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by whom he may be bartered, leased, mortgaged, bequeathed, invoiced, shipped as cargo, stored as goods, sold on execution, knocked off at public auction, and even staked at the gamingtable on the hazard of a card or a die; all according to law. Nor is there any thing, within the limit of life, inflicted on a beast which may not be inflicted on the slave. He may be marked like a hog, branded like a mule, yoked like an ox, hobbled like a horse, driven like an ass, sheared like a sheep, maimed like a cur, and constantly beaten like a brute; all according fo law. And should life itself be taken, what is the remedy? The Law of Slavery, imitating that rule of evidence which, in barbarous days and barbarous countries, prevented a Christian from testifying against a Mohammedan, openly pronounces the incompetency of the whole African race — whether bond or free — to testify in any case against a white man, and, thus having already surrendered the slave to all possible outrage, crowns its tyranny, by excluding the very testimony through which the bloody cruelty of the Slave-master might be exposed.
Thus in its Law does Slavery paint itself; but it is only when we look at details, and detect its essential elements — five in number — all inspired by a single motive, that its character becomes completely manifest.
Foremost, of course, in these elements, is the impossible pretension, where Barbarism is lost in impiety, by which man claims property in man. Against such arrogance the argument is brief. According to the law of nature, written by the same hand that placed the planets in their orbits, and like them, constituting a part of the eternal system of the Universe, every human being has a complete title to himself direct from the Almighty. Naked heis born; but this birthright is inseparable from the human form. A man may be poor in this world's goods; but he owns himself. No war or robbery, ancient or recent; no capture; no middle passage; no change of clime; no purchase-money; no transmission from hand to hand, no matter how many times, and no matter at what price, can defeat this indefeasible God-given franchise. And a divine mandate, strong as that which guards Life, guards Liberty also. Even at the very morning of Creation, when God said, let there be Light — earlier than the malediction against murder — He set an everlasting difference between man and a chattel, giving to man dominion over the fish of the
