In proof of this, it is only necessary to repeat that the slave and his wife, and his daughters, are considered as the _property_ of their owners, and compelled to yield implicit obedience--that he is allowed to give no evidence--that he must not resist _any_ white man, under _any_ circumstances which do not interfere with his _master's_ interest--and finally, that public opinion ridicules the slave's claim to any exclusive right in his own wife and children. In Athens, the female slave could demand protection from the magistrates; and if her complaints of insulting treatment were well founded, she could be sold to another master, who, in his turn, forfeited his claim by improper conduct. PROP. 10.--_The laws obstruct emancipation._ In nearly all slaveholding States, a slave emancipated by his master's will, may be seized and sold to satisfy _any debt_. In Louisiana, fraud of creditors is by law considered as _proved_, if it can be made to appear that the master, at the moment of executing the deed of enfranchisement, had not sufficient property to pay all his debts; and if after payment of debts, there be not personal estate enough to satisfy the widow's claim to one third, his slaves, though declared to be free by his last will, are nevertheless liable to be sold for the widow's portion.--In South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, a valid emancipation can only be gained by authority of the Legislature, expressly granted. A slave-owner _cannot_ manumit his slaves without the formal consent of the Legislature. "In Georgia, any attempt to free a slave in any other manner than the prescribed form, is punished by a fine of two hundred dollars for each _offence_; and the slave or slaves are still, to all intents and purposes, in a state of slavery." A new act was passed in that State in 1818, by which any person, who endeavors to enfranchise a slave by will, testament, contract, or stipulation, or who contrives indirectly to confer freedom by allowing his slaves to enjoy the profit of their labor and skill, incurs a penalty not exceeding _one thousand dollars_; and the slaves who have been the object of such benevolence, are ordered to be seized and sold at public outcry. In North Carolina, "no slave is allowed to be set free, except for _meritorious services_, to be adjudged of and allowed by the county court, and license first had and obtained thereupon;" and any slave manumitted contrary to this regulation may be seized, put in jail, and sold to the highest bidder. In Mississippi _all_ the above obstacles to emancipation are combined in one act.