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1. Sketches of the history, ancient and modern, of Africa-of the progress of geographical discovery therein-of its productions, commerce, and future prospects; and of the manners, government, and arts of the negro race.

2. The history, character, and incidents of slavery among the ancients, with its decline and extinction among the moderns.

3. The African slave trade. Its history, character, and extent-Efforts that have been used for its abolitionIts present state; with its effect on the inhabitants of Africa.

4. The nature and character of negro slavery in the islands and on the continent of America-The internal slave trade within the United States -Laws and usages in relation to slavery, including those enacted for its extinction or melioration.

5. Principles of political economy, in relation to slave labour and consumption compared with free.

6. Biographical notices of negroes who have been distinguished for their virtue or abilities.

7. Plans for improving the condition of the slaves in the United States, with an account of experiments, on this subject, made by the holders of slaves.

8. View of the situation, character, and future prospects of the free coloured population of the United States.

In the collections which shall be made on these various topics, the works of the ablest writers among the ancients and moderns will be consulted; the narratives of travellers carefully examined; and such extracts made from the periodical works of the day, as shall appear properly calculat

ed to illustrate the subjects embraced by the plan. Measures are taken to establish an extensive correspondence with persons of intelligence and veracity, in this country and in Europe, from whose communications considerable assistance is anticipated.

The editor being anxious so to conduct his investigations, that such as differ from him in opinion may not be repelled by any appearance of severity or rudeness, from a calm and patient attention to the facts or argu ments adduced, every thing of a vindictive character will be carefully excluded from his columns.

It may be added that a rigid adherence to the order above exhibited in the arrangement of his subjects, is not intended, and that several of those topics will be brought into view in each of the successive numbers. the 12th number an index to the volume will be given.

CONDITIONS.

In

The work will be published in Philadelphia, on the first of each month, beginning with the Fourth month next, each number containing 32 pages printed in double columns.

The price two dollars per annum, payable in advance.

Such of the patrons of the work as may choose to withdraw their subscriptions at the expiration of the year, will be expected to give notice to the editor or his agent, two months previously; those who omit forwarding this notice will be considered as continuing their subscriptions, and their bills presented accordingly.

ENOCH LEWIS.

12th mo. 23d, 1826.

NEGRO SLAVERY.

In calling the attention of his fellow citizens to the momentous and delicate subject of negro slavery, the writer of the subsequent essays, though avowedly opposed to the system, has no disposition to treat with severity any, whose opinions may differ from his own, or whose practice may be at variance with the principles which he has been induced to espouse. His object is truth, and motive the cause of humanity.

When truth, and not victory, is the object of discussion, diversity of opinion, or variety of practice, furnishes no rational ground of jealousy or aversion. With minds not blinded by passion, the truth is often elicited by the collision of opposite sentiments.

There is probably no subject, either theoretic or practical, which more imperiously demands the serious attention of the people of these United States, than that of negro slavery,— none that presents a stronger claim to the exercise of the clearest understandings and finest feelings among us, to avert the dangers, or to mitigate the evils which this system leads in its train.

The people of colour, held in servitude within the United States, have become an important part of our population. Their numbers and physical force are rapidly increasing.

If any sections of our country, are, more deeply than others, interested in this subject, those where negro slavery is tolerated are they. To them the dangers, appalling as they are admitted to be, of an extensive slave population, directly and chiefly apply.

Circumstanced as we are, it is time to repudiate the bickerings of party, and cultivate sentiments of concilia

tion. In governments, as well as in families, strength depends upon union, and union on mutual confidence and reciprocal condescensions.

This subject presents several questions of vital importance which merit a serious and patient investigation.

First.-What is Negro Slavery?

Negro Slavery as existing in the United States and British West Indies, appears to be a creature sui generis unknown to the ancients, and though drawn from the least cultivated quarter of the globe, unknown even there, except in a passing state.

