blacks that escape cannot be heard, and if there is no white man present to prove the master's guilt, he may go unpunished. It is often said that the interest of the master would prevent his cruelty to his slaves. But we see that the interest of the northern farmer does not prevent his cruelty to his cattle; does not prevent his starving them, and whipping them to death in his passions, and killing them when they are unfit for service; no more will it prevent the southern slavemaster from these things. The interest of the owner does not in fact so much protect the slave as it does the cattle for the slave feels his wrong and oppression, and this unavoidably leads him to provoke the rage of his jealous master far more frequently than he otherwise would. Were the slaves as insensible to their wrongs as brutes would be, they would be so submissive as to call forth no more cruelty than the brutes. But the master sees in the eye of every slave an expression of his sense of his wrongs, and we may well imagine the effect this must have upon the master's feelings. The drunkard must get drunk again to drown the shame of his former beastliness. The master who has been cruel and made his slaves feel their wrong, must continue to be cruel to blot out the recollections of former sufferings by pains of the present and the fears of the future. It is only by adding wrong to wrong, cruelty to cruelty, that he can keep his own mind from realizing how cruel he has been and prevent the slaves from plotting any scheme of revenge or release.

(3.) I give here an outline of the slave laws.

(a) Slaves are the property of the master to all intents and purposes; just as the horses, oxen and sheep of the northern farmer are the farmer's property. He, or she, is subject to the will, caprice and lust of the master. They can have no property. In many states there are laws expressly forbidding the slave to have property, and thereby making it impossible for them to buy their liberty, and that is usually the only way they can get it.

(b) The slaves are not only subjected to their own masters, but to other men. A man may whip or abuse another's slave with impunity, unless he unfit him for labor; and then his master can recover damages for loss of services. The slave gets nothing. In Louisiana, if a man by his cruelty forever unfits a slave for labor, he must pay his master the value of the slave; but the unfortunate slave, crippled and maimed, and suffering to the end of his miserable life, can get no compensation whatever.

(c) The laws inflict the severest penalties for what in the white man is no crime. In Georgia, any person may give a slave twenty lashes, (which would kill many a white man,) for being found off the plantation to which he belongs, for any purpose whatever, without a license. In South-Carolina, any person finding more than seven slaves together in the highway, without a white man with them, may give each slave twenty lashes. In North Carolina, a slave travelling without a pass, or being found in another person's negro quarters, or kitchen, may be whipped forty lashes, and every slave in whose company he may be found, twenty lashes. In Louisiana, a slave for being found on horse

back, without written permission, incurs twenty-five lashes. but a few, but I have time for no more.

These are

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In

In

(d) The laws forbid mental and religious education. South Carolina, any slaves that may be found assembled in a confined or secret place, for the purpose of mental instruction, even though in presence of white persons, may be whipped with twenty lashes. Another law imposes a fine of £100 upon any person who may teach a slave to write. The Virginia laws declare that any school for the instruction of slaves, is an unlawful assembly, and any justice may inflict twenty lashes upon any slave found in such a school. In North Carolina, to teach a slave to read or write, or to give him any book (the Bible not excepted) is punishable with thirty-nine lashes, if the offender be a free black, but if a white, with a fine of $200. The reason given for this law is, that teaching slaves to read and write tends to excite dissatisfaction, and to produce insurrection and rebellion. Georgia, if a white man teach a free negro even, to read or write, he is fined $500. In Louisiana, the punishment for teaching a slave to read or write, is one year's imprisonment. In Georgia, any justice of the peace may, at his discretion, break up any religious assembly of the slaves, and order each slave present to receive twenty-five stripes of a whip, switch, or cow-skin, on his bare back. In South Carolina, slaves may not meet for religious worship before sunrise or after sunset, unless a majority of the meeting be white, without incurring the penalty of twenty lashes, well laid on. In Virginia, all evening meetings for slaves, at any meeting house, are forbidden. In Mississippi, a master may permit a slave to attend the preaching of a white man. In South Carolina, the law forbids the master's compelling the slave to work more than fifteen hours a day. The necessity for such a law does not speak very much for the humanity of the masters, or of his interest being a sufficient protection to the slave. In Tennessee and Arkansas, the constitution forbids the legislatures to emancipate the slaves. In some of the states, Tennessee for example, a man cannot free his own slaves if he would, without permission of the legislature.

