Esther Copley

“ In this case, no man is benefited by the privation of another, any farther than all are seemed against injury. This, therefore, can never account for the origin of slavery, which is one man usurping dominion over another for his own advantage, and to the injury of the person he oppresses. No. The origin of slavery can be found no where but in human depravity: the selfishness, hardness, and cruelty of the human heart, which prompt a man to pursue his own interests, though he sacrifices the welfare and the rights of others ”

“ As to the slave, the natural tendency of the oppression he endures, is to degrade and debase him below his natural level. He is treated as a machine, to be worked by force; this represses his energies, and promotes indolence, stupidity, and craft. He does nothing but what he is compelled to do: his ingenuity is employed, not in improving himself, or benefiting his master, but in contriving to evade the imposition of labour, or the infliction of punishment. ”

“ But we cannot thus account for slavery. God never gave to any one human being this absolute authority over another: there is nothing in the nature and constitution of society to require or justify it, nor can it exist without setting at nought all just laws, human and divine.—" God has made of one blood all nations of men to dwell upon the face of the earth; and he has given to every man certain natural rights, which another man cannot have a right to take from him. ”

“ But the slave is deprived of them all. He is not allowed to act as a free agent, and he ceases to consider himself responsible. The law of his master is often set against the laws of nature, and of God: thus, the sense of right and wrong is confounded in the mind of the slave. He has nothing to hope for as the reward of exertion; for, whatever he acquires, is the property of another. Domestic life loses its endearing ties, for he must not regard even his wife and children as his own: he may, in a moment, be separated from them by the will of a tyrant. ”

“ Then, in England, the apprentice learns a trade, by which he hopes, in future, to obtain a living and support a family; and the servant is encouraged in his labour by the hope of gaining and saving property for his future use and comfort. It is truly gratifying to a benevolent master to know, that his thrifty servant or apprentice has a little fund in the Savings' Bank; but not so with the poor slave. However industrious and ingenious he may be, all his earnings are not for himself, but for his master. ”

“ If liberty is the birthright of every human being, in what manner have persons become slaves? This is a very natural question. We should think liberty so dear a blessing, that every one would most strenuously maintain and defend it, and watch against every thing that might endanger it. Fellow feeling, we should think, would also prompt every man to defend this sacred right of his neighbour against encroachment; and that, if an attempt should be made to enslave one man, the whole neighbourhood would rise to defend or rescue him ”

“ The laws of God and man protect it; and, if the will' of the parents is to do ill by their child, the will of the law is that they shall suffer for it. But all this is very different from slavery. The master is not entrusted with the slave by any law of God or nature; there is no tie of affection to bind them to each other, and to secure the wise, and kind, and beneficial exercise of authority on the part of the master, or to bind the slave to willing and cheerful obedience. Then again, it is not the good of the slave that the master has in view in the relation, but his own profit. ”

“ Before we pass on to another section, it may not be amiss to remind the young reader, that every instance of childish violence and oppression springs from the very same source as slavery. The stronger child who beats a weaker child, or snatches from him a toy or cake, discovers the dispositions that would lead him, in maturer years, if opportunity offered, to be the cruel tyrannical slave-master. ”

“ More than this, however kind the master may be, if he should happen to be unfortunate and poor, the slave, and all he has, may be sold for the payment of his master's debts; and under a new master he may be overworked, and beaten, and starved, even to death, and no one to take his part, or restrain his cruel oppressor.
Even a prisoner in England is better off than a slave. He may, for his crimes, be separated from society, confined in a prison, kept to hard labour, and fed upon bread and water ”

“ By the habitual sight of human beings in a state of degradation and misery, (and such must be a state of slavery at the best,) his heart will insensibly become hardened, and he will cease to feel compassion for the sufferings of his fellow man: his temper will become irritable and turbulent, and his passions will rage without controul. ”

“ He dares not keep him in prison a day longer than the appointed time, or make him suffer any hardship or privation beyond what his sentence directs: and, lest one man, being put in trust, might be tempted to be cruel and tyrannical to those under his care, there are many magistrates appointed in every county, whose duty it is to inspect prisons, and take care that prisoners are treated with justice and humanity by inferior officers. In a land of liberty, there is no such thing known, as "the entire subjection of one human being to the will of another;" ”

“ To such slaves as have been expatriated, nothing could do away the bitter recollection of original injury; and even of those who never knew any other lot than that of slavery, the more their minds were enlightened by knowledge, the more keenly would they feel the degradation connected even with the name ”

“ In accordance with these established axioms of sacred truth, as far as our little influence is concerned, we have suffered the names of the perpetrators of particular instances of cruelty and oppression to sink in silence and oblivion; but we will endeavour to collect at least the names of those who have distinguished themselves as the advocates of suffering humanity, and whose names ought to pass with honour down the stream of time. ”

“ The apprentice may appeal, or his parents may appeal on his behalf. Each party has a hold on the other. Besides, however unkind the master may be, or however uncomfortable the apprentice may find his situation, he has, at least, the comfort of knowing, that it is but for a limited time, and the moment the period of his indenture expires, he is as free as if he had never been bound.
A servant is subject to the will of his master, but on a very different footing from a slave. ”