The most prominent feature in this system, by which it is distinguished from all its precursors, has been stamped by the hand of nature. The subjects of it bear in their persons the insignia of their servile condition. This circumstance, though apparently trivial, and certainly no very conclusive evidence of the moral rectitude of slavery, may, perhaps, be found, upon examination, the principal cause of most of the other peculiarities by which this system is marked.

The moral degradation which slavery entails on its victims, has been proverbial since the days of Homer. Now the negroes are known in this country only as slaves or the descendants of slaves. They are seen only in that low and degraded situation, in which hereditary slavery, immediate or remote, has placed them. Their characters are viewed only as moulded by their servile state. But when slavery is the general portion of persons of one complexion, and peculiar to them, the contempt and aversion incident to this degrading condition, becomes associated with the complexion, and hence a mere concomitant of slavery, comes to be considered as a cause and

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Among the sations of antiquity, the alawan, wage, generaly zracner if vir. These won being mosly wagat be teen tegibanking nations, he slave ww vidom distingished m his master by my obvions national charac Weddie. In these contexts the chances war den nearty oral, and death or seritude The lot of the vanquished, In those pi

eu expeditions, which furnished a part of the darea of antiquity, the assailant, if vanquished, was himself reAneed to the condition of a slave. Hance, slavery must have appeared as The root of the fortune of war, and nek as the peenfiar lot of the inhabiAweka M wwry particular part of the globe. The odium of slavery would, therefore, be mostly confined to those in actual servitude, and not extended by any associations to those that were free, In regard to intellectual attainments, the superiority was frequently on the side of the slave. There is no reason to suppose that the Israelites, at the time of the Babylonish captivi1y, were less enlightened than their Chaldean invaders. The Romans were

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terrean more in the m grave averion of the Roman ure v he worthem waters, he alenty i uts and scence, must have been genemily, f for ways, m he ace if he vanquisnet. The neturs in penemi must have been sa år mentor in avilization te vanmishet hat he saves whom they hand in the conquered countries, as well as he feemen whom eye inced a state, must have been år speror, in cowledge mi zerinement, er masters Even the courtiers of Alarc must have been barbarians, when compared with the Sendmen of Honcrus. These creumstances, f they did act fisar de victors of their eneity, would, at least, worten or prevent that neficie contempt which a servie condition, associated with intellectual inferiority, never fails to engender in the mind of a haughty superior. Hence sympathy for the sufferings of the slave would be more easily awakened in the mind of the master. We acccrüngly find among the ancients, varicus močnications of the servile state, which tended to soften considerably, the rigours of that hopeless condition. In the Mosaic institutions, we find numerous provisions, obviously designed to smooth the rugged features of a system, which the people of that day were not sufficiently enlightened to abolish.

Among the most prominent of these was the following:

"Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee: he shall dwell with thee, even among you in that place which he shall choose, in one of thy gates where it liketh him

best: Thou shalt not oppress him." Deut. xxii. 15, 16.*

The laws of Minos, the legislator of Crete, expressly prohibited cruelty and injustice to slaves, and inculcated humanity and kindness on their masters. Once in the year, viz. at the feast of Mercury, the masters were required to exchange situations with their slaves, and perform the same services for them which they were accustomed, during the rest of the year, to receive.t

The Egyptian slave, though one of the greatest drudges in existence, if he had time to reach the temple of Hercules, found there a certain asylum from the persecution of his master; and he received additional comfort from the reflection that his life, whether he could reach it or not, could not be taken with impunity.+

Though the persons of slaves were greatly secured in Egypt, yet there was no place so favourable to them as Athens. They were allowed greater liberty of speech, they had their convivial meetings, their hours of relaxation and mirth. They were generally treated with so much humanity as to occasion the observation of De

* The principle of this precept has been recently adopted in one of the new Spanish go. vernments of South America. "The abolition of slavery was one of the first acts of the constituent assembly of Guatimala. It declared not only that, every man in the Republic is free, but that no one who takes refuge under its laws can be a slave; and it positively debars any one who carries on the slave trade from the privileges of a citizen. This law was no sooner promulgated, than one hundred slaves from the Honduras escaped into Guatimala; and these, though demanded back by our superintendent, were justly allowed the full protection of the statute which proclaimed them free."-Quarterly Review, No. 68.

