OCR Text |
Show 124 No people are more alive to commendation and honorable distinction than the colored race. Prizes for good conduct, adapted to their tastes and character, might in a good degree supersede the lash. Their love of orn~ment might be turned to a good account. The object is to bring the slave to labor from other motives than brutal compulsion. Such motives may easily be found, if the end be conscientiously proposed. One of the g1·eat means of elevating the slave, and calling forth his energies, is to place his domestic relations on new ground. This is essential. We wish him to labor for his family. Then he must have a family to labor for. Then his wife and children must be truly his own. Then his home must be inviolate. Then the responsibilities of a husband and father must be laid on him. It is agreed that he will be fit for freedom, as soon as the support of his family shall become his habit and his happiness; and how can he be brought to this condition, as long as he shall see no sanctity in the marriage-bond, as long as he shall see his wife and his children exposed to indignity and to sale, as long as their support shall not be entrusted to his care? No measure for preparing the slave for liberty can be so effectual as the improvement of his domestic lot. The whole power of religion should be employed to impress him with the sacredness and duties of marriage. The chaste 125 and the faithful in this connexion should receive open and strong marks of respect. T hey should be treated as at the head of their race. The husband and wife, who prove false to each other, and who will not labor for their children, should be visited with the severest rebuke. To create a sense of domestic' obligation, to awaken domestic affections, to give the means of domestic happiness, to fix deeply a con viction of the indissolubleness of marriage, and of the solemnity of the parental relation, these are the essential means of raising the slave to a virtuous and happy freedom. All other men labor for their families; and so will the slave, if the sentiments of a man be cherished in his breast. "Ve keep him in bondage, because, if free, he will leave his wife and children to want; and this bondage break down all the feelings and habits which would incite him to toil for their support. Not a step will be taken towards the preparation of the slave for voluntary labor, till his domestic rights be respected. The violation of these cries to God, more than any other evil of his lot. To carry this and all other means of improvement into effect, it is essential that the slave should no longer be bOtwht and sold. As lon~r as he is made an article of merchandise, he ca~not be fitted for the offices of a man. He will have little motive to accumulate comforts and ornaments in his hut, if at any moment he may be torn from |