But the subject presents a still more painful aspect. How are slaves made better, and from what motives are they made better, in this country? It is no secret that I am about to tell. There are certain virtues and sanctities which increase the pecuniary value of certain slaves; and there are certain vices and debasements which increase the market price of others. If a master wishes to repose personal confidence in his slave, he desires to have him honest and faithful to truth. But if he desires to make use of him to deceive and cajole and defraud, then he wishes to make him cunning and tricky and false. If the master trains the slave to take care of his own children, or of his favorite animals, then he wishes to have him kind; but if he trains him for a tasker or a field overseer, then he wishes to have him severe. Now, it is in this way that some of the Christian attributes of character, being directly convertible into money or money’s worth, enhance the value of a slave. Hence, it is said in advertisements that a slave is pious, and, at the auction block, the hardened and heartless seller dwells upon the Christian graces and religious character of some slaves with the unction of an apostle. The purchaser sympathizes, and only desires to know whether the article be a real or a sham Christian. If mere bones and muscles compacted into human shape be worth five hundred dollars, then, if the auctioneer can warrant the subject to have the meekness of Moses and the patience of Job, the same article may be worth seven hundred. If the slave will forgive injuries, not merely seventy times seven, but injuries inflicted all his life long, then an additional hundred may be bid for him. If he possesses all the attributes of religion and piety, the endurance of a hero, the constancy of a saint, the firmness of a martyr, the trustingness of a disciple,--all except those which go to make him feel like a man, and believe himself a man,--then that which as mere bone and muscle was worth five hundred dollars, is now worth a thousand. Sir, is not this selling the Holy Spirit? Is not this making merchandise of the Savior? Is not this the case of Judas selling his Master over again, with the important exception of the remorse that made the original culprit go and hang himself? But suppose the case to be that of a woman; suppose her ability to work and capacity for production to be worth five hundred dollars; suppose, in addition to this, she is young and sprightly and voluptuous; suppose the repeated infusion of Saxon blood has almost washed the darkness from her skin; and suppose she is not unwilling to submit herself to the libertine’s embrace; then, too, that which before was worth but five hundred dollars, will now bring two thousand. And thus infernal as well as celestial qualities are coined into money, according to the demands of the market and the uses of the purchaser.