“Why, here, lately. I met the old mother as I came from the “Fourth” Pic nic. She was dressed in deep mourning. I had not seen her for a long time, for they had got them a home, and she did not wash any more. I asked her what had happened, and she told me all. O! Mrs. G., how it made me feel! I celebrating our liberty, she, a woman—a wife—a mother mourning over enslaved and doubly-wronged children.
““I know there is a God, Mrs. Lilly,” the poor bowed creature said to me, “I know there is a good God, and a Jesus, or I should give up in despair, and sometimes I do; I look up and down and all round, and there is no light!””
Slavery leaves its victims a prey to unchecked avarice. What protection has a slave against the avarice of his master? Let us see. A law of South Carolina provides that slaves shall “not labor to exceed fifteen hours” out of twenty four. This is called protection!
“The slave is driven to the field in the morning about four o’clock. The general calculation is to get them to work by day-light. The time for breakfast is between nine and ten o’clock. This meal is sometimes eaten ‘bite and work,’ others allow fifteen minutes, and this is the only rest the slave has while in the field.” (G. W. Westgate.)
“In North Carolina, the legal standard of food for a slave must not be less than a quart of corn per day. In Louisiana the legal standard is one barrel of Indian corn—or the equivalent thereof in rice, beans or other grain, and a pint of salt, every month.” “The quantity allowed by custom,” said T. S. Clay of Georgia, “is a peck of corn per week.”
When they return to their miserable huts at night, they find not there the means of comfortable rest, but on the cold ground they must lie, without covering, and shiver while they slumber.
“The clothing of slaves by day, and their covering by night, are inadequate either for comfort or decency, in any or most of the slaveholding States.” (Elliott.)
It is notorious that slaves, on large plantations especially, are miserably fed, clothed and lodged, and during busy seasons of the year, most unmercifully worked.
6. Slavery abandons its victims to unbridled lust. Against a master’s lusts a slave has no protection. It is an established principle of the slave code that the testimony of a slave against a white person cannot be received in a court of justice. A slave woman who may be abused cannot resort to the law. To whom can she appeal? To God only. The master may torture her in any way, so that he take not her life, in order to force a compliance with his base designs!