slave says he is very ill, the overseer is unwilling to believe the story, because he is reluctant to lose a day’s labor. If the poor creature droops under his allotted task, he must be stimulated by the whip, because the overseer cannot spare an hour of his exertions. If the “slave dies under _moderate_ punishment,” the master must furnish a new laborer; and the loss falls on _him_, not on the overseer. It is obviously natural for the latter personage to think more of his own gains than of his employer’s losses. Every body knows that men are prone to drive hired horses with less mercy than their own; because they do not meet with any personal loss from injury done to the beast, and their object is to get their money’s worth of riding. Is it not a fearful thing for one human being to be placed towards another in the same relation that a stable-horse is toward the man who hires him? When planters are reminded of instances of cruelty, too well authenticated to be denied, they are prone to lay the blame upon overseers. Mr. Wirt, of Virginia, speaks of this class of men as “the lowest of the human race—always cap in hand to the dons who employ them, and furnishing materials for their pride, insolence, and love of dominion.” If we had no such information concerning the character of these men, we should naturally conclude that good people would be averse to enter into such an employment. Yet overseers and drivers are a necessary part of this bad system, because slaves are entirely deprived of the motives which induce free laborers to work; and since overseers must be employed, it is necessary to make it for their interest to get as much work out of the slave as possible. The evils of slavery are necessary and inevitable parts of the system; and whether the planters reprobate them or not, they cannot possibly avoid them, except by relinquishing the system. The master and his subordinate agents _must_ have discretionary power to punish, because their poor human brutes, being deprived of salutary motives to exertion, must be driven to it. The slave _must_ not be allowed to buy or sell, or make the most trifling contracts; because the oppressed being would naturally avail himself of this privilege, and sell some of the cotton or tobacco, which he cultivates for his master without wages. The laws _must_ punish them with great severity; because the very nature of their condition is a constant temptation to theft, falsehood, and murder. They _must_ be kept brutally ignorant; because if they were otherwise, they could not be kept in slavery. Licentiousness _must_ be countenanced among them; because their master’s interest is connected with their increase, and he might lose many good bargains if the laws did not allow him to sell a wife from her husband, or a husband from his wife. The law _must_ suppose a negro to be a slave, till he proves himself free; because runaway slaves would of course pretend that they were free.