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the companions of his own boyhood, in others on the children of the woman, or perchance the woman herself who nursed his infancy, and often, worst of all, on his own offspring.

Need we ask what must be the effects of such practices, steadily pursued, upon the slaveholder's heart? And there is his wife, who lives in the midst of all this, connives at it, and cooperates in it—what must she become? And their children, who are the playmates of the little "cattle," and yet are so accustomed to seeing them torn from their parents and sold, as to be unmoved by their cries? What proficients must they become in the execrable villanies of the husband and father!

But if in this aspect the slave breeder is an object of just abhorrence, in another view he strongly excites our pity; for he is himself the victim of fears scarcely less harrowing than those to which he subjects the slave. His fears have their origin in the danger of insurrections. "A dreadful sound is in his ears," which no heroism can hush, which will not be wholly silenced by the uproar of revelry, and which breaks often upon the stillness of the night in tones of thunder.

We add no more under this query, save to group together the features which, in our extended reply, have been scattered over several pages. First, those growing out of a barren soil are, to the slave, the inadequate supply of his wants, increased severity of labor, and inflictions of positive cruelty by an irritated and poverty-pinched master; to the slaveholder, great and growing pecuniary embarrassments, chagrin and exasperation arising therefrom, and resulting in a prostration of his spirits, and extinction of the generous sentiments, and terminating perchance in confirmed dissipation,-the death of agricultural enterprise, which accelerates the decay of the lands, when it might have been arrested, and the withering away of all public spirit. As more remote consequences, the states thus impoverished are shunned by emigrants of every grade and from every quarter of the old world and the new, while at the same time they are fast being drained of that class of their own population which actually composes their life's blood; and as the result of the whole, these states are sinking in the scale of prosperity with a rapidity which is made more apparent by the equally rapid rising of the adjacent free states. The features growing out of the breeding system

are, to the slaves, the incessant apprehension of sale, separation, exile, and increased inflictions, the prevalence of licentiousness systematized, bodily suffering, elopements with their terrible consequences, and insurrections with their sequel of blood and carnage. To the masters they are a deep and shameful implication in licentiousness, the hardening and brutalizing influence of slave breeding, and the harrowing fears of servile insurrection. A hideous set of features truly to belong to a system softly called a 'domestic institution,' shielded by public sentiment, sanctioned by law, baptized by religion, and dating back its patriarchal origin to the household of Abraham!

EIGHTH QUESTION. What are the features of the internal slave trade?

Some idea of the nature of this trade has been incidentally conveyed, in the account previously given of its extent. From which it is not difficult to infer that "all unutterable woes" must wait upon it. It is important to mention here the principal circumstances from which the internal trade has originated, and by which it has been upheld and extended.

First among these, is doubtless the growing poverty of the planters. We have seen how this has operated by overcoming the scruples of conscience, and giving a sort of conventional respectability to a traffic, which otherwise would have been consigned to the same infamy with the African slave trade. Thus introduced into favor with the "highest classes," the slave trade, which begun in a supposed necessity to avert the rigors of poverty and prevent general bankruptcy, was continued as a source of wealth. This was both inducement and justification enough with a community of slaveholders-never remarkable for over nicety in matters of principle-to reduce the trade to system, and establish it as a regular branch of business. Even in those few cases where moral or religious principle withholds masters from selling, this protection to the slave is almost sure to fail him at the death of his master; for in the distribution and settlement of the estate the slaves are either sold or divided among the heirs without regard to the tres of kindred. Mostly, however, they are sold to the highest bidder, who is commonly the

'soul driver.' The most heartrending scenes which attend the slave trade, occur in the sale and separation of this class of slaves. Accustomed, from the superior kindness of their deceased masters, to greater immunities than usually fall to the lot of slaves, their family ties are stronger, their personal improvement greater, and of course their susceptibility to the sufferings of separations and to the brutal violence of the soul driver and southern overseer much keener. Yet they receive no additional respect, corresponding to their peculiar privileges; on the contrary it is well known that they are treated with marked contempt and rigor on that very account, to "break their Virginia spirit," as the overseers say. In this cruel treatment we may see the explanation of those tears, which we are often told are shed over the graves of indulgent masters, and which are complacently retailed among the beauties of slavery. Well may the poor slaves wail at the prospect of being separated, and sold to masters, they know not who.

In a small tract, published by the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1838, we find the following statement :

"In seventy-two papers, printed in 1837, one thousand five hundred and twenty-five persons, of whom one hundred and seventy-nine are said to be females, and one hundred children, are advertised for sale, besides forty-one lots of human beings, number not stated; five hundred and fifty-nine persons, and forty lots are to be sold because their masters and mistresses have died! A single paper [“ Columbus (Georgia) Enquirer,” Nov. 16th, 1837] contains notices for twenty-one such sales. One man, one woman, and one little girl, six years old, offered in three sales of this kind, are said to be sickly, yet they must be sold to any who will buy. In one such sale, a claim to an eighth part of five slaves is offered."

