"While traveling across the Peninsula in a stage, in company with a

northern gentleman, and southern lady, of great worth and piety, a

dispute arose respecting the general treatment of slaves, the

gentleman contending that their treatment was generally good--'O, no!'

interrupted the lady, 'you can know nothing of the treatment they

receive on the plantations. People here do whip the poor negroes most

cruelly, and many half starve them. You have neither of you had

opportunity to know scarcely anything of the cruelties that are

practiced in this country,' and more to the same effect. I met with

several others, besides this lady, who appeared to feel for the sins

of the land, but they are few and scattered, and not usually of

sufficiently stern mould to withstand the popular wave.

"Masters are not forward to publish their "domestic regulations," and

as neighbors are usually several miles apart, one's observation must

be limited. Hence the few instances of cruelty which break out can be

but a fraction of what is practised. A planter, a professor of

religion, in conversation upon the universality of whipping, remarked

that a planter in G--, who had whipped a great deal, at length got

tired of it, and invented the following _excellent_ method of

punishment, which I saw practised while I was paying him a visit. The

negro was placed in a sitting position, with his hands made fast above

his head, and feet in the stocks, so that he could not move any part

of the body.

"The master retired, intending to leave him till morning, but we were

awakened in the night by the groans of the negro, which were so

doleful that we feared he was dying. We went to him, and found him

covered with a cold sweat, and almost gone. He could not have lived an

hour longer. Mr. ---- found the 'stocks' such an effective punishment,

that it almost superseded the whip."

"How much do you give your niggers for a task while hoeing cotton,"

inquired Mr. C---- of his neighbor Mr. H----."

H. "I give my men an acre and a quarter, and my women an acre."[15]

[Footnote 15: Cotton is planted in drills about three feet apart, and

is hilled like corn.]

C. "Well, that is a fair task. Niggers do a heap better if they are

drove pretty tight."

H. "O yes, I have driven mine into complete subordination. When I

first bought them they were discontented and wished me to sell them,

but I soon whipped _that_ out of them; and they now work very

contentedly!"

C. "Does Mary keep up with the rest?"

H. "No, she does'nt often finish the task alone, she has to get Sam to

help her out after he has done his, _to save her a whipping_. There's

no other way but to be severe with them."

C. "No other, sir, if you favor a nigger you spoil him."

"The whip is considered as necessary on a plantation as the plough;

and its use is almost as common. The negro whip is the common

teamster's whip with a black leather stock, and a short, fine, knotted

lash. The paddle is also frequently used, sometimes with holes bored

in the flattened end. The ladies (!) in chastising their domestic

servants, generally use the cowhide. I have known some use shovel and

tongs. It is, however, more common to commit them to the driver to be

whipped. The manner of whipping is as follows: The negro is tied by

his hands, and sometimes feet, to a post or tree, and stripped to the

skin. The female slave is not always tied. The number of lashes

depends upon the character for severity of the master or overseer.

"Another instrument of torture is sometimes used, how extensively I

know not. The negro, or, in the case which came to my knowledge, the

negress was compelled to stand barefoot upon a block filled with sharp

pegs and nails for two or three hours. In case of sickness, if the

master or overseer thinks them seriously ill, they are taken care of,

but their complaints are usually not much heeded. A physician told me

that he was employed by a planter last winter to go to a plantation of

his in the country, as many of the negroes were sick. Says he--"I

found them in a most miserable condition. The weather was cold, and

the negroes were barefoot, with hardly enough of _cotton_ clothing to

cover their nakedness. Those who had huts to shelter them were obliged

to build them nights and Sundays. Many were sick and some had died. I

had the sick taken to an older plantation of their masters, where they

could be made comfortable, and they recovered. I directed that they

should not go to work till after sunrise, and should not work in the

rain till their health became established. But the overseer refusing

to permit it, I declined attending on them farther. I was called,'

continued he, 'by the overseer of another plantation to see one of the

men. I found him lying by the side of a log in great pain. I asked him

how he did, 'O,' says he, 'I'm most dead, can live but little longer.'

How long have you been sick? I've felt for more than six weeks as

though I could hardly stir.' Why didn't you tell your master, you was

sick? 'I couldn't see my master, and the overseer always whips us when

we complain, I could not stand a whipping.' I did all I could for the

poor fellow, but his _lungs were rotten_. He died in three days from

the time he left off work.' The cruelty of that overseer is such that

the negroes almost tremble at his name. Yet he gets a high salary, for

he makes the largest crop of any other man in the neighborhood, though

none but the hardiest negroes can stand it under him. "That man," says

the Doctor, "would be hung in my country." He was a German."

TESTIMONY OF REV. WILLIAM A. CHAPIN.

REV. WILLIAM SCALES, of Lyndon, Vermont, has furnished the following

testimony, under date of Dec. 15, 1838.

"I send you an extract from a letter that I have just received, which

you may use _ad libitum_. The letter is from Rev. Wm. A. Chapin,

Greensborough, Vermont. To one who is acquainted with Mr. C. his

opinion and statements must carry conviction even to the most

obstinate and incredulous. He observes, 'I resided, as a teacher,

nearly two years in the family of Carroll Webb, Esq., of Hampstead,

New Kent co. about twenty miles from Richmond, Virginia. Mr. Webb had

three or four plantations, and was considered one of the two

wealthiest men in the county: it was supposed he owned about two

hundred slaves. He was a member of the Presbyterian Church, and was

elected an elder while I was with him. He was a native of Virginia,

but a graduate of a New-England college.

"The slaves were called in the morning before daylight, I believe at

all seasons of the year, that they might prepare their food, and be

ready to go to work as soon as it was light enough to see. I know that

at the season of husking corn, October and November, they were usually

compelled to work late--till 12 or 1 o'clock at night. I know this

fact because they accompanied their work with a loud singing of their

own sort. I usually retired to rest between 11 and 12 o'clock, and

generally heard them at their work as long as I was awake. The slaves

lived in wretched log cabins, of one room each, without floors or

windows. I believe the slaves sometimes suffer for want of food. One

evening, as I was sitting in the parlor with Mr. W. one of the most

resolute of the slaves came to the door, and said, "Master, I am

willing to work for you, but I want something to eat." The only reply

was, "Clear yourself." I learned that the slaves had been without food

all day, because the man who was sent to mill could not obtain his

grinding. He went again the next day, and obtained his grist, and the

slaves had no food till he returned. He had to go about five

miles.[16]

[Footnote 16: To this, Rev. Mr. Scales adds, "In familiar language, and

in more detail, as I have learned it in conversation with Mr. Chapin,

the fact is as follows:--

"Mr. W. kept, what he called a 'boy,' i.e. a _man_, to go to mill. It

was his custom not to give his slaves anything to eat while he was

gone to mill--let him have been gone longer or shorter--for this

reason, if he was lazy, and delayed, the slaves would become hungry:

hence indignant, and abuse him--this was his punishment. On that

occasion he went to mill in the morning. The slaves came up at noon,

and returned to work without food. At night, after having worked hard

all day, without food, went to bed without supper. About 10 o'clock

the next day, they came up in a company, to their master's door, (that

master an elder in the church), and deputed one more resolute than the

rest to address him. This he did in the most respectful tones and

terms. "We are willing to work for you, master, but we can't work

without food; we want something to eat." "Clear yourself," was the

answer. The slaves retired; and in the morning were driven away to

work without food. At noon, I think, or somewhat after, they were

fed."]

"I know the slaves were sometimes severely whipped. I saw the backs of

several which had numerous scars, evidently caused by long and deep

lacerations of the whip; and I have good reason to believe that the

slaves were generally in that condition; for I never saw the back of

one exposed that was not thus marked,--and from their tattered and

scanty clothing their backs were often exposed."

TESTIMONY OF MESSRS. T.D.M. AND F.C. MACY.

This testimony is communicated in a letter from Mr. Cyrus Pierce, a

respectable and well known citizen of Nantucket, Mass. Of the

witnesses, Messrs. T.D.M. and F.C. Macy, Mr. Pierce says, "They are

both inhabitants of this island, and have resided at the south; they

are both worthy men, for whose integrity and intelligence I can vouch

unqualifiedly; the former has furnished me with the following

statement.

"During the winter of 1832-3, I resided on the island of St. Simon,

Glynn county, Georgia. There are several extensive cotton plantations

on the island. The overseer of the plantation on that part of the

island where I resided was a Georgian--a man of stern character, and

at times _cruelly abusive_ to his slaves. I have often been witness of

the _abuse_ of his power. In South Carolina and Georgia, on the low

lands, the cultivation is chiefly of rice. The land where it is raised

is often inundated, and the labor of preparing it, and raising a crop,

is very arduous. Men and women are in the field from earliest dawn to

dark--often _without hats_, and up to their arm-pits in mud and water.

At St. Simon's, cotton was the staple article. Ocra, the driver,

usually waited on the overseer to receive orders for the succeeding

day. If any slave was insolent, or negligent, the driver was

authorized to punish him with the whip, with as many blows as the

magnitude of the crime justified. He was frequently cautioned, upon

the peril of his skin, to see that all the negroes were off to the

field in the morning. 'Ocra,' said the overseer, one evening, to the

driver, 'if any pretend to be sick, send me word--allow no lazy wench

or fellow to skulk in the negro house.' Next morning, a few minutes

after the departure of the hands to the field, Ocra was seen hastening

to the house of the overseer. He was soon in his presence. 'Well, Ocra,

what now?' 'Nothing, sir, only Rachel says she sick--can't go to de

field to-day.' 'Ah, sick, is she? I'll see to her; you may be off. She

shall see if I am longer to be fooled with in this way. Here,

Christmas, mix these salts--bring them to me at the negro house.' And

seizing his whip, he made off to the negro settlement. Having a strong

desire to see what would be the result, I followed him. As I

approached the negro house, I heard high words. Rachel was stating her

complaint--children were crying from fright--and the overseer

threatening. Rachel.--'I can't work to-day--I'm sick!' Overseer.--'But

you shall work, if you die for it. Here, take these salts. Now move

off--quick--let me see your face again before night, and, by G--d,

you shall smart for it. Be off--no begging--not a word;'--and he

dragged her from the house, and followed her 20 or 30 rods,

threatening. The woman did not reach the field. Overcome by the

exertion of walking, and by agitation, she sunk down exhausted by the

road side--was taken up, and carried back to the house, where an

_abortion_ occurred, and her life was greatly jeoparded.

"It was _no uncommon_ sight to see a whole family, father, mother, and

from two to five children, collected together around their piggin of

hommony, or pail of potatoes, watched by the overseer. One meal was

always eaten in the field. No time was allowed for relaxation.

"It was not unusual for a child of five or six years to perform the

office of nurse--because the mother worked in a remote part of the

field, and was not allowed to leave her employment to take care of her

infant. Want of proper nutriment induces sickness of the worst type.

"No matter what the nature of the service, a peck of corn, dealt out

on Sunday, must supply the demands of nature for a week.

"The Sabbath, on a southern plantation, is a mere nominal holiday. The

slaves are liable to be called upon at all times, by those who have

authority over them.

"When it rained, the slaves were allowed to collect under a tree until

the shower had passed. Seldom, on a week day, were they permitted to

go to their huts during rain; and even had this privilege been

granted, many of those miserable habitations were in so dilapidated a

condition, that they would afford little or no protection. Negro huts

are built of logs, covered with boards or thatch, having _no

flooring_, and but one apartment, serving all the purposes of

sleeping, cooking, &c. Some are furnished with a temporary loft. I

have seen a whole family herded together in a loft ten feet by twelve.

In cold weather, they gather around the fire, spread their blankets

_on the ground_, and keep as comfortable as they can. Their supply of

clothing is scanty--each slave being allowed a Holland coat and

pantaloons, of the coarsest manufacture, and one pair of cowhide

shoes. The women, enough of the same kind of cloth for one frock. They

have also one pair of shoes. Shoes are given to the slaves in the

winter only. In summer, their clothing is composed of osnaburgs.

Slaves on different plantations are not allowed without a written

permission, to visit their fellow bondsmen, under penalty of severe

chastisement. I witnessed the chastisement of a young male slave, who

was found lurking about the plantation, and could give no other

account of himself, than that he wanted to visit some of his

acquaintance. Fifty lashes was the penalty for this offence. I could

not endure the dreadful shrieks of the tortured slave, and rushed away

front the scene."

The remainder of this testimony is furnished by Mr. F.C. Macy.

"I went to Savannah in 1820. Sailing up the river, I had my first view

of slavery. A large number of men and women, with _a piece of board on

their heads, carrying mud_, for the purpose of dyking, near the river.

After tarrying a while in Savannah, I went down to the sea islands of

De Fuskee and Hilton Head, where I spent six months. Negro houses are

small, built of rough materials, _and no floor_. Their clothing, (one

suit,) coarse; which they received on Christmas day. Their food was

three pecks of potatoes per week, in the potatoe season, and one peck

of corn the remainder of the year. The slaves carried with them into

the field their meal, and a gourd of water. They cooked their hommony

in the field, and ate it with a wooden paddle. Their treatment was

little better than that of brutes. _Whipping_ was nearly an every-day

practice. On Mr. M----'s plantation, at the island De Fuskee, I saw an

old man whipped; he was about 60. He had no clothing on, except a

shirt. The man that inflicted the blows was Flim, a tall and stout

man. The whipping was _very severe_. I inquired into the cause. Some

vegetables had been stolen from his master's garden, of which he could

give no account. I saw several women whipped, some of whom were in

very _delicate_ circumstances. The case of one I will relate. She had

been purchased in Charleston, and separated from her husband. On her

passage to Savannah, or rather to the island, she was delivered of a

child; and in about three weeks after this, she appeared to be

deranged. She would leave her work, go into the woods, and sing. Her

master sent for her, and ordered the driver to whip her. I was near

enough to hear the strokes.

