WITNESSES.

"Rev. John Rankin, a native of Tennessee.

TESTIMONY.

"When they return to their miserable huts at night, they find not there the means of comfortable rest; but on the cold ground they must lie, without any covering, and shiver while they slumber." (p. 100).

The slaves suffer from neglect when sick:

"Rev. Dr. Channing, of Boston, who once resided in Virginia, relates the following fact, in his work on Slavery, page 163, first edition:

"I cannot forget my feelings on visiting a hospital belonging to the plantation of a gentleman highly esteemed for his virtues, and whose manners and conversation expressed much benevolence and conscientiousness. When I entered, with him, the hospital, the first object on which my eye fell was a young woman, very ill, probably approaching death. She was stretched on the floor. Her head rested on something like a pillow; but her body and limbs were extended on the hard boards. The owner, I doubt not, had at least as much kindness as myself; but he was so used to see the slaves living without common comforts, that the idea of unkindness, in the present instance, did not enter his mind." (p. 101).

They are flogged in the most barbarous manner, with additional circumstances of aggravated cruelty. If they attempt to run away, they are hunted with dogs; and if they either resist, or seem likely to escape, they are shot. And these hunts are described in the papers with as great spirit and commendation as a badger-bait would be in a low English journal. We select the following advertisements :

WITNESSES.

"Mr. Micajah Ricks, Nash County, North Carolina, in the Raleigh Standard, July 18, 1838. "J. L. Jolley, Sheriff of Clinton, Co. Mi., in the Clinton Gazette, July 23, 1836.

TESTIMONY.

"Ran away, a negro woman and two children. A few days before she went off I burnt her with a hot iron on the left side of her face-I tried to make the letter M."

“Was committed to jail, a negro man; says his name is Josiah-his back very much scarred by the whip, and branded on the thigh and hips in three or four places, thus (J.M.). The rim of his right ear has been bit or cut off."

It is a common practice to mark negroes by extracting their teeth and notching their ears. We need not further proof that the physical evils of the American slave are many and great.

The moral evils are equally dreadful. That in almost every slave state, except Kentucky, it is penal for a slave to learn, or for a freeman to teach him, to read, is, in itself, a sufficient evil; but far above all other evils is the utter disregard of female

chastity which the freemen evince, and to which the slaves are compelled to submit.

The brutal and unscrupulous licentiousness of the tyrants is not, however, the result of unbridled appetite alone-avarice, too, has its influence.

"The following testimony is taken from a Methodist minister, in Virginia, formerly from a New England conference. It is taken from a letter dated March 13, 1835, and addressed to the Rev. Orange Scott, editor of the Wesleyan Observer, Lowell, Massachusets :—

"There are many vices which are winked at by the good, and encouraged by the ungodly, who hold slaves. I allude to breeding slaves. There is a great temptation to this. No property can be vested more profitably than in young healthy negro women. They will, by breeding, double their value in every five years. Mulattoes are surer than pure negroes. Hence planters have no objection to any white man or boy having free intercourse with all the females; and it has been the case that an overseer has been encouraged to make the whole posse his harem, and has been paid for the issue. This causes a general corruption of morals.'"*

We shall return to this degrading subject hereafter. As to the conduct of the free to their female slaves, and their feelings on this point, the testimony may well be called damning. We will save our readers the pain and the shame of reading the horrible details upon this point, and content ourselves for the present with the following passage from Miss Martineau :

"A southern lady, of fair reputation for refinement and cultivation, told the following story in the hearing of a company, among whom were some friends of mine. She spoke with obvious unconsciousness that she was saying anything remarkable; indeed, such unconsciousness was proved by her telling the story at all. She had possessed a very pretty mulatto, of whom she declared herself fond. A young man came to stay at her house, and fell in love with the girl-[Anglice, conceived a licentious passion for the girl]. She came to me (said the lady) for protection, which I gave her. The young man went away, but after some weeks returned, saying he was so much in love with the girl, that he could not live without her. I pitied the young man (concluded the lady), so I SOLD THE GIRL TO HIM FOR 1,500

DOLLARS.

6

We cannot help quoting Mr. Buckingham's description of the quadroons of New Orleans, those beautiful and interesting women who are brought up to be the mistresses of the freemendoomed to this degradation from their birth, and prepared for it by education; and we must remind our reader that, however the case stands in the conscience of the quadroon and in the

"Slavery and the Internal Slave Trade of the United States," p. 33.

sight of God, the law does not acknowledge marriages between them and freemen.

"The quadroons, as they are called, furnish some of the most beautiful women that can be seen, resembling, in many respects, the higher order of women among the Hindoos, with lovely countenances, full dark liquid eyes, lips of coral and teeth of pearl, long raven loeks of soft and glossy hair, sylph-like figures, and such beautifully-rounded limbs, and exquisite gait and manner, that they might furnish models for a Venus or a Hebe to the chisel of the sculptor." (Vol. i., p. 358).

We are thus naturally led to give some slight account of the internal slave trade, a source of additional misery and additional degradation to the unfortunate race. We quote the following passage, of rude, yet forcible eloquence, from the work to which we have so often alluded :

"But what gives to the American slave trade its darkest atrocity is, that it enacts its tragedies on the soil of a republic claiming to be the first upon earth. Its seat is the boasted home of freedom-its strongholds are the pillars of American liberty-its throne is the nation's heart-its minions are republican statesmen-its victims are native born Americans. Amidst the galaxy of republican and religious institutions it has its place and its name. The ægis of republican law is its shield, and the flag of freedom its shelter. Having its main source at the seat of the national Government, it pours thence a stream of blood, widening and deepening by a thousand tributaries from Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee, till it rolls in a tide, vast as Mississippi's, over the far south. It seeks no subterranean channels nor sequestered vales for a secret passage, but flows broadly under the sunlight of a nation's favour, laving the wharfs of a hundred cities, and the borders of a thousand plantations. Legal enactments lay no arrest upon it; public opinion rears no dam across it; popular indignation neither checks its current nor turns it aside; but onward it flows for ever, America's favourite stream, though from its bosom ascends one ceaseless wail of woe."

