Slavery Defined.
PROPERTY IN A HUMAN BEING.
That we may proceed intelligently in the discussion of the subject
upon which we have entered, it is important to understand precisely
what American slavery is. Some learned men have confused this subject
by confounding the relation of the slave with other relations from
which it _essentially_ differs. An apprentice, a miner, hired laborer,
serf or a villein is not a slave. All these relations lack, as we
shall see, the distinguishing feature of slavery. The slave is placed
in a condition far removed from any other class of human beings in
enlightened, civilized, or savage society. He stands in a legal
relation below all others.
The American slave code describes the slave and slavery with remarkable
precision and horrible distinctness. According to that code a slave is
a CHATTEL. He is, body, soul and spirit, to all intents and purposes
whatsoever, PROPERTY--the property of the master to whom he belongs;
and slavery is that "peculiar institution" which, originating in
piracy, systematically despoils human beings of their manhood--of all
inborn rights, degrades them to the state of chattelhood, and forcibly
detains them in that degradation. PROPERTY IN A HUMAN CREATURE is the
_essential_ and _peculiar_ principle of slavery. This is the basis of
the system, and all laws, regulations, usages, deprivations, wrongs,
sins, sufferings and miseries which belong to the system are built
upon this foundation. Numerous and cruel systems of oppression have
existed but not one of them has ventured to lay sacrilegious hands
upon "the image of God," and convert it into a _thing_ to be bought,
sold, executed for debt, willed, and used as an article of merchandise.
Slavery alone has done this. Some authorities will now be cited to
prove the correctness of this definition.
"The cardinal principle of slavery, that the slave is not to be ranked
among sentient beings but among things, obtains in all these (slave)
states." (_Judge Stroud._)
"Slaves shall be claimed, held, taken, reputed, and adjudged in law, to
be chattels personal in the hands of their owners and possessors, and
their executors, administrators and assigns to all intents and purposes
whatsoever." (_Law of South Carolina._)
"A slave is one who is in the power of the master to whom he belongs;
the master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry, and his
labor; he can do nothing, possess nothing nor acquire anything but what
must belong to his master." (_Law of Louisiana._)
"A slave is in absolute bondage; he has no civil rights, and can hold
no property, except at the will and pleasure of his master; a slave
is a rational being, endowed with understanding like the rest of
mankind; and whatever he lawfully acquires, and gains possession of by
finding or otherwise, is the acquirement and possession of his master."
(_Wheeler._)
A law of Mississippi reads thus: "When any sheriff or other officer
shall serve an attachment upon slaves, horses, or _other live stock_,"
etc. "Being property, slaves may be bought and sold by persons capable
of buying and selling other property." (_Hon. J. K. Paulding._)
Henry Clay said--"I know that there is a visionary dogma which holds
that negro slaves cannot be the subject of property. I shall not
dwell on the speculative abstraction. _That is property which the
law declares to be property._ Two hundred years of legislation have
sanctified and sanctioned negro slaves as property."
Any one who will take up a southern newspaper will soon discover
from the manner in which slaves are advertised for _sale_, that the
laws which reduce them to chattels are not _dead_ statutes. An
advertisement in the Richmond (Va.) Whig, is headed thus:
"Large sale of negroes, horses mules and cattle." Among the articles
to be sold are, 175 negroes, among whom are some carpenters and
blacksmiths, 10 horses, 33 mules, 100 head of cattle, 100 sheep and 200
hogs. "The negroes will be sold for cash, the _other property_ on a
credit of nine months."[3]
Whole volumes of such advertisements might be collected from the most
respectable and widely circulated southern journals, and I have seen a
few advertisements for the sale of men women and children, hogs, corn
and cattle promiscuously, in respectable religious papers, sustained by
churches whose leading avowed object is, to "spread scriptural holiness
over these lands."
And slaves are not only advertised but actually _sold as property
is sold_. Raising slaves for the market, selling them, speculating
upon them and driving them from one State to another, creates an
extensive and lucrative trade. The _Virginia Times_ estimated that
in 1836 the number of slaves exported from Virginia alone was _forty
thousand_--worth $24,000,000. The _Natchez Courier_ estimated that
in 1836 two hundred and fifty thousand slaves had been imported into
Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas, from the more Northern
States. The _Baltimore Register_ said, "Dealing in slaves has become
a large business; establishments are made in several places in Md.
and Va. at which they are sold like cattle." Prof. Dew said in 1831;
"Virginia is in fact a negro raising State for the other states." _Judge
Upshur_ of Va. said in the Va. Convention, 1831; "The value of slaves
as an article of property, depends much on the state of the market
abroad. If it should be our lot, as I trust it will be, to acquire the
country of Texas, their price will rise again." "From the single port
of _Baltimore_," says Mrs. Stowe "in the last two years, a thousand and
thirty slaves have been shipped to the southern market." Slaves now
bring a very high price in cash. Only the other day a _brick-layer_ in
S. C. sold for $1,905; three others at the same sale brought over $1000
each.
In the prosecution of this traffic the feelings and interests, the
parental, connubial and filial relations of slaves are utterly
disregarded. They are sold for the benefit of the _master_, as a
horse is sold, and bought _to suit the purchaser_. To all intents and
purposes slaves are daily bought and sold like cattle. Alas, that my
pen is compelled to write this fact.
A respectable gentleman (Dr. Elwood) was an eye witness to a sale of
slaves in Petersburg, Va., in 1846. He saw some old men and women go
upon the auctioneer's stand to be sold to the highest bidder. The case
of a beautiful youth affected him most deeply. "His hair," said Mr. E.
"was brown and straight, his skin exactly the hue of white persons,
and no discernible trace of negro features in his countenance. Some
vulgar jests were passed on his color, and $200 was bid for him;
but the audience remarked that was not enough to begin on for such a
likely young negro; some said a white negro was more trouble than he
was worth. Before he was sold his mother rushed from the house upon the
portico, crying in frantic grief, 'My son, O! my boy, they will take
away my dear'--Here her voice was lost as she was rudely pushed back
and the door closed. The sale was not for a moment interrupted, and
none of the crowd appeared to be affected by the scene. The poor boy
trembled and wiped the tears from his cheeks 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.