“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.