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Updated: September 3, 2025
He who was now clothed in fine linen, had once rejoiced in a tow shirt that scarcely covered his nakedness, and had sustained life on a peck of corn a week, receiving the while kicks and curses from a tyrannical overseer. The death of his master had brought him to the auction-block, from which, both he and his mother were sold to separate owners.
As she turned to take her little girl from the arms of the servant, she displayed a fine profile and perfectly moulded form. No wonder that ten years before, when she was placed upon the auction-block at Savanah, she had brought so high a price. Mr. Garie had paid two thousand dollars for her, and was the envy of all the young bucks in the neighbourhood who had competed with him at the sale.
We cannot easily be convinced that this is not exactly parallel with being one of the slaves at the South, nor that to be a slave does not have these things for its inseparable conditions, which, we imagine, are always obtruding their direful visages; namely, "auction-block," "overseer," "whip," "chattelism," "separations," "down-trodden," "cattle."
You will find, on inquiry, that 'freedom' has nothing to boast of in this respect. As to the auctioneer, and the separation of the marriage tie by him, how often do you think that an honest black man, for no crime, is taken from his wife and sold, or she from him? How often, do you suppose, are families divided and scattered at the auction-block?
To live on the labors of a helot people blunts the finer sensibilities of men and women alike; when you can look unshrinkingly at the separation of husband and wife on the auction-block, when you can see innocent children taken from their mothers and sold into eternal separation, I think it is not unnatural in me to fear that a woman with my convictions would not be happy mated with a Southerner.
"You might," said I, "make a heading of an auction-block, or slave-coffle; add the last pattern of a slave-driver's whip; picture a panting fugitive on his way to the North; give us a ship's hold, with a black boy just detected among the stowage. You would thus, perhaps, keep these beautiful, touching illustrations of loving-kindness in slave-holders from having the least effect."
To have traveled in six years from the auction-block to the ballot with these people is an immense stride, and if we can carry this measure alone, of itself, we should be contented for the present." The vote being taken on Mr. Cowan's amendment conferring the elective franchise upon women, the result was yeas, nine; nays, thirty-seven.
Even when with a good master, there is not certainty of his happiness in the future. The less valuable slaves were first placed upon the auction-block, one after another, and sold to the highest bidder. Husbands and wives were separated with a degree of indifference that is unknown in any other relation in life.
From the slavery of the auction-block and cat-o'-nine-tails to that of the great industrial system, where souls as well as bodies are bought and sold; where wealth is created as by the magic wand of a genie or the touch of gold-accursed King Midas, while thousands and tens of thousands beg in God's great name for the poor privilege of wearing out their wretched lives in the brutal treadmill, to barter their blood for a scanty crust of black bread and beg in vain; then, finding the world against them, turn their hands against the world, become recruits to the great army of crime.
Yes! that fine-looking gentleman seated near Mr. Garie and losing nothing by the comparison that their proximity would suggest, had been fifteen years before sold on the auction-block in the neighbouring town of Savanah had been made to jump, show his teeth, shout to test his lungs, and had been handled and examined by professed negro traders and amateur buyers, with less gentleness and commiseration than every humane man would feel for a horse or an ox.
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