XIII. THE MEN BETTER THAN THEIR LAWS…

XIII. THE MEN BETTER THAN THEIR LAWS

Judgment is turned away backward, And Justice standeth afar off; For Truth is fallen in the street, And Equity cannot enter. Yea, Truth faileth; And HE THAT DEPARTETH FROM EVIL MAKETH HIMSELF A PREY.

ISAIAH 59: 14, 15.

There is one very remarkable class of laws yet to be considered.

So full of cruelty and of unmerciful severity is the slave-code,—such an atrocity is the institution of which it is the legal definition,—that there are multitudes of individuals too generous and too just to be willing to go to the full extent of its restrictions and deprivations.

A generous man, instead of regarding the poor slave as a piece of property, dead, and void of rights, is tempted to regard him rather as a helpless younger brother, or as a defenceless child, and to extend to him, by his own good right arm, that protection and those rights which the law denies him. A religious man, who, by the theory of his belief, regards all men as brothers, and considers his Christian slave, with himself, as a member of Jesus Christ,—as of one body, one spirit, and called in one hope of his calling,—cannot willingly see him “doomed to live without knowledge,” without the power of reading the written Word, and to raise up his children after him in the same darkness.

Hence, if left to itself, individual humanity would, in many cases, practically abrogate the slave-code. Individual humanity would teach the slave to read and write,—would build school-houses for his children, and would, in very, very many cases, enfranchise him.

The result of all this has been foreseen. It has been foreseen that the result of education would be general intelligence; that the result of intelligence would be a knowledge of personal rights; and that an inquiry into the doctrine of personal rights would be fatal to the system. It has been foreseen, also, that the example of disinterestedness and generosity, in emancipation, might carry with it a generous contagion, until it should become universal; that the example of educated and emancipated slaves would prove a dangerous excitement to those still in bondage.

For this reason, the American slave-code, which, as we have already seen, embraces, substantially, all the barbarities of that of ancient Rome, has had added to it a set of laws more cruel than any which ancient and heathen Rome ever knew,—laws designed to shut against the slave his last refuge,—the humanity of his master. The master, in ancient Rome, might give his slave whatever advantages of education he chose, or at any time emancipate him, and the state did not interfere to prevent.[16]

But in America the laws, throughout all the slave states, most rigorously forbid, in the first place, the education of the slave. We do not profess to give all these laws, but a few striking specimens may be presented. Our authority is Judge Stroud’s “Sketch of the Laws of Slavery.”

[Sidenote: Stroud’s Sketch, p. 88.]

The legislature of South Carolina, in 1740, enounced the following preamble:—“Whereas, the having of slaves taught to write, or suffering them to be employed in writing, may be attended with great inconveniences;” and enacted that the crime of teaching a slave to write, or of employing a slave as a scribe, should be punished by a fine of one hundred pounds, current money. If the reader will turn now to the infamous “protective” statute, enacted by the same legislature, in the same year, he will find that the same penalty has been appointed for the cutting out of the tongue, putting out of the eye, cruel scalding, &c., of any slave, as for the offence of teaching him to write! That is to say, that to teach him to write, and to put out his eyes, are to be regarded as equally reprehensible.

[Sidenote: Stroud’s Sketch, p. 89. 2 Brevard’s Digest, pp. 254–5.]

That there might be no doubt of the “great and fundamental policy” of the state, and that there might be full security against the “great inconveniences” of “having of slaves taught to write,” it was enacted, in 1800, “That assemblies of slaves, free negroes, &c., * * * * for the purpose of mental instruction, in a confined or secret place, &c. &c., is [are] declared to be an unlawful meeting;” and the officers are required to enter such confined places, and disperse the “unlawful assemblage,” inflicting, at their discretion, “such corporal punishment, not exceeding twenty lashes, upon such slaves, free negroes, &c., as they may judge necessary for deterring them from the like unlawful assemblage in future.”

[Sidenote: Stroud, pp. 88, 89.]

The statute-book of Virginia is adorned with a law similar to the one last quoted.

[Sidenote: Stroud’s Sketch, pp. 89, 90.]

The offence of teaching a slave to write was early punished, in Georgia, as in South Carolina, by a pecuniary fine. But the city of Savannah seems to have found this penalty insufficient to protect it from “great inconveniences,” and we learn, by a quotation in the work of Judge Stroud from a number of “The Portfolio,” that “the city has passed an ordinance, by which any person that teaches any person of color, slave or free, to read or write, or causes such person to be so taught, is subjected to a fine of thirty dollars for each offence; and every person of color who shall keep a school, to teach reading or writing, is subject to a fine of thirty dollars, or to be imprisoned ten days, and whipped thirty-nine lashes.”

Secondly. In regard to religious privileges:

The State of Georgia has enacted a law, “To protect religious societies in the exercise of their religious duties.” This law, after appointing rigorous penalties for the offence of interrupting or disturbing a congregation of white persons, concludes in the following words:

[Sidenote: Stroud, p. 92. Prince’s Digest, p. 342.]

No congregation, or company of negroes, shall, under pretence of divine worship, assemble themselves, contrary to the act regulating patrols.

[Sidenote: Stroud, p. 93. Prince’s Digest, p. 447.]

“The act regulating patrols,” as quoted by the editor of Prince’s Digest, empowers every justice of the peace to disperse ANY assembly or meeting of slaves which may disturb the peace, &c., of his majesty’s subjects, and permits that every slave found at such a meeting shall “immediately be corrected, WITHOUT TRIAL, by receiving on the bare back twenty-five stripes with a whip, switch, or cowskin.”

The history of legislation in South Carolina is significant. An act was passed in 1800, containing the following section:

[Sidenote: Stroud, p. 93. 2 Brevard’s Dig. 254, 255.]

It shall not be lawful for any number of slaves, free negroes, mulattoes or mestizoes, even in company with white persons, to meet together and assemble for the purpose of mental instruction or religious worship, either before the rising of the sun, or after the going down of the same. And all magistrates, sheriffs, militia officers, &c. &c., are hereby vested with power, &c., for dispersing such assemblies, &c.

The law just quoted seems somehow to have had a prejudicial effect upon the religious interests of the “slaves, free negroes,” &c., specified in it; for, three years afterwards, on the petition of certain religious societies, a “protective act” was passed, which should secure them this great religious privilege; to wit, that it should be unlawful, before nine o’clock, “to break into a place of meeting, wherein shall be assembled the members of any religious society of this state, provided a majority of them shall be white persons, or otherwise to disturb their devotion, unless such person shall have first obtained * * * * a warrant, &c.”

Thirdly. It appears that many masters, who are disposed to treat their slaves generously, have allowed them to accumulate property, to raise domestic animals for their own use, and, in the case of intelligent servants, to go at large, to hire their own time, and to trade upon their own account. Upon all these practices the law comes down, with unmerciful severity. A penalty is inflicted on the owner, but, with a rigor quite accordant with the tenor of slave-law the offence is considered, in law, as that of the slave, rather than that of the master; so that, if the master is generous enough not to regard the penalty which is imposed upon himself, he may be restrained by the fear of bringing a greater evil upon his dependent. These laws are, in some cases, so constructed as to make it for the interest of the lowest and most brutal part of society that they be enforced, by offering half the profits to the informer. We give the following, as specimens of slave legislation on this subject:

The law of South Carolina:

[Sidenote: Stroud, pp. 46, 47. James’ Digest, 385, 386. Act of 1740.]

It shall not be lawful for any slave to buy, sell, trade, &c., for any goods, &c., without a license from the owner, &c.; nor shall any slave be permitted to keep any boat, periauger,[17] or canoe, or raise and breed, for the benefit of such slave, any horses, mares, cattle, sheep, or hogs, under pain of forfeiting all the goods, &c., and all the boats, periaugers, or canoes, horses, mares, cattle, sheep or hogs. And it shall be lawful for any person whatsoever to seize and take away from any slave all such goods, &c., boats, &c. &c., and to deliver the same into the hands of any justice of the peace, nearest to the place where the seizure shall be made; and such justice shall take the oath of the person making such seizure, concerning the manner thereof; and if the said justice shall be satisfied that such seizure has been made according to law, he shall pronounce and declare the goods so seized to be forfeited, and order the same to be sold at public outcry, one half of the moneys arising from such sale to go to the state, and the other half to him or them that sue for the same.

[Sidenote: 2 Cobb’s Dig. 284.]

The laws in many other states are similar to the above; but the State of Georgia has an additional provision, against permitting the slave to hire himself to another for his own benefit; a penalty of thirty dollars is imposed for every weekly offence, on the part of the master, unless the labor be done on his own premises. Savannah, Augusta, and Sunbury, are places excepted.

[Sidenote: Stroud, p. 47]

In Virginia, “if the master shall permit his slave to hire himself out,” the slave is to be apprehended, &c., and the master to be fined.

In an early act of the legislature of the orthodox and Presbyterian State of North Carolina, it is gratifying to see how the judicious course of public policy is made to subserve the interests of Christian charity,—how, in a single ingenious sentence, provision is made for punishing the offender against society, rewarding the patriotic informer, and feeding the poor and destitute:

[Sidenote: Stroud’s Sketch, p. 47.]

All horses, cattle, hogs or sheep, that, one month after the passing of this act, shall belong to any slave, or be of any slave’s mark, in this state, shall be seized and sold by the county wardens, and by them applied, the one-half to the support of the poor of the county, and the other half to the informer.

[Sidenote: Stroud, p. 48.]

In Mississippi a fine of fifty dollars is imposed upon the master who permits his slave to cultivate cotton for his own use; or who licenses his slave to go at large and trade as a freeman; or who is convicted of permitting his slave to keep “stock of any description.”

To show how the above law has been interpreted by the highest judicial tribunal of the sovereign State of Mississippi, we repeat here a portion of a decision of Chief Justice Sharkey, which we have elsewhere given more in full.

Independent of the principles laid down in adjudicated cases, our statute-law prohibits slaves from owning certain kinds of property; and it may be inferred that the legislature supposed they were extending the act as far as it could be necessary to exclude them from owning any property, as the prohibition includes that kind of property which they would most likely be permitted to own without interruption, to wit: hogs, horses, cattle, &c. They cannot be prohibited from holding such property in consequence of its being of a dangerous or offensive character, but because it was deemed impolitic for them to hold property of any description.

It was asserted, at the beginning of this head, that the permission of the master to a slave to hire his own time is, by law, considered the offence of the slave; the slave being subject to prosecution therefor, not the master. This is evident from the tenor of some of the laws quoted and alluded to above. It will be still further illustrated by the following decisions of the courts of North Carolina. They are copied from the Supplement to the U. S. Digest, vol. II. p. 798:

[Sidenote: The State v. Clarissa. 5 Iredell, 221.]

139. An indictment charging that a certain negro did hire her own time, contrary to the form of the statute, &c., is defective and must be quashed, because it was omitted to be charged that she was permitted by her master to go at large, which is one essential part of the offence.

140. Under the first clause of the thirty-first section of the 111th chapter of the Revised Statutes, prohibiting masters from hiring to slaves their own time, the master is not indictable; he is only subject to a penalty of forty dollars. Nor is the master indictable under the second clause of that section; the process being against the slave, not against the master.—Ib.

142. To constitute the offence under section 32 (Rev. Stat. c. cxi. § 32) it is not necessary that the slave should have hired his time; it is sufficient if the master permits him to go at large as a freeman.

This is maintaining the ground that “the master can do no wrong” with great consistency and thoroughness. But it is in perfect keeping, both in form and spirit, with the whole course of slave-law, which always upholds the supremacy of the master, and always depresses the slave.

Fourthly. Stringent laws against emancipation exist in nearly all the slave states.

[Sidenote: Stroud, 147. Prince’s Dig. 456. James’ Dig. 398. Toulmin’s Dig. 632. Miss. Rev. Code, 386.]

In four of the states,—South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi,—emancipation cannot be effected, except by a special act of the legislature of the state.

In Georgia, the offence of setting free “any slave, or slaves, in any other manner and form than the one prescribed,” was punishable, according to the law of 1801, by the forfeiture of two hundred dollars, to be recovered by action or indictment; the slaves in question still remaining, “to all intents and purposes, as much in a state of slavery as before they were manumitted.”

Believers in human progress will be interested to know that since the law of 1801 there has been a reform introduced into this part of the legislation of the republic of Georgia. In 1818, a new law was passed, which, as will be seen, contains a grand remedy for the abuses of the old. In this it is provided, with endless variety of specifications and synonyms, as if to “let suspicion double-lock the door” against any possible evasion, that, “All and every will, testament and deed, whether by way of trust or otherwise, contract, or agreement, or stipulation, or other instrument in writing or by parol, made and executed for the purpose of effecting, or endeavoring to effect, the manumission of any slave or slaves, either directly ... or indirectly, or virtually, &c. &c., shall be, and the same are hereby, declared to be utterly null and void.” And the guilty author of the outrage against the peace of the state, contemplated in such deed, &c. &c., “and all and every person or persons concerned in giving or attempting to give effect thereto, ... in any way or manner whatsoever, shall be severally liable to a penalty not exceeding one thousand dollars.”

[Sidenote: Stroud’s Sketch, pp. 147–8. Prince’s Dig. 466.]

It would be quite anomalous in slave-law, and contrary to the “great and fundamental policy” of slave states, if the negroes who, not having the fear of God before their eyes, but being instigated by the devil, should be guilty of being thus manumitted, were suffered to go unpunished; accordingly, the law very properly and judiciously provides that “each and every slave or slaves in whose behalf such will or testament, &c. &c. &c., shall have been made, shall be liable to be arrested by warrant, &c.; and, being thereof convicted, &c., shall be liable to be sold as a slave or slaves by public outcry; and the proceeds of such slaves shall be appropriated, &c. &c.”

Judge Stroud gives the following account of the law of Mississippi:

[Sidenote: Stroud’s Sketch, 149. Miss. Rev. Code, 385–6 (Act June 18, 1822).]

The emancipation must be by an instrument in writing, a last will or deed &c., under seal, attested by at least two credible witnesses, or acknowledged in the court of the county or corporation where the emancipator resides; proof satisfactory to the General Assembly must be adduced that the slave has done some meritorious act for the benefit of his master, or rendered some distinguished service to the state; all which circumstances are but pre-requisites, and are of no efficacy until a special act of assembly sanctions the emancipation; to which may be added, as has been already stated, a saving of the rights of creditors, and the protection of the widow’s thirds.

The same pre-requisite of “meritorious services, to be adjudged of and allowed by the county court,” is exacted by an act of the General Assembly of North Carolina; and all slaves emancipated contrary to the provisions of this act are to be committed to the jail of the county, and at the next court held for that county are to be sold to the highest bidder.

But the law of North Carolina does not refuse opportunity for repentance, even after the crime has been proved: accordingly,

[Sidenote: Stroud’s Sketch, 148. Haywood’s Manual, 525, 526, 529, 537.]

The sheriff is directed, five days before the time for the sale of the emancipated negro, to give notice, in writing, to the person by whom the emancipation was made, to the end,

and with the hope that, smitten by remorse of conscience, and brought to a sense of his guilt before God and man,

such person may, if he thinks proper, renew his claim to the negro so emancipated by him; on failure to do which, the sale is to be made by the sheriff, and one-fifth part of the net proceeds is to become the property of the freeholder by whom the apprehension was made, and the remaining four-fifths are to be paid into the public treasury.

[Sidenote: Stroud, pp. 148–154.]

It is proper to add that we have given examples of the laws of states whose legislation on this subject has been most severe. The laws of Virginia, Maryland, Missouri, Kentucky and Louisiana, are much less stringent.

A striking case, which shows how inexorably the law contends with the kind designs of the master, is on record in the reports of legal decisions in the State of Mississippi. The circumstances of the case have been thus briefly stated in the New York Evening Post, edited by Mr. William Cullen Bryant. They are a romance of themselves.

A man of the name of Elisha Brazealle, a planter in Jefferson County, Mississippi, was attacked with a loathsome disease. During his illness he was faithfully nursed by a mulatto slave, to whose assiduous attentions he felt that he owed his life. He was duly impressed by her devotion, and soon after his recovery took her to Ohio, and had her educated. She was very intelligent, and improved her advantages so rapidly that when he visited her again he determined to marry her. He executed a deed for her emancipation, and had it recorded both in the States of Ohio and Mississippi, and made her his wife.

Mr. Brazealle returned with her to Mississippi, and in process of time had a son. After a few years he sickened and died, leaving a will, in which, after reciting the deed of emancipation, he declared his intention to ratify it, and devised all his property to this lad, acknowledging him in the will to be such.

Some poor and distant relations in North Carolina, whom he did not know, and for whom he did not care, hearing of his death, came on to Mississippi, and claimed the property thus devised. They instituted a suit for its recovery, and the case (it is reported in Howard’s Mississippi Reports, vol. II., p. 837) came before Judge Sharkey, our new consul at Havana. He decided it, and in that decision declared the act of emancipation an offence against morality, and pernicious and detestable as an example. He set aside the will, gave the property of Brazealle to his distant relations, condemned Brazealle’s son, and his wife, that son’s mother, again to bondage, and made them the slaves of these North Carolina kinsmen, as part of the assets of the estate.

Chief Justice Sharkey, after narrating the circumstances of the case, declares the validity of the deed of emancipation to be the main question in the controversy. He then argues that, although according to principles of national comity “contracts are to be construed according to the laws of the country or state where they are made,” yet these principles are not to be followed when they lead to conclusions in conflict with “the great and fundamental policy of the state.” What this “great and fundamental policy” is, in Mississippi, may be gathered from the remainder of the decision, which we give in full.

Let us apply these principles to the deed of emancipation. To give it validity would be, in the first place, a violation of the declared policy, and contrary to a positive law of the state.

The policy of a state is indicated by the general course of legislation on a given subject; and we find that free negroes are deemed offensive, because they are not permitted to emigrate to or remain in the state. They are allowed few privileges, and subject to heavy penalties for offences. They are required to leave the state within thirty days after notice, and in the mean time give security for good behavior; and those of them who can lawfully remain must register and carry with them their certificates, or they may be committed to jail. It would also violate a positive law, passed by the legislature, expressly to maintain this settled policy, and to prevent emancipation. No owner can emancipate his slave, but by a deed or will properly attested, or acknowledged in court, and proof to the legislature that such slave has performed some meritorious act for the benefit of the master, or some distinguished service for the state; and the deed or will can have no validity until ratified by special act of legislature. It is believed that this law and policy are too essentially important to the interests of our citizens to permit them to be evaded.

The state of the case shows conclusively that the contract had its origin in an offence against morality, pernicious and detestable as an example. But, above all, it seems to have been planned and executed with a fixed design to evade the rigor of the laws of this state. The acts of the party in going to Ohio with the slaves, and there executing the deed, and his immediate return with them to this state, point with unerring certainty to his purpose and object. The laws of this state cannot be thus defrauded of their operation by one of our own citizens. If we could have any doubts about the principle, the case reported in 1 Randolph, 15, would remove them.

As we think the validity of the deed must depend upon the laws of this state, it becomes unnecessary to inquire whether it could have any force by the laws of Ohio. If it were even valid there, it can have no force here. The consequence is, that the negroes, John Monroe and his mother, are still slaves, and a part of the estate of Elisha Brazealle. They have not acquired a right to their freedom under the will; for, even if the clause in the will were sufficient for that purpose, their emancipation has not been consummated by an act of the legislature.

John Monroe, being a slave, cannot take the property as devisee; and I apprehend it is equally clear that it cannot be held in trust for him. 4 Desans. Rep. 266. Independent of the principles laid down in adjudicated cases, our statute law prohibits slaves from owning certain kinds of property; and it may be inferred that the legislature supposed they were extending the act as far as it could be necessary to exclude them from owning any property, as the prohibition includes that kind of property which they would most likely be permitted to own without interruption, to wit, hogs, horses, cattle, &c. They cannot be prohibited from holding such property in consequence of its being of a dangerous or offensive character, but because it was deemed impolitic for them to hold property of any description. It follows, therefore, that his heirs are entitled to the property.

As the deed was void, and the devisee could not take under the will, the heirs might, perhaps, have had a remedy at law; but, as an account must be taken for the rents and profits, and for the final settlement of the estate, I see no good reason why they should be sent back to law. The remedy is, doubtless, more full and complete than it could be at law. The decree of the chancellor overruling the demurrer must be affirmed, and the cause remanded for further proceedings.

The Chief Justice Sharkey who pronounced this decision is stated by the Evening Post to have been a principal agent in the passage of the severe law under which this horrible inhumanity was perpetrated.

Nothing more forcibly shows the absolute despotism of the slave-law over all the kindest feelings and intentions of the master, and the determination of courts to carry these severities to their full lengths, than this cruel deed, which precipitated a young man who had been educated to consider himself free, and his mother, an educated woman, back into the bottomless abyss of slavery. Had this case been chosen for the theme of a novel, or a tragedy, the world would have cried out upon it as a plot of monstrous improbability. As it stands in the law-book, it is only a specimen of that awful kind of truth, stranger than fiction, which is all the time evolving, in one form or another, from the workings of this anomalous system.

