with his sleeves. He was sold for about 250 dollars.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some of the laws and opinions relating to the education of slaves, (free negroes generally included) will now be cited. “Virginia Revised Code of 1819. That all meetings or assemblages of slaves or free negroes, or free negroes and mulattoes mixing and associating with such slaves at any meeting house or houses &c., in the night; or at any school or schools