The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1852-10-21
THE NATIONAL. ERA, WASHINGTON d. C, OCTOBER o. 1852

challenge the Courier and Enquirer to produce
a single case from the judicial records Oh the
South. in which a white man has been convict
ed of the murder of slave and hung. III any
Southern friend will furnish us with an anthem
tic account of any such case, we will promptly
publish it. The truth is, without this dread
power of life and death held in reserve, to be
used TO enforce submission when other means
fail slavery could not exist.
Let us repeat, for it is important to guard
against misrepresentation on this subject Mrs
Stowe does not give these extreme cases to show
how masters commonly manage their slaves,
but to exhibit the fearfully irresponsible pow
err with which the system of slavery clothes
them.
The Courier and Enquirer rashly presumes to
question what Mrs Stowe has to say of another
incident of slavery" the separation of fami-
lies!' This is too bad. Every Southern man
knows that this is one of the most lamentable
adjuncts of the Slave system, and every kind
hearted STAKEHOLDER freely admits its cruelty.
Our own experience in this District would fur
nish a most painful record Of cases of this kind.
1t was but the other day that distracted ia
Their applied to us for aid, to rescue from the
slave pen his only daughter, good-looking
girl of seventeen, who had been sold by a cti-
zen of Georgetown, to the trader, for transport
alton to the South This is one of a score Of
similar cases which have come under our OBJ
servation And by what miserable bubble
the Courier and Enquirer attempts to discredit
Mrs. Stoves representations on this subject
A part Of the story hinges upon the sale in
Louisiana of the child of Eliza eight or nine
years old, when the truth is exclaims the Cou-
rier triumphantly, the law there expressly pro-
hibits the sale Of children who shall not have
attained the full age of ten years" And be-
cause Mrs. Stowe was not aware of the i'm
pOrtant fact that child cannot be sold in one
State of this Union from its mother till it il
over ten years of age, the Courier would have
the world believe that Slavery never leads to
the separation of families
Now, let us inform this astute critic that in
several Legislatures of the South, so prevalent
is this evil, and 30 painful even to Shareholders,
the proposition has been made to prohibit by
law the sale of slaves except in families; and at
one time it was seriously contemplated by some
of the most distinguished statesmen of the
South, to propose this measure, as one of a Sc
ries designed to mitigate the severity of the
slave system
What the Courier says of the religious
privileges of slaves is simply exaggerated
The laws Of the slave States prohibit them
being taught to read, or discountenance their
education. The religious instruction they re-
ceive is oral and on the insuficiency of
such teaching, Professionalism has long since
passed its judgment. AS to the attendance
Of slaves in Southern congregations being
more common than the attendance of free
'olored persons in Northern congregations, the
reason is that it is the policy of the slave
States to discourage the separate assemblies of
the negroes, except under the most rigorous
The simple fact that, as class,
slaves cannot read, and know nothing of the
Bible except from oral teaching and that, near
" always above their comprehension when in
attendance on the churches of the whites
shows that they must be sadly deficient in re-
igous education. To say that many of them
are regular communicates, is little to the pur-
pose, so long as their religion consists rather
n animal iervor and social excitement, than in
my Intelligent understanding of their moral
and in consistent well-regulated
principle.
But we take great pleasure in expressing the
belief that the Christian people of the South
are more alive now than formerly to the spirit
ual wants Of the slave population, and that
means for their instruction have of late greatly
multiplied. One might infer from the hatter-
ing picture in the Courier that there was
little necessity for this; but the religious bodies
of the South differ on this point from that
Journal
Having disposed of the statements of the
Courier and Enquirer let us examine it's views
in relation to the nature of slavery and its re-
sponsibilities
"The peculiar falsty of this book, says that
paper, consists in making exceptional or i'm
possible cases the representatives of the sys-
TEN. BY the same process which she has
used, it would not be difficult to frame fatal
argument against the relation Of husband and
wife, or of parent and child, or of guardian
and ward; for thousands of wives and chill
dren and wards have been mal-treated, and
even murdered It is wrong unpardonably
wrong, to impute to any relation of life those
enormites which spring only out of the worst
depravty of human nature"
Again: he says Mrs Stowe has slandered
Shareholders "by attaching to them, as slave
holders, in the eye Of the world, the guilt of the
abuses of an institution Of which they are alb
solutely guiltess"
We are compelled to infer, from these ex-
pressions of opinion, that the editor of the Cou-
rier and Enquirer regards the relation ofslavery
as a legitimate relation, in the same sense in
which the relations of parent and child, hus-
band and wife, guardian and ward, are legti-
mate and that the evils of Slavery are not
necessary or natural Incidents
The relation of parent and child is a natural
and necessary relation, indispensable to the
preservation of the individual, the perpetuation
of the species, and the order of society. 1t is
an institution of Ne ture recognised and guarded