sional curiosity might prompt, unrestrained by law, public sentiment, or the claims of common humanity."

Besides, in the process of acclimation, those transferred from the northern to the southern slave states, suffer much by disease and death. And in advertisements we find the venders very careful to state acclimation as an important item in the value of slaves. Some calculate that about twenty-five per cent. lose their lives when brought from Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and the hill countries, into the sugar plantations and the rice swamps. Certain it is, that the loss of life, by this change, falls little short of the mortality common to the acclimation of the Africans in America, when the slave-trade was in full operation; if, indeed, it is not now as extensively carried on as ever in reference to the South American countries, and smuggling into portions of the United States.

6. The privations endured by slaves, in reference to labor, food, clothing, dwellings, and treatment when sick, show clearly the degrading and sinful character of the system. The master prescribes the time and amount of labor which the slave must render. Then he fixes on the quantity and quality of the food which he supplies. The clothing, by day and night, is doled out with scanty stinting to the slave. His habitation, no matter how uncomfortable, which his master supplies, must be received with submission. It will not, then, be marvelous, that the system of disfranchise which treats the slave in this manner, would neglect him when he can be no longer profitable, or when sickness invades him. Parents enjoying freedom do not consider themselves safe, in civilized society, when they deliver their property to their children, and depend on them afterward for supplies. The history of the world shows what human nature is on this matter; namely, it can not be trusted. And is the system of slavery guiltless in this respect? No such thing. In food, clothing, and habitation, and exacting labor, it will do

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wrong. It always has done wrong. It now does wrong. It can not do otherwise than wrong. Its sin remaineth, and will remain. Its sin is a part of itself in this respect.

In this are manifested some of the most glaring sins condemned in the Bible. This not only withholds wages, but it withholds food itself, both in quantity and quality. It strips the poor, and makes them go naked, without due garments by day or covering by night. Therefore, the system is sinful; or if it be sinful to make people hungry and naked, by taking their own hard-earned food and clothing from them, slavery is chargeable with sin.

Dr. Channing, p. 163, well portrays slavery when he says, in reference to the facts which we now mention: Facts of this kind, which make no noise, which escape or mislead a casual observer, help to show the character of slavery more than occasional excesses of cruelty, though these must be frequent. They show how deceptive are the appearances of good connected with it; and how much may be suffered under the manifestation of much kindness. It is, in fact, next to impossible to estimate precisely the evils of slavery. The slave writes no books, and the slaveholder is too inured to the system, and too much interested in it, to be able to comprehend it. Perhaps the laws of the slave states are the most unexceptionable witnesses which we can obtain from that quarter, and the barbarity of these is decisive testimony against an institution which requires such means for its support."

7. The privations of slaves, in reference to food, clothing, dwellings, sickness, and labor, form one very striking feature of the moral character of slavery. The spirit and the practice of the system will appear fully in considering these items. Every thing saved in expenditure, as well as produced by skill and labor, go to make up the profits or gain of slavery. Hence the food, in quantity, quality, and mode of preparation, is provided on the cheapest plan, in order to

save expense. The clothing, too, in cheapness, is a matter of importance. The dwellings are also most miserable, costing next to nothing, in construction, furniture, repairs, without the appurtenances belonging to decency, comfort, or morals. And then the labor is to be as great as possible, and laid out on the most profitable productions.

Now, among the declarations of Scripture, none are more pointed in denunciation, than those which refer to the sin of even refusing to give clothing to the naked, food to the hungry, attendance to the sick, and the like. But slavery does more: it takes from the slave the products of his labor and toil, which would clothe, feed, and nurse him, and then clothes him with rags, feeds him on offals and husks, and neglects him in his distress. To refuse to clothe and feed those who have made themselves poor, even by their sins or want of economy, is a crying sin before God. But to make persons poor, in taking the grain out of their granaries, taking the clothes out of their wardrobe, and then replacing them only in part with the refuse and the vile surplus of our rich stores, becomes peculiarly offensive to God. Such are the sins of slavery ever since it began, even to this day. And such it must ever remain, till God will visit it with the plague of total destruction, because it has despised the poor, it has taken the only garment of the naked from him, and, with harpy snatch, has seized and carried their own food from the table of the hungry, starving poor. The vengeance of God will follow it down to total destruction.

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CHAPTER III.

CRUELTIES OF SLAVERY.

1. The punishments and treatment of slaves amount to eruelties or inhumanity. The truth of this statement will appear from the following considerations.

The law of the slave states assails the persons of the slaves by depriving them of trial by jury. It assails their consciences by forbidding them to assemble for worship, unless their oppressors are present. It assails their characters, by branding them as liars-by denying them their oath in law. The law exposes their modesty, by leaving their masters to clothe or let them go naked, as he pleases. The law exposes their health, by leaving him to feed or starve them; to work them, wet or dry, with or without sleep; to lodge them with or without covering, as he thinks proper. It robs them of marriage relations, parental authority, and filial obligations. In short, the laws not only refuse to protect the slaves, but they rob them of their sacred, inalienable rights.

The law of slavery deprives man of his right to himself, of his right to his body, his right to improve his mind, to worship God according to conscience, his right to receive and enjoy what he earns, his right to live with his wife and children, his right to better his condition, his right to eat when he is hungry, to rest when he is tired, to sleep when he needs it, to cover his nakedness with clothing. It makes the slave a prisoner for life on the plantation, except when his master pleases to let him out with a pass, or sells him, and transfers him in irons to another place. It authorizes human merchants to traverse the country, buying up men, women, and children-chaining them in coffles, and driving them forever from their relatives; it sets them on the auction table to be handled, scrutinized, knocked off to the

highest bidder; it proclaims they shall not have their liberty, and should their masters set them free, the law seizes them and again reduces them to slavery.

Besides, the slave laws have attached the following penalties to the following acts of slaves: if more than seven slaves are found together in any road, without a white person, twenty lashes apiece; for visiting a plantation without a written pass, ten lashes; for letting loose a boat from where it is made fast, thirty-nine lashes, for the first offense, and for the second such slave "shall have cut off from his head one ear;" for keeping or carrying a club, thirty-nine lashes; for having any article for sale, without a ticket from his master, ten lashes; for traveling in any other than the most usual road, when going alone to any place, forty lashes; for being found in another person's negro quarters, forty lashes; for hunting with dogs, in the woods, thirty lashes; for being on horseback without the written permission of his master, twenty-five lashes; for riding or going abroad in the night, or riding horses in the daytime, without leave, a slave may be whipped, cropped, or branded on the cheek with the letter R, or otherwise punished, not extending to life, or so as not to render him unfit for labor. Laws similar to these exist throughout the slave code. Extracts to fill a volume could be made similar to the above.

In many cases the white man may kill the slave with perfect impunity, as we have shown; so that the slave has little or no protection from the few laws made for that purpose. For instance, if a female raise her hand against the human brute who attempts to violate her chastity, she shall, saith the law, suffer death.

The property of the master is much more sacred than the person of the slave. Two laws of Louisiana, passed in 1819, prove this. The one attaches a penalty, not exceeding one thousand dollars, and imprisonment, not exceeding two wears, to the crime of "cutting or breaking any iron chain or

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