A B C, but quite lawful to flog; and then the daughter would be
asked, by way of application to his moving discourse, if she
would like some of them to come some time and share her home and
food.

Thus continually to that rising family there was unfolded the
horror of the slavery system. That horror had faded in the minds
of many in the Northern States whose ancestry had held freedom
dear; while in the Southern States, for the most part, the
possession of your fellow creatures as if they were so much farm
stock had become too familiar a feature of common life to evoke
any conscientious misgiving, much less shame. The enormous
additions to the cotton trade had made slave labour increasingly
gainful, and the capital invested in this living property was
immense. Careful rearing of slaves for the market as well as
their purchase brought wealth to many, and fierce was the
resentment when any one publicly criticized the institution.
There was by no means an absence of humane regard far the
wellbeing of the negroes; a kind of patriarchal tenderness
towards them was distinctly 'good form.' But there was the
deadly fact that they were human goods and chattels, with no
civil rights worth mentioning--for laws in their defence were
practically worthless, seeing they could not appear as witnesses
in the court. Public whipping-houses were provided for the
expeditious correction of the refractory, and a mere suspicion of
intent to escape was legal justification for the use of the
branding-irons upon their flesh. If they did contrive to escape
there were dogs bred on purpose to hunt them down. If the slave
resisted his master's will he might be slain, and the law would
not graze the master's head. Domestic security he had none, for