This view of the subject is a very important one, and ought to be earnestly and gravely pondered by those in foreign countries, who are too apt to fasten their condemnation and opprobrium rather on the person of the slave-holder than on the horrors of the legal system. In some slave states it seems as if there was very little that the benevolent owner could do which should permanently benefit his slave, unless he should seek to alter the laws. Here it is that the highest obligation of the Southern Christian lies. Nor will the world or God hold them guiltless who, with the elective franchise in their hands, and the full power to speak, write and discuss, suffer this monstrous system of legalized cruelty to go on from age to age.

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Footnote 16:

In and after the reign of Augustus, certain restrictive regulations were passed, designed to prevent an increase of unworthy citizens by emancipation. They had, however, nothing like the stringent force of American laws.

Footnote 17:

i. e. Periagua.

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XIV. THE HEBREW SLAVE-LAW COMPARED WITH THE AMERICAN SLAVE-LAW

Having compared the American law with the Roman, we will now compare it with one other code of slave-laws, to wit, the Hebrew.

This comparison is the more important, because American slavery has been defended on the ground of God’s permitting Hebrew slavery.

The inquiry now arises, What kind of slavery was it that was permitted among the Hebrews? for in different nations very different systems have been called by the general name of slavery.

That the patriarchal state of servitude which existed in the time of Abraham was a very different thing from American slavery, a few graphic incidents in the scripture narrative show; for we read that when the angels came to visit Abraham, although he had three hundred servants born in his house, it is said that Abraham hasted, and took a calf, and killed it, and gave it to a young man to dress; and that he told Sarah to take three measures of meal and knead it into cakes; and that, when all was done, he himself set it before his guests.

From various other incidents which appear in the patriarchal narrative, it would seem that these servants bore more the relation of the members of a Scotch clan to their feudal lord than that of an American slave to his master;—thus it seems that if Abraham had died without children, his head servant would have been his heir.—Gen. 15:3.

Of what species, then, was the slavery which God permitted among the Hebrews? By what laws was it regulated?

In the New Testament the whole Hebrew system of administration is spoken of as a relatively imperfect one, and as superseded by the Christian dispensation.—Heb. 8:13.

We are taught thus to regard the Hebrew system as an educational system, by which a debased, half-civilized race, which had been degraded by slavery in its worst form among the Egyptians, was gradually elevated to refinement and humanity.

As they went from the land of Egypt, it would appear that the most disgusting personal habits, the most unheard-of and unnatural impurities, prevailed among them; so that it was necessary to make laws with relation to things of which Christianity has banished the very name from the earth.

Beside all this, polygamy, war and slavery, were the universal custom of nations.

It is represented in the New Testament that God, in educating this people, proceeded in the same gradual manner in which a wise father would proceed with a family of children.

He selected a few of the most vital points of evil practice, and forbade them by positive statute, under rigorous penalties.

The worship of any other god was, by the Jewish law, constituted high treason, and rigorously punished with death.

As the knowledge of the true God and religious instruction could not then, as now, be afforded by printing and books, one day in the week had to be set apart for preserving in the minds of the people a sense of His being, and their obligations to Him. The devoting of this day to any other purpose was also punished with death; and the reason is obvious, that its sacredness was the principal means relied on for preserving the allegiance of the nation to their king and God, and its desecration, of course, led directly to high treason against the head of the state.

With regard to many other practices which prevailed among the Jews, as among other heathen nations, we find the Divine Being taking the same course which wise human legislators have taken.

When Lycurgus wished to banish money and its attendant luxuries from Sparta, he did not forbid it by direct statute-law, but he instituted a currency so clumsy and uncomfortable that, as we are informed by Rollin, it took a cart and pair of oxen to carry home the price of a very moderate estate.

In the same manner the Divine Being surrounded the customs of polygamy, war, blood-revenge and slavery, with regulations which gradually and certainly tended to abolish them entirely.

No one would pretend that the laws which God established in relation to polygamy, cities of refuge, &c., have any application to Christian nations now.

The following summary of some of these laws of the Mosaic code is given by Dr. C. E. Stowe, Professor of Biblical Literature in Andover Theological Seminary:

1. It commanded a Hebrew, even though a married man, with wife and children living, to take the childless widow of a deceased brother, and beget children with her.—Deut. 25:5–10.

2. The Hebrews, under certain restrictions, were allowed to make concubines, or wives for a limited time, of women taken in war.—Deut. 21:10–19.

3. A Hebrew who already had a wife was allowed to take another also, provided he still continued his intercourse with the first as her husband, and treated her kindly and affectionately.—Exodus 21:9–11.

4. By the Mosaic law, the nearest relative of a murdered Hebrew could pursue and slay the murderer, unless he could escape to the city of refuge; and the same permission was given in case of accidental homicide.—Num. 35:9–39.

5. The Israelites were commanded to exterminate the Canaanites, men, women and children.—Deut. 9:12; 20:16–18.

Any one, or all, of the above practices, can be justified by the Mosaic law, as well as the practice of slave-holding.

Each of these laws, although in its time it was an ameliorating law, designed to take the place of some barbarous abuse, and to be a connecting link by which some higher state of society might be introduced, belongs confessedly to that system which St. Paul says made nothing perfect. They are a part of the commandment which he says was annulled for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof, and which, in the time which he wrote, was waxing old, and ready to vanish away. And Christ himself says, with regard to certain permissions of this system, that they were given on account of the “hardness of their hearts,”—because the attempt to enforce a more stringent system at that time, owing to human depravity, would have only produced greater abuses.

The following view of the Hebrew laws of slavery is compiled from Barnes’ work on slavery, and from Professor Stowe’s manuscript lectures.

The legislation commenced by making the great and common source of slavery—kidnapping—a capital crime.

The enactment is as follows: “He that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.”—Exodus 21:16.

The sources from which slaves were to be obtained were thus reduced to two: first, the voluntary sale of an individual by himself, which certainly does not come under the designation of involuntary servitude; second, the appropriation of captives taken in war, and the buying from the heathen.

With regard to the servitude of the Hebrew by a voluntary sale of himself, such servitude, by the statute-law of the land, came to an end once in seven years; so that the worst that could be made of it was that it was a voluntary contract to labor for a certain time.

With regard to the servants bought of the heathen, or of foreigners in the land, there was a statute by which their servitude was annulled once in fifty years.

It has been supposed, from a disconnected view of one particular passage in the Mosaic code, that God directly countenanced the treating of a slave, who was a stranger and foreigner, with more rigor and severity than a Hebrew slave. That this was not the case will appear from the following enactments, which have express reference to strangers:

The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself.—Lev. 19:34.

Thou shalt neither vex a stranger nor oppress him; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.—Exodus 22:21.

Thou shalt not oppress a stranger, for ye know the heart of a stranger.—Exodus 23:9.

The Lord your God regardeth not persons. He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and the widow, and loveth the stranger in giving him food and raiment; love ye therefore the stranger.—Deut. 10:17–19.

Judge righteously between every man and his brother, and the stranger that is with him.—Deut. 1:16.

Cursed be he that perverteth the judgment of the stranger.—Deut. 27:19.

Instead of making slavery an oppressive institution with regard to the stranger, it was made by God a system within which heathen were adopted into the Jewish state, educated and instructed in the worship of the true God, and in due time emancipated.

In the first place, they were protected by law from personal violence. The loss of an eye or a tooth, through the violence of his master, took the slave out of that master’s power entirely, and gave him his liberty. Then, further than this, if a master’s conduct towards a slave was such as to induce him to run away, it was enjoined that nobody should assist in retaking him, and that he should dwell wherever he chose in the land, without molestation. Third, the law secured to the slave a very considerable portion of time, which was to be at his own disposal. Every seventh year was to be at his own disposal.—Lev. 25:4–6. Every seventh day was, of course, secured to him.—Ex. 20:10.

The servant had the privilege of attending the three great national festivals, when all the males of the nation were required to appear before God in Jerusalem.—Ex. 34:23.

Each of these festivals, it is computed, took up about three weeks.

The slave also was to be a guest in the family festivals. In Deut. 12:12, it is said, “Ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God, ye, and your sons, and your daughters, and your men-servants, and your maid-servants, and the Levite that is within your gates.”

Dr. Barnes estimates that the whole amount of time which a servant could have to himself would amount to about twenty-three years out of fifty, or nearly one-half his time.

Again, the servant was placed on an exact equality with his master in all that concerned his religious relations.

Now, if we recollect that in the time of Moses the God and the king of the nation were one and the same person, and that the civil and religious relation were one and the same, it will appear that the slave and his master stood on an equality in their civil relation with regard to the state.

Thus, in Deuteronomy 29, is described a solemn national convocation, which took place before the death of Moses, when the whole nation were called upon, after a solemn review of their national history, to renew their constitutional oath of allegiance to their supreme Magistrate and Lord.

On this occasion, Moses addressed them thus:—“Ye stand this day, all of you, before the Lord your God; your captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and thy stranger that is in thy camp, from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water; that thou shouldest enter into covenant with the Lord thy God, and into his oath, which the Lord thy God maketh with thee this day.”

[Sidenote: Wheeler’s Law of Slavery, p. 243.]

How different is this from the cool and explicit declaration of South Carolina with regard to the position of the American slave:—“A slave is not generally regarded as legally capable of being within the peace of the state. He is not a citizen, and is not in that character entitled to her protection.”

In all the religious services, which, as we have seen by the constitution of the nation, were civil services, the slave and the master mingled on terms of strict equality. There was none of the distinction which appertains to a distinct class or caste. “There was no special service appointed for them at unusual seasons. There were no particular seats assigned to them, to keep up the idea that they were a degraded class. There was no withholding from them the instruction which the word of God gave about the equal rights of mankind.”

Fifthly. It was always contemplated that the slave would, as a matter of course, choose the Jewish religion, and the service of God, and enter willingly into all the obligations and services of the Jewish polity.

Mr. Barnes cites the words of Maimonides, to show how this was commonly understood by the Hebrews.—Inquiry into the Scriptural Views of Slavery. By Albert Barnes, p. 132.

Whether a servant be born in the power of an Israelite, or whether he be purchased from the heathen, the master is to bring them both into the covenant.

But he that is in the house is entered on the eighth day; and he that is bought with money, on the day on which his master receives him, unless the slave be unwilling. For, if the master receive a grown slave, and he be unwilling, his master is to bear with him, to seek to win him over by instruction, and by love and kindness, for one year. After which, should he refuse so long, it is forbidden to keep him longer than a year. And the master must send him back to the strangers from whence he came. For the God of Jacob will not accept any other than the worship of a willing heart.—Maimon. Hilcoth Miloth, chap. I., sec. 8.

A sixth fundamental arrangement with regard to the Hebrew slave was that he could never be sold. Concerning this Mr. Barnes remarks:

A man, in certain circumstances, might be bought by a Hebrew; but when once bought, that was an end of the matter. There is not the slightest evidence that any Hebrew ever sold a slave; and any provision contemplating that was unknown to the constitution of the Commonwealth. It is said of Abraham that he had “servants bought with money;” but there is no record of his having ever sold one, nor is there any account of its ever having been done by Isaac or Jacob. The only instance of a sale of this kind among the patriarchs is that act of the brothers of Joseph, which is held up to so strong reprobation, by which they sold him to the Ishmaelites. Permission is given in the law of Moses to buy a servant, but none is given to sell him again; and the fact that no such permission is given is full proof that it was not contemplated. When he entered into that relation, it became certain that there could be no change, unless it was voluntary on his part (comp. Ex. 21:5,6), or unless his master gave him his freedom, until the not distant period fixed by law when he could be free. There is no arrangement in the law of Moses by which servants were to be taken in payment of their master’s debts, by which they were to be given as pledges, by which they were to be consigned to the keeping of others, or by which they were to be given away as presents. There are no instances occurring in the Jewish history in which any of these things were done. This law is positive in regard to the Hebrew servant, and the principle of the law would apply to all others. Lev. 25:42.—“They shall not be sold as bond men.” In all these respects there was a marked difference, and there was doubtless intended to be, between the estimate affixed to servants and to property.—Inquiry, &c., p. 133–4.

As to the practical workings of this system, as they are developed in the incidents of sacred history, they are precisely what we should expect from such a system of laws. For instance, we find it mentioned incidentally in the ninth chapter of the first book of Samuel, that when Saul and his servant came to see Samuel, that Samuel, in anticipation of his being crowned king, made a great feast for him; and in verse twenty-second the history says: “And Samuel took Saul and his servant, and brought them into the parlor, and made them sit in the chiefest place.”

We read, also, in 2 Samuel 9:10, of a servant of Saul who had large estates, and twenty servants of his own.

We find, in 1 Chron. 2:34, the following incident related: “Now, Sheshan had no sons, but daughters. And Sheshan had a servant, an Egyptian, whose name was Jarha. And Sheshan gave his daughter to Jarha, his servant, to wife.”

Does this resemble American slavery?

We find, moreover, that this connection was not considered at all disgraceful, for the son of this very daughter was enrolled among the valiant men of David’s army.—1 Chron. 2:41.

In fine, we are not surprised to discover that the institutions of Moses in effect so obliterated all the characteristics of slavery, that it had ceased to exist among the Jews long before the time of Christ. Mr. Barnes asks:

On what evidence would a man rely to prove that slavery existed at all in the land in the time of the later prophets of the Maccabees, or when the Saviour appeared? There are abundant proofs, as we shall see, that it existed in Greece and Rome; but what is the evidence that it existed in Judea? So far as I have been able to ascertain, there are no declarations that it did to be found in the canonical books of the Old Testament, or in Josephus. There are no allusions to laws and customs which imply that it was prevalent. There are no coins or medals which suppose it. There are no facts which do not admit of an easy explanation on the supposition that slavery had ceased.—Inquiry, &c., p. 226.

Two objections have been urged to the interpretations which have been given of two of the enactments before quoted.

1. It is said that the enactment, “Thou shalt not return to his master the servant that has escaped,” &c., relates only to servants escaping from heathen masters to the Jewish nation.

The following remarks on this passage are from Prof. Stowe’s lectures:

Deuteronomy 23:15,16.—These words make a statute which, like every other statute, is to be strictly construed. There is nothing in the language to limit its meaning; there is nothing in the connection in which it stands to limit its meaning; nor is there anything in the history of the Mosaic legislation to limit the application of this statute to the case of servants escaping from foreign masters. The assumption that it is thus limited is wholly gratuitous, and, so far as the Bible is concerned, unsustained by any evidence whatever. It is said that it would be absurd for Moses to enact such a law while servitude existed among the Hebrews. It would indeed be absurd, were it the object of the Mosaic legislation to sustain and perpetuate slavery; but, if it were the object of Moses to limit and to restrain, and finally to extinguish slavery, this statute was admirably adapted to his purpose. That it was the object of Moses to extinguish, and not to perpetuate, slavery, is perfectly clear from the whole course of his legislation on the subject. Every slave was to have all the religious privileges and instruction to which his master’s children were entitled. Every seventh year released the Hebrew slave, and every fiftieth year produced universal emancipation. If a master, by an accidental or an angry blow, deprived the slave of a tooth, the slave, by that act, was forever free. And so, by the statute in question, if the slave felt himself oppressed, he could make his escape, and, though the master was not forbidden to retake him if he could, every one was forbidden to aid his master in doing it. This statute, in fact, made the servitude voluntary, and that was what Moses intended.

Moses dealt with slavery precisely as he dealt with polygamy and with war: without directly prohibiting, he so restricted as to destroy it; instead of cutting down the poison-tree, he girdled it, and left it to die of itself. There is a statute in regard to military expeditions precisely analogous to this celebrated fugitive slave law. Had Moses designed to perpetuate a warlike spirit among the Hebrews, the statute would have been preëminently absurd; but, if it was his design to crush it, and to render foreign wars almost impossible, the statute was exactly adapted to his purpose. It rendered foreign military service, in effect, entirely voluntary, just as the fugitive law rendered domestic servitude, in effect, voluntary.

The law may be found at length in Deuteronomy 20:5–10; and let it be carefully read and compared with the fugitive slave law already adverted to. Just when the men are drawn up ready for the expedition,—just at the moment when even the hearts of brave men are apt to fail them,—the officers are commanded to address the soldiers thus:

“What man of you is there that hath built a new house, and hath not dedicated it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man dedicate it.

“And what man is he that hath planted a vineyard and hath not yet eaten of it? Let him also go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man eat of it.

“And what man is there that hath betrothed a wife, and hath not taken her? Let him go and return unto his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man take her.”

And the officers shall speak further unto the people, and they shall say, “What man is there that is fearful and faint-hearted? Let him go and return unto his house, lest his brethren’s heart faint, as well as his heart.”

Now, consider that the Hebrews were exclusively an agricultural people, that warlike parties necessarily consist mainly of young men, and that by this statute every man who had built a house which he had not yet lived in, and every man who had planted a vineyard from which he had not yet gathered fruit, and every man who had engaged a wife whom he had not yet married, and every one who felt timid and faint-hearted, was permitted and commanded to go home,—how many would there probably be left? Especially when the officers, instead of exciting their military ardor by visions of glory and of splendor, were commanded to repeat it over and over again that they would probably die in the battle and never get home, and hold this idea up before them as if it were the only idea suitable for their purpose, how excessively absurd is the whole statute considered as a military law,—just as absurd as the Mosaic fugitive law, understood in its widest application, is, considered as a slave law!

It is clearly the object of this military law to put an end to military expeditions; for, with this law in force, such expeditions must always be entirely volunteer expeditions. Just as clearly was it the object of the fugitive slave law to put an end to compulsory servitude; for, with that law in force, the servitude must, in effect, be, to a great extent, voluntary,—and that is just what the legislator intended. There is no possibility of limiting the law, on account of its absurdity, when understood in its widest sense, except by proving that the Mosaic legislation was designed to perpetuate and not to limit slavery; and this certainly cannot be proved, for it is directly contrary to the plain matter of fact.

I repeat it, then, again: there is nothing in the language of this statute, there is nothing in the connection in which it stands, there is nothing in the history of the Mosaic legislation on this subject, to limit the application of the law to the case of servants escaping from foreign masters; but every consideration, from every legitimate source, leads us to a conclusion directly the opposite. Such a limitation is the arbitrary, unsupported stet voluntas pro ratione assumption of the commentator, and nothing else. The only shadow of a philological argument that I can see, for limiting the statute, is found in the use of the words to thee, in the fifteenth verse. It may be said that the pronoun thee is used in a national and not individual sense, implying an escape from some other nation to the Hebrews. But, examine the statute immediately preceding this, and observe the use of the pronoun thee in the thirteenth verse. Most obviously, the pronouns in these statutes are used with reference to the individuals addressed, and not in a collective or national sense exclusively; very rarely, if ever, can this sense be given to them in the way claimed by the argument referred to.

2. It is said that the proclamation, “Thou shalt proclaim liberty through the land to all the inhabitants thereof,” related only to Hebrew slaves. This assumption is based entirely on the supposition that the slave was not considered, in Hebrew law, as a person, as an inhabitant of the land, and a member of the state; but we have just proved that in the most solemn transaction of the state the hewer of wood and drawer of water is expressly designated as being just as much an actor and participator as his master; and it would be absurd to suppose that, in a statute addressed to all the inhabitants of the land, he is not included as an inhabitant.

Barnes enforces this idea by some pages of quotations from Jewish writers, which will fully satisfy any one who reads his work.

From a review, then, of all that relates to the Hebrew slave-law, it will appear that it was a very well-considered and wisely-adapted system of education and gradual emancipation. No rational man can doubt that if the same laws were enacted and the same practices prevailed with regard to slavery in the United States, that the system of American slavery might be considered, to all intents and purposes, practically at an end. If there is any doubt of this fact, and it is still thought that the permission of slavery among the Hebrews justifies American slavery, in all fairness the experiment of making the two systems alike ought to be tried, and we should then see what would be the result.

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XV. SLAVERY IS DESPOTISM

It is always important, in discussing a thing, to keep before our minds exactly what it is.

The only means of understanding precisely what a civil institution is are an examination of the laws which regulate it. In different ages and nations, very different things have been called by the name of slavery. Patriarchal servitude was one thing, Hebrew servitude was another, Greek and Roman servitude still a third; and these institutions differed very much from each other. What, then, is American slavery, as we have seen it exhibited by law, and by the decisions of courts?

Let us begin by stating what it is not.

1. It is not apprenticeship.

2. It is not guardianship.

3. It is in no sense a system for the education of a weaker race by a stronger.

4. The happiness of the governed is in no sense its object.

5. The temporal improvement or the eternal well-being of the governed is in no sense its object.

The object of it has been distinctly stated in one sentence, by Judge Ruffin,—“The end is the profit of the master, his security, and the public safety.”

Slavery, then, is absolute despotism, of the most unmitigated form.

It would, however, be doing injustice to the absolutism of any civilized country to liken American slavery to it. The absolute governments of Europe none of them pretend to be founded on a property right of the governor to the persons and entire capabilities of the governed.

This is a form of despotism which exists only in some of the most savage countries of the world; as, for example, in Dahomey.