"I have known negro boys, partly by persuasion, and partly by force,

made to strip off their clothing and fight for _the amusement of their

masters_. They would fight until both got to crying.

"One of the planters told me that his boat had been used without

permission. A number of his negroes were called up, and put in a

building that was lathed and shingled. The covering could be easily

removed from the inside. He called one out for examination. While

examining this one, he discovered another negro, coming out of the

roof. He ordered him back: he obeyed. In a few moments he attempted it

again. The master took deliberate aim at his head, but his gun missed

fire. He told me he should probably have killed him, had his gun gone

off. The negro jumped and run. The master took aim again, and fired;

but he was so far distant, that he received only a few shots in the

calf of his leg. After several days he returned, and received a severe

whipping.

"Mr. B----, planter at Hilton Head, freely confessed, that he kept one

of his slaves as a mistress. She slept in the same room with him.

This, I think, is a very common practice."

TESTIMONY OF A CLERGYMAN.

The following letter was written to Mr. ARTHUR TAPPAN, of New York, in

the summer of 1833. As the name of the writer cannot be published with

safety to himself, it is withheld.

The following testimonials, from Mr. TAPPAN, Professor WRIGHT, and

THOMAS RITTER, M.D. of New York, establish the trust-worthiness and

high respectability of the writer.

"I received the following letters from the south during the year 1833.

They were written by a gentleman who had then resided some years in

the slave states. Not being at liberty to give the writer's name, I

cheerfully certify that he is a gentleman of established character, a

graduate of Yale College, and a respected minister of the gospel.

"ARTHUR TAPPAN."

"My acquaintance with the writer of the following letter commenced, I

believe, in 1823, from which time we were fellow students in Yale

College till 1826. I have occasionally seen him since. His character,

so far as it has come within my knowledge, has been that of an upright

and remarkably _candid_ man. I place great confidence both in his

habits of careful and unprejudiced observation and his veracity.

"E. WRIGHT, jun. New York, April 13, 1839."

"I have been acquainted with the writer of the following letter about

twelve years, and know him to be a gentleman of high respectability,

integrity, and piety. We were fellow students in Yale College, and my

opportunities for judging of his character, both at that time and

since our graduation, have been such, that I feel myself fully

warranted in making the above unequivocal declaration.

"THOMAS RITTER. 104, Cherry-street, New York."

"NATCHEZ, 1833.

"It has been almost four years since I came to the south-west; and

although I have been told, from month to month, that I should soon

wear off my northern prejudices, and probably have slaves of my own,

yet my judgment in regard to oppression, or my prejudices, if they are

pleased so to call them, remain with me still. I judge still from

those principles which were fixed in my mind at the north; and a

residence at the south has not enabled me so to pervert truth, as to

make injustice appear justice.

"I have studied the state of things here, now for years, coolly and

deliberately, with the eye of an uninterested looker on; and hence I

may not be altogether unprepared to state to you some facts, and to

draw conclusions from them.

"Permit me then to relate what I have seen; and do not imagine that

these are all exceptions to the general treatment, but rather believe

that thousands of cruelties are practised in this Christian land,

every year, which no eye that ever shed a tear of pity could look

upon.

"Soon after my arrival I made an excursion into the country, to the

distance of some twenty miles. And as I was passing by a cotton field,

where about fifty negroes were at work, I was inclined to stop by the

road side to view a scene which was then new to me. While I was, in my

mind, comparing this mode of labor with that of my own native place, I

heard the driver, with a rough oath, order one that was near him, who

seemed to be laboring to the extent of his power, to "lie down." In a

moment he was obeyed; and he commenced whipping the offender upon his

naked back, and continued, to the amount of about twenty lashes, with

a heavy raw-hide whip, the crack of which might have been heard more

than half a mile. Nor did the females escape; for although I stopped

scarcely fifteen minutes, no less than three were whipped in the same

manner, and that so severely, I was strongly inclined to interfere.

"You may be assured, sir, that I remained not unmoved: I could no

longer look on such cruelty, but turned away and rode on, while the

echoes of the lash were reverberating in the woods around me. Such

scenes have long since become familiar to me. But then the full effect

was not lost; and I shall never forget, to my latest day, the mingled

feelings of pity, horror, and indignation that took possession of my

mind. I involuntarily exclaimed, O God of my fathers, how dost thou

permit such things to defile our land! Be merciful to us! and visit us

not in justice, for all our iniquities and the iniquities of our

fathers!

"As I passed on I soon found that I had escaped from one horrible

scene only to witness another. A planter with whom I was well

acquainted, had caught a negro without a pass. And at the moment I was

passing by, he was in the act of fastening his feet and hands to the

trees, having previously made him take off all his clothing except his

trowsers. When he had sufficiently secured this poor creature, he beat

him for several minutes with a green switch more than six feet long;

while he was writhing with anguish, endeavoring in vain to break the

cords with which he was bound, and incessantly crying out, "Lord,

master! do pardon me this time! do, master, have mercy!" These

expressions have recurred to me a thousand times since; and although

they came from one that is not considered among the sons of men, yet I

think they are well worthy of remembrance, as they might lead a wise

man to consider whether such shall receive mercy from the righteous

Judge, as never showed mercy to their fellow men.

"At length I arrived at the dwelling of a planter of my acquaintance,

with whom I passed the night. At about eight o'clock in the evening I

heard the barking of several dogs, mingled with the most agonizing

cries that I ever heard from any human being. Soon after the gentleman

came in, and began to apologize, by saying that two of his runaway

slaves had just been brought home; and as he had previously tried

every species of punishment upon them without effect, he knew not what

else to add, except to set his blood hounds upon them. 'And,'

continued he, 'one of them has been so badly bitten that he has been

trying to die. I am only sorry that he did not; for then I should not

have been further troubled with him. If he lives I intend to send him

to Natchez or to New Orleans, to work with the ball and chain.'

"From this last remark I understood that private individuals have the

right of thus subjecting their unmanageable slaves. I have since seen

numbers of these 'ball and chain' men, both in Natchez and New

Orleans, but I do not know whether there were any among them except

the state convicts.

"As the summer was drawing towards a close, and the yellow fever

beginning to prevail in town, I went to reside some months in the

country. This was the cotton picking season, during which, the

planters say, there is a greater necessity for flogging than at any

other time. And I can assure you, that as I have sat in my window

night after night, while the cotton was being weighed, I have heard

the crack of the whip, without much intermission, for a whole hour,

from no less than three plantations, some of which were a full mile

distant.

"I found that the slaves were kept in the field from daylight until

dark; and then, if they had not gathered what the master or overseer

thought sufficient, they were subjected to the lash.

"Many by such treatment are induced to run away and take up their

lodging in the woods. I do not say that all who run away are thus

closely pressed, but I do know that many are; and I have known no less

than a dozen desert at a time from the same plantation, in consequence

of the overseer's forcing them to work to the extent of their power,

and then whipping them for not having done more.

"But suppose that they run away--what is to become of them in the

forest? If they cannot steal they must perish of hunger--if the nights

are cold, their feet will be frozen; for if they make a fire they may

be discovered, and be shot at. If they attempt to leave the country,

their chance of success is about nothing. They must return, be

whipped--if old offenders, wear the collar, perhaps be branded, and

fare worse than before.

"Do you believe it, sir, not six months since, I saw a number of my

_Christian_ neighbors packing up provisions, as I supposed for a deer

hunt; but as I was about offering myself to the party, I learned that

their powder and balls were destined to a very different purpose: it

was, in short, the design of the party to bring home a number of

runaway slaves, or to shoot them if they should not be able to get

possession of them in any other way.

"You will ask, Is not this murder? Call it, sir, by what name you

please, such are the facts:--many are shot every year, and that too

while the masters say they treat their slaves well.

"But let me turn your attention to another species of cruelty. About a

year since I knew a certain slave who had deserted his master, to be

caught, and for the first time fastened to the stocks. In those same

stocks, from which at midnight I have heard cries of distress, while

the master slept, and was dreaming, perhaps, of drinking wine and of

discussing the price of cotton. On the next morning he was chained in

an immovable posture, and branded in both cheeks with red hot stamps

of iron. Such are the tender mercies of men who love wealth, and are

determined to obtain it at any price.

"Suffer me to add another to the list of enormities, and I will not

offend you with more.

"There was, some time since, brought to trial in this town a planter

residing about fifteen miles distant, for whipping his slave to death.

You will suppose, of course, that he was punished. No, sir, he was

acquitted, although there could be no doubt of the fact. I heard the

tale of murder from a man who was acquainted with all the

circumstances. 'I was,' said he, 'passing along the road near the

burying-ground of the plantation, about nine o'clock at night, when I

saw several lights gleaming through the woods; and as I approached, in

order to see what was doing, I beheld the coroner of Natchez, with a

number of men, standing around the body of a young female, which by

the torches seemed almost perfectly white. On inquiry I learned that

the master had so unmercifully beaten this girl that she died under

the operation: and that also he had so severely punished another of

his slaves that he was but just alive.'"

We here rest the case for the present, so far as respects the

presentation of facts showing the condition of the slaves, and proceed

to consider the main objections which are usually employed to weaken

such testimony, or wholly to set it aside. But before we enter upon

the examination of specific objections, and introductory to them, we

remark,--

1. That the system of slavery must be a system of horrible cruelty,

follows of necessity, from the fact that two millions seven hundred

thousand human beings _are held by force_, and used as articles of

property. Nothing but a heavy yoke, and an iron one, could possibly

keep so many necks in the dust. That must be a constant and mighty

pressure which holds so still such a vast army; nothing could do it

but the daily experience of severities, and the ceaseless dread and

certainty of the most terrible inflictions if they should dare to toss

in their chains.

2. Were there nothing else to prove it a system of monstrous cruelty,

the fact that FEAR is the only motive with which the slave is plied

during his whole existence, would be sufficient to brand it with

execration as the grand tormentor of man. The slave's _susceptibility

of pain_ is the sole fulcrum on which slavery works the lever that

moves him. In this it plants all its stings; here it sinks its hot

irons; cuts its deep gashes; flings its burning embers, and dashes its

boiling brine and liquid fire: into this it strikes its cold flesh

hooks, grappling irons, and instruments of nameless torture; and by it

drags him shrieking to the end of his pilgrimage. The fact that the

master inflicts pain upon the slave not merely as an _end_ to gratify

passion, but constantly as a _means_ of extorting labor, is enough of

itself to show that the system of slavery is unmixed cruelty.

3. That the slaves must suffer frequent and terrible inflictions,

follows inevitably from the _character of those who direct their

labor_. Whatever may be the character of the slaveholders themselves,

all agree that the overseers are, as a class, most abandoned, brutal,

and desperate men. This is so well known and believed that any

testimony to prove it seems needless. The testimony of Mr. WIRT, late

Attorney General of the United States, a Virginian and a slaveholder,

is as follows. In his life of Patrick Henry, p. 36, speaking of the

different classes of society in Virginia, he says,--"Last and lowest a

feculum, of beings called 'overseers'--_the most abject, degraded,

unprincipled race_, always cap in hand to the dons who employ them,

and furnishing materials for the exercise of their _pride, insolence,

and spirit of domination_."

Rev. PHINEAS SMITH, of Centreville, New-York, who has resided some

years at the south, says of overseers--

"It need hardly be added that overseers are in general ignorant,

_unprincipled and cruel_, and in such low repute that they are not

permitted to come to the tables of their employers; yet they have the

constant control of all the human cattle that belong to the master.

"These men are continually advancing from their low station to the

higher one of masters. These changes bring into the possession of

power a class of men of whose mental and moral qualities I have

already spoken."

Rev. HORACE MOULTON, Marlboro', Massachusetts, who lived in Georgia

several years, says of them,--

"The overseers are _generally loose in their morals_; it is the object

of masters to employ those whom they think will get the most work out

of their hands,--hence those who _whip and torment the slaves the

most_ are in many instances called the best overseers. The masters

think those whom the slaves fear the most are the best. Quite a

portion of the masters employ their own slaves as overseers, or rather

they are called drivers; these are more subject to the will of the

masters than the white overseers are; some of them are as lordly as an

Austrian prince, and sometimes more cruel even than the whites."

That the overseers are, as a body, sensual, brutal, and violent men is

_proverbial_. The tender mercies of such men _must be cruel_.

