because the rights of man cannot be altogether overlooked.

Slavery having once originated, many circumstances favored its continuance. From the heads of families who, in the infancy of society in Asia, regarded their domestic dependants in the light of property, as much as they did their flocks, originated the chiefs of the nomadic tribes, who became conquerors or priests; and from these two classes all the political institutions in Asia seem to have sprung. The conquerors established absolute despotisms, in which the persons and property of the subjects were completely at the disposal of the ruler. This is political slavery, i. e. the total absence of legal relations (i. e. mutual obligation) between Sovereign and subject. Rules may, indeed, sometimes be laid down by the sovereign for the regulation of these relations; but the continuance of them depends entirely on his pleasure.* This state of political slavery furnished a great support to domestic slavery by the analogy between the rule of a king and that of a head of a family. The priests secured their power by the establishment of castes, by which society was made to form a sort of pyramid, at the top of which the priests strove to place themselves. The Greeks and Romans, by freeing themselves from the debasing institution of castes, made a great advance in civilization; but they could not elevate themselves to the idea of liberty in the domestic connexions, which lies at the basis of the political institutions of all modern civilized nations, so that the social institutions of our times are founded upon principles essentially differing from those of the ancients-a circumstance which is often overlooked. The circumscribed views of the ancients, respecting the rights and relations of men, was the reason why, in spite of their progress in civilization, they continued to treat the prisoner of war as a slave. Had they considered their enemies as equals, and not as mere barbarians, this custom would

*Here we may be allowed a remark respecting the difference of absolute governments in Europe and Asia. Even the supporters of the divine right of kings in Europe, who maintain that a monarch is answerable to none but God, nevertheless admit that he is bound to rule conscientiously, and to administer justice; whilst the despotism of Asia rests simply on the idea of power, without the supposition of a higher origin. Hence the vizier who murders the reigning monarch and his family, and usurps the government, is Jooked upon as the lawful master of the lives of his subjects, as much as his predecessor was, while he possesses power to enforce his will.

probably have been sooner abolished. If Christian nations, at later periods, also reduced prisoners of war, in some cases, to slavery,-as the Spaniards did with the Indians in America,-it was owing to the contempt which they felt for them as heathens. This made the Spaniards look upon the Indians much in the same light as the Romans did upon barbarians. Fanaticism varnished over this measure, and the disciples of the religion of love and truth pretended that the savages could be more easily converted to Christianity in slavery than in freedom. It was this idea, also, which, as Montesquieu states, induced his most Christian majesty, Louis XIII, to sign a law, declaring the negroes in his colonies slaves. The true motive, however, in both cases, undoubtedly was cupidity; and this motive, in other instances, is proclaimed without disguise. The Europeans and their descendants, in fact, have been preeminent for cupidity. Whether their greater civilization has made them more sensible of the value of money, or their superior intellectual cultivation has furnished them with more means of satisfying the universal thirst for acquisition, or whether they are naturally more prone than other races to avarice and the vices which flow from it, they are notorious for the violation of every moral and religious principle, and the commission of the most enormous inconsistencies and cruelties in the gratification of this passion. History can show no instance of such prolonged and cold-blooded cruelty as is presented in the nefarious slave trade of the Europeans and their descendants. A historical account of the various forms of slavery in different nations, and particularly a sketch of the laws respecting slavery that have existed,

Arguments readily accommodate themselves to circumstances. At that time, men were to be

enslaved for the good of their souls; and now, the security of the masters, as well as the happiness of the slaves themselves, require that they should be kept from all means of moral and intellectual improvement.

