that the
legal enactments for the government of the slave states of America have
been framed so as to vest in the proprietor as much control over the
lives and persons of those they hold in servitude as any animal in the
category of plantation stock. This in my tour through that region of
moral darkness and despair, the state of Louisiana, I had numberless
opportunities of observing, which would not fail to convince the most
sceptical; and if I have passed over many of these in the foregoing
pages, it is because the incidents themselves (though proving that the
slightest approach to independent action, or opposition to the depraved
wills of their tyrannical superiors, is at once visited with
consequences that make me shudder to reflect upon) were of too trivial a
nature to interest the general reader. I will, however, copy here an
extract from a paper published in Virginia, the _Richmond Times_ for
August, 1852, which must, I think, tend to remove any doubts, if they
exist in the mind of the reader, that the conclusions I have come to
from personal observation are correct, and sufficient to prove that the
despotic Nicholas of Russia himself does not exercise more absolute
control over the lives and liberties of the degraded serfs he rules,
than the slave-appropriators of America do over their victims.

The newspaper in question is a highly popular one with the
aristocratical slave-owners of Virginia, and the editor one of those
champions of the unjust and iniquitous system who invariably meet with
extensive patronage in every part of the southern states.

"A FIELD-HAND SHOT.--A gentleman named Ball, overseer to Mr. Edward T.
Taylor, finding it necessary to chastise a field-hand, attempted to do
so in the field. The negro resisted, and made fight, and, being the
stronger of the two, gave the overseer a beating, and then betook
himself to the woods. Mr. Ball, as soon as he could do so, mounted his
horse, and, proceeding to Mr. Taylor's residence, informed him of what
had occurred. Taylor, in company with Ball, repaired to the corn-field,
to which the negro had returned, and demanded to know the cause of his
conduct. The negro replied that Ball attempted to flog him, and he would
not submit to it. Taylor said he should, and ordered him to cross his
hands, at the same time directing Ball to seize him. Ball did so, but
perceiving the negro had attempted to draw a knife, told Mr. Taylor of
it, who immediately sprang from hi