upon them. The object of their meeting did
not protect them. One of the prisoners, a
slave, by name Joseph James, was flogged;
four others, free men, were sent to the
workhouse; and the remainder were set free,
on payment of costs, fines, &c., amounting
in all to one hundred and eleven dollars.
Mr. Olmsted truly says, if such a thing had
happened in Naples, or any other despotic
kingdom, what an outcry there would have
been! But in democratic America, no one
cared for this flagrant breach of justice and
humanity to twenty-four genteel coloured
men.

Of course in different states in the South,
slaves are treated differently; but, before these
differences are pointed out, it will be well to
consider what the fundamental relations
subsisting between master and slave are. The
first doctrine is, that a slave— whether he be
a negro or American Indian or other bondman
— is a chattel: owned upon the same conditions
as, in other countries, a farmer owns his
cattle. A Mr. Gholson, a member of the
Virginian Legislature, stated the whole case, when,
in answer to a proposal for the manumission
of slaves, he sneeringly exclaimed: "Why, I
really have been under the impression that I
owned my slaves! I lately purchased four
women and ten children, in whom I thought
I had obtained a great bargain; for I really
supposed they were as much my property as
were my brood mares." When Mr. Adams
brought before the House of Representatives a
petition signed by a certain number of slaves,
Mr. Wise declared that the right of petition
belonged only to the people of the Union.
Slaves are not people in the eye of the law,
he added. They have no legal personality.
Another gentleman declared that slaves had
no more right to be heard, than so many
horses and dogs. The result was, that,
overborne by southern slave-holding votes, the
supreme representatives of the great republic
passed by a large majority (on the eleventh of
February, eighteen hundred and thirty-seven)
this resolution:— Resolved, that slaves do
not possess the right of petitioning secured
to the people of the United States by the
constitution.

In obedience to this dictum, which
banishes the image of the Almighty from the
human family, a "man and a brother" may,
in the slave-holding states of America, not
only be bought, sold, and mortgaged, seized
for his master's debts, and transmitted by
inheritance or will, but, being property, can
possess of himself no property whatever.
The members of his body, even, are not his
own. The Natchez Free Trader, of the twelfth
of February, eighteen hundred and thirty-eight,
published the following advertisement:—

FOUND.— A negro's head was picked up on the
railroad yesterday, which the owner can have by
calling at this office, or paying for this advertisement.

The head may have been of use to the
master of the victim as evidence in establishing
a claim against the railway company for
the destruction of his property.

Slaves cannot make any contract; even
marriage is no more a solemnity nor a bond
among them, than parentage is amongst the
lower animals. "The association which takes
place amongst slaves, and is called marriage,
being properly designated contubernium, is a
relation which has no sanctity, and to which
no civil rights are attached."* Their offspring
is the property of their masters, as foals and
calves would be. Therefore the slave has no
marital rights; no parental rights; no family
rights; no educational rights. He has no
sort of redress against his master; because,
being a chattel or article of property, he
cannot be legally injured by his master; who
may feed or famish him; keep him clothed
or unclothed; houseless or housed, at his own
convenience or pleasure; and, if he prove
refractory, he may kill him with impunity.
His relations to the state are of the same
character. A slave cannot be a party to a
civil suit. His testimony is rejected in the
law courts. Not only may his master always
forbid his being educated and receiving
religious instruction, but the government steps
in with direct prohibitions of its own.
Emancipation is obstructed by all kinds
of obstructions, and the constitutions of
some states actually forbid the abolition of
slavery.

* Stroud's Sketch of the Slave Laws, sixty-first page.

The law is, however, in some states,
relaxed in the slave's favour. The negroes
of Virginia, the "Ole Virginny" of their
affections, stand high in the scale of treatment.
Of all the slave states— excepting
only Louisiana— Virginia is the one
which treats her slaves with the most
consideration, and comes nearest to respecting
the rights of humanity in them. Poorly
enough, even at the best; but still more
liberally than the rest. Virginia slaves have
"educational privileges;" they have preachers
of their own, right smart ones, too; although
the law against their assembling together
extends even to their religious worship, which
in the cities, a white man generally conducts
in churches specially set apart, while in the
country the black service comes after the
white— still they have black preachers, slaves
like the rest, devout and gifted; and they
have a great deal of spending-money, obtained
by working over hours; but which, since
religious bigotry has put down innocent
amusements, is generally spent in frivolity, or
debauchery. Some of them dress more
expensively than the wealthy whites, though
the wealthy whites of Virginia are invariably
full-dressed at breakfast, with silks and
satins, and gay dinner costume sweeping
down the muddy streets at eleven in the
morning— still, in spite of this excess, the