his. The dance is forbidden; no merry laugh is heard, no torch-lights are seen glancing and streaming on the darkness, or eclipsing the splendor of the moon, as the slaves pass from one cabin to another. All is still as night and tyranny can make it; and if the slaves, spite of this despotism, yet have their meetings, for talk, for drinking, for plunder, or for prayer, all are equally prohibited, and they steal forth with slow and stealthy steps, watchful and cautious as the midnight wolf.

The masters grievously complain of this nightwalking propensity on the part of the slaves. Besides the efforts of each planter to suppress it on his own estáte, and the barbarous severity, with which it is customary to punish slaves for being found visiting on a plantation to which they do not belong,-public patrols are established for the purpose of arresting, flogging, and sending home, all slaves caught wandering at large without a pass, that is, a written permission.

The two grand charges, however, brought against the slaves, and which are quoted by the masters as decisive proofs of their lamentable depravity, and total destitution of all moral principle, are the accusations of lying, and of theft.

1. The slaves, we are told, are arrant liars. They lie for themselves; they lie for each other; and to deceive their master or the overseer is esteemed among them as an action, not blameless only, but even praiseworthy.

Well,-why not? Falsehood has ever been considered a lawful art of war; and slavery, as we have seen, is but a state of protracted hostilities. Do we not applaud a general for the stratagems and arts by which he deceives, misleads, entraps his enemy? Do not the very masters themselves, chuckle and exult over the ingenious falsehoods by which they have detected a theft, or recovered a runaway? Though they be tyrants let them use a little philosophy. Dionysius did so, and so did Pisistratus. With their masters, enemies who have seized them, and who

keep them by force, the slaves are not connected by any ties of social duty. It is a condition of open war; and as in point of strength, the slaves are wholly overmatched, stratagem and falsehood are their only resource; and if by bold lying, vociferous protestations, and cunning frauds, they can escape some threatened aggression, if they can so secure some particle of liberty from the prying search and greedy grasp of despotism, why blame them for acts, which in like cases, all the world has justified, and has even exalted to the character of heroism?

In a slave, considered as a slave, cunning is almost the sole quality of mind which he has any occasion to exercise; and by long practice it is sometimes carried to an astonishing perfection. Under an air of the greatest heedlessness and stupidity, and an apparent apathy more than brutal, there is occasionally veiled a quick and accurate observation, a just estimate of temper and disposition, lively and ardent feelings, and a loftiness of spirit, which some day perhaps, will burst its ordinary cautious bounds, and terminate the life of its possessor, by bullets, knives, the gibbet, or the flames. 2. It is astonishing say the masters, how destitute of all conscience these rascals are. The best among them, the most pious and obedient, are no more to be trusted than so many foxes. Even our domestic servants steal every thing they can touch. There must be a lock on every door, every trunk, every closet. But even the strictest watchfulness is no match for their arts; and the sternest severities cannot repress their spirit of plunder.

The slaves it seems then, however overmastered and subdued, do still, in a silent and quiet way, and to the best of their ability, retort upon their masters the aggressions and the robbery that are perpetrated on themselves.

Property, it is to be recollected, is a thing established among men, by mutual consent, and for mutual convenience. The game I have killed, the fish I have caught, the vegetables I have cultivated, are decided

to be mine, and are secured to me by the consent and warranty of all my tribe, because the security and comfort of each member of it requires for himself the like privilege and protection. But between slaves and masters, there is no such compact, no such consent, no such mutual arrangement. The masters claim all; and so far as they are able, they take all; and if the slaves by stealth, by art, by cunning, can secretly regain the possession of some gleanings from the fruits of their own labor, why should they not? It is in their eyes a spoiling of the Egyptians; it is a seizure and appropriation of things to which they surely have a better title than the masters.

Is it to be supposed that in the prosecution of a perpetual war, the plunder will be all upon one side? The disproportion is doubtless very great; the aggressors, as their strength and means are so superior, carry off rich trophies and abundant spoils; the conquered are well pleased to gather some fragments, to filch some trifles from the over-loaded stores of the triumphant invaders, who plundering upon a great scale themselves, are yet astonished at the depravity of those who plunder on a small one. To expect, as between masters and slaves the virtues of truth, probity and benevolence, is ridiculous. Slavery removes the very foundation of those virtues.

SECTION VI.

The treatment of American slaves considered as animals.

The slave-master desires to look upon his slaves as he does upon his horses; to persuade himself that his empire over both is equally just; and that the claims and rights of horses and of slaves, are confined within the same limits.

But even in this view of the case, narrow and false as it is, the slave-holder too often falls lamentably short of what common humanity, and ordinary good nature require.

A slave is an expensive animal, since he must be supplied not only with shelter and food, but with fire, and clothing. There are however several circumstances in the condition of the southern states, which operate at present to reduce these expenses to a mini

mum.

The houses of the slaves for the most part, are little miserable log cabins, with chimneys of sticks and clay, without windows, and often without a floor, but one step in advance of the primeval wigwam. They contain but one room, in which the whole family is huddled together without any regard to the privacies or decencies of life; nor are they in any respect superior, if indeed they are equal, to the stables or the cow house. The furniture is as rude as the dwelling, and betokens the lowest state of poverty and destitution. When these cabins have become thoroughly rotten, and ready to tumble to the ground, they are rebuilt at no other expense except a few days labor of the plantation carpenter. Other things have undergone great improvements; but in the construction and comforts of a slave's cabin, there has been little or no change for upwards of a century.

Clothing, especially in the more northern of the slave states is an expensive item; but as its necessity in those parts of the country is the more apparent, the good economy of furnishing a tolerable supply is more generally acknowledged, and the suffering of the slaves from deficiency of clothing, is probably much less than in the more southern states, where the mildness of the climate encourages the masters to stint the allowance, and where the numerous deaths among the slaves from quinsy, influenza, and pleurisy, are a proof how insufficiently they are guarded against the sudden changes from heat to cold, to which the whole climate of the United States is so

liable. The children, till they reach the age of twelve or fourteen, run about almost naked, being covered, if at all, only by an unwashed shirt of tattered osnaburgs. Their sufferings from cold must sometimes be excessive.

Firewood is still so abundant throughout all the southern states, as in most parts of the country to have no exchangable value; or to owe that value entirely to the labor expended in preparing it. The slaves are at liberty to take from the woods on Sundays, or by night, such supplies as they choose. For the most part, they carry it on their heads; though sometimes on Sunday, they are allowed the use of a pair of oxen and a cart. To save steps and trouble, if they can do it without detection, they generally prefer to lay their hands upon the first fence they

come to.

Very different opinions prevail in different portions of the southern states, as to the quantity of food which it is necessary or expedient to allow a slave. In Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee, where corn and bacon are produced in great abundance, and where their value is small, the slaves are allowed as much coarse food as they desire; and the plump condition and buoyant vivacity of the children are an evidence that they seldom suffer from hunger.

In Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina, where corn is seldom worth above fifty cents the bushel, some sixteen bushels of it is considered a competent yearly supply for a slave, to which is generally added, a weekly allowance larger or smaller, of fish or meat.

In the states further south, which may be properly designated as the cotton growing states, where corn is generally worth a dollar or upwards the bushel, and where provisions of all sorts are comparatively scarce and high, twelve bushels of dry corn by the year, without any allowance of meat or fish, or any thing beside, is esteemed a large enough supply of food for a working hand. Sweet potatoes, are sometimes served out during the fall and winter months, instead of