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Show 36 DESPOTISJ\1 a certain tobacco planter. In time, your _great-grandmother died; but she left children, to which as a part of her produce, the owner of the moth.cr was J~stly entitled. From that owner, through d1vcrsc alienations and descents, the title has passed to me ; and as you are descended from the 'voman above refe_rred to, it is quite clear, how perfectly reasonable and JUSt my empire is. . Whether in point of logiC and morals, the above deduction is complctel y satisfactory,, JS n?t 1_10w the question. The nat~ue of the master s c_la_lm lS stated here, only as an assistance t?wards ?btammg a clearer apprehension of the relatwns whlCh must grow out of it. SECTION U. General ·idea of a Slave-holding Community. Slavery then is a continuation of the state of war. It is true that one of the combatants IS subdued and bound · but the war is not terminated. If I do not put th~ captive to death, this apparent clemency does not arise from any good-will towards lum, or anr extinction on my part of hostile feelings and mtcnuons. I spare his life merely because I expect to be able to put him to a use more advantageous t6 myself .. And if the captive, on the other hand, feigns_ submiSSIOn, still he is only watching for an opportumty to escape my grasp, and i~ possible to inflict. upon me evils as great as those to which I have subJected him. War is justly regarded, and wllh the progress of civilization it comes every day more and more t~ .be regarded, as the very greatest of social calamities. The introduction of slavery into a commumty, amounts to an eternal protraction of that calamity, and a um· IN Al\tERfCA. 37 vcrsal dilfusion of it through the whole mass of society, and that too, in its most ferocious form. When a country is invaded by a hostile army, within the immediate neighborhood of the camp it becomes impossible to make any effectual resistance. However fierce may be the hate with which they look upon the invaders, the inhabitants within the range of their scouting parties, arc obliged to submit. They are made to furn ish wood, forage and provisions; they are forced to toil in the entrenchment of the camp ; their houses are liable to be ransacked and plundered, and their women to be subjected to the lusts of the soldiers. Upon certain emergencies, the ablest bodied among them will be armed, surrounded by foreign squadrons, and obliged to fight against their own countrymen. But though plundered without mercy, and liable to the most frightful injuries, yet as their services arc valuable, and even necessary to the invaders, they must be allowed to retain the means of sustaining existence ; and if under all the discouragements to which they are subjected, they neglect or refuse to cultivate their fields, they must be dnven to work at the point of the bayonet, lest the mvaders might suffer from their negligence, and fa ll short of forage and provisions. Now every plantation in the slave states is to be looked upon as the se~t of a little camp, which overawes and keeps m subJection the surrounding peasantry. The master claims and exercises over his slaves all the rights of war above described, and others yet more ternble. Consider too that this infliction is not limited to a single neighborhood, as in the case of an mvadmg army, but is scattered and difl'used over the :vhole extent of the country; nor is it temporary as 111 the_ ot~er :ase1b ut constant and perpetual. I t is by takmg a vww .Ike this, that we are enabled to form afpnmary, gen~ral, outline idea of the social condition 0 a slave-holdmg community. 4 |