Page:The Barbarism of Slavery - Sumner - 1863.pdf/19

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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