presence of the convict who has served out his time in the penitentiary, of which class of persons, I take it, there are some in New England. Nay more; he may do it in the presence of his own wife; she can testify neither for him nor against him.

I remember being present at a lecture delivered before the Lyceum in Billerica, Massachusetts, some fifteen years ago, by John C. Park, Esq., of Boston, in which, speaking on this subject, he brought forward a supposed case, by way of illustration. A man had been murdered, and two brothers, A. and B. were arrested on the charge and brought to trial. The evidence, which was circumstantial, was very strong against them, but they undertook to prove an alibi. A. had been married but the week before, and B. was to be married the week after, to a sister of A's wife. B's betrothed was brought into court, and testified that on the evening in question B. was with her at her house, and he was accordingly acquitted. A's wife was ready to testify similarly in behalf of her husband, but her testimony could not be received, and as there was no other rebutting evidence, he was convicted and executed.

Here was a hard case, resulting from the bad working, in a particular instance, of a general rule, which the experience of ages and the collective wisdom of all Christendom have pronounced good. Yet I have not heard that any effort has been made to banish it from New England jurisprudence.

I have said that the wife can testify neither for her husband, nor against him. It is the same with the colored man; he can no more testify for the white man than against him. One white man may murder another in the presence of any number of colored men, provided there be no white. man present, without the possibility, so far as the testimony of eye-witnesses is concerned, of being brought to justice. The rule, therefore, operating not unfrequently to the pre

judice of the whites, we cannot for a moment suppose that it would have been adopted but on the most undoubting conviction of its necessity.

But suppose the rule were repealed and the testimony of the colored man admitted against the white; what weight would it have, think you, with the jury? What weight has the testimony of seamen with a Northern jury? Read the remarks on this subject in Appendix, H., and compare the sailor with the colored man, and the shipmaster in the merchant service with the slave-holder, and then say whether the repeal of the rule would be of any service to the negro? I trow not.

"I beseech you, pity the mother who has all your affections, and not one legal right to protect, guide, or educate the child of her bosom !" (19.)

Yes, pity her, but remember that in pitying her, you are pitying Mrs. Stowe, for she "has all your affections, and not one legal right to protect, guide, or educate the child of her bosom. Her husband has the power, by law, and if he were the man to do it, I beg his pardon for the supposition, for I know him, and there is not a kinder-hearted man living. But if he were the man to do it, he might take from her the child of her bosom and send it away where she would never see it again, at least while he was living; he has the legal right to do it, and it is the legal right that we are considering. As to the moral right, no one claims it on either side, that I am aware of, except in those cases where the mother is manifestly incompetent, from insanity, or other equally incapacitating cause, to have the charge of it.

I have now, I believe, gone through the whole list of the author's objections to the slave-code; I have taken up her allegations, one by one, and have shown that some of them have no foundation in fact; that others are against enactments which prevent more suffering than they cause; and

that the rest, with one exception, lie with equal weight against established laws and recognized principles of jurisprudence in the freest and most enlightened communities;-laws and principles objected to by none but the most ultra radical reformers,—the Garrisons, and Wrights, and Theodore Parkers, et id omne genus.

I say, with one exception. I refer to the separation of families; in regard to which I have, as I have already remarked, the authority of Mr. Pringle for saying that “it exists as yet more than is necessary to the system." (Slavery in the Southern States by a Carolinian, p. 32.) I know not whether he would agree with me, but, for my own part, I am fully convinced-and I have thought a good deal on the subject, and endeavoured to consider it in all its bearings,I say, I am fully convinced that, while for reasons already stated, (4.) the law should not prohibit the owner of slave families from separating them, except, as in Louisiana, in the case of mother and young child, still it ought not itself, by its own act, to separate them, except for crime; for there is a wide difference between doing the thing itself, and passively permitting it to be done, on the ground that interfering to prevent it would do more harm than good.

In Alabama, the law already requires, (see Appendix, E. 8,) that in all sales of slaves under civil process, they shall be "offered, and, if practicable, sold, in families; unless," &c. Now, the "if practicable" and the "unless," &c., should be left out, and the sale in families, (so far as the members belonged to the same owner,) be made imperative, including in the term "family," father and mother, unmarried sons under twenty-one years of age, and all unmarried daughters. If this were done by all the slave-holding States, as I am persuaded it might be, without any more serious inconvenience resulting from it, in the long run, than from the homestead-exemption law, a law which has its

inconveniences, but which is nevertheless demanded by humanity and sound policy, and is fast getting to be universal,—I say, if this were done by all the slave-holding States, it would take off the odium of the unjust separation. of families from the law, and leave it, (where it ought to rest,) on the shoulders of the individual slave-holder, who would in that case, soon find it a burden too heavy for him comfortably to bear.

NOTE 6. THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY.

Mrs. Stowe brings forward but two passages, I believe, that have, or are supposed by her to have, any bearing on the subject. The one, "Cursed be Canaan," &c., which she puts into the mouth of a pro-slavery clergyman, whom she represents as saying, (vol. i. p. 181,) "It is undoubtedly the intention of Providence that the African race should be servants," &c. But as I do not rest my justification of slavery on that passage, I do not feel called on to make any observations upon it. The other passage is, "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them;" and this passage she puts into the mouth of an anti-slavery clergyman: but what it has to do with the subject I can't exactly make out. Most men would like to be let off without punishment, if they had committed a crime; does it follow, therefore, that they should let off others? Such an interpretation of the text would strike at the foundation of all law. The passage, then, is not to be taken without limits, but is to have a common-sense application; and thus applied, I find a great deal in it against bad masters, (as against other bad men,) but nothing at all against masters simply so considered.

And it is the same with the entire New Testament. Not

F

a hint can be found in it, from beginning to end, that the Master was wrong in holding his slave in bondage,—that such holding was incompatible with the Christian character; on the contrary, its compatibility is expressly recognized, as we shall presently see; and yet our Saviour and his Apostles came continually in contact with slavery in its most aggravated form. In proof of this, if proof is needed, read the following admissions of the Rev. Albert Barnes, in his work against slavery, (p. 250.)

"All that the argument does require, whatever conclusion we may reach as to the manner in which the apostles treated the subject, is, the admission of the fact that slavery everywhere abounded; that it existed in forms of great severity and cruelty; that it involved all the essential claims that are now made by masters to the services or persons of slaves; that it was protected by civil laws; that the master had the right of transferring his slaves by sale, donation, or testament; that in general he had every right which was supposed to be necessary to perpetuate the system; and that it was impossible that the early preachers of Christianity should not encounter this system, and be constrained to adopt principles in regard to the proper treatment of it.”

And, again, page 251: "It is fair that the advocates of this system should have all the advantage which can be derived from the fact, that the apostles found it in its most odious forms, and in such circumstances as to make it proper that they should regard, and treat it as an evil, if Christianity regards it as such at all.”

And, again, pages 259, 260: "I am persuaded that nothing can be gained to the cause of anti-slavery by attempting to deny that the apostles found slavery in existence in the regions where they founded churches, and that those sustaining the relation of master and slave were admitted to the churches, if they gave real evidence of regeneration,