THE CHATTEL PRINCIPLE IN PRACTICE. 4. _Slavery utterly impoverishes its victims._ The earth is an inheritance bestowed upon man by the common Father of all; hence every human being has an indefeasible right to live upon it and to acquire a possession in it. This right is not simply conventional, but it belongs to man as _man_. Now slavery is directly opposed to this law of nature. It strips a slave of everything, and of the power to acquire anything. No one is so poor as a slave. He cannot own a coat, or a pair of shoes, a house, or a foot of land. No industry, economy, skill or patriotism can release him from this state of destitution, because it is a logical result of the relation in which he is placed by the slave code. Being himself a chattel, whatever he acquires or in any way gains possession of, is, as a matter of course, the acquirement and possession of his master. Hence, while living in a land of universal plenty, and toiling incessantly upon the fruitful earth, created and adorned for the use of every man, no alms-house pauper is so wretchedly impoverished as the American slave. "Slaves have no legal rights in things, real or personal; but whatever they may acquire, belongs in point of law to their masters." (_Stroud._) "Slaves are incapable of inheriting or transmitting property." (_Civil Code._) Here is a case which will illustrate the point in hand. A slave by the name of Frederick enlisted and fought bravely through the American Revolution. In 1821 his name was found on the muster roll, and a warrant was issued granting him the soldier's bounty of a thousand acres of land. Now whose land was that? Reason and justice would answer, it belonged to the black veteran and his heirs forever. But the heirs of Frederick's old master understood something about slave law, and brought the case into court that it might be legally determined who owned the bounty land. After much learned argument, Judge Catron delivered the following decision:--"Frederick, the slave of Col. Patton, earned this warrant by his services in the continental line. WHAT IS EARNED BY THE SLAVE BELONGS TO THE MASTER, by the common law, the civil law, and the recognized rules of property in the slaveholding States of this Union." This was an extreme case, and as Pres. Blanchard observes, "if Shylock's bond of human flesh might have been relaxed, if ever the laws of slavery might have been mitigated in practice, it ought to have been in the case of this veteran soldier." But the "pound of flesh" was exacted. The law reducing slaves to utter pauperism is inexorable. Poor Frederick had no more claim to that land than Col. Patton's horse had.