We will not enter into the details of this revolting traffic-the breeding slaves, in the first place, like cattle; the separation of husband and wife, brother and sister, parent from child, MOTHER FROM THE INFANT AT HER BREAST; the tedious march, the handcuff, the whip; the soul-driver, as he is expressively called, who buys and leads them, gratifying his licentiousness as well as his cruelty without restraint or appeal—the slave market. It is too horrible to write, to read, to think of; and, but from a strong sense of duty, we would not put our readers to the pain which the perusal of these remarks must have caused them. But as long as these evils exist, it is our duty, as men and as Christians, each in our own sphere, to exert ourselves in

the great and holy cause of sweeping from the face of the earth this accursed system of enormous wickedness and unmitigated evil. Let none hold back from the struggle: let none retreat from the contest. We call upon every father who dwells with his children around him-on every mother who watches in security over the helplessness of her infant-on every brother who feels a pride in the purity of his sister-on every husband who rejoices in the honour of his wife. We call upon every member of that Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, against whose united efforts the gates of hell shall not prevail-on every individual, within or without her pale, who believes that God made all men of one blood, and that Christ died for all-upon all those who respect the duties, or who assert the rights, of man. Let us know neither pause, cessation, division, nor dissension, till the work be completed, the triumph achieved, the rod broken, and the chain shivered. Let the wise give their wisdom, the learned their lore, the powerful their influence, and the rich their wealth; let the orator gives his eloquence, and the statesman his skill; let age give its frown, and beauty her smiles; let the philosopher write, and the poet sing; the historian instruct, and the divine exhort; and let all mankind, at least all professing Christians, whatsoever their rank, or their age, or their power-let them all give their prayers.

*

We come now to the second division of our subject-the effect of slavery upon the FREE. And a very little investigation must convince us, that the evils resulting to the free are scarcely inferior to those resulting to the slave. These evils may be considered under the three heads of moral, political, and economical.

The moral evils resulting to the free, from the existence of slavery amongst them, are very great-those resulting to the slave-holder are still greater. The freement who do not hold slaves are contaminated by the example of those who do. They are inured to the spectacle of irresponsible power, and habituated to view without horror the violation of the most inseparable rights, the most unquestionable duties, and the holiest feelings of man. The air which the slave breathes becomes infected, the soil on which he treads is polluted-his presence is itself pestilence, his very existence ensures the curse of GOD.

The heart of man is by nature so corrupt, that, unless re

The last sentence of this paragraph was in part suggested by the conclusion of a very eloquent speech of the Venerable Archdeacon Samuel Wilberforce, delivered at the opening of the Society for the Civilization of Africa, in June, 1840.

+ Miss Martineau has some able remarks upon this point.

strained by force or grace, he will, generally speaking, rush into the most revolting crimes against his CREATOR and his fellowcreatures. The proof of this is found in the conduct of despots, whose crimes surprise the superficial observer. The carnal mind is enmity with God; and the respectable man is too often but a chained tiger, or a muzzled wolf, who, had he free scope to develop his true character, would rival a Caligula, or emulate even a slave-breeder.

Such being the case, it is most natural, and even necessary, that American slave-holders themselves should be guilty of much crime, especially as they are very scantily furnished with the means of grace committed by CHRIST to HIS Church, and scarcely, if at all, realize or appreciate whatever Church privileges may lie within their reach.

Firstly, licentiousness is encouraged :

"While at the hotel here (says Mr. Buckingham), we were much struck with the appearance of a little girl of ten years of age, who was sweeping the rooms. Her features were African, her complexion yellowish brown, and her hair almost flaxen, in long locks, though curly. We asked her where she was born. She answered, in Virginia. We enquired where her mother was. She pointed to a negress in the passage, perfectly black. We asked this woman who was the child's father. She replied, her former master, now living in Virginia. We enquired why she had left him. She answered, that her master had sold both herself and her child (his own offspring) to her present owner, the keeper of the hotel; for all children born of slave mothers, though begotten by free fathers, are slaves also. By so much, therefore, as a white slave-owner can increase the number of his own progeny by the black females, with whom he may lawfully cohabit as his slaves, since he may do what he will with his own'-by so much he increases his own wealth by selling his own children! This is constantly denied by those who are ashamed of this blot upon their country's honour; but the instances we have met with, in which the direct, unpremeditated, and disinterested testimony of the mothers could leave no doubt on the subject—and the many other instances, in which we have seen the strongest resemblance in the mulatto children running about the house, and rearing for the market, to the white master and father to whom they owed their being-convinced me that the practice, instead of being rare, is unhappily very general!" (Vol. ii., p. 213-214).

To multiply quotations on this subject is superfluous.

Slavery encourages cruelty. We have established this point already; we cannot, however, avoid quoting the following pas

sage:

"A few years since, Mr. Bourne published a work entitled Picture of Slavery in the United States,' in which he describes a variety of horrid atrocities perpetrated upon the slaves; such as brutal scourgings

VOL. XIII.-D