Charleston, contains the following passage:–
“Some advantages of a _peculiar_ character are connected with this Institution, which it may be proper to point out. No place in the United States offers as great opportunities for the acquisition of anatomical knowledge, SUBJECTS BEING OBTAINED FROM AMONG THE COLORED POPULATION IN SUFFICIENT NUMBER FOR EVERY PURPOSE, AND PROPER DISSECTIONS CARRIED ON WITHOUT OFFENDING ANY INDIVIDUALS IN THE COMMUNITY!!”
_Without offending any individuals in the community_! More than half the population of Charleston, we believe, is ‘colored;’ _their_ graves may be ravaged, their dead may be dug up, dragged into the dissecting room, exposed to the gaze, heartless gibes, and experimenting knives, of a crowd of inexperienced operators, who are given to understand in the prospectus, that, if they do not acquire manual dexterity in dissection, it will be wholly their own fault, in neglecting to improve the unrivalled advantages afforded by the institution–since each can have as many human bodies as he pleases to experiment upon–and as to the fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, brothers, and sisters, of those whom they cut to pieces from day to day, why, they are not ‘individuals in the community,’ but ‘property,’ and however _their_ feelings may be tortured, the ‘public opinion’ of slaveholders is entirely too ‘chivalrous’ to degrade itself by caring for them!
The following which has been for some time a standing advertisement of the South Carolina Medical College, in the Charleston papers, is another index of the same ‘public opinion’ toward slaves. We give an extract:–
“_Surgery of the Medical College of South Carolina, Queen st_.–The Faculty inform their professional brethren, and the public that they have established a _Surgery_, at the Old College, Queen street, FOR THE TREATMENT OF NEGROES, which will continue in operation, during the session of the College, say from first November, to the fifteenth of March ensuing.
“The _object_ of the Faculty, in opening this Surgery, is to collect as _many interesting cases_, as possible, for the _benefit_ and _instruction_ of their pupils–at the same time, they indulge the hope, that it may not only prove an _accommodation_, but also a matter of economy to the public. They would respectfully call the attention of planters, living in the vicinity of the city, to this subject; particularly such as may have servants laboring under Surgical diseases. Such _persons of color_ as may not be able to pay for Medical advice, will be attended to gratis, at stated hours, as often as may be necessary.
“The Faculty take this opportunity of soliciting the co-operation of such of their professional brethren, as are favorable to their objects.”
“The first thing that strikes the reader of the advertisement is, that this _Surgery_ is established exclusively ‘for the treatment of _negroes_; and, if he knows little of the hearts of slaveholders towards their slaves, he charitably supposes, that they ‘feel the dint of pity,’ for the poor sufferers and have founded this institution as a special charity for their relief. But the delusion vanishes as he reads on; the professors take special care that no such derogatory inference shall be drawn from their advertisement. They give us the three reasons which have induced them to open this ‘Surgery for the treatment of negroes.’ The first and main one is, ‘to collect as many _interesting cases_ as possible for the benefit and instruction of their _pupils_–another is, ‘the hope that it may prove an _accommodation_,’–and the third, that it may be ‘a matter of economy to the _public_’ Another reason, doubtless, and controlling one, though the professors are silent about it, is that a large collection of ‘interesting surgical cases,’ always on hand, would prove a powerful attraction to students, and greatly increase the popularity of the institution. In brief, then, the motives of its founders, the professors, were these, the accommodation of their _students_–the accommodation of the _public_ (which means, _the whites_)–and the accommodation of slaveholders who have on their hands disabled slaves, that would make ‘interesting cases,’ for surgical operation in the presence of the pupils–to these reasons we may add the accommodation of the Medical Institution and the accommodation of _themselves_! Not a syllable about the _accommodation_ of the hopeless sufferers, writhing with the agony of those gun shot wounds, fractured sculls, broken limbs and ulcerated backs which constitute the ‘interesting cases’ for the professors to ‘show off’ before their pupils, and, as practice makes perfect, for the students themselves to try their hands at by way of experiment.
Why, we ask, was this surgery established ‘for the treatment of _negroes’_ alone? Why were these ‘interesting cases’ selected from that class exclusively? No man who knows the feeling of slave holders towards slaves will be at a loss for the reason. ‘Public opinion’ would tolerate surgical experiments, operations, processes, performed upon them, which it would execrate if performed upon their master or other whites. As the great object in collecting the disabled negroes is to have ‘interesting cases’ for the students, the professors who perform the operations will of course endeavor to make them as ‘interesting’ as possible. The _instruction of the student_ is the immediate object, and if the professors can accomplish it best by _protracting_ the operation, pausing to explain the different processes, &c. the subject is only a negro, and what is his protracted agony, that it should restrain the professor from making the case as ‘interesting’ as possible to the students by so using his knife as will give them the best knowledge of the parts, and the process, however it may protract or augment the pain of the subject. The _end_ to be accomplished is the _instruction_ of the student, operations upon the negroes are the _means_ to the end; _that_ tells the whole story–and he who knows the hearts of slaveholders and has common sense, however short the allowance, can find the way to his conclusions without a lantern.
By an advertisement of the same Medical Institution, dated November 12, 1838, and published in the Charleston papers, it appears that an ‘infirmary has been opened in connection with the college.’ The professors manifest a great desire that the masters of servants should send in their disabled slaves, and as an inducement to the furnishing of such _interesting cases_ say, all medical and surgical aid will be offered _without making them liable to any professional charges_. Disinterested bounty, pity, sympathy, philanthropy. However difficult or numerous the surgical cases of slaves thus put into their hands by the masters, they charge not a cent for their _professional services_. Their yearnings over human distress are so intense, that they beg the privilege of performing all operations, and furnishing all the medical attention needed, _gratis_, feeling that the relief of misery is its own reward!!! But we have put down our exclamation points too soon–upon reading the whole of the advertisement we find the professors conclude it with the following paragraph:–
“The SOLE OBJECT Of the faculty in the establishment of such an institution being to promote the interest of Medical Education within their native State and City.”
In the “Charleston (South Carolina) Mercury” of October 12, 1838, we find an advertisement of half a column, by a Dr. T. Stillman, setting forth the merits of another ‘Medical Infirmary,’ under his own special supervision, at No. 110 Church street, Charleston. The doctor, after inveighing loudly against ‘men totally ignorant of medical science,’ who flood the country with quack nostrums backed up by ‘fabricated proofs of miraculous cures,’ proceeds to enumerate the diseases to which his ‘Infirmary’ is open, and to which his practice will be mainly confined. Appreciating the importance of ‘interesting cases,’ as a stock in trade, on which to commence his experiments, he copies the example of the medical professors, and advertises for them. But, either from a keener sense of justice, or more generosity, or greater confidence in his skill, or for some other reason, he proposes to _buy up_ an assortment of _damaged_ negroes, given over, as incurable, by others, and to make such his ‘interesting cases,’ instead of experimenting on those who are the ‘property’ of others.
Dr. Stillman closes his advertisement with the following notice:–
“To PLANTERS AND OTHERS.–Wanted _fifty negroes_. Any person having sick negroes, considered incurable by their respective physicians, and wishing to dispose of them, Dr. S. will pay cash for negroes affected with scrofula or king’s evil, confirmed hypocondriasm, apoplexy, diseases of the liver, kidneys, spleen, stomach and intestines, bladder and its appendages, diarrhea, dysentery, &c. The highest cash price will be paid on application as above.”
The absolute barbarism of a ‘public opinion’ which not only tolerates, but _produces_ such advertisements as this, was outdone by nothing in the dark ages. If the reader has a heart of flesh, he can feel it without help, and if he has not, comment will not create it. The total indifference of slaveholders to such a cold blooded proposition, their utter unconsciousness of the paralysis of heart, and death of sympathy, and every feeling of common humanity for the slave, which it reveals, is enough, of itself to show that the tendency of the spirit of slaveholding is, to kill in the soul whatever it touches. It has no eyes to see, nor ears to hear, nor mind to understand, nor heart to feel for its victims as _human beings_. To show that the above indication of the savage state is not an index of individual feeling, but of ‘public opinion,’ it is sufficient to say, that it appears to be a standing advertisement in the Charleston Mercury, the leading political paper of South Carolina, the organ of the Honorables John C. Calhoun, Robert Barnwell Rhett, Hugh S. Legare, and others regarded as the elite of her statesmen and literati. Besides, candidates for popular favor, like the doctor who advertises for the fifty ‘incurables,’ take special care to conciliate, rather than outrage, ‘public opinion.’ Is the doctor so ignorant of ‘public opinion’ in his own city, that he has unwittingly committed violence upon it in his advertisement? We trow not. The same ‘public opinion’ which gave birth to the advertisement of doctor Stillman, and to those of the professors in both the medical institutions, founded the Charleston ‘Work House’–a soft name for a Moloch temple dedicated to torture, and reeking with blood, in the midst of the city; to which masters and mistresses send their slaves of both sexes to be stripped, tied up, and cut with the lash till the blood and mangled flesh flow to their feet, or to be beaten and bruised with the terrible paddle, or forced to climb the tread-mill till nature sinks, or to experience other nameless torments.
The “Vicksburg (Miss.) Register,” Dec. 27, 1838, contains the following item of information: “ARDOR IN BETTING.–Two gentlemen, at a tavern, having summoned the waiter, the poor fellow had scarcely entered, when he fell down in a fit of apoplexy. ‘He’s dead!’ exclaimed one. ‘He’ll come to!’ replied the other. ‘Dead, for five hundred!’ ‘Done!’ retorted the second. The noise of the fall, and the confusion which followed, brought up the landlord, who called out to fetch a doctor. ‘No! no! we must have no interference–there’s a bet depending!’ ‘But, sir, I shall lose a valuable servant!’ ‘Never mind! you can put him down in the bill!'”
About the time the Vicksburg paper containing the above came to hand, we received a letter from N.P. ROGERS, Esq. of Concord, N.H. the editor of the ‘Herald of Freedom,’ from which the following is an extract:
“Some thirty years ago, I think it was, Col. Thatcher, of Maine, a lawyer, was in Virginia, on business, and was there invited to dine at a public house, with a company of the gentry of the south. _The place_ I forget–the fact was told me by George Kimball, Esq. now of Alton, Illinois who had the story from Col. Thatcher himself. Among the servants waiting was a young negro man, whose beautiful person, obliging and assiduous temper, and his activity and grace in serving, made him a favorite with the company. The dinner lasted into the evening, and the wine passed freely about the table. At length, one of the gentlemen, who was pretty highly excited with wine, became unfortunately incensed, either at some trip of the young slave, in waiting, or at some other cause happening when the slave was within his reach. He seized the long-necked wine bottle, and struck the young man suddenly in the temple, and felled him dead upon the floor. The fall arrested, for a moment, the festivities of the table. ‘Devilish unlucky,’ exclaimed one. ‘The gentleman is very unfortunate,’ cried another. ‘Really a loss,’ said a third, &c, &c. The body was dragged from the dining hall, and the feast went on; and at the close, one of the gentlemen, and the very one, I believe, whose hand had done the homicide, shouted, in bacchanalian bravery, and _southern generosity_, amid the broken glasses and fragments of chairs, ‘LANDLORD! PUT THE NIGGER INTO THE BILL!’ This was that murdered young man’s _requiem and funeral service_.”
Mr. GEORGE A. AVERY, a merchant in Rochester, New York, and an elder in the Fourth Presbyterian Church in that city, who resided four years in Virginia, gives the following testimony:
“I knew a young man who had been out hunting, and returning with some of his friends, seeing a negro man in the road, at a little distance, deliberately drew up his rifle, and shot him dead. This was done without the slightest provocation, or a word passing. This young man passed through the _form_ of a trial, and, although it was not even _pretended_ by his counsel that he was not guilty of the act, deliberately and wantonly perpetrated, _he was acquitted_. It was urged by his counsel, that he was a _young_ man, (about 20 years of age,) had no _malicious_ intention, his mother was a widow, &c, &c”
Mr. BENJAMIN CLENDENON, of Colerain, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, a member of the Society of Friends, gives the following testimony:
“Three years ago the coming month, I took a journey of about seventy-five miles from home, through the eastern shore of Maryland, and a small part of Delaware. Calling one day, near noon, at Georgetown Cross-Roads, I found myself surrounded in the tavern by slaveholders. Among other subjects of conversation, their human cattle came in for a share. One of the company, a middle-aged man, then living with a second wife, acknowledged, that after the death of his first wife, he lived in a state of concubinage with a female slave; but when the time drew near for the taking of a second wife, he found it expedient to remove the slave from the premises. The same person gave an account of a female slave he formerly held, who had a propensity for some one pursuit, I think the attendance of religious meetings. On a certain occasion, she presented her petition to him, asking for this indulgence; he refused–she importuned–and he, with sovereign indignation, seized a chair, and with a blow upon the head, knocked her senseless upon the floor. The same person, for some act of disobedience, on the part, I think, of the same slave, when employed in stacking straw, felled her to the earth with the handle of a pitch fork. All these transactions were related with the _utmost composure_, in a bar-room within thirty miles of the Pennsylvania line.”
The two following advertisements are illustrations of the regard paid to the marriage relations by slaveholding judges, governors, senators in Congress, and mayors of cities.
From the “Montgomery, (Ala.) Advertiser,” Sept. 29, 1837.
“$20 REWARD.–Ranaway from the subscriber, a negro man named Moses. He is of common size, about 28 years old. He formerly belonged to Judge Benson, of Montgomery, and it is said, has a wife in that county. John Gayle”
The John Gayle who signs this advertisement, is an Ex-Governor of Alabama.
From the “Charleston Courier,” Nov. 28.
“Ranaway from the subscriber, about twelve months since, his negro man Paulladore. His complexion is dark–about 50 years old. I understand Gen. R.Y. Hayne has purchased his wife and children from H.L. Pinckney, Esq. and has them now on his plantation, at Goose Creek, where, no doubt, the fellow is frequently lurking. Thomas Davis.”
It is hardly necessary to say, that the GENERAL R.Y. HAYNE, and H.L. PINCKNEY, Esq. named in the advertisement, are Ex-Governor Hayne, formerly U.S. Senator from South Carolina, and Hon. Henry L. Pinckney, late member of Congress from Charleston District, and now Intendant (mayor) of that city.
It is no difficult matter to get at the ‘public opinion’ of a community, when _ladies_ ‘of property and standing’ publish, under their own names, such advertisements as the following.
Mrs. ELIZABETH L. CARTER, of Groveton, Prince William county, Virginia, thus advertises her negro man Moses:
“Ranaway from the subscriber, a negro man named Moses, aged about 40 years, about six feet high, well made, and possessing a good address, and HAS LOST A PART ON ONE OF HIS EARS.”
Mrs. B. NEWMAN, of the same place, and in the same paper, advertises–
“Penny, the wife of Moses, aged about 30 years, brown complexion, tall and likely, _no particular marks of person recollected._”
Both of the above advertisements appear in the National Intelligencer, (Washington city,) June 10, 1837.
In the Mobile Mercantile Advertiser, of Feb. 13, 1838, is an advertisement Signed SARAH WALSH, of which the following is an extract:
“Twenty-five dollars reward will be paid to any one who may apprehend and deliver to me, or confine in any jail, so that, I can get him, my man Isaac, who ranaway sometime in September last. He is 26 years of age, 5 feet 10 inches high, has a _scar on his forehead, caused by a blow_, and one on his back, MADE BY A SHOT FROM A PISTOL.”
In the “New Orleans Bee,” Dec. 21, 1838, Mrs. BURVANT, whose residence is at the corner of Chartres and Toulouse streets, advertises a woman as follows:
“Ranaway, a negro woman named Rachel–_has lost all her toes except the large one_.”
From the “Huntsville (Ala.) Democrat,” June 16, 1838:
“TEN DOLLARS REWARD.–Ranaway from the subscriber, a negro woman named Sally, about 21 years of age, taking along her two children–one three years, and the other seven months old. These negroes were PURCHASED BY ME at the sale of George Mason’s negroes, on the first Monday in May, and left _a few days_ thereafter. Any person delivering them to the jailor in Huntsville, or to me, at my plantation, five miles above Triana, on the Tennessee river, shall receive the above reward. CHARITY COOPER”
From the “Mississippian,” May 13, 1838:
“TEN DOLLARS REWARD.–Ranaway from the subscriber, a man named Aaron, yellow complexion, blue eyes, &c. I have no doubt he is lurking about Jackson and its vicinity, probably harbored by some of the negroes sold as the property of _my late husband_, Harry Long, deceased. Some of them are about Richland, in Madison co. I will give the above reward when brought to me, about six miles north-west of Jackson, or put IN JAIL, _so that I can get him_. LUCY LONG.”
If the reader, after perusing the preceding facts, testimony, and arguments, still insists that the ‘public opinion’ of the slave states protects the slave from outrages, and alleges, as proof of it, that _cruel_ masters are frowned upon and shunned by the community generally, and regarded as monsters, we reply by presenting the following facts and testimony.
“Col. MEANS, of Manchester, Ohio, says, that when he resided in South Carolina, _his neighbor_, a physician, became enraged with his slave, and sentenced him to receive two hundred lashes. After having received one hundred and forty, he fainted. After inflicting the full number of lashes, the cords with which he was bound were loosed. When he revived, he staggered to the house, and sat down in the sun. Being faint and thirsty, he _begged_ for some water to drink. The master went to the well, and procured some water but instead of giving him to drink, he threw the whole bucket-full in his face. Nature could not stand the shock–he sunk to rise no more. For this crime, the physician was bound over to Court, and tried, and _acquitted_–and THE NEXT YEAR HE WAS ELECTED TO THE LEGISLATURE!”
Testimony of Hon. JOHN RANDOLPH, of Virginia
“In one of his Congressional speeches, Mr. R. says: Avarice alone can drive, as it does drive, this _infernal_ traffic, and the wretched victims of it, like so many post horses, _whipped to death_ in a mail coach. Ambition has its cover-sluts in the pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war; but where are the trophies of avarice? The hand cuff, the manacle, the blood-stained cowhide! WHAT MAN IS WORSE RECEIVED IN SOCIETY FOR BEING A HARD MASTER? WHO DENIES THE HAND OF A SISTER OR DAUGHTER TO SUCH MONSTERS?”
Mr. GEORGE A. AVERY, of Rochester, New York, who resided four years in Virginia, testifies as follows:
“I know a local Methodist minister, a man of talents, and popular as a preacher, who took his negro girl into his barn, in order to whip her–and _she was brought out a corpse_! His friends seemed to think this of _so little importance to his ministerial standing_, that although I lived near him about three years, I do not recollect to have heard them apologize for the deed, though I recollect having heard ONE of his neighbors allege this fact as a reason why he did not wish to hear him preach.”
Notwithstanding the mass of testimony which has been presented establishing the fact that in the ‘public opinion’ of the South the slaves find no protection, some may still claim that the ‘public opinion’ exhibited by the preceding facts is not that of the _highest class of society at the South_, and in proof of this assertion, refer to the fact, that ‘Negro Brokers,’ Negro Speculators, Negro Auctioneers, and Negro Breeders, &c., are by that class universally despised and avoided, as are all who treat their slaves with cruelty.
To this we reply, that, if all claimed by the objector were true, it could avail him nothing for ‘public opinion’ is neither made nor unmade by ‘the first class of society.’ That class produces in it, at most, but slight modifications; those who belong to it have generally a ‘public opinion,’ within their own circle which has rarely more, either of morality or mercy than the public opinion of the mass, and is, at least, equally heartless and more intolerant. As to the estimation in which ‘speculators,’ ‘soul drivers,’ &c. are held, we remark, that, they are not despised because they _trade in slaves_ but because they are _working_ men, all such are despised by slaveholders. White drovers who go with droves of swine and cattle from the free states to the slave states, and Yankee pedlars, who traverse the south, and white day-laborers are, in the main, equally despised, or, if negro-traders excite more contempt than drovers, pedlars, and day-laborers, it is because, they are, as a class more ignorant and vulgar, men from low families and boors in their manners. Ridiculous to suppose, that a people, who have, _by law_, made men articles of trade equally with swine, should despise men-drovers and traders, more than hog-drovers and traders. That they are not despised because it is their business to trade in _human beings_ and bring them to market, is plain from the fact that when some ‘gentleman of property and standing’ and of a ‘good family’ embarks in a negro speculation, and employs a dozen ‘soul drivers’ to traverse the upper country, and drive to the south coffles of slaves, expending hundreds of thousands in his wholesale purchases, he does not lose caste. It is known in Alabama, that Mr. Erwin, son-in-law of the Hon. Henry Clay, and brother of J.P. Erwin, formerly postmaster, and late mayor of the city of Nashville, laid the foundation of a princely fortune in the slave-trade, carried on from the Northern Slave States to the Planting South; that the Hon. H. Hitchcock, brother-in-law of Mr. E., and since one of the judges of the Supreme Court of Alabama, was interested with him in the traffic; and that a late member of the Kentucky Senate (Col. Wall) not only carried on the same business, a few years ago, but accompanied his droves in person down the Mississippi. Not as the _driver_, for that would be vulgar drudgery, beneath a gentleman, but as a nabob in state, ordering his understrappers.
It is also well known that President Jackson was a ‘soul driver,’ and that even so late as the year before the commencement of the last war, he bought up a coffle of slaves and drove them down to Louisiana for sale.
Thomas N. Gadsden, Esq. the principal slave auctioneer in Charleston, S.C. is of one of the first families in the state, and moves in the very highest class of society there. He is a descendant of the distinguished General Gadsden of revolutionary memory, the most prominent southern member in the Continental Congress of 1765, and afterwards elected lieutenant governor and then governor of the state. The Rev. Dr. Gadsden, rector of St. Phillip’s Church, Charleston, and the Rev. Phillip Gadsden, both prominent Episcopal clergymen in South Carolina, and Colonel James Gadsden of the United States army, after whom a county in Florida was recently named, are all brothers of this Thomas N. Gadsden, Esq. the largest slave auctioneer in the state, under whose hammer, men, women and children go off by thousands; its stroke probably sunders _daily_, husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and sisters, perhaps to see each other’s faces no more. Now who supply the auction table of this Thomas N. Gadsden, Esq. with its loads of human merchandize? These same detested ‘soul drivers’ forsooth! They prowl through the country, buy, catch, and fetter them, and drive their chained coffles up to his stand, where Thomas N. Gadsden, Esq. knocks them off to the highest bidder, to Ex-Governor Butler perhaps, or to Ex-Governor Hayne, or to Hon. Robert Barnwell Rhett, or to his own reverend brother, Dr. Gadsden. Now this high born, wholesale _soul-seller_ doubtless despises the retail ‘soul-drivers’ who give him their custom, and so does the wholesale grocer, the drizzling tapster who sneaks up to his counter for a keg of whiskey to dole out under a shanty in two cent glasses; and both for the same reason.