4. The _ownership_ of human beings necessarily presupposes an utter

disregard of their happiness. He who assumes it monopolizes their

_whole capital_, leaves them no stock on which to trade, and out of

which to _make_ happiness. Whatever is the master's gain is the

slave's loss, a loss wrested from him by the master, for the express

purpose of making it _his own gain_; this is the master's constant

employment--forcing the slave to toil--violently wringing from him

all he has and all he gets, and using it as his own;--like the vile

bird that never builds its nest from materials of its own gathering,

but either drives other birds from theirs and takes possession of

them, or tears them in pieces to get the means of constructing their

own. This daily practice of forcibly robbing others, and habitually

living on the plunder, cannot but beget in the mind the _habit_ of

regarding the interests and happiness of those whom it robs, as of no

sort of consequence in comparison with its own; consequently whenever

those interests and this happiness are in the way of its own

gratification, they will be sacrificed without scruple. He who cannot

see this would be unable to _feel_ it, if it were seen.

OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED.

Objection I--"SUCH CRUELTIES ARE INCREDIBLE."

The enormities inflicted by slaveholders upon their slaves will never

be discredited except by those who overlook the simple fact, that he

who holds human beings as his bona fide property, _regards_ them as

property, and not as _persons;_ this is his permanent state of mind

toward them. He does not contemplate slaves as human beings,

consequently does not _treat_ them as such; and with entire

indifference sees them suffer privations and writhe under blows,

which, if inflicted upon whites, would fill him with horror and

indignation. He regards that as good treatment of slaves, which would

seem to him insufferable abuse if practiced upon others; and would

denounce that as a monstrous outrage and horrible cruelty, if

perpretated upon white men and women, which he sees every day meted

out to black slaves, without perhaps ever thinking it cruel.

Accustomed all his life to regard them rather as domestic animals, to

hear them stormed at, and to see them cuffed and caned; and being

himself in the constant habit of treating them thus, such practices

have become to him a mere matter of course, and make no impression on

his mind. True, it is incredible that men should treat as _chattels_

those whom they truly regard as _human beings;_ but that they should

treat as chattels and working animals those whom they _regard_ as

such, is no marvel. The common treatment of dogs, when they are in the

way, is to kick them out of it; we see them every day kicked off the

sidewalks, and out of shops, and on Sabbaths out of churches,--yet, as

they are but _dogs_, these do not strike us as outrages; yet, if we

were to see men, women, and children--our neighbors and friends,

kicked out of stores by merchants, or out of churches by the deacons

and sexton, we should call the perpetrators inhuman wretches.

We have said that slaveholders regard their slaves not as human

beings, but as mere working animals, or merchandise. The whole

vocabulary of slaveholders, their laws, their usages, and their entire

treatment of their slaves fully establish this. The same terms are

applied to slaves that are given to cattle. They are called "stock."

So when the children of slaves are spoken of prospectively, they are

called their "increase;" the same term that is applied to flocks and

herds. So the female slaves that are mothers, are called "breeders"

till past child bearing; and often the same terms are applied to the

different sexes that are applied to the males and females among

cattle. Those who compel the labor of slaves and cattle have the same

appellation, "drivers:" the names which they call them are the same

and similar to those given to their horses and oxen. The laws of slave

states make them property, equally with goats and swine; they are

levied upon for debt in the same way; they are included in the same

advertisements of public sales with cattle, swine, and asses; when

moved from one part of the country to another, they are herded in

droves like cattle, and like them urged on by drivers; their labor is

compelled in the same way. They are bought and sold, and separated

like cattle: when exposed for sale, their good qualities are described

as jockies show off the good points of their horses; their strength,

activity, skill, power of endurance, &c. are lauded,--and those who

bid upon them examine their persons, just as purchasers inspect horses

and oxen; they open their mouths to see if their teeth are sound;

strip their backs to see if they are badly scarred, and handle their

limbs and muscles to see if they are firmly knit. Like horses, they

are warranted to be "sound," or to be returned to the owner if

"unsound." A father gives his son a horse and a _slave_; by his will

he distributes among them his race-horses, hounds, game-cocks, and

_slaves_. We leave the reader to carry out the parallel which we have

only begun. Its details would cover many pages.

That slaveholders do not practically regard slaves as _human beings_

is abundantly shown by their own voluntary testimony. In a recent work

entitled, "The South vindicated from the Treason and Fanaticism of

Northern Abolitionists," which was written, we are informed, by

Colonel Dayton, late member of Congress from South Carolina; the

writer, speaking of the awe with which the slaves regard the whites,

says,--

"The northerner looks upon a band of negroes as upon so many _men_,

but the planter or southerner _views them in a very different light._"

Extract from the speech of Mr. SUMMERS, of Virginia, in the

legislature of that state, Jan. 26, 1832. See the Richmond Whig.

"When, in the sublime lessons of Christianity, he (the slaveholder) is

taught to 'do unto others as he would have others do unto him,' HE

NEVER DREAMS THAT THE DEGRADED NEGRO IS WITHIN THE PALE OF THAT HOLY

CANON."

PRESIDENT JEFFERSON, in his letter to GOVERNOR COLES, of Illinois,

dated Aug. 25, 1814, asserts, that slaveholders regard their slaves as

brutes, in the following remarkable language.

"Nursed and educated in the daily habit of seeing the degraded

condition, both bodily and mental, of these unfortunate beings [the

slaves], FEW MINDS HAVE YET DOUBTED BUT THAT THEY WERE AS LEGITIMATE

SUBJECTS OF PROPERTY AS THEIR HORSES OR CATTLE."

Having shown that slaveholders regard their slaves as mere working

animals and cattle, we now proceed to show that their actual treatment

of them, is _worse_ than it would be if they were brutes. We repeat

it, SLAVEHOLDERS TREAT THEIR SLAVES WORSE THAN THEY DO THEIR BRUTES.

Whoever heard of cows or sheep being deliberately tied up and beaten

and lacerated till they died? or horses coolly tortured by the hour,

till covered with mangled flesh, or of swine having their legs tied

and being suspended from a tree and lacerated with thongs for hours,

or of hounds stretched and made fast at full length, flayed with

whips, red pepper rubbed into their bleeding gashes, and hot brine

dashed on to aggravate the torture? Yet just such forms and degrees of

torture are _daily_ perpetrated upon the slaves. Now no man that knows

human nature will marvel at this. Though great cruelties have always

been inflicted by men upon brutes, yet incomparably the most horrid

ever perpetrated, have been those of men upon _their own species_. Any

leaf of history turned over at random has proof enough of this. Every

reflecting mind perceives that when men hold _human beings_ as

_property_, they must, from the nature of the case, treat them worse

than they treat their horses and oxen. It is impossible for _cattle_

to excite in men such tempests of fury as men excite in each other.

Men are often provoked if their horses or hounds refuse to do, or

their pigs refuse to go where they wish to drive them, but the feeling

is rarely intense and never permanent. It is vexation and impatience,

rather than settled rage, malignity, or revenge. If horses and dogs

were intelligent beings, and still held as property, their opposition

to the wishes of their owners, would exasperate them immeasurably more

than it would be possible for them to do, with the minds of brutes.

None but little children and idiots get angry at sticks and stones

that lie in their way or hurt them; but put into sticks and stones

intelligence, and will, and power of feeling and motion, while they

remain as now, articles of property, and what a towering rage would

men be in, if bushes whipped them in the face when they walked among

them, or stones rolled over their toes when they climbed hills! and

what exemplary vengeance would be inflicted upon door-steps and

hearth-stones, if they were to move out of their places, instead of

lying still where they were put for their owners to tread upon. The

greatest provocation to human nature is _opposition to its will_. If a

man's will be resisted by one far _below_ him, the provocation is

vastly greater, than when it is resisted by an acknowledged superior.

In the former case, it inflames strong passions, which in the latter

lie dormant. The rage of proud Haman knew no bounds against the poor

Jew who would not do as he wished, and so he built a gallows for him.

If the person opposing the will of another, be so far below him as to

be on a level with chattels, and be actually held and used as an

article of property; pride, scorn, lust of power, rage and revenge

explode together upon the hapless victim. The idea of _property_

having a will, and that too in opposition to the will of its _owner_,

and counteracting it, is a stimulant of terrible power to the most

relentless human passions and from the nature of slavery, and the

constitution of the human mind, this fierce stimulant must, with

various degrees of strength, act upon slaveholders almost without

ceasing. The slave, however abject and crushed, is an intelligent

being: he has a _will_, and that will cannot be annihilated, _it will

show itself_; if for a moment it is smothered, like pent up fires when

vent is found, it flames the fiercer. Make intelligence _property_,

and its manager will have his match; he is met at every turn by an

_opposing will_, not in the form of down-right rebellion and defiance,

but yet, visibly, an _ever-opposing will_. He sees it in the

dissatisfied look, and reluctant air and unwilling movement; the

constrained strokes of labor, the drawling tones, the slow hearing,

the feigned stupidity, the sham pains and sickness, the short memory;

and he _feels_ it every hour, in innumerable forms, frustrating his

designs by a ceaseless though perhaps invisible countermining. This

unceasing opposition to the will of its 'owner,' on the part of his

rational 'property,' is to the slaveholder as the hot iron to the

nerve. He raves under it, and storms, and gnashes, and smites; but the

more he smites, the hotter it gets, and the more it burns him.

Further, this opposition of the slave's will to his owner's, not only

excites him to severity, that he may gratify his rage, but makes it

necessary for him to use violence in breaking down this

resistance--thus subjecting the slave to additional tortures. There is

another inducement to cruel inflictions upon the slave, and a

necessity for it, which does not exist in the case of brutes.

Offenders must be made an example to others, to strike them with

terror. If a slave runs away and is caught, his master flogs him with

terrible severity, not merely to gratify his resentment, and to keep

him from running away again, but as a warning to others. So in every

case of disobedience, neglect, stubbornness, unfaithfulness,

indolence, insolence, theft, feigned sickness, when his directions are

forgotten, or slighted, or supposed to be, or his wishes crossed, or

his property injured, or left exposed, or his work ill-executed, the

master is tempted to inflict cruelties, not merely to wreak his own

vengeance upon him, and to make the slave more circumspect in future,

but to sustain his authority over the other slaves, to restrain them

from like practices, and to preserve his own property.

A multitude of facts, illustrating the position that slaveholders

treat their slaves _worse_ than they do their cattle, will occur to

all who are familiar with slavery. When cattle break through their

owners' inclosures and escape, if found, they are driven back and

fastened in again; and even slaveholders would execrate as a wretch,

the man who should tie them up, and bruise and lacerate them for

straying away; but when _slaves_ that have escaped are caught, they

are flogged with the most terrible severity. When herds of cattle are

driven to market, they are suffered to go in the easiest way, each by

himself; but when slaves are driven to market, they are fastened

together with handcuffs, galled by iron collars and chains, and thus

forced to travel on foot hundreds of miles, sleeping at night in their

chains. Sheep, and sometimes horned cattle are marked with their

owners' initials--but this is generally done with paint, and of course

produces no pain. Slaves, too, are often marked with their owners'

initials, but the letters are stamped into their flesh with a hot

iron. Cattle are suffered to graze their pastures without stint; but

the slaves are restrained in their food to a fixed allowance. The

slaveholders' horses are notoriously far better fed, more moderately

worked, have fewer hours of labor, and longer intervals of rest than

their slaves; and their valuable horses are far more comfortably

housed and lodged, and their stables more effectually defended from

the weather, than the slaves' huts. We have here merely _begun_ a

comparison, which the reader can easily carry out at length, from the

materials furnished in this work.

We will, however, subjoin a few testimonies of slaveholders, and

others who have resided in slave states, expressly asserting that

slaves are treated _worse than brutes_.

The late Dr. GEORGE BUCHANAN, of Baltimore, Maryland, a member of the

American Philosophical Society, in an oration delivered in Baltimore,

July 4, 1791, page 10, says:

"The Africans whom you despise, whom you _more inhumanly treat than

brutes_, are equally capable of improvement with yourselves."

The Rev. GEORGE WHITEFIELD, in his celebrated letter to the

slaveholders of Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and

Georgia, written one hundred years ago, (See Benezet's Caution to

Great Britain and her Colonies, page 13), says:

"Sure I am, it is sinful to use them as bad, nay worse than if they

were brutes; and whatever particular _exceptions_ there may be, (as I

would charitably hope there are _some_) I fear the _generality_ of you

that own negroes, _are liable to such a charge_."

Mr. RICE, of Kentucky in his speech in the Convention that formed the

Constitution of that state, in 1790, says:

"He [the slave] is a rational creature, reduced by the power of

legislation to the _state of a brute_, and thereby deprived of every

privilege of humanity.... The brute may steal or rob, to supply

his hunger; but the slave, though in the most starving condition,

_dare not do either, on penalty of death, or some severe punishment_."

Rev. HORACE MOULTON, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in

Marlborough, Mass. who lived some years in Georgia, says:

"The southern horses and dogs have enough to eat, and good care is

taken of them; but southern negroes--who can describe their misery and

their wretchedness, their nakedness and their cruel scourgings! None

but God. Should we _whip our horses_ as they whip their slaves, even

for small offences, we should expose ourselves to the penalty of the

law."

Rev. PHINEAS SMITH, Centerville, Allegany county, New York, who has

resided four years in the midst of southern slavery--

"Avarice and cruelty are twin sisters; and I do not hesitate to

declare before the world, as my deliberate opinion, that there is

_less compassion_ for working slaves at the south, than for working

oxen at the north."