The European absolutism or despotism, now, does, to some extent, recognize the happiness and welfare of the governed as the foundation of government; and the ruler is considered as invested with power for the benefit of the people; and his right to rule is supposed to be somewhat predicated upon the idea that he better understands how to promote the good of the people than they themselves do. No government in the civilized world now presents the pure despotic idea, as it existed in the old days of the Persian and Assyrian rule.

The arguments which defend slavery must be substantially the same as those which defend despotism of any other kind; and the objections which are to be urged against it are precisely those which can be urged against despotism of any other kind. The customs and practices to which it gives rise are precisely those to which despotisms in all ages have given rise.

Is the slave suspected of a crime? His master has the power to examine him by torture (see State v. Castleman). His master has, in fact, in most cases, the power of life and death, owing to the exclusion of the slave’s evidence. He has the power of banishing the slave, at any time, and without giving an account to anybody, to an exile as dreadful as that of Siberia, and to labors as severe as those of the galleys. He has also unlimited power over the character of his slave. He can accuse him of any crime, yet withhold from him all right of trial or investigation, and sell him into captivity, with his name blackened by an unexamined imputation.

These are all abuses for which despotic governments are blamed. They are powers which good men who are despotic rulers are beginning to disuse; but, under the flag of every slave-holding state, and under the flag of the whole United States in the District of Columbia, they are committed indiscriminately to men of any character.

But the worst kind of despotism has been said to be that which extends alike over the body and over the soul; which can bind the liberty of the conscience, and deprive a man of all right of choice in respect to the manner in which he shall learn the will of God, and worship Him. In other days, kings on their thrones, and cottagers by their firesides, alike trembled before a despotism which declared itself able to bind and to loose, to open and to shut the kingdom of heaven.

Yet this power to control the conscience, to control the religious privileges, and all the opportunities which man has of acquaintanceship with his Maker, and of learning to do his will, is, under the flag of every slave state, and under the flag of the United States, placed in the hands of any men, of any character, who can afford to pay for it.

It is a most awful and most solemn truth that the greatest republic in the world does sustain under her national flag the worst system of despotism which can possibly exist.

With regard to one point to which we have adverted,—the power of the master to deprive the slave of a legal trial while accusing him of crime,—a very striking instance has occurred in the District of Columbia, within a year or two. The particulars of the case, as stated, at the time, in several papers, were briefly these: A gentleman in Washington, our national capital,—an elder in the Presbyterian church,—held a female slave, who had, for some years, supported a good character in a Baptist church of that city. He accused her of an attempt to poison his family, and immediately placed her in the hands of a slave-dealer, who took her over and imprisoned her in the slave-pen at Alexandria, to await the departure of a coffle. The poor girl had a mother, who felt as any mother would naturally feel.

When apprized of the situation of her daughter, she flew to the pen, and, with tears, besought an interview with her only child; but she was cruelly repulsed, and told to be gone! She then tried to see the elder, but failed. She had the promise of money sufficient to purchase her daughter, but the owner would listen to no terms of compromise.

In her distress, the mother repaired to a lawyer in the city, and begged him to give form to her petition in writing. She stated to him what she wished to have said, and he arranged it for her in such a form as she herself might have presented it in, had not the benefits of education been denied her. The following is the letter:

Washington, July 25, 1851.

MR. ——.

SIR: I address you as a rich Christian freeman and father, while I am myself but a poor slave-mother! I come to plead with you for an only child whom I love, who is a professor of the Christian religion with yourself, and a member of a Christian church; and who, by your act of ownership, now pines in her imprisonment in a loathsome man-warehouse, where she is held for sale! I come to plead with you for the exercise of that blessed law, “Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them.”

With great labor, I have found friends who are willing to aid me in the purchase of my child, to save us from a cruel separation. You, as a father, can judge of my feelings when I was told that you had decreed her banishment to distant as well as to hopeless bondage!

For nearly six years my child has done for you the hard labor of a slave; from the age of sixteen to twenty-two, she has done the hard work of your chamber, kitchen, cellar, and stables. By night and by day, your will and your commands have been her highest law; and all this has been unrequited toil. If in all this time her scanty allowance of tea and coffee has been sweetened, it has been at the cost of her slave-mother, and not at yours.

You are an office-bearer in the church, and a man of prayer. As such, and as the absolute owner of my child, I ask candidly whether she has enjoyed such mild and gentle treatment, and amiable example, as she ought to have had, to encourage her in her monotonous bondage? Has she received at your hands, in faithful religious instruction in the Word of God, a full and fair compensation for all her toil? It is not to me alone that you must answer these questions. You acknowledge the high authority of His laws who preached a deliverance to the captive, and who commands you to give to your servant “that which is just and equal.” O! I entreat you, withhold not, at this trying hour, from my child that which will cut off her last hope, and which may endanger your own soul!

It has been said that you charge my daughter with crime. Can this be really so? Can it be that you would set aside the obligations of honor and good citizenship,—that you would dare to sell the guilty one away for money, rather than bring her to trial, which you know she is ready to meet? What would you say, if you were accused of guilt, and refused a trial? Is not her fair name as precious to her, in the church to which she belongs, as yours can be to you?

Suppose, now, for a moment, that your daughter, whom you love, instead of mine, was in these hot days incarcerated in a negro-pen, subject to my control, fed on the coarsest food, committed to the entire will of a brute, denied the privilege commonly allowed even to the murderer—that of seeing the face of his friends? O! then, you would FEEL! Feel soon, then, for a poor slave-mother and her child, and do for us as you shall wish you had done when we shall meet before the Great Judge, and when it shall be your greatest joy to say, “I did let the oppressed free.”

ELLEN BROWN.

The girl, however, was sent off to the Southern market.

The writer has received these incidents from the gentleman who wrote the letter. Whether the course pursued by the master was strictly legal is a point upon which we are not entirely certain; that it was a course in which the law did not in fact interfere is quite plain, and it is also very apparent that it was a course against which public sentiment did not remonstrate. The man who exercised this power was a professedly religious man, enjoying a position of importance in a Christian church; and it does not appear, from any movements in the Christian community about him, that they did not consider his course a justifiable one.

Yet is not this kind of power the very one at which we are so shocked when we see it exercised by foreign despots?

Do we not read with shuddering that in Russia, or in Austria, a man accused of crime is seized upon, separated from his friends, allowed no opportunities of trial or of self-defence, but hurried off to Siberia, or some other dreaded exile?

Why is despotism any worse in the governor of a state than in a private individual?

There is a great controversy now going on in the world between the despotic and the republican principle. All the common arguments used in support of slavery are arguments that apply with equal strength to despotic government, and there are some arguments in favor of despotic governments that do not apply to individual slavery.

There are arguments, and quite plausible ones, in favor of despotic government. Nobody can deny that it possesses a certain kind of efficiency, compactness, and promptness of movement, which cannot, from the nature of things, belong to a republic. Despotism has established and sustained much more efficient systems of police than ever a republic did. The late King of Prussia, by the possession of absolute despotic power was enabled to carry out a much more efficient system of popular education than we ever have succeeded in carrying out in America. He districted his kingdom in the most thorough manner, and obliged every parent, whether he would or not, to have his children thoroughly educated.

If we reply to all this, as we do, that the possession of absolute power in a man qualified to use it right is undoubtedly calculated for the good of the state, but that there are so few men that know how to use it, that this form of government is not, on the whole, a safe one, then we have stated an argument that goes to overthrow slavery as much as it does a despotic government; for certainly the chances are much greater of finding one man, in the course of fifty years, who is capable of wisely using this power, than of finding thousands of men every day in our streets, who can be trusted with such power. It is a painful and most serious fact, that America trusts to the hands of the most brutal men of her country, equally with the best, that despotic power which she thinks an unsafe thing even in the hands of the enlightened, educated and cultivated Emperor of the Russias.

With all our republican prejudices, we cannot deny that Nicholas is a man of talent, with a mind liberalized by education; we have been informed, also, that he is a man of serious and religious character;—he certainly, acting as he does in the eye of all the world, must have great restraint upon him from public opinion, and a high sense of character. But who is the man to whom American laws intrust powers more absolute than those of Nicholas of Russia, or Ferdinand of Naples? He may have been a pirate on the high seas; he may be a drunkard; he may, like Souther, have been convicted of a brutality at which humanity turns pale; but, for all that, American slave-law will none the less trust him with this irresponsible power,—power over the body, and power over the soul.

On which side, then, stands the American nation, in the great controversy which is now going on between self-government and despotism? On which side does America stand, in the great controversy for liberty of conscience?

Do foreign governments exclude their population from the reading of the Bible?—The slave of America is excluded by the most effectual means possible. Do we say, “Ah! but we read the Bible to our slaves, and present the gospel orally?”—This is precisely what religious despotism in Italy says. Do we say that we have no objection to our slaves reading the Bible, if they will stop there; but that with this there will come in a flood of general intelligence, which will upset the existing state of things?—This is precisely what is said in Italy.

Do we say we should be willing that the slave should read his Bible, but that he, in his ignorance, will draw false and erroneous conclusions from it, and for that reason we prefer to impart its truths to him orally?—This, also, is precisely what the religious despotism of Europe says.

Do we say, in our vain-glory, that despotic government dreads the coming in of anything calculated to elevate and educate the people?—And is there not the same dread through all the despotic slave governments of America?

On which side, then, does the American nation stand, in the great, last QUESTION of the age?

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I. DOES PUBLIC OPINION PROTECT THE SLAVE?

The utter inefficiency of the law to protect the slave in any respect has been shown.

But it is claimed that, precisely because the law affords the slave no protection, therefore public opinion is the more strenuous in his behalf.

Nothing more frequently strikes the eye, in running over judicial proceedings in the courts of slave states, than announcements of the utter inutility of the law to rectify some glaring injustice towards this unhappy race, coupled with congratulatory remarks on that beneficent state of public sentiment which is to supply entirely this acknowledged deficiency of the law.

On this point it may, perhaps, be sufficient to ask the reader, whether North or South, to review in his own mind the judicial documents which we have presented, and ask himself what inference is to be drawn, as to the state of public sentiment, from the cases there presented,—from the pleas of lawyers, the decisions of judges, the facts sworn to by witnesses, and the general style and spirit of the whole proceedings.

In order to appreciate this more fully, let us compare a trial in a free state with a trial in a slave state.

In the free State of Massachusetts, a man of standing, learning and high connections, murdered another man. He did not torture him, but with one blow sent him in a moment from life. The murderer had every advantage of position, of friends; it may be said, indeed, that he had the sympathy of the whole United States; yet how calmly, with what unmoved and awful composure, did the judicial examination proceed! The murderer was condemned to die—what a sensation shook the country! Even sovereign states assumed the attitude of petitioners for him.

There was a voice of entreaty, from Maine to New Orleans. There were remonstrances, and there were threats; but still, with what passionless calmness retributive justice held on its way! Though the men who were her instruments were men of merciful and bleeding hearts, yet they bowed in silence to her sublime will. In spite of all that influence and wealth and power could do, a cultivated and intelligent man, from the first rank of society, suffered the same penalty that would fall on any other man who violated the sanctity of human life.

Now, compare this with a trial in a slave state. In Virginia, Souther also murdered a man; but he did not murder him by one merciful blow, but by twelve hours of torture so horrible that few readers could bear even the description of it. It was a mode of death which, to use the language that Cicero in his day applied to crucifixion, “ought to be forever removed from the sight, hearing, and from the very thoughts of mankind.” And to this horrible scene two white men were WITNESSES!

Observe the mode in which these two cases were tried, and the general sensation they produced. Hear the lawyers, in this case of Souther, coolly debating whether it can be considered any crime at all. Hear the decision of the inferior court, that it is murder in the second degree, and apportioning as its reward five years of imprisonment. See the horrible butcher coming up to the Superior Court in the attitude of an injured man! See the case recorded as that of Souther VERSUS The Commonwealth, and let us ask any intelligent man, North or South, what sort of public sentiment does this show!

Does it show a belief that the negro is a man? Does it not show decidedly that he is not considered as a man? Consider further the horrible principle which, reäffirmed in the case, is the law of the land in Virginia. It is the policy of the law, in respect to the relation of master and slave, and for the sake of securing proper subordination on the part of the slave, to protect the master from prosecution in all such cases, even if the whipping and punishment be malicious, cruel and excessive!

When the most cultivated and intelligent men in the state formally, calmly and without any apparent perception of saying anything inhuman, utter such an astounding decision as this, what can be thought of it? If they do not consider this cruel, what is cruel? And, if their feelings are so blunted as to see no cruelty in such a decision, what hope is there of any protection to the slave?

This law is a plain and distinct permission to such wretches as Souther to inflict upon the helpless slave any torture they may choose, without any accusation or impeachment of crime. It distinctly tells Souther, and the white witnesses who saw his deed, and every other low, unprincipled man in the court, that it is the policy of the law to protect him in malicious, cruel and excessive punishments.

What sort of an education is this for the intelligent and cultivated men of a state to communicate to the lower and less-educated class? Suppose it to be solemnly announced in Massachusetts, with respect to free laborers or apprentices, that it is the policy of the law, for the sake of producing subordination, to protect the master in inflicting any punishment, however cruel, malicious and excessive, short of death. We cannot imagine such a principle declared, without a rebellion and a storm of popular excitement to which that of Bunker Hill was calmness itself;—but, supposing the State of Massachusetts were so “twice dead and plucked up by the roots” as to allow such a decision to pass without comment concerning her working classes,—suppose it did pass, and become an active, operative reality, what kind of an educational influence would it exert upon the commonwealth? What kind of an estimate of the working classes would it show in the minds of those who make and execute the law?

What an immediate development of villany and brutality would be brought out by such a law, avowedly made to protect men in cruelty! Cannot men be cruel enough, without all the majesty of law being brought into operation to sanction it, and make it reputable?

And suppose it were said, in vindication of such a law, “O, of course, no respectable, humane man would ever think of taking advantage of it.” Should we not think the old State of Massachusetts sunk very low, to have on her legal records direct assurances of protection to deeds which no decent man would ever do?

And, when this shocking permission is brought in review at the judgment-seat of Christ, and the awful Judge shall say to its makers, aiders, and abettors, Where is thy brother?—when all the souls that have called from under the altar, “How long, O Lord, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood,” shall rise around the judgment-seat as a great cloud of witnesses, and the judgment is set and the books are opened,—what answer will be made for such laws and decisions as these?

Will they tell the great Judge that it was necessary to preserve the slave system,—that it could not be preserved without them?

Will they dare look upon those eyes, which are as a flame of fire, with any such avowal?

Will He not answer, as with a voice of thunders, “Ye have killed the poor and needy, and ye have forgotten that the Lord was his helper”?

The deadly sin of slavery is its denial of humanity to man. This has been the sin of oppression, in every age. To tread down, to vilify and crush, the image of God, in the person of the poor and lowly, has been the great sin of man since the creation of the world. Against this sin all the prophets of ancient times poured forth their thunders. A still stronger witness was borne against this sin when God, in Jesus Christ, took human nature, and made each human being a brother of the Lord. But the last and most sublime witness shall be borne when a MAN shall judge the whole earth—a Man who shall acknowledge for His brother the meanest slave, equally with the proudest master.

In most singular and affecting terms it is asserted in the Bible that the Father hath committed all judgment to the Son, BECAUSE HE IS THE SON OF MAN. That human nature, which, in the person of the poor slave, has been despised and rejected, scoffed and scorned, scourged and tortured, shall in that day be glorified; and it shall appear the most fearful of sins to have made light of the sacredness of humanity, as these laws and institutions of slavery have done. The fact is, that the whole system of slave-law, and the whole practice of the slave system, and the public sentiment that is formed by it, are alike based on the greatest of all heresies, a denial of equal human brotherhood. A whole race has been thrown out of the range of human existence, their immortality disregarded, their dignity as children of God scoffed at, their brotherhood with Christ treated as a fable, and all the law and public sentiment and practice with regard to them such as could be justified only on supposition that they were a race of inferior animals.

It is because the negro is considered an inferior animal, and not worthy of any better treatment, that the system which relates to him and the treatment which falls to him are considered humane.

Take any class of white men, however uneducated, and place them under the same system of laws, and make their civil condition in all respects like that of the negro, and would it not be considered the most outrageous cruelty?

Suppose the slave-law were enacted with regard to all the Irish in our country, and they were parcelled off as the property of any man who had money enough to buy them. Suppose their right to vote, their right to bring suit in any case, their right to bear testimony in courts of justice, their right to contract a legal marriage, their right to hold property or to make contracts of any sort, were all by one stroke of law blotted out. Furthermore, suppose it was forbidden to teach them to read and write, and that their children to all ages were “doomed to live without knowledge.” Suppose that, in judicial proceedings, it were solemnly declared, with regard to them, that the mere beating of an Irishman, “apart from any circumstances of cruelty, or any attempt to kill,” was no offence against the peace of the state. Suppose that it were declared that, for the better preservation of subjection among them, the law would protect the master in any kind of punishment inflicted, even if it should appear to be malicious, cruel and excessive; and suppose that monsters like Souther, in availing themselves of this permission, should occasionally torture Irishmen to death, but still this circumstance should not be deemed of sufficient importance to call for any restriction on the part of the master. Suppose it should be coolly said, “O yes, Irishmen are occasionally tortured to death, we know; but it is not by any means a general occurrence; in fact, no men of position in society would do it; and when cases of the kind do occur, they are indignantly frowned upon.”

Suppose it should be stated that the reason that the law restraining the power of the master cannot be made any more stringent is, that the general system cannot be maintained without allowing this extent of power to the master.

Suppose that, having got all the Irishmen in the country down into this condition, they should maintain that such was the public sentiment of humanity with regard to them as abundantly to supply the want of all legal rights, and to make their condition, on the whole, happier than if they were free. Should we not say that a public sentiment which saw no cruelty in thus depriving a whole race of every right dear to manhood could see no cruelty in anything, and had proved itself wholly unfit to judge upon the subject? What man would not rather see his children in the grave than see them slaves? What man, who, should he wake to-morrow morning in the condition of an American slave, would not wish himself in the grave? And yet all the defenders of slavery start from the point that this legal condition is not of itself a cruelty! They would hold it the last excess of cruelty with regard to themselves, or any white man; why do they call it no cruelty at all with regard to the negro?

The writer in defence of slavery in Fraser’s Magazine justifies this depriving of a whole class of any legal rights, by urging that “the good there is in human nature will supply the deficiencies of human legislation.” This remark is one most significant, powerful index of the state of public sentiment, produced even in a generous mind, by the slave system. This writer thinks the good there is in human nature will supply the absence of all legal rights to thousands and millions of human beings. He thinks it right to risk their bodies and their souls on the good there is in human nature; yet this very man would not send a fifty-dollar bill through the post-office, in an unsealed letter, trusting to “the good there is in human nature.”

Would this man dare to place his children in the position of slaves, and trust them to “the good in human nature”?

Would he buy an estate from the most honorable man of his acquaintance, and have no legal record of the deed, trusting to “the good in human nature”? And if “the good in human nature” will not suffice for him and his children, how will it suffice for his brother and his brother’s children? Is his happiness of any more importance in God’s sight than his brother’s happiness, that his must be secured by legal bolts, and bonds, and bars, and his brother’s left to “the good there is in human nature”? Never are we so impressed with the utter deadness of public sentiment to protect the slave, as when we see such opinions as these uttered by men of a naturally generous and noble character.

The most striking and the most painful examples of the perversion of public sentiment, with regard to the negro race, are often given in the writings of men of humanity, amiableness and piety.

That devoted laborer for the slave, the Rev. Charles C. Jones, thus expresses his sense of the importance of one African soul:

Were it now revealed to us that the most extensive system of instruction which we could devise, requiring a vast amount of labor and protracted through ages, would result in the tender mercy of our God in the salvation of the soul of one poor African, we should feel warranted in cheerfully entering upon our work, with all its costs and sacrifices.

What a noble, what a sublime spirit, is here breathed! Does it not show a mind capable of the very highest impulses?

And yet, if we look over his whole writings, we shall see painfully how the moral sense of the finest mind may be perverted by constant familiarity with such a system.

We find him constructing an appeal to masters to have their slaves orally instructed in religion. In many passages he speaks of oral instruction as confessedly an imperfect species of instruction, very much inferior to that which results from personal reading and examination of the Word of God. He says, in one place, that in order to do much good it must be begun very early in life, and intimates that people in advanced years can acquire very little from it; and yet he decidedly expresses his opinion that slavery is an institution with which no Christian has cause to interfere.

The slaves, according to his own showing, are cut off from the best means for the salvation of their souls, and restricted to one of a very inferior nature. They are placed under restriction which makes their souls as dependent upon others for spiritual food as a man without hands is dependent upon others for bodily food. He recognizes the fact, which his own experience must show him, that the slave is at all times liable to pass into the hands of those who will not take the trouble thus to feed his soul; nay, if we may judge from his urgent appeals to masters, he perceives around him many who, having spiritually cut off the slave’s hands, refuse to feed him. He sees that, by the operation of this law as a matter of fact, thousands are placed in situations where the perdition of the soul is almost certain, and yet he declares that he does not feel called upon at all to interfere with their civil condition!

