay for a teacher. But slavery makes it a crime to learn to read even the bible, and a penitentiary offense to teach a slave the alphabet!

The object of this is plainly declared by Mr. Berry of Va., viz: to close every avenue of light from the slave’s mind—to debase him as low as possible—and thus put resistance out of his power—that he may become a docile and profitable chattel.

These laws are a bold defiance of the Almighty who constructed the marvelous powers of the human mind for improvement and activity and who revealed in written language his word for the comfort and guidance of all his creatures. They interpose a barrier between the slave and his Maker and thus hinder his salvation. Even convicts in prison are taught to read the scriptures, and in this respect slavery is more severe with its victims than justice is with the worst criminals.

2. Slavery does not recognize the matrimonial connections of slaves. As slaves are to be put as nearly as possible upon a level with “other property” the slave code with singular meanness, but perfect consistency, refuses to the slave a lawful marriage, subjects him to conditions which are inconsistent with that sacred relation, and exposes slave wives to the unbridled lust of masters and overseers!

“With the consent of their masters slaves may marry * * * but whilst in a state of slavery it cannot produce any civil effect, because slaves are deprived of all civil rights.” (Judge Mathews.)

“A slave cannot even contract matrimony, the association which takes place among slaves and is called marriage, being properly designated by the word contubernium, a relation which has no sanctity, and to which no civil rights are attached.” (Judge Stroud.)

“A slave has never maintained an action against the violator of his bed.” (Daniel Dulany, Att’y Gen. Md.)

“Slaves were not entitled to the conditions of matrimony, and therefore they had no relief in cases of adultery.” (Dr. Taylor.)

“Marriage is a civil ordinance they cannot enjoy. Our laws do not recognize this relation as existing among them, and of course, do not enforce by any sanction, the observance of its duties. Indeed, until slavery waxeth old and tendeth to decay, there cannot be any legal recognition of the marriage rite, or the enforcement of its consequent duties. For all the regulations on this subject would limit the master’s absolute right of property in the slaves. In his disposal of them he could no longer be at liberty to consult merely his own interests. He could no longer separate the wife and the husband to suit the convenience or interest of the purchaser.” (Address of the Synod of Ky.)

The laws intend to make slaves absolute property, and hence no relation is legalized which would detract from the value of that property. The interest of the owner alone is consulted. These laws, horrible as they appear, are entirely consistent with chattel slavery. And the general practice upon these laws comes up fully to their spirit. Whenever the convenience, interest or passion of a master requires it, slaves are sold and scattered abroad without the slightest regard to those dear and sacred connections, which they regard, and which God, no doubt, regards as marriage. In newspaper advertisements for runaway slaves it is frequently stated that the fugitive property was bought at a certain place “where he has a wife,” and the probability is that he is “lurking about that place.” An advertisement in a New Orleans paper, after describing the slave Charles, as “six feet high,” “copper color,” rather “pleasing appearance,” adds, in order that the pursuers may have some clue to his whereabouts, “it is more than probable that he will make his way to Tennessee, as he has a wife now living there.”

Another advertises the runaway “Ned,” of “copper color, full forehead.” “Ned,” continues the notice, “was purchased in Richmond of Mr. Goodin, and has a wife in that vicinity.”

Another describes a runaway woman, and suggests that she may be lurking about “in the country where her husband is owned.”

These are very natural suggestions. A husband, though a slave, and bound to his wife by no legal tie, is not unfrequently to the slave wife all that husband means, and if that wife escape from her unfeeling oppressors, who have carried her away to a distant State, it is quite natural that she should bend her steps toward the partner of her bosom, and subject herself to incredible hardships and dangers that she might see his face once more, and unburden to him her sorrow-ladened heart.

And that wife, though a slave, unprotected by the laws, driven by the shameful lash, insulted, disgraced and neglected, is a wife still. And when “Ned,” as he is called, runs away, it is quite natural that he should, impelled by a husband’s love, seek out the hut where years before he had been suddenly separated from her. These advertisements for husbands who are supposed to be “lurking about” in search of their wives, and of wives hunting for their husbands, tell a sad tale. What husband or wife can read them without deep sorrow?

The following statement from the pen of an eye witness will illustrate scenes which are being enacted continually in the prosecution of the inter-state slave trade.