By an act passed in Virginia in the year 1679, it was, for the better encouragement of soldiers, declared, that what Indian prisoners should be taken in a war in which the colony was then engaged, should be free purchase to the soldiers taking them. In 1682, it was declared, that all servants brought into this country (Virginia), by sea or land, not being Christians, whether Negroes, Moors. Mulattoes or Indians (except Turks and Moors in amity with Great Britain), and all Indians which should thereafter be sold by neighboring Indians, or any other trafficking with us, as slaves, should be slaves to all intents and purposes. Per judge Tucker, in the case of Hudgins vs. Wright. (Henning and Munford's Reports, 139.)

and still exist, among the more civilized nations, would be highly interesting, but would far exceed our limits.

The effects of slavery have always been most injurious to the nations which have permitted it. It is so directly opposed to the nature of man (which can as little endure absolute power as absolute subjection, without greatly degenerating), that it has always had a palsying influence on the industry and morality both of the masters and the slaves. The human mind cannot thrive without freedom. Among the evils which have originated from slavery are, the use of eunuchs, the shows of gladiators, the encouragement of the grossest sensuality and indolence, and an unparalleled disregard of human life, the corrupt character of the freedmen, and the outrages of the slave when he breaks his chains-from the horrible war in Italy, 70 B. C. (see Spartacus), down to the atrocities of the Haytian revolution, and the bloody insurrections on the island of Barbadoes in 1816, and several more recent ones. These are a few of the consequences of slavery, more or less conspicuous wherever it has existed, but particularly so in ancient Rome, of whose ruin slavery was the chief and most direct cause. In Athens, slaves were treated with considerable mildness; in Sparta and Rome, with harshness. By the Roman law, if a master was killed, all the slaves who were under the same roof, or near enough to be able to hear his cry, were to be put to death. The right of the master over the life of the slave was not abolished till the time of the Antonines, in the second century A. D. If slaves were ill treated by a third person, the Aquilian law only allowed the owner of the slave to demand indemnification for the damage. In Athens, however, the perpetrator was punished sometimes even with death. Modern legislation has, in many cases, sought to protect slaves against abuses on the part of their masters, and to afford them facilities for manumission, but, as yet, with very imperfect success; nor can legislation ever protect effectually a being who is the property of anoth

er.

Many legal investigations, of late years, respecting the treatment of slaves, have brought to light atrocities which most persons would have thought impossible in this age, and which would make many believe that the superiority of our race consists less in moral advancement *The late debates in the legislature of Virginia, after the insurrection in that state, in 1831, contain many highly interesting remarks on this subject.

than in refinement of manners. Examine, for instance, the facts disclosed in the proceedings instituted against Picton, the British governor of Trinidad. The laws of the Mohammedans respecting slaves, in their general spirit, and compared to the laws respecting free persons, are more humane than those enacted by Christians ; one cause of which may be, that a part of their slaves are of the same color with themselves, whilst the slaves of Christian nations are all of a different color from their masters; and the color itself, from association, has become an object of disgust, peculiarly to the descendants of the English race in the U. States. The laws respecting slaves are, generally speaking, among Christians, milder in monarchical governments than in the slave-holding republics of the U. States. Thus manumission, under the Spanish and English laws, is much casier than under those of this Union. Some of the former governments allow the slave to accumulate property, by which he may eventually purchase his freedom. This is the case in the Spanish colonies; but no such right is recognised by law in the U. States. One reason of this difference undoubtedly is, that in monarchical states the gov crnment is distinct both from the master and the slave, whilst in republics like ours the masters (the interested party) are themselves the legislators, and, of course, are guided principally by their interest, in the enactment of laws: another reason is, that republics like ours, in which the executive department is intrusted with comparatively little power, must be more at tentive to provide for their safety, by severe laws, than monarchical states, in which the executive has a strong military force at its disposal. Thus, whilst several English laws encourage the instruction of slaves in reading, arithmetic, and the elementary truths of religion, several slave-holding states of the Union prohibit the teaching them reading and writing, under severe penalties. Yet North America and England have done most to ameliorate the condition of this class of persons; and we believe it is generally admitted that the slave is no where better treated than in the slave-holding states of this Union. The evil of slavery was entailed on the U. States by the measures of the mother country, during the period of colonial dependence. The colonies made repeated efforts to prevent the importation of slaves into this country, but could not obtain the consent of the English government.-See Walsh's Appeal from the Judg

