| OCR Text |
Show 188 DESI'OTTSM of thC' Revolution, leading politician, and presidential candidate. ' The example of the Jews in 1hcir trc~tm?n t of the Canaanites, was cited as good authonty 111 all the Enrrlish colonie.s for prohibiting intermarriage with n ca~ocs and Indians; and for denouncing the mixin~ of races as unnatural and wicked. But no law could control the appetite of the planters nor prevent that intermixture which inevitably takes placP, whenever two races arc brought into contact, especially if one race be held in slavery. 'l'hat austere morality (pretending to be religious,) for which the United States arc distinguished above all nations on the face of the earth, nnless indeed the palm in this respect ought to be yielded to the mother country, has been obliged, in this case, as in others, to content itself; in defect of conformity to its rules, with cruel grimace, and a lie a cted out. H ypocrisy, is said to be the tribute which vice pays to v.irtue,-a tribute of which the religious treasuries of America are full. The virtuous man,-southern church-member, or peradventure minister of the gospel,-expiates his peccadilloes with h.is female slhves, by looking on his own children with cold glances, in which no recognition dwells; and as a further proof of his am;tere morals, opportunity ofiCring, he sells them at auction! Yet in Virginia, this antipathy to the mixture of races was not and is not carried so far as in some of the more southern colonies. 'fhc grand child of an Indian, the great-great grand child of a negro, all the other links being white, become themselves white in the eye of the law, and therefore presumably free. In Maryland slavery had existed from its first settlement; but the oldest statute on the subject bears date thirty years afterwards, in 1663, when it was enacted, " that all neg roes and other slaves witlun th1s province, and a ll negroPs and other slaves to be hereafter imported, shall serve during life, and all children born of ally negro or other sla vc, shall be slaves as TN 1\\\lF.RlCA, 189 their fathers were, for the term of their lives." In 1715, however, by which time the negroes held in bondage COITI J~Osc~l a fifth part _of the popul2-tion, t his apparent conformity to the prmciplcs of the Enalish law of villeinage touching the hereditary descei~t of servitude, was s ilently dropped. In that year upon occasion of ~ he restoration of the government 'to t he Calvert famtly, the laws of Maryland were revised and the new code provided, "that all nearoes anJ ot her slaves, a lready imported or hcrcaftcrt:Jto be imported into this province, and all children now born or hereafter to be_ born _of such negroes and slaves, shall be slaves durmg t heir natural lives." Upon t his statute rest all the claims ol' t he colonial slave-holdinu system of Maryland to a legal foundation. " . The " grand. model," the first proprietary constitution of Carolma, the product ion of the celebrated Locke, drawn up in 1670, conta ined the following clause: "Every freeman of Carolina shall have absolute power and authority over his nearo slaves, of what ?,P.inion and religion soever." B~t "the grand model, JU compliance with t he repeated and earnest reque~ts of the colonists, was abrogated .in 1693, and for lll.netcen years the system of slavery in South Carolma remained without any lecral basis except that furnished by the mistaken notiogs of the ~olon ists as to the English law. '!'he assembly, however, at length _thought it necessary to provide some statute authon ty of their own for holding two thirds of the populat.ion in servitude; and an act for that purpose, passed tn 1712, provided, "that all negroes, mulattoes, meshzoes, or Indians, which at any time heretofore were sold, or now are held or taken to be or hereafter shall be, boug?t and sold for slaves, arc he;eby dcelared slaves, to .all .lntcnts and purposes;" with exceptions, however, lJl favor of those who have been or shall be, "for ~orne particular meri t, made or declared fref'," and al:5o of such "as can prove that they ought not to be sold as slaves." 'l'his extraordinary piece of |
