{"id":"01KG8AMJBHT7SKCTP2DH72CN7E","cid":"bafkreidn6ldue5mepbnzfailqcb7efgmd4dxv2ukil2mvf4rdupgts2qxm","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":5501,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:36.270Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 3","source_file":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","start_line":5456,"text":"naturally on them. A coarse, vulgar man, who happens to rise to high\r\nnaval rank by the exhibition of talents not incompatible with\r\nvulgarity, invariably proves a tyrant to his crew. It is a thing that\r\nAmerican men-of-war’s-men have often observed, that the Lieutenants\r\nfrom the Southern States, the descendants of the old Virginians, are\r\nmuch less severe, and much more gentle and gentlemanly in command, than\r\nthe Northern officers, as a class.\r\n\r\nAccording to the present laws and usages of the Navy, a seaman, for the\r\nmost trivial alleged offences, of which he may be entirely innocent,\r\nmust, without a trial, undergo a penalty the traces whereof he carries\r\nto the grave; for to a man-of-war’s-man’s experienced eye the marks of\r\na naval scourging with the “_cat_” are through life discernible. And\r\nwith these marks on his back, this image of his Creator must rise at\r\nthe Last Day. Yet so untouchable is true dignity, that there are cases\r\nwherein to be flogged at the gangway is no dishonour; though, to abase\r\nand hurl down the last pride of some sailor who has piqued him, be\r\nsome-times the secret motive, with some malicious officer, in procuring\r\nhim to be condemned to the lash. But this feeling of the innate dignity\r\nremaining untouched, though outwardly the body be scarred for the whole\r\nterm of the natural life, is one of the hushed things, buried among the\r\nholiest privacies of the soul; a thing between a man’s God and himself;\r\nand for ever undiscernible by our fellow-men, who account _that_ a\r\ndegradation which seems so to the corporal eye. But what torments must\r\nthat seaman undergo who, while his back bleeds at the gangway, bleeds\r\nagonized drops of shame from his soul! Are we not justified in\r\nimmeasurably denouncing this thing? Join hands with me, then; and, in\r\nthe name of that Being in whose image the flogged sailor is made, let\r\nus demand of Legislators, by what right they dare profane what God\r\nhimself accounts sacred.\r\n\r\nIs it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman? asks the\r\nintrepid Apostle, well knowing, as a Roman citizen, that it was not.\r\nAnd now, eighteen hundred years after, is it lawful for you, my\r\ncountrymen, to scourge a man that is an American? to scourge him round\r\nthe world in your frigates?\r\n\r\nIt is to no purpose that you apologetically appeal to the general\r\ndepravity of the man-of-war’s-man. Depravity in the oppressed is no\r\napology for the oppressor; but rather an additional stigma to him, as\r\nbeing, in a large degree, the effect, and not the cause and\r\njustification of oppression.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 3"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJRBP1VJJZR9SX9NMYNF8","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMJBAKXH9N3N2SA6Q9MMG","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:41.329Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:47.090Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}