The plea that the ‘public opinion’ among the highest classes of society at the south is mild and considerate towards the slaves, that _they_ do not overwork, underfeed, neglect when old and sick, scantily clothe, badly lodge, and half shelter their slaves; that _they_ do not barbarously flog, load with irons, imprison in the stocks, brand and maim them; hunt them when runaway with dogs and guns, and sunder by force and forever the nearest kindred–is shown, by almost every page of this work, to be an assumption, not only utterly groundless, but directly opposed to masses of irrefragable evidence. If the reader will be at the pains to review the testimony recorded on the foregoing pages he will find that a very large proportion of the atrocities detailed were committed, not by the most ignorant and lowest classes of society, but by persons ‘of property and standing,’ by masters and mistresses belonging to the ‘upper classes,’ by persons in the learned professions, by civil, judicial, and military officers, by the _literati_, by the fashionable elite and persons of more than ordinary ‘respectability’ and external morality–large numbers of whom are professors of religion.
It will be recollected that the testimony of Sarah M. Grimke, and Angelina G. Weld, was confined exclusively to the details of slavery as exhibited in the _highest classes of society_, mainly in Charleston, S.C. See their testimony pp. 22-24 and 52-57. The former has furnished us with the following testimony in addition to that already given.
“Nathaniel Heyward of Combahee, S.C., one of the wealthiest planters in the state, stated, in conversation with some other planters who were complaining of the idle and lazy habits of their slaves, and the difficulty of ascertaining whether their sickness was real or pretended, and the loss they suffered from their frequent absence on this account from their work, said, ‘I never lose a day’s work: it is an _established_ rule on my plantations that the tasks of all the sick negroes _shall be done by those who are well in addition to their own_. By this means a vigilant supervision is kept up by the slaves over each other, and they take care that nothing but real sickness keeps any one out of the field.’ I spent several winters in the neighborhood of Nathaniel Heyward’s plantations, and well remember his character as a severe task master. _I was present when the above statement was made_.”
The cool barbarity of such a regulation is hardly surpassed by the worst edicts of the Roman Caligula–especially when we consider that the plantations of this man were in the neighborhood of the Combahee river, one of the most unhealthy districts in the low country of South Carolina; further, that large numbers of his slaves worked in the _rice marshes_, or ‘swamps’ as they are called in that state–and that during six months of the year, so fatal to health is the malaria of the swamps in that region that the planters and their families invariably abandon their plantations, regarding it as downright presumption to spend a single day upon them ‘between the frosts’ of the early spring and the last of November.
The reader may infer the high standing of Mr. Heyward in South Carolina, from the fact that he was selected with four other freeholders to constitute a Court for the trial of the conspirators in the insurrection plot at Charleston, in 1822. Another of the individuals chosen to constitute that court was Colonel Henry Deas, now president of the Board of Trustees of Charleston College, and a few years since a member of the Senate of South Carolina. From a late correspondence in the “Greenvile (S.C.) Mountaineer,” between Rev. William M. Wightman, a professor in Randolph, Macon, College, and a number of the citizens of Lodi, South Carolina, it appears that the cruelty of this Colonel Deas to his slaves, is proverbial in South Carolina, so much that Professor Wightman, in the sermon which occasioned the correspondence, spoke of the Colonel’s inhumanity to his slaves as a matter of perfect notoriety.
Another South Carolina slaveholder, Hon. Whitmarsh B. Seabrook, recently, we believe, Lieut. Governor of the state, gives the following testimony to his own inhumanity, and his certificate of the ‘public opinion’ among South Carolina slaveholders ‘of high degree.’
In an essay on the management of slaves, read before the Agricultural Society of St. Johns, S.C. and published by the Society, Charleston, 1834, Mr. S. remarks:
“I consider _imprisonment in the stocks at night_, with or without hard labor in the day, as a powerful auxiliary in the cause of _good_ government. To the correctness of this opinion _many_ can bear testimony. EXPERIENCE has convinced ME that there is no punishment to which the slave looks with more _horror_.”
The advertisements of the Professors in the Medical Colleges of South Carolina, published with comments–on pp. 169, 170, are additional illustrations of the ‘public opinion’ of the _literati_.
That the ‘public opinion’ of _the highest class of society_ in South Carolina, regards slaves a mere _cattle_, is shown by the following advertisement, which we copy from the “Charleston (S.C.) Mercury” of May 16:
“NEGROES FOR SALE.–A girl about twenty years of age, (raised in Virginia,) and her two female children, one four and the other two year old–is remarkably strong and healthy–never having had a day’s sickness, with the exception of the small pox, in her life. The children are fine and healthy. She is VERY PROLIFIC IN HER GENERATING QUALITIES, _and affords a rare opportunity to any person who wishes to raise a family of strong and healthy servants for their own use._
“Any person wishing to purchase will please leave their address at the Mercury office.”
The Charleston Mercury, in which this advertisement appears, _is the leading political paper in South Carolina_, and is well known to be the political organ of Messrs. Calhoun, Rhett, Pickens, and others of the most prominent politicians in the state. Its editor, John Stewart, Esq., is a lawyer of Charleston, and of a highly respectable family. He is a brother-in-law of Hon. Robert Barnwell Rhett, the late Attorney-General, now a Member of Congress, and Hon. James Rhett, a leading member of the Senate of South Carolina; his wife is a niece of the late Governor Smith, of North Carolina, and of the late Hon. Peter Smith, Intendant (Mayor) of the city of Charleston; and a cousin of the late Hon. Thomas S. Grimke.
The circulation of the ‘Mercury’ among the wealthy, the literary, and the fashionable, is probably much larger than that of any other paper in the state.
These facts in connection with the preceding advertisement, are a sufficient exposition of the ‘public opinion’ towards slaves, prevalent in these classes of society.
The following scrap of ‘public opinion’ in Florida, is instructive. We take it from the Florida Herald, June 23, 1838:
Ranaway from my plantation, on Monday night, the 13th instant, a negro fellow named Ben; eighteen years of age, polite when spoken to, and speaks very good English for a negro. As I have traced him out in several places in town, I am certain he is harbored. This notice is given that I am determined, that whenever he is taken, _to punish him till he informs me_ who has given him food and protection, and _I shall apply the law of Judge Lynch to my own satisfaction_, on those concerned in his concealment.
A. WATSON.
June 16, 1838.”
Now, who is this A. Watson, who proclaims through a newspaper, his determination to _put to the torture_ this youth of eighteen, and to Lynch to his ‘satisfaction’ whoever has given a cup of cold water to the panting fugitive. Is he some low miscreant beneath public contempt? Nay, verily, he is a ‘gentleman of property and standing,’ one of the wealthiest planters and largest slaveholders in Florida. He resides in the vicinity of St. Augustine, and married the daughter of the late Thomas C. Morton, Esq. one of the first merchants in New York.
We may mention in this connection the well known fact, that many wealthy planters make it a _rule never to employ a physician among their slaves_. Hon. William Smith, Senator in Congress, from South Carolina, from 1816 to 1823, and afterwards from 1826 to 1831, is one of this number. He owns a number of large plantations in the south western states. One of these, borders upon the village of Huntsville, Alabama. The people of that village can testify that it is a part of Judge Smith’s _system_ never to employ a physician _even in the most extreme cases_. If the medical skill of the overseer, or of the slaves themselves, can contend successfully with the disease, they live, if not, _they die_. At all events, a physician is _not to be called_. Judge Smith was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of the United States three years since.
The reader will recall a similar fact in the testimony of Rev. W.T. Allan, son of Rev. Dr. Allan, of Huntsville, (see p. 47,) who says that Colonel Robert H. Watkins, a wealthy planter, in Alabama, and a PRESIDENTIAL ELECTOR in 1836, who works on his plantations three hundred slaves, ‘After employing a physician for some time among his negroes, he ceased to do so, alledging as the reason, that it was _cheaper to lose a few negroes every year than to pay a physician_.’
It is a fact perfectly notorious, that the late General Wade Hampton, of South Carolina, who was the largest slaveholder in the United States, and probably the wealthiest man south of the Potomac, was _excessively cruel_ in the treatment of his slaves. The anecdote of him related by a clergyman, on page 29, is perfectly characteristic.
For instances of barbarous inhumanity of various kinds, and manifested by persons BELONGING TO THE MOST RESPECTABLE CIRCLES OF SOCIETY, the reader can consult the following references:–Testimony of Rev. John Graham, p. 25, near the bottom; of Mr. Poe, p. 26, middle; of Rev. J. O. Choules, p. 39, middle; of Rev. Dr. Channing, p. 41, top; of Mr. George A. Avery, p. 44, bottom; of Rev. W.T. Allan, p. 47; of Mr. John M. Nelson, p. 51, bottom; of Dr. J.C. Finley, p. 61, top; of Mr. Dustin, p. 66, bottom; of Mr. John Clarke, p. 87; of Mr. Nathan Cole, p. 89, middle; Rev. William Dickey, p. 93; Rev. Francis Hawley, p. 97; of Mr. Powell, p. 100, middle; of Rev. P. Smith p. 102.
The preceding are but a few of a large number of similar cases contained in the foregoing testimonies. The slaveholder mentioned by Mr. Ladd, p. 86, who knocked down a slave and afterwards piled brush upon his body, and consumed it, held the hand of a female slave in the fire till it was burned so as to be useless for life, and confessed to Mr. Ladd, that he had killed _four_ slaves, had been a _member of the Senate of Georgia_ and a _clergyman_. The slaveholder who whipped a female slave to death in St. Louis, in 1837, as stated by Mr. Cole, p. 69, was a _Major in the United States Army_. One of the physicians who was an abettor of the tragedy on the Brassos, in which a slave was tortured to death, and another so that he barely lived, (see Rev. Mr. Smith’s testimony, p. 102.) was Dr. Anson Jones, a native of Connecticut, who was soon after appointed minister plenipotentiary from Texas to this government, and now resides at Washington city. The slave mistress at Lexington, Ky., who, as her husband testifies, has killed six of his slaves, (see testimony of Mr. Clarke, p. 87,) is the wife of Hon. Fielding S. Turner, late judge of the criminal court of New Orleans, and one of the wealthiest slaveholders in Kentucky. Lilburn Lewis, who deliberately chopped in pieces his slave George, with a broad-axe, (see testimony of Rev. Mr. Dickey, p. 93) was a wealthy slaveholder, and a nephew of President Jefferson. Rev. Francis Hawley, who was a general agent of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, confesses (see p. 47,) that while residing in that state he once went out with his hounds and rifle, to hunt fugitive slaves. But instead of making further reference to testimony already before the reader, we will furnish additional instances of the barbarous cruelty which is tolerated and sanctioned by the ‘upper classes’ of society at the south; we begin with clergymen, and other officers and members of churches.
That the reader may judge of the degree of ‘protection’ which slaves receive from ‘public opinion,’ and among the members and ministers of professed christian churches, we insert the following illustrations.
Extract from an editorial article in the “Lowell (Mass.) Observer” a religious paper edited at the time (1833) by the Rev. DANIEL S. SOUTHMAYD, who recently died in Texas.
“We have been among the slaves at the south. We took pains to make discoveries in respect to the evils of slavery. We formed our sentiments on the subject of the cruelties exercised towards the slaves from having witnessed them. We now affirm that we never saw a man, who had never been at the south, who thought as much of the cruelties practiced on the slaves, as we _know_ to be a fact.
“A slave whom I loved for his kindness and the amiableness of his disposition, and who belonged to the family where I resided, happened to stay out _fifteen minutes longer_ than he had permission to stay. It was a mistake–it was _unintentional_. But what was the penalty? He was sent to the house of correction with the order that he should have _thirty lashes upon his naked body with a knotted rope!!!_ He was brought home and laid down in the stoop, in the back of the house, in _the sun, upon the floor_. And there he lay, with more the appearance of a rotten carcass than a living man, for four days before he could do more than move. And who was this inhuman being calling God’s property his own, and ruing it as he would not have dared to use a beast? You may say he was a tiger–one of the more wicked sort, and that we must not judge others by him. _He was a professor of that religion which will pour upon the willing slaveholder the retribution due to his sin_.