STEVEN SEWALL, Esq. Winthrop, Maine, a member of the Congregational

Church, and late agent of the Winthrop Manufacturing Company, who

resided five years in Alabama, says--

"I do not think that brutes, not even horses, are treated with _so

much cruelty_ as American slaves."

If the preceding considerations are insufficient to remove incredulity

respecting the cruelties suffered by slaves, and if northern objectors

still say, 'We might believe such things of savages, but that

civilized men, and republicans, in this Christian country, can openly

and by system perpetrate such enormities, is impossible';--to such we

reply, that this incredulity of the people of the free states, is not

only discreditable to their intelligence, but to their consistency.

Who is so ignorant as not to know, or so incredulous as to disbelieve,

that the early Baptists of New England were fined, imprisoned,

scourged, and finally banished by our puritan forefathers?--and that

the Quakers were confined in dungeons, publicly whipped at the

cart-tail, had their ears cut off, cleft sticks put upon their

tongues, and that five of them, four men and one woman, were hung on

Boston Common, for propagating the sentiments of the Society of

Friends? Who discredits the fact, that the civil authorities in

Massachusetts, less than a hundred and fifty years ago, confined in

the public jail a little girl of four years old, and publicly hung the

Rev. Mr. Burroughs, and eighteen other persons, mostly women, and

killed another, (Giles Corey,) by extending him upon his back, and

piling weights upon his breast till he was crushed to death [17]--and

this for no other reason than that these men and women, and this

little child, were accused by others of _bewitching_ them.

[Footnote 17: Judge Sewall, of Mass. in his diary, describing this

horrible scene, says that when the tongue of the poor sufferer had, in

the extremity of his dying agony, protruded from his mouth, a person

in attendance took his cane and thrust it back into his mouth.]

Even the children in Connecticut, know that the following was once a

law of that state:

"No food or lodging shall be allowed to a Quaker. If any person turns

Quaker, he shall be banished, and not be suffered to return on pain of

death."

These objectors can readily believe the fact, that in the city of New

York, less than a hundred years since, thirteen persons were publicly

burned to death, over a slow fire: and that the legislature of the

same State took under its paternal care the African slave-trade, and

declared that "all encouragement should be given to the _direct_

importation of slaves; that all _smuggling_ of slaves should be

condemned, as _an eminent discouragement to the fair trader_."

They do not call in question the fact that the African slave-trade was

carried on from the ports of the free states till within thirty years;

that even members of the Society of Friends were actively engaged in

it, shortly before the revolutionary war; [18] that as late as 1807,

no less than fifty-nine of the vessels engaged in that trade, were

sent out from the little state of Rhode Island, which had then only

about seventy thousand inhabitants; that among those most largely

engaged in these foul crimes, are the men whom the people of Rhode

Island delight to honor: that the man who dipped most deeply in that

trade of blood (James De Wolf,) and amassed a most princely fortune by

it, was not long since their senator in Congress; and another, who was

captain of one of his vessels, was recently Lieutenant Governor of the

state.

[Footnote 18: See Life and Travels of John Woolman, page 92.]

They can believe, too, all the horrors of the middle passage, the

chains, suffocation, maimings, stranglings, starvation, drownings, and

cold blooded murders, atrocities perpetrated on board these

slave-ships by their own citizens, perhaps by their own townsmen and

neighbors--possibly by their own _fathers_: but oh! they 'can't

believe that the slaveholders can be so hard-hearted towards their

slaves as to treat them with great cruelty.' They can believe that his

Holiness the Pope, with his cardinals, bishops and priests, have

tortured, broken on the wheel, and burned to death thousands of

Protestants--that eighty thousand of the Anabaptists were slaughtered

in Germany--that hundreds of thousands of the blameless Waldenses,

Huguenots and Lollards, were torn in pieces by the most titled

dignitaries of church and state, and that _almost every professedly

Christian sect, has, at some period of its history, persecuted unto

blood_ those who dissented from their creed. They can believe, also,

that in Boston, New York, Utica, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Alton, and

in scores of other cities and villages of the free states, 'gentlemen

of property and standing,' led on by civil officers, by members of

state legislatures, and of Congress, by judges and attorneys-general,

by editors of newspapers, and by professed ministers of the gospel,

have organized mobs, broken up lawful meetings of peaceable citizens,

committed assault and battery upon their persons, knocked them down

with stones, led them about with ropes, dragged them from their beds

at midnight, gagged and forced them into vehicles, and driven them

into unfrequented places, and there tormented and disfigured

them--that they have rifled their houses, made bonfires of their

furniture in the streets, burned to the ground, or torn in pieces the

halls or churches in which they were assembled--attacked them with

deadly weapons, stabbed some, shot others, and killed one. They can

believe all this--and further, that a majority of the citizens in the

places where these outrages have been committed, connived at them; and

by refusing to indict the perpetrators, or, if they were indicted, by

combining to secure their acquittal, and rejoicing in it, have

publicly adopted these felonies as their own. All these things they

can believe without hesitation, and that they have even been done by

their own acquaintances, neighbors, relatives; perhaps those with whom

they interchange courtesies, those for whom they _vote_, or to whose

_salaries they contribute_--but yet, oh! they can never believe that

slaveholders inflict cruelties upon their slaves!

They can give full credence to the kidnapping, imprisonment, and

deliberate murder of WILLIAM MORGAN, and that by men of high standing

in society; they can believe that this deed was aided and abetted, and

the murderers screened from justice, by a large number of influential

persons, who were virtually accomplices, either before or after the

fact; and that this combination was so effectual, as successfully to

defy and triumph over the combined powers of the government;--yet

that those who constantly rob men of their time, liberty, and wages,

and all their _rights_, should rob them of bits of flesh, and

occasionally of a tooth, make their backs bleed, and put fetters on

their legs, is too monstrous to be credited! Further these same

persons, who 'can't believe' that slaveholders are so iron-hearted as

to ill-treat their slaves, believe that the very _elite_ of these

slaveholders, those most highly esteemed and honored among them, are

continually daring each other to mortal conflict, and in the presence

of mutual friends, taking deadly aim at each other's hearts, with

settled purpose to _kill_, if possible. That among the most

distinguished governors of slave states, among their most celebrated

judges, senators, and representatives in Congress, there is hardly

_one_, who has not either killed, or tried to kill, or aided and

abetted his friends in trying to kill, one or more individuals. That

pistols, dirks, bowie knives, or other instruments of death are

generally carried throughout the slave states--and that deadly affrays

with them, in the streets of their cities and villages, are matters of

daily occurrence; that the sons of slaveholders in southern colleges,

bully, threaten, and fire upon their teachers, and their teachers upon

them; that during the last summer, in the most celebrated seat of

science and literature in the south, the University of Virginia, the

professors were attacked by more than seventy armed students, and, in

the words of a Virginia paper, were obliged 'to conceal themselves

from their fury;' also that almost all the riots and violence that

occur in northern colleges, are produced by the turbulence and lawless

passions of southern students. That such are the furious passions of

slaveholders, no considerations of personal respect, none for the

proprieties of life, none for the honor of our national legislature,

none for the character of our country abroad, can restrain the

slaveholding members of Congress from the most disgraceful personal

encounters on the floor of our nation's legislature--smiting their

fists in each other's faces, throttling and even _kicking_ and trying

to _gouge_ each other--that during the session of the Congress just

closed, no less than six slaveholders, taking fire at words spoken in

debate, have either rushed at each other's throats, or kicked, or

struck, or attempted to knock each other down; and that in all these

instances, they would doubtless have killed each other, if their

friends had not separated them. Further, they know full well, these

were not insignificant, vulgar blackguards, elected because they were

the head bullies and bottle-holders in a boxing ring, or because their

constituents went drunk to the ballot box; but they were some of the

most conspicuous members of the House--one of them a former speaker.

Our newspapers are full of these and similar daily occurrences among

slaveholders, copied verbatim from their own accounts of them in their

own papers and all this we fully credit; no man is simpleton enough to

cry out 'Oh, I can't believe that slaveholders do such things;'--and

yet when we turn to the treatment which these men mete out to their

_slaves_, and show that they are in the habitual practice of striking,

kicking, knocking down and shooting _them_ as well as each other--the

look of blank incredulity that comes over northern dough-faces, is a

study for a painter: and then the sentimental outcry, with eyes and

hands uplifted, 'Oh, indeed, I can't believe the slaveholders are so

cruel to their slaves.' Most amiable and touching charity! Truly, of

all Yankee notions and free state products, there is nothing like a

'_dough face_'--the great northern staple for the southern

market--'made to order,' in any quantity, and _always on hand_. 'Dough

faces!' Thanks to a slaveholder's contempt for the name, with its

immortality of truth, infamy and scorn.[19]

[Footnote 19: "_Doe_ face," which owes its paternity to John Randolph,

age has mellowed into "_dough_ face"--a cognomen quite as expressive

and appropriate, if not as classical.]

Though the people of the free states affect to disbelieve the

cruelties perpetrated upon the slaves, yet slaveholders believe _each

other_ guilty of them, and speak of them with the utmost freedom. If

slaveholders disbelieve any statement of cruelty inflicted upon a

slave, it is not on account of its _enormity_. The traveler at the

south will hear in Delaware, and in all parts of Maryland and

Virginia, from the lips of slaveholders, statements of the most

horrible cruelties suffered by the slaves _farther_ south, in the

Carolinas and Georgia; when he finds himself in those states he will

hear similar accounts about the treatment of the slaves in _Florida_

and _Louisiana_; and in Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee he will hear

of the tragedies enacted on the plantations in Arkansas, Alabama and

Mississippi. Since Anti-Slavery Societies have been in operation, and

slaveholders have found themselves on trial before the world, and put

upon their good behavior, northern slaveholders have grown cautious,

and now often substitute denials and set defences, for the voluntary

testimony about cruelty in the far south, which, before that period,

was given with entire freedom. Still, however, occasionally the 'truth

will out,' as the reader will see by the following testimony of an

East Tennessee newspaper, in which, speaking of the droves of slaves

taken from the upper country to Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, etc.,

the editor says, they are 'traveling to a region where their condition

through time WILL BE SECOND ONLY TO THAT OF THE WRETCHED CREATURES IN

HELL.' See "Maryville Intelligencer," of Oct, 4, 1835. Distant

cruelties and cruelties _long past_, have been till recently, favorite

topics with slaveholders. They have not only been ready to acknowledge

that their _fathers_ have exercised great cruelty toward their slaves,

but have voluntarily, in their official acts, made proclamation of it

and entered it on their public records. The Legislature of North

Carolina, in 1798, branded the successive legislatures of that state

for more than thirty years previous, with the infamy of treatment

towards their slaves, which they pronounce to be 'disgraceful to

humanity, and degrading in the highest degree to the laws and

principles of a free, Christian, and enlightened country.' This

treatment was the enactment and perpetuation of a most barbarous and

cruel law.

But enough. As the objector can and does believe all the preceeding

facts, if he still '_can't_ believe' as to the cruelties of

slaveholders, it would be barbarous to tantalize his incapacity either

with evidence or argument. Let him have the benefit of the act in such

case made and provided.

Having shown that the incredulity of the objector respecting the

cruelty inflicted upon the slaves, is discreditable to his

consistency, we now proceed to show that it is equally so to his

_intelligence_.

Whoever disbelieves the foregoing statements of cruelties, on the

ground of their enormity, proclaims his own ignorance of the nature

and history of man. What! incredulous about the atrocities perpetrated

by those who hold human beings as property, to be used for their

pleasure, when history herself has done little else in recording human

deeds, than to dip her blank chart in the blood shed by arbitrary

power, and unfold to human gaze the great red scroll? That cruelty is

the natural effect of arbitrary power, has been the result of all

experience, and the voice of universal testimony since the world

began. Shall human nature's axioms, six thousand years old, go for

nothing? Are the combined product of human experience, and the

concurrent records of human character, to be set down as 'old wives'

fables?' To disbelieve that arbitrary power naturally and habitually

perpetrates cruelties, where it can do it with impunity, is not only

ignorance of man, but of _things_. It is to be blind to innumerable

proofs which are before every man's eyes; proofs that are stereotyped

in the very words and phrases that are on every one's lips. Take for

example the words _despot_ and _despotic_. Despot, signifies

etymologically, merely one who _possesses_ arbitrary power, and at

first, it was used to designate those alone who _possessed_ unlimited

power over human beings, entirely irrespective of the way in which

they exercised it, whether mercifully or cruelly. But the fact, that

those who possessed such power, made their subjects their _victims_,

has wrought a total change in the popular meaning of the word. It now

signifies, in common parlance, not one who _possesses_ unlimited power

over others, but one who exercises the power that he has, whether

little or much, _cruelly_. So _despotic_, instead of meaning what it

once did, something pertaining to the _possession_ of unlimited power,

signifies something pertaining to the _capricious, unmerciful and

relentless exercise_ of such power.

The word tyrant, is another example--formerly it implied merely a

_possession_ of arbitrary power, but from the invariable abuse of such

power by its possessors, the proper and entire meaning of the word is

lost, and it now signifies merely one who _exercises power to the

injury of others_. The words tyrannical and tyranny follow the same

analogy. So the word arbitrary; which formerly implied that which

pertains to the will of one, independently of others; but from the

fact that those who had no restraint upon their wills, were invariably

capricious, unreasonable and oppressive, these words convey accurately

the present sense of _arbitrary_, when applied to a person.

