When a slave cannot be flogged he
is more than half free. He has a domain as broad as his own
manly heart to defend, and he is really _"a power on earth_."
While slaves prefer their lives, with flogging, to instant death,
they will always find Christians enough, like unto Covey, to
accommodate that preference. From this time, until that of my
escape from slavery, I was never fairly whipped. Several
attempts were made to whip me, but they were always unsuccessful.
Bruises I did get, as I shall hereafter inform the reader; but
the case I have been describing, was the end of the brutification
to which slavery had subjected me.
The reader will be glad to know why, after I had so grievously
offended Mr. Covey, he did not have me taken in hand by the
authorities; indeed, why the law of Maryland, which assigns
hanging to the slave who resists his master, was not put in force
against me; at any rate, why I was not taken up, as is usual in
such cases, and publicly whipped, for an example to other slaves,
and as a means of deterring me from committing the same offense
again.
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