INDIRECT INSTRUCTION.--NO LEGAL MARRIAGE OF SLAVES.
"Marriage unites all which ennobles and beautifies life."--_De Wette._
"Negro marriages are neither recognized nor protected by law."--_Rev. C. C. Jones._
Besides the direct instruction thus imparted to slaves, there is an indirect instruction much more powerful and effective in securing their degradation.
"Marriage," says De Wette, "is genuine only when single and permanent. It is then also the first and most important institution of human existence; the foundation of all civilization and culture; the root of church and state. It is the most intimate covenant of heart formed among mankind; and thousands are first made aware by it that they have within them a nobler impulse and a nobler want than to labor, to acquire, and to enjoy. It is the union of manly strength with feminine gentleness; the tempering of masculine rudeness by female delicacy; and, for innumerable persons, the only relation in which they feel the true sentiments of humanity. It gives scope for every human virtue, since each of these is developed from the love and confidence which here predominate. It unites all which ennobles and beautifies life,--sympathy, kindness of will and deed, gratitude, devotion, and every delicate, intimate feeling. As the only asylum for true education, it is the first and last sanctuary of human culture. As husband and wife, through each other, become conscious of complete humanity, of every humane feeling and every humane virtue; so children, at their first awakening in the fond covenant of love between parents, both of whom are tenderly concerned for the same object, find an image of complete humanity, leagued in free love. The spirit of love, which prevails between them, acts with creative power upon the young mind, and awakens every germ of goodness within it. This invisible, uncalculated, and incalculable influence of parental life acts more upon the child than all the efforts of education by means of instruction, precept, and exhortation."
How true and yet how faint a picture of the vast influence for good of the institution of marriage! But if marriage thus unites all which it ennobles and beautifies life; if, as a means of education, its influence is uncalculated and incalculable, what must be the moral degradation of that people to whom marriage is denied? Must not the degradation also be uncalculated and incalculable? And yet such is the condition of the slaves! Not content with depriving them of all the higher and holier enjoyments of marriage, by degrading and darkening their souls, the slaveholders deny to their slaves even that slight alleviation to their misery which would result from their marriage-relations being protected.