How can the objector persist in disbelieving that cruelty is the

natural effect of arbitrary power, when the very words of every day,

rise up on his lips in testimony against him--words which once

signified the _mere possession_ of arbitrary power, but have lost

their meaning, and now signify merely its cruel _exercise_; because

such a use of it has been proved by the experience of the world, to be

inseparable from its _possession_--words now frigid with horror, and

never used even by the objector without feeling a cold chill run over

him.

Arbitrary power is to the mind what alcohol is to the body; it

intoxicates. Man loves power. It is perhaps the strongest human

passion; and the more absolute the power, the stronger the desire for

it; and the more it is desired, the more its exercise is enjoyed: this

enjoyment is to human nature a fearful temptation,--generally an

overmatch for it. Hence it is true, with hardly an exception, that

arbitrary power is abused in proportion as it is _desired_. The fact

that a person intensely desires power over others, _without

restraint_, shows the absolute necessity of restraint. What woman

would marry a man who made it a condition that he should have the

power to divorce her whenever he pleased? Oh! he might never wish to

exercise it, but the _power_ he would have! No woman, not stark mad,

would trust her happiness in such hands.

Would a father apprentice his son to a master, who insisted that his

power over the lad should be _absolute_? The master might perhaps,

never wish to commit a battery upon the boy, but if he should, he

insists upon having full swing! He who would leave his son in the,

clutches of such a wretch, would be bled and blistered for a lunatic

as soon as his friends could get their hands upon him.

The possession of power, even when greatly restrained, is such a fiery

stimulant, that its lodgement in human hands is always perilous. Give

men the handling of immense sums of money, and all the eyes of Argus

and the hands of Briarcus can hardly prevent embezzlement.

The mutual and ceaseless accusations of the two great political

parties in this country, show the universal belief that this tendency

of human nature to abuse power, is so strong, that even the most

powerful legal restraints are insufficient for its safe custody. From

congress and state legislatures down to grog-shop caucuses and street

wranglings, each party keeps up an incessant din about _abuses of

power_. Hardly an officer, either of the general or state governments,

from the President down to the ten thousand postmasters, and from

governors to the fifty thousand constables, escapes the charge of

'_abuse of power_.' 'Oppression,' 'Extortion,' 'Venality,' 'Bribery,'

'Corruption,' 'Perjury,' 'Misrule,' 'Spoils,' 'Defalcation,' stand on

every newspaper. Now without any estimate of the lies told in these

mutual charges, there is truth enough to make each party ready to

believe of the other, and _of their best men too,_ any abuse of power,

however monstrous. As is the State, so is the Church. From General

Conferences to circuit preachers; and from General Assemblies to

church sessions, abuses of power spring up as weeds from the dunghill.

All legal restraints are framed upon the presumption, that men will

abuse their power if not hemmed in by them. This lies at the bottom of

all those checks and balances contrived for keeping governments upon

their centres. If there is among human convictions one that is

invariable and universal, it is, that when men possess unrestrained

power over others, over their time, choice, conscience, persons,

votes, or means of subsistence, they are under great temptations to

abuse it; and that the intensity with which such power is desired,

generally measures the certainty and the degree of its abuse.

That American slaveholders possess a power over their slaves which is

virtually absolute, none will deny.[20] That they _desire_ this

absolute power, is shown from the fact of their holding and exercising

it, and making laws to confirm and enlarge it. That the desire to

possess this power, every tittle of it, is _intense_, is proved by the

fact, that slaveholders cling to it with such obstinate tenacity, as

well as by all their doings and sayings, their threats, cursings and

gnashings against all who denounce the exercise of such power as

usurpation and outrage, and counsel its immediate abrogation.

[Footnote 20: The following extracts from the laws of slave-states are

proofs sufficient.

"The slave is ENTIRELY subject to the WILL of his master."--Louisiana

Civil Code, Art. 273.

"Slaves shall be deemed, sold, taken, reputed and adjudged in law to

be _chattels personal,_ in the hands of their owner and possessors,

and their executors, administrators and assigns, TO ALL INTENTS,

CONSTRUCTIONS, AND PURPOSES, WHATSOEVER."--Laws of South Carolina, 2

Brev. Dig. 229; Prince's Digest, 446, &c.]

From the nature of the case--from the laws of mind, such power, so

intensely desired, griped with such a death-clutch, and with such

fierce spurnings of all curtailment or restraint, _cannot but be

abused._ Privations and inflictions must be its natural, habitual

products, with ever and anon, terror, torture, and despair let loose

to do their worst upon the helpless victims.

Though power over others is in every case liable to be used to their

injury, yet, in almost all cases, the subject individual is shielded

from great outrages by strong safeguards. If he have talents, or

learning, or wealth, or office, or personal respectability, or

influential friends, these, with the protection of law and the rights

of citizenship, stand round him as a body guard: and even if he lacked

all these, yet, had he the same color, features, form, dialect,

habits, and associations with the privileged caste of society, he

would find in _them_ a shield from many injuries, which would be

_invited,_ if in these respects he differed widely from the rest of

the community, and was on that account regarded with disgust and

aversion. This is the condition of the slave; not only is he deprived

of the artificial safeguards of the law, but has none of those

_natural_ safeguards enumerated above, which are a protection to

others. But not only is the slave destitute of those peculiarities,

habits, tastes, and acquisitions, which by assimilating the possessor

to the rest of the community, excite their interest in him, and thus,

in a measure, secure for him their protection; but he possesses those

peculiarities of bodily organization which are looked upon with deep

disgust, contempt, prejudice, and aversion. Besides this, constant

contact with the ignorance and stupidity of the slaves, their filth,

rags, and nakedness; their cowering air, servile employments,

repulsive food, and squalid hovels, their purchase and sale, and use

as brutes--all these associations, constantly mingling and circulating

in the minds of slaveholders, and inveterated by the hourly

irritations which must assail all who use human beings as things,

produce in them a permanent state of feeling toward the slave, made up

of repulsion and settled ill-will. When we add to this the corrosions

produced by the petty thefts of slaves, the necessity of constant

watching, their reluctant service, and indifference to their master's

interests, their ill concealed aversion to him, and spurning of his

authority; and finally, that fact, as old as human nature, that men

always hate those whom they oppress, and oppress those whom they hate,

thus oppression and hatred mutually begetting and perpetuating each

other--and we have a raging compound of fiery elements and disturbing

forces, so stimulating and inflaming the mind of the slaveholder

against the slave, that _it cannot but break forth upon him with

desolating fury._

To deny that cruelty is the spontaneous and uniform product of

arbitrary power, and that the natural and controlling tendency of such

power is to make its possessor cruel, oppressive, and revengeful

towards those who are subjected to his control, is, we repeat, to set

at nought the combined experience of the human race, to invalidate its

testimony, and to reverse its decisions from time immemorial.

A volume might be filled with the testimony of American slaveholders

alone, to the truth of the preceding position. We subjoin a few

illustrations, and first, the memorable declaration of President

Jefferson, who lived and died a slaveholder. It has been published a

thousand times, and will live forever. In his "Notes on Virginia,"

sixth Philadelphia edition, p. 251, he says,--

"The WHOLE COMMERCE between master and slave, is a PERPETUAL EXERCISE

of the most _boisterous passions_, the most unremitting DESPOTISM on

the one part, and degrading submission on the other..... The parent

_storms_, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of _wrath_, puts

on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, GIVES LOOSE TO THE

WORST OF PASSIONS; and thus _nursed, educated, and daily exercised in

tyranny,_ cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities."

Hon. Lewis Summers, Judge of the General Court of Virginia, and a

slaveholder, said in a speech before the Virginia legislature in 1832;

(see Richmond Whig of Jan. 26, 1832,)

"A slave population exercises _the most pernicious influence_ upon the

manners, habits and character, of those among whom it exists. Lisping

infancy learns the vocabulary of abusive epithets, and struts the

_embryo tyrant_ of its little domain. The consciousness of superior

destiny takes possession of his mind at its earliest dawning, and love

of power and rule, 'grows with his growth, and strengthens with his

strength.' Unless enabled to rise above the operation of those

powerful causes, he enters the world with miserable notions of

self-importance, and under the government of an unbridled temper."

The late JUDGE TUCKER of Virginia, a slaveholder, and Professor of Law

in the University of William and Mary, in his "Letter to a Member of

the Virginia Legislature," 1801, says,--

"I say nothing of the baneful effects of slavery on our _moral

character_, because I know you have been long sensible of this point."

The Presbyterian Synod of South Carolina and Georgia, consisting of

all the clergy of that denomination in those states, with a lay

representation from the churches, most, if not all of whom are

slaveholders, published a report on slavery in 1834, from which the

following is an extract.

"Those only who have the management of servants, know what the

_hardening effect_ of it is upon _their own feelings towards them._

There is no necessity to dwell on this point, as all _owners_ and

_managers_ fully understand it. He who commences to manage them with

tenderness and with a willingness to favor them in every way, must be

watchful, otherwise he will settle down in _indifference, if not

severity."_

GENERAL WILLIAM H. HARRISON, now of Ohio, son of the late Governor

Harrison of Virginia, a slaveholder, while minister from the United

States to the Republic of Colombia, wrote a letter to General Simon

Bolivar, then President of that Republic, just as he was about

assuming despotic power. The letter is dated Bogota, Sept. 22, 1826.

The following is an extract.

"From a knowledge of your own disposition and present feelings, your

excellency will not be willing to believe that you could ever be

brought to an act of tyranny, or even to execute justice with

unnecessary rigor. But trust me, sir, there is nothing more

corrupting, nothing more _destructive of the noblest and finest

feelings of our nature than the exercise of unlimited power_. The man,

who in the beginning of such a career, might shudder at the idea of

taking away the life of a fellow-being, might soon have his conscience

so seared by the repetition of crime, that the agonies of his murdered

victims might become music to his soul, and the drippings of the

scaffold afford blood to swim in. History is full of such excesses."

WILLIAM H. FITZHUGH, Esq. of Virginia, a slaveholder, says,--"Slavery,

in its mildest form, is cruel and unnatural; _its injurious effects on

our morals and habits are mutually felt."_

HON. SAMUEL S. NICHOLAS, late Judge of the Court of Appeals of

Kentucky, and a slaveholder, in a speech before the legislature of

that state, Jan. 1837, says,--

"The deliberate convictions of the most matured consideration I can

give the subject, are, that the institution of slavery is a _most

serious injury to the habits, manners and morals_ of our white

population--that it leads to sloth, indolence, dissipation, and vice."

Dr. THOMAS COOPER, late President of the College of South Carolina, in

a note to his edition of the "Institutes of Justinian" page 413,

says,--

"All absolute power has a direct tendency, not only to detract from

the happiness of the persons who are subject to it, but to DEPRAVE THE

GOOD QUALITIES of those who possess it..... the whole history of human

nature, in the present and every former age, will justify me in saying

that _such is the tendency of power_ on the one hand and slavery on

the other."

A South Carolina slaveholder, whose name is with the executive

committee of the Am. A.S. Society, says, in a letter, dated April 4,

1838:--

"I think it (slavery) _ruinous to the temper_ and to our spiritual

life; it is a thorn in the flesh, for ever and for ever goading us on

to say and to do what the Eternal God cannot but be displeased with. I

speak from experience, and oh! my desire is to be delivered from it."

Monsieur C.C. ROBIN, who was a resident of Louisiana from 1802 to

1806, published a work on that country; in which, speaking of the

effect of slaveholding on masters and their children, he says:--

"The young creoles make the negroes who surround them the play-things

of their whims: they flog, for pastime, those of their own age, just

as their fathers flog others at their will. These young creoles,

arrived at the age in which the passions are impetuous, do not _know

how to bear contradiction_; they will have every thing done which they

command, _possible or not_; and in default of this, they avenge their

offended pride by multiplied punishments."

Dr. GEORGE BUCHANAN, of Baltimore, Maryland, member of the American

Philosophical Society, in an oration at Baltimore, July 4, 1791,

said:--

"For such are the effects of subjecting man to slavery, that it

_destroys every humane principle_, vitiates the mind, instills ideas

of unlawful cruelties, and eventually subverts the springs of

government."--_Buchanan's Oration_, p. 12.

President EDWARDS the younger, in a sermon before the Connecticut

Abolition Society, in 1791, page 8, says:--

"Slavery has a most direct tendency to haughtiness, and a _domineering

spirit_ and conduct in the proprietors of the slaves, in their

children, and in all who have the control of them. A man who has been

bred up in domineering over negroes, can scarcely avoid contracting

such a habit of haughtiness and domination as will express itself in

his general treatment of mankind, whether in his private capacity, or

in any office, civil or military, with which he may be invested."

The celebrated MONTESQUIEU, in his "Spirit of the Laws," thus

describes the effect of slaveholding upon the master:--

"The master contracts all sorts of bad habits; and becomes _haughty,

passionate, obdurate, vindictive, voluptuous, and cruel_."

WILBERFORCE, in his speech at the anniversary of the London

Anti-Slavery Society, in March, 1828, said:--

"It is _utterly impossible_ that they who live in the administration

of the petty despotism of a slave community, whose minds have been

_warped_ and _polluted_ by that contamination, should not _lose that

respect_ for their fellow creatures over whom they tyrannize, which is

essential in the nature and moral being of man, to rescue them from

the abuse of power over their prostrate fellow creatures."

