'Of course, not to discuss slavery and expose it to the public gaze, was virtually bidding it God speed. It needs no patronage of the rich, it craves no advocacy of the learned, it asks no fostering hand nor watchful care, it begs only for silence-it has obtained, not only this, but patronage, vindication, fostering, and vigilance besides.

'Considering the causes which have been enumerated, the enormous growth of slavery is no matter of wonder. The only wonder is that it. has not wholly supplanted the love of liberty, law, and religion throughout the land.'-Replies, pp. 229-236.

Our next extract relates to the condition of the slaves. The number of slaves in the union is about three millions.

There are three principal conditions or modes of slavery in the United States. The first is that where, on account of exhausted lands, slave labor is unprofitable, and the master resorts to slave-breeding and selling to make his slaves a source of profit.

The second condition is that of domestic slavery, including every species of house and family servants. This condition exists wherever slavery is found. Few of any class or profession in the slave states dispense with domestic slaves. Not to have from one to a dozen is almost certainly to forfeit caste in a slaveholding state; and, what is a more serious consequence, it is to be without servants altogether, for, where slaves are the domestics, free persons think it a degradation to be such.

The third condition is plantation slavery, or that where large bodies of slaves are employed in the cultivation of lucrative products, and where labor, consequently, is profitable. This condition differs widely from the two former. It is a system of productive industry, in which respect it differs from the first condition; and it congregates large numbers under the same management, thus differing from domestic slavery. These are not the only points of contrast. It is necessary to discriminate between these conditions, if we would form a correct idea of American slavery as a whole; and, for want of such discrimination, there has been interminable confusion. Some have considered slavery only in its first form, others only in the secondthe mildest of all-others in the third only; while others still have viewed it, as every one should, in all its conditions. These totally different observations of slavery have, to some extent, given rise to disputes between the abolitionists on one hand, and the pro-slavery class on the other, respecting the treatment of slaves; and it is plain that such disputes must be perpetual, unless the disputants will agree to look at the same aspects of slavery. It is the domestic condition which the apologists have in their eye, when they deny the representations of the abolitionists; whereas the latter usually describe plantation slavery, the very condition of which the apologist (who, if he has ever been in the south, has been there as the planter's parlor guest, and that but for a few days) is most likely to be ignorant.

Now, while the abolitionists contend that even domestic slavery is vastly worse than pro-slavery writers represent it, still they maintain

that it is so different from plantation slavery, as to furnish little data for judging of the latter. But, in forming an opinion of slavery in the consuming states, which of these two conditions should be chiefly considered? Surely that which embraces the largest number of slaves; and at least nine-tenths of the slaves in the planting states are prædials.

'But plantation slavery has still stronger claims to special notice, because it gives to the whole system of slavery its importance and permanence. Lop off this branch, and the whole tree dies. Domestic slavery cannot stand alone. It was that form chiefly which existed in the now free states, and so feeble was its hold on life that its extinction required scarcely an effort. What is it that has given to American slavery its gigantic form and mighty sway? What is it that has

What is

reared about it such massive walls and impregnable towers? it that has transformed it in a few years from an abhorred system, into a venerated 'institution,' too sacred to be spoken against with impunity? It is the alliance which has been formed in the planting states between slavery and cotton, by virtue of which the most profitable and abundant staple which our country produces is made dependent for its culture exclusively upon slave labor.

'But plantation slavery puts in another claim to special attention : it actually sustains slavery in the breeding states. It has been seen

that slavery could not exist in Virginia and the other breeding states, but for the large sales of slaves which are annually made to southern planters. Of course the American slave trade is likewise upheld by plantation slavery. So also is the African trade, so far as respects its market in the United States.

Plantation slavery therefore stands before us charged with the continuance of domestic slavery, slave-breeding, the American slave trade, and in part the African. Surely, if pre-eminence in guilt can entitle any form of slavery to marked consideration, plantation slavery makes good its claim.

