Is not that a terrible institution which can only be sustained by enchaining the immortal mind and withholding entirely the advantages of education? Think of it. A slave's soul, as is often the case, is possessed with an unquenchable passion for improvement. He has a mind in constant unrest--active, elastic, aspiring. A benevolent friend engages to instruct him at night in the rudiments of learning, but while engaged in this good work the law seizes them, and hurries the slave to the whipping-post and the friend to prison. Twenty, thirty or forty lashes on the bare back are rather poor encouragement to the student, and a heavy fine and long imprisonment with felons hard pay for a teacher. But slavery makes it a crime to learn to read even the bible, and a penitentiary offense to teach a slave the alphabet! The object of this is plainly declared by Mr. Berry of Va., viz: to close every avenue of light from the slave's mind--to debase him as low as possible--and thus put resistance out of his power--that he may become a docile and profitable _chattel_. These laws are a bold defiance of the Almighty who constructed the marvelous powers of the human mind for improvement and activity and who revealed in written language his word for the comfort and guidance of all his creatures. They interpose a barrier between the slave and his Maker and thus hinder his salvation. Even convicts in prison are taught to read the scriptures, and in this respect slavery is more severe with its victims than justice is with the worst criminals. 2. _Slavery does not recognize the matrimonial connections of slaves._ As slaves are to be put as nearly as possible upon a level with "_other_ property" the slave code with singular meanness, but perfect consistency, refuses to the slave a lawful marriage, subjects him to conditions which are inconsistent with that sacred relation, and exposes slave wives to the unbridled lust of masters and overseers! "With the consent of their masters slaves may marry * * * but whilst in a state of slavery it cannot produce any _civil effect_, because slaves are _deprived of all civil rights_." (_Judge Mathews._) "A slave cannot even contract matrimony, the association which takes place among slaves and is _called_ marriage, being properly designated by the word _contubernium_, a relation which has no sanctity, and to which no civil rights are attached." (_Judge Stroud._) "A slave has never maintained an action against the violator of his bed." (_Daniel Dulany, Att'y Gen. Md._) "Slaves were not entitled to the conditions of matrimony, and therefore they had no relief in cases of adultery." (_Dr. Taylor._)