“We wish to mention another fact, which our own eyes saw and our own ears heard. We were called to evening prayers. The family assembled around the altar of their accustomed devotions. There was one female _slave_ present, who belonged to another master, but who had been hired for the day and tarried to attend family worship. The precious Bible was opened, and nearly half a chapter had been read, when the eye of the master, who was reading, observed that the new female servant, instead of being seated like his own slaves, _flat upon the floor_, was standing in a stooping posture upon her feet. He told her to sit down on the floor. She said it was not her custom at home. He ordered her again to do it. She replied that her master did not require it. Irritated by this answer, he repeatedly _struck her upon the head with the very Bible he held in his hand_. And not content with this, he seized his cane and _caned her down stairs most unmercifully_. He then returned to resume his profane work, but we need not say that _all_ the family were not there. Do you ask again, who was this wicked man? _He was a professor of religion!!_”
Rev. HUNTINGTON LYMAN, late pastor of the Free Church in Buffalo, New York, says:–
“Walking one day in New Orleans with a professional gentleman, who was educated in Connecticut, we were met by a black man; the gentleman was greatly incensed with the black man for passing so _near_ him, and turning upon him _he pushed him with violence off walk into the street_. This man was a professor of religion.”
(And _we_ add, a member, and if we mistake not an officer of the Presbyterian Church which was established there by Rev. Joel Parker, and which was then under his teachings-ED.)
Mr. EZEKIEL BIRDSEYE, a gentleman of known probity, in Cornwall, Litchfield county, Conn. gives the testimony which follows:–
“A BAPTIST CLERGYMAN in Laurens District, S.C. WHIPPED HIS SLAVE TO DEATH, whom he _suspected_ of having stolen about sixty dollars. The slave was in the prime of life and was purchased a few weeks before for $800 of a slave trader from Virginia or Maryland. The coroner, Wm. Irby, at whose house I was then boarding, _told me_, that on reviewing the dead body, he found it _beat to a jelly from head to foot_. The master’s wife discovered the money a day or two after the death of the slave. She had herself removed it from where it was placed, not knowing what it was, as it was tied up in a thick envelope. I happened to be present when the trial of this man took place, at Laurens Court House. His daughter testified that her father untied the slave, when he appeared to be failing, and gave him cold water to drink, of which he took freely. His counsel pleaded that his death _might_ have been caused by drinking cold water in a state of excitement. The Judge charged the jury, that it would be their duty to find the defendant guilty, if they believed the death was caused by the whipping; but if they were of opinion that drinking cold water caused the death, they would find him not guilty! The jury found him–NOT GUILTY!”
Dr. JEREMIAH S. WAUGH, a physician in Somerville, Butler county, Ohio, testifies as follows:–
“In the year 1825, I boarded with the Rev. John Mushat, a Seceder minister, and principal of an academy in Iredel county, N.C. He had slaves, and was in the habit of restricting them on the Sabbath. One of his slaves, however, ventured to disobey his injunctions. The offence was he went away on Sabbath evening, and did not return till Monday morning. About the time we were called to breakfast, the Rev. gentleman was engaged in chastising him for _breaking the Sabbath_. He determined not to submit–attempted to escape by flight. The master immediately took down his gun and pursued him–levelled his instrument of death, and told him, if he did not stop instantly _he would blow him through_. The poor slave returned to the house and submitted himself to the lash; and the good master, while YET PALE WITH RAGE, _sat down to the table, and with a trembling voice_ ASKED GOD’S BLESSING!”
The following letter was sent by Capt. JACOB DUNHAM, of New York city, to a slaveholder in Georgetown, D.C. more than twenty years since:
“Georgetown, June 13, 1815.
“Dear sir–Passing your house yesterday, I beheld a scene of cruelty seldom witnessed–that was the brutal chastisement of your negro girl, _lashed to a ladder and beaten in an inhuman manner, too bad to describe_. My blood chills while I contemplate the subject. This has led me to investigate your character from your neighbors; who inform me that you have _caused the death_ of one negro man, whom you struck with a sledge for some trivial fault–that you have beaten another black girl with such severity that the _splinters_ remained in her back for some weeks after you sold her–and many other acts of barbarity, too lengthy to enumerate. And to my great surprise, I find you are a _professor of the Christian religion!_
“You will naturally inquire, why I meddle with your family affairs. My answer is, the cause of humanity and a sense of my duty requires it.–these hasty remarks I leave you to reflect on the subject; but wish you to remember, that there is an all-seeing eye who knows all our faults and will reward us according to our deeds.
I remain, sir, yours, &c
JACOB DUNHAM.
Master of the brig Cyrus, of N.Y.”
Rev. SYLVESTER COWLES, pastor of the Presbyterian church in Fredonia, N.Y. says:–
“A young man, a member of the church in Conewango, went to Alabama last year, to reside as a clerk in an uncle’s store. When he had been there about nine months, he wrote his father that he must return home. To see members of the same church sit at the communion table of our Lord one day, and the next to see one seize any weapon and knock the other down, _as he had seen_, he _could not_ live there. His good father forthwith gave him permission to return home.”
The following is a specimen of the shameless hardihood with which a professed minister of the Gospel, and editor of a religious paper, assumes the right to hold God’s image as a chattel. It is from the Southern Christian Herald:–
“It is stated in the Georgetown Union, that a negro, supposed to have died of cholera, when that disease prevailed in Charleston, was carried to the public burying ground to be interred; but before interment signs of life appeared, and, by the use of proper means, he was restored to health. And now the man who first perceived the signs of life in the slave, and that led to his preservation, claims the property as his own, and is about bringing suit for its recovery. As well might a man who rescued his neighbor’s slave, or his _horse_, from drowning, or who extinguished the flames that would otherwise soon have burnt down his neighbor’s house, claim the _property_ as his own.”
Rev. GEORGE BOURNE, of New York city, late Editor of the “Protestant Vindicator,” who was a preacher seven years in Virginia, gives the following testimony.[39]
“Benjamin Lewis, who was an elder in the Presbyterian church, engaged a carpenter to repair and enlarge his house. After some time had elapsed, Kyle, the builder, was awakened very early in the morning by a most piteous moaning and shrieking. He arose, and following the sound, discovered a colored woman nearly naked, tied to a fence, while Lewis was lacerating her. Kyle instantly commanded the slave driver to desist. Lewis maintained his jurisdiction over his slaves, and threatened Kyle that he would punish him for his interference. Finally Kyle obtained the release of the victim.
“A second and a third scene of the same kind occurred, and on the third occasion the altercation almost produced a battle between the elder and the carpenter.
“Kyle immediately arranged his affairs, packed up his tools and prepared to depart. ‘Where are you going?’ demanded Lewis. ‘I am going home;’ said Kyle. ‘Then I will pay you nothing for what you have done,’ retorted the slave driver, ‘unless you complete your contract.’ The carpenter went away with this edifying declaration, ‘I will not stay here a day longer; for I expect the fire of God will come down and burn you up altogether, and I do not choose to go to hell with you.’ Through hush-money and promises not to whip the women any more, I believe Kyle returned and completed his engagement.
“James Kyle of Harrisonburg, Virginia, frequently narrated that circumstance, and his son, the carpenter, confirmed it with all the minute particulars combined with his temporary residence on the Shenandoah river.
“John M’Cue of Augusta county, Virginia, a _Presbyterian preacher_, frequently on the Lord’s day morning, tied up his slaves and whipped them; and left them bound, while he went to the meeting house and preached–and after his return home repeated his scourging. That fact, with others more heinous, was known to all persons in his congregation and around the vicinity; and so far from being censured for it, he and his brethren justified it as essential to preserve their ‘domestic institutions.’
“Mrs. Pence, of Rockingham county, Virginia, used to boast,–‘I am the best hand to whip a _wench_ in the whole county.’ She used to pinion the girls to a post in the yard on the Lord’s day morning, scourge them, put on the ‘_negro plaster_,’ salt, pepper, and vinegar, leave them tied, and walk away to church as demure as a nun, and after service repeat her flaying, if she felt the whim. I once expostulated with her upon her cruelly. ‘Mrs. Pence, how can you whip your girls so publicly and disturb your neighbors so on the Lord’s day morning.’ Her answer was memorable. ‘If I were to whip them on any other day I should lose a day’s work; but by whipping them on Sunday, their backs get well enough by Monday morning.’ That woman, if alive, is doubtless a member of the church now, as then.
“Rev. Dr. Staughton, formerly of Philadelphia, often stated, that when he lived at Georgetown, S.C. he could tell the doings of one of the slaveholders of the Baptist church there by his prayers at the prayer meeting. ‘If,’ said he, ‘that man was upon good terms with his slaves, his words were cold and heartless as frost; if he had been whipping a man, he would pray with life; but if he had left a woman whom he had been flogging, tied to a post in his cellar, with a determination to go back and torture her again, O! how he would pray!’ The Rev. Cyrus P. Grosvenor of Massachusetts can confirm the above statement by Dr. Staughton.
“William Wilson, a Presbyterian preacher of Augusta county, Virginia, had a young colored girl who was constitutionally unhealthy. As no means to amend her were availing, he sold her to a member of his congregation, and in the usual style of human flesh dealers, warranted her ‘sound,’ &c. The fraud was instantly discovered; but he would not refund the amount. A suit was commenced, and was long continued, and finally the plaintiff recovered the money out of which he had been swindled by slave-trading with his own preacher. No Presbytery censured him, although Judge Brown, the chancellor, severely condemned the imposition.
“In the year 1811, Johab Graham, a preacher, lived with Alexander Nelson a Presbyterian elder, near Stanton, Virginia, and he informed me that a man had appeared before Nelson, who was a magistrate, and swore falsely against his slave,–that the elder ordered him thirty-nine lashes. All that wickedness was done as an excuse for his dissipated owner to obtain money. A negro trader had offered him a considerable sum for the ‘boy,’ and under the pretence of saving him from the punishment of the law, he was trafficked away from his woman and children to another state. The magistrate was aware of the perjury, and the whole abomination, but all the truth uttered by every colored person in the southern states would not be of any avail against the notorious false swearing of the greatest white villain who ever cursed the world. ‘How,’ said Johab Graham, can I preach to-morrow?’ I replied, ‘Very well; go and thunder the doctrine of retribution in their ears, Obadiah 15, till by the divine blessing you kill or cure them. My friends, John M. Nelson of Hillsborough, Ohio, Samuel Linn, and Robert Herron, and others of the same vicinity, could ‘make both the ears of every one who heareth them tingle’ with the accounts which they can give of slave-driving by professors of religion in the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia.
“In 1815, near Frederick, in Maryland, a most barbarous planter was killed in a fit of desperation, by four of his slaves _in self-defence_. It was declared by those slaves while in prison that, besides his atrocities among their female associates, he had deliberately butchered a number of his slaves. The four men were murdered by law, to appease the popular clamor. I saw them executed on the twenty-eighth day of Jan’y, 1816. The facts I received from the Rev. Patrick Davidson of Frederick, who constantly visited them during their imprisonment–and who became an abolitionist in consequence of the disclosures which he heard from those men in the jail. The name of the planter is not distinctly recollected, but it can be known by a inspection of the record of the trial in the clerk’s office, Frederick.
“A minister of Virginia, still living, and whose name must not be mentioned for fear of Nero Preston and his confederate-hanging myrmidons, informed me of this fact in 1815, in his own house. ‘A member of my church, said he, lately whipped a colored youth to death. What shall I do?’ I answered, ‘I hope you do not mean to continue him in your church.’ That minister replied, ‘How can we help it’ We dare not call him to an account. We have no legal testimony.’ Their communion season was then approaching. I addressed his wife,–‘Mrs. —- do you mean to sit at the Lord’s table with that murderer?’–,’Not I,’ she answered: ‘I would as soon commune with the devil himself.’ The slave killer was equally unnoticed by the civil and ecclesiastical authority.