In many cases, also, the slaves, whose masters would be unwilling to sell, are seized upon and sold at public sale to satisfy the claims of creditors. In the advertisements of such sales or vendues, men, women, and children are indiscriminately huddled in the same category with waggons, barrels, boxes, poultry, crockery, sheep, farming utensils, oxen, house furniture, and the numberless et-cetera of live stock and moveables pertaining to a farming establishment. A neighbour purchases the children, a distant planter the father, and a soul driver the mother.

But this suggests one of the prominent features of the internal slave trade, i. e. the separations of families and kindred. In this trade the ties of nature are wholly disregarded. This is the rule, and the exceptions are exceedingly rare. Sometimes a master refuses to sell unless the purchaser will consent to take whole families unbroken; but it is impossible that such cases should be frequent, since the speculator cannot buy on these terms without making a sacrifice himself in the subsequent sale, for on whatever principle he buys, he must sell in lots to suit his purchasers in the south, and they very seldom wish to buy whole families. Such being the case, it is for the speculator rather than the breeder to fix the terms, and his terms are separation or no sale. It is but too certain that when such an alternative is presented to the master, and the trader's gold glitters in his eyes, he will not long hesitate. Family separations there must be, almost as common as the trade itself, since they are essential to its profitable continuance.

Professor E. A. Andrews, a New Englander who visited the south, gives a conversation which he had with a trader, on board a steam-boat, on the Potomac, in 1835.

"In selling his slaves N assures me he never separates families; but that in purchasing them he is often compelled to do so, for that his business is to purchase, and he must take such as are in the market. Do you often buy the wife without the husband? Yes, very often; and frequently, too, they sell me the mother while they keep the children. I have often known them take away the infant from the mother's breast, and keep it while they sold her. Children from one to eighteen months old are now worth about one hundred dollars."- "Slavery and Domestic Slave Trade in the United States," p. 147.

The following is from the "Anti-Slavery Record,” vol. i. p. 51, &c.:

"A trader was about to start from Louisville, Kentucky, with one hundred slaves for New Orleans. Among them were two women with infants at the breast. Knowing that these infants would depreciate the value of the mothers, the trader sold them for one dollar each. Another mother was separated from her sick child, about four or five years old. Her anguish was so great that she sickened and died before reaching her destination.

"The two following cases were communicated by James G. Birnie, Esquire, of Kentucky:

"Not very long ago, in Lincoln county, Kentucky, a female slave was sold to a southern slaver under most afflicting circumstances. She had at her breast an infant boy three months old. The slaver did not want the child on any terms. The master sold the mother and retained the child. She was hurried away immediately to the depôt at Louisville, to be sent down the river to the southern market. The last news my informant had of her was, that she was lying sick in the most miserable condition, her breasts having risen, inflamed, and burst.'

"During the winter, at Nashville, a slaver was driving his train of fellow-beings down to the landing, to put them on board a steam-boat, bound for New Orleans. A mother among them, having an infant, about two months old, to carry in her arms, could not keep pace with the rest. The slaver waited till she came up to where he was standing; he snatched the infant from her arms, and handing it over to a person who stood by, made him a present of it. The mother, bereft in a single moment of her last comfort, was driven on without delay to the boat.''

On page 70 of the same volume may be found the following fact, narrated by Mr. Birney:

"A member of a church, last winter, sold a woman who was soon to be a mother. She knew nothing of the bargain, till she was bound and seated on a horse behind the slave-trader. In her struggles she was thrown to the ground, and much injured. This did not deter the souldrivers from their purpose; they again bound the woman to the horse, carried her eight miles, to Harrodsburgh, and threw her into a cold room in the jail. In this forlorn situation her child was born, and died. A burning fever came and released the mother also."

“Rev. C. S. Renshaw, of Quincy, Illinois, who resided sometime in Kentucky, says:

"I was told the following fact by a young lady, daughter of a slaveholder in Boone county, Kentucky, who lived within half-a-mile of Mr. Hughes' farm :---Hughes and Neil traded in slaves down the river; they had bought up a part of their stock in the upper counties of Kentucky, and brought them down to Louisville, where the remainder of their drove was in jail, waiting their arrival. Just before the steam-boat put off for the lower country, two negro women were offered for sale, each of them having a young child at the breast. The traders bought them, took their babes from their arms, and offered them to the highest bidder; and they were sold for one dollar a-piece, whilst the stricken parents were driven on board the boat, and in an hour were on their way to the New Orleans market. You are aware that a young babe diminishes the value of a field

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