passions, and then inquiring by what laws they are held
in check. Now, as to the laws, they amount to nothing, inasmuch as slave
evidence is not admissible, and the possibility of any oppression, even
to death itself, must frequently be, without any fear of punishment, in
the hands of the owner. If law, then, affords the negro no efficient
protection from human passions, where are we to look for it in human
nature, except it be in the influences of Christianity, self-interest,
or public opinion? The last of these, we have seen, is upon a
sliding-scale of an inefficiency which increases in proportion to the
necessity for its influence, and is therefore all but impotent for good.

Let us now consider self-interest. Will any one assert that
self-interest is sufficient to restrain anger? How many a hasty word
does man utter, or how many a hasty act does man commit, under the
influence of passion he cannot or will not restrain--and that among his
equals, who may be able to resent it, or in the face of law ready to
avenge it! How prone are we all, if things go wrong from some fault of
our own, to lose our temper and try to throw the blame on others, rather
than admit the failure to be our own fault! Without dwelling upon the
serious injury people often do to themselves by unrestrained passion,
think for a moment of the treatment frequently inflicted upon the poor
animals over whom they rule absolute. Is not kindness to a horse the
interest as well as the duty of the owner? and yet how often is he the
unfortunate victim of the owner's rage or cruel disposition, while
faithfully and willingly expending all his powers in the service of his
tyrant master! If these things be so among equals, or comparative
equals, and also in man's dealings with the lower orders of the
creation, what chance has the poor slave, with the arm of legislative
justice paralysed, and an arm nerved with human passion his only hope of
mercy?--for self-defence, that first law of nature, is the highest crime
he can be guilty of: and, while considering the mercenary view of
self-interest, let it not be forgotten that an awful amount of human
suffering is quite compatible with unimpaired health, and that a slave
may be frequently under the lash and yet fully able to do his day's
work.

The last influence we have to consider is indeed the brightest and best
of all--Christianity: high on the brotherly arch of man's duty to his
fellow-man, and forming its endur