II.

(Book I. Chap. III. § 2, p. 78.)

THE HAPPINESS OF THE SLAVES. DIVERS FACTS AND TESTIMONY.

I. In the beginning of 1860, a meeting of slaveholders was held in Maryland, for the purpose of proposing a law to compel the free negroes to choose between again becoming slaves or quitting the territory. A Colonel Jacobs attempted to prove the danger of the presence of these free negroes, who number, in Maryland, one to five whites. The meeting resulting in nothing, the Virginia newspapers loaded Maryland with threats and abuse, and I read in one of these journals, The Southern Argus: "Henceforth we shall cease practically to regard Maryland as a Slave State. Politically, the State was long since lost to the South." Precious abuse, which is in our eyes a eulogy, and which I would gladly regard as a prophecy.

II. City Court of Brooklyn, before Juge Culver, 1859.

The Hon. E. D. Culver, City Judge of Brooklyn, rendered yesterday the following judgment:

"The plaintiffs declare and prove that the defendant, who is minister of a colored Episcopalian church in Williamsburgh, is guilty of bigamy, having two wives now living.

"The defendant offers in justification the following facts, the proofs of which he has furnished me.

"Warwick (the defendant) and Winnie (the plaintiff) were both slaves in North Carolina, but belonged to different masters. They agreed to marry in 1814, and were united by a colored Methodist minister. It does not appear that any permission was obtained from the County Court, as the laws of the State require, or from their respective masters. However this may be, Warwick and Winnie cohabited, and, in seventeen years, had twelve children. In 1828, Warwick became free, but continued to live with Winnie until 1831, when the law of the State, banishing all free negroes, compelled him to leave. After ten years' absence, he returned to North Carolina, found his wife, and took her again, but was forced by the sheriff to quit the State, in three days, under penalty of again becoming a slave. He

departed by the entreaty of Winnie, and came to Williamsburgh, where, in 1843, he regularly espoused his present wife. Winnie remained a slave until 1854, when she reached the North, and found her husband married to another woman. She reclaims her right.

“It is incumbent on the court to recognize that the plaintiff is honest, sincere, and a good Christian, having full confidence in the justice of her complaint. If she had quitted North Carolina with Warwick, or if she had obtained freedom before the second marriage of the latter, he would have been morally bound to regard her as his lawful wife, and this he admits. But hearing nothing from her, and having no reason to count on her being freed, he believed himself able to contract the second marriage in good faith.

"In these circumstances, being called upon to judge whether Warwick is guilty of bigamy, and whether the plaintiffs have proved that he has two wives, I have arrived at the following decision:

Considering that marriage is a civil contract, which requires in the contracting parties the capacity to contract it, that slaves cannot contract a regular marriage, and that cohabitation confers no right on them or their children; (Laws of Alabama, Maryland, and North Carolina.)

"Whereas the first marriage of Warwick was void in law, he was perfectly free, if he chose, to contract marriage with his present wife, and has violated no law in so doing;

"The plaintiffs, on the contrary, in accusing the defendant unjustly, have acted in violation of the law, and will be subject to damages, should they recommence the suit against the prohibition of the court. They are sentenced at present to pay a fine of $100. Sentence ordered for execution."

(Samuel L. Harris, for plaintiff. D. Parmenter, for defendant.)

Univers, Dec. 28, 1858. "Last month, a negro slave and his family were sold at auction in Washington itself, the Federal Capital of the American Union. Sambo Cuffee was Catholic, as well as his wife, and their three children under twelve years old, and their marriage was solemnized at St. Matthew's Church in Washington. But without heeding this marriage, the wife and three children were sold to a Methodist preacher, and carried to Louisiana, five hundred leagues from Washington. Sambo, who was infirm, found no purchaser in New Orleans, where robust negroes are alone in demand, and was sold cheaply to a Maryland planter. He will never again see his lawful wife and children, and the latter, in the hands of a Methodist preacher,

will inevitably lose their faith. The New York Freeman's Journal, which cites these facts, says that they are attested by the Mayor of Washington, who has given a similar certificate, rendering testimony to the good conduct and morals of Sambo and his family. There are laws in the United States, then, which authorize such iniquity! There are laws which deprive three million slaves of all authority over their children.

"C. DE LAROCHE-HERON."

The New Orleans Bee, Dec. 27, 1858, relates the following details concerning a fact which appears to have caused some sensation in that city.

"On Saturday morning, the Coroner concluded the inquest that he has been holding at the slave depot of R. W. Long, Gravier Street, on the body of the negress Eudora, belonging to Mr. Veau.

