That there are grievous trials and sorrows, as well as
wrongs and violence, in the disposal of slaves, is known to all. As to
those who are to remain within the State, we are told to go, if we will,
and inquire into the history of slaves who are to be publicly sold, and
take the number of cases in which a wanton disregard of a slave's
feelings can be detected. An owner is compelled to part with his
property in his slave; or, the slave is taken for debt; estates are to
be divided; an owner dies intestate; titles are to be settled,
mortgages foreclosed, the number of the household is to be reduced; and
for these and numerous other reasons new owners are to be sought for the
slaves. Here is a man and his wife and children to be sold. There is a
general interest felt in arranging the sale so that the family may be in
the same neighborhood. This is for the interest of the owners; it
promotes contentment and cheerfulness in the servants. Cases of hardship
are the exceptions to the general rule in disposing of servants.
Admitting all that can properly be said of such cases, and of the
various other evils connected with it, the question recurs, What is to
be done but increasingly to mitigate the sorrows of the bondmen, to
cultivate a kind and generous disposition toward them, and to prepare
them, as far and as fast as the good of all concerned will warrant, for
any other condition which Providence may in time point out? My belief
is, that if you take four millions of laboring people anywhere under the
sun, and put down in separate columns the good and the evil in their
conditions, the balance of welfare and happiness, from the supply of
their wants, will be found to be greater among our Southern slaves than
elsewhere.
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