r executors, administrators, and assigns, _to all
intents, constructions, and purposes whatsoever_."

We will glance at a few points of difference in their condition. 1st.
The German is capable of making a contract, and in the case supposed,
does make a contract; but your slave is incapable of making any
contract. 2d. The German receives wages; the price of carrying himself
and family being the stipulated price for his services, during the ten
years; but your slave receives no wages. 3d. The German, like any other
hireling, and, like any apprentice in our country, is under the
protection of law. But, there is no law to shield the slave from wrongs.
Being a mere chattel or thing, he has no rights; and, therefore, he can
have no wrongs to be redressed. Does Professor Hodge say, that there are
statutes limiting and regulating the power of the slaveholder? I grant
there are; though it must be remembered, that there is one way of even
murdering a slave, which some of the slave States do not only not
forbid, but impliedly and practically admit[A]. The Professor should
know, however, that all these statutes are, practically, a mere nullity.
Nevertheless, they show the absoluteness of the power which they
nominally qualify. This absoluteness is as distinctly implied by them,
as the like was by the law of the Emperor Claudius, which imposed
limitations upon the "jus vitae et necis" (the right of life and death)
which Roman slavery put into the hand of the master. But if the
Professor should be so imprudent as to cite us to the slave code for
evidence of its merciful provisions, he will, in so doing, authorize us
to cite him to that code for evidence of the _nature_ of slavery. This
authority, however, he would not like to give us; for he is unwilling to
have slavery judged of by its own code. He insists, that it shall be
judged of by that ideal system of slavery, which is lodged in his own
brain, and which he can bring forth by parcels, to suit present
occasions, as Mahomet produced the leaves of the Koran.

[Footnote A: The licensed murder referred to, is that where the slave
dies under "moderate correction." But is not the murder of a slave by a
white man, _in any way_, practically licensed in all the slave States?
Who ever heard of a white man's being put to death, under Southern laws,
for the murder of a slave? American slavery provides impunity for the
white murderer of the slave, by its allowing none but whites--none but