11. A slave cannot be a witness against a white person, either in a civil or criminal cause.

12. He cannot be a party in a civil suit.

13. The benefits of education are withheld from the slaves.

14. The means of moral and religious instruction are not granted to the slave; on the contrary, the efforts of the humane and charitable to supply these wants, are discountenanced by law.

15. Submission is required of the slave, not to the will of his master only, but to that of all other white persons.

16. The penal codes of the slaveholding states bear much more severely upon slaves than upon white persons.

17. Slaves are prosecuted and tried upon crimi. nal accusations, in a manner inconsistent with the rights of humanity.-Stroud's Slave Laws.

CHAPTER V.

MORAL CONDITION OF THE ENSLAVED.

Testimony of the Synod of South Carolina and Georgia.

Report

The following "facts are stated in a 66 of the Synod of South Carolina and Georgia, to whom was referred the subject of the Religious Instruction of the colored population, at its late ses. sion, in Columbia, S. C. Published by order of the Synod," in the Charleston Observer of March 22, 1834.

"From long continued and close observation," say the Synod by their committees, "we believe that their (colored population's) moral and religious condition is such, as that they may justly be considered the heathen of this Christian country, and will bear comparison with heathen in any country in the world.

"Before we attempt to set forth the duty [to evangelize these heathen] it will be proper to show, that the negroes are destitute of the privileges of the gospel, and ever will be, under the present state of things. There were some exceptions to this, they say, and they rejoice' in it; but although our assertion is broad, we believe that, in general, it will be found to be correct.

"A people may be said to enjoy the privileges of the gospel, when they have, 1st, free access to the scriptures; 2d, a regular gospel ministry; 3d, houses for public worship; 4th, the means of grace in their own dwellings. In relation to the first of these-free access to the scriptures-it is universally the fact throughout the slave-holding states, that either custom or law prohibits to them the acquisition of letters, and consequently they can have no access to the scriptures; so that they are dependent for their knowledge of Christianity upon oral instruction; as much so as the unlettered heathen, when first visited by our missionaries. * * *

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"Have they then that amount of oral instruction which, in their circumstances, is necessary to their enjoyment of the gospel? In other words, have they a regular and efficient ministry? They have

not. In the vast field extending from an entire state beyond the Potomac to the Sabine river; and from the Atlantic to the Ohio, there are, to the best of our knowledge, not twelve men exclusively devoted to the religious instruction of the negroes! The number [two millions of souls, and more'] divided between them, would give to each a charge of near 170,000 !!

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"As to ministers of their own color, they are des. titute infinitely both in point of numbers and qualifications.

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"But do not the negroes have access to the gospel, through the stated ministry of the whites? We answer, No! The white population itself is but partially supplied with ministers; such being the fact, what becomes of the colored? And the question may be asked with still greater emphasis, when we know that it has not been customary for our ministers when they accept calls for settlement, to consider servants as a regular part of their charge. * If we take the supply of ministers to the whites now in the field, the amount of their labors in behalf of the negroes is small." Something has been done towards the "religious instruction of the negroes: but we venture the assertion, that if we take the whole number of ministers in the slaveholding states, but a very small portion pay any attention to them. No effort is made to draw them out to church-but let them 6 come to hear the preaching of ministers to white congregations, and such is the elevation of their language, &c., * * they might as well preach in He. brew or Greek. The negroes do not understand

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them. Hence their stupid looks, &c., and their thin attendance. (of the negroes), professors and non-professors, are low in the scale of intelligence and morality; and we are astonished thus to find Christianity in absolute conjunction with HEATHENISM, and yet conferring few or no benefits!' They proceed: The negroes have no regular and efficient ministry; as a matter of course, no churches, neither is there sufficient room in white churches for their accommodation.'

"We know of but five churches in the slaveholding States built expressly for their use. These are all in the State of Georgia-all under colored pastors, in connexion with the Baptist Association, excepting one, which has been erected within the past year, by a Presbyterian clergyman, a member of this Synod, at his own expense-an expense of three or four hundred dollars; and he supplies the pulpit himself gratuitously.

"The galleries or back seats on the lower floor, of white churches, are generally appropriated to the negroes, when it can be done with convenience to the whites; otherwise, the negroes who attend must catch the gospel as it escapes by the doors and windows.

"We can furnish no accurate estimate of the proportion of negroes that attend divine worship on the Sabbath, taking the slave-holding states together. From an extensive observation, however, we venature to say, that not a twentieth part attend! Thousands and thousands hear not the sound of the gospel, or ever enter a church from one year to another.

"We may now inquire if they enjoy the privi leges of the gospel, in private, in their own houses, and on their own plantations? Again we return a negative answer. They have no bibles to read at their own fire-sides-no family altars-and when in affliction, sickness or death, they have no minister to address to them the consolations of the gospel, nor to bury them with solemn and appropriate services. Sometimes a kind master will perform these offices. If the master is pious, the house servants alone attend family worship, and frequently few or none of these.

"Here and there a master feels interested for the salvation of his servants, and is attempting something towards it, &c. We rejoice that there are such, and that the number is increasing. In general, we may however remark, that it does not enter into the arrangement of plantations, to make provision for their religious instruction; and so far as masters are engaged in this work, an almost unbroken silence reigns over the vast field.

"We feel warranted, therefore, in the conclusion, that the negroes are destitute of the privileges of the gospel, and must continue to be so, if nothing more is done for them."

Testimony of the Rev. C. C. Jones.

The Rev. C. C. Jones, in a sermon preached before two associations of Planters in Georgia, in 1831, says: "Generally speaking, they (the slaves) appear to us to be without God and without hope in the world, a NATION OF HEATHENS in our very midst. We cannot cry out against the Papist for withhold