“As I went on board the steamboat I noticed eight colored men, handcuffed and chained together in pairs, four women and eight or ten children of the apparent ages of from four to ten years, all standing together in the bow of the boat, in charge of a man standing near them. * * * Coming near them, I perceived they were all greatly agitated; and, on inquiry I found they were all slaves, who had been born and raised in North Carolina and had just been sold to a speculator, who was now taking them to the Charleston market. Upon the shore there was a number of colored persons, women and children, awaiting the departure of the boat; and my attention was particularly attracted by two colored females of uncommonly respectable appearance, neatly attired, who stood together, a little distance from the crowd, and upon whose countenance was depicted the keenest sorrow. As the last bell was tolling, I saw the tears gushing from their eyes, and they raised their neat cotton aprons and wiped their faces under the cutting anguish of severed affection. They were the wives of two of the men in chains. There, too, were mothers and sisters, weeping at the departure of their sons and brothers; and there, too, were fathers, taking the last look of their wives and children. My whole attention was directed to those on shore, as they seemed to stand in solemn and submissive silence, occasionally giving utterance to the intensity of their feelings by a sigh or a stifled groan. As the boat was loosed from her moorings, they cast a distressed, lingering look to those on board, and turned away in silence. My eye now turned to those in the boat; and although I had tried to control my feelings amidst my sympathies for those on shore, I could conceal them no longer, and I found myself literally ‘weeping with those that wept.’ I stood near them, and when one of the husbands saw his wife upon the shore wave her hand for the last time, in token of her affection, his manly efforts to restrain his feelings gave way, and fixing his watery eyes upon her, he exclaimed, ‘This is the most distressing thing of all! My dear wife and children, farewell!’ The husband of the other wife stood weeping in silence, and with his manacled hands raised to his face, as he looked upon her for the last time. Of the poor women on board; three of them had husbands whom they left behind. One of them had three children, another had two, and the third had none. These husbands and fathers were among the throng upon the shore, witnessing the departure of their wives and children, and as they took their leave of them, they were sitting together upon the floor of the boat sobbing in silence, but giving utterance to no complaint. But the distressing scene was not yet ended. Sailing down the Cape Fear river twenty-five miles, we touched at the little village of Smithport, on the south side of the river. It was at this place that one of these slaves lived, and here was his wife and five children; and while at work on Monday last, his purchaser took him away from his family, carried him in chains to Wilmington, where he had since remained in jail. As we approached the wharf, a flood of tears gushed from his eyes, and anguish seemed to have pierced his heart. The boat stopped but a moment, and as she left, he bid farewell to some of his acquaintances whom he saw upon the shore, exclaiming, ‘Boys, I wish you well; tell Molly (meaning his wife) and the children I wish them well, and hope God will bless them.’ At that moment he espied his wife on the stoop of a house some rods from the shore, and with one hand which was not in the handcuffs, he pulled off his old hat, and waving it toward her, exclaimed, ‘Farewell!’ As he saw by the waving of her apron that she recognized him, he leaned back upon the railing, and with a faltering voice repeated, ‘Farewell, forever.’ After a moment’s silence, conflicting passions seemed to tear open his heart, and he exclaimed, ‘What have I done that I should suffer this doom? Oh, my wife and children, I want to live no longer!’ and then the big tear rolled down his cheek, which he wiped away with the palm of his unchained hand, looked once more upon the mother of his five children, and the turning of the boat hid her face from him forever.”

ANOTHER EXAMPLE.

“I shall never forget the scene which took place in the city of St. Louis while I was yet in slavery. A man and his wife, both slaves, were brought from the country to the city for sale. They were taken to the rooms of Austin & Savage, auctioneers. Several slave speculators, who are always to be found at auctions where slaves are to be sold, were present. The man was first put up and sold to the highest bidder. The wife was next ordered to ascend the platform. I was present. She slowly obeyed the order. The auctioneer commenced, and soon several hundred dollars were bid. My eyes were intensely fixed on the face of the woman, whose cheeks were wet with tears. But a conversation between the slave and his new master soon arrested my attention. I drew near them to listen. The slave was begging his new master to purchase his wife. Said he, ‘Master, if you will only buy Fanny I know you will get the worth of your money. She is a good cook, a good washer, and her mistress liked her very much. If you will only buy her how happy I will be!’ The new master replied that he did not want her, but, if she sold cheap, he would purchase her. I watched the countenance of the man while the different persons were bidding on his wife. When his new master bid you could see the smile on his countenance, and the tears stop, but as another would, you could see the countenance change, and the tears start afresh. * * But this suspense did not last long. The wife was struck off to the highest bidder, who proved to be not the owner of her husband. As soon as they became aware that they were to be separated, they both burst into tears; and as she descended from the auction stand, the husband walking up to her and taking her by the hand, said, ‘Well, Fanny we are to part forever on earth. You have been a good wife to me. I did all I could to get my new master to buy you but he did not want you. I hope you will try to meet me in heaven. I shall try to meet you there.’ The wife made no reply but her sobs and cries told too well her own feelings.” (Narrative of William Brown.)

[CHAPTER IV.]
Slavery Illustrated—Continued.
THE CHATTEL PRINCIPLE IN PRACTICE.