In the great debate, in the British Parliament, on the African

slave-trade, Mr. WHITBREAD said:

"Arbitrary power would spoil the hearts of the best."

But we need not multiply proofs to establish our position: it is

sustained by the concurrent testimony of sages, philosophers, poets,

statesmen, and moralists, in every period of the world; and who can

marvel that those in all ages who have wisely pondered men and things,

should be unanimous in such testimony, when the history of arbitrary

power has come down to us from the beginning of time, struggling

through heaps of slain, and trailing her parchments in blood.

Time would fail to begin with the first despot and track down the

carnage step by step. All nations, all ages, all climes crowd forward

as witnesses, with their scars, and wounds, and dying agonies.

But to survey a multitude bewilders; let us look at a single nation.

We instance Rome; both because its history is more generally known,

and because it furnishes a larger proportion of instances, in which

arbitrary power was exercised with comparative mildness, than any

other nation ancient or modern. And yet, her whole existence was a

tragedy, every actor was an executioner, the curtain rose amidst

shrieks and fell upon corpses, and the only shifting of the scenes was

from blood to blood. The whole world stood aghast, as under sentence

of death, awaiting execution, and all nations and tongues were driven,

with her own citizens, as sheep to the slaughter. Of her seven kings,

her hundreds of consuls, tribunes, decemvirs, and dictators, and her

fifty emperors, there is hardly one whose name has come down to us

unstained by horrible abuses of power; and that too, notwithstanding

we have mere shreds of the history of many of them, owing to their

antiquity, or to the perturbed times in which they lived; and these

shreds gathered from the records of their own partial countrymen, who

wrote and sung their praises. What does this prove? Not that the

Romans were worse than other men, nor that their rulers were worse

than other Romans, for history does not furnish nobler models of

natural character than many of those same rulers, when first invested

with arbitrary power. Neither was it mainly because the martial

enterprise of the earlier Romans and the gross sensuality of the

later, hardened their hearts to human suffering. In both periods of

Roman history, and in both these classes, we find men, the keen

sympathies, generosity, and benevolence of whose general character

embalmed their names in the grateful memories of multitudes. _They

were human beings, and possessed power without restraint_--this

unravels the mystery.

Who has not heard of the Emperor Trajan, of his moderation, his

clemency, his gashing sympathies, his forgiveness of injuries and

forgetfulness of self, his tearing in pieces his own robe, to furnish

bandages for the wounded--called by the whole world in his day, "the

best emperor of Rome;" and so affectionately regarded by his subjects,

that, ever afterwards, in blessing his successors upon their accession

to power, they always said, "May you have the virtue and goodness of

Trajan!" yet the deadly conflicts of gladiators who were trained to

kill each other, to make sport for the spectators, furnished his chief

pastime. At one time he kept up those spectacles for 123 days in

succession. In the tortures which he inflicted on Christians, fire

and poison, daggers and dungeons, wild beasts and serpents, and the

rack, did their worst. He threw into the sea, Clemens, the venerable

bishop of Rome, with an anchor about his neck; and tossed to the

famished lions in the amphitheatre the aged Ignatius.

Pliny the younger, who was proconsul under Trajan, may well be

mentioned in connection with the emperor, as a striking illustration

of the truth, that goodness and amiableness towards one class of men

is often turned into cruelty towards another. History can hardly show

a more gentle and lovely character than Pliny. While pleading at the

bar, he always sought out the grievances of the poorest and most

despised persons, entered into their wrongs with his whole soul, and

never took a fee. Who can read his admirable letters without being

touched by their tenderness and warmed by their benignity and

philanthropy: and yet, this tender-hearted Pliny coolly plied with

excruciating torture two spotless females, who had served as

deaconesses in the Christian church, hoping to extort from them matter

of accusation against the Christians. He commanded Christians to

abjure their faith, invoke the gods, pour out libations to the statues

of the emperor, burn incense to idols, and curse Christ. If they

refused, he ordered them to execution.

Who has not heard of the Emperor Titus--so beloved for his mild

virtues and compassionate regard for the suffering, that he was named

"The Delight of Mankind;" so tender of the lives of his subjects that

he took the office of high priest, that his hands might never be

defiled with blood; and was heard to declare, with tears, that he had

rather die than put another to death. So intent upon making others

happy, that when once about to retire to sleep, and not being able to

recall any particular act of beneficence performed during the day, he

cried out in anguish, "Alas! I have lost a day!" And, finally, whom

the learned Kennet, in his Roman Antiquities, characterizes as "the

only prince in the world that has the character of _never doing an ill

action_." Yet, witnessing the mortal combats of the captives taken to

war, killing each other in the amphitheatre, amidst the acclamations

of the populace, was a favorite amusement with Titus. At one time he

exhibited shows of gladiators, which lasted one hundred days, during

which the amphitheatre was flooded with human blood. At another of

his public exhibitions he caused five thousand wild beasts to be

baited in the amphitheatre. During the siege of Jerusalem, he set

ambushes to seize the famishing Jews, who stole out of the city by

night to glean food in the valleys: these he would first dreadfully

scourge, then torment them with all conceivable tortures, and, at

last, crucify them before the wall of the city. According to

Josephus, not less than five hundred a day were thus tormented. And

when many of the Jews, frantic with famine, deserted to the Romans,

Titus cut off their hands and drove them back. After the destruction

of Jerusalem, he dragged to Rome one hundred thousand captives, sold

them as slaves, and scattered them through every province of the

empire.

The kindness, condescension, and forbearance of Adrian were

proverbial; he was one of the most eloquent orators of his age; and

when pleading the cause of injured innocence, would melt and overwhelm

the auditors by the pathos of his appeals. It was his constant maxim,

that he was an Emperor, not for his own good, but for the benefit of

his fellow creatures. He stooped to relieve the wants of the meanest

of his subjects, and would peril his life by visiting them when sick

of infectious diseases; he prohibited, by law, masters from killing

their slaves, gave to slaves legal trial, and exempted them from

torture; yet towards certain individuals and classes, he showed

himself a monster of cruelty. He prided himself on his knowledge of

architecture, and ordered to execution the most celebrated architect

of Rome, because he had criticised one of the Emperor's designs. He

banished all the Jews from their native land, and drove them to the

ends of the earth; and unloosed the bloodhounds of persecution to rend

in pieces his Christian subjects.

The gentleness and benignity of the Emperor Aurelius, have been

celebrated in story and song. History says of him, 'Nothing could

quench his desire of being a blessing to mankind;' and Pope's eulogy

of him is in the mouth of every schoolboy--'Like good Aurelius, let

him reign;' and yet, '_good_ Aurelius,' lifted the flood gates of the

fourth, and one of the most terrible persecutions against Christians

that ever raged. He sent orders into different parts of his empire,

to have the Christians murdered who would not deny Christ. The

blameless Polycarp, trembling under the weight of a hundred years, was

dragged to the stake and burned to ashes. Pothinus, Bishop of Lyons,

at the age of ninety, was dragged through the streets, beaten, stoned,

trampled upon by the soldiers, and left to perish. Tender virgins

were put into nets, and thrown to infuriated wild bulls; others were

fastened in red hot iron chairs; and venerable matrons were thrown to

be devoured by dogs.

Constantine the Great has been the admiration of Christendom for his

virtues. The early Christian writers adorn his justice, benevolence

and piety with the most exalted eulogy. He was baptized, and admitted

to the Christian church. He abrogated Paganism, and made Christianity

the religion of his empire; he attended the councils of the early

fathers of the church, consulted with the bishops, and devoted himself

with the most untiring zeal to the propagation of Christianity, and to

the promotion of peace and love among its professors; he convened the

Council of Nice, to settle disputes which had long distracted the

church, appeared in the assembly with admirable modesty and temper,

moderated the heats of the contending parties, implored them to

exercise mutual forbearance, and exhorted them to love unfeigned, to

forgive one another, as they hoped to be forgiven by Christ. Who would

not think it uncharitable to accuse such a man of barbarity in the

exercise of power?--and yet he drove Arius and his associates into

banishment, for opinion's sake, denounced death against all with whom

his books should afterwards be found, and prohibited, on pain of

death, the exercise, however peaceably, of the functions of any other

religion than Christianity. In a fit of jealousy and rage, he ordered

his innocent son, Crispus, to execution, without granting him a

hearing; and upon finding him innocent, killed his own wife, who had

falsely accused him.

To the preceding maybe added Theodosius the Great, the last Roman

emperor before the division of the empire. He was a member of the

Christian church, and in his zeal against paganism, and what he deemed

heresy, surpassed all who were before him. The Christian writers of

his time speak of him as a most illustrious model of justice,

generosity, magnanimity, benevolence, and every virtue. And yet

Theodosius denounced capital punishments against those who held

'heretical' opinions, and commanded inter-marriage between cousins to

be punished by burning the parties alive. On hearing that the people

of Antioch had demolished the statues set up in that city, in honor of

himself, and had threatened the governor, he flew into a transport of

fury, ordered the city to be laid in ashes, and all the inhabitants to

be slaughtered; and upon hearing of a resistance to his authority in

Thessalonica, in which one of his lieutenants was killed, he instantly

ordered a _general massacre_ of the inhabitants; and in obedience to

his command, seven thousand men, women and children were butchered in

the space of three hours.

The foregoing are a few of many instances in the history of Rome, and

of a countless multitude in the history of the world, illustrating the

truth, that the lodgement of arbitrary power, in the best human hands,

is always a fearfully perilous experiment; that the mildest tempers,

the most humane and benevolent dispositions, the most blameless and

conscientious previous life, with the most rigorous habits of justice,

are no security, that, in a moment of temptation, the possessors of

such power will not make their subjects their victims; illustrating

also the truth, that, while men may exhibit nothing but honor,

honesty, mildness, justice, and generosity, in their intercourse with

those of their own grade, or language, or nation, or hue, they may

practice towards others, for whom they have contempt and aversion, the

most revolting meanness, perpetrate robbery unceasingly, and inflict

the severest privations, and the most barbarous cruelties. But this is

not all: history is full of examples, showing not only the effects of

arbitrary power on its victims, but its terrible reaction on those who

exercise it; blunting their sympathies, and hardening to adamant their

hearts toward _them_, at least, if not toward the human race

generally. This is shown in the fact, that almost every tyrant in the

history of the world, has entered upon the exercise of absolute power

with comparative moderation; multitudes of them with marked

forbearance and mildness, and not a few with the most signal

condescension, magnanimity, gentleness and compassion. Among these

last are included those who afterwards became the bloodiest monsters

that ever cursed the earth. Of the Roman Emperors, almost every one of

whom perpetrated the most barbarous atrocities, Vitellius seems to

have been the only one who cruelly exercised his power from the

_outset_. Most of the other emperors, sprung up into fiends in the

hot-bed of arbitrary power. If they had not been plied with its fiery

stimulants, but had lived under the legal restraints of other men,

instead of going to the grave under the curses of their generation,

multitudes might have called them blessed.

The moderation which has generally distinguished absolute monarchs at

the commencement of their reigns, was doubtless in some cases assumed

from policy; in the greater number, however, as is manifest from their

history, it has been the natural workings of minds held in check by

previous associations, and not yet hardened into habits of cruelty, by

being accustomed to the exercise of power without restraint. But as

those associations have weakened, and the wielding of uncontrolled

sway has become a habit, like other evil doers, they have, in the

expressive language of Scripture, 'waxed worse and worse.'

For eighteen hundred years an involuntary shudder has run over the

human race, at the mention of the name of Nero; yet, at the

commencement of his reign, he burst into tears when called upon to

sign the death-warrant of a criminal, and exclaimed, 'Oh, that I had

never learned to write!' His mildness and magnanimity won the

affections of his subjects; and it was not till the poison of absolute

power had worked within his nature for years, that it swelled him into

a monster.

Tiberius, Claudius, and Caligula, began the exercise of their power

with singular forbearance, and each grew into a prodigy of cruelty. So

averse was Caligula to bloodshed, that he refused to look at a list of

conspirators against his own life, which was handed to him; yet

afterwards, a more cruel wretch never wielded a sceptre. In his thirst

for slaughter, he wished all the necks in Rome _one_, that he might

cut them off at a blow.

Domitian, at the commencement of his reign, carried his abhorrence of

cruelty to such lengths, that he forbad the sacrificing of oxen, and

would sit whole days on the judgment-seat, reversing the unjust

decisions of corrupt judges; yet afterwards, he surpassed even Nero in

cruelty. The latter was content to torture and kill by proxy, and

without being a spectator; but Domitian could not be denied the luxury

of seeing his victims writhe, and hearing them shriek; and often with

his own hand directed the instrument of torture, especially when some

illustrious senator or patrician was to be killed by piece-meal.

Commodus began with gentleness and condescension, but soon became a

terror and a scourge, outstripping in his atrocities most of his

predecessors. Maximin too, was just and generous when first invested

with power, but afterwards rioted in slaughter with the relish of a

fiend. History has well said of this monarch, 'the change in his

disposition may readily serve to show how dangerous a thing is power,

that could transform a person of such rigid virtues into such a

monster.'

