They treat slaves thus, on the principle that they must punish for light offenses, in order to prevent the commission of larger ones.

I wish you to mark that in the single state of Virginia there are seventy-one crimes for which a colored man may be executed; while there are only three of{324} these crimes, which, when committed by a white man, will subject him to that punishment.

There are many of these crimes which if the white man did not commit, he would be regarded as a scoundrel and a coward.

In the state of Maryland, there is a law to this effect: that if a slave shall strike his master, he may be hanged, his head severed from his body, his body quartered, and his head and quarters set up in the most prominent places in the neighborhood.

If a colored woman, in the defense of her own virtue, in defense of her own person, should shield herself from the brutal attacks of her tyrannical master, or make the slightest resistance, she may be killed on the spot.
No law whatever will bring the guilty man to justice for the crime.
But you will ask me, can these things be possible in a land professing Christianity?
Yes, they are so; and this is not the worst.