Now does not the existence of such laws forbid us to believe that the slaves are treated kindly as a general thing? If they are treated with kindness,' and are contented with their condition,' and 'as well off as the poor laborers of the north,' why are there such laws? In a community where such laws are demanded and upheld by public opinion, the slaves cannot be universally well treated. Those men who have been to the south, and say that the slaves are not cruelly treated, must be listened to with caution. It may be that they do not consider such treatment cruelty. But their testimony in any case can only prove that they have never seen the cruel treatment of the slave. It cannot prove there is no such treatment. They do not see all that there is. The testimony of one credible witness who has seen a thing is worth more than that of a thousand who merely have not seen it; especially if we can easily account for their not having seen it. The house servants are the best, and they receive the best treatment; and these it is for the most part that travellers and sojourners at the south see. Hence they see the best treatment of the best part of the slaves; and this they report as a fair representation of the condition of the slave! Contrast their account with the account

of those who give the worst treatment of the worst part of the slaves, and a medium will probably be about a fair estimate.

But I do not wish to rest any argument upon individual cases of cruelty. I wish merely to give you an outline of the system. This I have done by quoting from the slave laws-public documents that cannot be questioned. From these you may infer what the condition of the slave must be. It is enough that he is a slave, even in the mildest form of slavery. We need not appeal to individual cases of cruelty, to show us that he ought to be free.

It was from a view of this state of things-three millions of their fellow beings, about one-fifth of the population of the country, in a condition like what I have described, and the number increasing at the rate of one hundred and seventy-five every day, and with no one doing any thing to alleviate the condition of the oppressed, or save the country from the precipice over which it seemed to be rushing,-it was, I say, from a view of this state of things that some benevolent, justice-loving persons at the north raised their voices against this monstrous evil.

I wish to call particular attention to this state of things; for it is some times said that the abolitionists have retarded the emancipation of the slaves; that there were means in operation that would have abolished slavery sooner than it can now be done, if the abolitionists had been silent. This is entirely false. There were no means in operation that even looked towards emancipation. The whole tendency of all the legislative proceedings of the slave-holding states had been for twenty years Jast past, before the abolition enterprise, to make the condition of the slave more abject, more wretched, and to increase the difficulties of emancipation. The constitution of Arkansas was so formed as to withhold the power to emancipate the slave by legislative action. The constitution of Tennessee was altered so as to take the power of emancipation from the state legislature. Louisiana once had a law prohibiting slave-merchants bringing slaves into the state with a view to selling them. But this law was repealed. Turn over the statute books of the south as you will, and you will find it universally the case that the most diabolical laws were the latest ones that were passed, & every year the laws that were passed become more and more so. Thus there was nothing by way of legislative action that afforded the least hope, or encouragement to a hope, that slavery would be abolished in the southern states by a regular course of legislative actions. Every thing tended the other way,

Neither was there any more encouragement from societies or individuals using moral means. Immediately after the Revolution, the people felt so much gratitude for their own success that they determined to do something for the slaves, and secure eventually their freedom. But their gratitude soon grew cold, and there seemed to be, year by year, less inclination to do any thing to hasten the freedom of the slaves. No; it was because nothing was being done that the abolition enterprise was set on foot; and whether that enterprise hasten the emancipation of the slaves or not, it certainly cannot retard it.

After it was determined that something ought to be done, the question arose, Can we at the north do any thing? Does slavery injure us so as to give us reason to do anything? These questions need to be answered to the people now as much as they did then.

VII. What then are some of the evils that we suffer from slavery?

The slave-holding states have twenty-five representatives, and twentyfive electoral votes in choosing the president and vice-president, to which they have no right on the ground that slaves are property. According to the present apportionment, 47,700 inhabitants constitute the representative number, and each state may send a representative to congress for every 47,700 inhabitants it may have. Now in making out this apportionment, three-fifths of the slaves are added to the free population; and by this arrangement the slave-holding states have twenty-five representatives more than they would have if three-fifths of the number of the slaves were not added in making out the apportionment. Now if slaves are property, as the slave laws declare, the slave-holders have no right to these twenty-five representatives on account of their slaves, any more than we at the north have to representatives on account of our sheep, cattle, bank stock, or any other property. The expenses for paying these representatives is at least 30,000 dollars each year, and this sum we help to pay. But our proportion of this sum is but a small part of the evil.