Instances almost innumerable might be furnished in the history of

every age, illustrating the blunting of sympathies, and the total

transformation of character wrought in individuals by the exercise of

arbitrary power. Not to detain the reader with long details, let a

single instance suffice.

Perhaps no man has lived in modern times, whose name excites such

horror as that of Robespierre. Yet it is notorious that he was

naturally of a benevolent disposition, and tender sympathies.

"Before the revolution, when as a judge in his native city of Arras he

had to pronounce judgment on an assassin, he took no food for two days

afterwards, but was heard frequently exclaiming, 'I am sure he was

guilty; he is a villain; but yet, to put a human being to death!!' He

could not support the idea; and that the same necessity might not

recur, he relinquished his judicial office.--(See Laponneray's Life of

Robespierre, p. 8.) Afterwards, in the Convention of 1791, he urged

strongly the abolition of the punishment of death; and yet, for

sixteen months, in 1793 and 1794, till he perished himself by the same

guillotine which he had so mercilessly used on others, no one at Paris

consigned and caused so many fellow-creatures to be put to death by

it, with more ruthless insensibility."--_Turner's Sacred history of

the World_, vol. 2 p. 119.

But it is time we had done with the objection, "such cruelties are

INCREDIBLE." If the objector still reiterates it, he shall have the

last word without farther molestation.

An objection kindred to the preceding now claims notice. It is the

profound induction that slaves _must_ be well treated because

_slaveholders say they are!_

OBJECTION. II.--'SLAVEHOLDERS PROTEST THAT THEY TREAT THEIR SLAVES

WELL.'

Self-justification is human nature; self-condemnation is a sublime

triumph over it, and as rare as sublime. What culprits would be

convicted, if their own testimony were taken by juries as good

evidence? Slaveholders are on trial, charged with cruel treatment to

their slaves, and though in their own courts they can clear themselves

_by their own oaths_,[21] they need not think to do it at the bar of

the world. The denial of crimes, by men accused of them, goes for

nothing as evidence in all _civilized_ courts; while the voluntary

confession of them, is the best evidence possible, as it is testimony

_against themselves_, and in the face of the strongest motives to

conceal the truth. On the preceding pages, are hundreds of just such

testimonies; the voluntary and explicit testimony of slaveholders

against themselves, their families and ancestors, their constituents

and their rulers; against their characters and their memories; against

their justice, their honesty, their honor and their benevolence. Now

let candor decide between those two classes of slaveholders, which is

most entitled to credit; that which testifies in its own favor, just

as self-love would dictate, or that which testifies against all

selfish motives and in spite of them; and though it has nothing to

gain, but every thing to lose by such testimony, still utters it.

But if there were no counter testimony, if all slaveholders were

unanimous in the declaration that the treatment of the slaves is

_good_, such a declaration would not be entitled to a feather's weight

as testimony; it is not _testimony_ but _opinion_. Testimony respects

matters of _fact_, not matters of opinion: it is the declaration of a

witness as to _facts_, not the giving of an opinion as to the nature

or qualities of actions, or the _character_ of a course of conduct.

Slaveholders organize themselves into a tribunal to adjudicate upon

their own conduct, and give us in their decisions, their estimate of

their own character; informing us with characteristic modesty, that

they have a high opinion of themselves; that in their own judgment

they are very mild, kind, and merciful gentlemen! In these conceptions

of their own merits, and of the eminent propriety of their bearing

towards their slaves, slaveholders remind us of the Spaniard, who

always took off his hat whenever he spoke of himself, and of the

Governor of Schiraz, who, from a sense of justice to his own character

added to his other titles, those of, 'Flower of Courtesy,' 'Nutmeg of

Consolation,' and 'Rose of Delight.'

[Footnote 21: The law of which the following is an extract, exists in

South Carolina. "If any slave shall suffer in life, limb or member,

when no white person shall be present, or being present, shall refuse

to give evidence, the owner or other person, who shall have the care

of such slave, and in whose power such slave shall be, shall be deemed

guilty of such offence, _unless_ such owner or other person shall make

the contrary appear by good and sufficient evidence, or shall BY HIS

OWN OATH CLEAR AND EXCULPATE HIMSELF. Which oath every court where

such offence shall be tried, is hereby compared to administer, and to

_acquit the offender_, if clear proof of the offence be not made by

_two_ witnesses at least."--2 Brevard's Digest, 242. The state of

Louisiana has a similar law.]

The _sincerity_ of those worthies, no one calls in question; their

real notions of their own merits doubtless ascended into the sublime:

but for aught that appears, they had not the arrogance to demand that

their own notions of their personal excellence, should be taken as the

_proof_ of it. Not so with our slaveholders. Not content with offering

incense at the shrine of their own virtues, they have the effrontery

to demand, that the rest of the world shall offer it, because _they_

do; and shall implicitly believe the presiding divinity to be a good

Spirit rather than a Devil, because _they_ call him so! In other

words, since slaveholders profoundly appreciate their own gentle

dispositions toward their slaves, and their kind treatment of them,

and everywhere protest that they do truly show forth these rare

excellencies, they demand that the rest of the world shall not only

believe that they _think_ so, but that they think _rightly_; that

these notions of themselves are _true_, that their taking off their

hats to themselves proves them worthy of homage, and that their

assumption of the titles of, 'Flower of Kindness,' and 'Nutmeg of

Consolation,' is conclusive evidence that they deserve such

appellations!

Was there ever a more ridiculous doctrine, than that a man's opinion

of his own actions is the true standard for measuring them, and the

certificate of their real qualities!--that his own estimate of his

treatment of others; is to be taken as the true one, and such

treatment be set down as _good_ treatment upon the strength of his

judgment. He who argues the good treatment of the slave, from the

slaveholder's _good opinion_ of such treatment, not only argues

against human nature and all history, his own common sense, and even

the testimony of his senses, but refutes his own arguments by his

daily practice. Every body acts on the presumption that men's feelings

will vary with their _practices_; that the light in which they view

individuals and classes, and their feelings towards them, will modify

their opinions of the treatment which they receive. In any case of

treatment that affects himself, his church, or his political party, no

man so stultifies himself as to argue that such treatment must be

good, because the _author_ of it thinks so.

Who would argue that the American Colonies were well treated by the

mother country, because parliament thought so? Or that Poland was well

treated by Russia, because Nicholas thought so? Or that the treatment

of the Cherokees by Georgia is proved good by Georgia notions of it?

Or that of the Greeks by the Turks, by Turkish opinions of it? Or that

of the Jews by almost all nations, by the judgment of their

persecutors? Or that of the victims of the Inquisition, by the

opinions of the Inquisitor general, or of the Pope and his cardinals?

Or that of the Quakers and Baptists, at the hands of the Puritans,--to

be judged of by the opinions of the legislatures that authorized, and

the courts that carried it into effect. All those classes of persons

did not, in their own opinion, abuse their victims. If charged with

perpetrating outrageous cruelty upon them, all those oppressors would

have repelled the charge with indignation.

Our slaveholders chime lustily the same song, and no man with human

nature within him, and human history before him, and with sense enough

to keep him out of the fire, will be gulled by such professions,

unless his itch to be humbugged has put on the type of a downright

chronic incurable. We repeat it--when men speak of the treatment of

others as being either good or bad, their declarations are not

generally to be taken as testimony to matters of _fact_, so much as

expressions of _their own feelings_ towards those persons or classes

who are the subjects of such treatment. If those persons are their

fellow citizens; if they are in the same class of society with

themselves; of the same language, creed, and color; similar in their

habits, pursuits, and sympathies; they will keenly feel any wrong done

to them, and denounce it as base, outrageous treatment; but let the

same wrongs be done to persons of a condition in all respects the

reverse, persons whom they habitually despise, and regard only in the

light of mere conveniences, to be used for their pleasure, and the

idea that such treatment is barbarous will be laughed at as

ridiculous. When we hear slaveholders say that their slaves are _well

treated_, we have only to remember that they are not speaking of

_persons_, but of _property_; not of men and women, but of _chattels_

and _things_; not of friends but of _vassals_ and _victims_; not of

those whom they respect and honor, but of those whom they _scorn_ and

trample on; not of those with whom they sympathize, and co-operate,

and interchange courtesies, but of those whom they regard with

contempt and aversion and disdainfully set with the dogs of their

flock. Reader, keep this fact in your mind, and you will have a clue

to the slaveholder's definition of "_good treatment_." Remember also,

that a part of this "good treatment" of which the slaveholders boast,

is plundering the slaves of all their inalienable rights, of the

ownership of their own bodies, of the use of their own limbs and

muscles, of all their time, liberty, and earnings, of the free

exercise of choice, of the rights of marriage and parental authority,

of legal protection, of the right to be, to do, to go, to stay, to

think, to feel, to work, to rest, to eat, to sleep, to learn, to

teach, to earn money, and to expend it, to visit, and to be visited,

to speak, to be silent, to worship according to conscience, in fine,

their right to be protected by just and equal laws, and to be

_amenable to such only_. Of _all these rights the slaves are

plundered_; and this is a _part_ of that "good treatment" of which

their plunderers boast! What then is the _rest_ of it? The above is

enough for a sample, at least a specimen-brick from the kiln. Reader,

we ask you no questions, but merely tell you what _you know_, when we

say that men and women who can habitually do such things to human

beings, _can do_ ANY THING _to them_.

The declarations of slaveholders, that they treat their slaves well,

will put no man in a quandary, who keeps in mind this simple

principle, that the state of mind towards others, which leads one to

inflict cruelties on them _blinds the inflicter to the real nature of

his own acts_. To him, they do not _seem_ to be cruelties;

consequently, when speaking of such treatment toward such persons, he

will protest that it is not cruelty; though if inflicted upon himself

or his friends, he would indignantly stigmatize it as atrocious

barbarity. The objector equally overlooks another every-day fact of

human nature, which is this, that cruelties invariably cease to _seem_

cruelties when the _habit_ is formed though previously the mind

regarded them as such, and shrunk from them with horror.

The following fact, related by the late lamented THOMAS PRINGLE, whose

Life and Poems have published in England, is an appropriate

illustration. Mr. Pringle states it on the authority of Captain W. F.

Owen, of the Royal Navy.

"When his Majesty's ships, the Leven and the Barracouta, employed in

surveying the coast of Africa, were at Mozambique, in 1823, the

officers were introduced to the family of Senor Manuel Pedro

d'Almeydra, a native of Portugal, who was a considerable merchant

settled on that coast; and it was an opinion agreed in by all, that

Donna Sophia d'Almeydra was the most superior woman they had seen

since they left England, Captain Owen, the leader of the expedition,

expressing to Senor d'Almeydra his detestation of slavery, the Senor

replied, 'You will not be long here before you change your sentiments.

Look at my Sophia there. Before she would marry me, she made me

promise that I should give up the slave trade. When we first settled

at Mozambique, she was continually interceding for the slaves, and she

_constantly wept when I punished them_; and now she is among the

slaves front morning to night; she regulates the whole of my slave

establishment; she inquires into every offence committed by them,

pronounces sentence upon the offender, and _stands by and sees them

punished_.'

"To this, Mr. Pringle, who was himself for six years a resident of the

English settlement at the Cape of Good Hope, adds, 'The writer of this

article has seen, in the course of five or six years, as great a

change upon English ladies and gentleman of respectability, as that

described to have taken place in Donna Sophia d'Almeydra; and one of

the individuals whom he has in his eye, while he writes this passage,

lately confessed to him this melancholy change, remarking at the same

time, 'how altered I am in my feelings with regard to slavery. I do

not appear to myself the same person I was on my arrival in this

colony, and if I would give the world for the feelings I then had, I

could not recall them.'"

Slaveholders know full well that familiarity with slavery produces

indifference to its cruelties and reconciles the mind to them. The

late Judge Tucker, a Virginia slaveholder and professor of law in the

University of William and Mary, in the appendix to his edition of

Blackstone's Commentaries, part 2, pp. 56, 57, commenting on the law

of Virginia previous to 1792, which outlawed fugitive slaves, says:

"Such are the cruelties to which slavery gives rise, such the horrors

to which the mind becomes _reconciled_ by its adoption."

The following facts from the pen of CHARLES STUART, happily illustrate

the same principle:

"A young lady, the daughter of a Jamaica planter, was sent at an early

age to school to England, and after completing her education, returned

to her native country.

"She is now settled with her husband and family in England. I visited

her near Bath, early last spring, (1834.) Conversing on the above

subject, the paralyzing effects of slaveholding on the heart, she

said:

"'While at school in England, I often thought with peculiar tenderness

of the kindness of a slave who had nursed and carried me about. Upon

returning to my father's, one of my first inquiries was about him. I

was deeply afflicted to find that he was on the point of undergoing a

"law flogging for having run away." I threw myself at my father's feet

and implored with tears, his pardon; but my father steadily replied,

that it would ruin the discipline of the plantation, and that the

punishment must take place. I wept in vain, and retired so grieved and

disgusted, that for some days after, I could scarcely bear with

patience, the sight of my own father. But many months had not elapsed

ere _I was as ready as any body_ to seize the domestic whip, _and flog

my slaves without hesitation_.'

"This lady is one of the most Christian and noble minds of my

acquaintance. She and her husband distinguished themselves several

years ago, in Jamaica, by immediately emancipating their slaves."

