be tortured, and even put to death, at the discretion of their masters. By a succession of edicts, which humanity, reason and policy dictated, and which were enacted by Claudius, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius, the jurisdiction of life and death over slaves was taken from their masters, and referred to the magistrate; and the Ergastula, or dungeons of cruelty, were abolished.b The personal servitude which grew out of the abuses of the feudal system, and to which the Germans had been accustomed, even in their primitive settlements, was exceedingly grievous; but it is not supposed to have equalled, in severity or degradation, the domestic slavery of the ancients, or among the European colonies on this side of the Atlantic. The feudal villein of the lowest order was unprotected in his property, as against seizure by his master, and was subjected to the most ignoble services; but his circumstances distinguished him materially from the Greek, Roman, or West India slave. No person, in England, was a villein in the eye of the law, except in relation to his master. As to him quicquid ac ▪ Inst. 1. 8. 1. Taylor's Elem. of the Civil Law, p. 429. By the lex Aquilia, passed soon after the era of the twelve tables, the killing of a slave by a third person, was put upon the same ground as the killing of a quadruped, and a pecuniary recompense was to be made to the owner. When a master was murdered by one of his domnestic slaves, all the slaves of his household at the time were to be put to death; and Tacitus gives a horrible instance, in the time of Nero, of the application of this atrocious law in the case of the murder of Pedanius Secundus, a man of consular rank, and who possessed 400 domestic slaves, who were all put to death, and with the approbation of the senate. Tacit. Ann. lib. 14. sec. 42-45. For the Roman law, see ibid. 13. 32. 1 Gibbon, ubi supra, p. 65. Inst. 1. 8. 2. Taylor's Elem. of the Civil Law, 433-435. The horrible cruelties inflicted upon the slaves, in ancient times, and particularly by the Romans, and the barbarous manners, and loss of moral taste and just feeling, which were the consequence, are strikingly shown and illustrated from passages in the classics, by Mr. Hume, in his very learned Essay on the Populousness of Ancient Nations. See a picture of the degradation and rigours of personal servitude among the Gothic barbarians of Gaul. Gibbon's Hist. vol. vi. p. 359–362, 8vo. edit. Robertson's Charles V., vol. i. note 9. *251 quiritur servo acquiritur domino. In villenage in gross, all acquisitions of property, real and personal, made by the villein, belonged to his lord. To all other persons *he was a freeman, and as against them he had rights of property; and his master, for excessive injuries committed upon the vassal, was answerable at the king's suit. So, also, the life and chastity of the female vassal, even of the lowest degree, were protected, (feebly, probably, in point of fact, but effectually in point of law,) by the right of prosecution of the lord, through appeal by or on behalf of the injured vassal.b Las Casas, the Spanish bishop of Chiapa, with the view of relieving the oppressed Indians from the most cruel and fatal slavery, and after all other expedients had failed, proposed to the Spanish government to substitute the hardy Africans for the feeble Indians. This was in 1517; and the Emperor Charles V. granted a patent to certain persons to supply the Spanish Islands with slaves. The importation of negro slaves into the Spanish colo a Co. Litt. 116, 117. 119. Villeins, says Lord Coke, 2 Inst. 45, are free against all men, saving their lord. The lord was indictable for maiming his villein, but the latter was not entitled to his appeal of mayhem, for he could not hold his damages if he received any; and for a similar reason, the villein could not have an appeal of robbery, for all his goods belonged to his lord. Litt. sec. 194. Co. Litt. 123. b. In the Anglo-Saxon period, the power of lords over their slaves was not quite absolute. If the master beat out a slave's eye or tooth, the slave recovered his liberty. If he killed him, he paid a fine to the king. L. L. Alf. Lamb. Arch. p. 17. At the time of the Norman conquest, the greater part of the land in England wes cultivated by slaves, and the free tenants were extremely few in comparison. Turner's Hist of England during the Middle Ages, vol. i. 135. The code of the Visigoths in Spain was honorably distinguished from the Salic law and other codes of the barbarians in the moderation of its provisions respecting slaves. By the Visigothic code the slave was allowed to acquire property and purchase his freedom, and it provided for his personal security against the extreme violence of his master. See the Fuers Juzgo as cited by Mr. Prescott, in his History of the Reign of Ferdinand & Ishabella, vol. i. Int. p. 35, note. b Littleton's Ten. sec. 189, 190. 194. Hallam's View of the Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 122. 124. vol. ii. p. 199. nies had commenced as early as 1501, and was continued under the sanction of the Spanish monarchs. Las Casas is said, therefore, to have chosen between two existing evils. He wished to eradicate the greater by resorting to the lesser.b Soto, the Dominican, and confessor of Charles V., and professor in the university of Salamanca, was a more consistent, if not a more illustrious opponent of slavery. He boldly attacked the African slave trade, from the very beginning of it, as iniquitous; and by his influence with his master, he procured an edict, in 1543, tending to mitigate slavery in the colonies.c *Sir John Hawkins was the first Englishman *252 who, in 1562, introduced the practice of buying or kidnapping negroes in Africa, and transporting and selling them for slaves in the West Indies. In 1620, a Dutch vessel carried a cargo of slaves from Africa to Virginia; and this, says Chalmers,d was the sad epoch of the introduction of African slaves into the English colonies on this continent. The Dutch