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Show 166 DESI'OTJSi\t situated, we cannot justly apply ideas founded upon totally different circumstanc.cs. lf we choose however to understand by chastity the restriction of one's self to a single partner, chastity is very far from. b?ing so rare a virtue among the women of the unpnvtlcged class as is often asserted, and generally supposed. 'l'hough the union. may be dissolved in a moment, at the .slightest capncc of th~ parties? sue~ separations arc much more rare than might be tmagmed. l\iore husbands and wives among the slaves are separated by the hammer of the auctioneer, than by the united influence of infidelity, disgust, or the desire of change. 3. FRAUD, FALSEHOOD, AND DISHONESTY arC represented by the masters, as distinguishing traits in the character of the unprivileged class. This charge is unfounded. It has been shown already, that as between master and slave, from the very nature of that relation, mutual confidence, trust and reliance, arc out of the question. To deceive his master is almost the only means of self-defence in the power of the slave. What ground of mutual confidence is it possible toestablish between the robber and the robbed 1 'l'o hold those promises binding which are extorted by force, to maintain that one is obliged to keep faith with a plunderer, is to surrender up, to the hands of viol~~ce, through the influence of a weak and cruel superstitiOn, or 1\ piece of miserable and empty sophistry, not ~he body only, but the soul; not only aetions, but the will; the fntnre as well as the present ;-it i~ to strip we~k~ ness and suffering of their last defence, and to g1ve ,omnipotence to tyranny. In their transactions with c~ch other the members of the unprivileged class at the south, are by no means deficient in the great and necessary virtues of truth, honesty and fidelity. The difficulty of inducing them to betray each other is proverbial, and is a matter of grievous complaint among masters and overseers. There are amorrg the slaves, as among all bodies of 1nen, some who set up honesty for sale, and who~~ come )nstruments of tyranny in the hands of the pn- IN AI\TF.RICA. 167 vileged class. There are others shrewd and slippery, upon whom no derendcnce whatever can be placed, even by their friends and relations. Characters of this sort, are quite as common among the privilegP.d order. Indeed more so. There has been a! ready mentioned that great class of professional gamblers, whose sole business it i.s to prey upon the community, to inveigle the unwary, and entrap the ignorant. There is no such class among the slaves. 'rhere is still another great class among the privileged order, who live almost wholly upon the plunder of their richer neighbors, the receivers, namely, of stolen goods, the keepers of the petty trading stores, scattered throughout the south. 'fhey take in the corn, cotton and rice stolen by the slaves, and give in exchange whisky and other luxuries. 'l'his class of traders is very large. 'rhe severest laws have been enacted to suppress them, but without success. Lynch law is now and then administered upon them in all its severity, but the nuisance cannot be abated. These men, compared with the slaves, arc wholly without excuse. They live by constant violations of laws, by constant breaches of a social compact to which they have themselves assented. This is a case in which the receiver, even in a legal point of view, is a thousand times worse than the thief. Yet to speak within bounds, for every Jive or six acts of theft, (or what is called so,) committed on the part of slaves, there is at least one act of reception committed on the part of some freeman. We may therefore consider it to he reduced to an arithmetical demonstration, that so far as relates to violations of property, the oflences of the free are greater than those of the ~laves. To this conclusion we must come, even without tal<ing into account the appalling fact that the entire existence of a large part of the privileged class is but one constant, steady violation of all those prirl.ciples upon which the very idea of property dependR, and upon which the v irtues of truth, honesty, justice and fidelity must rest for their only sure support. We may apply to the southern |