But, if the soul of every poor African is of that inestimable worth which Mr. Jones believes, does it not follow that he ought to have the very best means for getting to heaven which it is possible to give him? And is not he who can read the Bible for himself in a better condition than he who is dependent upon the reading of another? If it be said that such teaching cannot be afforded, because it makes them unsafe property, ought not a clergyman like Mr. Jones to meet this objection in his own expressive language:

Were it now revealed to us that the most extensive system of instruction which we could devise, requiring a vast amount of labor and protracted through ages, would result in the tender mercy of our God in the salvation of the soul of one poor African, we should feel warranted in cheerfully entering upon our work, with all its costs and sacrifices.

Should not a clergyman, like Mr. Jones, tell masters that they should risk the loss of all things seen and temporal, rather than incur the hazard of bringing eternal ruin on these souls? All the arguments which Mr. Jones so eloquently used with masters, to persuade them to give their slaves oral instruction, would apply with double force to show their obligation to give the slave the power of reading the Bible for himself.

Again, we come to hear Mr. Jones telling masters of the power they have over the souls of their servants, and we hear him say,

We may, according to the power lodged in our hands, forbid religious meetings and religious instruction on our own plantations; we may forbid our servants going to church at all, or only to such churches as we may select for them. We may literally shut up the kingdom of heaven against men, and suffer not them that are entering to go in.

And, when we hear Mr. Jones say all this, and then consider that he must see and know this awful power is often lodged in the hands of wholly irreligious men, in the hands of men of the most profligate character, we can account for his thinking such a system right only by attributing it to that blinding, deadening influence which the public sentiment of slavery exerts even over the best-constituted minds.

Neither Mr. Jones nor any other Christian minister would feel it right that the eternal happiness of their own children should be thus placed in the power of any man who should have money to pay for them. How, then, can they think it right that this power be given in the case of their African brother?

Does this not show that, even in case of the most humane and Christian people, who theoretically believe in the equality of all souls before God, a constant familiarity with slavery works a practical infidelity on this point; and that they give their assent to laws which practically declare that the salvation of the servant’s soul is of less consequence than the salvation of the property relation?

Let us not be thought invidious or uncharitable in saying, that where slavery exists there are so many causes necessarily uniting to corrupt public sentiment with regard to the slave, that the best-constituted minds cannot trust themselves in it. In the northern and free states public sentiment has been, and is, to this day, fatally infected by the influence of a past and the proximity of a present system of slavery. Hence the injustice with which the negro in many of our states is treated. Hence, too, those apologies for slavery, and defences of it, which issue from Northern presses, and even Northern pulpits. If even at the North the remains of slavery can produce such baleful effects in corrupting public sentiment, how much more must this be the case where this institution is in full force!

The whole American nation is, in some sense, under a paralysis of public sentiment on this subject. It was said by a heathen writer that the gods gave us a fearful power when they gave us the faculty of becoming accustomed to things. This power has proved a fearful one indeed in America. We have got used to things which might stir the dead in their graves.

When but a small portion of the things daily done in America has been told in England, and France, and Italy, and Germany, there has been a perfect shriek and outcry of horror. America alone remains cool, and asks, “What is the matter?”

Europe answers back, “Why, we have heard that men are sold like cattle in your country.”

“Of course they are,” says America; “but what then?”

“We have heard,” says Europe, “that millions of men are forbidden to read and write in your country.”

“We know that,” says America; “but what is this outcry about?”

“We have heard,” says Europe, “that Christian girls are sold to shame in your markets!”

“That isn’t quite as it should be,” says America; “but still what is this excitement about?”

“We hear that three millions of your people can have no legal marriage ties,” says Europe.

“Certainly that is true,” returns America; “but you made such an outcry, we thought you saw some great cruelty going on.”

“And you profess to be a free country!” says indignant Europe.

“Certainly we are the freest and most enlightened country in the world,—what are you talking about?” says America.

“You send your missionaries to Christianize us,” says Turkey; “and our religion has abolished this horrible system.”

“You! you are all heathen over there,—what business have you to talk?” answers America.

Many people seem really to have thought that nothing but horrible exaggerations of the system of slavery could have produced the sensation which has recently been felt in all modern Europe. They do not know that the thing they have become accustomed to, and handled so freely in every discussion, seems to all other nations the sum and essence of villany. Modern Europe, opening her eyes and looking on the legal theory of the slave system, on the laws and interpretations of law which define it, says to America, in the language of the indignant Othello, If thou wilt justify a thing like this,

“Never pray more; abandon all remorse; On Horror’s head horrors accumulate; Do deeds to make heaven weep, all earth amazed; For nothing canst thou to damnation add Greater than this.”

There is an awful state of familiarity with evil which the apostle calls being “dead in trespasses and sins,” where truth has been resisted, and evil perseveringly defended, and the convictions of conscience stifled, and the voice of God’s Holy Spirit bidden to depart. There is an awful paralysis of the moral sense, when deeds unholiest and crimes most fearful cease any longer to affect the nerve. That paralysis, always a fearful indication of the death and dissolution of nations, is a doubly dangerous disease in a republic, whose only power is in intelligence, justice and virtue.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

II. PUBLIC OPINION FORMED BY EDUCATION

Rev. Charles C. Jones, in his interesting work on the Religious Instruction of Negroes, has a passage which so peculiarly describes that influence of public opinion which we have been endeavoring to illustrate, that we shall copy it.

Habits of feeling and prejudices in relation to any subject are wont to take their rise out of our education or circumstances. Every man knows their influence to be great in shaping opinions and conduct, and ofttimes how unwittingly they are formed; that while we may be unconscious of their existence, they may grow with our growth and strengthen with our strength. Familiarity converts deformity into comeliness. Hence we are not always the best judges of our condition. Another may remark inconveniences, and, indeed, real evils, in it, of which we may be said to have been all our lives scarcely conscious. So, also, evils which, upon first acquaintance, revolted our whole nature, and appeared intolerable, custom almost makes us forget even to see. Men passing out of one state of society into another encounter a thousand things to which they feel that they can never be reconciled; yet, shortly after, their sensibilities become dulled,—a change passes over them, they scarcely know how. They have accommodated themselves to their new circumstances and relations,—they are Romans in Rome.

Let us now inquire what are the educational influences which bear upon the mind educated in constant familiarity with the slave system.

Take any child of ingenuous mind and of generous heart, and educate him under the influences of slavery, and what are the things which go to form his character? An anecdote which a lady related to the writer may be in point in this place. In giving an account of some of the things which induced her to remove her family from under the influence of slavery, she related the following incident: Looking out of her nursery window one day, she saw her daughter, about three years of age, seated in her little carriage, with six or eight young negro children harnessed into it for horses. Two or three of the older slaves were standing around their little mistress, and one of them, putting a whip into her hand, said, “There, Misse, whip ‘em well; make ‘em go,—they’re all your niggers.”

What a moral and religious lesson was this for that young soul! The mother was a judicious woman, who never would herself have taught such a thing; but the whole influence of slave society had burnt it into the soul of every negro, and through them it was communicated to the child.

As soon as a child is old enough to read the newspapers, he sees in every column such notices as the following from a late Richmond Whig, and other papers.

LARGE SALE OF NEGROES, HORSES, MULES, CATTLE, &c.

The subscriber, under a decree of the Circuit Superior Court for Fluvanna County, will proceed to sell, by public auction, at the late residence of William Galt, deceased, on TUESDAY, the 30th day of November, and WEDNESDAY, the 1st day of December next, beginning at 11 o’clock, the negroes, stock, &c., of all kinds, belonging to the estate, consisting of 175 negroes, amongst whom are SOME CARPENTERS AND BLACKSMITHS,—10 horses, 33 mules, 100 head of cattle, 100 sheep, 200 hogs, 1500 barrels corn, oats, fodder, &c., the plantation and shop tools of all kinds.

The Negroes will be sold for cash; the other property on a credit of nine months, the purchaser giving bond, with approved security.

JAMES GALT, Administrator of William Galt, deceased

Oct. 19.

From the Nashville Gazette, Nov. 23, 1852:

GREAT SALE OF NEGROES, MULES, CATTLE, &c.

On TUESDAY, the 21st day of December next, at the Plantation of the late N. A. MCNAIRY, on the Franklin Turnpike, on account of Mrs. C. B. McNairy, Executrix, we will offer at Public Sale

FIFTY VALUABLE NEGROES.

These Negroes are good Plantation Negroes, and will be sold in families. Those wishing to purchase will do well to see them before the day of sale.

Also, TEN FINE WORK MULES, TWO JACKS AND ONE JENNET, MILCH COWS AND CALVES, Cattle, Stock Hogs, 1200 barrels Corn, Oats, Hay, Fodder, &c. Two Wagons, One Cart, Farming Utensils, &c.

From the Newberry Sentinel:

FOR SALE.

The subscriber will sell at Auction, on the 15th of this month, at the Plantation on which he resides, distant eleven miles from the Town of Newberry, and near the Laurens Railroad,

22 Young and Likely Negroes;

comprising able-bodied field-hands, good cooks, house-servants, and an excellent blacksmith;—about 1500 bushels of corn, a quantity of fodder, hogs, mules, sheep, neat cattle, household and kitchen furniture, and other property.—Terms made public on day of Sale.

M. C. GARY.

Dec. 1.

☞ Laurensville Herald copy till day of sale.

From the South Carolinian, Oct. 21, 1852:

ESTATE SALE OF VALUABLE PROPERTY.

The undersigned, as Administrator of the Estate of Col. T. Randell, deceased, will sell, on MONDAY, the 20th December next, all the personal property belonging to said estate, consisting of 56 NEGROES, STOCK, CORN, FODDER, &c. &c. The sale will take place at the residence of the deceased, on Sandy River, 10 miles West of Chesterville.

Terms of Sale: The negroes on a credit of 12 months, with interest from day of sale, and two good sureties. The other property will be sold for cash.

SAMUEL J. RANDELL.

Sept. 2.

See, also, New Orleans Bee, Oct. 28. After advertising the landed estate of Madeline Lanoux, deceased, comes the following enumeration of chattels:

Twelve slaves, men and women; a small, quite new schooner; a ferrying flat-boat; some cows, calves, heifers and sheep; a lot of household furniture; the contents of a store, consisting of hardware, crockery ware, groceries, dry goods, etc.

Now, suppose all parents to be as pious and benevolent as Mr. Jones,—a thing not at all to be hoped for, as things are;—and suppose them to try their very best to impress on the child a conviction that all souls are of equal value in the sight of God; that the negro soul is as truly beloved of Christ, and ransomed with his blood, as the master’s; and is there any such thing as making him believe or realize it? Will he believe that that which he sees, every week, advertised with hogs, and horses, and fodder, and cotton-seed, and refuse furniture,—bedsteads, tables and chairs,—is indeed so divine a thing? We will suppose that the little child knows some pious slave; that he sees him at the communion-table, partaking, in a far-off, solitary manner, of the sacramental bread and wine. He sees his pious father and mother recognize the slave as a Christian brother; they tell him that he is an “heir of God, a joint heir with Jesus Christ;” and the next week he sees him advertised in the paper, in company with a lot of hogs, stock and fodder. Can the child possibly believe in what his Christian parents have told him, when he sees this? We have spoken now of only the common advertisements of the paper; but suppose the child to live in some districts of the country, and advertisements of a still more degrading character meet his eye. In the State of Alabama, a newspaper devoted to politics, literature and EDUCATION, has a standing weekly advertisement of which this is a copy:

NOTICE.

The undersigned having an excellent pack of HOUNDS, for trailing and catching runaway slaves, informs the public that his prices in future will be as follows for such services:

For each day employed in hunting or trailing, $2.50 For catching each slave, 10.00 For going over ten miles and catching slaves, 20.00

If sent for, the above prices will be exacted in cash. The subscriber resides one mile and a half south of Dadeville, Ala.

B. BLACK.

Dadeville, Sept. 1, 1852. 1tf

The reader will see, by the printer’s sign at the bottom, that it is a season advertisement, and, therefore, would meet the eye of the child week after week. The paper from which we have cut this contains among its extracts passages from Dickens’ Household Words, from Professor Felton’s article in the Christian Examiner on the relation of the sexes, and a most beautiful and chivalrous appeal from the eloquent senator Soulé on the legal rights of women. Let us now ask, since this paper is devoted to education, what sort of an educational influence such advertisements have. And, of course, such an establishment is not kept up without patronage. Where there are negro-hunters advertising in a paper, there are also negro-hunts, and there are dogs being trained to hunt; and all this process goes on before the eyes of children; and what sort of education is it?

The writer has received an account of the way in which dogs are trained for this business. The information has been communicated to the gentleman who writes it by a negro man, who, having been always accustomed to see it done, described it with as little sense of there being anything out of the way in it as if the dogs had been trained to catch raccoons. It came to the writer in a recent letter from the South.

The way to train ‘em (says the man) is to take these yer pups,—any kind o’ pups will do,—fox-hounds, bull-dogs, most any;—but take the pups, and keep ‘em shut up and don’t let ‘em never see a nigger till they get big enough to be larned. When the pups gits old enough to be set on to things, then make ‘em run after a nigger; and when they cotches him, give ‘em meat. Tell the nigger to run as hard as he can, and git up in a tree, so as to larn the dogs to tree ‘em; then take the shoe of a nigger, and larn ‘em to find the nigger it belongs to; then a rag of his clothes; and so on. Allers be carful to tree the nigger, and teach the dog to wait and bark under the tree till you come up and give him his meat.

See also the following advertisement from the Ouachita Register, a newspaper dated “Monroe, La., Tuesday evening, June 1, 1852.”

NEGRO DOGS.

The undersigned would respectfully inform the citizens of Ouachita and adjacent parishes, that he has located about 2½ miles east of John White’s, on the road leading from Monroe to Bastrop, and that he has a fine pack of Dogs for catching negroes. Persons wishing negroes caught will do well to give him a call. He can always be found at his stand when not engaged in hunting, and even then information of his whereabouts can always be had of some one on the premises.

Terms.—Five dollars per day and found, when there is no track pointed out. When the track is shown, twenty-five dollars will be charged for catching the negro.

M. C. GOFF.

Monroe, Feb. 17, 1852. 15–3m

Now, do not all the scenes likely to be enacted under this head form a fine education for the children of a Christian nation? and can we wonder if children so formed see no cruelty in slavery? Can children realize that creatures who are thus hunted are the children of one heavenly Father with themselves?

But suppose the boy grows up to be a man, and attends the courts of justice, and hears intelligent, learned men declaring from the bench that “the mere beating of a slave, unaccompanied by any circumstances of cruelty, or an attempt to kill, is no breach of the peace of the state.” Suppose he hears it decided in the same place that no insult or outrage upon any slave is considered worthy of legal redress, unless it impairs his property value. Suppose he hears, as he would in Virginia, that it is the policy of the law to protect the master even in inflicting cruel, malicious and excessive punishment upon the slave. Suppose a slave is murdered, and he hears the lawyers arguing that it cannot be considered a murder, because the slave, in law, is not considered a human being; and then suppose the case is appealed to a superior court, and he hears the judge expending his forces on a long and eloquent dissertation to prove that the slave is a human being; at least, that he is as much so as a lunatic, an idiot, or an unborn child, and that, therefore, he can be murdered. (See Judge Clark’s speech, on p. 75.) Suppose he sees that all the administration of law with regard to the slave proceeds on the idea that he is absolutely nothing more than a bale of merchandise. Suppose he hears such language as this, which occurs in the reasonings of the Brazealle case, and which is a fair sample of the manner in which such subjects are ordinarily discussed. “The slave has no more political capacity, no more right to purchase, hold or transfer property, than the mule in his plough; he is in himself but a mere chattel,—the subject of absolute ownership.” Suppose he sees on the statute-book such sentences as these, from the civil code of Louisiana:

Art. 2500. The latent defects of slaves and animals are divided into two classes,—vices of body and vices of character.

Art. 2501. The vices of body are distinguished into absolute and relative.

Art. 2502. The absolute vices of slaves are leprosy, madness and epilepsy.

Art. 2503. The absolute vices of horses and mules are short wind, glanders, and founder.

The influence of this language is made all the stronger on the young mind from the fact that it is not the language of contempt, or of passion, but of calm, matter-of-fact, legal statement.

What effect must be produced on the mind of the young man when he comes to see that, however atrocious and however well-proved be the murder of a slave, the murderer uniformly escapes; and that, though the cases where the slave has fallen a victim to passions of the white are so multiplied, yet the fact of an execution for such a crime is yet almost unknown in the country? Does not all this tend to produce exactly that estimate of the value of negro life and happiness which Frederic Douglass says was expressed by a common proverb among the white boys where he was brought up: “It’s worth sixpence to kill a nigger, and sixpence more to bury him”?

We see the public sentiment which has been formed by this kind of education exhibited by the following paragraph from the Cambridge Democrat, Md., Oct. 27, 1852. That paper quotes the following from the Woodville Republican, of Mississippi. It seems a Mr. Joshua Johns had killed a slave, and had been sentenced therefor to the penitentiary for two years. The Republican thus laments his hard lot:

STATE v. JOSHUA JOHNS.

This cause resulted in the conviction of Johns, and his sentence to the penitentiary for two years. Although every member of the jury, together with the bar, and the public generally, signed a petition to the governor for young Johns’ pardon, yet there was no fault to find with the verdict of the jury. The extreme youth of Johns, and the circumstances in which the killing occurred, enlisted universal sympathy in his favor. There is no doubt that the negro had provoked him to the deed by the use of insolent language; but how often must it be told that words are no justification for blows? There are many persons—and we regret to say it—who think they have the same right to shoot a negro, if he insults them, or even runs from them, that they have to shoot down a dog; but there are laws for the protection of the slave as well as the master, and the sooner the error above alluded to is removed, the better will it be for both parties.

The unfortunate youth who has now entailed upon himself the penalty of the law, we doubt not, had no idea that there existed such penalty; and even if he was aware of the fact, the repeated insults and taunts of the negro go far to mitigate the crime. Johns was defended by I. D. Gildart, Esq., who probably did all that could have been effected in his defence.

The Democrat adds:

We learn from Mr. Curry, deputy sheriff, of Wilkinson County, that Johns has been pardoned by the governor. We are gratified to hear it.

This error above alluded to, of thinking it is as innocent to shoot down a negro as a dog, is one, we fairly admit, for which young Johns ought not to be very severely blamed. He has been educated in a system of things of which this opinion is the inevitable result; and he, individually, is far less guilty for it, than are those men who support the system of laws, and keep up the educational influences, which lead young Southern men directly to this conclusion. Johns may be, for aught we know, as generous-hearted and as just naturally as any young man living; but the horrible system under which he has been educated has rendered him incapable of distinguishing what either generosity or justice is, as applied to the negro.

The public sentiment of the slave states is the sentiment of men who have been thus educated, and in all that concerns the negro it is utterly blunted and paralyzed. What would seem to them injustice and horrible wrong in the case of white persons, is the coolest matter of course in relation to slaves.

As this educational influence descends from generation to generation, the moral sense becomes more and more blunted, and the power of discriminating right from wrong, in what relates to the subject race, more and more enfeebled.

Thus, if we read the writings of distinguished men who were slave-holders about the time of our American Revolution, what clear views do we find expressed of the injustice of slavery, what strong language of reprobation do we find applied to it! Nothing more forcible could possibly be said in relation to its evils than by quoting the language of such men as Washington, Jefferson, and Patrick Henry. In those days there were no men of that high class of mind who thought of such a thing as defending slavery on principle: now there are an abundance of the most distinguished men, North and South, statesmen, civilians, men of letters, even clergymen, who in various degrees palliate it, apologize for or openly defend it. And what is the cause of this, except that educational influences have corrupted public sentiment, and deprived them of the power of just judgment? The public opinion even of free America, with regard to slavery, is behind that of all other civilized nations.

When the holders of slaves assert that they are, as a general thing, humanely treated, what do they mean? Not that they would consider such treatment humane if given to themselves and their children,—no, indeed!—but it is humane for slaves.

They do, in effect, place the negro below the range of humanity, and on a level with brutes, and then graduate all their ideas of humanity accordingly.

They would not needlessly kick or abuse a dog or a negro. They may pet a dog, and they often do a negro. Men have been found who fancied having their horses elegantly lodged in marble stables, and to eat out of sculptured mangers, but they thought them horses still; and, with all the indulgences with which good-natured masters sometimes surround the slave, he is to them but a negro still, and not a man.

In what has been said in this chapter, and in what appears incidentally in all the facts cited throughout this volume, there is abundant proof that, notwithstanding there be frequent and most noble instances of generosity towards the negro, and although the sentiment of honorable men and the voice of Christian charity does everywhere protest against what it feels to be inhumanity, yet the popular sentiment engendered by the system must necessarily fall deplorably short of giving anything like sufficient protection to the rights of the slave. It will appear in the succeeding chapters, as it must already have appeared to reflecting minds, that the whole course of educational influence upon the mind of the slave-master is such as to deaden his mind to those appeals which come from the negro as a fellow-man and a brother.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

III. SEPARATION OF FAMILIES

“What must the difference be,” said Dr. Worthington, with startling energy, “between Isabel and her servants! To her it is loss of position, fortune, the fair hopes of life, perhaps even health; for she must inevitably break down under the unaccustomed labor and privations she will have to undergo. But to them it is merely a change of masters”!

