Slavery and the ConstitutionBowditch, William I. (William Ingersoll)
Religion
Slavery and the Constitution
Bowditch, William I. (William Ingersoll)
Enslaved persons -- United States -- Social conditions; Slavery -- United States
He may possibly leave a will, bequeathing them, upon the condition that
his kind and humane treatment shall be continued, that they shall be
taught to read and write, that their marriages and family relations
shall be sacredly respected, and that they shall never be subject to be
sold; that is, on the condition that his legatees shall break the law,
as he has done. The only result will be, that the law will declare all
such conditions to be utterly void; and the legatees will own the
slaves, entirely freed from all such conditions. The legatees will be
under no other restraints than those imposed by the law, public opinion,
and their own conscience. The latter restraint only may possibly avail
the slaves; and their happy condition may be continued, _if_ all the
legatees are, like Dr. Fuller, law-defying, humane, kind-hearted, and
above want! But how unlikely is it that such will be the case! How much
more unlikely is it that such a state of things will continue! And yet,
unless such a state of things exists, and continues to exist, Dr.
Fuller's slaves must inevitably become as degraded as the great mass of
their fellows.
If he should die intestate, then his slaves, as part of his estate,
would have to be duly administered on and distributed among the
heirs-at-law. The administrator, a mere trustee, could not, as we have
seen, safely continue Dr. Fuller's plan of management; nor can it be
supposed that any administrator would follow it. If it became necessary
or expedient in order to pay debts, husbands would be separated from
wives, parents from children, and brothers from sisters. The widow (if
any) would be entitled to a life-estate in one-third of the slaves,
which one-third would be assigned to her in severalty, even though this
might involve a separation of families; for the common law of the Slave
States makes the same profession as the common law of England, that it
favors three things,--life, liberty, and dower! The remaining slaves,
and the reversion of those assigned to the widow, would belong to the
heirs, and would have to be equally divided between them, not divided by
families, or even _per capita_, but so that each heir should have an
equally valuable slave-investment, or an equal share in the property of
the deceased. If the heirs should be numerous, or the slaves few, so
that an equal division of them could not be thus made, they would have
to be sold, and their proceeds equally divided. Such sales must be
common. The following is taken from the "Georgia Journal:"--
"TO BE SOLD,--One negro-girl, about 18 months old, belonging to the
estate of William Chambers, deceased. _Sold for the purpose of
distribution._
JETHRO DEAN, } Executors."
SAMUEL BEALL,}
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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