If this picture of the relations of Slave-Masters with their slaves could receive any darker coloring, it would be by introducing figures of the congenial agents through which the Barbarism is maintained,—the Slave-Overseer, the Slave-Breeder, and the Slave-Hunter, each without a peer except in the brothers, and the whole constituting a triumvirate of Slavery, in whom its essential brutality, vulgarity, and crime are all embodied. There is the Slave-Overseer, with bloody lash,—fitly described, in his Life of Patrick Henry, by Mr. Wirt, who, born in a Slave State, knew the class, as “last and lowest, most abject, degraded, unprincipled,”[74]—and his hands wield at will the irresponsible power, being proper successor to “the devil,” described by the English dramatist, who appeared
“in Virginia, and commanded
With many stripes; for that’s his cruel custom.”[75]
There is next the Slave-Breeder, who assumes a higher character, even entering legislative halls, where, in unconscious insensibility, he shocks civilization by denying, like Mr. Gholson, of Virginia, any alleged distinction between the “female slave” and the “brood mare,” by openly asserting the necessary respite from work during the gestation of the female slave as the ground of property in her offspring, and by proclaiming that in this “vigintial” crop of human flesh consists much of the wealth of his State,—while another Virginian, not yet hardened to this debasing trade, whose annual sacrifice reaches twenty-five thousand human souls, confesses the indignation and shame with which he beholds his State “converted into one grand menagerie, where men are reared for the market, like oxen for the shambles.” Verily the question may be asked, Have we a Guinea among us? And, lastly, there is the Slave-Hunter, with the bloodhound as his brutal symbol, who pursues slaves as the hunter pursues game, and does not hesitate in the public prints to advertise his Barbarism thus:—
“BLOODHOUNDS.—I have TWO of the FINEST DOGS for CATCHING NEGROES in the Southwest. They can take the trail TWELVE HOURS after the NEGRO HAS PASSED, and catch him with ease. I live four miles southwest of Bolivar, on the road leading from Bolivar to Whitesville. I am ready at all times to catch runaway negroes.
“David Turner.
“March 2, 1853.”[76]
The bloodhound was known in early Scottish history; it was once vindictively put upon the trail of Robert Bruce, and in barbarous days, by cruel license of war, was directed against the marauders of the Scottish border. Walter Scott makes one of his heroes “cheer the dark blood-hound on his way”; but more than a century has passed since the last survivor of the race was seen in Ettrick Forest.[77] The bloodhound was employed by Spain against the natives of this continent, and the eloquence of Chatham never touched a truer chord than when, gathering force from the condemnation of this brutality, he poured his thunder upon the kindred brutality of the scalping-knife, adopted as an instrument of war by a nation professing civilization. Tardily introduced into this Republic some time after the Missouri Compromise, when Slavery became a political passion and Slave-Masters began to throw aside all disguise, the bloodhound has become the representative of our Barbarism, when engaged in the pursuit of a fellow-man asserting his inborn title to himself; and this brute becomes typical of the whole brutal leash of Slave-Hunters, who, whether at home on Slave Soil, under the name of Slave-Catchers and Kidnappers, or at a distance, under politer names, insult Human Nature by the enforcement of this Barbarism.