“John Baxter, a Presbyterian elder, the brother of that slaveholding doctor in divinity, George A. Baxter, held as a slave the wife of a Baptist colored preacher, familiarly called ‘Uncle Jack.’ In a late period of pregnancy he scourged her so that the lives of herself and her unborn child were considered in jeopardy. Uncle Jack was advised to obtain the liberation of his wife. Baxter finally agreed, I think, to sell the woman and her children, three of them, I believe for six hundred dollars, and an additional hundred if the unborn child survived a certain period after its birth. Uncle Jack was to pay one hundred dollars per annum for his wife and children for seven years, and Baxter held a sort of mortgage upon them for the payment. Uncle Jack showed me his back in furrows like a ploughed field. His master used to whip up the flesh, then beat it downwards, and then apply the ‘negro plaster,’ salt, pepper, mustard, and vinegar, until all Jack’s back was almost as hard and unimpressible as the bones. There is slaveholding religion! A Presbyterian elder receiving from a Baptist preacher seven hundred dollars for his wife and children. James Kyle and uncle Jack used to tell that story with great Christian sensibility; and uncle Jack would weep tears of anguish over his wife’s piteous tale, and tears of ecstasy at the same moment that he was free, and that soon, by the grace of God, his wife and children, as he said, ‘would be all free together.'”
Rev. JAMES NOURSE, a Presbyterian clergyman of Mifflia co. Penn., whose father is, we believe, a slaveholder in Washington City, says,–
“The Rev. Mr. M—-, now of the Huntingdon Presbytery, after an absence of many months, was about visiting his old friends on what is commonly called the ‘Eastern Shore.’ Late in the afternoon, on his journey, he called at the house of Rev. A.C. of P—-town, Md. With this brother he had been long acquainted. Just at that juncture Mr. C. was about proceeding to whip a colored female, who was his slave. She was firmly tied to a post in FRONT of his dwelling-house. The arrival of a clerical visitor at such a time, occasioned a temporary delay in the execution of Mr. C’s purpose. But the delay was only temporary; for not even the presence of such a guest could destroy the bloody design. The guest interceded with all the mildness yet earnestness of a brother and new visitor. But all in vain, ‘the woman had been saucy and must be punished.’ The cowhide was accordingly produced, and the _Rev. Mr. C_., a large and very stout man, applied it ‘manfully’ on ‘woman’s’ bare and ‘shrinking flesh.’ I say bare, because you know that the slave women generally have but three or four inches of the arm near the shoulder covered, and the neck is left entirely exposed. As the cowhide moved back and forward, striking right and left, on the head, neck and arms, at every few strokes the sympathizing guest would exclaim, ‘O, brother C. desist’ But brother C. pursued his brutal work, till, after inflicting about sixty lashes, the woman was found to be suffused with blood on the hinder part of her neck, and under her frock between the shoulders. Yet this Rev. gentleman is well esteemed in the church–was, three or four years since, moderator of the synod of Philadelphia, and yet walks abroad, feeling himself unrebuked by law or gospel. Ah, sir does not this narration give fearful force to the query–_What has the church to do with slavery_?’ Comment on the facts is unnecessary, yet allow me to conclude by saying, that it is my opinion such occurrences _are not rare in the south_.
J.N.”
REV. CHARLES STEWART RENSHAW, of Quincy, Illinois, in a recent letter, speaking of his residence, for a period, in Kentucky, says–
“In a conversation with Mr. Robert Willis, he told me that his negro girl had run away from him some time previous. He was convinced that she was lurking round, and he watched for her. He soon found the place of her concealment, drew her from it, got a rope, and tied her hands across each other, then threw the rope over a beam in the kitchen, and hoisted her up by the wrists; ‘and,’ said he, ‘I whipped her there till I made the lint fly, I tell you.’ I asked him the meaning of making ‘the lint fly,’ and he replied, ‘_till the blood flew_.’ I spoke of the iniquity and cruelty of slavery, and of its immediate abandonment. He confessed it an evil, but said, ‘I am a _colonizationist_–I believe in that scheme.’ Mr. Willis is a teacher of sacred music, and a member of the Presbyterian Church in Lexington, Kentucky.”
Mr. R. speaking of the PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER and church where he resided, says:
“The minister and all the church members held slaves. Some were treated kindly, others harshly. _There was not a shade of difference_ between their slaves and those of their _infidel_ neighbors, either in their physical, intellectual, or moral state: in some cases they would _suffer_ in the comparison.
“In the kitchen of the minister of the church, a slave man was living in open adultery with a slave woman, who was a member of the church, with an ‘assured hope’ of heaven–whilst the man’s wife was on the minister’s farm in Fayette county. The minister had to bring a cook down from his farm to the place in which he was preaching. The choice was between the wife of the man and this church member. He _left the wife_, and brought the church member to the adulterer’s bed.
“A METHODIST PREACHER last fall took a load of produce down the river. Amongst other _things_ he took down five slaves. He sold them at New Orleans–he came up to Natchez–bought seven there–and took them down and sold them also. Last March he came up to preach the Gospel again. A number of persons on board the steamboat (the Tuscarora.) who had seen him in the slave-shambles in Natchez and New Orleans, and now, for the first time, found him to be a preacher, had much sport at the expense of ‘the fine old preacher who dealt in slaves.’
A non-professor of religion, in Campbell county, Ky. sold a female and two children to a Methodist professor, with the proviso that they should not leave that region of country. The slave-driver came, and offered $5 more for the woman than he had given, and he sold her. She is now in the lower country, and _her orphan babes are in Kentucky_.
“I was much shocked once, to see a Presbyterian elder’s wife call a little slave to her to kiss her feet. At first the boy hesitated–but the command being repeated in tones not to be misunderstood, be approached timidly, knelt, and kissed her foot.”
Rev. W.T. ALLAN, of Chatham, Illinois, gives the following in a letter dated Feb. 4, 1839:
“Mr. Peter Vanarsdale, an elder of the Presbyterian church in Carrollton, formerly from Kentucky, told me, the other day, that a Mrs. Burford, in the neighborhood of Harrodsburg, Kentucky, had _separated a woman and her children_ from their husband and father, taking them into another state. Mrs. B. was a member of the _Presbyterian Church_. The bereaved husband and father was also a professor of religion.
“Mr. V. told me of a slave woman who had lost her son, separated from her by public sale. In the anguish of her soul, she gave vent to her indignation freely, and perhaps harshly. Sometime after, she wished to become a member of the church. Before they received her, she had to make humble confession for speaking as she had done. _Some of the elders that received her, and required the confession, were engaged is selling the son from his mother_.”
The following communication from the Rev. WILLIAM BARDWELL, of Sandwich, Massachusetts, has just been published in Zion’s Watchman, New York city:
_Mr. Editor_:–The following fact was given me last evening, from the pen of a shipmaster, who has traded in several of the principal ports in the south. He is a man of unblemished character, a member of the M.E. Church in this place, and familiarly known in this town. The facts were communicated to me last fall in a letter to his wife, with a request that she would cause them to be published. I give verbatim, as they were written from the letter by brother Perry’s own hand while I was in his house.
“A Methodist preacher, Wm. Whitby by name, who married in Bucksville, S.C., and by marriage came into possession of some slaves, in July, 1838, was about moving to another station to preach, and wished, also, to move his family and slaves to Tennessee, much against the will of the slaves, one of which, to get clear from him, ran into the woods after swimming a brook. The parson took after him with his gun, which, however, got wet and missed fire, when he ran to a neighbor for another gun, with the intention, as he said, of killing him: he did not, however, catch or kill him; he chained another for fear of his running away also. The above particulars were related to me by William Whitby himself. THOMAS C. PERRY. March 3, 1839.”
“I find by examining the minutes of the S.C. Conference, that there is such a preacher in the Conference, and brother Perry further stated to me that he was well acquainted with him, and if this statement was published, and if it could be known where he was since the last Conference, he wished a paper to be sent him containing the whole affair. He also stated to me, verbally, that the young man he attempted to shoot was about nineteen years of age, and had been shut up in a corn-house, and in the attempt of Mr. Whitby to chain him, he broke down the door and made his escape as above mentioned, and that Mr. W. was under the necessity of hiring him out for one year, with the risk of his employer’s getting him. Brother Perry conversed with one of the slaves, who was so old that he thought it not profitable to remove so far, and had been sold; _he_ informed him of all the above circumstances, and said, with tears, that he thought he had been so faithful as to be entitled to liberty, but instead of making him free, he had sold him to another master, besides parting one husband and wife from those ties rendered a thousand times dearer by an infant child which was torn for ever from the husband.
WILLIAM BARDWELL.
_Sandwich, Mass._, March 4, 1839.”
Mr. WILLIAM POE, till recently a slaveholder in Virginia, now an elder in the Presbyterian Church at Delhi, Ohio, gives the following testimony:–
“An elder in the Presbyterian Church in Lynchburg had a most faithful servant, whom he flogged severely and sent him to prison, and had him confined as a felon a number of days, for being _saucy_. Another elder of the same church, an auctioneer, habitually sold slaves at his stand–very frequently _parted families_–would often go into the country to sell slaves on execution and otherwise; when remonstrated with, he justified himself, saying, ‘it was his business;’ the church also justified him on the same ground.
“A Doctor Duval, of Lynchburg, Va. got offended with a very faithful, worthy servant, and immediately sold him to a negro trader, to be taken to New Orleans; Duval still keeping the wife of the man as his slave. This Duval was a professor of religion.”
Mr. SAMUEL HALL, a teacher in Marietta College, Ohio, says, in a recent letter:–
“A student in Marietta College, from Mississippi, a professor of religion, and in every way worthy of entire confidence, made to me the following statement. [If his name were published it would probably cost him his life.]
“When I was in the family of the Rev. James Martin, of Louisville, Winston county, Mississippi, in the spring of 1838, Mrs. Martin became offended at a female slave, because she did not move faster. She commanded her to do so; the girl quickened her pace; again she was ordered to move faster, or, Mrs. M. declared, she would break the broomstick over her head. Again the slave quickened her pace; but not coming up to the _maximum_ desired by Mrs. M. the latter declared she would _see_ whether she (the slave) could move or not: and, going into another apartment, she brought in a raw hide, awaiting the return of her husband for its application. In this instance I know not what was the final result, but I have heard the sound of the raw-hide in at least _two_ other instances, applied by this same reverend gentleman to the back of his _female_ servant.”
Mr. Hall adds–“The name of my informant must be suppressed, as” he says, “there are those who would cut my throat in a moment, if the information I give were to be coupled with my name.” Suffice it to say that he is a professor of religion, a native of Virginia, and a student of Marietta College, whose character will bear the strictest scrutiny. He says:–
“In 1838, at Charlestown, Va. I conversed with several members of the church under the care of the Rev. Mr. Brown, of the same place. Taking occasion to speak of slavery, and of the sin of slaveholding, to one of them who was a lady, she replied, “I am a slaveholder, and I _glory_ in it.” I had a conversation, a few days after, with the pastor himself, concerning the state of religion in his church, and who were the most exemplary members in it. The pastor mentioned several of those who were of that description; the _first_ of whom, however, was the identical lady who _gloried_ in being a slaveholder! That church numbers nearly two hundred members.
“Another lady, who was considered as devoted a Christian as any in the same church, but who was in poor health, was accustomed to flog some of her female domestics with a raw-hide till she was exhausted, and then go and lie down till her strength was recruited, rising again and resuming the flagellation. This she considered as not at all derogatory to her Christian character.”
Mr. JOEL S. BINGHAM, of Cornwall, Vermont, lately a student in Middlebury College, and a member of the Congregational Church, spent a few weeks in Kentucky, in the summer of 1838. He relates the following occurrence which took place in the neighborhood where he resided, and was a matter of perfect notoriety in the vicinity.