“Yes, for the neighbors won’t allow any of the families to be separated.”

“Of course not. We read of such things in novels sometimes. But I have yet to see it in real life, except in rare cases, or where the slave has been guilty of some misdemeanor, or crime, for which, in the North, he would have been imprisoned, perhaps for life.”—Cabin and Parlor, by J. Thornton Randolph, p. 39.

* * * * *

“But they’re going to sell us all to Georgia, I say. How are we to escape that?”

“Spec dare some mistake in dat,” replied Uncle Peter, stoutly. “I nebber knew of sich a ting in dese parts, ‘cept where some niggar’d been berry bad.”—Ibid.

By such graphic touches as the above does Mr. Thornton Randolph represent to us the patriarchal stability and security of the slave population in the Old Dominion. Such a thing as a slave being sold out of the state has never been heard of by Dr. Worthington, except in rare cases for some crime; and old Uncle Peter never heard of such a thing in his life.

Are these representations true?

The worst abuse of the system of slavery is its outrage upon the family; and, as the writer views the subject, it is one which is more notorious and undeniable than any other.

Yet it is upon this point that the most stringent and earnest denial has been made to the representations of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” either indirectly, as by the romance-writer above, or more directly in the assertions of newspapers, both at the North and at the South. When made at the North, they indicate, to say the least, very great ignorance of the subject; when made at the South, they certainly do very great injustice to the general character of the Southerner for truth and honesty. All sections of country have faults peculiar to themselves. The fault of the South, as a general thing, has not been cowardly evasion and deception. It was with utter surprise that the author read the following sentences in an article in Fraser’s Magazine, professing to come from a South Carolinian.

Mrs. Stowe’s favorite illustration of the master’s power to the injury of the slave is the separation of families. We are told of infants of ten months old being sold from the arms of their mothers, and of men whose habit it is to raise children to sell away from their mother as soon as they are old enough to be separated. Were our views of this feature of slavery derived from Mrs. Stowe’s book, we should regard the families of slaves as utterly unsettled and vagrant.

And again:

We feel confident that, if statistics could be had to throw light upon this subject, we should find that there is less separation of families among the negroes than occurs with almost any other class of persons.

As the author of the article, however, is evidently a man of honor, and expresses many most noble and praiseworthy sentiments, it cannot be supposed that these statements were put forth with any view to misrepresent or to deceive. They are only to be regarded as evidences of the facility with which a sanguine mind often overlooks the most glaring facts that make against a favorite idea or theory, or which are unfavorable in their bearings on one’s own country or family. Thus the citizens of some place notoriously unhealthy will come to believe, and assert, with the utmost sincerity, that there is actually less sickness in their town than any other of its size in the known world. Thus parents often think their children perfectly immaculate in just those particulars in which others see them to be most faulty. This solution of the phenomena is a natural and amiable one, and enables us to retain our respect for our Southern brethren.

There is another circumstance, also, to be taken into account, in reading such assertions as these. It is evident, from the pamphlet in question, that the writer is one of the few who regard the possession of absolute irresponsible power as the highest of motives to moderation and temperance in its use. Such men are commonly associated in friendship and family connection with others of similar views, and are very apt to fall into the error of judging others by themselves, and thinking that a thing may do for all the world because it operates well in their immediate circle. Also it cannot but be a fact that the various circumstances which from infancy conspire to degrade and depress the negro in the eyes of a Southern-born man,—the constant habit of speaking of them, and hearing them spoken of, and seeing them advertised, as mere articles of property, often in connection with horses, mules, fodder, swine, &c., as they are almost daily in every Southern paper,—must tend, even in the best-constituted minds, to produce a certain obtuseness with regard to the interests, sufferings and affections, of such as do not particularly belong to himself, which will peculiarly unfit him for estimating their condition. The author has often been singularly struck with this fact, in the letters of Southern friends; in which, upon one page, they will make some assertion regarding the condition of Southern negroes, and then go on, and in other connections state facts which apparently contradict them all. We can all be aware how this familiarity would operate with ourselves. Were we called upon to state how often our neighbors’ cows were separated from their calves, or how often their household furniture and other effects are scattered and dispersed by executor’s sales, we should be inclined to say that it was not a misfortune of very common occurrence.

But let us open two South Carolina papers, published in the very state where this gentleman is residing, and read the advertisements FOR ONE WEEK. The author has slightly abridged them.

COMMISSIONER’S SALE OF 12 LIKELY NEGROES.

FAIRFIELD DISTRICT.

R. W. Murray and wife and } others } v. } In Equity. William Wright and wife } and others. }

In pursuance of an Order of the Court of Equity made in the above case at July Term, 1852, I will sell at public outcry, to the highest bidder, before the Court House in Winnsboro, on the first Monday in January next,

12 VERY LIKELY NEGROES,

belonging to the estate of Micajah Mobley, deceased, late of Fairfield District.

These Negroes consist chiefly of young boys and girls, and are said to be very likely.

Terms of Sale, &c.

W. R. ROBERTSON, C. E. F. D.

Commisioner's Office, } Winnsboro, Nov. 30, 1852. } Dec. 2 42 x4.

* * * * *

ADMINISTRATOR’S SALE.

Will be sold at public outcry, to the highest bidder, on Tuesday, the 21st day of December next, at the late residence of Mrs. M. P. Rabb, deceased, all of the personal estate of said deceased, consisting in part of about

2,000 Bushels of Corn.

25,000 pounds of Fodder.

Wheat—Cotton Seed.

Horses, Mules, Cattle, Hogs, Sheep.

There will, in all probability, be sold at the same time and place several likely Young Negroes.

The Terms of Sale will be—all sums under Twenty-five Dollars, Cash. All sums of Twenty-five Dollars and over, twelve months’ credit, with interest from day of Sale, secured by note and two approved sureties.

WILLIAM S. RABB, Administrator.

Nov. 11. 39 x2

COMMISSIONER’S SALE OF LAND AND NEGROES.

FAIRFIELD DISTRICT.

James E. Caldwell, } Admr., with the Will } annexed, of Jacob Gibson, } deceased, } In Equity. v. } Jason D. Gibson } and others. }

In pursuance of the order of sale made in the above case, I will sell at public outcry, to the highest bidder, before the Court House in Winnsboro, on the first Monday in January next, and the day following, the following real and personal estate of Jacob Gibson, deceased, late of Fairfield District, to wit:

The Plantation on which the testator lived at the time of his death, containing 661 Acres, more or less, lying on the waters of Wateree Creek, and bounded by lands of Samuel Johnston, Theodore S. DuBose, Edward P. Mobley, and B. R. Cockrell. This plantation will be sold in two separate tracts, plats of which will be exhibited on the day of sale:

46 PRIME LIKELY NEGROES,

consisting of Wagoners, Blacksmiths, Cooks, House Servants, &c.

W. R. ROBERTSON, C. E. F. D.

Commissioner’s Office, } Winnsboro, 29th Nov. 1852. }

* * * * *

ESTATE SALE—FIFTY PRIME NEGROES. BY J. & L. T. LEVIN.

On the first Monday in January next I will sell, before the Court House in Columbia, 50 of as Likely NEGROES as have ever been exposed to public sale, belonging to the estate of A. P. Vinson, deceased. The Negroes have been well cared for, and well managed in every respect. Persons wishing to purchase will not, it is confidently believed, have a better opportunity to supply themselves.

J. H. ADAMS, Executor.

Nov. 18 40 x3

* * * * *

ADMINISTRATOR’S SALE.

Will be sold on the 15th December next, at the late residence of Samuel Moore, deceased, in York District, all the personal property of said deceased, consisting of:

35 LIKELY NEGROES,

a quantity of Cotton and Corn, Horses and Mules, Farming Tools, Household and Kitchen Furniture, with many other articles.

SAMUEL E. MOORE, Administrator.

Nov. 18 40 x4t.

* * * * *

ADMINISTRATOR’S SALE.

Will be sold at public outcry, to the highest bidder, on Tuesday, the 14th day of December next, at the late residence of Robert W. Durham, deceased, in Fairfield District, all of the personal estate of said deceased: consisting in part as follows:

50 PRIME LIKELY NEGROES.

About 3,000 Bushels of Corn. A large quantity of Fodder.

Wheat, Oats, Cow Peas, Rye, Cotton Seed, Horses, Mules, Cattle, Hogs, Sheep.

C. H. DURHAM, Administrator.

Nov. 23.

* * * * *

SHERIFF’S SALE.

By virtue of sundry executions to me directed, I will sell at Fairfield Court House, on the first Monday, and the day following, in December next, within the legal hours of sale, to the highest bidder, for cash, the following property. Purchasers to pay for titles:

2 NEGROES, levied upon as the property of Allen R. Crankfield, at the suit of Alexander Brodie, et al.

2 Horses and 1 Jennet, levied upon as the property of Allen R. Crankfield, at the suit of Alexander Brodie.

2 Mules, levied upon as the property of Allen R. Crankfield, at the suit of Temperance E. Miller and J. W. Miller.

1 pair of Cart Wheels, levied upon as the property of Allen R. Crankfield, at the suit of Temperance E. Miller and J. W. Miller.

1 Chest of Drawers, levied upon as the property of Allen R. Crankfield, at the suit of Temperance E. Miller and J. W. Miller.

1 Bedstead, levied upon as the property of Allen R. Crankfield, at the suit of Temperance E. Miller and J. W. Miller.

1 NEGRO, levied upon as the property of R. J. Gladney, at the suit of James Camak.

1 NEGRO, levied upon as the property of Geo. McCormick, at the suit of W. M. Phifer.

1 Riding Saddle, to be sold under an assignment of G. W. Boulware to J. B. Mickle, in the case of Geo. Murphy, Jr., v. G. W. Boulware.

R. E. ELLISON, S. F. D.

Sheriff’s Office, }

Nov. 19 1852. }

Nov. 20 37 †xtf

* * * * *

COMMISSIONER’S SALE.

John A. Crumpton, } and others, } In Equity. v. } Zachariah C. Crumpton. }

In pursuance of the Decretal order made in this case, I will sell at public outcry to the highest bidder, before the Court House door in Winnsboro, on the first Monday in December next, three separate tracts or parcels of land, belonging to the estate of Zachariah Crumpton, deceased.

I will also sell, at the same time and place, FIVE OR SIX LIKELY YOUNG NEGROES, sold as the property of the said Zachariah Crumpton, deceased, by virtue of the authority aforesaid.

The Terms of sale are as follows, &c. &c.

W. R. ROBETSON, C. E. F. D.

Commissioner’s Office, } Winnsboro, Nov. 8, 1852. } Nov. 11 30 x3

* * * * *

ESTATE SALE OF VALUABLE PROPERTY.

The undersigned, as Administrator of the Estate of Col. T. Randell, deceased, will sell, on Monday the 20th December next, all the personal property belonging to said estate, consisting of

56 NEGROES,

STOCK, CORN, FODDER, ETC. ETC.

Terms of sale, &c. &c.

SAMUEL J. RANDELL.

Sep. 2 29 x16

The Tri-weekly South Carolinian, published at Columbia, S. C., has this motto:

“BE JUST AND FEAR NOT; LET ALL THE ENDS THOU AIM’ST AT BE THY COUNTRY’S, THY GOD’S, AND TRUTH’S.”

In the number dated December 23d, 1852, is found a “Reply of the Women of Virginia to the Women of England,” containing this sentiment:

Believe us, we deeply, prayerfully, study God’s holy word; we are fully persuaded that our institutions are in accordance with it.

After which, in other columns, come the ten advertisements following:

SHERIFF’S SALES FOR JANUARY 2, 1853.

By virtue of sundry writs of fieri facias, to me directed, will be sold before the Court House in Columbia, within the legal hours, on the first Monday and Tuesday in January next,

Seventy-four acres of Land, more or less, in Richland District, bounded on the north and east by Lorick’s, and on the south and west by Thomas Trapp.

Also, Ten Head of Cattle, Twenty-five Head of Hogs, and Two Hundred Bushels of Corn, levied on as the property of M. A. Wilson, at the suit of Samuel Gardner v. M. A. Wilson.

SEVEN NEGROES, named Grace, Frances, Edmund, Charlotte, Emuline, Thomas and Charles, levied on as the property of Bartholomew Turnipseed, at the suit of A. F. Dubard, J. S. Lever, Bank of the State and others, v. B. Turnipseed.

450 acres of Land, more or less, in Richland District, bounded on the north, &c. &c.

* * * * *

LARGE SALE OF REAL AND PERSONAL PROPERTY.—ESTATE SALE.

On Monday, the (7th) seventh day of February next, I will sell at Auction, without reserve, at the Plantation, near Linden, all the Horses, Mules, Wagons, Farming Utensils, Corn, Fodder, &c.

And on the following Monday (14th), the fourteenth day of February next, at the Court House, at Linden, in Marengo County, Alabama, I will sell at public auction, without reserve, to the highest bidder,

110 PRIME AND LIKELY NEGROES,

belonging to the Estate of the late John Robinson, of South Carolina.

Among the Negroes are four valuable Carpenters, and a very superior Blacksmith.

* * * * *

NEGROES FOR SALE.

By permission of Peter Wylie, Esq., Ordinary for Chester District, I will sell, at public auction, before the Court House, in Chesterville, on the first Monday in February next,

FORTY LIKELY NEGROES,

belonging to the Estate of F. W. Davie.

W. D. DESAUSSURE, Executor.

Dec. 23. 56 †tds.

* * * * *

ESTATE SALE OF FURNITURE, &c., BY J. & L. T. LEVIN.

Will be sold, at our store, on Thursday, the 6th day of January next, all the Household and Kitchen Furniture, belonging to the Estate of B. L. McLaughlin, deceased, consisting in part of

Hair Seat Chairs, Sofas and Rockers. Piano, Mahogany Dining, Tea, and Card Tables; Carpets, Rugs, Andirons, Fenders, Shovel and Tongs, Mantel Ornaments, Clocks, Side Board, Bureaus, Mahogany Bedsteads, Feather Beds and Mattresses, Wash Stands, Curtains, fine Cordial Stand, Glassware, Crockery, and a great variety of articles for family use.

Terms cash.

ALSO,

A NEGRO MAN, named Leonard, belonging to same.

Terms, &c.

ALSO,

At same time, a quantity of New Brick, belonging to Estate of A. S. Johnstone, deceased.

Dec. 21. 53 ‡tds.

* * * * *

GREAT SALE OF NEGROES AND THE SALUDA FACTORY, BY J. & L. T. LEVIN.

On Thursday, December 30, at 11 o’clock, will be sold at the Court House in Columbia,

ONE HUNDRED VALUABLE NEGROES.

It is seldom such an opportunity occurs us now offers. Among them are only four beyond 45 years old, and none above 50. There are twenty-five prime young men, between sixteen and thirty; forty of the most likely young women, and as fine a set of children as can be shown!!

Terms, &c.

Dec. 18, ‘52.

* * * * *

NEGROES AT AUCTION.—BY J. & L. T. LEVIN.

Will be sold, on Monday, the 3d January next, at the Court House, at 10 o’clock,

22 LIKELY NEGROES, the larger number of which are young and desirable. Among them are Field Hands, Hostlers and Carriage Drivers, House Servants, &c., and of the following ages: Robinson 40, Elsey 34, Yanaky 13, Sylla 11, Anikee 8, Robinson 6, Candy 3, Infant 9, Thomas 35, Die 38, Amey 18, Eldridge 13, Charles 6, Sarah 60, Baket 50, Mary 18, Betty 16, Guy 12, Tilla 9, Lydia 24, Rachel 4, Scipio 2.

The above Negroes are sold for the purpose of making some other investment of the proceeds; the sale will, therefore, be positive.

Terms.—A credit of one, two, and three years, for notes payable at either of the Banks, with two or more approved endorsers, with interest from date. Purchasers to pay for papers.

Dec 8 43

☞ Black River Watchman will copy the above, and forward bill to the auctioneers for payment.

Poor little Scip!

* * * * *

LIKELY AND VALUABLE GIRL, AT PRIVATE SALE.

A LIKELY GIRL, about seventeen years old (raised in the up-country), a good Nurse and House Servant, can wash and iron, and do plain cooking, and is warranted sound and healthy. She may be seen at our office, where she will remain until sold.

ALLEN & PHILLIPS, Auctioneers & Com. Agents.

Dec. 15, ‘49.

* * * * *

PLANTATION AND NEGROES FOR SALE.

The subscriber, having located in Columbia, offers for sale his Plantation in St. Matthew’s Parish, six miles from the Railroad, containing 1,500 acres, now in a high state of cultivation, with Dwelling House and all necessary Out-buildings.

ALSO,

50 Likely NEGROES, with provisions, &c.

The terms will be accommodating. Persons desirous to purchase can call upon the subscriber in Columbia, or on his son at the Plantation.

Dec. 6 41.

T. J. GOODWYN.

* * * * *

FOR SALE.

A LIKELY NEGRO BOY, about twenty-one years old, a good wagoner and field hand. Apply at this office.

Dec. 20 52.

Now, it is scarcely possible that a person who has been accustomed to see such advertisements from boyhood, and to pass them over with as much indifference as we pass over advertisements of sofas and chairs for sale, could possibly receive the shock from them which one wholly unaccustomed to such a mode of considering and disposing of human beings would receive. They make no impression upon him. His own family servants, and those of his friends, are not in the market, and he does not realize that any are. Under the advertisements, a hundred such scenes as those described in “Uncle Tom” may have been acting in his very vicinity. When Mr. Dickens drew pictures of the want and wretchedness of London life, perhaps a similar incredulity might have been expressed within the silken curtains of many a brilliant parlor. They had never seen such things, and they had always lived in London. But, for all that, the writings of Dickens awoke in noble and aristocratic bosoms the sense of a common humanity with the lowly, and led them to feel how much misery might exist in their immediate vicinity, of which they were entirely unaware. They have never accused him as a libeller of his country, though he did make manifest much of the suffering, sorrow and abuse, which were in it. The author is led earnestly to entreat that the writer of this very paper would examine the “statistics” of the American internal slave-trade; that he would look over the exchange files of some newspaper, and, for a month or two, endeavor to keep some inventory of the number of human beings, with hearts, hopes and affections, like his own, who are constantly subjected to all the uncertainties and mutations of property relation. The writer is sure that he could not do it long without a generous desire being excited in his bosom to become, not an apologist for, but a reformer of, these institutions of his country.

These papers of South Carolina are not exceptional ones; they may be matched by hundreds of papers from any other state.

Let the reader now stop one minute, and look over again these two weeks’ advertisements. This is not novel-writing—this is fact. See these human beings tumbled promiscuously out before the public with horses, mules, second-hand buggies, cotton-seed, bedsteads, &c. &c.; and Christian ladies, in the same newspaper, saying that they prayerfully study God’s word, and believe their institutions have his sanction! Does he suppose that here, in these two weeks, there have been no scenes of suffering? Imagine the distress of these families—the nights of anxiety of these mothers and children, wives and husbands, when these sales are about to take place! Imagine the scenes of the sales! A young lady, a friend of the writer, who spent a winter in Carolina, described to her the sale of a woman and her children. When the little girl, seven years of age, was put on the block, she fell into spasms with fear and excitement. She was taken off—recovered and put back—the spasms came back—three times the experiment was tried, and at last the sale of the child was deferred!

See also the following, from Dr. Elwood Harvey, editor of a western paper, to the Pennsylvania Freeman, Dec. 25, 1846.

We attended a sale of land and other property, near Petersburg, Virginia, and unexpectedly saw slaves sold at public auction. The slaves were told they would not be sold, and were collected in front of the quarters, gazing on the assembled multitude. The land being sold, the auctioneer’s loud voice was heard, “Bring up the niggers!” A shade of astonishment and affright passed over their faces, as they stared first at each other, and then at the crowd of purchasers, whose attention was now directed to them. When the horrible truth was revealed to their minds that they were to be sold, and nearest relations and friends parted forever, the effect was indescribably agonizing. Women snatched up their babes, and ran screaming into the huts. Children hid behind the huts and trees, and the men stood in mute despair. The auctioneer stood on the portico of the house, and the “men and boys” were ranging in the yard for inspection. It was announced that no warranty of soundness was given, and purchasers must examine for themselves. A few old men were sold at prices from thirteen to twenty-five dollars, and it was painful to see old men, bowed with years of toil and suffering, stand up to be the jest of brutal tyrants, and to hear them tell their disease and worthlessness, fearing that they would be bought by traders for the southern market.

A white boy, about fifteen years old, was placed on the stand. His hair was brown and straight, his skin exactly the same hue as other white persons and no discernible trace of negro features in his countenance.

Some vulgar jests were passed on his color, and two hundred dollars was bid for him; but the audience said “that it was not enough to begin on for such a likely young nigger.” Several remarked that they “would not have him as a gift.” Some said a white nigger was more trouble than he was worth. One man said it was wrong to sell white people. I asked him if it was more wrong than to sell black people. He made no reply. 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 in the least affected by the scene. The poor boy, afraid to cry before so many strangers, who showed no signs of sympathy or pity, trembled, and wiped the tears from his cheeks with his sleeves. He was sold for about two hundred and fifty dollars. During the sale, the quarters resounded with cries and lamentations that made my heart ache. A woman was next called by name. She gave her infant one wild embrace before leaving it with an old woman, and hastened mechanically to obey the call; but stopped, threw her arms aloft, screamed and was unable to move.