"A lady, now in the West Indies, was sent in her infancy, to her

friends, near Belfast, in Ireland, for education. She remained under

their charge from five to fifteen years of age, and grew up every

thing which her friends could wish. At fifteen, she returned to the

West Indies--was married--and after some years paid her friends near

Belfast, a second visit. Towards white people, she was the same

elegant, and interesting woman as before; apparently full of every

virtuous and tender feeling; but towards the colored people she was

like a tigress. If Wilberforce's name was mentioned, she would say,

'Oh, I wish we had the wretch in the West Indies, I would be one of

the first to help to tear his heart out!'--and then she would tell of

the manner in which the West Indian ladies used to treat their slaves.

'I have often,' she said, 'when my women have displeased me, snatched

their baby from their bosom, and running with it to a well, have tied

my shawl round its shoulders and pretended to be drowning it: oh, it

was so funny to hear the mother's screams!'--and then she laughed

almost convulsively at the recollection."

Mr. JOHN M. NELSON, a native of Virginia, whose testimony is on a

preceding page, furnishes a striking illustration of the principle in

his own case. He says:

"When I was quite a child, I recollect it grieved me very much to see

one tied up to be whipped, and I used to intercede _with tears in

their behalf_, and _mingle my cries with theirs_, and feel almost

willing to take part of the punishment. Yet such is the hardening

nature of such scenes, that from this kind of commiseration for the

suffering slave, I became so blunted that I could not only witness

their stripes with composure, but _myself_ inflict them, and that

without remorse. When I was perhaps fourteen or fifteen years of age,

I undertook to correct a young fellow named Ned, for some supposed

offence, I think it was leaving a bridle out of its proper place; he

being larger and stronger than myself took hold of my arms and held

me, in order to prevent my striking him; this I considered the height

of insolence, and cried for help, when my father and mother both came

running to my rescue. My father stripped and tied him, and took him

into the orchard, where switches were plenty, and directed me to whip

him; when one switch wore out he supplied me with others. After I had

whipped him a while, he fell on his knees to implore forgiveness, and

I kicked him in the face; my father said, 'don't kick him but whip

him,' this I did until his back was literally covered with _welts_."

W.C. GILDERSLEEVE, Esq., a native of Georgia, now elder of the

Presbyterian church, Wilkes-barre, Penn. after describing the flogging

of a slave, in which his hands were tied together, and the slave

hoisted by a rope, so that his feet could not touch the ground; in

which condition one hundred lashes were inflicted, says:

"I stood by and witnessed the whole without feeling the least

compassion; so _hardening_ is the influence of slavery that it _very

much destroys feeling for the slave_."

Mrs. CHILD, in her admirable "Appeal," has the following remarks:

"The ladies who remove from the free States into the slaveholding ones

almost invariably write that the sight of slavery was at first

exceedingly painful; but that they soon become habituated to it; and

after a while, they are very apt to vindicate the system, upon the

ground that it is extremely convenient to have such submissive

servants. This reason was actually given by a lady of my acquaintance,

who is considered an unusually fervent Christian. Yet Christianity

expressly teaches us to love our neighbor as ourselves. This shows how

dangerous it is, for even the best of us, to become _accustomed_ to

what is wrong.

"A judicious and benevolent friend lately told me the story of one of

her relatives, who married a slave owner, and removed to his

plantation. The lady in question was considered very amiable, and had

a serene, affectionate expression of countenance. After several years

residence among her slaves, she visited New England. 'Her history was

written in her face,' said my friend; 'its expression had changed into

that of a fiend. She brought but few slaves with her; and those few

were of course compelled to perform additional labor. One faithful

negro woman nursed the twins of her mistress, and did all the washing,

ironing, and scouring. If, after a sleepless night with the restless

babes, (driven from the bosom of their mother,) she performed her

toilsome avocations with diminished activity, her mistress, with her

own lady-like hands, applied the cowskin, and the neighborhood

resounded with the cries of her victim. The instrument of punishment

was actually kept hanging in the entry, to the no small disgust of her

New England visitors. 'For my part,' continued my friend, 'I did not

try to be polite to her; for I was not hypocrite enough to conceal my

indignation.'"

The fact that the greatest cruelties may be exercised quite

unconsciously when cruelty has become a habit, and that at the same

time, the mind may feel great sympathy and commiseration towards other

persons and even towards irrational animals, is illustrated in the

case of Tameriane the Great. In his Life, written by himself, he

speaks with the greatest sincerity and tenderness of his grief at

having accidentally crushed an ant; and yet he ordered melted lead to

be poured down the throats of certain persons who drank wine contrary

to his commands. He was manifestly sincere in thinking himself humane,

and when speaking of the most atrocious cruelties perpetrated by

himself, it does not seem to ruffle in the least the self-complacency

with which he regards his own humanity and piety. In one place he

says, "I never undertook anything but I commenced it placing my faith

on God"--and he adds soon after, "the people of Shiraz took part with

Shah Mansur, and put my governor to death; I therefore ordered _a

general massacre of all the inhabitants_."

It is one of the most common caprices of human nature, for the heart

to become by habit, not only totally insensible to certain forms of

cruelty, which at first gave it inexpressible pain, but even to find

its chief amusement in such cruelties, till utterly intoxicated by

their stimulation; while at the same time the mind seems to be pained

as keenly as ever, at forms of cruelty to which it has not become

accustomed, thus retaining _apparently_ the same general

susceptibilities. Illustrations of this are to be found every where;

one happens to lie before us. Bourgoing, in his history of modern

Spain, speaking of the bull fights, the barbarous national amusement

of the Spaniards, says:

"Young ladies, old men, people of all ages and of all characters are

present, and yet the habit of attending these bloody festivals does

not correct their weakness or their timidity, nor injure the sweetness

of their manners. I have moreover known foreigners, distinguished by

the gentleness of their manners, who experienced at first seeing a

bull-fight such very violent emotions as made them turn pale, and they

became ill; but, notwithstanding, this entertainment became afterwards

an irresistible attraction, without operating any revolution in their

characters." Modern State of Spain, by J. F. Bourgoing, Minister

Plenipotentiary from France to the Court of Madrid, Vol ii., page 342.

It is the _novelty_ of cruelty, rather than the _degree_, which repels

most minds. Cruelty in a _new_ form, however slight, will often pain a

mind that is totally unmoved by the most horrible cruelties in a form

to which it is _accustomed_. When Pompey was at the zenith of his

popularity in Rome, he ordered some elephants to be tortured in the

amphitheatre for the amusement of the populace; this was the first

time they had witnessed the torture of those animals, and though for

years accustomed to witness in the same place, the torture of lions,

tigers, leopards, and almost all sorts of wild beasts, as well as that

of men of all nations, and to shout acclamations over their agonies,

yet, this _novel form_ of cruelty so shocked the beholders, that the

most popular man in Rome was execrated as a cruel monster, and came

near falling a victim to the fury of those who just before were ready

to adore him.

We will now briefly notice another objection, somewhat akin to the

preceding, and based mainly upon the same and similar fallacies.

OBJECTION III.--'SLAVEHOLDERS ARE PROVERBIAL FOR THEIR KINDNESS,

HOSPITALITY, BENEVOLENCE, AND GENEROSITY.'

Multitudes scout as fictions the cruelties inflicted upon slaves,

because slaveholders are famed for their courtesy and hospitality.

They tell us that their generous and kind attentions to their guests,

and their well-known sympathy for the suffering, sufficiently prove

the charges of cruelty brought against them to be calumnies, of which

their uniform character is a triumphant refutation.

Now that slaveholders are proverbially hospitable to their guests, and

spare neither pains nor expense in ministering to their accommodation

and pleasure, is freely admitted and easily accounted for. That those

who make their inferiors work for them, without pay, should be

courteous and hospitable to those of their equals and superiors whose

good opinions they desire, is human nature in its every-day dress. The

objection consists of a fact and an inference: the fact, that

slaveholders have a special care to the accommodation of their

_guests;_ the inference, that therefore they must seek the comfort of

their _slaves_--that as they are bland and obliging to their equals,

they must be mild and condescending to their inferiors--that as the

wrongs of their own grade excite their indignation, and their woes

move their sympathies, they must be touched by those of their

chattels--that as they are full of pains-taking toward those whose

good opinions and good offices they seek, they will, of course, show

special attention to those to whose good opinions they are

indifferent, and whose good offices they can _compel_--that as they

honor the literary and scientific, they must treat with high

consideration those to whom they deny the alphabet--that as they are

courteous to certain _persons_, they must be so to "property"--eager

to anticipate the wishes of visitors, they cannot but gratify those of

their vassals--jealous for the rights of the Texans, quick to feel at

the disfranchisement of Canadians and of Irishmen, alive to the

oppressions of the Greeks and the Poles, they must feel keenly for

their _negroes!_ Such conclusions from such premises do not call for

serious refutation. Even a half-grown boy, who should argue, that

because men have certain feelings toward certain persons in certain

circumstances, they must have the same feelings toward all persons in

all circumstances, or toward persons in opposite circumstances, of

totally different grades, habits, and personal peculiarities, might

fairly be set down as a hopeless simpleton: and yet, men of sense and

reflection on other subjects, seem bent upon stultifying themselves by

just such shallow inferences from the fact, that slaveholders are

hospitable and generous to certain persons in certain grades of

society belonging to their own caste. On the ground of this reasoning,

all the crimes ever committed may be disproved, by showing, that their

perpetrators were hospitable and generous to those who sympathized and

co-operated with them. To prove that a man does not hate one of his

neighbors, it is only necessary to show that he loves another; to make

it appear that he does not treat contemptuously the ignorant, he has

only to show that he bows respectfully to the learned; to demonstrate

that he does not disdain his inferiors, lord it over his dependents,

and grind the faces of the poor, he need only show that he is polite

to the rich, pays deference to titles and office, and fawns for favor

upon those above him! The fact that a man always smiles on his

customers, proves that he never scowls at those who dun him! and since

he has always a melodious "good morning!" for "gentlemen of property

and standing," it is certain that he never snarls at beggars. He who

is quick to make room for a doctor of divinity, will, of course, see

to it that he never runs against a porter; and he who clears the way

for a lady, will be sure never to rub against a market woman, or

jostle an apple-seller's board. If accused of beating down his

laundress to the lowest fraction, of making his boot-black call a

dozen times for his pay, of higgling and screwing a fish boy till he

takes off two cents, or of threatening to discharge his seamstress

unless she will work for a shilling a day, how easy to brand it all as

slander, by showing that he pays his minister in advance, is generous

in Christmas presents, gives a splendid new-year's party, expends

hundreds on elections, and puts his name with a round sum on the

subscription paper of the missionary society.

Who can forget the hospitality of King Herod, that model of generosity

"beyond all ancient fame," who offered half his kingdom to a guest, as

a compensation for an hour's amusement.--Could such a noble spirit

have murdered John the Baptist? Incredible! Joab too! how his soft

heart was pierced at the exile of Absalom! and how his bowels yearned

to restore him to his home! Of course, it is all fiction about his

assassinating his nephew, Amasa, and Abner the captain of the host!

Since David twice spared the life of Saul when he came to murder him,

wept on the neck of Jonathan, threw himself upon the ground in anguish

when his child sickened, and bewailed, with a broken heart, the loss

of Absalom--it proves that he did not coolly plot and deliberately

consummate the murder of Uriah! As the Government of the United States

generously gave a township of land to General La Fayette, it proves

that they have never defrauded the Indians of theirs! So the fact,

that the slaveholders of the present Congress are, to a man, favorable

to recognizing the independence of Texas, with her fifty or sixty

thousand inhabitants, _before she has achieved it_, and before it is

recognized by any other government, proves that these same

slaveholders do _not oppose_ the recognition of Hayti, with her

million of inhabitants, whose independence was achieved nearly half a

century ago, and which is recognized by the most powerful governments

on earth!

But, seriously, no man is so slightly versed in human nature as not to

know that men habitually exercise the most opposite feelings, and

indulge in the most opposite practices toward different persons or

different classes of persons around them. No man has ever lived who

was more celebrated for his scrupulous observance of the most exact

justice, and for the illustration furnished in his life of the noblest

natural virtues, than the Roman Cato. His strict adherence to the

nicest rules of equity--his integrity, honor, and incorruptible

faith--his jealous watchfulness over the rights of his fellow

citizens, and his generous devotion to their interest, procured for

him the sublime appellation of "The Just." Towards _freemen_ his life

was a model of every thing just and noble: but to his slaves he was a

monster. At his meals, when the dishes were not done to his liking, or

when his slaves were careless or inattentive in serving, he would

seize a thong and violently beat them, in presence of his

guests.--When they grew old or diseased, and were no longer

serviceable, however long and faithfully they might have served him,

he either turned them adrift and left them to perish, or starved them

to death in his own family. No facts in his history are better

authenticated than these.

No people were ever more hospitable and munificent than the Romans,

and none more touched with the sufferings of others. Their public

theatres often rung with loud weeping, thousands sobbing convulsively

at once over fictitious woes and imaginary sufferers: and yet these

same multitudes would shout amidst the groans of a thousand dying

gladiators, forced by their conquerors to kill each other in the

amphitheatre for the _amusement_ of the public.[22]