"A post-mortem examination of the body was made by Drs. Graham and Deléry, who declared that the woman had been whipped to death. "Dr. Graham deposed, that at five o'clock on Friday morning, he received a call from Mr. John T. Hatcher, who asked him to go to see a negress at the depot, who had gone to bed the night before in good health, and was found dead that morning; and that Hatcher confessed that he had punished her severely.

"R. W. Long deposed, that Mr. Veau had commissioned him to sell the negress; the latter ran away on the 6th instant, and was brought back by some person unknown to the witness. Mr. Long quitted the house early Thursday evening, and did not return until two or three o'clock the next morning. He learned of the death of Eudora before his arrival, and asked Hatcher whether he had whipped her; to which Hatcher made no direct reply.

"The testimony of Mr. R. Harvey proves that a man named Antonio brought the slave back at seven o'clock on Thursday evening. At nine o'clock, the negress went to bed; a few minutes after, Hatcher went up-stairs, and came down again, accompanied by Eudora; he questioned her, then again went up-stairs, telling a boy to follow him. He did not come down again until half past ten o'clock, during which time, the witness on the first floor heard the sound of the whip. Hatcher then went out, and the witness called the boy to shut the doors; receiving no answer, he went up stairs to the third story, and on entering a room, saw the negress stretched on the floor, and asked her why she did not go to bed. She answered that her strength had

left her, and asked to drink. Witness gave her some water, and had her carried to bed, in the second story. She added that Hatcher had whipped her. Mr. Harvey deposed that the cracking of the whip was heard during about an hour and a half, with one interruption of five or six minutes.

"The verdict of the jury declared that the negress died under a punishment inflicted upon her while in the immediate charge of John T. Hatcher.

"Hatcher disappeared on Friday evening, and has not yet been arrested. The Coroner declares him guilty of murder."

,

Extract from a Letter of Mgr. one of the Catholic Bishops of the United States, July 14, 1860.

"There is reason to believe that the activity of this hideous commerce in negro flesh is great. The Island of Cuba, with Florida, and the other Southern States of the American Union, are in need of hands for their vast uncultivated lands, to raise sugar and cotton. It is believed that the negroes alone can resist labor under the burning sun of our climate during the summer. Thence comes this demand for negro slaves, whose price has risen to a degree to stimulate the cupidity of traders. A negro in good condition sells as high as $2,000; young children even sell at from $800 to $1,000, according to their size and strength; at such prices a cargo of these unhappy beings brings an immense sum, and the traders think little of wrecking their vessels on the coasts and losing them, provided they can dispose of their prisoners without being surprised by the officers of government.

"The negroes are to me the subject of the saddest reflections and the most painful anxieties. They form nearly half the population of Florida; and, alas! how few among them are on the way to save their souls! What is my anguish on the subject! They belong to masters who, for the most part, see in them only machines fit to work the land, and gather in sugar and cotton. It is not their physical discomfort in this world which afflicts me and causes my anxiety; many form an exaggerated idea of their bodily sufferings, yet it is doubtless true that in some cases these sufferings are of a nature to move the most pitiless heart; but after all, these cases are tolerably rare, for there are few masters systematically barbarous, and at the bottom they are better off physically as slaves than as freemen. But it is their spiritual misery which grieves me to the utmost. Marriage is scarcely known among

them; the masters attach no importance to it. We can judge of the disorders which must result from such a state of things in a race greatly addicted to the pleasures of the senses. There is no religion to restrain the unbridled license of earthly desires, and, what is worse, no means, or almost none, of destroying this ignorance. The masters do not care to have their slaves taught. In general, they consider them more useful in proportion as they are less instructed. In some States, those who teach them to read are punished with death. In the same manner, many masters do not wish their negroes to hear preaching, for fear of giving them ideas which they are very glad to banish from their minds. We can do nothing at present but pray for the salvation of these negroes, and hope that Divine Providence may shape some circumstance favorable to their instruction and religious amelioration, that the kingdom of heaven may be as near to them as to the other races of the human family."

III.

AMERICAN BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SLAVERY.

I NEED not quote the celebrated works of the historians, political philosophers, economists, travellers, and littérateurs, French and English, who, in the steps of M. de Tocqueville, have made the United States known to Europe. I believe it useful only to present a list of some few of the special books written in America, some for, and others against slavery, which I have been able to procure.

BARNES (ALBERT). Inquiry into the Scriptural View of Slavery.

1846.

BRISBANE (W. H.). Slaveholding examined in the Light of the Bible.

BROWNLOW and PRYNE. Ought American Slavery to be Perpetuated? Philadelphia. 1858.

CHANNING. Slavery. Translated into French, with his Letter to Mr. Clay, on the Annexation of Texas. By M. Edouard Laboulaye, of the Institute.

COURCY (H. DE). The Catholic Church in the United States. New York. 1857.