cured to the Hebrew bondman, not by any ordinary law, but by one of the Ten which, delivered amidst the thunders of Sinai, formed the religious and moral groundwork of the nation.
This law alleviated the lot of the feudal serf as well as that of the Hebrew bondservant. We know that by the Hebrews it was observed even with an exaggerated strictness. The observance of Sunday is legally enjoined in the Southern States, and it appears that the injunction is generally obeyed. But in Louisiana, as at Rome, property seems to have found a way in some measure to resume its rights. “There is a law of the State,” said a gentleman of Louisiana to Mr. Olmsted, “that negroes shall not be worked on Sundays; but I have seen negroes at work almost every Sunday, when I have been in the country, since I have lived in Louisiana. I spent a Sunday once with a gentleman who did not work his hands at all on Sunday, even in the grinding season; and had got some of his neighbours to help him build a schoolhouse, which was used as a church on Sunday. He said there was not a plantation on either side of him, as far as he could see, where the slaves were not generally worked on Sunday; but that after the church was started several of them quitted the practice and made their negroes go to the meeting. This made others discontented; and after a year or two the planters voted new trustees to the school, and these forbade the house to be used for any other than school purposes. This was done, he had no doubt, for the purpose of breaking up the meetings, and to lessen
