These
are the necessary and unvarying accompaniments of the system.
Wherever slavery is found, these horrid instruments are also
found. Whether on the coast of Africa, among the savage tribes,
or in South Carolina, among the refined and civilized, slavery is
the same, and its accompaniments one and the same. It makes no
difference whether the slaveholder worships the God of the
Christians, or is a follower of Mahomet, he is the minister of
the same cruelty, and the author of the same misery. _Slavery_
is always _slavery;_ always the same foul, haggard, and damning
scourge, whether found in the eastern or in the western
hemisphere.
There is a still deeper shade to be given to this picture. The
physical cruelties are indeed sufficiently harassing and
revolting; but they are as a few grains of sand on the sea shore,
or a few drops of water in the great ocean, compared with the
stupendous wrongs which it inflicts upon the mental, moral, and
religious nature of its hapless victims. It is only when we
contemplate the slave as a moral and intellectual being, that we
can adequately comprehend the unparalleled enormity of slavery,
and the intense criminality of the slaveholder.
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