The slave may be punished at his master's discretion--without trial--without any means of legal redress; whether his offence be real or imaginary; and the master can transfer the same despotic power to any person or persons, he may choose to appoint.
Grimké discusses the arbitrary power masters have to punish slaves without legal recourse or trial.
Share
More from Angelina Emily Grimké
What can I say more, my friends, to induce you to set your hands, and heads, and hearts, to this great work of justice and mercy.
They were occasioned not by Emancipation, but by the base attempt to fasten the chains of slavery on the limbs of liberated slaves.
I have endeavoured to set before you the exceeding sinfulness of slavery, and to point you to the example of those noble women who have been raised up in the church to effect great revolutions, and to suffer for the truth's sake.
Slavery may produce these horrible scenes if it is continued five years longer, but Emancipation never will.