Slaves, as Property, may be used, absolutely by their owners at will, for their own profit or pleasure.

     PROPERTY is that which may be used by the owner. “The slave is one who is in the power of a master, to whom he belongs.” “Goods they are, and as goods they are esteemed.” This is the law of the relation. “As goods,” therefore, they may be used, while, like other goods, they “perish with the using.” ‘Have I not a right to do what I will with mine own?’ is a question affirming a prerogative universally claimed. Admit the validity of the ownership, and the right of use follows of course. If the “legal relation” be an innocent one, the right of use and the exercise of that right are innocent likewise, provided the use be a legitimate one. We shall see what uses are deemed legitimate by those who have shaped, defined, and administered “the relation.”

     It is true that the use of property by the owner is limited by the rights of other persons. But slaves are not persons in the view of the law, for any purposes

of benefit to them; as will hereafter be more fully shown. The rights of a slave are not recognized, and no limitation of the master’s use of him can come from that quarter. “The slave” (says the law) “is entirely subject to the will of his master.” Nothing, therefore, can prevent the master from putting him to any use he pleases.

     It is also true, that the use of property by the owner is limited by the nature of that property. Thus, a living horse, or other domestic animal, may not lawfully be backed and hewed to pieces, as a block of wood may be. The barbarity may be punished. The most that can be claimed for the Slave Code; on this point, is, that by placing slaves upon a level with other live cattle, it entitles them to the same kind and degree of protection. Beyond this, the Slave Code, so far as we know, never attempts or pretends to protect them. It knows them only as mere animals. Their rational and moral natures, not being recognized by the laws, can claim no legal protection. Sufficient evidence of this has already been adduced, but it will accumulate as we proceed. And it will be seen that as a mere animal, the slave has not equal protection, in some respects, with other animals.

     We will specify some of the uses of slave property.

     1. A prominent use of slave property is unrequited slave labor. The hired laborer is employed. The slave laborer is used as a horse or an ox is used. His labor is held to be the property of his owner. At this point he is degraded to the level of a brute,

whether moderately or excessively worked. The use of a slave as a brute laborer is an injury and an insult. It is a denial of his nature as a man, and of his rights as a free moral agent.

     “The end of slavery,” said Judge Ruffin, “is the profit of the master.” The slave “is doomed to toil, that others may reap the fruits.” STATE vs. MANN. (N. Carolina Reports, p. 263. Wheeler’s Law of Slavery, p. 246.)

     This honest judicial decision should shame the pretense that slaves are held for their own benefit.

     In a separate chapter, we shall look more directly into the particulars of slave labor, and in another, shall consider the withholding of wages. Additional light will then be thrown upon this use of slave property. In the mean time, it will be easy to show that in this use of slave property, in some of the slave States, it is systematically and deliberately so used as to be used up, and destroyed in a manner that would be shameful and wicked, even if brute beasts were the victims.

     Dr. Deming, a gentleman of high respectability, residing in Ashland, Richland county, Ohio, stated to Prof. Wright, at New-York city:

     “That during a recent tour at the South, while ascending the Ohio river on the steamboat Fame, he had an opportunity of conversing with a Mr. Dickinson, a resident of Pittsburg, in company with a number of cotton-planters and slave-dealers from Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi. Mr. Dickinson stated as a fact, that the sugar-planters upon the

sugar coast in Louisiana had ascertained that, as it was usually necessary to employ about twice the amount of labor during the boiling season that was required during the season of raising, they could by excessive driving, day and night, during the boiling season, accomplish the whole labor with one set of hands. By pursuing this plan they could afford to sacrifice one set of hands once in seven years! He further stated, that this horrible system was now practised to a considerable extent. The correctness of this statement was substantially admitted by the slaveholders then on board.” (Weld’s “Slavery as it is,” p. 39.)

     ”The late Mr. Samuel Blackwell, a highly respected citizen of Jersey City, opposite the city of New-York, and a member of the Presbyterian Church, visited many of the sugar plantations in Louisiana, and says: “That the planters generally declared to him that they were obliged so to overwork their slaves, during the sugar-making season, (from eight to ten weeks,) as to USE THEM UP in seven or eight years. For, said they, after the process is commenced, it must be pushed without cessation, night and day, and we cannot afford to keep a sufficient number of slaves to do the extra work at the time of sugar-making, as we could not profitably employ them the rest of the year.” (Ib.)

     Rev. Dr. Reed, of London, who went through Kentucky, Virginia, and Maryland, in the summer of 1834, gives the following testimony:

     “I was told, confidently, from excellent authority,

that recently, at a meeting of planters in South Carolina, the question was seriously discussed whether the slave is more profitable to the owner, if well fed, well clothed, and worked lightly; or, if made the most of at once, and exhausted in some eight years. The decision was in favor of the last alternative. That decision will, perhaps, make many shudder. But to my mind, this is not the chief evil. The greater and principal evil is considering the slave as property. If he is only property, and my property, then I seem to have some right to ask how I may make that property most available.” (“Visit to the American Churches,” by Drs. Reed and Matthesou, vol. II., p. 173.)

