years ago, confined in the public jail a little girl | tortured, broken on the wheel, and burned to of four years old, and publicly hung the Rev. Mr. death thousands of Protestants-that eighty thouBurroughs, and eighteen other persons, mostly sand of the Anabaptists were slaughtered in Gerwomen, and killed another, (Giles Corey,) by ex- many-that hundreds of thousands of the blame tending him upon his back, and piling weights upon his breast till he was crushed to death*-and this for no other reason than that these men and women, and this little child, were accused by others of bewitching them. Even the children in Connecticut, know that the following was once a law of that state: "No food or lodging shall be allowed to a Quaker. If any person turns Quaker, he shall be banished, and not be suffered to return on pain of death." These objectors can readily believe the fact, that in the city of New York, less than a hundred years since, thirteen persons were publicly burned to death, over a slow fire: and that the legislature of the same State took under its paternal care the African slave-trade, and declared that "all encouragement should be given to the direct importation of slaves; that all smuggling of slaves should be condemned, as an eminent discouragement to the fair trader." They do not call in question the fact that the African slave-trade was carried on from the ports of the free states till within thirty years; that even members of the Society of Friends were actively engaged in it, shortly before the revolu less Waldenses, Huguenots and Lollards, were torn in pieces by the most titled dignitaries of church and state, and that almost every professedly Christian sect, has, at some period of its history, persecuted unto blood those who dissented from their creed. They can believe, also, that in Boston, New York, Utica, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Alton, and in scores of other cities and villages of the free states, gentlemen of property and standing, led on by civil officers, by members of state legislatures, and of Congress, by judges and attorneys-general, by editors of newspapers, and by professed ministers of the gospel, have organized mobs, broken up lawful meetings of peaceable citizens, committed assault and battery upon their persons, knocked them down with stones, led them about with ropes, dragged them from their beds at midnight, gagged and forced them into vehicles, and driven them into unfrequented places, and there tormented and disfigured them-that they have rifled their houses, made bonfires of their furniture in the streets, burned to the ground, or torn in pieces the halls or churches in which they were assembled-attacked them with deadly weapons, stabbed some, shot others, and killed ONE. They can believe all tionary war ;t that as late as 1807, no less than this--and further, that a majority of the citizens fifty-nine of the vessels engaged in that trade, in the places where these outrages have been were sent out from the little state of Rhode committed, connived at them; and by refusing Island, which had then only about seventy thou- to indict the perpetrators, or, if they were insand inhabitants; that among those most largely dicted, by combining to secure their acquittal, engaged in those foul crimes, are the men whom and rejoicing in it, have publicly adopted these the people of Rhode Island delight to honor: that the man who dipped most deeply in that trade of blood (James De Wolf,) and amassed a most princely fortune by it, was not long since their senator in Congress; and another, who was captain of one of his vessels, was recently Lieutenant Governor of the state. They can believe, too, all the horrors of the middle passage, the chains, suffocation, maimings, stranglings, starvation, drownings, and cold blooded murders, atrocities perpetrated on board these slave-ships by their own citizens, perhaps by their own townsmen and neighbors-possibly by their own fathers: but oh! they can't believe that the slaveholders can be so hard-hearted towards their slaves as to treat them with great cruelty.' They can believe that His Holiness the Pope, with his cardinals, bishops and priests, have * Judge Sewall, of Mass. in his diary, describing this horrible scene, says that when the tongue of the poor sufferer had, in the extremity of his dying agony, protruded from his mouth, a person in attendance took his cane and thrust it back into his mouth. ↑ See Life and Travels of John Woolman, page 92. felonies as their own. All these things they can believe without hesitation, and that they have even been done by their own acquaintances, neighbors, relatives; perhaps those with whom they interchange courtesies, those for whom they vote, or to whose salaries they contribute-but yet, oh! they can never believe that slaveholders inflict cruelties upon their slaves! They can give full credence to the kidnapping, imprisonment, and deliberate murder of WILLIAM MORGAN, and that by men of high standing in society; they can believe that this deed was aided and abetted, and the murderers screened from justice, by a large number of influential persons, who were virtually accomplices, either before or after the fact; and that this combination was so effectual, as successfully to defy and triumph over the combined powers of the government;-yet that those who constantly rob men of their time, liberty, and wages, and all their rights, should rob them of bits of flesh, and occasionally of a tooth, make their