law to protect them as man and wife. They had lived together by the
permission, not by right, of their master, and they had reared a family.
The master found it expedient, and for his interest, to sell them. He
did not ask them their wishes in regard to the matter at all; they were
not consulted. The man and woman were brought to the auctioneer's block,
under the sound of the hammer. The cry was raised, "Here goes; who bids
cash?" Think of it--a man and wife to be sold! The woman was placed
on the auctioneer's block; her limbs, as is customary, were brutally
exposed to the purchasers, who examined her with all the freedom with
which they would examine a horse. There stood the husband, powerless; no
right to his wife; the master's right preeminent. She was sold. He was
next{322} brought to the auctioneer's block. His eyes followed his wife
in the distance; and he looked beseechingly, imploringly, to the man
that had bought his wife, to buy him also. But he was at length bid
off to another person. He was about to be separated forever from her
he loved. No word of his, no work of his, could save him from this
separation. He asked permission of his new master to go and take the
hand of his wife at parting. It was denied him. In the agony of his soul
he rushed from the man who had just bought him, that he might take a
farewell of his wife; but his way was obstructed, he was struck over the
head with a loaded whip, and was held for a moment; but his agony was
too great. When he was let go, he fell a corpse at the feet of his
master. His heart was broken. Such scenes are the everyday fruits of
American slavery. Some two years since, the Hon. Seth. M. Gates, an
anti-slavery gentleman of the state of New York, a representative in
the congress of the United States, told me he saw with his own eyes
the following circumstances. In the national District of Columbia, over
which the star-spangled emblem is constantly waving, where orators
are ever holding forth on the subject of American liberty, American
democracy, American republicanism, there are two slave prisons. When
going across a bridge, leading to one of these prisons, he saw a
young woman run out, bare-footed and bare-headed, and with very little
clothing on. She was running with all speed to the bridge he was
approaching. His eye was fixed upon her, and he stopped to see what was
the matter. He had not paused long before he saw three men run out after
her. He now knew what t