The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 3 of 4

The overseer was a very miserly fellow, and restricted his wife in what are considered the comforts of life--such as tea, sugar, &c. To make up for this, she set her wits to wor...

"Each one was allowed one blanket in which they rolled themselves up. I examined their houses but could not discover any thing like a bed. I was informed that when they had a su...

"A majority of the large plantations are on the banks of rivers, far from the public eye. A great deal of low marshy ground lies in the vicinity of most of the rivers at the sou...

"His uncle's slaves received one quart of corn each day, and that only, and were allowed one hour each day to cook and eat it. They had no meat but once in the year. Such was th...

The 'Mrs. Turner' spoken of in Mr. C.'s letter, is the wife of Hon. Fielding S. Turner, who in 1803 resided at Lexington, Kentucky, and was the attorney for the Commonwealth. So...

MR. ABRAHAM BELL, of Poughkeepsie, New York, a member of the Scotch Presbyterian Church, was employed, in 1837 and 38, in levelling and grading for a rail-road in the state of G...

A highly intelligent slave, who panted after freedom with ceaseless longings, made many attempts to get possession of himself. For every offence he was punished with extreme sev...

"My uncle wishing to purchase what is called a good 'house wench,' a _trader_ in human flesh soon produced a woman, recommending her as highly as ever a jockey did a horse. She...

"When it rained, the slaves were allowed to collect under a tree until the shower had passed. Seldom, on a week day, were they permitted to go to their huts during rain; and eve...

We have no right, said he, to consider whether the importation of slaves is proper or not; the Constitution gives us no power on that point, it is left to the States to judge of...

It may be replied, perhaps, that slaves are not included in the estimate of representatives in any of the States possessing them. They neither vote themselves, nor increase the...

"When I was traveling through North Carolina, a black man, who was outlawed, being shot by one of his pursuers, and left wounded in the woods, they came to an ordinary where I h...

Sir, since Congress have been in session, a mournful group of these unhappy beings, some thirty or forty, were marched, as if in derision of members of Congress, in view of your...

"To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: The memorial of the Pennsylvania Society for promoting the abolition of slavery, the relief of free negroes unl...

The slaves are often tortured by iron collars, with long prongs or "horns" and sometimes bells attached to them--they are made to wear chains, handcuffs, fetters, iron clogs, ba...

The following was told me by an intimate friend; it took place on a plantation containing about one hundred slaves. One day the owner ordered the women into the barn, he then we...

Mr. IREDELL. Mr. Chairman, I rise to express sentiments similar to those of the gentleman from Craven. For my part, were it practicable to put an end to the importation of slave...

"Ranaway, a negro man and his wife, named Nat and Priscilla, he has a small _scar_ on his left cheek, _two stiff fingers_ on his right hand with a _running sore_ on them; his wi...

"The streets of Gainesville, Alabama, have recently been the scene of a most tragic affair. Some five weeks since, at a meeting of the citizens, Col. Christopher Scott, a lawyer...

But it is not alone for the sake of my poor brothers and sisters in bonds, or for the cause of truth, and righteousness, and humanity, that I testify; the deep yearnings of affe...

"The sufferings of the slave not unfrequently drive him to despair and suicide. At a plantation on the San Bernard, where there were but five slaves, two during the same year co...

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...

Mr. Wilson. Much fault has been found with the mode of expression, used in the first clause of the ninth section of the first article. I believe I can assign a reason, why that...

Some of the slaves have rugs to cover them in the coldest weather, but I should think _more have not_. During driving storms they frequently have to run from one hut to another...

It is however to be observed, (said Mr. Iredell,) that the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article, are protected from any alteration till the year 18...

"In Bath co., Kentucky, Mr. L., in the year '32 or '33, while intoxicated, in a fit of rage whipped a female slave until she fainted and fell on the floor. Then he whipped her t...

Now we do not say that meat _is necessary_ to sustain men under hard and long continued labor, nor that it is _not_. This is not a treatise on dietetics; but it is a notorious f...

"The four brothers, all armed, went to the residence of Mr. A.G. Ward, in Shelby co., on the evening of 22d instant. They were conducted into the room in which Col. Ward was sit...

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 Repre...

