ndition of the slave; not only is he deprived
of the artificial safeguards of the law, but has none of those
_natural_ safeguards enumerated above, which are a protection to
others. But not only is the slave destitute of those peculiarities,
habits, tastes, and acquisitions, which by assimilating the possessor
to the rest of the community, excite their interest in him, and thus,
in a measure, secure for him their protection; but he possesses those
peculiarities of bodily organization which are looked upon with deep
disgust, contempt, prejudice, and aversion. Besides this, constant
contact with the ignorance and stupidity of the slaves, their filth,
rags, and nakedness; their cowering air, servile employments,
repulsive food, and squalid hovels, their purchase and sale, and use
as brutes--all these associations, constantly mingling and circulating
in the minds of slaveholders, and inveterated by the hourly
irritations which must assail all who use human beings as things,
produce in them a permanent state of feeling toward the slave, made up
of repulsion and settled ill-will. When we add to this the corrosions
produced by the petty thefts of slaves, the necessity of constant
watching, their reluctant service, and indifference to their master's
interests, their ill concealed aversion to him, and spurning of his
authority; and finally, that fact, as old as human nature, that men
always hate those whom they oppress, and oppress those whom they hate,
thus oppression and hatred mutually begetting and perpetuating each
other--and we have a raging compound of fiery elements and disturbing
forces, so stimulating and inflaming the mind of the slaveholder
against the slave, that _it cannot but break forth upon him with
desolating fury._

To deny that cruelty is the spontaneous and uniform product of
arbitrary power, and that the natural and controlling tendency of such
power is to make its possessor cruel, oppressive, and revengeful
towards those who are subjected to his control, is, we repeat, to set
at nought the combined experience of the human race, to invalidate its
testimony, and to reverse its decisions from time immemorial.

A volume might be filled with the testimony of American slaveholders
alone, to the truth of the preceding position. We subjoin a few
illustrations, and first, the memorable declaration of President
Jefferson, who lived and died a slaveholder. It has been published a
thousand times, and will live forev