II. We come now to that branch of Security, which relates to the person.

Here again the privileged class of a slave holding community are beset with alarms and dangers. These dangers and alarms are of two kinds,-dangers from the slaves, dangers from one another.

1. Dangers from the slaves. The master retains his authority only by the constant exercise of violent means. This violence is liable at any time to be retorted upon himself. The subjugation and cowardice of those over whom he tyrannizes, afford the master a certain degree of security. But passion often supplies the place of courage; and we frequently hear of terrible acts of vengeance committed upon the person or family of the master, by outraged and infuriated servants.

But this danger is trifling compared with that anticipated from a rising of the servile class. Every two or three years the report of an insurrection, real or imaginary, spreads the most frantic terror through the southern states. The antics enacted upon such occasions, would be in the highest degree farcical, did they not generally terminate in bloody tragedies. Men who are individually brave, and who would march to the assault of a battery without flinching, work each other into a complete paroxism of fear. A single negro seen in the woods with a gun upon his shoulder, suffices to put a whole village to flight. Half-a-dozen unintelligible words overheard and treasured up by some evesdropping overseer, or invented perhaps by some miscreant, who delights himself with the public alarm, are enough to throw all the southern states into commotion, and to bring nights of agony and sleeplessness to hundreds of thousands. But this is not the worst of it. When terror makes cowards it always makes bloody-minded cowards.

Blood! blood!-nothing else can appease the general alarm. Committees of safety with the most absolute authority, are every where established. On these committees sit many a village Tinville, many a rustic

Danton. Before these tribunals the unhappy victims are dragged; accusation and condemnation keep close company. Hanging, shooting, and burning become the order of the day. The headlong ferocity of these proceedings betrays the greatness of that alarm which produces them.

It has been shown in another place, that notwithstanding the extreme degree of terror to which the apprehension of slave vengeance gives rise throughout the south, the actual danger is by no means proportionately great. Many causes contribute to this disproportion, of which one leading one is, a secret consciousness of the cruel injustice of slavery. Tyranny is ever timid, always full of fears.

2. Danger from one another. In this case, the alarm is less, but the danger is more real. Throughout the greater part of the southern states it is considered essential to personal safety, to carry concealed weapons. This single fact shows that personal security is at the lowest ebb. When a man must protect himself, for what is he indebted to the laws? These weapons are no doubt carried partly as a protection against the slaves; but they are chiefly used, in quarrels between freemen. Of these quarrels the laws take but little notice. In such a case it is considered the mark of a mean spirit to appeal to the law. If I am assaulted or beaten, it is expected that I stab or shoot the aggressor. In several of the southern states it seems to make very little difference, whether I challenge him to a duel, or assault him without previous notice given, in a tavern, or the streets. Murders are constantly committed in this way. For the most part they go entirely unpunished, or if punished at all, it is only 'by a short imprisonment, or a trifling fine. They fix no imputation upon a man's character. Persons guilty of homicide are to be met with in the best society of the southern states. If it be inquired what is the connection between this condition of manners and the existence of slavery, the answer is, that the imperious ferocity of temper which the exercise of despotic

power produces or inflames, is the main cause of the existence and the toleration of an insecurity of person and a recklessness of human life, such as hardly elsewhere prevails in the most barbarous countries.

But even this is not the worst aspect of the case. The panic terror which the rumor of an insurrection produces at the south has been already mentioned. That terror levels all distinction between slaves and freemen, and so long as it lasts, no man's person is secure. During the period of the Mississippi insurrection, or pretended insurrection, in the summer of 1835, the committee of safety appointed upon that occasion, by a tumultuous popular assembly, were vested with ample authority "to try, acquit, condemn, and punish white or black, who should be charged before them." By virtue of this commission, the committee proceeded to try a large number of persons, principally white men, accused of having instigated, or favored the alleged intended insurrection. Many of those tried were found guilty, and were hung upon the spot. A great many others were cruelly whipped, and were ordered to quit the state in twenty-four hours.

The case of Mr. Sharkey will clearly exhibit the degree of personal security existing in the state of Mississippi at that time. Mr. Sharkey was a magistrate, and in the exercise of his legal authority, he set at liberty three men, of whose entire innocence of the charges alleged against them he was well assured, although they had been seized by the pursuivants of the committee of safety. This gentleman was a planter, a man of property, a large slave-holder, brother to the chief justice of the state, a person not very likely to be implicated in a slave insurrection. But his opposition to the despotic authority of the committee was considered to be plenary proof of guilt, and a large party was sent to arrest him. Mr. Sharkey had no relish for being hung upon suspicion; so he barricadoed his doors, built fires about his house, in order that the darkness of the night might not conceal the approach of the pursuivants, wrapped his

infant child in the bed clothes to save it from the bullets, loaded his muskets, and quietly waited the attack. His left hand was dreadfully shattered by the first fire of the assailants; but he succeeded in killing their leader, in wounding several of the rest, and in compelling a retreat. By this time his friends and connections began to collect about him, and a party was formed in his favor. Had he been less wealthy, or less influential, he would inevitably have perished.

SECTION III.

Slavery as it affects the liberty of the privileged class.

One of the chief branches of civil liberty consists in the unrestricted disposal of one's property. There are restrictions which are necessary; but the more these restrictions are multiplied, the more is liberty restrained.

By the institution of slavery, slaves become one of the principal kinds of property; but in the free disposal of this kind of property, the slave-master at the South is very much restricted. The "sacred rights of property," as to which he is apt to be so eloquent, with regard to that very subject-matter with respect to which he considers them most sacred, are closely restrained by laws of his own enacting.

To set a slave free, is certainly the highest act of ownership; the only one indeed which a truly virtuous man ought to exercise; and certainly the last one which a person of any manly spirit would be willing to surrender. But in the greater part of the southern states, the master is deprived by law of the right of emancipation. Here certainly is a most grievous infringement upon `liberty.

The right to improve one's property so as to increase

its productiveness and give it an additional value, is an essential part of civil liberty. But this is a right of which, as respects his slaves, the southern master is in a great degree deprived. In most of the slave states it is a highly penal offence to teach a slave to read. Now reading and writing are essential to many employments. These accomplishments, and others which by their means the slave might acquire, would greatly tend to enhance his value, by making him capable of more valuable services. But the master is · not allowed to improve his property in this way. The law interferes to prevent it.

Considering slaves merely as property, here are two grievous infringements upon the master's liberty. But consider them as men, and the infringement upon the master's freedom of action is still more intolerable. I am deprived by law of the capacity to be benevolent and just. I am ready to confer upon a fellow being the highest boon which man can give or receive; but the laws do not permit me to confer it. Perhaps the slave is my own child. No matter; he shall remain a slave to the day of his death, unless I can obtain as a particular grace and favor, a special permission to set him free. Is this liberty? Is not the servitude of the father as miserable almost as that of the son?

The authors of these laws have plainly perceived that the natural dictates of humanity are at war with the institution of slavery; and that if left to their own operation, sooner or later, they would accomplish its overthrow. To perpetuate the slavery of the unprivileged class, they have fettered up those sentiments of the human heart, which are the foundation of morality and of all the charities of life. For the sake of brutalizing others, they have sought to barbarize themselves.

Liberty of opinion, liberty of speech, and liberty of the press do not exist in the southern states of the American Union, any more than under any other despotism. No doubt there are some subjects which