+ Morell.

Herodotus, Clarkson.

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mosthenes, "that the condition of a slave at Athens, was preferable to that of a free citizen in many other countries." But if any exception happened, as was sometimes the case, from the general treatment described; persecution took the place of lenity, and made the fangs of servitude more pointed than before, they, like the Egyptian slaves, had the temple of Theseus for refuge, where the legislature was so attentive as to examine their complaints, and, if they were founded in justice, to order them to be sold to another master. But a still more important privilege was guaranteed to them. They were allowed an opportunity of working for themselves, and if, by their industry, they were able to accumulate a sum equivalent to their ransom, they could, upon paying it down, demand their freedom for ever.

Of all the slaves of antiquity, the Helots, or Spartan slaves, were probably subjected to treatment the most revolting to humanity. Amongst a people bred to war, and systematically inured to pain, it is not surprising that little compassion was shown to the humble drudges by whose labour they were fed. The rigour of Spartan discipline, or Spartan manners, was not likely to be relaxed in favour of the servile class. Yet even this iron servitude was tempered by some ingredients, which policy, if not humanity, supplied.

The Helots were considered as the property of the state, rather than of its individual members. They were farmers of the soil, at fixed rents, which the proprietors could not raise without dishonour. Hence they had the means of acquiring wealth. They were not liable to be sold beyond the

bounds of Laconia, a district of inconsiderable extent, and therefore must have been free from those cruel dissolutions of family connexions, which constitute so prominent a feature of negro slavery. And indeed to the jealousy, excited by their numbers, which an open market might have thinned, and to their riches, which an absolute authority, if held by their masters, might have dissipated, a part of the cruelty with which they were treated, is attributed by historians.

Among the ancient German, according to Tacitus, each slave had his separate habitation, and his own establishment to manage. The master considered him as an agrarian dependent, who was obliged to furnish a certain quantity of grain, of cattle, or of wearing apparel. The slave obeyed, and the state of servitude extended no further. To punish a slave with stripes, to load him with chains, or to condemn him to hard labour, was unusual.

In an ancient code of Gentoo laws, we find the following article: "If a wife, or a son, or a slave, or a female slave, or a pupil, or a younger brother, hath committed a fault, they may be Scourged with a lash, or a bamboo twig, on any part of the body where no dangerous hurt is likely to happen, but if a person scourges them beyond such limitation, he shall suffer the punishment of a thief.”

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gisterial and parental power. The Gentoo master might correct his slave in the same degree with his son and no further. The Roman father might put his son to death as well as his slave, was entitled to the property he acquired, and might exercise over him the same inferior authorities of scourging, imprisoning, and even selling into slavery. Nay, the Roman law carried the power of the parent higher than that of the master. If the slave, when sold, was enfranchised by the purchaser, he was forever free, but the son, though manumitted by a first and second purchaser, might be sold a third time by the father. The magisterial and paternal authority appear to have been simultaneously abridged. In the time of Trajan and his successor Adrian, both the son and the slave began to be effectually protected from that cruel abuse of domestic power, which was the natural growth of corrupt and dissolute manners.

The Roman law afterwards progressively advanced in humanity. By a rescript of one of the Antonines a slave, when cruelly treated, might flee to the temples, or statues of the emperors, for protection; on which the civil magistrates took cognizance of the complaint, and if the severity of the master was proved, the slave was delivered from his power, by a judi

cial sale.

Though, theoretically, the property acquired by the Roman slave was legally invested in the master, yet in practice, he was permitted to acquire property, and was therein not only indulged by the master, but protected against all other persons. It was call

Among the ancient Romans, before the institution of slavery had been reformed by the humanity of Adrian or the Antonines, the master possessed, over his slave, the dangerous power of life and death. This, however, appears to have been a relict of patriar-ed his peculium; and the many anxchal authority; for, like the Gentoo

law, an equal extent was given to ma

ious provisions, in the imperial code, on this subject, plainly intimate the

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