“No sides in this quarrel,” your statesmen may urge,
  Of school-house and wages with slave-pen and scourge!—­
  No sides in the quarrel! proclaim it as well
  To the angels that fight with the legions of hell!

  They kneel in God’s temple, the North and the South,
  With blood on each weapon and prayers in each mouth. 
  Whose cry shall be answered?  Ye Heavens, attend
  The lords of the lash as their voices ascend!

  “O Lord, we are shaped in the image of Thee,—­
  Smite down the base millions that claim to be free,
  And lend Thy strong arm to the soft-handed race
  Who eat not their bread in the sweat of their face!”

  So pleads the proud planter.  What echoes are these? 
  The bay of his bloodhound is borne on the breeze,
  And, lost in the shriek of his victim’s despair,
  His voice dies unheard.—­Hear the Puritan’s prayer!

  “O Lord, that didst smother mankind in Thy flood,
  The sun is as sackcloth, the moon is as blood,
  The stars fall to earth as untimely are cast
  The figs from the fig-tree that shakes in the blast!

  “All nations, all tribes in whose nostrils is breath,
  Stand gazing at Sin as she travails with Death! 
  Lord, strangle the monster that struggles to birth,
  Or mock us no more with Thy ‘Kingdom on Earth’!

  “If Ammon and Moab must reign in the land
  Thou gavest Thine Israel, fresh from Thy hand,
  Call Baael and Ashtaroth out of their graves
  To be the new gods for the empire of slaves!”

  Whose God will ye serve, O ye rulers of men? 
  Will ye build you new shrines in the slave-breeder’s den? 
  Or bow with the children of light, as they call
  On the Judge of the Earth and the Father of All?

  Choose wisely, choose quickly, for time moves apace,—­
  Each day is an age in the life of our race! 
  Lord, lead them in love, ere they hasten in fear
  From the fast-rising flood that shall girdle the sphere!

* * * * *

THE HORRORS OF SAN DOMINGO.[A]

[Footnote A:  See Numbers LVI., LVIII., and LIX. of this magazine.]

CHAPTER V.

INTRODUCTION OF SLAVERY—­THE SLAVE-TRADE—­AFRICAN TRIBES—­THE CODE NOIR—­THE MULATTOES.

It will be necessary for the present to omit the story of the settlement and growth of the French Colony, and of the pernicious commercial restrictions which swelled the unhappy heritage of the island, in order that we may reach, in this and a succeeding article, the great points of interest connected with the Negro, his relation to the Colony and complicity with its final overthrow.

The next task essential to our plan is to trace the entrance of Negro Slavery into the French part of the island, to describe the victims, and the legislation which their case inspired.