     Other testimony might be added. Southern newspapers have published the proceedings of Agricultural Societies, in which, after discussion, it had been agreed that the more profitable method was to “use up” a gang of negroes once in seven or eight years, and then purchase a fresh supply of the dealers.

     A terrible sacrifice of life arises from a change of climate. A writer in the New-Orleans Argus, of 1830, says: “The loss by death, in bringing slaves from a northern climate, which our planters are under the necessity of doing, is not less than twenty-five per cent.” Advertisements like the following are not uncommon:

     “I offer my plantation for sale. Also twenty fine acclimated negroes. O. B. COBB.” (Vicksburg Reg., Dec. 27th, 1838.)

     “I will sell my Old River Plantation, near Columbia,

in Arkansas; also one hundred and thirty acclimated negroes. BEN. HUGHES.—Port Gibson, 14th Jan.”

     ”PROBATE SALE.—Will be offered for sale, at public auction, to the highest bidder, one hundred and thirty acclimated slaves. G. W. KEETON, Judge of the Parish of Concordia, La., March 22d, 1837.”

     General Felix Houston advertises in the Natchez Courier, April 6th, 1838, “Thirty very fine acclimated negroes.” (See Jay’s View, pp. 98, 99.)

     Dr. Reed was correct in charging the murderous use of slave property to the principle or law of slave ownership, which constitutes what is called “the legal relation.” Such treatment maybe called an “abuse,” but is a result which will be almost certain to follow, where laborers can be owned and used, instead of being bargained with and hired. Even on the low ground of “consequences,” such a “relation” is to be condemned.

     2. Another prominent use of slave property, in the case of females capable of being mothers, is that of breeders of slaves. And if the tenure of slave property be legitimate, and the ownership valid, by what rule of law or of logic shall this use of slave property be condemned? The argument of Mr. Gholson, of Virginia, on that assumption, holds good. (See Chapter II.) If the owners of lands, of orchards, and of brood mares had a right to their products, why had he not a right to the products of the slave women he had purchased? Had not the Slave Code, the legislatures and the courts secured to him his

claim upon them as “chattels personal, to all intents, constructions and purposes whatsoever?” Might he not, with other great statesmen,* affirm that “that is property which the law declares to be property,” and that “two hundred years of legislation have sanctified and sanctioned negro slaves as property”? Did he not sustain to those women the relation of owner? And had not Doctors of Divinity, Northern and Southern, attested the lawfulness and the inno cency of sustaining the relation? And how could there be a relation without its implied rights? Thus fortified, was not his inference warranted by his premises, when he spoke as follows? (we quote again from his speech:)

     “The legal maxim of ‘Partus sequitur ventrem’ is coeval with the existence of the rights of property, and is founded in wisdom and justice. It is on the justice and inviolability of this maxim that the master foregoes the service of his female slave; has her nursed and tended during the period of her gestation, and raises the helpless and infant offspring. The value of the property justifies the expense, and I do not hesitate to say that in its increase consists much of our wealth.” (Speech in Leg. of Va.)

     The closing sentence indicates the extent and importance of this use of slave property. According to the estimate of Henry Clay as before cited, (Chap. II.,) this use (to “raise slaves” for the “Southern market”) is of more pecuniary value to “the farming portion

of the slave States” than all their agricultural operations!

     The value, indeed, cannot fall short of the receipts for exports of surplus slaves to the South. Professor Dew, afterwards President of William and Mary University, (Va.,) speaking of the slave-trade from Virginia, said: “It furnishes every inducement to the master to attend to his negroes, to ENCOURAGE BREEDING, and to cause the greatest number of slaves to be raised,” &c. “Virginia is, indeed, a negro-raising State for other States.” To which may be added the far-famed announcement—“The noblest blood of Virginia runs in the veins of slaves.”

     In the Charleston Mercury, the leading political paper of South Carolina, appeared the following advertisement:

     “NEGROES FOR SALE.—A girl, about 20 years of age, (raised in Virginia,) and her two female children, one four, and the other two years old—is remarkably strong and healthy—never having had a day’s sickness, with the exception of the small-pox, in her life. The children are fine and healthy. She is very prolific in her generating qualities, and affords a rare opportunity to any person who wishes to raise a family of healthy servants for their own use. Any person wishing to purchase will please leave their address at the Mercury office.”

     The coarseness of this language disgusts us, and so does the language of Mr. Gholson. But the facts involved differ nothing from the statements of Henry Clay, as quoted in our chapter on the Traffic in Slaves.