backs bleed, and put fetters on their legs, is too monstrous to be credited! Further these same persons, who 'can't believe' that slaveholders are so iron-hearted as to ill-treat their slaves, believe that the very elité of these slaveholders, those most highly esteemed and honored among them, are continu ally daring each other to mortal conflict, and in the presence of mutual friends, taking deadly aim at each other's hearts, with settled purpose to kill, if possible. That among the most distinguished governors of slave states, among their most celebrated judges, senators, and representatives in Congress, there is hardly one, who has not either killed, or tried to kill, or aided and abetted his friends in trying to kill, one or more individuals. That pistols, dirks, bowie knives, or other instruments of death, are generally carried throughout the slave states-and that deadly affrays with them, in the streets of their cities and villages, are matters of daily occurrence; that the sons of slaveholders in southern colleges, bully, threaten, and fire upon their teachers, and their teachers upon them; that during the last summer, in the most celebrated seat of science and literature in the south, the University of Virginia, the professors were attacked by more than seventy armed students, and, in the words of a Virginia paper, were obliged to conceal themselves from their fury; also that almost all the riots and violence that occur in northern colleges, are produced by the turbulence and lawless passions of southern students. That such are the furious passions of slaveholders, no considerations of personal respect, none for the proprie ties of life, none for the honor of our national legislature, none for the character of our country abroad, can restrain the slaveholding members of Congress from the most disgraceful personal encounters on the floor of our nation's legislaturesmiting their fists in each other's faces, throttling, and even kicking and trying to gouge each other can't believe that slaveholders do such things,' -and yet when we turn to the treatment which these men mete out to their slaves, and show that they are in the habitual practice of striking, kick. ing, knocking down and shooting them as well as each other-the look of blank incredulity that comes over northern dough-faces, is a study for a painter: and then the sentimental outcry, with eyes and hands uplifted, 'Oh, indeed, I can't believe the slaveholders are so cruel to their slaves.' Most amiable and touching charity! Truly, of all Yankee notions and free state products, there is nothing like a 'dough face'-the great northern staple for the southern market-made to order,' in any quantity, and always on hand. 'Dough faces! Thanks to a slaveholder's contempt for the name, with its immortality of truth, infamy and scorn.* Though the people of the free states affect to disbelieve the cruelties perpetrated upon the slaves, yet slaveholders believe each other guilty of them, and speak of them with the utmost free. dom. If slaveholders disbelieve any statement of cruelty inflicted upon a slave, it is not on account of its enormity. The traveler at the south will hear in Delaware, and in all parts of Maryland and Virginia, from the lips of slaveholders, statements of the most horrible cruelties suffered by the slaves farther south, in the Carolinas and Geor. gia; when he finds himself in those states he will hear similar accounts about the treatment of the slaves in Florida and Louisiana; and in Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessce he will hear of the tragedies enacted on the plantations in Arkansas, Alabama and Mississippi. Since Anti-Slavery Societies have been in operation, and slaveholders have found themselves on trial before the world, and put upon their good behavior, northern slaveholders have grown cautious, and now often substitute denials and set defences, for the volun-that even during the session of the Congress tary testimony about cruelty in the far south, which, before that period, was given with entire just closed, no less than six slaveholders, taking fire at words spoken in debate, have either rushed freedom. Still, however, occasionally the truth at each other's throats, or kicked, or struck, or will out,' as the reader will see by the following attempted to knock each other down; and that testimony of an East Tennessee newspaper, in in all these instances, they would doubtless have which, speaking of the droves of slaves taken killed each other, if their friends had not separated them. Further, they know full well, these were not insignificant, vulgar blackguards, elected because they were the head bullies and bottleholders in a boxing ring, or because their constituents went drunk to the ballot box; but they were some of the most conspicuous members of the House-one of them a former speaker. Our newspapers are full of these and similar daily occurrences among slaveholders, copied verbatim from their own accounts of them in their own papers, and all this we fully credit; no man is simpleton enough to cry out, 'Oh, I from the upper country to Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, &c., the editor says, they are traveling to a region where their condition through time WILL BE SECOND ONLY TO THAT OF THE WRETCHED CREATURES IN HELL. See "Maryville Intelli. gencer," of Oct. 4, 1835. Distant cruelties and cruelties long past, have been till recently, fayorite topics with slaveholders. They have not only been ready to