that if there is any fault in our criminal code, it is that of
excessive mildness.

Perhaps a few general facts will best illustrate the treatment this race
receives at our hands. It is acknowledged that it increases at least as
rapidly as the white. I believe it is an established law, that
population thrives in proportion to its comforts. But when it is
considered that these people are not recruited by immigration from
abroad, as the whites are, and that they are usually settled on our
richest and least healthy lands, the fact of their equal comparative
increase and greater longevity, outweighs a thousand abolition
falsehoods, in favor of the leniency and providence of our management of
them. It is also admitted that there are incomparably fewer cases of
insanity and suicide among them than among the whites. The fact is, that
among the slaves of the African race these things are almost wholly
unknown. However frequent suicide may have been among those brought from
Africa, I can say that in my time I cannot remember to have known or
heard of a single instance of deliberate self-destruction, and but of
one of suicide at all. As to insanity, I have seen but one permanent
case of it, and that twenty years ago. It cannot be doubted that among
three millions of people there must be some insane and some suicides;
but I will venture to say that more cases of both occur annually among
every hundred thousand of the population of Great Britain, than among
all our slaves. Can it be possible, then, that they exist in that state
of abject misery, goaded by constant injuries, outraged in their
affections, and worn down with hardships, which the abolitionists
depict, and so many ignorant and thoughtless persons religiously
believe?

With regard to the separation of husbands and wives, parents and
children, nothing can be more untrue than the inferences drawn from what
is so constantly harped on by abolitionists. Some painful instances
perhaps may occur. Very few that can be prevented. It is, and it always
has been, an object of prime consideration with our slaveholders, to
keep families together. Negroes are themselves both perverse and
comparatively indifferent about this matter. It is a singular trait,
that they almost invariably prefer forming connections with slaves
belonging to other masters, and at some distance. It is, therefore,
impossible to prevent separations sometimes, by the removal of one
owner, his death, or failure,