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Show ' . ; .. ---... -· . 30 NOTJ·:S OX our land, to testify. Let it be remembered that in all Southern States it is a principle of jurisprudence tha.t no person of colored lineage can testify in a suit aga.inst a white, and it will be easy to sec that such a case may occur, whereever there is a m:J.n whose passions outweigh his interests, and a sla.vc v.·. ho has manhood or principle enough to resist his will. ~rhcrc is, actually, nothing to protect the sln.vc's lifo, but the cltaracter of the master. Facts too shocking to be contemplated occasionally force their way to the public car, and the comment that one often hears made on them is more shocking than the thing itself. It is said, 'Very likely such cases may now and then occur, but they arc no sample of general practice.' If the laws of New England were so · arranged that a master could now and then torture an ap· prentice to death, without a possibility of being brought to justice, would it be received with equal composure? Would it be said, ' 1'heso cases arc rare, and no sam plcs of goncr:tl practice?' This injustice is 3.n inherent one in the sl::we system. It cannot exist without it." (p. 311.) (19.) "I beseech you, pity the mother who has all your affections, and not one legal right to protect, guide or edu· cate the child of her bosom!" (p. 316.) A formidable array of charges, but evincing on tho P"'t of our author a strange forgetfulness of the very nature aut! object of human hm. Verily, if laws are to be ho!J responsible for the wrongs which they passively permit, the slave· code will find plenty of other codes to keep it company, even in the Northern States, to say nothing of European Christen· dom. Na.y, under the scalpel of our author, the Mosaic code itself will not escape. Witness the following enactments: "If a man smito his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall be surcl.)l' punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished : for he is his money." (Exod. xxi. 20, 21.) UNC LE 'rOM'S CABIN. 31 Now, what is the inference f1·om this enactment 1 Recollect that the 1\fosaic htw, viewed eycn as a national code, is from God. I know this is denied by some, but I am apouking to Christiana. rrhc Mosaic law, ~ say, ':i~wed m.·en as a national code, is from God, nnd Its proviSIOns, therefore, the very best that the nature of such a codo will admit of; in other words, perfect adaptations of means to ends, and, as such, applicable not only to the Jewish people, but, in analogous circumstances, to every other people. What, then, I say, is the inference from the abeve enactment? Not that a. man may flog his sl::we to within an ace of his life, and still bo a good man. God forbid! But that the prohibition of his doing it, by legal enactment, would, under the circumstances, all things considered, be a. greater evil than the passive permission of it. Here we have the vindication of the slave-code ill a nutshell; nine-tenths, if not ninety nine-hundredths of its pro· visions-those of them, I mean, that arc more usually objected to-will come under a similar category. They may seem to bear hard, in inUividua.l instances, but their operation ae awltole is benignant. Even the slave himself, to say nothing of the rest of the community, is, all things considered, better off for them, and would be worse off for their repeal, or material modification. This consideration seems to be entirely lost sight of by those who arc so horrified at the enactments of the slavecode. Our author herself, loses sight of it; or rather, she gives it an implied denia.I in one of the foregoing quotations, (11): "General rules will bear hard on particular cases. This last maxim my father seemed to consider a settler in most alleged cases of cruelty." This maxim our author, it would seem, docs not consider a settler ; ood yet the common sense of mankind has embodied it in a proverb:~ Summum jus, summa injuria : |