acknowledge that their fathers have exercised great cruelty toward their slaves, ❘ power over others, but one who exercises the power but have voluntarily, in their official acts, made that he has, whether little or much, cruelly. So des * "Doe face," which owes its paternity to John Ran. dolph, age has mellowed into "dough face"-a cognomen quite as expressive and appropriate, if not as class ical, proclamation of it and entered it on their public records. The Legislature of North Carolina, in 1798, branded the successive legislatures of that state for more than thirty years previous, with the infamy of treatment towards their slaves, which they pronounce to be disgraceful to humanity, and degrading in the highest degree to the laws and principles of a free, Christian, and enlightened country.' This treatment was the enactment and perpetuation of a most barbarous and cruellaw. But enough. As the objector can and does believe all the preceding facts, if he still 'can't believe' as to the cruelties of slaveholders, it would be barbarous to tantalize his incapacity either with evidence or argument. Let him have the benefit of the act in such case made and provided. Having shown that the incredulity of the objector respecting the cruelty inflicted upon the slaves, is discreditable to his consistency, we now proceed to show that it is equally so to his intelligence. Whoever disbelieves the foregoing statements of cruelties, on the ground of their enormity, proclaims his own ignorance of the nature and history of man. What! incredulous about the atrocities perpetrated by those who hold human beings as property, to be used for their pleasure, when history herself has done little else in recording human deeds, than to dip her blank chart in the blood shed by arbitrary power, and unfold to human gaze the great red scroll? That cruelty is the natural effect of arbitrary power, has been the result of all experience, and the voice of universal testimony since the world began. Shall human nature's axioms, six thousand years old, go for nothing? Are the combined product of human experience, and the concurrent records of human character, to be set down as 'old wives' fables?" To disbelieve that arbitrary power naturally and habitually perpetrates cruelties, where it can do it with impunity, is not only ignorance of man, but of things. It is to be blind to innumerable proofs which are before every man's eyes; proofs that are stereotyped in the very words and phrases that are on every one's lips. Take for example the words despot and despotic. Despot, signifies etymologically, merely one who possesses arbitrary power, and at first, it was used to designate those alone who possessed unlimited power over human beings, entirely irrespective of the way in which they exercised it, whether mercifully or cruelly. But the fact, that those who possessed such power, made their subjects their victims, has wrought a total change in the popular meaning of the word. It now signifies, in common parlance, not one who possesses unlimited potic, instead of meaning what it once did, something pertaining to the possession of unlimited power, signifies something pertaining to the capricious, unmerciful and relentless exercise of such power. The word tyrant, is another example-formerly it implied merely a possession of arbitrary power, but from the invariable abuse of such power by its possessors, the proper and entire meaning of the word is lost, and it now signifies merely one who exercises power to the injury of others. The words tyrannical and tyranny follow the same analogy. So the word arbitrary; which formerly implied that which pertains to the will of one, independently of others; but from the fact that those who had no restraint upon their wills, were invariably capricious, unreasonable and oppressive, these words convey accurately the present sense of arbitrary, when applied to a person. How can the objector persist in disbelieving that cruelty is the natural effect of arbitrary power, when the very words of every day, rise up on his lips in testimony against him-words which once signified the mere possession of arbitrary power, but have lost their meaning, and now sig. nify merely its cruel exercise; because such a use of it has been proved by the experience of the world, to be inseparable from its possessionwords now frigid with horror, and never used even by the objector without feeling a cold chill run over him. Arbitrary power is to the mind what alcohol is to the body; it intoxicates. Man loves power. It is perhaps the strongest human passion; and the more absolute the power, the stronger the desire for it; and the more it is desired, the more its exercise is enjoyed: this enjoyment is to human na. ture a fearful temptation, -generally an overmatch for it. Hence it is true, with hardly an exception, that arbitrary power is abused in proportion as it is desired. The fact that a person intensely desires power over others, without restraint, shows the absolute necessity of restraint. What woman would marry a man who made it a condition that he should have the power to divorce her whenever he pleased? Oh! he might never wish to exer. cise it, but the power he would have! No woman, not stark mad, would trust her happiness in such hands. Would a father apprentice his son to a master, who insisted that his power over the laa should be absolute? The master might perhaps, never wish to commit a battery upon the boy, but if he should, he insists upon having full swing! He