C. Edwards Lester, Life and public services of Charles Sumner: Born Jan. 6, 1811. Died March 11, 1874.

[175] and mothers, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, little children—even infants—at the auction-block; on the practical prostration of all rights, all ties, and even all hope; on the deadly injury to morals, substituting concubinage for marriage, and changing the whole land of Slavery into a by-word of shame, only fitly pictured by the language of Dante when he called his own degraded country a House of Ill-Fame; and last of all, on the pernicious influence upon the master as well as the slave, showing itself too often, even by his own confession, in rudeness of manners and character, and especially in that blindness which renders him insensible to the wrongs he upholds, while he,

so perfect is his misery,
Not once perceives his foul disfigurement,
But boasts himself more comely than before.

On these things I do not dwell, although volumes are at hand of unquestionable facts and of illustrative story, so just and happy as to vie with fact, out of which I might draw, until, like Macbeth, you had supped full of horrors.

But all these I put aside; not because I do not regard them of moment in exhibiting the true character of Slavery, but because I desire to present this argument on grounds above all controversy, impeachment, or suspicion, even from slave-masters themselves. Not on triumphant story, not even on indisputable facts, do I now accuse Slavery, but on its character, as revealed in its own simple definition of itself. Out of its own mouth do I condemn it. By the law of Slavery, man, created in the image of God, is divested of his human character, and declared to be a mere chattel. That this statement may not seem to be put forward without precise authority, I quote the law of two different States. The civil code of Louisiana thus defines a slave:

‘A slave is one who is in the power of a master to whom he belongs. The master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry, and his labor. He can do nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire anything but what must belong to his master.’—Civil Code, Art. 35.

The law of another polished slave State gives this definition:

‘Slaves shall be deemed, sold, taken, reputed and adjudged in law to be chattels personal, in the hands of their owners and possessors, and their executors, administrators and assigns, to all intents, constructions and purposes whatsoever.’—2 Brev. Dig. 229. （South Carolina.)

And a careful writer, Judge Stroud, in a work of juridical as well as philanthropic merit, thus sums up the law: