The Rev. Robert J. Breckenridge, of the Presbyterian Church, himself a slaveholder, was a delegate to the State Emancipation Convention recently held in Kentucky. In a speech made by him before the Convention, he is reported to have said ("Louisville Examiner"), that--
"The system of slavery denies to a whole class of human beings the sacredness of marriage and of home, compelling them to live in a state of concubinage; for, in the eye of the law, _no colored slave-man is the husband of any wife in particular, nor any slave-woman the wife of any husband in particular; no slave-man is the father of any children in particular, and no slave-child is the child of any parent in particular_."
Who will venture even to conceive, much less compute, the deep degradation caused by the denial of marriage to the slaves?
"A negro speculator, or a _soul-driver_ as they are generally called among slaves."--_Wm. W. Brown's Narrative_, p. 39.
If we would most effectually degrade a man, we need only trample on the highest and holiest of all his rights,--his right to himself; we have only to make him the subject of barter and sale, a thing for speculators to make money on, for jockeys to deceive about, and for buyers to depreciate. And yet how few act as if they admitted this truth, or even faintly realized the enormity of this wrong!
Slaves, as subjects of property, are continually spoken of and treated as horses and cows, and other live-stock! Tens of thousands of advertisements might be adduced to prove this. We have room only for a very few proofs. The Civil Code of Louisiana provides:--
"Art. 2500. The latent defects of slaves and animals are divided into two classes,--vices of body and vices of character.
"Art. 2501. The vices of body are distinguished into absolute and relative....
"Art. 2502. The absolute vices of slaves are leprosy, madness, and epilepsy.
"Art 2503. The absolute vices of horses and mules are short wind, glanders, and founder."
In the "National Intelligencer" of May 2, 1843, the administrators of Alexius Boarman advertise for sale "twelve or thirteen likely young negroes, among whom are two carpenters; four head of horses, two yoke of oxen, several head of cows, all the sheep and hogs belonging to said deceased." The same paper of December 2, 1843, contains the following:--