One of my companions touched my shoulder and said, “Come, let us leave here; I can bear no more.” We left the ground. The man who drove our carriage from Petersburg had two sons who belonged to the estate—small boys. He obtained a promise that they should not be sold. He was asked if they were his only children; he answered, “All that’s left of eight.” Three others had been sold to the south, and he would never see or hear from them again.

As Northern people do not see such things, they should hear of them often enough to keep them awake to the sufferings of the victims of their indifference.

Such are the common incidents, not the admitted cruelties, of an institution which people have brought themselves to feel is in accordance with God’s word!

Suppose it be conceded now that “the family relation is protected, as far as possible.” The question still arises, How far is it possible? Advertisements of sales to the number of those we have quoted, more or less, appear from week to week in the same papers, in the same neighborhood; and professional traders make it their business to attend them, and buy up victims. Now, if the inhabitants of a given neighborhood charge themselves with the care to see that no families are separated in this whirl of auctioneering, one would fancy that they could have very little else to do. It is a fact, and a most honorable one to our common human nature, that the distress and anguish of these poor, helpless creatures does often raise up for them friends among the generous-hearted. Southern men often go to the extent of their means, and beyond their means, to arrest the cruel operations of trade, and relieve cases of individual distress. There are men at the South who could tell, if they would, how, when they have spent the last dollar that they thought they could afford on one week, they have been importuned by precisely such a case the next, and been unable to meet it. There are masters at the South who could tell, if they would, how they have stood and bid against a trader, to redeem some poor slave of their own, till the bidding was perfectly ruinous, and they have been obliged to give up by sheer necessity. Good-natured auctioneers know very well how they have often been entreated to connive at keeping a poor fellow out of the trader’s clutches; and how sometimes they succeed, and sometimes they do not.

The very struggle and effort which generous Southern men make to stop the regular course of trade only shows them the hopelessness of the effort. We fully concede that many of them do as much or more than any of us would do under similar circumstances; and yet they know that what they do amounts, after all, to the merest trifle.

But let us still further reason upon the testimony of advertisements. What is to be understood by the following, of the Memphis Eagle and Inquirer, Saturday, Nov. 13, 1852? Under the editorial motto, “Liberty and Union, now and forever,” come the following illustrations:

NO. I.

75 NEGROES.

I have just received from the East 75 assorted A No. 1 negroes. Call soon, if you want to get the first choice.

BENJ. LITTLE.

NO. II.

CASH FOR NEGROES.

I will pay as high cash prices for a few likely young negroes as any trader in this city. Also, will receive and sell on commission at Byrd Hill’s, old stand, on Adams-street, Memphis.

BENJ. LITTLE.

NO. III.

500 NEGROES WANTED.

We will pay the highest cash price for all good negroes offered. We invite all those having negroes for sale to call on us at our Mart, opposite the lower steamboat landing. We will also have a large lot of Virginia negroes for sale in the Fall. We have as safe a jail as any in the country, where we can keep negroes safe for those that wish them kept.

BOLTON, DICKINS & CO.

Under the head of advertisements No. 1, let us humbly inquire what “assorted A No. 1 Negroes” means. Is it likely that it means negroes sold in families? What is meant by the invitation. “Call soon if you want to get the first choice”?

So much for Advertisement No. 1. Let us now propound a few questions to the initiated on No. 2. What does Mr. Benjamin Little mean by saying that he “will pay as high a cash price for a few likely young negroes as any trader in the city”? Do families commonly consist exclusively of “likely young negroes”?

On the third advertisement we are also desirous of some information. Messrs. BOLTON, DICKINS & CO. state that they expect to receive a large lot of Virginia negroes in the fall.

Unfortunate Messrs. Bolton, Dickins & Co.! Do you suppose that Virginia families will sell their negroes? Have you read Mr. J. Thornton Randolph’s last novel, and have you not learned that old Virginia families never sell to traders? and, more than that, that they always club together and buy up the negroes that are for sale in their neighborhood, and the traders when they appear on the ground are hustled off with very little ceremony? One would really think that you had got your impressions on the subject from “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” For we are told that all who derive their views of slavery from this book “regard the families of slaves as utterly unsettled and vagrant.”[18]

But, before we recover from our astonishment on reading this, we take up the Natchez (Mississippi) Courier of Nov. 20th, 1852, and there read:

NEGROES.

The undersigned would respectfully state to the public that he has leased the stand in the Forks of the Road, near Natchez, for a term of years, and that he intends to keep a large lot of NEGROES on hand during the year. He will sell as low or lower than any other trader at this place or in New Orleans.

He has just arrived from Virginia with a very likely lot of Field Men and Women; also, House Servants, three Cooks, and a Carpenter. Call and see.

A fine Buggy Horse, a Saddle Horse and a Carryall, on hand, and for sale.

THOS. G. JAMES.

Natchez, Sept. 28, 1852.

Where in the world did this lucky Mr. THOS. G. JAMES get this likely Virginia “assortment”? Probably in some county which Mr. Thornton Randolph never visited. And had no families been separated to form the assortment? We hear of a lot of field men and women. Where are their children? We hear of a lot of house-servants,—of “three cooks,” and “one carpenter,” as well as a “fine buggy horse.” Had these unfortunate cooks and carpenters no relations? Did no sad natural tears stream down their dark checks, when they were being “assorted” for the Natchez market? Does no mournful heart among them yearn to the song of

“O, carry me back to old Virginny”?

Still further, we see in the same paper the following:

SLAVES! SLAVES! SLAVES!

FRESH ARRIVALS WEEKLY.—Having established ourselves at the Forks of the Road, near Natchez, for a term of years, we have now on hand, and intend to keep throughout the entire year, a large and well-selected stock of Negroes, consisting of field-hands, house servants, mechanics, cooks, seamstresses, washers, ironers, etc., which we can and will sell as low or lower than any other house here or in New Orleans.

Persons wishing to purchase would do well to call on us before making purchases elsewhere, as our regular arrivals will keep us supplied with a good and general assortment. Our terms are liberal. Give us a call.

GRIFFIN & PULLAM.

Natchez, Oct. 15, 1852.—6m.

Free Trader and Concordia Intelligencer copy as above.

Indeed! Messrs. Griffin and Pullam, it seems, are equally fortunate! They are having fresh supplies weekly, and are going to keep a large, well-selected stock constantly on hand, to wit, “field-hands, house-servants, mechanics, cooks, seamstresses, washers, ironers, etc.”

Let us respectfully inquire what is the process by which a trader acquires a well-selected stock. He goes to Virginia to select. He has had orders, say, for one dozen cooks, for half a dozen carpenters, for so many house-servants, &c. &c. Each one of these individuals have their own ties; besides being cooks, carpenters and house-servants, they are also fathers, mothers, husbands, wives; but what of that? They must be selected—it is an assortment that is wanted. The gentleman who has ordered a cook does not, of course, want her five children; and the planter who has ordered a carpenter does not want the cook, his wife. A carpenter is an expensive article, at any rate, as they cost from a thousand to fifteen hundred dollars; and a man who has to pay out this sum for him cannot always afford himself the luxury of indulging his humanity; and as to the children, they must be left in the slave-raising state. For, when the ready-raised article is imported weekly into Natchez or New Orleans, is it likely that the inhabitants will encumber themselves with the labor of raising children? No, there must be division of labor in all well-ordered business. The northern slave states raise the article, and the southern ones consume it.

The extracts have been taken from the papers of the more southern states. If, now, the reader has any curiosity to explore the selecting process in the northern states, the daily prints will further enlighten him. In the Daily Virginian of Nov. 19, 1852, Mr. J. B. McLendon thus announces to the Old Dominion that he has settled himself down to attend to the selecting process:

NEGROEES WANTD.

The subscriber, having located in Lynchburg, is giving the highest cash prices for negroes between the ages of 10 and 30 years. Those having negroes for sale may find it to their interest to call on him at the Washington Hotel, Lynchburg, or address him by letter.

All communications will receive prompt attention.

J. B. MCLENDON.

Nov. 5-dly.

Mr. McLendon distinctly announces that he is not going to take any children under ten years of age, nor any grown people over thirty. Likely young negroes are what he is after:—families, of course, never separated!

Again, in the same paper, Mr. Seth Woodroof is desirous of keeping up the recollection in the community that he also is in the market, as it would appear he has been, some time past. He, likewise, wants negroes between ten and thirty years of age; but his views turn rather on mechanics, blacksmiths, and carpenters,—witness his hand:

NEGROES WANTED.

The subscriber continues in market for Negroes, of both sexes, between the ages of 10 and 30 years, including Mechanics, such as Blacksmiths, Carpenters, and will pay the highest market prices in cash. His office is a newly erected brick building on 1st or Lynch street, immediately in rear of the Farmers’ Bank, where he is prepared (having erected buildings with that view) to board negroes sent to Lynchburg for sale or otherwise on as moderate terms, and keep them as secure, as if they were placed in the jail of the Corporation.

Aug 26.

SETH WOODROOF.

There is no manner of doubt that this Mr. Seth Woodroof is a gentleman of humanity, and wishes to avoid the separation of families as much as possible. Doubtless he ardently wishes that all his blacksmiths and carpenters would be considerate, and never have any children under ten years of age; but, if the thoughtless dogs have got them, what’s a humane man to do? He has to fill out Mr. This, That, and the Other’s order,—that’s a clear case; and therefore John and Sam must take their last look at their babies, as Uncle Tom did of his when he stood by the rough trundle-bed and dropped into it great, useless tears.

Nay, my friends, don’t curse poor Mr. Seth Woodroof, because he does the horrible, loathsome work of tearing up the living human heart, to make twine and shoe-strings for you! It’s disagreeable business enough, he will tell you, sometimes; and, if you must have him to do it for you, treat him civilly, and don’t pretend that you are any better than he.

But the good trade is not confined to the Old Dominion, by any means. See the following extract from a Tennessee paper, the Nashville Gazette, Nov. 23, 1852, where Mr. A. A. McLean, general agent in this kind of business, thus makes known his wants and intentions:

WANTED.

I want to purchase immediately 25 likely NEGROES,—male and female,—between the ages of 15 and 25 years; for which I will pay the highest price in cash.

A. A. MCLEAN, General Agent, Cherry Street.

Nov. 9

Mr. McLean, it seems, only wants those between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five. This advertisement is twice repeated in the same paper, from which fact we may conjecture that the gentleman is very much in earnest in his wants, and entertains rather confident expectations that somebody will be willing to sell. Further, the same gentleman states another want.

WANTED.

I want to purchase, immediately, a Negro man, Carpenter, and will give a good price.

Sept. 29

A. A. MCLEAN, Gen’l Agent.

Mr. McLean does not advertise for his wife and children, or where this same carpenter is to be sent,—whether to the New Orleans market, or up the Red River, or off to some far bayou of the Mississippi, never to look upon wife or child again. But, again, Mr. McLean in the same paper tells us of another want:

WANTED IMMEDIATELY.

A Wet Nurse. Any price will be given for one of good character, constitution, &c. Apply to

A. A. MCLEAN, Gen’l Agent.

And what is to be done with the baby of this wet nurse? Perhaps, at the moment that Mr. McLean is advertising for her, she is hushing the little thing in her bosom, and thinking, as many another mother has done, that it is about the brightest, prettiest little baby that ever was born; for, singularly enough, even black mothers do fall into this delusion sometimes. No matter for all this,—she is wanted for a wet nurse! Aunt Prue can take her baby, and raise it on corn-cake, and what not. Off with her to Mr. McLean!

See, also, the following advertisement of the good State of Alabama, which shows how the trade is thriving there. Mr. S. N. Brown, in the Advertiser and Gazette, Montgomery, Alabama, holds forth as follows:

NEGROES FOR SALE.

S. N. BROWN takes this method of informing his old patrons, and others waiting to purchase Slaves, that he has now on hand, of his own selection and purchasing, a lot of likely young Negroes, consisting of Men, Boys, and Women, Field Hands, and superior House Servants, which he offers and will sell as low as the times will warrant. Office on Market-street, above the Montgomery Hall, at Lindsay’s Old Stand, where he intends to keep slaves for sale on his own account, and not on commission,—therefore thinks he can give satisfaction to those who patronize him.

Montgomery, Ala., Sept. 13, 1852. twtf (J)

Where were these boys and girls of Mr. Brown selected, let us ask. How did their fathers and mothers feel when they were “selected”? Emmeline was taken out of one family, and George out of another. The judicious trader has travelled through wide regions of country, leaving in his track wailing and anguish. A little incident, which has recently been the rounds of the papers, may perhaps illustrate some of the scenes he has occasioned:

INCIDENT OF SLAVERY.

A negro woman belonging to Geo. M. Garrison, of Polk Co., killed four of her children, by cutting their throats while they were asleep, on Thursday night, the 2d inst., and then put an end to her own existence by cutting her throat. Her master knows of no cause for the horrid act, unless it be that she heard him speak of selling her and two of her children, and keeping the others.

The uncertainty of the master in this case is edifying. He knows that negroes cannot be expected to have the feelings of cultivated people;—and yet, here is a case where the creature really acts unaccountably, and he can’t think of any cause except that he was going to sell her from her children.

But, compose yourself, dear reader; there was no great harm done. These were all poor people’s children, and some of them, though not all, were black; and that makes all the difference in the world, you know!

But Mr. Brown is not alone in Montgomery. Mr. J. W. Lindsey wishes to remind the people of his dépôt.

100 NEGROES FOR SALE.

At my depot, on Commerce-street, immediately between the Exchange Hotel and F. M. Gilmer, Jr.’s Warehouse, where I will be receiving, from time to time, large lots of Negroes during the season, and will sell on as accommodating terms as any house in this city. I would respectfully request my old customers and friends to call and examine my stock.

JNO. W. LINDSEY.

Montgomery, Nov. 2, 1852.

Mr. Lindsey is going to be receiving, from time to time, all the season, and will sell as cheap as anybody; so there’s no fear of the supply’s falling off. And, lo! in the same paper, Messrs. Sanders & Foster press their claims also on the public notice.

NEGROES FOR SALE.

The undersigned have bought out the well-known establishment of Eckles & Brown, where they have now on hand a large lot of likely young Negroes, to wit: Men, Women, Boys and Girls, good field-hands. Also, several good House Servants and Mechanics of all kinds. The subscribers intend to keep constantly on hand a large assortment of Negroes, comprising every description. Persons wishing to purchase will find it much to their interest to call and examine previous to buying elsewhere.

SANDERS & FOSTER.

April 13.

Messrs. Sanders & Foster are going to have an assortment also. All their negroes are to be young and likely; the trashy old fathers and mothers are all thrown aside like a heap of pig-weed, after one has been weeding a garden.

Query: Are these Messrs. Sanders & Foster, and J. W. Lindsey, and S. N. Brown, and McLean, and Woodroof, and McLendon, all members of the church, in good and regular standing? Does the question shock you? Why so? Why should they not be? The Rev. Dr. Smylie, of Mississippi, in a document endorsed by two presbyteries, says distinctly that the Bible gives a right to buy and sell slaves.[19]

If the Bible guarantees this right, and sanctions this trade, why should it shock you to see the slave-trader at the communion-table? Do you feel that there is blood on his hands,—the blood of human hearts, which he has torn asunder? Do you shudder when he touches the communion-bread, and when he drinks the cup which “whosoever drinketh unworthily drinketh damnation to himself”? But who makes the trader? Do not you? Do you think that the trader’s profession is a healthy one for the soul? Do you think the scenes with which he must be familiar, and the deeds he must do, in order to keep up an assortment of negroes for your convenience, are such things as Jesus Christ approves? Do you think they tend to promote his growth in grace, and to secure his soul’s salvation? Or is it so important for you to have assorted negroes that the traders must not only be turned out of good society in this life, but run the risk of going to hell forever, for your accommodation?

But let us search the Southern papers, and see if we cannot find some evidence of that humanity which avoids the separation of families, as far as possible. In the Argus, published at Weston, Missouri, Nov. 5, 1852, see the following:

A NEGRO FOR SALE.

I wish to sell a black girl about 24 years old, a good cook and washer, handy with a needle, can spin and weave. I wish to sell her in the neighborhood of Camden Point; if not sold there in a short time, I will hunt the best market; or I will trade her for two small ones, a boy and girl.

M. DOYAL.

Considerate Mr. Doyal! He is opposed to the separation of families, and, therefore, wishes to sell this woman in the neighborhood of Camden Point, where her family ties are,—perhaps her husband and children, her brothers or sisters. He will not separate her from her family if it is possible to avoid it; that is to say, if he can get as much for her without; but, if he can’t, he will “hunt the best market.” What more would you have of Mr. Doyal?

How speeds the blessed trade in the State of Maryland?—Let us take the Baltimore Sun of Nov. 23, 1852.

Mr. J. S. Donovan thus advertises the Christian public of the accommodations of his jail:

CASH FOR NEGROES.

The undersigned continues, at his old stand, No. 13 CAMDEN ST., to pay the highest price for NEGROES. Persons bringing Negroes by railroad or steamboat will find it very convenient to secure their Negroes, as my Jail is adjoining the Railroad Depot and near the Steamboat Landings. Negroes received for safe keeping.

J. S. DONOVAN.

Messrs. B. M. & W. L. Campbell, in the respectable old stand of Slatter, advertise as follows:

SLAVES WANTED.

We are at all times purchasing SLAVES, paying the highest cash prices. Persons wishing to sell will please call at 242 PRATT ST. (Slatter’s old stand). Communications attended to.

B. M. & W. L. CAMPBELL.

In another column, however, Mr. John Denning has his season advertisement, in terms which border on the sublime:

5000 NEGROES WANTED.

I will pay the highest prices, in cash, for 5000 NEGROES, with good titles, slaves for life or for a term of years, in large or small families, or single negroes. I will also purchase Negroes restricted to remain in the State, that sustain good characters. Families never separated. Persons having Slaves for sale will please call and see me, as I am always in the market with the cash. Communications promptly attended to, and liberal commissions paid, by JOHN N. DENNING, No. 18 S. Frederick street, between Baltimore and Second streets, Baltimore, Maryland. Trees in front of the house.

Mr. John Denning, also, is a man of humanity. He never separates families. Don’t you see it in his advertisement? If a man offers him a wife without her husband, Mr. John Denning won’t buy her. O, no! His five thousand are all unbroken families; he never takes any other; and he transports them whole and entire. This is a comfort to reflect upon, certainly.

See, also, the Democrat, published in Cambridge, Maryland, Dec. 8, 1852. A gentleman gives this pictorial representation of himself, with the proclamation to the slave-holders of Dorchester and adjacent counties that he is again in the market:

NEGROES WANTED.

I wish to inform the slave-holders of Dorchester and the adjacent counties that I am again in the Market. Persons having negroes that are slaves for life to dispose of will find it to their interest to see me before they sell, as I am determined to pay the highest prices in cash that the Southern market will justify. I can be found at A. Hall’s Hotel in Easton, where I will remain until the first day of July next. Communications addressed to me at Easton, or information given to Wm. Bell in Cambridge, will meet with prompt attention.

WM. HARKER.

Mr. Harker is very accommodating. He keeps himself informed as to the state of the southern market, and will give the very highest price that it will justify. Moreover, he will be on hand till July, and will answer any letters from the adjoining country on the subject. On one point he ought to be spoken to. He has not advertised that he does not separate families. It is a mere matter of taste, to be sure; but then some well-disposed people like to see it on a trader’s card, thinking it has a more creditable appearance; and probably, Mr. Harker, if he reflects a little, will put it in next time. It takes up very little room, and makes a good appearance.

We are occasionally reminded, by the advertisements for runaways, to how small an extent it is found possible to avoid the separation of families: as in the Richmond Whig of Nov. 5, 1852:

$10 REWARD.

We are requested by Henry P. Davis to offer a reward of $10 for the apprehension of a negro man named HENRY, who ran away from the said Davis’ farm near Petersburg, on Thursday, the 27th October. Said slave came from near Lynchburg, Va., purchased of —— Cock, and has a wife in Halifax county, Va. He has recently been employed on the South Side Railroad. He may be in the neighborhood of his wife.

PULLIAM & DAVIS, Aucts., Richmond.

It seems to strike the advertiser as possible that Henry may be in the neighborhood of his wife. We should not at all wonder if he were.

The reader, by this time, is in possession of some of those statistics of which the South Carolinian speaks, when he says,

We feel confident, if statistics could be had, to throw light upon the subject, we should find that there is less separation of families among the negroes than occurs with almost any other class of persons.

In order to give some little further idea of the extent to which this kind of property is continually changing hands, see the following calculation, which has been made from sixty-four Southern newspapers, taken very much at random. The papers were all published in the last two weeks of the month of November, 1852.