3. Slavery disregards the parental and filial relations. The family is a type of heaven. It is the foundation of the social system—of social order, refinement and happiness. Destroy this relation and the most enlightened people will speedily relapse into barbarism. It is a God-instituted relation, and around it Jesus Christ has thrown the solemn sanction of his authority. Nature implants in the hearts of parents an affection for their offspring which is sweeter than life and stronger than death; and this affection, when associated with intelligence and religion, eminently fits them to care for helpless infancy, to guide the feet of inexperienced youth, and to lead the opening heart and expanding mind to virtue and to God. Without the soothing, ennobling and virtue-inspiring influences which emanate from the domestic hearth, this world, I fear, would become a pandemonium.

But slavery, true to its leading principle, utterly disregards and ruthlessly tramples upon the parental and filial relations. As soon as a child is born of a slave-mother it is put down on the table of stock and is henceforth subject to the conditions of property. The father cannot say—“This is my son. I will train him up in the fear of God, bestow upon him a liberal education and by help divine make a true man of him, that he may be my staff in old age.” No, the slaveholder has a usurped claim upon the boy, which, in the code of the “lower law,” annihilates entirely the father’s claim. The mother is not permitted to press the new born babe to her throbbing bosom and rejoice over it, saying—“This is my daughter—I will by the assistance of grace give her tender mind a pious inclination, encourage her to walk in the path of virtue and religion, to seek the ‘good part,’ chosen by Mary of old, that she may become an ornament of her sex.” No, that female child is a valuable part of the planter’s stock, and the mother is encouraged to nurse it well that it may bring a high price in the market! Parents have no more to say as to the disposition of their children than animals have as to what shall be done with their young. There is not a law in any State, if we may except Louisiana, which imposes the slightest restraint upon masters who may be disposed to sell the children of slaves. In Louisiana an old law prohibits the separation of slave children from their mothers before they are ten years of age. But this law, were it not a dead letter as we are assured it is, would afford but a trifling mitigation of the wrong. At any time the master may gather up all the saleable children on his plantation, submit them to the inspection of a trader, strike a bargain for the lot, and then start them off like a drove of young cattle, without saying one word about it to the fathers or mothers of those children. And it often occurs that when the slave mother returns from the field, weary with the toils of the day, she finds her hut desolate. Where are my children? she asks. She calls—no answer—and is presently informed by a fellow-slave that they are sold and gone! Yes—a christian (?) master has taken advantage of her absence and sent them off without giving her a parting word with them! They shall never more return! And yet this distressed mother has no redress.

Maternal love flows in a slave-mother’s bosom with all its wonted depth and intensity, and the total disregard of this affection is the occasion of the deepest sorrows recorded in the annals of slavery.

“In slaveholding States, except in Louisiana no law exists to prevent the violent separation of parents from their children.” (Stroud.) A slave has no more legal authority over his child than a cow has over her calf. (Jay.) John Davis, a dealer in slaves at Hamburg, S. C., advertises that he has on hands, direct from Va., “one hundred and twenty likely young negroes of both sexes; among them small girls, suitable for nurses, and several small boys without their mothers.”

Frederick Douglass relates that “when he was three years old his mother was sent to work on a plantation eight or ten miles distant, and after that he never saw her except in the night. After her days toil she would occasionally walk over to her child, lie down with him in her arms, hush him to sleep in her bosom, then rise up and walk back again to be ready for her field work by daylight.”—Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

The following incident occurred within the present year (1853.) We copy from the Cleveland True Democrat.

“It will be remembered by some of our citizens that about two or three months since, a colored man visited our city for the purpose of obtaining money enough to buy his child that was held as a slave in Kentucky. Through the generosity of J. H. Smith and his congregation, with some added by private individuals, the amount was raised, and the happy negro went on his way rejoicing. Now comes the saddest part of the tale. When the poor colored man arrived at his home, he immediately handed the money, to obtain which had cost him so much labor, over to a friend, who started immediately to Kentucky. Arriving there, the money was laid before the master by the gentleman, when to the utter astonishment of the latter, the slaveholder burst into a fiendish laugh, and said ‘he’d be —— if he would sell the boy at any price.’ He refused all terms, laughed at all exhortations, and finally ordered the gentleman who wished to purchase the boy out of the house. He left sorrowfully, knowing how his bad success would affect the father, who was in a delirium of joy at the idea of seeing his long lost son. Imagine the feeling of that man when it was communicated to him that his boy was lost forever. Our informant tells us that he said not a word, nor wept; but any one familiar with a human heart, could tell what agony that poor black man was in. He seems to have grown ten years older, and it is feared, unless some change takes place, that he will soon die. His life seems worse than death, and he loudly prays for the latter to come.”