“Rev. Mr. Lewis, a Baptist minister in the vicinity of Frankfort, Ky. had a slave that ran away, but was retaken and brought back to his master, who threatened him with punishment for making an attempt to escape. Though terrified the slave immediately attempted to run away again. Mr. L. commanded him to stop, but he did not obey. _Mr. L. then took a gun, loaded with small shot and fired at the slave, who fell_; but was not killed, and afterward recovered. Mr. L. did not probably intend to kill the slave, as it was his legs which were aimed at and received the contents of the gun. The master asserted that he was driven to this necessity to maintain his authority. This took place about the first of July, 1838.”
The following is given upon the authority of Rev. ORANGE SCOTT, of Lowell, Mass. for many years a presiding elder in the Methodist Episcopal Church.
“Rev. Joseph Hough, a Baptist minister, formerly of Springfield, Mass. now of Plainfield, N.H. while traveling in the south, a few years ago, put up one night with a Methodist family, and spent the Sabbath with them. While there, one of the female slaves did something which displeased her mistress. She took a chisel and mallet, and very deliberately cut off one of her toes!”
SLAVE BREEDING AN INDEX OF PUBLIC ‘OPINION’ AMONG THE ‘HIGHEST CLASS OF SOCIETY’ IN VIRGINIA AND OTHER NORTHERN SLAVE STATES.
But we shall be told, that ‘slave-breeders’ are regarded with contempt, and the business of slave breeding is looked upon as despicable; and the hot disclaimer of Mr. Stevenson, our Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of St. James, in reply to Mr. O’Connell, who had intimated that he might be a ‘slave breeder,’ will doubtless be quoted.[40] In reply, we need not say what every body knows, that if Mr. Stevenson is not a ‘slave breeder,’ he is a solitary exception among the large slaveholders of Virginia. What! Virginia slaveholders not ‘slave-breeders?’ the pretence is ridiculous and contemptible; it is meanness, hypocrisy, and falsehood, as is abundantly proved by the testimony which follows:–
Mr. GHOLSON, of Virginia, in his speech in the Legislature of that state, Jan. 18, 1832, (see Richmond Whig,) says:–
“It has always (perhaps erroneously) been considered by steady and old-fashioned people, that the owner of land had a reasonable right to its annual profits; the owner of orchards, to their annual fruits; the owner of _brood mares_, to their product; and the owner of _female slaves, to their increase_. We have not the fine-spun intelligence, nor legal acumen, to discover the technical distinctions drawn by gentlemen. The legal maxim of ‘_Partus sequitur ventrem_’ is coeval with the existence of the rights of property itself, and is founded in wisdom and justice. It is on the justice and inviolability of this maxim that the master foregoes the service of the female slave; has her nursed and attended during the period of her gestation, and raises the helpless and infant offspring. The value of the property justifies the expense; and I do not hesitate to say, that in its _increase consists much of our wealth_.”
Hon. THOMAS MANN RANDOLPH, of Virginia. formerly Governor of that state, in his speech before the legislature in 1832, while speaking of the number of slaves annually sold from Virginia to the more southern slave states, said:–
“The exportation has _averaged_ EIGHT THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED for the last twenty years. Forty years ago, the whites exceeded the colored 25,000, the colored now exceed the whites 81,000; and these results too during an exportation of near 260,000 slaves since the year 1790, now perhaps the fruitful progenitors of half a million in other states. It is a practice and an increasing practice, in parts of Virginia, to rear slaves for market. How can an honorable mind, a patriot and a lover of his country, bear to see this ancient dominion converted into one grand menagerie, where men are to be reared for market, like oxen for the shambles.”
Professor DEW, now President of the University of William and Mary, Virginia, in his Review of the Debate in the Virginia Legislature, 1831-2, says, p 49.
“From all the information we can obtain, we have no hesitation in saying that upwards of six thousand [slaves] are yearly exported [from Virginia] to other states.’ Again, p. 61: ‘The 6000 slaves which Virginia annually sends off to the south, are a source of wealth to Virginia’–Again, p. 120: ‘A full equivalent being thus left in the place of the slave, this emigration becomes an advantage to the state, and does not check the black population as much as, at first view, we might imagine–because it furnishes every inducement to the master to attend to the negroes, to ENCOURAGE BREEDING, and to cause the _greatest number possible to be raised._ &c.”
_”Virginia is, in fact, a negro-raising state for other states.”_
Extract from the speech of MR. FAULKNER, in the Va. House of Delegates, 1832. [See Richmond Whig.]
“But he [Mr. Gholson,] has labored to show that the Abolition of Slavery, were it practicable, would be _impolitic_, because as the drift of this portion of his argument runs, your slaves constitute the entire wealth of the state, all the _productive capacity_ Virginia possesses. And, sir, as things are, _I believe he is correct_. He says, and in this he is sustained by the gentleman from Halifax, Mr. Bruce, that the slaves constitute the entire available wealth at present, of Eastern Virginia. Is it true that for 200 years the only increase in the wealth and resources of Virginia, has been a remnant of the natural _increase_ of this miserable race?–Can it be, that on this _increase_, she places her solo dependence? I had always understood that indolence and extravagance were the necessary concomitants of slavery; but, until I heard these declarations, I had not fully conceived the horrible extent of this evil. These gentlemen state the fact, which the history and _present aspect of the Commowealth but too well sustain_. The gentlemen’s facts and argument in support of his plea of impolicy, to me, seem rather unhappy. To me, such a state of things would itself be conclusive at least, that something, even as a measure of policy, should be done. What, sir, have you lived for two hundred years, without personal effort or productive industry, in extravagance and indolence, sustained alone _by the return from sales of the increase of slaves_, and retaining merely such a number as your now impoverished lands can sustain, AS STOCK, _depending, too, upon a most uncertain market_? When that market is closed, as in the nature of things it must be, what then will become of this gentleman’s hundred millions worth of slaves, AND THE ANNUAL PRODUCT?”
In the debates in the Virginia Convention, in 1829, Judge Upsher said–“The value of slaves as an article of property [and it is in that view only that they are legitimate subjects of taxation] _depends much on the state of the market abroad_. In this view, it is the value of land _abroad_, and not of land here, which furnishes the ratio. It is well known to us all, that nothing is more fluctuating than the value of slaves. A late law of Louisiana reduced their value 25 per cent, in two hours after its passage was known. IF IT SHOULD BE OUR LOT, AS I TRUST IT WILL BE, TO ACQUIRE THE COUNTRY OF TEXAS, THEIR PRICE WILL RISE AGAIN.”–p. 77.
Mr. Goode, Of Virginia, in his speech before the Virginia Legislature, in Jan. 1832, [See Richmond Whig, of that date,] said:–
“The superior usefulness of the slaves in the south, will constitute an _effectual demand_, which will remove them from our limits. We shall send them from our state, because _it will be our interest to do so_. Our planters are already becoming farmers. Many who grew tobacco as their only staple, have already introduced, and commingled the wheat crop. They are already semi-farmers; and in the natural course of events, they must become more and more so.–As the greater quantity of rich western lands are appropriated to the production of the staple of our planters, that staple will become less profitable.–We shall gradually divert our lands from its production, until we shall become actual farmers.–Then will the necessity for slave labor diminish; then will the effectual demand diminish, and then will the quantity of slaves diminish, until they shall be adapted to the effectual demand.
“But gentlemen are alarmed _lest the markets of other states be closed against the introduction of our slaves_. Sir, the demand for slave labor MUST INCREASE through the South and West. It has been heretofore limited by the want of capital; but when emigrants shall be relieved from their embarrassments, contracted by the purchase of their lands, the annual profits of their estates, will constitute an accumulating capital, which they will _seek to invest in labor_. That the demand for labor must increase in proportion to the increase of capital, is one of the demonstrations of political economists; and I confess, that for the removal of slavery from Virginia, I look to the efficacy of that principle; together with the circumstance that our southern brethren are constrained to continue planters, by their position, soil and climate.”
The following is from Niles’ Weekly Register, published at Baltimore, Md. vol. 35, p. 4.
_”Dealing in slaves has become a large business_; establishments are made in several places in Maryland and Virginia, at which they are sold like cattle; these places of deposit are strongly built, and well supplied with thumb-screws and gags, and ornamented with cow-skins and other whips oftentimes bloody.”
R.S. FINLEY, Esq., late General Agent of the American Colonization Society, at a meeting in New York, 27th Feb. 1833, said:
“In Virginia and other grain-growing slave states, the blacks do not support themselves, and the only profit their masters derive from them is, repulsive as the idea may justly seem, in breeding them, like other live stock for the more southern states.”
Rev. Dr. GRAHAM, of Fayetteville, N.C. at a Colonization Meeting, held in that place in the fall of 1837 said:
“He had resided for 15 years in one of the largest slaveholding counties in the state, had long and anxiously considered the subject, and still it was dark. There were nearly 7000 slaves offered in New Orleans market last winter. From Virginia alone 6000 were annually sent to the south; and from Virginia and N.C. there had gone, in the same direction, in the last twenty years, 300,000 slaves. While not 4000 had gone to Africa. What it portended, he could not predict, but he felt deeply, that _we must awake in these states and consider the subject_.”
Hon. PHILIP DODDRIDGE, of Virginia, in his speech in the Virginia Convention, in 1829, [Debates p. 89.] said:–
“The acquisition of Texas will greatly _enhance the value of the property_, in question, [Virginia slaves.]”
Hon C.F. MERCER, in a speech before the same Convention, in 1829, says:
“The tables of the natural growth of the slave population demonstrate, when compared with the increase of its numbers in the commonwealth for twenty years past, that an annual revenue of not less than a million and a half of dollars is derived from the exportation of a part of this population.” (Debates, p. 199.)
Hon. HENRY CLAY, of Ky., in his speech before the Colonization Society, in 1829, says:
“It is believed that nowhere in the farming portion of the United States, would slave labor be generally employed, if the proprietor were not tempted to RAISE SLAVES BY THE HIGH PRICE OF THE SOUTHERN MARKET WHICH KEEPS IT UP IN HIS OWN.”
The New Orleans Courier, Feb. 15, 1839, speaking of the prohibition of the African Slave-trade, while the internal slave-trade is plied, says:
“The United States law may, and probably does, put MILLIONS _into the pockets of the people living between the Roanoke, and Mason and Dixon’s line_; still we think it would require some casuistry to show that _the present slave-trade from that quarter_ is a whit better than the one from Africa. One thing is certain–that its results are more menacing to the tranquillity of the people in this quarter, as there can be no comparison between the ability and inclination to do mischief, possessed by the Virginia negro, and that of the rude and ignorant African.”
That the New Orleans Editor does not exaggerate in saying that the internal slave-trade puts ‘millions’ into the pockets of the slaveholders in Maryland and Virginia, is very clear from the following statement, made by the editor of the Virginia Times, an influential political paper, published at Wheeling, Virginia. Of the exact date of the paper we are not quite certain, it was, however, sometime in 1836, probably near the middle of the year–the file will show. The editor says:–
“We have heard intelligent men estimate the number of slaves exported from Virginia within the last twelve months, at 120,000–each slave averaging at least $600, making an aggregate at $72,000,000. Of the number of slaves exported, not more than _one-third_ have been sold, (the others having been carried by their owners, who have removed,) _which would leave in the state the_ SUM OF $24,000,000 ARISING FROM THE SALE OF SLAVES.”
According to this estimate about FORTY THOUSAND SLAVES WERE SOLD OUT OF THE STATE OF VIRGINIA IN A SINGLE YEAR, and the ‘slave-breeders’ who hold them, put into their pockets TWENTY-FOUR MILLION OF DOLLARS, the price of the ‘souls of men.’
