The North-Carolina standard., 1845-10-22


ry of u0ivcs. ,.r :,
! And if 1 am answered with "What then
Admitting that there is wrong existing at home
does that excuse a wrong existing elsewhere p
l reply-IHts then; if there is slavery here, here
should be made your first efforts against it IHis
then; your labors at home will do more than
your labors abroad, for yon can sooner do right
yourselves than make others do so; more easily
control your own actions by reason, than the ac-
tious of others by reproaches and denunciations.
THIS then; if yourselves are wrong-doers, you
should first cease to be before asking others to
become good. THIS then clean hands look pref
tiest lifted up against the sins of Others and eyes
freed of beams see farthest into distant abomina-
tions. This then; ifthe home slavery is IRENE
diable, and The distant slavery irremedable also,
you will best learn the latter truth by contemplate
ing the former, and find, in the excuses you con,
trive for your own injustice, how to excuse The
injustice of others. u.-a-I <
To demonstrate precisely how far the marriage
relation in the most civilized countries reduces
woman to n state of slavery, my plan will be to
run parallel between the respective legal condi.
ticn of Northern Wives and Southern Slaves
Without vcnturing on precise definition OF
slavery, which might expose US to subtle cavilings
about words, shall content myself with assuming
that slavery IS a Privation Of right In running
the parallel, each Of the rights known to the law
will be separately named over, ard the extent to
which the slave and the wife respectively are de-
prved of it, will be considered The declaration
-of Am srican Independence enumerates three kinds
of natural rlghts-life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness. The law contempates all these, when
establishes the hts to be ABSOLUTE consisting
of personal security, personal liberty, and private
property; and rel0tire, consisting of the relations
of rulers and people, called public relations and
those between master and servant, husband and
wife, parent and child, and guardian and ward,
which are termed the private or domestic relations
Each OF these will be taken up. but in the order
best agreeing with the nature Of the subject.
To begin with what seems obviously to stand
first among human nights, that Of personal HJcr-
ty, or the unrestrained power of locomotion. OF
this both the slave and wife are entirely deprived
he must follow the person Of his master, and she
of her lord go at his bidding and come at his
call. The husband is vested with the custody Of
his wife's person. and may transport her wherever
he will. He may compel her to leave home, and
friends, and country, to GO and abide with him in
whatever disagreeable or dangerous locality;
and should she fly from him, be may pursue, seize
upon and forcibly bring her back, TO home, per-
haps, from which happiness has fled, there 10 re-
main his unwilling companion, and labor as he
shall direct in the menial drudgery of his house
hold; drudgery that has become disgraceful, be-
cause imposed upon a woman. True, he may not
actually mprison her TO enforce this right except
for good cause but in the language Of the law
the latest times, "the husband is in general en-
titled to absolute control over his wife's person."
and again, " He may, in the pcnilude of his pow
er, adopt any act of physical coercion which does
not cndanger the life or health of the wife, or
der cohabitation unsafe't The principle relat-
ing to personal chattles seems here TO prevail and
a man may stake his wife wherever he can find
her." Besides this extensive power of forcible
restraint, his control over her person is further
sustained by the provision, that if she departs
ganst his will, she thereby loses all claim upon
him for support, without, however, recovering
back her original right of supporting herself eth
er with her labor or her property. -. ......-.-
IF the slave, however, escape beyond the geo.
graphical limits of slavery his shackles fall, and
he becomes forever a free man not so with the
wife; wherever she may go. into whatever barba-
rous, haHcivilized or civilized regions, she still
finds her wifedom and his supremacy recognized,
and with stringent laws for the enforcing it.
Wherever man rules in his strength and woman
in her weakness obeys there must she submit her
self with docility to his hands. Or should she
fly TO the mountain or the desert, he follows her
still, carrying with him that superior force, the
real foundation of his power over her, ever since
the earliest savage smote and bound the first fc-
male he saw, and so made her his wife, down TO
the day when rope around the neck among the
vulgar, and ring upon the finger with the polite,
are the badges of her scrviLude. = r..
Personal security consists in the uninterrupted
enjoyment of life, limb body, health and reputa-
tion. '-E> ..|''' .f7 1870 81. 1852 ''t
Life. No husband or master may lawfully kill
either wife slave-the one is permitted to live
in serfdem, and the other in wifedom Ip the rude
old days of feudal England, when the strong gave
laws to the weak, in that collection of rules term
ed the English common law, to which, as to the
perfection Of reason, our, courts still bow; when
the rights and disabilities Of serfs and wives were
Instituted so closely alike that can doubt, but
not decide, which condition was the worst. it was
ordained that if either Of these should kill their
superior, it should be deemed kind of treason,
and burning alive be the penalty; while the kill
ling of eithe: by the lord husband was only ad-
judged simple homicide And the reason for the
difference given was that in the first kind of kill
ing there was involved also rebellion against the
authority of The superior. The impulses of hu-
manity, and the Influence of the church, in'course
of time gradually worked out the emancipation of
the ser but neither these nor the progress of en-
lightment, nor the spread of free opinions, have
vet srlfficed to bring deliverance to the woman. -
Limb. Neither slaves nor wives may lawful
ly be MANNED; both are fully under the protection
Of law so far as criminal Jurisprudence extends
BY the law. Of Levtcus if a man snlote out the
eye of his slave, he went free for his eyes sake,
By tardy Improvement of the law of divorce in
one of our States, wife may now obtain d.
vorce for her husbands sSnE0keroble erue1ty )"
and thus at last, may "a wife now go fFee, sfor