soon as the blow was not to be
feared, then came the longing for liberty. If a slave has a bad master,
his ambition is to get a better; when he gets a better, he aspires
to have the best; and when he gets the best, he aspires to be his own
master. But the slave must be brutalized to keep him as a slave. The
slaveholder feels this necessity. I admit this necessity. If it be right
to hold slaves at all, it is right to hold{321} them in the only way in
which they can be held; and this can be done only by shutting out the
light of education from their minds, and brutalizing their persons. The
whip, the chain, the gag, the thumb-screw, the blood-hound, the
stocks, and all the other bloody paraphernalia of the slave system, are
indispensably necessary to the relation of master and slave. The slave
must be subjected to these, or he ceases to be a slave. Let him know
that the whip is burned; that the fetters have been turned to some
useful and profitable employment; that the chain is no longer for his
limbs; that the blood-hound is no longer to be put upon his track; that
his master's authority over him is no longer to be enforced by taking
his life--and immediately he walks out from the house of bondage and
asserts his freedom as a man. The slaveholder finds it necessary to have
these implements to keep the slave in bondage; finds it necessary to
be able to say, "Unless you do so and so; unless you do as I bid you--I
will take away your life!"

Some of the most awful scenes of cruelty are constantly taking place in
the middle states of the Union. We have in those states what are called
the slave-breeding states. Allow me to speak plainly. Although it is
harrowing to your feelings, it is necessary that the facts of the case
should be stated. We have in the United States slave-breeding states.
The very state from which the minister from our court to yours comes, is
one of these states--Maryland, where men, women, and children are reared
for the market, just as horses, sheep, and swine are raised for the
market. Slave-rearing is there looked upon as a legitimate trade; the
law sanctions it, public opinion upholds it, the church does not condemn
it. It goes on in all its bloody horrors, sustained by the auctioneer's
block. If you would see the cruelties of this system, hear the following
narrative. Not long since the following scene occurred. A slave-woman
and a slaveman had united themselves as man and wife in the absence of
any