slave laws have been framed as bad as they were in Pagan, iron-hearted Rome; and the customs are in some respects more oppressive;—modern slavery unquestionably wears its very worst aspect in the Colonies of England and the United States of North America. I hardly know how to decide their respective claims. My countrymen are fond of preëminence, and I am afraid they deserve it here—especially if we throw into the scale their loud boasts of superiority over all the rest of the world in civil and religious freedom. The slave codes of the United States and of the British West Indies were originally almost precisely the same; but their laws have been growing milder and milder, while ours have increased in severity. The British have the advantage of us in this respect—they long ago dared to describe the monster as it is; and they are now grappling with it, with the overwhelming strength of a great nation's concentrated energies.—The Dutch, those sturdy old friends of liberty, and the French, who have been stark mad for freedom, rank next for the severity of their slave laws and customs. The Spanish and Portuguese are milder than either.
I will give a brief view of some of our own laws on this subject; for the correctness of which, I refer the reader to Stroud's Sketch of the Slave Laws of the United States of America. In the first place, we will inquire upon what ground the negro slaves in this country are claimed as property. Most of them are the descendants of persons kidnapped on the coast of Africa, and brought here while we were British Colonies; and as the slave trade was openly sanctioned more than twenty years after our acknowledged independence, in 1783, and as the traffic is still carried on by smugglers, there are, no doubt, thousands of slaves, now living in the United States, who were actually stolen from Africa.[1]
A provincial law of Maryland enacted that any white woman who married a negro slave should serve his master during her husband's lifetime, and that all their
- ↑ In the new slave States, there are a great many negroes, who can speak no other language than some of the numerous African dialects.
