These b.l.o.o.d.y scenes are _constantly exhibiting in every slave holding country--thousands of whips are every day stained in African blood_!
Even the poor _females_ are not permitted to escape these shocking cruelties."--_Rankin"s Letters._
These letters were published fifteen years ago.--They were addressed to a brother in Virginia, who was a slaveholder.
TESTIMONY OF THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY.
"We have heard of slavery as it exists in Asia, and Africa, and Turkey--we have heard of the feudal slavery under which the peasantry of Europe have groaned from the days of Alaric until now, but excepting only the horrible system of the West India Islands, we have never heard of slavery in any country, ancient or modern, Pagan, Mohammedan, or _Christian! so terrible in its character_, as the slavery which exists in these United States."--_Seventh Report American Colonization Society,_ 1824.
TESTIMONY OF THE GRADUAL EMANc.i.p.aTION SOCIETY OF NORTH CAROLINA.
_Signed by Moses Swain, President, and William Swain, Secretary._
"In the eastern part of the state, the slaves considerably outnumber the free population. Their situation is there wretched beyond description. Impoverished by the mismanagement which we have already attempted to describe, the master, unable to support his own grandeur and maintain his slaves, puts the unfortunate wretches upon short allowances, scarcely sufficient for their sustenance, so that a great part of them go half naked and half starved much of the time.
Generally, throughout the state, the African is an _abused, a monstrously outraged creature."--See Minutes of the American Convention, convened in Baltimore, Oct._ 25, 1826.
FROM NILES" BALTIMORE REGISTER FOR 1829, VOL 35, p. 4.
"Dealing in slaves has become a _large business_. Establishments are made at several places in Maryland and Virginia, at which they are sold like cattle. These places of deposit are strongly built, and well supplied with _iron thumb-screws and gags_, and ornamented with _catskins and other whips--often times b.l.o.o.d.y_."
Judge RUFFIN, of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, in one of his judicial decisions, says--"The slave, to remain a slave, must feel that there is NO APPEAL FROM HIS MASTER. No man can antic.i.p.ate the provocations which the slave would give, nor the consequent wrath of the master, prompting him to b.l.o.o.d.y VENGEANCE on the turbulent traitor, a vengeance _generally_ practiced with impunity, by reason of its PRIVACY."--See _Wheeler"s Law of Slavery_ p. 247.
MR. MOORE, of VIRGINIA, in his speech before the Legislature of that state, Jan. 15, 1832, says: "It must be confessed, that although the treatment of our slaves is in the general, as mild and humane as it can be, that it must always happen, that there will be found hundreds of individuals, who, owing either to the natural ferocity of their dispositions, or to the effects of intemperance, will be guilty of cruelty and barbarity towards their slaves, which is _almost intolerable_, and at which humanity revolts."
TESTIMONY OF B. SWAIN, ESQ., OF NORTH CAROLINA.
"Let any man of spirit and feeling, for a moment cast his thoughts over this land of slavery--think of the _nakedness_ of some, the _hungry yearnings_ of others, the _flowing tears and heaving sighs_ of parting relations, the _wailings and wo, the b.l.o.o.d.y cut of the keen lash, and the frightful scream that rends the very skies_--and all this to gratify ambition, l.u.s.t, pride, avarice, vanity, and other depraved feelings of the human heart.... THE WORST IS NOT GENERALLY KNOWN. Were all the miseries, the horrors of slavery, to burst at once into view, a peal of seven-fold thunder could scarce strike greater alarm."--_See "Swain"s Address,"_ 1830.
TESTIMONY OF DR. JAMES C. FINLEY,
_Son of Dr. Finley, one of the founders of the Colonization Society, and brother of R.S. Finley, agent of the American Colonization Society._ Dr. J.C. Finley was formerly one of the editors of the Western Medical Journal, at Cincinnati, and is well known in the west as utterly hostile to immediate abolition.
"In almost the last conversation I had with you before I left Cincinnati, I promised to give you some account of some scenes of atrocious cruelty towards slaves, which I witnessed while I lived at the south. I almost regret having made the promise, for not only are they _so atrocious_ that you will with difficulty believe them, but I also fear that they will have the effect of driving you into that _abolitionism_, upon the borders of which you have been so long hesitating. The people of the north _are ignorant of the horrors of slavery_--of the _atrocities_ which it commits upon the unprotected slave. * * *
"I do not know that any thing could be gained by particularizing the scenes of _horrible barbarity_, which fell under my observation during my _short_ residence in one of the wealthiest, most intelligent, and most moral parts of Georgia. Their _number_ and _atrocity_ are such, that I am confident they would gain credit with none but _abolitionists_. Every thing will be conveyed in the remark, that in a state of society calculated to foster the worst pa.s.sions of our nature, the slave derives _no protection_ either from _law_ or _public opinion_, and that ALL the cruelties which the Russians are reported to have acted towards the Poles, after their late subjugation, ARE SCENES OF EVERY-DAY OCCURRENCE in the southern states. This statement, incredible as it may seem, falls short, very far short of the truth."