who would leave his son in the clutches of such a wretch, would be bled and blistered for a lunatic as soon as his friends could get their hands upon him. The possession of power, even when greatly re- | tenacity, as well as by all their doings and strained, is such a fiery stimulant, that its lodge- sayings, their threats, cursings and gnashings ment in human hands is always perilous. Give against all who denounce the exercise of such men the handling of immense sums of money, and all the eyes of Argus and the hands of Briareus can hardly prevent embezzlement. The mutual and ceaseless accusations of the two great political parties in this country, show the universal belief that this tendency of human nature to abuse power, is so strong, that even the most powerful legal restraints are insufficient for its safe custody. From congress and state legislatures down to grog-shop caucuses and streetwranglings, each party keeps up an incessant din about abuses of power. Hardly an officer, either of the general or state governments, from the President down to the ten thousand postmasters, and from governors to the fifty thousand constables, escapes the charge of abuse of power. Oppression,' 'Extortion,' 'Venality,' 'Bribery,' Corruption, Perjury,' 'Misrule,' 'Spoils, Defalcation,' stand on every newspaper. Now with out any estimate of the lies told in these mutual charges, there is truth enough to make each party ready to believe of the other, and of their best men too, any abuse of power, however mon. strous. As is the State, so is the Church. From General Conferences to circuit preachers; and from General Assemblies to church sessions, abuses of power spring up as weeds from the dunghill. All legal restraints are framed upon the presumption, that men will abuse their power if not hemmed in by them. This lies at the bottom of all those checks and balances contrived for keeping governments upon their centres. If there is among human convictions one that is invariable and universal, it is, that when men possess unrestrained power over others, over their time, choice, conscience, persons, votes, or means of subsistence, they are under great temptations to abuse ; and that the intensity with which such power is desired, generally measures the certainty and the degree of its abuse. That American slaveholders possess a power over their slaves which is virtually absolute, none will deny.* That they desire this absolute power, is shown from the fact of their holding and exercising it, and making laws to confirm and enlarge it. That the desire to possess this power, every tittle of it, is intense, is proved by the fact, that slaveholders cling to it with such obstinate * The following extracts from the laws of slave-states are proofs sufficient. "The slave is ENTIRELY subject to the WILL of his master."-Louisiana Civil Code, Art. 273. "Slaves shall be deemed, sold, taken, reputed, and adjudged in law to be chattels personal, in the hands of their owners and possessors, and their executors, administrators and assigns, TO ALL INTENTS, CONSTRUCTIONS, AND PUR Dig. 229; Prince's Digest, 446, &c. Laws of South Carolina, 2 Brev. power as usurpation and outrage, and counsel its immediate abrogation. From the nature of the case-from the laws of mind, such power, so intensely desired, griped with such a death-clutch, and with such fierce spurnings of all curtailment or restraint, cannot but be abused. Privations and inflictions must be its natural, habitual products, with ever and anon, terror, torture, and despair let loose to do their worst upon the helpless victims. Though power over others is in every case liable to be used to their injury, yet, in almost all cases, the subject individual is shielded from great outrages by strong safeguards. If he have talents, or learning, or wealth, or office, or personal respectability, or influential friends, these, with the protection of law and the rights of citizenship, stand round him as a body guard: and even if he lacked all these, yet, had he the same color, features, form, dialect, habits, and associations with the privileged caste of society, he would find in them a shield from many injuries, which would be invited, if in these respects he differed widely from the rest of the community, and was on that account regarded with disgust and aversion. This is the condition of the slave; not only is he de. prived of the artificial safeguards of the law, but has none of those natural safeguards enumerated above, which are a protection to others. But not only is the slave destitute of those peculiarities, habits, tastes, and acquisitions, which by as similating the possessor to the rest of the community, excite their interest in him, and thus, in a measure, secure for him their protection; but he possesses those peculiarities of bodily organization which are looked upon with deep disgust, contempt, prejudice, and aversion. Besides this, con. stant contact with the ignorance and stupidity of the slaves, their filth, rags, and nakedness; their cowering air, servile employments, repulsive food, and squalid hovels, their purchase and sale, and use as brutes all these associations, constantly mingling and circulating in the minds of slave. holders, and inveterated by the hourly irritations which must assail all who use human beings as things, produce in them a permanent state of feeling toward the slave, made up of repulsion and settled ill-will. When we add to this the corro. sions produced by the petty thefts of