nded property, but as a "chattel personal." Does this divest him of
his human character? Does this make him a _mere_ chattel? May the
slave, in consequence of such law, be treated as a brute or a tree? May
he be cut in pieces or worked to death at the will and pleasure of the
master?

"We think that a learned Senator, especially when he undertakes to
demonstrate, should distinguish between declaring a man to be "a chattel
personal," and a _mere_ chattel. No one doubts that a man is a thing;
but is he therefore a _mere_ thing, or nothing more than a thing? In
like manner, no one doubts that a man is an animal; does it follow,
therefore, that he is a _mere_ animal, or nothing but an animal? It is
clear, that to declare a man may be held as a "chattel personal," is a
very different thing from declaring that he is a _mere_ chattel. So much
for his honor's "precise authority."

In what part of the law, then, is the slave "divested of his human
character?" In no part whatever. If it had declared him to be a _mere_
thing, or a _mere_ chattel, or a _mere_ animal, it would have denied his
human character, we admit; but the law in question has done no such
thing. Nor is any such declaration contained in the other law quoted by
the learned Senator from the code of Louisiana. It is _merely_ by the
interpolation of this little word _mere_, that the Senator of
Massachusetts has made the law of South Carolina divest an immortal
being of his "human character." He is welcome to all the applause which
this may have gained for him in the "Metropolitan Theatre."

The learned Senator adduces another authority. "A careful writer," says
he, "Judge Stroud, in a work of juridical as well as philanthropic
merit, thus sums up the laws: 'The cardinal principle of slavery--that
the slave is not to be ranked among _sentient_[156] beings, but among
things--as an article of property--a chattel personal--obtains as
undoubted law in all these (the slave) States.'" We thus learn from this
very "careful writer" that slaves among us are "not ranked among
_sentient_ beings," and that this is "the cardinal principle of
slavery." No, they are not fed, nor clothed, nor treated as sentient
beings! They are left without food and raiment, just as if they were
stocks and stones! They are not talked to, nor reasoned with, as if they
were rational animals, but only driven about, like dumb brutes beneath
the lash! No, no, not the lash, for that would recognize them