ments of Great Britain (Philadelphia, 1819). In the ninth section of that work the subject is fully discussed. In allusion to the fact just stated, Mr. Jefferson, in his draft of the Declaration of Independence, said, "He (the king of England) has waged civil war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty, in the persons of a distant people, who never offended him; captivating, and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain: determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce; and, that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished dye, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them, thus paying off former crimes, committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another." (See the fac-simile of this draft in Jefferson's Correspondence.) But this passage was struck out when the Declaration of Independence was adopt ed; and the constitution of the U. States acknowledges slavery, by the provision that "Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons-including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed-three fifths of all other persons." Previous to the admission of Missouri into the Union, in 1820, a warm contest took place in congress, respecting the permission of slavery in the new state. It was finally admitted without any restrictions in regard to this point.

But, though the U. States have been unable to relieve themselves from the burden of slavery, they were the first to prohibit the prosecution of the slave-trade. In the year 1794, it was enacted that no person in the U. States should fit out any vessel there, for the purpose of carrying on any traffic in slaves to any foreign country, or for procuring from any foreign country the inhabitants thereof, to be disposed of as slaves. In 1800, it was en

acted that it should be unlawful for any citizen of the U. States to have any property in any vessel employed in transporting slaves from one foreign country to another, or to serve on board any vessel so employed. Any of the commissioned vessels of the U. States were authorized to seize and take any vessel employed in the slave-trade, to be proceeded against in any of the circuit or district courts, and to be condemned for the use of the officers and crew of the vessel making the capture. In 1807, it was enacted, that after the first of January, 1808, it should not be lawful to bring into the U. States, or the territories thereof, from any foreign place, any negro, mulatto, or person of color, with intent to hold or sell him as a slave; and heavy penalties are imposed on the violators of these acts, and others of similar import. In 1820, it was enacted, that if any citizen of the U. States, belonging to the company of any foreign vessel engaged in the slave-trade, or any person whatever, belonging to the company of any vessel, owned in whole or in part by, or navigated for, any citizen of the U. States, should land on any foreign shore, to seize any negro, or mulatto, not held to service by the laws of either of the states or territories of the U. States, with intent to make him a slave, or should decoy or forcibly carry off such negro, or mulatto, or receive him on board any such vessel, with the intent aforesaid, he should be adjudged a pirate, and, on conviction, should suffer death. The same penalty was extended to those of the ship's company who should aid in confining such negro, or mulatto, on board of such vessel, or transfer him, on the sea or tide-water, to any other ship or vessel, or land him, with intent to sell, or having previously sold him.

A traffic in negroes was carried on from the beginning of the sixteenth century, by the Portuguese, and, after them, by all the Christian colonial powers, and has been continued to the latest times, in consequence of the colonial system of the European powers, and the idea that the colonial produce cannot be raised without slaves, with an atrocity at which nature revolts, and which could never have reached the height that it did, if the color of the slave had not given rise to the idea of his being by nature a degraded being. In the year 1503, slaves were carried from the Portuguese possessions in Africa to the Spanish colonies in America. It has

*It is stated that, in 1434, a Portuguese captain, named Alonzo Gonzales, landed in Guinea, and,

