It is utter nonsense to say that generosity of disposition is a protection against tyranny, where all the power is on one side. It may be, and it no doubt is so, in particular instances; but they must be exceptions to the general rule.
We all know that the Southerners have a high sense of what the world calls honor, and that they are brave, hospitable, and generous to people of their own color; but the more we respect their virtues, the more cause is there to lament the demoralizing _system_, which produces such unhappy effects on all who come within its baneful influence. Most of them may be as kind as can be expected of human nature, endowed with almost unlimited power to do wrong; and some of them may be even more benevolent than the warmest friend of the negro would dare to hope; but while we admit all this, we must not forget that there is in every community a class of men, who will not be any better than the laws compel them to be.
Captain Riley, in his Narrative, says: "Strange as it may seem to the philanthropist, my free and proud-spirited countrymen still hold a million and a half[T] of human beings in the most cruel bonds of slavery; who are kept at hard labor, and smarting under the lash of inhuman mercenary drivers; in many instances enduring the miseries of hunger, thirst, imprisonment, cold, nakedness, and even tortures. This is no picture of the imagination. For the honor of human nature, I wish likenesses were nowhere to be found! I myself have witnessed such scenes in different parts of my own country; and the bare recollection of them now chills my blood with horror."
[Footnote T: There are now over two million.]
When the slave-owners talk of their gentleness and compassion, they are witnesses in their own favor, and have strong motives for showing the fairest side. But what do the laws themselves imply? Are enactments ever made against exigencies which do not exist? If negroes have never been scalded, burned, mutilated, &c., why are such crimes forbidden by an express law, with the marvellous proviso, except said slave _die_ of "_moderate_ punishment!" If a law sanctioning whipping to any extent, incarceration at the discretion of the master, and the body loaded with irons, is called a _restraining_ law, let me ask what crimes must have been committed, to require _prohibition_, where so much is _allowed_? The law which declares that slaves shall be compelled to labor _only_ fourteen or fifteen hours a day, has the following preamble: "Whereas _many_ owners of slaves, managers, &c. _do_ confine them so closely to hard labor that they have not sufficient time for natural rest," &c. Mr. Pinckney, in a public argument, speaking of slaves murdered by severe treatment, says: "The _frequency_ of the crime is no doubt owing to the nature of the punishment." The reader will observe that I carefully refrain from quoting the representations of party spirit, and refer to _facts_ only for evidence.