13
by
whom
may be
lie
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 testi-
Mohammedan, openly pronounces the incompetency of the whole African race whether bond or free to tesfying against a
—
—
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. tify in
Thus
we
in its
look at
Law does
details,
—
Slavery paint
and detect
its
all inspired by a single motive, that completely manifest. Foremost, of course, in these elements,
ber
but it is only when elements—-ji ve in num-
itself
essential
its
is
character becomes
the impossible pre-
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 tension,
part of the eternal system of the Universe, every
has a complete he is born but
human being
himself direct from the Almighty. Naked this birthright is inseparable from the human form. title to
A man may be poor in this world's goods
but he owns himself. 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 franAnd a divine mandate, strong as that which guards chise. Life, guards Liberty also. Even at the very morning of Cre-
No war
or robbery, ancient or recent
when God
diction against
man and
ation,
—
be Light earlier than the malean everlasting difference between giving to man dominion over the fish of the
said, let there
murder
a chattel,
—He
set