'We feel warranted, therefore, in taking this condition of slavery as the basis of our remarks in reply to the question now before us. It has been observed that the features of slavery in the breeding states received their peculiar mould from the unprofitableness of slave labor. In the consuming states the reverse is true. The lands being fresh and the products rich, slave labor is exceedingly productive. We do not mean to say that it is more so than free labor would be; we merely state the fact that it is eminently productive. The grand pursuit of the southern planter is GAIN-gain on the broadest scale, and by the most rapid process of accumulation. The machinery of cotton and sugar cultivation is a means to this great end. To the same end the slave also is made a means, and his rights and interests are all pushed out of view by this huge overgrown interest which quite fills up the planter's vision.

To increase the master's wealth, the slave is driven night and day; and since his necessary supplies of food, clothing, and shelter, are to be subtracted from the master's gains, they are dispensed with the

most niggardly hand. Every thread that can be spared from his back, every grain of corn from his mouth, and every item of convenience from his miserable hut, are rigorously withheld. In short, there is not a jot or tittle of the slave's comforts which can escape the all-grasping clutch of avarice. To describe plantation slavery in a single sentence, it is that system which degrades man not into property merely, but into an inferior species of property, whose worth consists in its fitness to procure that which is esteemed a far higher species of property—

MONEY.

'We shall now briefly trace the operation of this principle upon the slaves of the planting states.

The leading policy is to open immense estates for sugar and cotton cultivation (chiefly the latter), and stock them, in planter phrase, with large gangs of slaves. The proprietorship by single individuals of thousands of acres and half thousands of slaves, is quite peculiar to the planting states. This practice operates with extreme severity upon the slaves. The congregating of such numbers under the arbitrary control of one individual is eminently fitted to stimulate the fiercest passions, and transform the most humane into monsters of cruelty. When a man has but a single slave, he is under few temptations to be cruel, and those few are kept in check by a sort of personal attachment, which masters often feel for a faithful body servant. But let the same man become the owner of a thousand slaves, and his situation is wholly changed. His love of power, before scarcely excited, is aroused to the energy of a master passion. In the multitude of its subjects it finds new scope and wider range. The temptations to exercise it have increased with the number of the slaves, while the restraints from personal attachment have in the same proportion diminished, or rather wholly ceased to act. The result is, that the gentle master of the single slave, becomes the haughty despot of his little empire.

From the foregoing considerations it is plain, that the policy of overgrown estates and large laboring forces bears with a crushing weight upon the slave. Indeed, a situation can hardly be conceived of, more fraught with suffering than that of a field slave in a numerous gang.

Another feature of the planting policy is to employ overseers, and arm them with every instrument of torture necessary to compel the utmost amount of labour. The planter, as lost to humanity as to honesty, not only denies his slaves just wages, but consigns them to the discretionary management of the vilest monsters that ever wore human form. Overseer is the name which designates the assemblage of all brutal propensities and fiendish passions in one man. An overseer must be the lowest of all abjects, consenting to be loathed and detested by the master who employs him; and, at the same time, he must be the most callous of all reprobates, in order to inflict tortures from the sight of which the planter himself sometimes recoils with horror. He must find his supreme delight in human torture; groans must be his music, and the writhings of agony his realization of bliss.

He must become that unspeakably vile thing, a scullion of avarice, wielding the clotted lash for another's wealth, contented himself to receive a petty stipend as the reward of his execrable vocation.

Such is the monster to whose unlimited control the planter commits his hundreds of slaves. One 'injunction only is laid upon him, and that is, to make the largest crops possible. The planter himself generally resides at a distance from his estate, or, if he lives upon it, rarely interferes with the management of affairs. He usually disregards the slaves' complaints of cruelty, since to notice them, and interpose between the parties, would lessen the authority of the overseer, and hazard the reduction of his crops. Consequently, the slaves have, for the most part, no appeal from the outrages of a brutal over

seer.

'It is a dreadful reflection, moreover, that the overseer is strongly tempted to cruelty by appeals to his selfishness. His reputation is graduated by the amount of his crops. If they are large, his character is established, and his situation made permanent, with an increase of salary. But to make great crops he must drive the slaves. Besides, the wages of overseers are generally either in proportion to the crop which they raise, or a stipulated portion of the crop itself. Thus the overseer's interest conspires with that of the planter to perpetuate a system of hard driving, which is carried out by the incessant application of the lash.'- Ib., pp. 71-77.