records of New-Netherlands • Bancroft's History of the United States, vol. i. p. 182, 183. The Spaniards and Portuguese dealt in the traffic of African negroes, as slaves, even before the discovery of America. Ibid. vol. i. p. 178, 179. Irving's Life of Columbus, vol. iii. App. No. 26. Our learned and ingenious countryman endeavours to relieve the memory of this excellent man from reproach for this most reprehensible act, by showing the general benevolence of his motive. Bryan Edwards, in his History of the British Indies, vol. ii. ch. 2, spiritedly undertook the same task. • Dominic Soto's Treatise, De Justitia et Jure, and which very scarce book the author of a learned article in the Edinburgh Review, vol. xxvii. p. 230, had seen and read, is said to contain a strong condemnation of the African slave trade. Slavery existed in a very mild form among the Mexicans prior to the conquest of their country by Cortez. The slave was allowed to have his own family, to hold property, and even other slaves. Intermarriage was allowed between slaves and freemen. His children were free, for no one could be born to slavery in Mexico; an honorable distinction, says Mr. Prescott, (Hist. of the Conquest of Mexico, vol. 1. 37,) not known, he believes, in any civilized community where slavery has been sanctioned. • Political Annals, p. 49. allude to the existence of slaves in their settlements on the Hudson, as early as 1626; and slavery is mentioned in the Massachusetts laws between 1630 and 1641. Domestic slavery having thus inauspiciously commenced, it continued and increased throughout the United States when they were colonies of Great Britain. It exists to this day in all the southern states of the Union; but it has become extinct in New-York and the eastern states, and probably it is in the course of abatement and extinction in some others. In Pennsylvania, by an act of March 1st, 1780, and in New-Jersey, by acts of February 14th, 1784, and of the 24th February, 1820, passed for the gradual extinction of slavery, this great evil has been removed from them, and all children born of a slave after the 4th day of July, 1804, were declared free. In Massachusetts, it was judicially declared, soon after the revolution, that slavery was virtually abolished by their constitution, and that the issue of a female slave, though born prior to their constitution, and as early as 1773, was born free. But though this be the case, yet the effect of the former legal distinctions. is still perceived, for by statute, a marriage in Massachusetts between a white person and a negro, Indian or mulatto, is absolutely void.d In Connecticut, statutes were passed in 1784 and 1797, which have, in their gentle and gradual operation, nearly, if not totally, extinguished slavery in that state.e a Moulton's History of New-York, vol. i. p. 373. b Massachusetts Historical Collections, vol. iv. p. 194. The government and people of Massachusetts, in 1645 and 1646, resented the first importation of African slaves into the colony as a heinous crime. Winthrop's History, vol. ii. p. 245. 379, 380. Bancroft's History, vol. i. p. 187. • See Winchendon v. Hatfield, 4 Mass. Rep. 128, and Littleton v. Tuttle, ibid. note. d Dane's Abr. ch. 46. art. 2. sec. 3. Mass. Revised Statutes, 1835. This prohibition was repealed since 1835. In Virginia it is an indictable offence. 1 R. C. of Virginia, 275. • Reeve's Domestic Relations, p. 340. Statutes of Connecticut, 1821, I shall not attempt, nor have I at *hand the means to collect and review the laws of all the southern states on this subject of domestic slavery. They are, doubtless, as just and as mild as is deemed, by those governments, to be compatible with the public safety, or with the existence and preservation of that species of property; and yet, in contemplation of their laws slaves are considered, in some respects, though not in criminal prosecutions, as things or property, rather than persons, and are vendible as personal estate. They cannot take property by descent or purchase, and all they find, and all they hold, belongs to the master. They cannot make lawful contracts, and they are deprived of civil rights. They are assets in the hands of executors, for the payment of debts, and cannot be emancipated by will or otherwise, to the prejudice of creditors. Their condition is more anala p. 428. There were 25 slaves remaining in Connecticut in 1830. In 1774, the importation of slaves into that state was prohibited. In RhodeIsland no person could be born a slave on or after the 1st of March, 1784. In New-Hampshire and Vermont, slavery was abolished by their respective constitutions; and it was a fundamental, and declared to be an unalterable provision in the ordinance of congress of July 13th, 1787, for the government of the territory of the United States, north-west of the river Ohio, that there should be neither slavery, nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes. This provision effectually prevented the introduction of slavery into any of the states north of the Ohio, and included in what was then called the North-Western Territory of the United States. ■ Executors of Walker v. Bostick, 4 Dessau. S. C. Rep. 266. Brandon v. Huntsville Bank, 1 Stewart's Alab. Rep. 320. Pleasants v. Pleasants, 2 Call's Rep. 319. The State v. Philpot, Dudley's Geo. Rep. 46. Nancy v. Snell, 6 Dana's K. Rep. 149. Bricoe v. Wickliffe, Ibid. 165. Ibid 195. Fable v. Brown, 2 Hill's S. C. Ch. Rep. 396. Gregg v. Thompson, 2 Mill's Con. Rep. 331. Bland & W. v. Negro Dowling, 9 Gill & John View of the Laws of Civil Code of Louisiana, Laws of South Carolina, son, 19. Revised Statutes N. C. c. 89. sec. 24. Virginia relative to Slavery, Am. Jur. No. 13. art. 35. 173. Act of Maryland, 1798, ch. 101. Brevard's Digest, 229. In Louisiana, slaves are considered as real estate and descend as such, whereas in Maryland, Virginia, S. Carolina and Missouri, they are regarded as personal property. In Kentucky the law on his subject is anomalous. Slaves are for most purposes regarded as |