The holder of that boy only did what the laws allowed him to do, and his conduct was in perfect consistency with chattel slavery. Men can do as they like about selling the property which the law allows them.

Scenes of the most provoking and heart-rending character, scenes in which humanity is outraged, scenes which would bring the blood to the cheek of a savage, even to behold, are enacted in all the Southern States from day to day, with seeming unconcern! The most bitter cries pierce the skies and go up to heaven apparently unheard by man. “Here is a man, a slave-trader, driving before him two boys with a hickory stick, and carrying a child under his arm. At a little distance is the mother with chains on her wrists, stretching out her hand toward the babe; but is prevented, because a strong man holds her while she endeavors to follow her shrieking babe and her sobbing boys. The owner who sold the two boys, stands calmly, unmoved, smoking a cigar, while the overseer holds the mother, and the trader whips off the boys and carries with him the screaming child.” This is precisely the way that other live stock is sold, and those dealers are only doing what the law allows. No one is surprised at them. They may be respectable citizens and good church members!

Christian reader, pass not over these facts with a light heart. I beseech you to think upon them as a man and a christian ought. You love home, you esteem family relations the dearest and most sacred upon earth, and you would resist with all your power a tyranny which would invade your own family circle and carry away your children for the exclusive benefit of others. For humanity’s sake let your sympathies go out in behalf of the millions of your fellow creatures who are deprived of all the blessings of family and home. Have you not a heart to bleed for those mothers whose children, in tender youth, are ruthlessly torn away from them for no higher object than the pecuniary advantage of their masters? J. G. Whittier, the “slave’s poet,” represents in mournful strains the Virginia slave mother’s lament for her daughters, sold and gone to the far South.

Gone, gone—sold and gone,

To the rice-swamp dank and lone.

Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings,

Where the noisesome insect stings,

Where the fever demon strews

Poison with the falling dews,

Where the sickly sunbeams glare

Through the hot and misty air,—

Gone, gone,—sold and gone,

To the rice-swamp dank and lone,

From Virginia’s hills and waters,—

Woe is me, my stolen daughters!

Gone, gone,—sold and gone,

To the rice-swamp dank and lone.

There no mother’s eye is near them,

There no mother’s ear can hear them;

Never, when the torturing lash

Seams their back with many a gash,

Shall a mother’s kindness bless them,

Or a mother’s arms caress them.

Gone, gone, &c.

Gone, gone,—sold and gone,

To the rice-swamp dank and lone.

O, when weary, sad, and slow,

From the fields at night they go,

Faint with toil, and racked with pain,

To their cheerless homes again,—

There no brother’s voice shall greet them,

There no father’s welcome meet them.

Gone, gone, &c.

Gone, gone,—sold and gone,

To the rice-swamp dank and lone.

From the tree whose shadow lay

On their childhood’s place of play;

From the cool spring where they drank;

Rock and hill, and rivulet bank;

From the solemn house of prayer,

And the holy counsels there,—

Gone, gone, &c.

Gone, gone, sold and gone,

To the rice-swamp dank and lone;

Toiling through the weary day,

And at night the spoiler’s prey.

O, that they had earlier died,

Sleeping calmly, side by side,

Where the tyrant’s power is o’er,

And the fetter galls no more!

Gone, gone, &c.

Gone, gone,—sold and gone,

To the rice-swamp dank and lone.

By the holy love He beareth,

By the bruised reed He spareth,

O, may He to whom alone

All their cruel wrongs are known

Still their hope and refuge prove,

With a more than mother’s love!

Gone, gone, &c.

[CHAPTER V.]
Slavery Illustrated—Continued.
THE CHATTEL PRINCIPLE IN PRACTICE.

4. Slavery utterly impoverishes its victims. The earth is an inheritance bestowed upon man by the common Father of all; hence every human being has an indefeasible right to live upon it and to acquire a possession in it. This right is not simply conventional, but it belongs to man as man.

Now slavery is directly opposed to this law of nature. It strips a slave of everything, and of the power to acquire anything. No one is so poor as a slave. He cannot own a coat, or a pair of shoes, a house, or a foot of land. No industry, economy, skill or patriotism can release him from this state of destitution, because it is a logical result of the relation in which he is placed by the slave code. Being himself a chattel, whatever he acquires or in any way gains possession of, is, as a matter of course, the acquirement and possession of his master. Hence, while living in a land of universal plenty, and toiling incessantly upon the fruitful earth, created and adorned for the use of every man, no alms-house pauper is so wretchedly impoverished as the American slave.

“Slaves have no legal rights in things, real or personal; but whatever they may acquire, belongs in point of law to their masters.” (Stroud.) “Slaves are incapable of inheriting or transmitting property.” (Civil Code.)

