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Show 60 NOTES ON that the r est, with one exception, lie with equal weight against established laws and r ecognized principles of jurisprudence in the freest and most enlightened communities ;-laws and principles objected to Ly none hut the most ultra radical reformcrs,-the Garrisons, and ' Vrights, and 'rhcodorc Park· crs, et id omne genus. I say, with one exception. I refer to the scpa.ration of families; in r egard to which I have, as I have already remarked, the authority of :Mr. Pringle for saying that "it exists as yet more than is necessary to the system." (Slavery in the Southern States by a Carolinian, p. 32.) I know not whether he would agree with me, but, for my own part, I am fully convinced-and I have thought a good deal on the subject, and endeavoured to com;idcr it in all its bcarings,I say , I am fully convinced that, while for reasons a1ready stated, (4.) the law should not prohibit the .owner of slave families from separating them, except, as in Louisiana, in the case of mother and young child, still it ought not itself, by its own act, to separate them, except for crime; for there is a wiUc Uifl'ercncc between doing the thing itself, and pas· sively permitting it to be done, on tho grounU thut interfering to prevent it would do more harm than gooJ. In Alabama, tlJC low already requires, (sec Appendix, E. 8,) that in all sales of slaves under civil process, they shall be "offered, and, if practicable, solJ, in families; unless," &c. Now, the "if practicable" a.nd the "unless," &c., should be left out, and the sale in families, (so far as the members belonged to the same owner,) be made imperative, including in the term" family," father and mother, unmarried sons under twenty-one years of age, and all unmarried daughters. lf this were done by all the slarc·holdiug States, as I am persuadetl it might be, without any more serious inconvenience rcsu1ting from it, in the long run, than from the homestead-exemption law,-a law which has its UNCLg TUJ\l 'S CABIN. Gl inconv?nicnces, but which is nevertheless demanded by humnmty and sound policy, and is fast getting to be universal,~! say, if this were done by all the sla.rc-hQ1ding States,.~~ would take off the odium of tho unjust separation of fam!ltcs from the bw, :tnd leave it, (,,·here it ought to rest,) on the shoulders of the iudivitlual slave-holder who would in th:tt case, soon find. it a. burden too heavy fo~ him tomfortably to bear. Non:: 6.-TuE: ScnrPTURE DocTRrNr~ OF SLAVEnY. ~Irs. Stowe brings forw:ud but two passages, I believe, that have, or arc supposed by her to hnve, any bearing on the subject. 1'he one, "Cursed be Canaan," &c., which she puts into the mouth of a. pro-slave1·y clergyman, whom she rcpres.ents as saying, (vol. i. p. 181,) " It is undoubtedly the mtentwn of Provtdencc that the African race shouiU be servants," &c. But as I do not rest my justification of slavery ~n that pas~agc, I do not feel called on to make any observatiOns upon It. 'l'he other passage is, "All things whatsoever yc would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them;" and this passage she puts into the mouth of an anti-slavery clergyman: but what it has to do with the subject I can't exactly rn"ke out. 1\Iost men would like to be let off without punishment, if they had committed a. crime; docs it follow, therefore, that they should let off others? Such an interpretation of the text would strike at the foundation of a.lllaw. 'The passage, then, is not to be taken without limits, but is to have a common-sense application; and thus applied, I find a. great deal in it against bad masters, (as against other bad men,) but nothing at all ::tga.inst masters simply so considered. And it is the same with the entire New 1'cstamcnt. Not I·' |