“ The parents are entrusted with it as a charge from God, and are prompted by natural affection to use it kindly and tenderly. If they are good parents, they have always two things in view,—the commands of God, and the welfare of the child. As the child becomes capable of understanding, they govern it by reason, rather than by force, and endeavour gradually to fit it to govern and take care of itself. While it is entirely dependent on them, they supply all its real wants to the utmost of their ability: they require of it only what is just and reasonable ”

“ Nature could do no more. The blood gushed from his nostrils and mouth, as if rushing from the terrors of the conflict within; and, amid the confusion occasioned by this circumstance, the vessel bore off his family for ever from the island! ”

“ Nothing can forfeit them but an infringement on the rights of others. Thus, it may be necessary to deprive a madman, or a murderer, of his liberty, to prevent his depriving others of their lives. But the authority to do this is not given to any man as an individual, but to the whole community, or to the magistrate, as the representative of the whole. ”

“ As to the master, the exercise of uncontrolled power can scarcely fail to render a man overbearing and tyrannical. The very sight of a number of beings wholly subservient to his will and pleasure, will foster the pride and selfishness of the human heart. The man will imagine himself a very elevated being, and forget the claims of his fellow-creatures upon him. ”

“ These results have been strikingly seen in individuals, who before their connexion with slavery, were manly, generous, and humane; but who, under the influence of that wretched system, have gradually sunk into callousness and cruelty, of which, if a few years before, the horrid picture had been presented to them, they would have indignantly exclaimed, "Is thy servant a dog, that he should do these things?" ”

“ A master of slaves exercised his barbarities on a sabbath morning, while we were worshiping God in the chapel, and the cries of the female sufferers have frequently interrupted our devotions; but there was no redress for them or for us. This man wanted money; and one of the female slaves having two fine children, he sold one of them, and the child was torn from her maternal affection. In the agony of her feelings she made a hideous howling, and for that crime was flogged. ”

“ Children born of parents in a state of slavery, being destitute of the means of claiming the native liberty of man, have inherited the slavery of their parents, and become the property of their possessor ”

“ Then again, the master is bound as well as the apprentice,—bound to teach him his trade, and to allow him sufficient food, or pay him wages as agreed upon; and, if the master should starve, or ill use his apprentice, or require from him an unreasonable degree or duration of labour, or withhold the wages promised, the master is as liable to be taken before a magistrate, and compelled to do his duty, as the apprentice would be if he were lazy or disobedient. ”

“ There have been some honourable instances of persons coming involuntarily into the possession of slave plantations, who, perhaps, had not duly considered the real and unimproveable nature of the system, or who found it impracticable to fulfil their humane wishes, in altogether abolishing it even on their own estates, but who rendered it as tolerable as possible by their humane attention to the comfort of their slaves ”

“ Perhaps rather more so; for in England, a man who starves or ill uses his cattle, is disliked and despised by his neighbours, and may be punished by the law of the land; but, where slavery is common, the ill treatment of slaves is little regarded. ”

“ With inexpressible pleasure we turn to this more delightful page of the subject, and though we have yet many weary steps to travel before we reach the goal, they will, we trust, be pursued with interest and enlivened by expectation. ”

“ The master, also, fixes the subsistence, or means of obtaining a subsistence, which shall be given in return. It is also in the power of the master to inflict on the slave any severity he may think necessary, in order to make him perform the task required, or any sort or degree of punishment for failing to -perform it, or otherwise incurring the displeasure of his master. The master, also, claims as his property the children of his slaves, and is at liberty to send them where, and employ them how he pleases ”

“ On such estates the schoolmaster and the christian missionary have been encouraged, the negro has been elevated in the scale of society, he has had something worth living and labouring for, and something that could exalt and compose his mind in the prospect of death. These instances have occurred, and they have reduced slavery, especially in the case of those born on the estate, to little more than a name, and it has generally proved, that slaves thus humanely treated, have not been unworthy of the kindness shown them. ”

“ Captives taken in war have been either detained and employed as slaves in public works, or sold to individuals, or appropriated by the captors for their own private use, as any other part of the booty taken in war. Persons thus becoming slaves, have often been redeemed from captivity by a ransom paid by their friends; or exchanged for other captives, restored to their own country, and set at liberty. Debtors have sometimes sold themselves to their creditors, either for a limited time, or for life. A vast proportion of slaves have been made so by the treachery of man. ”

“ A few years ago it was enacted that it should not be legal to transport once established slaves from one island to another. A gentleman resolving to do so before the act came in force, effected the removal of a great part of his live stock. He bad a female slave, highly valuable to him, not the less so for being the mother of eight or nine children; her husband was the property of another owner in the neighbourhood: both of them were pious persons. ”

“ It is impossible to exercise an improper dominion over a fellow-creature, without sustaining a correspondent reaction of evil,—a weakening of moral principle, and a strengthening every corrupt passion and propensity. ”

“ In the year 1765, an African slave, named Jonathan Strong, was brought from Barbadoes by his master, who treated him very cruelly, particularly by beating his head with a pistol, which occasioned the head to swell, and afterwards produced a disorder in the eyes, and threatened blindness. ”

“ For, first, he is at liberty to choose his own trade and master, nor can he be bound to serve but with his own consent. It is usual for a youth who is about to be apprenticed, to try for a short time first, on purpose that he may be able to judge whether he shall be likely to be satisfied with the conditions of the place. ”

“ His will being law, he will, in all probability, acquire a habit of governing them by force, and will cease to deal with them by moral means. He will forget their responsibility and his own, when either would come in competition with his interest or his gratification. ”