the object
of masters to employ those whom they think will get the most work out
of their hands,--hence those who _whip and torment the slaves the
most_ are in many instances called the best overseers. The masters
think those whom the slaves fear the most are the best. Quite a
portion of the masters employ their own slaves as overseers, or rather
they are called drivers; these are more subject to the will of the
masters than the white overseers are; some of them are as lordly as an
Austrian prince, and sometimes more cruel even than the whites."

That the overseers are, as a body, sensual, brutal, and violent men is
_proverbial_. The tender mercies of such men _must be cruel_.

4. The _ownership_ of human beings necessarily presupposes an utter
disregard of their happiness. He who assumes it monopolizes their
_whole capital_, leaves them no stock on which to trade, and out of
which to _make_ happiness. Whatever is the master's gain is the
slave's loss, a loss wrested from him by the master, for the express
purpose of making it _his own gain_; this is the master's constant
employment--forcing the slave to toil--violently wringing from him
all he has and all he gets, and using it as his own;--like the vile
bird that never builds its nest from materials of its own gathering,
but either drives other birds from theirs and takes possession of
them, or tears them in pieces to get the means of constructing their
own. This daily practice of forcibly robbing others, and habitually
living on the plunder, cannot but beget in the mind the _habit_ of
regarding the interests and happiness of those whom it robs, as of no
sort of consequence in comparison with its own; consequently whenever
those interests and this happiness are in the way of its own
gratification, they will be sacrificed without scruple. He who cannot
see this would be unable to _feel_ it, if it were seen.

OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED.

Objection I--"SUCH CRUELTIES ARE INCREDIBLE."

The enormities inflicted by slaveholders upon their slaves will never
be discredited except by those who overlook the simple fact, that he
who holds human beings as his bona fide property, _regards_ them as
property, and not as _persons;_ this is his permanent state of mind
toward them. He does not contemplate slaves as human beings,
consequently does not _treat_ them as such; and with entire
indifference sees them suffer privations and writhe under blows,
which, if inflicted upon whi