risoner for life on the plantation, except
when his jailor pleases to let him out with a 'pass,' or sells him,
and transfers him in irons to another jail-yard: this 'public opinion'
traverses the country, buying up men, women, children--chaining them
in coffles, and driving them forever from their nearest friends; it
sets them on the auction table, to be handled, scrutinized, knocked
off to the highest bidder; it proclaims that they shall not have their
liberty; and, if their masters give it them, 'public opinion' seizes
and throws them back into slavery. This same 'public opinion' has
formally attached the following legal penalties to the following acts
of slaves.

If more than seven slaves are found together in any road, without a
white person, _twenty lashes a piece_; for visiting a plantation
without a written pass, ten lashes; for letting loose a boat from
where it is made fast, _thirty-nine lashes for the first offence_; and
for the second, '_shall have cut off from his head one ear_;' for
keeping or carrying a _club, thirty-nine lashes_; for having any
article for sale, without a ticket from his master, _ten lashes_; for
traveling in any other than 'the most usual and accustomed road,' when
going alone to any place, _forty lashes_; for traveling in the night,
without a pass, _forty lashes_; for being found in another person's
negro-quarters, _forty lashes_; for hunting with dogs in the woods,
_thirty lashes_; for being on _horseback_ without the written
permission of his master, _twenty-five lashes_; for riding or going
abroad in the night, or riding horses in the day time, without leave,
a slave may be whipped, _cropped_, or _branded in the cheek_ with the
letter R, or otherwise punished, _not extending to life_, or so as to
render him _unfit for labor_. The laws referred to may be found by
consulting 2 Brevard's Digest, 228, 213, 216; Haywood's Manual, 78,
chap. 13, pp. 518, 529; 1 Virginia Revised Code, 722-3; Prince's
Digest, 454; 2 Missouri Laws, 741; Mississippi Revised Code, 571. Laws
similar to these exist throughout the southern slave code. Extracts
enough to fill a volume might be made from these laws, showing that
the protection which 'public opinion' grants to the slaves, is hunger,
nakedness, terror, bereavements, robbery, imprisonment, the stocks,
iron collars, hunting and worrying them with dogs and guns, mutilating
their bodies, and murdering them.

A few specimens of the laws and the judicial d