Here is a case which will illustrate the point in hand. A slave by the name of Frederick enlisted and fought bravely through the American Revolution. In 1821 his name was found on the muster roll, and a warrant was issued granting him the soldier’s bounty of a thousand acres of land. Now whose land was that? Reason and justice would answer, it belonged to the black veteran and his heirs forever. But the heirs of Frederick’s old master understood something about slave law, and brought the case into court that it might be legally determined who owned the bounty land. After much learned argument, Judge Catron delivered the following decision:—“Frederick, the slave of Col. Patton, earned this warrant by his services in the continental line. What is earned by the slave belongs to the master, by the common law, the civil law, and the recognized rules of property in the slaveholding States of this Union.”

This was an extreme case, and as Pres. Blanchard observes, “if Shylock’s bond of human flesh might have been relaxed, if ever the laws of slavery might have been mitigated in practice, it ought to have been in the case of this veteran soldier.” But the “pound of flesh” was exacted. The law reducing slaves to utter pauperism is inexorable. Poor Frederick had no more claim to that land than Col. Patton’s horse had.

5. Slavery authorizes the violation of the most solemn contracts. Strictly speaking, a slave cannot become a party to a legal contract. His inability to do so arises out of his relation to society, and the evil genius which presides at all times over legislation for slaves is very careful to permit nothing to be enacted, unless from absolute necessity, that can be construed into an acknowledgment that the slave is a man and has rights which he is authorized to maintain. Hence a contract with a slave may be violated with impunity. He may suffer the most flagrant wrongs, but is barred from courts of justice and can obtain no relief.

On this point the following authorities are quoted.

“Chancery cannot enforce a contract between a master and his slave though the slave perform his part.” (Wheeler.) “One principle prevails in all the States * * and that is that a slave cannot make a contract, not even the contract of marriage.” (ib.)

“In the case of Sawney vs. Carter the court refused to enforce a promise by a master to emancipate his slave where the conditions of the promise had been partly complied with. The court proceeded upon the principle that it was not competent to a court in Chancery to enforce a contract between a master and slave, even though the contract should be fully complied with on the part of the slave.” (Goodell.)

In numerous instances masters and other white persons have taken advantage of this unjust and malicious feature of slave law. It is no uncommon occurrence for a slave to contract with his master for freedom. He agrees to raise, by extra labor, a specified sum of money which is to be the price of his liberty. Animated with the hope of obtaining that precious right for which he has long sighed, he endures incredible hardships, toils night after night, and, at the end of many weary years, lays before his master a part or the whole of the price agreed upon. Now when this is done, the master may, in perfect accordance with American slave law, pocket the hard-earned money and sell the slave to the next trader, or keep him until death in his own service. If the slave repine at this treatment, he may be whipped into submission. If he run away, he may be pursued with revolvers and blood-hounds, and we are all required by the Fugitive Slave Law to help catch him and carry him back to his faithless master. A case occurred within the present year in Ky., which illustrates this odious feature of slave law. Here is a brief statement of the facts.

“Sam Norris, a colored man, has been living in Covington about five years, has married a free colored woman and has had by her several children. He belongs to a Mr. J. N. Patton, of Virginia, who permitted him to come to Covington, and engage in whatever services he saw proper, on condition that Sam would pay him out of his earnings, a stipulated sum per annum, we believe, about $100. The surplus, whatever it might be, was to belong to the slave. Sam was punctual for several years. He was sober and industrious, and in his humble way, very prosperous. About two years ago Mr. Patton came west on a visit and agreed with Sam that if he would pay him the sum of $400 he would give him his freedom. Sam gratefully accepted the proposal, and at once paid down out of his hard earnings $135 and has since given his master some $40 or $50 more.

“Patton now comes forward to rescind the contract and claim his slave. The case was yesterday decided by the Hon. Judge Pryor, in favor of Patton. In delivering his decision, his Honor stated the following facts:

“1st. That the laws of Kentucky recognize but two modes of liberating slaves, by will and by deeds of emancipation.

“2d. That a slave cannot make a contract.

“3d. That the contract was executory, and at the time fixed for the negro’s freedom, future and contingent.

“4th. That so long as Sam was a slave, the master was entitled to his services, and the money he (Patton) had received was in law his own.

“The opinion was able and elaborate, and the authorities numerous and decided. His Honor characterized the case as one of great “hardship and cruelty,” and every one in the court room seemed to sympathize deeply with the poor negro.”

A lady at St. Louis, Mo., related to Mrs. F. D. Gage the following circumstance, which transpired in that city a short time ago.

