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founding the relation of the slave with other relations from which it essentially differs. An apprentice, a miner, hired laborer, serf or a villein is not a slave. All these relations lack, as we shall see, the

man beings of their manhood-of all inborn rights, degrades them to the state of chattelhood, and forcibly detains them in that degradation. Property in a human creature is the essential and peculiar principle of slavery. This is the basis of the system, and all laws, regulations, usages, deprivations, wrongs, sins, sufferings and miseries which belong to the system are built u

not to be ranked among sentient beings but among thing

personal in the hands of their owners and possessors, and their executors, adminis

ell him, dispose of his person, his industry, and his labor; he can do nothing, posses

his master; a slave is a rational being, endowed with understanding like the rest of mankind; and whatever he lawfully

ment upon slaves, horses, or other live stock," etc. "Being property, slaves may be bough

ct of property. I shall not dwell on the speculative abstraction. That is property which the law declares

which slaves are advertised for sale, that the laws which reduce them to chattels

mong whom are some carpenters and blacksmiths, 10 horses, 33 mules, 100 head of cattle, 100 sheep a

nd I have seen a few advertisements for the sale of men women and children, hogs, corn and cattle promiscuously, in respecta

into Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas, from the more Northern States. The Baltimore Register said, "Dealing in slaves has become a large business; establishments are made in several places in Md. and Va. at which they are sold like cattle." Prof. Dew said in 1831; "Virginia is in fact a negro raising State for the other states." Judge Upshur of Va. said in the Va. Convention, 1831; "The value of slaves as an article of property, depends m

utterly disregarded. They are sold for the benefit of the master, as a horse is sold, and bought to suit the purchaser. To

o discernible trace of negro features in his countenance. Some vulgar jests were passed on his color, and 00 was bid for him; but the audience remarked that was not enough to begin on for such a likely young negro; some said a white negro was more trouble than he was worth. Before he was sold his mother rushed from the house upon the portico, crying i

gave it one wild embrace, before leaving it with an old woman, and hastened mechanically to obey the call; but stopped, threw up he

who escaped from slavery some years since. When the master to whom he b

R--, in Montgomery county, Md., and then I was offered to the assembled purchasers. My mother half distracted with the parting forever from all her children pushed through the crowd, while the bidding for me was going on, to the spot where R. was standing. She fell at his feet and clung to his knees, entreating him in tones that a mother

ts or interests; and they are not rare and extreme cases brought in here only for effect, but are such as occur daily in all the slave s

iner, hired laborer, or even the villein of the Feudal Age, or the Russian serf, as mere property is beneath m

ng with blood in the unholy travail of sanguinary wars, before that empire had been enlightened and conquered by the peaceful and just Gospel of Christ. That it

hase nor descent, could have no heirs, could make no will. The fruits of their labor and industry belonged to their masters. They could not plead nor be impleaded, and were utterly excluded from all civil concerns. They were incapable of marriage, not being e

slators therefore must acknowledge themselves indebted to Pagan Rome for the type of slavery which they have instituted and maintained in Christian America. All the main fe

s to what he will do, what amount of labor he will perform, or for whom he shall toil. He can own nothing, inherit nothing, will nothing. He cannot make a contract for himself, nor claim the protection of the laws as a man. He is wholly in the power of hi