d of
lightening his _natural_ burdens, it crushes him under a multitude of
artificial ones; instead of a friend to succor him, it is his
deadliest foe, transfixing him at every step from the cradle to the
grave. Law has been beautifully defined to be "benevolence acting by
rule;" to the American slave it is malevolence torturing by system. It
is an old truth, that _responsibility_ increases with _capacity_; but
those same laws which make the slave a "_chattel_," require of him
_more_ than of _men_. The same law which makes him a _thing_ incapable
of obligation, loads him with obligations superhuman--while sinking
him below the level of a brute in dispensing its _benefits_, he lays
upon him burdens which would break down an angel.

2. _Innocence is entitled to the protection of law._ Slaveholders make
innocence free plunder; this is their daily employment; their laws
assail it, make it their victim, inflict upon it all, and, in some
respects, more than all the penalties of the greatest guilt. To other
innocent persons, law is a blessing, to the slave it is a curse, only
a curse and that continually.

3. _Deprivation of liberty is one of the highest punishments of
crime_; and in proportion to its justice when inflicted on the guilty,
is its injustice when inflicted on the innocent; this terrible penalty
is inflicted on two million seven hundred thousand, innocent persons
in the Southern states.

4. _Self-preservation and self-defence_, are universally regarded as
the most sacred of human rights, yet the laws of slave states punish
the slave with _death_ for exercising these rights in that way, which
in others is pronounced worthy of the highest praise.

5. _The safeguards of law are most needed where natural safe-guards
are weakest._ Every principle of justice and equity requires, that,
those who are totally unprotected by birth, station, wealth, friends,
influence, and popular favor, and especially those who are the
innocent objects of public contempt and prejudice, should be more
vigilantly protected by law, than those who are so fortified by
defence, that they have far less need of _legal_ protection; yet the
poor slave who is fortified by _none_ of these _personal_ bulwarks, is
denied the protection of law, while the master, surrounded by them
all, is panoplied in the mail of legal protection, even to the hair of
his head; yea, his very shoe-tie and coat-button are legal protegees.

6. The grand object of law is