question--ah! that, says the mouthpiece of the law, and the
representative of 'public opinion,' 'CANNOT BE TAKEN INTO
CONSIDERATION.' Protection of slaves by 'public opinion' among
slaveholders!!

The foregoing illustrations of southern 'public opinion,' from the
laws made by it and embodying it, are sufficient to show, that, so far
from being an efficient protection to the slaves, it is their
deadliest foe, persecutor and tormentor.

But here we shall probably be met by the legal lore of some 'Justice
Shallow,' instructing us that the life of the slave is fully protected
by law, however unprotected he may be in other respects. This
assertion we meet with a point blank denial. The law does not, in
reality, protect the life of the slave. But even if the letter of the
law would fully protect the life of the slave, 'public opinion' in the
slave states would make it a dead letter. The letter of the law would
have been all-sufficient for the protection of the lives of the
miserable gamblers in Vicksburg, and other places in Mississippi, from
the rage of those whose money they had won; but 'gentlemen of property
and standing 'laughed the law to scorn, rushed to the gamblers' house,
put ropes round their necks, dragged them through the streets, hanged
them in the public square, and thus saved the sum they had not yet
paid. Thousands witnessed this wholesale murder, yet of the scores of
legal officers present, not a soul raised a finger to prevent it, the
whole city consented to it, and thus aided and abetted it. How many
hundreds of them helped to commit the murders, _with their own hands_,
does not appear, but not one of them has been indicted for it, and no
one made the least effort to bring them to trial. Thus, up to the
present hour, the blood of those murdered men rests on that whole
city, and it will continue to be a CITY OF MURDERERS, so long as its
citizens, agree together to shield those felons from punishment; and
they do thus agree together so long as they encourage each other in
refusing to bring them to justice. Now, the _laws_ of Mississippi were
not in fault that those men were murdered; nor are they now in fault,
that their murderers are not punished; the laws demand it, but the
people of Mississippi, the legal officers, the grand juries and
legislature of the state, with one consent agree, that the law _shall
be a dead letter_, and thus the whole state assumes the guilt of those
murders, and in bravado, fl