though cruel treatment may have rendered such a change necessary for
their personal safety.

9. The slave is entirely unprotected in his domestic relations.

10. The laws greatly obstruct the manumission of slaves, even where the
master is willing to enfranchise them.

11. The operation of the laws tends to deprive slaves of religious
instruction and consolation.

12. The whole power of the laws is exerted to keep slaves in a state of
the lowest ignorance.

13. There is in this country a monstrous inequality of law and right.
What is a trifling fault in the _white_ man, is considered highly
criminal in the _slave_; the same offences which cost a white man a few
dollars only, are punished in the negro with death.

14. The laws operate most oppressively upon free people of color[A].

[Footnote A: See Mrs. Child's Appeal, Chap. II.]

Shall I ask you now my friends, to draw the _parallel_ between Jewish
_servitude_ and American _slavery_? No! For there is _no likeness_ in
the two systems; I ask you rather to mark the contrast. The laws of
Moses _protected servants_ in their _rights as men and women_, guarded
them from oppression and defended them from wrong. The Code Noir of the
South _robs the slave of all his rights_ as a _man_, reduces him to a
chattel personal, and defends the _master_ in the exercise of the most