“I had, said the lady, an old colored woman washing for me a few years ago, for four or five years—one of the most faithful, truthful, and pious women, I ever knew—black or white. She was once a slave, belonging to Davenport. But he was a kinder man than other men, and gave her the privilege of buying her freedom for one thousand dollars! This sum the old and faithful creature earned and paid herself. Only think of it!—one thousand dollars for the privilege of buying what our wise statesmen call the “inalienable right of men,” bestowed by the Creator. When free she stipulated for the freedom of her son, and this, with years of toil, she earned; and when he came to manhood he too was free.

“Think of this, fair mothers of our land! Ye who hug to your heart the children of your love, and feel a mother’s love and this for them. You work to clothe, to school and make comfortable those dependent upon your care; but which of you can measure the toil that this poor, stricken mother had to bear, ere she filed away the galling chains from the limbs of her child!

“Well, when the mother and son were free, they pledged themselves to the owner of another plantation, to pay another thousand for the wife and child of the ransomed son. The master allowed the woman to come to the city, and live with her husband, and work on her own hook—paying him so much per month. Three hundred dollars has been paid. Some time in April, this oppressed class had a public tea-party and fair, to gather funds to furnish their church, a neat edifice on —— St. The mother, son, and wife were there, returned home, or started home, about midnight—the horses ran away, and George, attempting to get off the carriage to assist the driver, fell, and his head was dashed to pieces against the corner of a curb-stone.

“He died instantly, and the morning papers announced the fact, and spoke of him as “highly worthy and respectable, and a member of ---- Church.” But no sooner had the owner of Susan, the wife, heard of George’s death, than he hurried to the city post-haste, and took the afflicted wife from their house, drove her to the Slave auction, and sold her to southern traders.

“Thus were the three hundred dollars lost to those who earned it, the old, toiling mother left childless; and the young wife, but yesterday rejoicing in the strength and hope of freedom and love, suddenly turned into a chattel, and sold “away down South,” to be a beast of burden—perhaps for a Legree.”

“When did it happen inquired Mrs. Gage?”

“Why, here, lately. I met the old mother as I came from the “Fourth” Pic nic. She was dressed in deep mourning. I had not seen her for a long time, for they had got them a home, and she did not wash any more. I asked her what had happened, and she told me all. O! Mrs. G., how it made me feel! I celebrating our liberty, she, a woman—a wife—a mother mourning over enslaved and doubly-wronged children.

““I know there is a God, Mrs. Lilly,” the poor bowed creature said to me, “I know there is a good God, and a Jesus, or I should give up in despair, and sometimes I do; I look up and down and all round, and there is no light!””

Slavery leaves its victims a prey to unchecked avarice. What protection has a slave against the avarice of his master? Let us see. A law of South Carolina provides that slaves shall “not labor to exceed fifteen hours” out of twenty four. This is called protection!

“The slave is driven to the field in the morning about four o’clock. The general calculation is to get them to work by day-light. The time for breakfast is between nine and ten o’clock. This meal is sometimes eaten ‘bite and work,’ others allow fifteen minutes, and this is the only rest the slave has while in the field.” (G. W. Westgate.)

“In North Carolina, the legal standard of food for a slave must not be less than a quart of corn per day. In Louisiana the legal standard is one barrel of Indian corn—or the equivalent thereof in rice, beans or other grain, and a pint of salt, every month.” “The quantity allowed by custom,” said T. S. Clay of Georgia, “is a peck of corn per week.”

When they return to their miserable huts at night, they find not there the means of comfortable rest, but on the cold ground they must lie, without covering, and shiver while they slumber.

“The clothing of slaves by day, and their covering by night, are inadequate either for comfort or decency, in any or most of the slaveholding States.” (Elliott.)

It is notorious that slaves, on large plantations especially, are miserably fed, clothed and lodged, and during busy seasons of the year, most unmercifully worked.

6. Slavery abandons its victims to unbridled lust. Against a master’s lusts a slave has no protection. It is an established principle of the slave code that the testimony of a slave against a white person cannot be received in a court of justice. A slave woman who may be abused cannot resort to the law. To whom can she appeal? To God only. The master may torture her in any way, so that he take not her life, in order to force a compliance with his base designs!

“A very beautiful girl belonging to the estate of John French, a deceased gambler of New Orleans, was sold a few days since, for the round sum of seven thousand dollars! An ugly old bachelor, named Gouch, was the purchaser. The Picayune says that she was remarkable for her beauty and intelligence; and that there was considerable strife as to who should be the purchaser.” (Elliott.)

Any one can understand why that beautiful, intelligent slave girl brought SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS! She was bought for a sacrifice to lust! And the law gave her no protection. It required her to submit unresistingly to the will of her owner and that owner was a base libertine!

7. Slavery exposes its victims to the fury of unrestrained passion. A master in a violent passion may fall upon his slave, and beat him unmercifully without the slightest provocation and the slave has no redress.