been generally stated, that Bartolomeo de las Casas proposed to cardinal Ximenes the regular importation of negroes, from charity towards the feeble aborigines of South America, who were treated by the Spaniards as mere beasts of burthen. But this story has been contradicted by the abbé Grégoire, in his Apologie de B. de las Casas, in the Mémoires of the French institute; also by the writer of the article Casas, in the Biographie Universelle, after an examination of all the Spanish and Portuguese historians of that period. This charge, he says, rests solely on the authority of Herrera, an elegant but inaccurate author. The Spanish government, the French under Louis XIII, and the English under queen Elizabeth, formally permitted this traffic, because the negroes were represented as delivered by it from misery or death. Yet Elizabeth declared herself against the violences used. In Spain, the slave-trade was first regularly established in 1517. Charles V granted to Lebresa, his favorite, the exclusive privilege of importing annually 4000 slaves, which the latter sold to the Genoese. These received the black slaves from the Portuguese, in whose hands, properly speaking, the traffic was. Slaves soon came to be introduced much more extensively into the plantation colonies than into the mining colonies. And thus the slavery of the negroes became, unhappily, a part of a political system. It also became a great source of profit to the petty African despots, and gave rise to interminable wars and outrages, which struck at the root of all social ties. The powerful became chiefly occupied with forcing their brethren to the market of Christian Europeans, to barter them for rum and toys. When, therefore, in consequence of the French revolution, the demand for this human merchandise had lessened, the king of Dahomy, on the Slave Coast, sent, in 1796, an embassy, consisting of his brother and son, to Lisbon, for the purpose of reviving this traffic, and concluding a treaty with Portugal against the other European powers. The most important markets for slaves in Africa were Bonny and Calabar, on the coast of Guinea; and they still remain among the principal. Here the slaves who came from the interior were and are exchanged for rum, brandy, toys, iron, salt, &c.; and the number of these beings who have been thus torn carried away some colored lads, whom he sold advantageously to Moorish families settled in the south of Spain. Six years after, he committed a similar robbery, and many merchants imitated the practice, and built a fart to protect the traffic.

from their country during the last three centuries, is calculated to amount to above forty millions. It is estimated that at least from 15 to 20 per cent. die on the passage. The sufferings of the slaves during the passage are horrible; and the only restraint, generally speaking, on the cruelty of the traders, is such as arises from motives of interest; so that, when it interferes with humanity (for instance, if the slave labors under an infectious disease), the latter is entirely overlooked, and murder is not unfrequently committed. Since the prohibition of the slave-trade by so many nations, and the great efforts which have been made for the capture of the slaveships, though the extent of the trade may be diminished, yet the cruelty with which it is carried on is often increased, because the slave-trader, being obliged to guard against capture by the men-of-war who are watching his movements, and, altogether, to carry on his traffic by stealth, subjects the slaves to many restraints for the purposes of concealment, which he did not find necessary while the slave-trade was legal. Notwithstanding all that has been done for its abolition, a contraband trade in slaves is still carried on to a frightful extent, and they are still imported into Cuba and many other West India islands, frequently, as is asserted, by the connivance of the public authorities. As a specimen of the cruelties committed in this nefarious trade, we will give the account of a recent traveller, whose statements are corroborated by many other authorities.*

*Mr. R. Walsh, in his Notices of Brazil in 1828 and 1829 (London, 1830, and Boston, 1832), says, in describing a slave-ship, examined by the English man-of-war in which he returned from Brazil, in May, 1829, "She had taken in, on the coast of Africa, 336 males and 226 females, making in all 562, and had been out seventeen days, during which she had thrown overboard fifty-five. ways, between decks. The space was so low, The slaves were all enclosed under grated hatchthat they sat between each other's legs, and stowed so close together, that there was no pos sibility of their lying down, or at all changing their position, by night or day. As they belonged viduals, they were all branded, like sheep, with to, and were shipped on account of, different indithe owners' marks, of different forms. These were impressed under their breasts, or on their arms, and, as the mate informed me, with perfect indifference, “queimados pelo ferro quenteburnt with the red-hot iron." Over the hatchway stood a ferocious looking fellow, with a scourge of many twisted thongs in his hand, who was the slave-driver of the ship; and whenever he heard the slightest noise below, he shook it over them, and seemed eager to exercise it. As soon as the poor creatures saw us looking down at them,