er, what would they
avail? ACTS constitute protection; and is that public sentiment which
makes the slave 'property,' and perpetrates hourly robbery and
batteries upon him, so penetrated with a sense of the sacredness of
his right to life, that it will protect it at all hazards, and drag to
the gallows his OWNER, if he take the life of his own _property_? If
it be asked, why the penalty for killing a slave is not a mere _fine_
then, if his life is not really regarded as sacred by public
sentiment--we answer, that formerly in most, if not in all the slave
states, the murder of a slave _was_ punished by a mere fine. This was
the case in South Carolina till a few years since. Yes, as late as
1821, in the state of South Carolina, which boasts of its chivalry and
honor, at least as loudly as any state in the Union, a slaveholder
might butcher his slave in the most deliberate manner--with the most
barbarous and protracted torments, and yet not be subjected to a
single hour's imprisonment--pay his fine, stride out of the court and
kill another--pay his fine again and butcher another, and so long as
he paid to the state, cash down, its own assessment of damages,
without putting it to the trouble of prosecuting for it, he might
strut 'a gentleman.'--See 2 _Brevard's Digest_, 241.

The reason assigned by the legislature for enacting a law which
punished the wilful murder of a human being by a _fine_, was that
'CRUELTY _is_ HIGHLY UNBECOMING,' and 'ODIOUS.' It was doubtless the
same reason that induced the legislature in 1821, to make a show of
giving _more_ protection to the life of the slave. Their fathers, when
they gave _some_ protection, did it because the time had come when,
not to do it would make them 'ODIOUS,' So the legislature of 1821 made
a show of giving still greater protection, because, not to do it would
make them '_odious_.' Fitly did they wear the mantles of their
ascending fathers! In giving to the life of a slave the miserable
protection of a fine, their fathers did not even pretend to do it out
of any regard to the sacredness of his life as a human being, but
merely because cruelty is 'unbecoming' and 'odious.' The legislature
of 1821 _nominally_ increased this protection; not that they cared
more for the slave's rights, or for the inviolabity of his life as a
human being, but the civilized world had advanced since the date of
the first law. The slave-trade which was then honorable merchandise,
and plied by l