The New York Journal of Commerce of Oct. 12, 1835, contained a letter from a Virginian, whom the editor calls ‘a very good and sensible man,’ asserting that TWENTY THOUSAND SLAVES had been driven to the south from Virginia _during that year_, nearly one-fourth of which was then remaining.
The Maryville (Tenn.) Intelligencer, some time in the early part of 1836, (we have not the date,) says, in an article reviewing a communication of Rev. J.W. Douglass, of Fayetteville, North Carolina: “Sixty thousand slaves passed through a little western town for the southern market, during the year 1835.”
The Natchez (Miss.) Courier, says “that the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas, imported TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND SLAVES from the more northern slave states in the year 1836.”
The Baltimore American gives the following from a Mississippi paper, of 1837:
“The report made by the committee of the citizens Of Mobile, appointed at their meeting held on the 1st instant, on the subject of the existing pecuniary pressure, states, among other things: that so large has been the return of slave labor, that purchases by Alabama of that species of property from other states since 1833, have amounted to about TEN MILLION DOLLARS ANNUALLY.”
FURTHER the _inhumanity_ of a slaveholding ‘public opinion’ toward slaves, follows legitimately from the downright ruffianism of the slaveholding _spirit_ in the ‘highest class of society,’ When roused, it tramples upon all the proprieties and courtesies, and even common decencies of life, and is held in check by none of those considerations of time, and place, and relations of station, character, law, and national honor, which are usually sufficient, even in the absence of conscientious principles, to restrain other men from outrages. Our National Legislature is a fit illustration of this. Slaveholders have converted the Congress of the United States into a very bear garden. Within the last three years some of the most prominent slaveholding members of the House, and among them the late speaker, have struck and kicked, and throttled, and seized each other by the hair, and with their fists pummelled each other’s faces, on the floor of Congress. We need not publish an account of what every body knows, that during the session of the last Congress, Mr. Wise of Virginia and Mr. Bynum of North Carolina, after having called each other “liars, villains” and “damned rascals” sprung from their seats “both sufficiently armed for any desperate purpose,” cursing each other as they rushed together, and would doubtless have butchered each other on the floor of Congress, if both had not been seized and held by their friends.
The New York Gazette relates the following which occurred at the close of the session of 1838.
“The House could not adjourn without another brutal and bloody row. It occurred on Sunday morning immediately at the moment of adjournment, between Messrs. Campbell and Maury, both of Tennessee. He took offence at some remarks made to him by his colleague, Mr. Campbell, and the fight followed.”
The Huntsville (Ala.) Democrat of June 16, 1838, gives the particulars which follow:
“Mr. Maury is said to be badly hurt. He was near losing his life by being knocked through the window; but his adversary, it is said, saved him by clutching the hair of his head with his left hand, while he struck him with his right.”
The same number of the Huntsville Democrat, contains the particulars of a fist-fight on the floor of the House of Representatives, between Mr. Bell, the late Speaker, and his colleague Mr. Turney of Tennessee. The following is an extract:
“Mr. Turney concluded his remarks in reply to Mr. Bell, in the course of which he commented upon that gentleman’s course at different periods of his political career with great severity.
“He did not think his colleague [Mr. Turney,] was actuated by private malice, but was the willing voluntary instrument of others, the tool of tools.
Mr. Turney. It is false! it is false!
Mr. Stanley called Mr. TURNEY to order.
At the same moment both gentlemen were perceived in personal conflict, and blows with the fist were aimed by each at the other. Several members interfered, and suppressed the personal violence; others called order, order, and some called for the interference of the Speaker.
The Speaker hastily took the chair, and insisted upon order; but both gentlemen continued struggling, and endeavoring, notwithstanding the constraint of their friends, to strike each other.”
The correspondent of the New York Gazette gives the following, which took place about the time of the preceding affrays:
“The House was much agitated last night, by the passage between Mr. Biddle, of Pittsburgh, and Mr. Downing, of Florida. Mr. D. exclaimed “do you impute falsehood to me!” at the same time catching up some missile and making a demonstration to advance upon Mr. Biddle. Mr. Biddle repeated his accusation, and meanwhile, Mr. Downing was arrested by many members.”
The last three fights all occurred, if we mistake not, in the short space of one month. The fisticuffs between Messrs. Bynum and Wise occurred at the previous session of Congress. At the same session Messrs. Peyton of Tenn. and Wise of Virginia, went armed with pistols and dirks to the meeting of a committee of Congress, and threatened to shoot a witness while giving his testimony.
We begin with the first on the list. Who are Messrs. Wise and Bynum? Both slaveholders. Who are Messrs. Campbell and Maury? Both slaveholders. Who are Messrs. Bell and Turney? Both slaveholders. Who is Mr. Downing, who seized a weapon and rushed upon Mr. Biddle? A slaveholder. Who is Mr. Peyton who drew his pistol on a witness before a committee of Congress? A slaveholder of course. All these bullies were slaveholders, and they magnified their office, and slaveholding was justified of her children. We might fill a volume with similar chronicles of slaveholding brutality. But time would fail us. Suffice it to say, that since the organization of the government, a majority of the most distinguished men in the slaveholding states have gloried in strutting over the stage in the character of murderers. Look at the men whom the people delight to honor. President Jackson, Senator Benton, the late Gen. Coffee,–it is but a few years since these slaveholders shot at, and stabbed, and stamped upon each other in a tavern broil. General Jackson had previously killed Mr. Dickenson. Senator Clay of Kentucky has immortalized himself by shooting at a near relative of Chief Justice Marshall, and being wounded by him; and not long after by shooting at John Randolph of Virginia. Governor M’Duffie of South Carolina has signalized himself also, both by shooting and being shot,–so has Governor Poindexter, and Governor Rowan, and Judge M’Kinley of the U.S. Supreme Court, late senator in Congress from Alabama,–but we desist; a full catalogue would fill pages. We will only add, that a few months since, in the city of London, Governor Hamilton, of South Carolina, went armed with pistols, to the lodgings of Daniel O’Connell, ‘to stop his wind’ in the bullying slang of his own published boast. During the last session of Congress Messrs. Dromgoole and Wise[41] of Virginia, W. Cost Johnson and Jenifer of Maryland, Pickens and Campbell of South Carolina, and we know not how many more slaveholding members of Congress have been engaged, either as principals or seconds, in that species of murder dignified with the name of duelling. But enough; we are heart-sick. What meaneth all this? Are slaveholders worse than other men? No! but arbitrary power has wrought in them its mystery of iniquity, and poisoned their better nature with its infuriating sorcery.
Their savage ferocity toward each other when their passions are up, is the natural result of their habit of daily plundering and oppressing the slave.
The North Carolina Standard of August 30, 1837, contains the following illustration of this ferocity exhibited by two southern lawyers in settling the preliminaries of a duel.
“The following conditions were proposed by Alexander K. McClung, of Raymond, in the State of Mississippi, to H.C. Stewart, as the laws to govern a duel they were to fight near Vicksburg:
“Article 1st. The parties shall meet opposite Vicksburg, in the State of Louisiana, on Thursday the 29th inst. precisely at 4 o’clock, P.M. Agreed to.
“2d. The weapons to be used by each shall weigh one pound two and a half ounces, measuring sixteen inches and a half in length, including the handle, and one inch and three-eighths in breadth. Agreed to.
“3d. Both knives shall be sharp on one edge, and on the back shall be sharp only one inch at the point. Agreed to.
“4th. Each party shall stand at the distance of eight feet from the other, until the word is given. Agreed to.
“5th. The second of each party shall throw up, with a silver dollar, on the ground, for the word, and two best out of three shall win the word. Agreed to.
“6th. After the word is given, either party may take what advantage he can with his knife, but on throwing his knife at the other, shall be shot down by the second of his opponent. Agreed to.
“7th. Each party shall be stripped entirely naked, except one pair of linen pantaloons; one pair of socks, and boots or pumps as the party please. Acceded to.
“8th. The wrist of the left arm of each party shall be tied tight to his left thigh, and a strong cord shall be fastened around his left arm at the elbow, and then around his body. Rejected.
“9th. After the word is given, each party shall be allowed to advance or recede as he pleases, over the space of twenty acres of ground, until death ensues to one of the parties. Agreed to–the parties to be placed in the centre of the space.
“10th. The word shall be given by the winner of the same, in the following manner, viz: “Gentlemen are you ready?” Each party shall then answer, “I am!” The second giving the word shall then distinctly command–_strike_. Agreed to.
“If either party shall violate these rules, upon being notified by the second of either party, he may be liable to be shot down instantly. As established usage points out the duty of both parties, therefore notification is considered unnecessary.”
The FAVORITE AMUSEMENTS of slaveholders, like the gladiatorial shows of Rome and the Bull Fights of Spain, reveal a public feeling insensible to suffering, and a depth of brutality in the highest degree revolting to every truly noble mind. One of their most common amusements is cock fighting. Mains of cocks, with twenty, thirty, and fifty cocks on each side, are fought for hundreds of dollars aside. The fowls are armed with steel spurs or ‘_gafts_,’ about two inches long. These ‘gafts’ are fastened upon the legs by sawing off the _natural_ ‘spur,’ leaving only enough of it to answer the purpose of a _stock_ for the tube of the “gafts,” which are so sharp that at a stroke the fowls thrust them through each other’s necks and heads, and tear each other’s bodies till one or both dies, then two others are brought forward for the amusement of the multitude assembled, and this barbarous pastime is often kept up for days in succession, hundreds and thousands gathering from a distance to witness it. The following advertisements from the Raleigh Register, June 18, 1838, edited by Messrs. Gales and Son, the father and brother of Mr. Gales, editor of the National Intelligencer, and late Mayor of Washington City, reveal the public sentiment of North Carolina.
“CHATHAM AGAINST NASH, or any other county in the State. I am authorized to take a bet of any amount that may be offered, to FIGHT A MAIN OF COCKS, at any place that may be agreed upon by the parties–to be fought the ensuing spring. GIDEON ALSTON. Chatham county, June 7, 1838.”
Two weeks after, this challenge was answered as follows:
“TO MR. GIDEON ALSTON, of Chatham county, N.C.
“SIR: In looking over the North Carolina Standard of the 20th inst. I discover a challenge over your signature, headed ‘Chatham against Nash,’ in which you state: that you are ‘authorized to take a bet of any amount that may be offered, to fight a main of cocks, at any place that may be agreed upon by the parties, to be fought the ensuing spring’ which challenge I ACCEPT: and do propose to meet you at Rolesville, in Wake county, N.C. on the last Wednesday in May next, the parties to show thirty-one cocks each–fight four days, and be governed by the rules as laid down in Turner’s Cock Laws–which, if you think proper to accede to, you will signify through this or any other medium you may select, and then I will name the sum for which we shall fight, as that privilege was surrendered by you in your challenge.
“I am, sir, very respectfully, &c. NICHOLAS W. ARRINGTON, near Hilliardston, Nash co. North Carolina June 22nd, 1838”
The following advertisement in the Richmond Whig, of July 12, 1837, exhibits the public sentiment of Virginia.
“MAIN OF COCKS.–A large ‘MAIN OF COCKS,’ 21 a side, for $25 ‘the fight’, and $500 ‘the odd,’ will be fought between the County of Dinwiddie on one part, and the Counties of Hanover and Henrico on the other.
“The ‘regular’ fighting will be continued _three days_, and from the large number of ‘game uns’ on both sides and in the adjacent country, will be prolonged no doubt a _fourth_. To prevent confusion and promote ‘sport,’ the Pit will be enclosed and furnished with _seats_; so that those having a curiosity to witness a species of diversion originating in a better day (for they had no rag money then,) can have _that_ very _natural_ feeling gratified.
