Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Slavery volume 5 .djvu/45

Rh ings of the free blacks, or exaggerated reports thereof, and fear that by becoming free in America they might exchange a well-known evil for a greater or a worse. Others have become so debased by their condition that the man is mainly silenced in their consciousness, the animal alone surviving, contented if well fed and not over-worked, and they do not wish to be free. Suppose that these three classes, the feeble-minded, the timid, and the men overwhelmed and crushed by their condition, are as numerous as the humane portion of the masters, are one-tenth of the whole, or 300,000. The rest are conscious of the qualities of a man. They desire their freedom, and are kept in slavery only by external force—the systematic force of public law, the irregular force of private will. The number of this class will be about 2,700,000, a greater number than the whole population of the colonies in 1776.

The condition of the majority of the slaves is indeed terrible. They have no rights, and are to be treated not as men, but only as things; this first principle involves continual violence and oppression, with all the subordinate particulars of their condition, which shall now be touched on as briefly as possible. A famous man said in public, that his "slaves were sleek and fat;" the best thing he could say in defence of his keeping men in bondage. But even this is not always true. Take the mass of slaves together, and an abundance of testimony compels the con- viction that they are miserably clad, and suffer bitterly from hunger. So far as food, clothing, and shelter are concerned, the physical condition of the mass of field- slaves is far worse than that of condemned criminals, in the worst prison of the United States. House- slaves and mechanics in large towns fare better ; they are under the eye of the public. Farm-slaves feel most the poignant smart. The plantations are large, the dwellings distant, the ear of the public hears not the oppressor's violence. "The horse fattens on his master's eye," says the proverb; but the farm-slaves are committed mainly to overseers, the Swiss of slavery, whom Mr Wirt calls " the most abject, degraded, and unprincipled race."

Let us pass over the matter of food, clothing, shelter, and toil, to consider other features of their condition. They are treated with great cruelty ; often branded with a