The negroes are advertised sometimes by name, sometimes in definite numbers, and sometimes in “lots,” “assortments,” and other indefinite terms. We present the result of this estimate, far as it must fall from a fair representation of the facts, in a tabular form.

Here is recorded, in only eleven papers, the sale of eight hundred forty-nine slaves in two weeks in Virginia; the state where Mr. J. Thornton Randolph describes such an event as a separation of families being a thing that “we read of in novels sometimes.”

────────────┬──────────┬───────────┬─────┬────────── States where│ No. of │ No. of │ No. │ No. of published. │ Papers │ Negroes │ of │ Runaways │consulted.│advertised.│Lots.│described. ────────────┼──────────┼───────────┼─────┼────────── Virginia, │ 11│ 849│ 7│ 15 Kentucky, │ 5│ 238│ 1│ 7 Tennessee, │ 8│ 385│ 4│ 17 S. Carolina,│ 12│ 852│ 2│ 7 Georgia, │ 6│ 98│ 2│ 0 Alabama, │ 10│ 549│ 5│ 5 Mississippi,│ 8│ 669│ 5│ 6 Louisiana, │ 4│ 460│ 4│ 35 │ ——│ ————│ ——│ —— │ 64│ 4100│ 30│ 92 ────────────┴──────────┴───────────┴─────┴──────────

In South Carolina, where the writer in Fraser’s Magazine dates from, we have during these same two weeks a sale of eight hundred and fifty-two recorded by one dozen papers. Verily, we must apply to the newspapers of his state the same language which he applies to “Uncle Tom’s Cabin:” “Were our views of the system of slavery to be derived from these papers, we should regard the families of slaves as utterly unsettled and vagrant.”

The total, in sixty-four papers, in different states, for only two weeks, is four thousand one hundred, besides ninety-two lots, as they are called.

And now, who is he who compares the hopeless, returnless separation of the negro from his family, to the voluntary separation of the freeman, whom necessary business interest takes for a while from the bosom of his family? Is not the lot of the slave bitter enough, without this last of mockeries and worst of insults? Well may they say, in their anguish, “Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorning of them that are at ease, and with the contempt of the proud!”

From the poor negro, exposed to bitterest separation, the law jealously takes away the power of writing. For him the gulf of separation yawns black and hopeless, with no redeeming signal. Ignorant of geography, he knows not whither he is going, or where he is, or how to direct a letter. To all intents and purposes, it is a separation hopeless as that of death, and as final.

-----

Footnote 18:

Article in Fraser’s Magazine for October, by a South Carolinian.

Footnote 19:

“If language can convey a clear and definite meaning at all, I know not how it can more unequivocally or more plainly present to the mind any thought or idea than the twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus clearly or unequivocally establishes the fact that slavery or bondage was sanctioned by God himself; and that ‘buying, selling, holding and bequeathing’ slaves, as property, are regulations which were established by himself.”—Smylie on Slavery.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

IV. THE SLAVE-TRADE

What is it that constitutes the vital force of the institution of slavery in this country? Slavery, being an unnatural and unhealthful condition of society, being a most wasteful and impoverishing mode of cultivating the soil, would speedily run itself out in a community, and become so unprofitable as to fall into disuse, were it not kept alive by some unnatural process.

What has that process been in America? Why has that healing course of nature which cured this awful wound in all the northern states stopped short on Mason & Dixon’s line? In Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and Kentucky, slave labor long ago impoverished the soil almost beyond recovery, and became entirely unprofitable. In all these states it is well known that the question of emancipation has been urgently presented. It has been discussed in legislatures, and Southern men have poured forth on the institution of slavery such anathemas as only Southern men can pour forth. All that has ever been said of it at the North has been said in four-fold thunders in these Southern discussions. The State of Kentucky once came within one vote, in her legislature, of taking measures for gradual emancipation. The State of Virginia has come almost equally near, and Maryland has long been waiting at the door. There was a time when no one doubted that all these states would soon be free states; and what is now the reason that they are not? Why are these discussions now silenced, and why does this noble determination now retrograde? The answer is in a word. It is the extension of slave territory, the opening of a great southern slave-market, and the organization of a great internal slave-trade, that has arrested the progress of emancipation.

While these states were beginning to look upon the slave as one who might possibly yet become a man, while they meditated giving to him and his wife and children the inestimable blessings of liberty, this great southern slave-mart was opened. It began by the addition of Missouri as slave territory, and the votes of two Northern men were those which decided this great question. Then, by the assent and concurrence of Northern men, came in all the immense acquisition of slave territory which now opens so boundless a market to tempt the avarice and cupidity of the northern slave-raising states.

This acquisition of territory has deferred perhaps for indefinite ages the emancipation of a race. It has condemned to sorrow and heart-breaking separation, to groans and wailings, hundreds of thousands of slave families; it has built, through all the Southern States, slave-warehouses, with all their ghastly furnishings of gags, and thumb-screws, and cowhides; it has organized unnumbered slave-coffles, clanking their chains and filing in mournful march through this land of liberty.

This accession of slave territory hardened the heart of the master. It changed what was before, in comparison, a kindly relation, into the most horrible and inhuman of trades.

The planter whose slaves had grown up around him, and whom he had learned to look upon almost as men and women, saw on every sable forehead now nothing but its market value. This man was a thousand dollars, and this eight hundred. The black baby in its mother’s arms was a hundred-dollar bill, and nothing more. All those nobler traits of mind and heart which should have made the slave a brother became only so many stamps on his merchandise. Is the slave intelligent?—Good! that raises his price two hundred dollars. Is he conscientious and faithful?—Good! stamp it down in his certificate; it’s worth two hundred dollars more. Is he religious? Does that Holy Spirit of God, whose name we mention with reverence and fear, make that despised form His temple?—Let that also be put down in the estimate of his market value, and the gift of the Holy Ghost shall be sold for money. Is he a minister of God?—Nevertheless, he has his price in the market. From the church and from the communion-table the Christian brother and sister are taken to make up the slave-coffle. And woman, with her tenderness, her gentleness, her beauty,—woman, to whom mixed blood of the black and the white have given graces perilous for a slave,—what is her accursed lot, in this dreadful commerce?—The next few chapters will disclose facts on this subject which ought to wring the heart of every Christian mother, if, indeed, she be worthy of that holiest name.

But we will not deal in assertions merely. We have stated the thing to be proved; let us show the facts which prove it.

The existence of this fearful traffic is known to many,—the particulars and dreadful extent of it realized but by few.

Let us enter a little more particularly on them. The slave-exporting states are Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee and Missouri. These are slave-raising states, and the others are slave-consuming states. We have shown, in the preceding chapters, the kind of advertisements which are usual in those states; but, as we wish to produce on the minds of our readers something of the impression which has been produced on our own mind by their multiplicity and abundance, we shall add a few more here. For the State of VIRGINIA, see all the following:

Kanawha Republican, Oct. 20, 1852, Charleston, Va. At the head—Liberty, with a banner, “Drapeau sans Tache.”

CASH FOR NEGROES.

The subscriber wishes to purchase a few young NEGROES, from 12 to 25 years of age, for which the highest market price will be paid in cash. A few lines addressed to him through the Post Office, Kanawha C. H., or a personal application, will be promptly attended to.

JAS. L. FICKLIN.

Oct. 20, ‘53.—3t

Alexandria Gazette, Oct. 28th:

CASH FOR NEGROES.

I wish to purchase immediately, for the South, any number of NEGROES, from 10 to 30 years of age, for which I will pay the very highest cash price. All communications promptly attended to.

JOSEPH BRUIN.

West End, Alexandria, Va., Oct. 26.—tf

Lynchburg Virginian, Nov. 18:

NEGROES WANTED.

The subscriber, having located in Lynchburg, is giving the highest cash prices for negroes, between the ages of 10 and 30 years. Those having negroes for sale may find it to their interest to call on him at the Washington Hotel, Lynchburg, or address him by letter.

All communications will receive prompt attention.

J. B. MCLENDON.

Nov. 5.—dly

Rockingham Register, Nov. 13:

CASH FOR NEGROES.

I wish to purchase a number of NEGROES of both sexes and all ages, for the Southern market, for which I will pay the highest cash prices. Letters addressed to me at Winchester, Virginia, will be promptly attended to.

H. J. MCDANIEL, Agent for Wm. Crow.

Nov. 24, 1846.—tf

Richmond Whig, Nov. 16:

PULLIAM & DAVIS,

AUCTIONEERS FOR THE SALE OF NEGROES.

D. M. PULLIAM. HECTOR DAVIS.

The subscribers continue to sell Negroes, at their office, on Wall-street. From their experience in the business, they can safely insure the highest prices for all negroes intrusted to their care. They will make sales of negroes in estates, and would say to Commissioners, Executors and Administrators, that they will make their sales on favorable terms. They are prepared to board and lodge negroes comfortably at 25 cents per day.

NOTICE.—CASH FOR SLAVES.

Those who wish to sell slaves in Buckingham and the adjacent counties in Virginia, by application to ANDERSON D. ABRAHAM, Sr., or his son, ANDERSON D. ABRAHAM, Jr., they will find sale, at the highest cash prices, for one hundred and fifty to two hundred slaves. One or the other of the above parties will be found, for the next eight months, at their residence in the aforesaid county and state. Address ANDERSON D. ABRAHAM, Sr., Maysville Post Office, White Oak Grove, Buckingham County, Va.

Winchester Republican, June 29, 1852:

NEGROES WANTED.

The subscriber having located himself in Winchester, Va., wishes to purchase a large number of SLAVES of both sexes, for which he will give the highest price in cash. Persons wishing to dispose of Slaves will find it to their advantage to give him a call before selling.

All communications addressed to him at the _Taylor Hotel, Winchester, Va._, will meet with prompt attention.

ELIJAH MCDOWEL, Agent for B. M. & Wm. L. Campbell, of Baltimore.

Dec. 27, 1851.—ly

* * * * *

For MARYLAND:

Port Tobacco Times, Oct., ‘52:

SLAVES WANTED.

The subscriber is permanently located at MIDDLEVILLE, Charles County (immediately on the road from Port Tobacco to Allen’s Fresh), where he will be pleased to buy any SLAVES that are for sale. The extreme value will be given at all times, and liberal commissions paid for information leading to a purchase. Apply personally, or by letter addressed to Allen’s Fresh, Charles County.

JOHN G. CAMPBELL.

Middleville, April 14, 1852.

Cambridge (Md.) Democrat, October 27, 1852:

NEGROES WANTED.

I wish to inform the slave-holders of Dorchester and the adjacent counties that I am again in the market. Persons having negroes that are slaves for life to dispose of will find it to their interest to see me before they sell, as I am determined to pay the highest prices in cash that the Southern market will justify. I can be found at A. Hall’s Hotel, in Easton, where I will remain until the first day of July next. Communications addressed to me at Easton, or information given to Wm. Bell, in Cambridge, will meet with prompt attention.

I will be at John Bradshaw’s Hotel, in Cambridge, every Monday.

WM. HARKER.

Oct. 6, 1852.—3m

The Westminster Carroltonian, Oct. 22, 1852:

25 NEGROES WANTED.

The undersigned wishes to purchase 25 LIKELY YOUNG NEGROES, for which the highest cash prices will be paid. All communications addressed to me in Baltimore will be punctually attended to.

LEWIS WINTERS.

Jan. 2.—tf

* * * * *

For TENNESSEE the following:

Nashville True Whig, Oct. 20th, ‘52:

FOR SALE.

21 likely Negroes, of different ages.

Oct. 6.

A. A. MCLEAN, Gen. Agent.

* * * * *

WANTED.

I want to purchase, immediately, a Negro man, Carpenter, and will give a good price.

Oct. 6.

A. A. MCLEAN, Gen. Agent

Nashville Gazette, October 22:

FOR SALE.

SEVERAL likely girls from 10 to 18 years old, a woman 24, a very valuable woman 25 years old, with three very likely children.

WILLIAMS & GLOVER A. B. U.

Oct. 16th, 1852.

* * * * *

WANTED.

I want to purchase Twenty-five LIKELY NEGROES, between the ages of 18 and 25 years, male and female, for which I will pay the highest price IN CASH.

A. A. McLean, Cherry Street.

Oct. 20.

The Memphis Daily Eagle and Enquirer:

500 NEGROES WANTED.

We will pay the highest cash price for all good negroes offered. We invite all those having negroes for sale to call on us at our mart, opposite the lower steamboat landing. We will also have a large lot of Virginia negroes for sale in the Fall. We have as safe a jail as any in the country, where we can keep negroes safe for those that wish them kept.

BOLTON, DICKINS & CO.

je 13—d & w

* * * * *

LAND AND NEGROES FOR SALE.

A good bargain will be given in about 400 acres of Land; 200 acres are in a fine state of cultivation, fronting the Railroad about ten miles from Memphis. Together with 18 or 20 likely negroes, consisting of men, women, boys and girls. Good time will be given on a portion of the purchase money.

J. M. PROVINE.

Oct. 17.—1m.

Clarksville Chronicle, Dec. 3, 1852:

NEGROES WANTED.

We wish to hire 25 good Steam Boat hands for the New Orleans and Louisville trade. We will pay very full prices for the Season, commencing about the 15th November.

MCCLURE & CROZIER, Agents S. B. Bellpoor

Sept. 10th, 1852.—1m

MISSOURI:

The Daily St. Louis Times, October 14, 1852:

REUBEN BARTLETT,

On Chesnut, between Sixth and Seventh streets, near the city jail, will pay the highest price in cash for all good negroes offered. There are also other buyers to be found in the office very anxious to purchase, who will pay the highest prices given in cash.

Negroes boarded at the lowest rates.

jy 15—6m.

* * * * *

NEGROES.

BLAKELY and McAFEE having dissolved co-partnership by mutual consent, the subscriber will at all times pay the highest cash prices for negroes of every description. Will also attend to the sale of negroes on commission, having a jail and yard fitted up expressly for boarding them.

☞ Negroes for sale at all times.

3 A. B. MCAFEE, 93 Olive street.

* * * * *

ONE HUNDRED NEGROES WANTED.

Having just returned from Kentucky, I wish to purchase, as soon as possible, one hundred likely negroes, consisting of men, women, boys and girls, for which I will pay at all times from fifty to one hundred dollars on the head more money than any other trading man in the city of St. Louis, or the State of Missouri. I can at all times be found at Barnum’s City Hotel, St. Louis, Mo.

je12d&wly. JOHN MATTINGLY.

From another St. Louis paper:

NEGROES WANTED.

I will pay at all times the highest price in cash for all good negroes offered. I am buying for the Memphis and Louisiana markets, and can afford to pay, and will pay, as high as any trading man in this State. All those having negroes to sell will do well to give me a call at No. 210, corner of Sixth and Wash streets, St Louis, Mo.

THOS. DICKINS, of the firm of Bolton, Dickins & Co.

o18—6m*

* * * * *

ONE HUNDRED NEGROES WANTED.

Having just returned from Kentucky, I wish to purchase one hundred likely Negroes, consisting of men and women, boys and girls, for which I will pay in cash from fifty to one hundred dollars more than any other trading man in the city of St. Louis or the State of Missouri. I can at all times be found at Barnum’s City Hotel, St. Louis, Mo.

je14d&wly JOHN MATTINGLY.

* * * * *

B. M. LYNCH,

No. 104 Locust street, St. Louis, Missouri,

Is prepared to pay the highest prices in cash for good and likely negroes, or will furnish boarding for others, in comfortable quarters and under secure fastenings. He will also attend to the sale and purchase of negroes on commission.

☞ Negroes for sale at all times.

&w

We ask you, Christian reader, we beg you to think, what sort of scenes are going on in Virginia under these advertisements? You see that they are carefully worded so as to take only the young people; and they are only a specimen of the standing, season advertisements which are among the most common things in the Virginia papers. A succeeding chapter will open to the reader the interior of these slave-prisons, and show him something of the daily incidents of this kind of trade. Now let us look at the corresponding advertisements in the southern states. The coffles made up in Virginia and other states are thus announced in the southern market.

From the Natchez (Mississippi) Free Trader, Nov. 20:

NEGROES FOR SALE.

The undersigned have just arrived, direct from Richmond, Va., with a large and likely lot of Negroes, consisting of Field Hands, House Servants, Seamstresses, Cooks, Washers and Ironers, a first-rate brick mason, and other mechanics, which they now offer for sale at the Forks of the Road, near Natchez (Miss.), on the most accommodating terms.

They will continue to receive fresh supplies from Richmond, Va., during the season, and will be able to furnish to any order any description of Negroes sold in Richmond.

Persons wishing to purchase would do well to give us a call before purchasing elsewhere.

nov20—6m

MATTHEWS, BRANTON & CO.

* * * * *

To The Public.

NEGROES BOUGHT AND SOLD.

ROBERT S. ADAMS & MOSES J. WICKS have this day associated themselves under the name and style of ADAMS & WICKS, for the purpose of buying and selling Negroes, in the city of Aberdeen, and elsewhere. They have an Agent who has been purchasing Negroes for them in the Old States for the last two months. One of the firm, Robert S. Adams, leaves this day for North Carolina and Virginia, and will buy a large number of negroes for this market. They will keep at their depot in Aberdeen, during the coming fall and winter, a large lot of choice Negroes, which they will sell low for cash, or for bills on Mobile.

ROBERT S. ADAMS, MOSES J. WICKS.

Aberdeen, Miss., May 7th, 1852.

* * * * *

SLAVES! SLAVES! SLAVES!

FRESH ARRIVALS WEEKLY.—Having established ourselves at the Forks of the Road, near Natchez, for a term of years, we have now on hand, and intend to keep throughout the entire year, a large and well-selected stock of Negroes, consisting of field-hands, house servants, mechanics, cooks, seamstresses, washers, ironers, etc., which we can sell and will sell as low or lower than any other house here or in New Orleans.

Persons wishing to purchase would do well to call on us before making purchases elsewhere, as our regular arrivals will keep us supplied with a good and general assortment. Our terms are liberal. Give us a call.

GRIFFIN & PULLUM.

Natchez, Oct. 16, 1852. 6m

* * * * *

NEGROES FOR SALE.

I have just returned to my stand, at the Forks of the Road, with fifty likely young NEGROES for sale.

R. H. ELAM.

Sept. 22

* * * * *

NOTICE.

The undersigned would respectfully state to the public that he has leased the stand in the Forks of the Road, near Natchez, for a term of years, and that he intends to keep a large lot of NEGROES on hand during the year. He will sell as low, or lower, than any other trader at this place or in New Orleans.

He has just arrived from Virginia, with a very likely lot of field men and women and house servants, three cooks, a carpenter and a fine buggy horse, and a saddle-horse and carryall. Call and see.

THOS. G. JAMES.

Daily Orleanian, Oct. 19, 1852:

W. F. TANNEHILL,

NO. 159 GRAVIER STREET.

SLAVES! SLAVES! SLAVES!

Constantly on hand, bought and sold on commission, at most reasonable prices.—Field hands, cooks, washers and ironers, and general house servants. City reference given, if required.

Oct 14

* * * * *

DEPOT D’ESCLAVES

DE LA NOUVELLE-ORLEANS.

NO. 68, RUE BARONNE.

WM. F. TANNEHILL & CO. ont constamment en mains un assortiment complet d’ESCLAVES bien choisis A VENDRE. Aussi, vente et achat d’esclaves par commission.

Nous avons actuellement en mains un grand nombre de NEGRES à louer aux mois, parmi lesquels se trouvent des jeunes garcons, domestiques de maison, cuisinières, blanchisseuses et repasseuses, nourices, etc.

REFERENCES:

Wright, Williams & Co. Williams, Phillips & Co. Moses Greenwood. Moon, Titus & Co. S. O. Nelson & Co. E. W. Diggs. 3ms

New Orleans Daily Crescent, Oct. 21, 1852:

SLAVES.

JAMES WHITE, No. 73 Baronne street, New Orleans, will give strict attention to receiving, boarding and selling SLAVES consigned to him. He will also buy and sell on commission. References: Messrs. Robson & Allen, McRea, Coffman & Co., Pregram, Bryan & Co.

Sep. 23

* * * * *

NEGROES WANTED.

Fifteen or twenty good Negro Men wanted to go on a Plantation. The best of wages will be given until the first of January, 1853.

Apply to

THOMAS G. MACKEY & CO., 5 Canal street, corner of Magazine, up stairs.

Sep 11

From another number of the Mississippi Free Trader is taken the following:

NEGROES.

The undersigned would respectfully state to the public that he has a lot of about forty-five now on hand, having this day received a lot of twenty-five direct from Virginia, two or three good cooks, a carriage driver, a good house boy, a fiddler, a fine seamstress and a likely lot of field men and women; all of whom he will sell at a small profit. He wishes to close out and go on to Virginia after a lot for the fall trade. Call and see.

THOMAS G. JAMES.

The slave-raising business of the northern states has been variously alluded to and recognized, both in the business statistics of the states, and occasionally in the speeches of patriotic men, who have justly mourned over it as a degradation to their country. In 1841, the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society addressed to the executive committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society some inquiries on the internal American slave-trade.

