Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1860-12-01

and the murder Of slaves by torture or otherwise
was not punished by tho laws till about the time
Of Constantine. 1t was question put for dispu-
tation, whether to tighten ship in a storm, one
should throw overheard horse or slave. Slaves
could have civil rights could not contract legal
marriage, had no power over their own property
In regard to punishments of all kinds, no distnc-
ton was made between male and female slaves
Besides the domestic and agricultural slaves,
were the gladiators. who were chiefly slaves and
were at times extremely numerous. The frequen-
cy and ferociousness of these exhibitions is indi-
Gated by the restriction imposed by Augustus, who
forbade magistrates to give shows of gadiators
more than twice year or of more than sixty pairs
at time. Julius Caesar exhibited q. once 800
pairs. jan exhibited them for 1913 DAYS in
succession. in the course which 10000 gladiators
fought. These horrid butcheres Of slaves, for the
amusement of the rich and dissoute, sufficiently
indicates tho cruel disposition Of the Romans and
the awful seventies Of the slave code under their
rule No wonder that human nature thus crushed
and suffering, sometimes reboled and seized the
reigns Of power Under the lead of gifted and
warlike spirts-and thousands of such were
among the Syrian and Grecian captves- s-insurrec.
tions were often made, and great number of the
masters and their families slain. In the year B,
c. 1885, the slaves in Sicily, to the number of
10000 headed by one Eunus-overpowere their
oppressors and kept the field for six years in spite
of all that Roman arms could do. In theig final
defeat 10000 slaves perishod.
In many particulars, the slavery of Greece and
Rome, it will be observed, was strikingly similar
to that in our own country. Slaves here have no
more of citizenship, no more rights of property,
no more Of protection in the marriage relation, no
more power over their children, than had the
bondman under pagan law. As to punishments,
the rice anG cotton plantations of the South have
hundreds Of overseers who answer well for Re-
man torturers; they have scourges fully equal to
the vine and chain; they have the brand, the crop
ped ear, the slit nose, the extnguished eye or bro
ken tooth, ,all marks Of the caprice and malice OF
irresponsible masters. The slave pens and auc-
ton blocks Of Virginia show hcartless contempt
for paternal and social ties, and the pleading ago
nies Of men and women, as did those at Delos. II
slaves in this country are not crucifed or thrown
from precipice, they are hunted with rifles and
torn By dogs for deser,ion. If under Roman law
the master had the power of life aud death over
his slave, in somc Of the Southern States the mar
der of slave is punished only with fiue, and if
slave die urder moderate correction, the master
is fully acquitted. For inhumanity, for barbarous
enac!ments, for the infiction Of wrong and suffer
ing, and death upon slaves, whether men or wo-
men, the eave codes of at least many of the
Southern States have nothing to boast over those
of pagan Greece aud Rome.
Evan tbo nh bor Il
Greece denounced a system 80 against reason and
conscience. Alcdmas wrote, "All come from
the hands of God; nature has made no man o
slave" Philemon says, Though he is a slave,
yet he has the Same nature with ourselves. No
one was ever born slave, though his body by
misfortune may be brought into subjection." Ar
istOtle makes slavery depend on superiority Of
character in one man over another. By this rule,
tens Of thousands Of slaves and masters in Greece
would have changed places, !Or noble Greeks, not
a few, were among the oppressed Athenans,
Spartens, LacedemoRians, Cretans, as we'll as
Scythians, Thracians, &c. Esop, AlcmAn, Epic
tetus, Terence, Plato and Diogenes took their turn
in slavery, while free figured ss brainless
demagogues, harangung in the forum, and squan-
dering the hard earned mouey Of their supetiors
in bondage. We doubt not that this reckoning
will suit the latitude of many southern plauta.
ton at the present day.
Was there ever such mOnstrous absurdity on
earth as slavery 1t was remark Of Homer,
that, Sin the day when Jupiter makes slaves OF
men, he deprives them of half their reason" Ho.
mer should have applied this to Shareholders, for
of all men, pagan or Christian, they most belle
reason and swallow contradictions. At the yery
time when Demosthenes was utterng his words
Of eloquence to a few thou sand free Athenians.
andstimulatng them to resist the aggressions of
the Northern tyrant, Philip, there were 100000
human beings in slavery around him, at tue mercy
of most cruel, heartess and despotc democracy.
This is simply an illustration Of what exists in our
own country, on a much broader scale, and thus it
turns out, that those who have been most jealous
OF liberty in their own persons, have been most
ready to take it from others.
But Greece was corrupted, enervated and sub
dued by her social evils. of which slavery was the
principal, and was finally swallowed up in the
Roman empire. Rome perpetuated this gigantic
evil, among others, till, on being exercised by
Christianity, she suffered prostration from which
it was impossible to recover WI ether it is to be
thus with our own Republican, a few short
years will determine
CHARGED WITH INcITING REBELLIoN.-A cores
pondent writes to the Petersburg Express, from
PittsylVania @, H. under date Of October 80 -