“The master is not liable for an assault and battery committed upon the person of his slave.” (Wheeler.)

A Methodist minister, Rev. J. Boucher, relates the following incident:

“While on the Alabama circuit I spent the Sabbath with an old circuit preacher, who was also a doctor, living near ‘the horse shoe,’ celebrated as Gen. Jackson’s battle ground. On Monday morning early, he was reading Pope’s Messiah to me, when his wife called him out. I glanced my eye out of the window, and saw a slave man standing by, and they consulting over him. Presently the doctor took a rawhide from under his coat, and began to cut up the half-naked back of the slave. I saw six or seven inches of the skin turn up perfectly white at every stroke, till the whole back was red with gore. The lacerated man cried out some at first; but at every blow the doctor cried, ‘won’t ye hush? won’t ye hush?’ till the slave finally stood still and groaned. As soon as he had done, the doctor came in panting, almost out of breath, and, addressing me, said, ‘Won’t you go to prayer with us, sir?’ I fell on my knees and prayed, but what I said I knew not. When I came out the poor creature had crept up and knelt by the door during prayer; and his back was a gore of blood quite to his heels.”

Now this slave could not appeal to the law for redress or protection; and the same cruel beating might have been repeated every week until death had come to his relief, and the poor wretch must only bear it—that is all. He was wholly at the mercy of the passions of his master.

8. Slavery subjects its victims to uncontrolled and irresponsible tyranny. Irresponsible power cannot be safely entrusted with the wisest and most humane persons. It is always liable to great abuses. But when all sorts of men are invested with it, when it can be purchased with money, terrible beyond conception are its results. Woe to the unhappy man who is put absolutely into the power of a hard hearted villain. But slaves are property and are exposed to the irresponsible power of their masters.

A master or overseer may, with impunity inflict upon a slave, without the slightest provocation, any kind of torture, which can be endured, and impose upon him all kinds of sufferings, hardships and insults.

He may clothe him in rags, feed him upon corn, lodge him in a mere pen of poles, work him beyond his ability, kick him, cuff him, knock him down, put him in stocks, strip him, tie him to a stake, and with a keen lash lay on his bare back until the blood runs in a stream to his heels. The laws not only allow this to be done, but it is done continually. Women, yes, tender, delicate women; daughters, sisters and mothers are unprotected by the laws. They may be, and are tied to the whipping post; every day that we live, this is done, and their quivering flesh mangled by the cow-skin.

Dr. Howe visited a prison in New Orleans, in which fugitive slaves are confined, and to which many slaves are brought by their masters to be whipped, for which punishment a small fee is paid. In a letter to Hon. Charles Sumner, he says:

“Entering a large paved court-yard, around which ran galleries filled with slaves of all ages, sexes and colors, I heard the snap of a whip, every stroke of which sounded like the sharp crack of a pistol. I turned my head, and beheld a sight which absolutely chilled me to the marrow of my bones, and gave me, for the first time in my life, the sensation of my hair stiffening at the roots. There lay a black girl flat upon her face, on a board, her two thumbs tied, and fastened to one end, her feet tied, and drawn tightly to the other end, while a strap passed over the small of her back, and, fastened around the board, compressed her closely to it. Below the strap she was entirely naked. By her side, and six feet off, stood a huge monster with a long whip, which he applied with dreadful power and wonderful precision. Every stroke brought away a strip of skin, which clung to the lash, or fell quivering on the pavement, while the blood followed after it. The poor creature writhed and shrieked, and in a voice which showed alike her fear of death and her dreadful agony, screamed to her master, who stood at her head, ‘O, spare my life! don’t cut my soul out!’ But still fell the horrid lash; still strip after strip peeled off from the skin; gash after gash was cut in her living flesh, until it became a livid and bloody mass of raw and quivering muscle. It was with the greatest difficulty I refrained from springing upon the torturer, and arresting his lash; but, alas! what could I do, but turn aside and hide my tears for the sufferer, and my blushes for humanity? This was in a public and regularly-organized prison; the punishment was one recognized and authorized by the law. But think you that the poor wretch had committed a heinous offense, and had been convicted thereof and sentenced to the lash? Not at all. She was brought by her master to be whipped by the common executioner, without trial, judge or jury, just at his beck or nod, for some real or supposed offense, or to gratify his own whim or malice. And he may bring her day after day, without cause assigned, and inflict any number of lashes he pleases, short of twenty-five, provided only he pays the fee. Or, if he choose, he may have a private whipping board on his own premises, and brutalize himself there.”

All this is done according to law. “We cannot allow,” said Judge Ruffin, “the right of the master to be brought into discussion in the courts of justice. The slave, to remain a slave, must be made sensible that there is NO APPEAL FROM HIS MASTER.” The same Judge decided—that “THE POWER OF THE MASTER MUST BE ABSOLUTE IN ORDER TO RENDER THE SUBMISSION OF THE SLAVE PERFECT.” How dreadful is this tyranny!