A labored investigation was made at that time, the results of which were published in London; and from that volume are made the following extracts:

The Virginia Times (a weekly newspaper, published at Wheeling, Virginia) estimates, in 1836, the number of slaves exported for sale from that state alone, during “the twelve months preceding,” at forty thousand, the aggregate value of whom is computed at twenty-four millions of dollars.

Allowing for Virginia one-half of the whole exportation during the period in question, and we have the appalling sum total of eighty thousand slaves exported in a single year from the breeding states. We cannot decide with certainty what proportion of the above number was furnished by each of the breeding states, but Maryland ranks next to Virginia in point of numbers, North Carolina follows Maryland, Kentucky, North Carolina, then Tennessee and Delaware.

The Natchez (Mississippi) Courier says “that the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas, imported two hundred and fifty thousand slaves from the more northern states in the year 1836.”

This seems absolutely incredible, but it probably includes all the slaves introduced by the immigration of their masters. The following, from the Virginia Times, confirms this supposition. In the same paragraph which is referred to under the second query, it is said:

“We have heard intelligent men estimate the number of slaves exported from Virginia, within the last twelve months, at a hundred and twenty thousand, each slave averaging at least six hundred dollars, making an aggregate of seventy-two million dollars. Of the number of slaves exported, not more than one-third have been sold; the others having been carried by their masters, who have removed.”

Assuming one-third to be the proportion of the sold, there are more than eighty thousand imported for sale into the four States of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas. Supposing one-half of eighty thousand to be sold into the other buying states,—S. Carolina, Georgia, and the territory of Florida,—and we are brought to the conclusion that more than a hundred and twenty thousand slaves were, for some years previous to the great pecuniary pressure in 1837, exported from the breeding to the consuming states.

The Baltimore American gives the following from a Mississippi paper of 1837:

“The report made by the committee of the citizens of Mobile, appointed at their meeting held on the 1st instant; on the subject of the existing pecuniary pressure, states that so large has been the return of slave labor, that purchases by Alabama of that species of property from other states, since 1833, have amounted to about ten million dollars annually.”

“Dealing in slaves,” says the Baltimore (Maryland) Register of 1829, “has become a large business; establishments are made in several places in Maryland and Virginia, at which they are sold like cattle. These places of deposit are strongly built, and well supplied with iron thumb-screws and gags, and ornamented with cowskins and other whips, oftentimes bloody.”

Professor Dew, now President of the University of William and Mary, in Virginia, in his review of the debate in the Virginia legislature in 1831–2, says (p. 120):

“A full equivalent being left in the place of the slave (the purchase-money), this emigration becomes an advantage to the state, and does not check the black population as much as at first view we might imagine; because it furnishes every inducement to the master to attend to the negroes, to encourage breeding, and to cause the greatest number possible to be raised.” Again: “Virginia is, in fact, a negro-raising state for the other states.”

Mr. Goode, of Virginia, in his speech before the Virginia legislature, in January, 1832, said:

“The superior usefulness of the slaves in the South will constitute an effectual demand, which will remove them from our limits. We shall send them from our state, because it will be our interest to do so. But gentlemen are alarmed lest the markets of other states be closed against the introduction of our slaves. Sir, the demand for slave labor must increase,” &c.

In the debates of the Virginia Convention, in 1829, Judge Upshur said:

“The value of slaves as an article of property depends much on the state of the market abroad. In this view, it is the value of land abroad, and not of land here, which furnishes the ratio. Nothing is more fluctuating than the value of slaves. A late law of Louisiana reduced their value twenty-five per cent. in two hours after its passage was known. If it should be our lot, as I trust it will be, to acquire the country of Texas, their price will rise again.”

Hon. Philip Doddridge, of Virginia, in his speech in the Virginia Convention, in 1829 (Debates p. 89), said:

“The acquisition of Texas will greatly enhance the value of the property in question (Virginia slaves).”

Rev. Dr. Graham, of Fayetteville, North Carolina, at a Colonization meeting held at that place in the fall of 1837, said:

“There were nearly seven thousand slaves offered in New Orleans market, last winter. From Virginia alone six thousand were annually sent to the South, and from Virginia and North Carolina there had gone to the South, in the last twenty years, THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND SLAVES.”

Hon. Henry Clay, of Kentucky, in his speech before the Colonization Society, in 1829, says:

“It is believed that nowhere in the farming portion of the United States would slave labor be generally employed, if the proprietor were not tempted to raise slaves by the high price of the southern markets, which keeps it up in his own.”

The New York Journal of Commerce of October 12th, 1835, contains a letter from a Virginian, whom the editor calls “a very good and sensible man,” asserting that twenty thousand slaves had been driven to the South from Virginia that year, but little more than three-fourths of which had then elapsed.

Mr. Gholson, of Virginia, in his speech in the legislature of that state, January 18, 1831 (see Richmond Whig), says:

“It has always (perhaps erroneously) been considered, by steady and old-fashioned people, that the owner of land had a reasonable right to its annual profits; the owner of orchards to their annual fruits; the owner of brood mares to their product; and the owner of female slaves to their increase. We have not the fine-spun intelligence nor legal acumen to discover the technical distinctions drawn by gentlemen (that is, the distinction between female slaves and brood mares). The legal maxim of partus sequitur ventrem is coëval with the existence of the right of property itself, and is founded in wisdom and justice. It is on the justice and inviolability of this maxim that the master foregoes the service of the female slave, has her nursed and attended during the period of her gestation, and raises the helpless infant offspring. The value of the property justifies the expense, and I do not hesitate to say that in its increase consists much of our wealth.”

Can any comment on the state of public sentiment produced by slavery equal the simple reading of this extract, if we remember that it was spoken in the Virginia legislature? One would think the cold cheek of Washington would redden in its grave for shame, that his native state had sunk so low. That there were Virginian hearts to feel this disgrace is evident from the following reply of Mr. Faulkner to Mr. Gholson, in the Virginia House of Delegates, 1832. See Richmond Whig:

“But he (Mr. Gholson) has labored to show that the abolition of slavery would be impolitic, because your slaves constitute the entire wealth of the state, all the productive capacity Virginia possesses; and, sir, as things are, I believe he is correct. He says that the slaves constitute the entire available wealth of Eastern Virginia. Is it true that for two hundred years the only increase in the wealth and resources of Virginia has been a remnant of the natural increase of this miserable race? Can it be that on this increase she places her sole dependence? Until I heard these declarations, I had not fully conceived the horrible extent of this evil. These gentlemen state the fact, which the history and present aspect of the commonwealth but too well sustain. What, sir! have you lived for two hundred years without personal effort or productive industry, in extravagance and indolence, sustained alone by the return from the sales of the increase of slaves, and retaining merely such a number as your now impoverished lands can sustain as STOCK?”

Mr. Thomas Jefferson Randolph in the Virginia legislature used the following language (Liberty Bell, p. 20):

“I agree with gentlemen in the necessity of arming the state for internal defence. I will unite with them in any effort to restore confidence to the public mind, and to conduce to the sense of the safety of our wives and our children. Yet, sir, I must ask upon whom is to fall the burden of this defence? Not upon the lordly masters of their hundred slaves, who will never turn out except to retire with their families when danger threatens. No, sir; it is to fall upon the less wealthy class of our citizens, chiefly upon the non-slaveholder. I have known patrols turned out where there was not a slave-holder among them; and this is the practice of the country. I have slept in times of alarm quiet in bed, without having a thought of care, while these individuals, owning none of this property themselves, were patrolling under a compulsory process, for a pittance of seventy-five cents per twelve hours, the very curtilage of my house, and guarding that property which was alike dangerous to them and myself. After all, this is but an expedient. As this population becomes more numerous, it becomes less productive. Your guard must be increased, until finally its profits will not pay for the expense of its subjection. Slavery has the effect of lessening the free population of a country.

“The gentleman has spoken of the increase of the female slaves being a part of the profit. It is admitted; but no great evil can be averted, no good attained, without some inconvenience. It may be questioned how far it is desirable to foster and encourage this branch of profit. It is a practice, and an increasing practice, in parts of Virginia, to rear slaves for market. How can an honorable mind, a patriot, and a lover of his country, bear to see this Ancient Dominion, rendered illustrious by the noble devotion and patriotism of her sons in the cause of liberty, converted into one grand menagerie, where men are to be reared for the market, like oxen for the shambles? Is it better, is it not worse, than the slave-trade;—that trade which enlisted the labor of the good and wise of every creed, and every clime, to abolish it? The trader receives the slave, a stranger in language, aspect and manners, from the merchant who has brought him from the interior. The ties of father, mother, husband and child, have all been rent in twain; before he receives him, his soul has become callous. But here, sir, individuals whom the master has known from infancy, whom he has seen sporting in the innocent gambols of childhood, who have been accustomed to look to him for protection, he tears from the mother’s arms, and sells into a strange country, among strange people, subject to cruel taskmasters.

“He has attempted to justify slavery here because it exists in Africa, and has stated that it exists all over the world. Upon the same principle, he could justify Mahometanism, with its plurality of wives, petty wars for plunder, robbery and murder, or any other of the abominations and enormities of savage tribes. Does slavery exist in any part of civilized Europe?—No sir, in no part of it.”

The calculations in the volume from which we have been quoting were made in the year 1841. Since that time, the area of the southern slave-market has been doubled, and the trade has undergone a proportional increase. Southern papers are full of its advertisements. It is, in fact, the great trade of the country. From the single port of Baltimore, in the last two years, a thousand and thirty-three slaves have been shipped to the southern market, as is apparent from the following report of the custom-house officer:

ABSTRACT OF THE NUMBER OF VESSELS CLEARED IN THE DISTRICT OF BALTIMORE FOR SOUTHERN PORTS, HAVING SLAVES ON BOARD, FROM JAN. 1, 1851, TO NOVEMBER 20, 1852.

────────┬──────────────┬────────────────────┬──────────────────┬─────── Date. │ Denomina’s. │ Names of Vessels. │ Where Bound. │ Nos. ────────┼──────────────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────┼─────── 1851 │ │ │ │ Jan. 6│Sloop, │Georgia, │Norfolk, Va. │ 16 Jan. 10│Sloop, │Georgia, │Norfolk, Va. │ 6 Jan. 11│Bark, │Elizabeth, │New Orleans. │ 92 Jan. 14│Sloop, │Georgia, │Norfolk, Va. │ 9 Jan. 17│Sloop, │Georgia, │Norfolk, Va. │ 6 Jan. 20│Bark, │Cora, │New Orleans. │ 14 Feb. 6│Bark, │E. H. Chapin, │New Orleans. │ 31 Feb. 8│Bark, │Sarah Bridge, │New Orleans. │ 34 Feb. 12│Sloop, │Georgia, │Norfolk, Va. │ 5 Feb. 24│Schooner, │H. A. Barling, │New Orleans. │ 37 Feb. 26│Sloop, │Georgia, │Norfolk, Va. │ 3 Feb. 28│Sloop, │Georgia, │Norfolk, Va. │ 42 Mar. 10│Ship, │Edward Everett, │New Orleans. │ 20 Mar. 21│Sloop, │Georgia, │Norfolk, Va. │ 11 Mar. 19│Bark, │Baltimore, │Savannah. │ 13 Apr. 1│Sloop, │Herald, │Norfolk, Va. │ 7 Apr. 2│Brig, │Waverley, │New Orleans. │ 31 Apr. 18│Sloop, │Baltimore, │Arquia Creek, Va. │ 4 Apr. 23│Ship, │Charles, │New Orleans. │ 25 Apr. 28│Sloop, │Georgia, │Norfolk, Va. │ 5 May 15│Sloop, │Herald, │Norfolk, Va. │ 27 May 17│Schooner, │Brilliant, │Charleston. │ 1 June 10│Sloop, │Herald, │Norfolk, Va. │ 3 June 16│Sloop, │Georgia, │Norfolk, Va. │ 4 June 20│Schooner, │Truth, │Charleston. │ 5 June 21│Ship, │Herman, │New Orleans. │ 10 July 19│Schooner, │Aurora S., │Charleston. │ 1 Sept. 6│Bark, │Kirkwood, │New Orleans. │ 2 Oct. 4│Bark, │Abbott Lord, │New Orleans. │ 1 Oct. 11│Bark, │Elizabeth, │New Orleans. │ 70 Oct. 18│Ship, │Edward Everett, │New Orleans. │ 12 Oct. 20│Sloop, │Georgia, │Norfolk, Va. │ 1 Nov. 13│Ship, │Eliza F. Mason, │New Orleans. │ 57 Nov. 18│Bark, │Mary Broughtons, │New Orleans. │ 47 Dec. 4│Ship, │Timalean, │New Orleans. │ 22 Dec. 18│Schooner, │H. A. Barling, │New Orleans. │ 45 │ │ │ │ 1852. │ │ │ │ Jan. 5│Bark, │Southerner, │New Orleans. │ 52 Feb. 7│Ship, │Nathan Hooper, │New Orleans. │ 51 Feb. 21│Ship, │Dumbarton, │New Orleans. │ 22 Mar. 27│Sloop, │Palmetto, │Charleston. │ 36 Mar. 4│Sloop, │Jewess, │Norfolk, Va. │ 34 Apr. 24│Sloop, │Palmetto, │Charleston. │ 8 Apr. 25│Bark, │Abbott Lord, │New Orleans. │ 36 May 15│Ship, │Charles, │New Orleans. │ 2 June 12│Sloop, │Pampero, │New Orleans. │ 4 July 3│Sloop, │Palmetto, │Charleston. │ 1 July 6│Sloop, │Herald, │Norfolk, Va. │ 7 July 6│Sloop, │Maryland, │Arquia Creek, Va. │ 4 Sept. 14│Sloop, │North Carolina, │Norfolk, Va. │ 15 Sept. 23│Ship, │America, │New Orleans. │ 1 Oct. 15│Ship, │Brandywine, │New Orleans. │ 6 Oct. 18│Sloop, │Isabel, │Charleston. │ 1 Oct. 28│Schooner, │Maryland, │Charleston. │ 12 Oct. 29│Schooner, │H. M. Gambrill, │Savannah. │ 11 Nov. 1│Ship, │Jane Henderson, │New Orleans. │ 18 Nov. 6│Sloop, │Palmetto, │Charleston. │ 3 │ │ │ │ ———— │ │ │ │ 1033 ────────┴──────────────┴────────────────────┴──────────────────┴───────

If we look back to the advertisements, we shall see that the traders take only the younger ones, between the ages of ten and thirty. But this is only one port, and only one mode of exporting; for multitudes of them are sent in coffles over land; and yet Mr. J. Thornton Randolph represents the negroes of Virginia as living in pastoral security, smoking their pipes under their own vines and fig-trees, the venerable patriarch of the flock declaring that “he nebber hab hear such a ting as a nigger sold to Georgia all his life, unless dat nigger did someting very bad.”

An affecting picture of the consequences of this traffic upon both master and slave is drawn by the committee of the volume from which we have quoted.

The writer cannot conclude this chapter better than by the language which they have used.

This system bears with extreme severity upon the slave. It subjects him to a perpetual fear of being sold to the “soul-driver,” which to the slave is the realization of all conceivable woes and horrors, more dreaded than death. An awful apprehension of this fate haunts the poor sufferer by day and by night, from his cradle to his grave. SUSPENSE hangs like a thunder-cloud over his head. He knows that there is not a passing hour, whether he wakes or sleeps, which may not be THE LAST that he shall spend with his wife and children. Every day or week some acquaintance is snatched from his side, and thus the consciousness of his own danger is kept continually awake. “Surely my turn will come next,” is his harrowing conviction; for he knows that he was reared for this, as the ox for the yoke, or the sheep for the slaughter. In this aspect, the slave’s condition is truly indescribable. Suspense, even when it relates to an event of no great moment, and “endureth but for a night,” is hard to bear. But when it broods over all, absolutely all that is dear, chilling the present with its deep shade, and casting its awful gloom over the future, it must break the heart! Such is the suspense under which every slave in the breeding states lives. It poisons all his little lot of bliss. If a father, he cannot go forth to his toil without bidding a mental farewell to his wife and children. He cannot return, weary and worn, from the field, with any certainty that he shall not find his home robbed and desolate. Nor can he seek his bed of straw and rags without the frightful misgiving that his wife may be torn from his arms before morning. Should a white stranger approach his master’s mansion, he fears that the soul-driver has come, and awaits in terror the overseer’s mandate, “You are sold; follow that man.” There is no being on earth whom the slaves of the breeding states regard with so much horror as the trader. He is to them what the prowling kidnapper is to their less wretched brethren in the wilds of Africa. The master knows this, and that there is no punishment so effectual to secure labor, or deter from misconduct, as the threat of being delivered to the soul-driver.[20] Another consequence of this system is the prevalence of licentiousness. This is indeed one of the foul features of slavery everywhere; but it is especially prevalent and indiscriminate where slave-breeding is conducted as a business. It grows directly out of the system, and is inseparable from it. * * * The pecuniary inducement to general pollution must be very strong, since the larger the slave increase the greater the master’s gains, and especially since the mixed blood demands a considerably higher price than the pure black.

The remainder of the extract contains specifications too dreadful to be quoted. We can only refer the reader to the volume, p. 13.

The poets of America, true to the holy soul of their divine art, have shed over some of the horrid realities of this trade the pathetic light of poetry. Longfellow and Whittier have told us, in verses beautiful as strung pearls, yet sorrowful as a mother’s tears, some of the incidents of this unnatural and ghastly traffic. For the sake of a common humanity, let us hope that the first extract describes no common event.

THE QUADROON GIRL.

The Slaver in the broad lagoon Lay moored with idle sail; He waited for the rising moon, And for the evening gale.

Under the shore his boat was tied And all her listless crew Watched the gray alligator slide Into the still bayou.

Odors of orange-flowers and spice Reached them, from time to time, Like airs that breathe from Paradise Upon a world of crime.

The Planter, under his roof of thatch, Smoked thoughtfully and slow; The Slaver’s thumb was on the latch, He scorned in haste to go.

He said, “My ship at anchor rides In yonder broad lagoon; I only wait the evening tides, And the rising of the moon.”

Before them, with her face upraised, In timid attitude, Like one half curious, half amazed, A Quadroon maiden stood.

Her eyes were large, and full of light, Her arms and neck were bare; No garment she wore, save a kirtle bright, And her own long raven hair.

And on her lips there played a smile As holy, meek, and faint, As lights in some cathedral aisle The features of a saint.

“The soil is barren, the farm is old,” The thoughtful Planter said; Then looked upon the Slaver’s gold, And then upon the maid.

His heart within him was at strife With such accursed gains; For he knew whose passions gave her life, Whose blood ran in her veins.

But the voice of nature was too weak; He took the glittering gold! Then pale as death grew the maiden’s cheek, Her hands as icy cold.

The Slaver led her from the door, He led her by the hand, To be his slave and paramour In a strange and distant land!

* * * * *

THE FAREWELL

OF A VIRGINIA SLAVE MOTHER TO HER DAUGHTERS, SOLD INTO SOUTHERN BONDAGE.

Gone, gone,—sold and gone, To the rice-swamp dank and lone. Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings, Where the noisome 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.

JOHN G. WHITTIER.

The following extract from a letter of Dr. Bailey, in the Era, 1847, presents a view of this subject more creditable to some Virginia families. May the number that refuse to part with slaves except by emancipation increase!

The sale of slaves to the south is carried to a great extent. The slave-holders do not, so far as I can learn, raise them for that special purpose. But, here is a man with a score of slaves, located on an exhausted plantation. It must furnish support for all; but, while they increase, its capacity of supply decreases. The result is, he must emancipate or sell. But he has fallen into debt, and he sells to relieve himself from debt, and also from an excess of mouths. Or, he requires money to educate his children; or, his negroes are sold under execution. From these and other causes, large numbers of slaves are continually disappearing from the state, so that the next census will undoubtedly show a marked diminution of the slave population.

The season for this trade is generally from November to April; and some estimate that the average number of slaves passing by the southern railroad weekly, during that period of six months, is at least two hundred. A slave-trader told me that he had known one hundred pass in a single night. But this is only one route. Large numbers are sent off westwardly, and also by sea, coastwise. The Davises, in Petersburg, are the great slave-dealers. They are Jews, who came to that place many years ago as poor peddlers; and, I am informed, are members of a family which has its representatives in Philadelphia, New York, &c.! These men are always in the market, giving the highest price for slaves. During the summer and fall they buy them up at low prices, trim, shave, wash them, fatten them so that they may look sleek, and sell them to great profit. It might not be unprofitable to inquire how much Northern capital, and what firms in some of the Northern cities, are connected with this detestable business.

There are many planters here who cannot be persuaded to sell their slaves. They have far more than they can find work for, and could at any time obtain a high price for them. The temptation is strong, for they want more money and fewer dependants. But they resist it, and nothing can induce them to part with a single slave, though they know that they would be greatly the gainers in a pecuniary sense, were they to sell one-half of them. Such men are too good to be slave-holders. Would that they might see it their duty to go one step further, and become emancipators! The majority of this class of planters are religious men, and this is the class to which generally are to be referred the various cases of emancipation by will, of which from time to time we hear accounts.

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Footnote 20:

This horribly expressive appellation is in common use among the slaves of the breeding states.

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