The foregoing is extracted from a letter written by Dr. Finley to Rev.
Asa Mahan, his former pastor, then of Cincinnati, now President of Oberlin Seminary.
TESTIMONY OF REV. WILLIAM T. ALLAN, OF ILLINOIS, _Son of a Slaveholder, Rev. Dr. Allan of Huntsville, Ala._
"At our house it is so common to hear their (the slaves") screams, that we think nothing of it: and lest any one should think that in _general_ the slaves are well treated, let me be distinctly understood:--_cruelty_ is the _rule_, and _kindness_ the _exception_."
Extract of a letter dated July 2d, 1834, from Mr. NATHAN COLE, of St.
Louis, Missouri, to Arthur Tappan, Esq. of this city:
"I am not an advocate of the immediate and unconditional emanc.i.p.ation of the slaves of our country, yet _no man has ever yet depicted the wretchedness of the situation of the slaves in colors as dark for the truth_.... I know that many good people _are not aware of the treatment to which slaves are usually subjected_, nor have they any just idea of the extent of the evil."
TESTIMONY OF REV. JAMES A. THOME, _A native of Kentucky--Son of Arthur Thome Esq., till recently a Slaveholder._
"Slavery is the parent of more suffering than has flowed from any one source since the date of its existence. Such sufferings too!
_Sufferings inconceivable and innumerable--unmingled wretchedness_ from the ties of nature rudely broken and destroyed, the _acutest bodily tortures, groans, tears and blood_--lying forever in weariness and painfulness, in watchings, in hunger and in thirst, in cold and nakedness.
"Brethren of the North, be not deceived. _These sufferings still exist_, and despite the efforts of their cruel authors to hush them down, and confine them within the precincts of their own plantations, they will ever and anon, struggle up and reach the ear of humanity."--_Mr. Thome"s Speech at New York, May,_ 1834.
TESTIMONY OF THE MARYVILLE (TENNESSEE) INTELLIGENCER, OF OCT. 4, 1835.
The Editor, in speaking of the sufferings of the slaves which are taken by the internal trade to the South West, says:
"Place yourself in imagination, for a moment, in their condition.
With _heavy galling chains_, riveted upon your person; _half-naked, half-starved_; your back _lacerated_ with the "knotted Whip;"
traveling to a region where your _condition through time will be second only to the wretched creatures in h.e.l.l_.
"This depicting is not visionary. Would to G.o.d that it was."
TESTIMONY OF THE PRESBYTERIAN SYNOD OF KENTUCKY; _A large majority of whom are slaveholders._
"This system licenses and produces _great cruelty_.
"Mangling, imprisonment, starvation, every species of torture, may be inflicted upon him, (the slave,) and he has no redress.
"There are now in our whole land two millions of human beings, exposed, defenceless, to every insult, and every injury short of maiming or death, which their fellow men may choose to inflict. _They suffer all_ that can be inflicted by wanton caprice, by grasping avarice, by brutal l.u.s.t, by malignant spite, and by insane anger.
Their happiness is the sport of every whim, and the prey of every pa.s.sion that may, occasionally, or habitually, infest the master"s bosom. If we could calculate the amount of wo endured by ill-treated slaves, it would overwhelm every compa.s.sionate heart--it would move even the obdurate to sympathy. There is also a vast sum of suffering inflicted upon the slave by humane masters, as a punishment for that idleness and misconduct which slavery naturally produces.
"_Brutal stripes_ and all the varied kinds of personal indignities, are not the only species of cruelty which slavery licenses."
TESTIMONY OF THE REV. N.H. HARDING, Pastor of the Presbyterian Church, in Oxford, North Carolina, a slaveholder.
"I am greatly surprised that you should in any form have been the apologist of a system so full of deadly poison to all holiness and benevolence as slavery, the concocted essence of fraud, selfishness, and cold hearted tyranny, and the fruitful parent of unnumbered evils, both to the oppressor and the oppressed, THE ONE THOUSANDTH PART OF WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN BROUGHT TO LIGHT."