“The Petersburg Constellation is requested to copy.”
_Horse-racing_ too, as every body knows, is a favorite amusement of slaveholders. Every slave state has its race course, and in the older states almost every county has one on a small scale. There is hardly a day in the year, the weather permitting, in which crowds do not assemble at the south to witness this barbarous sport. Horrible cruelty is absolutely inseparable from it. Hardly a race occurs of any celebrity in which some one of the coursers is not lamed, ‘broken down,’ or in some way seriously injured, often for life, and not unfrequently they are killed by the rupture of some vital part in the struggle. When the heats are closely contested, the blood of the tortured animal drips from the lash and flies at every leap from the stroke of the rowel. From the breaking of girths and other accidents, their riders (mostly slaves) are often thrown and maimed or killed. Yet these amusements are attended by thousands in every part of the slave states. The wealth and fashion, the gentlemen and _ladies_ of the ‘highest circles’ at the south, throng the race course.
That those who can fasten steel spurs upon the legs of dunghill fowls, and goad the poor birds to worry and tear each other to death–and those who can crowd by thousands to _witness_ such barbarity–that those who can throng the race-course and with keen relish witness the hot pantings of the life-struggle, the lacerations and fitful spasms of the muscles, swelling through the crimsoned foam, as the tortured steeds rush in blood-welterings to the goal–that such, should look upon the sufferings of their slaves with, indifference is certainly small wonder.
Perhaps we shall be told that there are thronged race-courses at the North. True, there are a few, and they are thronged chiefly by _Southerners_, and ‘Northern men with _Southern_ principles,’ and supported mainly by the patronage of slaveholders who summer at the North. Cock-fighting and horse-racing are “_Southern_ institutions.” The idleness, contempt of labor, dissipation, sensuality, brutality, cruelty, and meanness, engendered by the habit of making men and women work without pay, and flogging them if they demur at it, constitutes a congenial soil out of which cock-fighting and horse-racing are the spontaneous growth.
Again,–The kind treatment of the slaves is often argued from the liberal education and enlarged views of slaveholders. The facts and reasonings of the preceding pages have shown, that ‘liberal education,’ despotic habits and ungoverned passions work together with slight friction. And every day’s observation shows that the former is often a stimulant to the latter.
But the notion so common at the north that the majority of the slaveholders are persons of education, is entirely erroneous. A _very few_ slaveholders in each of the slave states have been men of _ripe_ education, to whom our national literature is much indebted. A larger number may be called _well_ educated–these reside mostly in the cities and large villages, but a majority of the slaveholders are ignorant men, thousands of them notoriously so, _mere boors_ unable to write their names or to read the alphabet.
No one of the slave states has probably so much general education as Virginia. It is the oldest of them–has furnished one half of the presidents of the United States–has expended more upon her university than any state in the Union has done during the same time upon its colleges–sent to Europe nearly twenty years since for her most learned professors, and in fine, has far surpassed every other slave state in her efforts to disseminate education among her citizens, and yet, the Governor of Virginia in his message to the legislature (Jan. 7, 1839) says, that of four thousand six hundred and fourteen adult males in that state, who applied to the county clerks for marriage licenses in the year 1837, ‘ONE THOUSAND AND FORTY SEVEN _were unable to write their names_.’ The governor adds, ‘These statements, it will be remembered, are confined to one sex: the education of females it is to be feared, is in a condition of _much greater neglect_.’
The Editor of the Virginia Times, published at Wheeling, in his paper of Jan. 23, 1839, says,–
“We have every reason to suppose that one-fourth of the people of the state cannot write their names, and they have not, of course, any other species of education.”
Kentucky is the child of Virginia; her first settlers were some of the most distinguished citizens of the mother state; in the general diffusion of intelligence amongst her citizens Kentucky is probably in advance of all the slave states except Virginia and South Carolina; and yet Governor Clark, in his last message to the Kentucky Legislature, (Dec 5, 1838) makes the following declaration: “From the computation of those most familiar with the subject, it appears that AT LEAST ONE THIRD OF THE ADULT POPULATION OF THE STATE ARE UNABLE TO WRITE THEIR NAMES.”
The following advertisement in the “Milledgeville (Geo.) Journal,” Dec. 26, 1837, is another specimen from one of the ‘old thirteen.’
“NOTICE.–I, Pleasant Webb, of the State of Georgia, Oglethorpe county, being an _illiterate man, and not able to write my own name_, and whereas it hath been represented to me that there is a certain promissory note or notes out against me that I know nothing of, and further that some man in this State holds a bill of sale for _a certain negro woman named Ailsey and her increase, a part of which is now in my possession_, which I also know nothing of. Now do hereby certify and declare, that I have no knowledge whatsoever of any such papers existing in my name as above stated and I hereby require all or any person or persons whatsoever holding or pretending to hold any such papers, to produce them to me within thirty days from the date hereof, shewing their authority for holding the same, or they will be considered fictitious and fraudulently obtained or raised, by some person or persons for base purposes after my death.
“Given under my hand this 2nd day of December, 1837. PLEASANT WEBB. his mark X.”
FINALLY, THAT SLAVES MUST HABITUALLY SUFFER GREAT CRUELTIES, FOLLOWS INEVITABLY FROM THE BRUTAL OUTRAGES WHICH THEIR MASTERS INFLICT ON EACH OTHER.
Slaveholders, exercising from childhood irresponsible power over human beings, and in the language of President Jefferson, “giving loose to the worst of passions” in the treatment of their slaves, become in a great measure unfitted for self control in their intercourse with each other. Tempers accustomed to riot with loose reins, spurn restraints, and passions inflamed by indulgence, take fire on the least friction. We repeat it, the state of society in the slave states, the duels, and daily deadly affrays of slaveholders with each other–the fact that the most deliberate and cold-blooded murders are committed at noon day, in the presence of thousands, and the perpetrators eulogized by the community as “honorable men,” reveals such a prostration of law, as gives impunity to crime–a state of society, an omnipresent public sentiment reckless of human life, taking bloody vengeance on the spot for every imaginary affront, glorying in such assassinations as the only true honor and chivalry, successfully defying the civil arm, and laughing its impotency to scorn.
When such things are done in the green tree, what will be done in the dry? When slaveholders are in the habit of caning, stabbing, and shooting _each other_ at every supposed insult, the unspeakable enormities perpetrated by such men, with such passions, upon their defenceless slaves, _must_ be beyond computation. To furnish the reader with an illustration of slaveholding civilization and morality, as exhibited in the unbridled fury, rage, malignant hate, jealousy, diabolical revenge, and all those infernal passions that shoot up rank in the hot-bed of arbitrary power, we will insert here a mass of testimony, detailing a large number of affrays, lynchings, assassinations, &c., &c., which have taken place in various parts of the slave states within a brief period–and to leave no room for cavil on the subject, these extracts will be made exclusively from newspapers published in the slave states, and generally in the immediate vicinity of the tragedies described. They will not be made second hand from _northern_ papers, but from the original _southern_ papers, which now lie on our table.
Before proceeding to furnish details of certain classes of crimes in the slave states, we advertise the reader–1st. That _we shall not_ include in the list those crimes which are ordinarily committed in the free, as well as in the slave states. 2d. We shall not include any of the crimes perpetrated by whites upon slaves and free colored persons, who constitute a majority of the population in Mississippi and Louisiana, a large majority in South Carolina, and, on an average, two-fifths in the other slave states. 3d. Fist fights, canings, beatings, biting off noses and ears, gougings, knockings down, &c., unless they result in _death_, will not be included in the list, nor will _ordinary_ murders, unless connected with circumstances that serve as a special index of public sentiment. 4th. Neither will _ordinary, formal duels_ be included, except in such cases as just specified. 5th. The only crimes which, as the general rule, will be specified, will be deadly affrays with bowie knives, dirks, pistols. rifles, guns, or other death weapons, and _lynchings_. 6th. The crimes enumerated will, for the most part, be only those perpetrated _openly_, without _attempt at concealment_. 7th. We shall not attempt to give a full list of the affrays, &c., that took place in the respective states during the period selected, as the only files of southern papers to which we have access are very imperfect.
The reader will perceive, from these preliminaries, that only a _small_ proportion of the crimes actually perpetrated in the respective slave states during the period selected, will be entered upon this list. He will also perceive, that the crimes which will be presented are of a class rarely perpetrated in the free states; and if perpetrated there at all, they are, with scarcely an exception, committed either by slaveholders, temporarily resident in them, or by persons whose passions have been inflamed by the poison of a southern contact–whose habits and characters have become perverted by living among slaveholders, and adopting the code of slaveholding morality.
We now proceed to the details, commencing with the new state of Arkansas.
ARKANSAS.
At the last session of the legislature of that state, Col. John Wilson, President of the Bank at Little Rock, the capital of the state, was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives. He had been elected to that office for a number of years successively, and was one of the most influential citizens of the state. While presiding over the deliberations of the House, he took umbrage at words spoken in debate by Major Anthony, a conspicuous member, came down from the Speaker’s chair, drew a large bowie knife from his bosom, and attacked Major A., who defended himself for some time, but was at last stabbed through the heart, and fell dead on the floor. Wilson deliberately wiped the blood from his knife, and returned to his seat. The following statement of the circumstances of the murder, and the trial of the murderer, is abridged from the account published in the Arkansas Gazette, a few months since–it is here taken from the Knoxville (Tennessee) Register, July 4, 1838.
“On the 14th of December last, Maj. Joseph J. Anthony, a member of the Legislature of Arkansas, was murdered, while performing his duty as a member of the House of Representatives, by John Wilson, Speaker of that House.
“The facts were these: A bill came from the Senate, commonly called the _Wolf Bill_. Among the amendments proposed, was one by Maj. Anthony, that the signature of the President of the Real Estate Bank should be attached to the certificate of the wolf scalp. Col. Wilson, the Speaker, asked Maj. Anthony whether he intended the remark as personal. Maj. Anthony promptly said, “_No, I do not_.” And at that instant of time, a message was delivered from the Senate, which suspended the proceedings of the House for a few minutes. Immediately after the messenger from the Senate had retired, Maj. Anthony rose from his seat, and said he wished to explain, that he did not intend to insult the Speaker or the House; when Wilson, interrupting, peremptorily ordered him to take his seat. Maj. Anthony said, as a member, he had a right to the floor, to explain himself. Wilson said, in an angry tone, ‘Sit down, or you had better;’ and thrust his hand into his bosom, and drew out a large bowie knife, 10 or 11 inches in length, and descended from the Speaker’s chair to the floor, with the knife drawn in a menacing manner. Maj. Anthony, seeing the danger he was placed in, by Wilson’s advance on him with a drawn knife, rose from his chair, set it out of his way, stepped back a pace or two, and drew his knife. Wilson caught up a chair, and struck Anthony with it. Anthony, recovering from the blow, caught the chair in his left hand, and a fight ensued over the chair. Wilson received two wounds, one on each arm, and Anthony lost his knife, either by throwing it at Wilson, or it escaped by accident. After Anthony had lost his knife, Wilson advanced on Anthony, who was then retreating, looking over his shoulder. Seeing Wilson pursuing him, he threw a chair. Wilson still pursued, and Anthony raised another chair as high as his breast, with a view, it is supposed, of keeping Wilson off. Wilson then caught hold of the chair with his left hand, raised it up, and with his right hand deliberately thrust the knife, up to the hilt, into Anthony’s heart, and as deliberately drew it out, and wiping off the blood with his thumb and finger, retired near to the Speaker’s chair.
“As the knife was withdrawn from Anthony’s heart, he fell a lifeless corpse on the floor, without uttering a word, or scarcely making a struggle; so true did the knife, as deliberately directed, pierce his heart.
“Three days elapsed before the constituted authorities took any notice