There is not a more melancholy section of this volume than that which relates to the slave-breeding states.

This system bears with extreme severity upon the slave.

1. It subjects him to a perpetual fear of being sold to the souldriver,' which, to the slave, is the realization of all conceivable woes and horrors, more dreaded than death. An awful apprehension of this fate haunts the poor sufferer by day and by night, from his cradle to his grave. SUSPENSE hangs like a thunder-cloud over his head. He knows that there is not a passing hour, whether he wakes or sleeps, which may not be the last that he shall spend with his wife and children. Every day or week some acquaintance is snatched from his side, and thus the consciousness of his own danger is kept continually awake. Surely my turn will come next,' is his harrowing conviction; for he knows that he was reared for this, as the ox for the yoke, or the sheep for the slaughter. In this aspect, the slave's condition is truly indescribable. Suspense, even when it relates to an event of no great moment, and endureth but for a night,' how hard to bear! But when it broods over all, absolutely all that is dear, chilling the present with its deep shade, and casting its awful gloom over all the future, it must break the heart! Such is the suspense under which every slave in the breeding states lives. It poisons all his little lot of bliss. He cannot go forth to his toil, if a father, without bidding a mental farewell to his wife and children. He cannot return, weary and worn, from the field, with any certainty that he shall not find his home robbed and desolate. Nor can he seek his bed of straw and rags

without the frightful misgiving that his wife may be torn from his arms before morning. Should a white stranger approach his master's mansion, he fears that the soul-driver has come, and awaits in terror the overseer's mandate, You are sold; follow that man.' There is no being on earth whom the slaves of the breeding states regard with so much horror as the trader. He is to them what the prowling kidnapper is to their less wretched brethren in the wilds of Africa. The master knows this, and that there is no punishment so effectual to secure labor, or deter from misconduct, as the threat of being delivered to the soul-driver.*

2. Another consequence of this system is the prevalence of licentiousness. This is indeed one of the foul features of slavery everywhere; but it is especially prevalent and indiscriminate where slavebreeding is conducted as a business. It grows directly out of this system, and is inseparable from it. In the planting states licentiousness is a passion, but in the breeding states it is both a passion and a pursuit; in the former it is fostered by lust, in the latter by lust and cupidity; there it is a mere irregularity, here it is a branch of a flourishing trade, a trade made more flourishing by its prevalence. The pecuniary inducement to general pollution must be very strong, since the larger the slave increase the greater the master's gains, and especially since the mixed blood demands a considerably higher price than the pure black. This is a temptation which often overcomes both the virtue and pride of white men; so often, that it is to be doubted whether, as touching this matter, there be much of either left.

3. It might be thought that the breeding system would effectually shield the slaves against bodily cruelty, and, by appeals to the master's interest, secure to them ample food, clothing, shelter, and relief from severe labor, since these things are favorable to rapid increase. But if interest would ensure all this, it would equally ensure every other important blessing; but this is found to be a poor protection to the slave, amid the numberless and overpowering temptations to cruelty. However, if there were any reliance to be placed upon this, it would at best profit only that class of slaves who were in a breeding or saleable condition; though, even in the case of these, great cruelty, toil, and privation might be imposed, without materially impairing their breeding or saleable qualities. But the unsaleable and barren (whether from nature, disease, or age) could find no security in the mas ter's interest. The sufferings of these large classes of slaves in the breeding states must be dreadful. Of little or no value from their labor, where labor is at best unproductive, and entirely valueless in point of increase, where that is the great staple, they must be a burthen upon their owners,' and of course miserably provided for and cruelly treated. Where fruitfulness is the greatest of virtues, barrenness will be regarded as worse than a misfortune, as a crime, and the subjects of it will be exposed to every form of privation and infliction.

་

This horribly expressive appellation is in common use among the slaves of the breeding states.