We thereby submit ourselves to the influence of southern legislation. We allow the slave-holding states to have the influence of TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND legal voters, (and the number is constantly increasing,) which they have not got, in the choice of the president and vice-president; and of course in every executive measure and appointment, and in every law, resolution or measure of congress. This influence, I say, we allow the south to have which they have no just right to if their slaves are property as they consider them. Consider further the character of this influence. Gov. M'Duffie, in a message to the legislature of South Carolina, said: "No community ever existed without domestic servitude, and we may confidently assert that none ever will. In the very nature of things, there must be classes of persons to discharge all the different offices of society from the highest to the lowest. Some of these offices are regarded as degrading, though they must and will be performed. When these offices are performed by members of the political.community a dangerous element is obviously introduced into the body politic." We, my hearers, we farmers and mechanics, who labor with our hands, are 'a dangerous element in the body politic'! It is dangerous to allow us to vote, and therefore we ought to be slaves and let our rich neighbors vote for us. This is 'democracy'! But let us follow the Governor a little further. "It will be fortunate [?] for the non-slaveholding states if they are not, in less than a quarter of a century, driven to the adoption of a similar institution," [to slavery]" or to take refuge from robbery and anarchy under a military despotism. * * * In a word, the institution of domestic slavery supersedes the order of nobility" by creating the slave-holders themselves a nobility and the laborers the slaves, or serfs, I suppose must be added, to make the sense clear. Mr. Leigh, of Virginia, said, in 1829, "I ask gentlemen to say whether they believe that those who depend on their daily subsistence can, or do ever, enter into our political affairs? They never do, never will, never can." "How can he get wisdom, that holdeth the plough, that driveth oxen, and is occupied in the labors, and whose talk is of bullocks?" asks Professor Dew, of William and Mary's College, Virginia.

Are these our principles, or have we so much sympathy with and love for them, that we wish to have those whose exalted notions may aspire

to and adopt such principles and feelings, make laws for us? Are we submitting to southern legislation already? Are we resigning the legislative power into their hands from a conviction of their superior wisdom and patriotism? We give them twenty-five representatives, the influence of two hundred thousand legal voters, as a consideration for such views, for such superior political wisdom, for such elevated, humane democracy!

The Hon. Charles Shepard, member of congress from North-Carolina, in a letter to his constituents, December 20, 1838, says, if the slave-holding states will be true to themselves "they can give laws to the government." Yes, brethren of New-England, whose fathers fought and bled for our liberties in the Revolution, the aristocratic slave-holding south, who hold that all labor is disreputable, and that every laborer, every farmer and mechanic, are, or should be slaves, subject to the will of the monied few, boast that they can give laws to the government.' Such men boast that they can make laws for us. Good God! shall it be so? Are we willing to wear the yoke and the chain? Will you dance to the cracking of the master's whip? Are we prepared to see our wives and daughters prostituted before our eyes-as the wives and daughters of the Africans now are at the south? Parents and children, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, will you consent to be torn from one another, and be subjected to the avarice, the cruelty, and the lust of a merciless owner? This is what the Africans now suffer, and this is what the southerners think ought to be our condition, and boast that they can make our laws. It is no wonder that they call us 'dough-faced northerners' while we are insensible to such threats. They turn to us, and say, 'Don't stir; if you do we'll dissolve the Union': they then turn to the south and say, 'Come on my boys, we'll chain every one of the northern dough-faces; we'll give laws to the government; we'll be lords and they shall work for us.

Again, we are bound by the constitution, to go ourselves to-morrow or any day when we may be called for, to uphold slavery by force. Southern men have boasted that we are obliged to go and put down their slaves if they should rebel. Herein, they confess, is their only hope of safety. They cannot take care of themselves without us. It is strange that our fathers, while they were yet smarting from the wounds of the Revolution, should have bound themselves to assume a more unjust position to the Africans than England had assumed to us-and that they should have bound themselves to go and butcher the Africans for acting the very same part against oppression which they themselves had won so much glory in acting.

Slavery interferes with our representatives in congress. It exposes them to assassination and duels for discharging their official duties. The Hon. John Q. Adams said, in the house of representatives, that he had received threats of assassination and challenges to a duel, as often as once a day for a number of weeks, and this too for discharging his duty as a representative. Say, New-Hampshire, does slavery do you no harm, when it has made one of your representatives, one of the men you had trusted with your honor and your rights, condescend to an act that will make the name of Atherton stink till 'tis forgotten? Ask the wife and children of the murdered Lovejoy if we suffer nothing from slavery? Ask the many who have been mobbed and whipped, tarred and feathered,