proportion to the freedom enjoyed by their
masters. In Greece, none were so proud of liberty as the Spartans; and
they were a proverb among the neighboring States for their severity to
slaves. The slave code of the Roman republic was rigid and tyrannical
in the extreme; and cruelties became so common and excessive, that the
emperors, in the latter days of Roman power, were obliged to enact laws
to restrain them. In the modern world, England and America are the most
conspicuous for enlightened views of freedom, and bold vindication of
the equal rights of man; yet in these two countries slave laws have been
framed as bad as they were in Pagan, iron-hearted Rome; and the customs
are in some respects more oppressive;--_modern_ slavery unquestionably
wears its very worst aspect in the Colonies of England and the United
States of North America. I hardly know how to decide their respective
claims. My countrymen are fond of pre-eminence, and I am afraid they
deserve it here--especially if we throw into the scale their loud boasts
of superiority over all the rest of the world in civil and religious
freedom. The slave codes of the United States and of the British West
Indies were originally almost precisely the same; but _their_ laws have
been growing milder and milder, while _ours_ have increased in severity.
The British have the advantage of us in this respect--they long ago
dared to describe the monster as it is; and they are now grappling with
it, with the overwhelming strength of a great nation's concentrated
energies.--The Dutch, those sturdy old friends of liberty, and the
French, who have been stark mad for freedom, rank next for the severity
of their slave laws and customs. The Spanish and Portuguese are milder
than either.

I will give a brief view of some of our own laws on this subject; for
the correctness of which, I refer the reader to Stroud's Sketch of the
Slave Laws of the United States of America. In the first place, we will
inquire upon what ground the negro slaves in this country are claimed as
property. Most of them are the descendants of persons kidnapped on the
coast of Africa, and brought here while we were British Colonies; and as
the slave-trade was openly sanctioned more than twenty years after our
acknowledged independence, in 1783, and as the traffic is still carried
on by smugglers, there are, no doubt, thousands of slaves, now living in
the United States, who are actually stolen from Africa.[J]

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