270 



SLAVERY. 



fering, much misery, much degradation. Con- 

 finement and privations, would, I rather imagine, 

 be more efficacious. The pride of the slave, 

 who is obliged to appear abroad with his back co- 

 vered with scars, is at first much hurt ; but the 

 shame of being seen in this state soon wears ofi\ 

 and then all hopes of reform may be given up ; 

 he will continue in his faults, and be indifferent 

 to the stripes which he must occasionally under- 

 go for committing them. I have been requested 

 by slaves, who had been often so treated, to 

 punish them with the whip, and not to make 

 ihem endure the misery of sitting in the stocks 

 in solitary confinement. But the punishment is 

 suffered in private ; no exposure is occasioned by 

 it. It would appear strange that the slave should 

 prefer corporal punishment ; and this would seem 

 to denote that this class of men possesses none of 

 those feelings of shame of which I have spoken ; 

 but I am convinced, that these are as deeply im- 

 planted in the negro, as in any other race of 

 human beings. The case is this, where a slave 

 has been often punished with the whip, and is 

 seeing many of his companions and acquaintances 

 undergoing the same punishment frequently, the 

 knowledge that it is what he himself has before 

 borne, and that so many are thus treated, takes 

 away the horror which he would otherwise feel at 

 the kind of chastisement. This proves the de- 

 based state, — the very low ebb to which human 



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