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Show 66 DESPOTISM edge, and acquire a certain habit of reason in~ and re~ flection. In consequence of these accomphshments· they are feared, suspected, and very narrowly watched. In all the towns and villages of the south, the strictest regulations are established and enforced, by which among other thmgs, the slaves are forh1d~cn to leave their master's houses after an early hour m the evening, and in many other respect~, arc subjcct.c~ to a constant system of the most prymg and suspiciOus espionage. . . . . Some writers misled by a sptnt of patnottsm, or deceived by views too superficial, have represe~ted the system of American slavery as ext~emcly mtld, and quite a different thing from slavery m any other age or country. '!'here is a diffcr~cnce it is true; but that difference is not favorable to us. It is easy to show, that in certain most essential points,-those fundamen· tal points by which alone a social system ought to ha jndged,-American slavery is a far more deadly and disastrous thing, more fatal to all the hopes, the sen· timents, the rights of humanity, than almost any other system of servitude which has existed in any other community. Slavery as it existed among the ancient Greeks and Romans has been often referred to, as a system of the extremes! severity, cruel beyond any thing to be found in modern times.* No doubt that system was bad enough. It would be well however, if other systems \Vcre not worse. 'l'he Roman master had the power of life and death over his slaves; but the slaves., in this respect, stood upon a level with the freemen; for the Roman hus· band and father had the same power over Jus w1fe and his children, and he might claim and exefCise It, long after those children had passed the age of puber· ty, and even after they had attained to the highest honors and distinctions of the state. It is true that the laws do not confer an equal authority upon the A mer!· can master ; but it is equally true that the lives of hiS • See Channing on Slavery. IN Al\TERICA. 67 slaves arc.not the less in his power. It is easy for the master to mvent a thousand pretences for taking the life of any slave, against whom he may have conceived a prejudice. If he docs not think it prndcnt to use the pistol or the knife, he needs only to have recourse to a somewhat more lingering process of torture, or starvation. But the great distinction between the slavery of the ancient world and that of America is this. rrhe Greek and Roman slaves, in the estimation of their masters and themselves, though slaves, were yet men. I t was true doubtless, as Homer says, that the day a man became a slave he lost half his manly virtues. From the nature of things it must have been so; but manhood or a portion of it, remained, though darkened and eclipsed, still visible. To a certain extent at least, in point of knowledge, accomplishments, and the development of mind, the slaves stood upon a level with the free; and if there be something terrible i11 the idca,-terrible because we need no preparation to comprehend it,-of a city sacked and plundered, and all its inhabitants, the noblest, the wealthiest, the delicate women, as well us the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, sold under the hammer of a military auctioneer, and thence dragged into servitude,we must recollect that the accomplishments, the kno\yledgc, the refinement of these unhappy captives, furnished also many means of alleviating the calamity of servitude, and presently of escaping it altogether. . ,-~he At~enian captives taken in the unlucky exped.' t.IOn agamst Syracuse, purchased their liberty by reCltmg the verses of E uripides. Slaves fll'st cnhivated ~h~ ar~ of ~latin poetry, and introduced at H.ome an JffiJtatJon of the Grecian drama. Such were Plautus and Terence, and almost all the elder Roman poets. All the arts which give comfort and refmement to lite a!1d the mere practice of which conferS a ccl'tain so~ ct~l ~istinction, mus.ic, poetry, literatnre in general, pa.mt~ng, medicine, education, and many others, were prmclpally, or commonly practised Ly slaves, who |