[CHAPTER VI.]
Slavery Illustrated—Continued.
SEVERITY OF THE LAWS AGAINST SLAVES.

As the laws provide for the degradation of the slave to a state of the most stupid ignorance, it would naturally be supposed that little would be required in the way of obedience, and that when a slave did trespass a very light punishment would be meted out to him. Evidently this would be the humane and just course, for where little is given little should be required. In this, however, as in most other things slavery is precisely contrary to nature, humanity and reason.

Slaves are punished by the laws for numerous acts which are in themselves perfectly right.

“For seeking liberty a slave is proclaimed an outlaw and may be lawfully killed.” (Goodell.) “He may be punished for attending religious meetings at night. He may be publicly whipped for keeping a gun, or a pistol. For visiting a wife or child without a written pass, he may be whipped. For striking a white person, no matter how great the provocation, whipping—and for the second or third offence, DEATH.” (Goodell.) These are but specimens of the cruel and vexatious laws by which the slave’s life is embittered. He, poor wretch, must have so many lashes on the bare back for almost every thing which his manhood prompts him to do. He must always be on the look out to act and feel as a mere brute—he must crouch and bend in constant abjectness or his back shall pay the penalty. But for actual crimes the disproportion between the punishment of slaves and white persons is very great.

“In Va., by the revised code of 1819, there are seventy-one offenses for which the penalty is death when committed by slaves and imprisonment when committed by the whites.” (Jay’s Inquiry.)

“In Mississippi there are seventeen offenses punishable with death when committed by slaves, which, if committed by white persons, are either punished by fines or imprisonment, or punishment not provided for by the statute or at common law.” (Goodell.)

A law of Md., provides that—“Any slave for rambling in the night, or riding on horseback or running away, may be punished by whipping, cropping and branding in the cheeks or otherwise, not rendering him unfit for labor.”

And yet, notwithstanding the extreme and unreasonable partiality and severity of these laws, it is not unusual for the barbarous spirit of slavery to overleap them in its unmerciful punishment of the slave. When the slave commits a high crime, not unfrequently does a furious mob seize him, and hang him up without trial as if he were a mean dog. Calmness and solemnity, which should always characterize the punishment of the greatest criminals in christian countries, give place to the most violent and cruel passions. Judgment, mercy, law, humanity, God and Christianity, are all forgotten in the hasty and insane desire to have the wretched bondman pushed out of the world. And perhaps the crime which has so violently stirred up the community against him was committed under the greatest provocations. His soul may have been writhing under a crushing sense of repeated wrongs. His wife may have been abused before his eyes while he was not permitted to defend her. His daughter may have been dishonored, and he, without appeal for her protection to church or State, compelled to suffer it in silence. And his own back may have been smarting from the maddening lash—and in a moment of frenzy or despair he may have smitten his oppressor to the earth.

And, for this crime he is treated as a prince of criminals, is hung up without trial, or perhaps burned alive!

Our souls have been harrowed up by a circumstance which transpired during the present year (1853) in the State of Mo. Two negro men for the commission of murder were arrested and tied to a tree, near the county seat of Jasper co., a fire was kindled around them, and in the presence of two thousand persons, they were burned to death! No time for reflection or repentance was allowed. Not a word of warning or exhortation was permitted. Even a humane mode of being killed was denied. But they were, in this year, during the Presidency of Pierce, in the State of Missouri, burned without trial!

In 1842 a negro was burned at Union Point, Mississippi. The Natchez Free Trader gives the following account of the horrible work.

“The body was taken and chained to a tree immediately on the bank of the Mississippi, on what is called Union Point. Fagots were then collected, and piled around him to which he appeared quite indifferent. When the work was completed, he was asked what he had to say. He then warned all to take example by him, and asked the prayers of all around; he then called for a drink of water, which was handed to him; he drank it, and said, ‘Now set fire—I am ready to go in peace!’ The torches were lighted and placed in the pile, which soon ignited. He watched unmoved the curling flame, that grew until it began to entwine itself around and feed upon his body: then he sent forth cries of agony painful to the ear, begging some one to blow his brains out; at the same time surging with almost superhuman strength, until the staple with which the chain was fastened to the tree (not being well secured) drew out, and he leaped from the burning pile. At that moment the sharp ringing of several rifles was heard: the body of the negro fell a corpse on the ground. He was picked up by some two or three, and again thrown into the fire and consumed—not a vestige remaining to show that such a being ever existed.”

A colored man was burned in St. Louis, Mo., in 1836, in presence of an immense throng of spectators. The Alton Telegraph gives the following description of the scene.