It is utter nonsense to say that generosity of disposition is a protection against tyranny, where all the power is on one side. It may be, and it no doubt is so, in particular instances; but they must be exceptions to the general rule.
We all know that the Southerners have a high sense of what the world calls honor, and that they are brave, hospitable, and generous to people of their own color; but the more we respect their virtues, the more cause is there to lament the demoralizing system, which produces such unhappy effects on all who come within its baneful influence. Most of them may be as kind as can be expected of human nature, endowed with almost unlimited power to do wrong; and some of them may be even more benevolent than the warmest friend of the negro would dare to hope; but while we admit all this, we must not forget that there is in every community a class of men, who will not be any better than the laws compel them to be.
Captain Riley, in his Narrative, says: "Strange as it may seem to the philanthropist, my free and proud-spirited countrymen still hold a million and a half[T] of human beings in the most cruel bonds of slavery; who are kept at hard labor, and smarting under the lash of inhuman mercenary drivers; in many instances enduring the miseries of hunger, thirst, imprisonment, cold, nakedness, and even tortures. This is no picture of the imagination. For the honor of human
nature, I wish likenesses were nowhere to be found! I myself have witnessed such scenes in different parts of my own country; and the bare recollection of them now chills my blood with horror."
[T] There are now over two million.
When the slave-owners talk of their gentleness and compassion, they are witnesses in their own favor, and have strong motives for showing the fairest side. But what do the laws themselves imply? Are enactments ever made against exigencies which do not exist? If negroes have never been scalded, burned, mutilated, &c., why are such crimes forbidden by an express law, with the marvellous proviso, except said slave die of "moderate punishment!" If a law sanctioning whipping to any extent, incarceration at the discretion of the master, and the body loaded with irons, is called a restraining law, let me ask what crimes must have been committed, to require prohibition, where so much is allowed? The law which declares that slaves shall be compelled to labor only fourteen or fifteen hours a day, has the following preamble: "Whereas many owners of slaves, managers, &c. do confine them so closely to hard labor that they have not sufficient time for natural rest," &c. Mr. Pinckney, in a public argument, speaking of slaves murdered by severe treatment, says: "The frequency of the crime is no doubt owing to the nature of the punishment." The reader will observe that I carefully refrain from quoting the representations of party spirit, and refer to facts only for evidence.
Where the laws are made by the people, a majority of course approve them; else they would soon be changed. It must therefore in candor be admitted, that the laws of a State speak the prevailing sentiments of the inhabitants.
Judging by this rule, what inference must be drawn from the facts stated above? "At Sparta, the freeman is the freest of all men, and the slave is the greatest of slaves."
Our republic is a perfect Pandora's box to the negro, only there is no hope at the bottom. The wretchedness of his fate is not a little increased by being a constant witness of the unbounded freedom enjoyed by others: the slave's labor must necessarily be like the labor of Sisiphus; and here the torments of Tantalus are added.
Slavery is so inconsistent with free institutions, and the spirit of liberty is so contagious under such institutions, that the system must either be given up, or sustained by laws outrageously