     And whoever will take up AND STUDY the judicial decisions cited in “Wheeler’s Law of Slavery” concerning “the increase of slaves,” will find that the newspaper advertisements of which we have furnished a specimen, are merely descriptive of a business recognized and protected as respectable, in courts of justice. And this remark will be found to apply not merely to the supply raised for the inter-State slave-trade. The litigation reported in Mr. Wheeler’s book under the head of “Increase of Slaves,” is mainly that which grew out of neighborhood transactions and the inheritance of slave property.

     And we have already, in discussing the nature of slave ownership, (Chap. I.,) taken occasion to quote from Wheeler’s Law of Slavery (p. 325) the express language of the judges, placing the issue of female slaves, when hired out for five years, upon the same footing, and to be awarded upon the same rules, as in the case of the increase of “brood mares” or other “female animals.”

     3. Another use of slave property (sometimes, probably, connected with the preceding) is indicated by advertisements of beautiful young mulatto girls for sale; and by the fact that these commonly command higher prices than the ablest male laborers, or any other description of slaves. A reputed daughter of Thomas Jefferson was said to have been sold at auction in New-Orleans for one thousand dollars. Many have been sold for $2,000. One young woman was sold at public auction to a rich young

planter for $7,500. It must be an able field hand that commands $800.

     Forced marriages of slaves with slaves, including second and third marriages after separations from former companions by sale, constitute a class of well attested facts. The Savannah River Baptist Association decided that in case of such separation of Baptist slave husbands and wives, it was lawful for them, without church censure, to form such new connections, “in obedience to their masters,” whose right to enforce such arrangements was thus tacitly acknowledged.

     Forced concubinage of slave women with their masters and overseers, often coerced by the lash, constitutes another class of facts, equally undeniable. Vide Weld’s “Slavery as it is,” p. 15. “Rape committed on a female slave is an offense not recognized by law.” (MSS. by Judge Jay.)

     Such facts, in their almost interminable varieties, corroborate the preceding, and illustrate the almost innumerable USES of slave property!

     4. Another use of slave property, and a very remarkable one, assures us that the Southern “owners” of this “peculiar” kind of property have ways of turning it to account that even Northern ingenuity could scarcely have devised, unless, indeed, it be a Yankee’s invention. Assortments of diseased, damaged, and disabled negroes, deemed incurable and otherwise worthless, are bought up, it seems, (cheap, no doubt, like old iron,) by medical institutions, to be experimented and operated upon, for purposes

of “medical education” and the interests of “medical science!” The Charleston (S. C.) Mercury, Oct. 12, 1838, contained an advertisement, by Dr. T. Stillman, on behalf of the “Medical Infirmary,” setting forth its objects, and closing as follows:

     1. TO PLANTERS AND OTHERS.—Wanted, fifty negroes. Any person, having sick negroes, considered incurable by their respective physicians, and wishing to dispose of them, Dr. S. will pay cash for negroes affected with scrofula, or king’s evil, confirmed hypochondriasm, apoplexy, diseases of the liver, kidneys, spleen, stomach and intestines, bladder and its appendages, diarrhœa, dysentery, &c. The highest cash price will be paid, on application as above,” (viz., “Medical Infirmary, No. 110 Church street, Charleston.”)

     5. It seems indeed difficult to foresee or imagine all the uses to which slave property may be put by the owner. “The slave is entirely subject to the will of his master.” He is supposed to have no conscience and no rights. What his “owner” commands him to do he must do. What he requires him to be he must be. What he chooses to inflict upon him he must suffer. He must never lift a hand in self defense. He must utter no word of remonstrance. He has no protection and no redress. This will more fully be shown as we proceed.

     The slave, however pious, and whatever his scruples, must do the work allotted to him—it may be the drudgery of a tippling shop, a gambling house, a brothel, or a den of counterfeiters or shop-lifters.

And he must witness in silence whatever he sees there, if it be murder. He cannot testify against a white man. He is merely property TO BE USED!

     6. A class of murders of slaves by slave masters may as well be put down in this category.

     The monster, Lillburn Lewis, nephew of Thomas Jefferson, who chopped in pieces a living article of slave property, in presence of his other slaves, only USED UP that article to awe the others into subjection, as he told them.

     But this was “an abuse” of the relation, a violation of the law! Perhaps it was. In words, the law prohibits the murder of slaves. How much it intends or effects, will be seen in another chapter.

     A slaveholder flogged a little slave girl, and put her feet in the stocks. She was found dead. A prominent lawyer, of a respectable family, was asked “whether the murderer of this little helpless child could not be indicted.” He coolly replied that “the slave was Mr. P.’s property, and if he chose to suffer the loss, no one else had any thing to do with it.” (Vide Weld’s “Slavery as it is,” p. 54.)

     The slave child was “property,” and had only been used!” It is believed that no record exists of a white man having been executed in the United States, simply for the murder of a slave.” (MSS. by Judge Jay.) In another chapter this point will be examined.

     Again we find the people to be no better than their laws. If these practices are to be considered unauthorized “abuses,” the people are worse than their laws, for they are practised with impunity.