slaves, the necessity of constant watching, their reluctant service, and indifference to their master's interests, their ill-concealed aversion to him, and spurning of his authority; and finally, that fact, as old as human nature, that men always hate those whom they oppress, and oppress those whom they hate, thus oppression and hatred mutually begetting and perpetuating each other-and we have a raging | are slaveholders, published a report on slavery in compound of fiery elements and disturbing forces, so stimulating and inflaming the mind of the slaveholder against the slave, that it cannot but break forth upon him with desolating fury. To deny that cruelty is the spontaneous and uniform product of arbitrary power, and that the natural and controlling tendency of such power is to make its possessor cruel, oppressive, and revengeful towards those who are subjected to his control, is, we repeat, to set at nought the combined experience of the human race, to invalidate its testimony, and to reverse its decisions from time immemorial. A volume might be filled with the testimony of American slaveholders alone, to the truth of the preceding position. We subjoin a few illus. trations, and first, the memorable declaration of President Jefferson, who lived and died a slave. holder. It has been published a thousand times, and will live forever. In his "Notes on Virginia," sixth Philadelphia edition, p. 251, he says, "The WHOLE COMMERCE between master and slave, is a PERPETUAL EXERCISE of the most boisterous passions, the most unremit. ting DESPOTISM on the one part, and degrading submission on the other...... The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lincaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, GIVES LOOSE TO THE WORST OF PASSIONS; and thus nursed, ed. ucated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities." Hon. LEWIS SUMMERS, Judge of the General Court of Virginia, and a slaveholder, said in a speech before the Virginia legislature in 1832; (see Richmond Whig of Jan. 26, 1832,) 1834, from which the following is an extract. "Those only who have the management of servants, know what the hardening effect of it is upon their own feelings towards them. There is no necessity to dwell on this point, as all owners and managers fully understand it. He who com. mences to manage them with tenderness and with a willingness to favor them in every way, must be watchful, otherwise he will settle down in indiffer. ence, if not severity." GENERAL WILLIAM H. HARRISON, now of Ohio, son of the late Governor Harrison of Virginia, a slaveholder, while minister from the United States to the Republic of Colombia, wrote a letter to General Simon Bolivar, then President of that Republic, just as he was about assuming despotic power. The letter is dated Bogota, Sept. 22, 1826. The following is an extract. "From a knowledge of your own disposition and present feelings, your excellency will not be willing to believe that you could ever be brought to an act of tyranny, or even to execute justice with unnecessary rigor. But trust me, sir, there is nothing more corrupting, nothing more destructive of the noblest and finest feelings of our nature than the exercise of unlimited power. The man, who in the beginning of such a career, might shudder at the idea of taking away the life of a fellow-being, might soon have his conscience so seared by the repetition of crime, that the agonies of his murdered victims might become music to his soul, and the drippings of the scaffold afford blood to swim in. History is full of such excesses." WILLIAM H. FITZHUGH, Esq. of Virginia, a slaveholder, says, "Slavery, in its mildest form, is cruel and unnatural; its injurious effects on our morals and habits are mutually felt." Hon. SAMUEL S. NICHOLAS, late Judge of the "A slave population exercises the most perni- Court of Appeals of Kentucky, and a slaveholder, cious influence upon the manners, habits an cha- in a speech before the legislature of that state, "The deliberate convictions of the most matured consideration I can give the subject, are, that the institution of slavery is a most serious injury to the habits, manners and morals of our white population-that it leads to sloth, indolence, dissipation, and vice." racter, of those among whom it exists. Lisping Jan. 1837, says, - The late JUDGE TUCKER of Virginia, a slaveholder, and Professor of Law in the University of William and Mary, in his "Letter to a Member of the Virginia Legislature," 1801, says, "I say nothing of the baneful effects of slavery on our moral character, because I know you have been long sensible of this point." The Presbyterian Synod of South Carolina and Georgia, consisting of all the clergy of that denomination in those states, with a lay representa. tion from the churches, most, if not all of whom Dr. THOMAS COOPER, late President of the College of South Carolina, in a note to his edition of the "Institutes of Justinian," page 413, says, "All absolute power has a direct tendency, not only to detract from the happiness of the persons who are subject to it, but to DEPRAVE THE GOOD QUALITIES of those who possess it..... the whole history of human nature, in the present and every former age, will justify me in saying that such is the tendency of power on the one hand and slavery on the other." A South Carolina slaveholder, whose name is with the executive committee of the Am. A. S. Society, says, in a letter, dated April 4, 1838 : "I think it (slavery) ruinous to the temper and |