Mr. Gouverneur Morris hoped the Committee would strike out the whole of the clause proportioning direct taxation to representation. He had only meant it as a bridge[3] to assist...

In traveling, one day, from Petersburg to Richmond, Virginia, I heard cries of distress at a distance, on the road. I rode up, and found two white men, beating a slave. One of t...

The gentleman repeats the assertion that has been repeated a thousand and one times: that abolitionists are retarding the emancipation of the slave, and have thrown it back fift...

"The United States' law against the importation of Africans, _could it be strictly enforced_, might in a few years give the sugar and cotton planters of Texas advantage over tho...

The form of government that shall succeed the present government of the United States, let time determine. It would he a waste of time to argue that question, until the people a...

Sir, the natural situation of this country seems to divide its interests into different classes. There are navigating and non-navigating States--the Northern are properly the na...

Our slaveholders chime lustily the same song, and no man with human nature within him, and human history before him, and with sense enough to keep him out of the fire, will be g...

The first of these clauses, relating to representation, confers on a slaveholding community additional political power for every slave held among them, and thus tempts them to c...

Mr. King wished to know what influence the vote just passed was meant to have on the succeeding part of the Report, concerning the admission of slaves into the rule of represent...

"From these returns, it appears that in 27 counties there have been, within the last three years, of homicides of every grade, 35, but only 8 convictions in the same period, lea...

A New Orleans paper, dated March 23, 1826, says: "To judge from the activity reigning in the cotton presses of the suburbs of St. Mary, and the _late hours_ during which their s...

[Footnote 24: Rev. JOSEPH M. SADD, a Presbyterian clergyman, in Castile, Genesee county, N.Y. recently from Missouri, where he has preached five years, in the midst of slavehold...

[Footnote 22: Dr. Leland, in his "Necessity of a Divine Revelation," thus describes the prevalence of these shows among the Romans:--"They were exhibited at the funerals of grea...

"_Per Cur. Derbigny_, J. The petitioner is a negro in actual state of slavery; he claims his freedom, and is bound to prove it. In his attempt, however, to show that he was free...

"The apparel of the slaves, is of the coarsest sort and _exceedingly deficient_ in quantity. I have been on many plantations where children of eight and ten yeas old, were in a...

Mr. Scott, (of Penn.) I can't entertain a doubt but the memorial duty particularly assigned to us by that instrument, and I hope we may be inclined to take it into consideration...

Hence, to swear to support the Constitution of the United States, _as it is_, is to make "a compromise between right and wrong," and to wage war against human liberty. It is to...

"It now becomes our painful duty, to notice a most disgraceful outrage committed by the Lynchers of Vicksburg, on last Sunday. The victim was a Mr. Grace, formerly of the neighb...

He (Mr. Madison) admitted that every peculiar interest, whether in any class of citizens, or any description of states, ought to be secured as far as possible. Wherever there is...

The very first Article of the Constitution takes slavery at once under its legislative protection, as a basis of representation in the popular branch of the National Legislature...

Mr. John Adams (of Massachusetts) observed, that the numbers of people were taken by this article as an index of the wealth of the State and not as subjects of taxation. That as...

Do not suppose, Mr. President, that I feel as if engaged in a forbidden or improvident act. No such thing. I am contending with a local and "_peculiar_" interest, an interest wh...

"NEGROES TAKEN.--Four gentlemen of this vicinity, went out yesterday for the purpose of finding the camp of some noted runaways, supposed to be near this place; the camp was dis...

Mr. JACKSON (of Geo.) wished to know why the second reading was to be contended for to-day, when it was diverting the attention of the members from the great object that was bef...

Mr. Hartley (of Penn.) thought the memorialists did not deserve to be aspersed for their conduct, if influenced by motives of benignity, they solicited the Legislature of the Un...

It was said, we had just assumed a place among independent nations in consequence of our opposition to the attempts of Great Britain to _enslave us_; that this opposition was gr...

Mr. WILLIAMSON moved that Mr. RANDOLPH's propositions be postponed, in order to consider the following, "that in order to ascertain the alterations that may happen in the popula...

As the Southern States would not confederate without this clause, he asked, if gentlemen would rather dissolve the confederacy than to suffer this temporary inconvenience, admit...

By this stipulation, the Northern States are made the hunting ground of slave-catchers, who may pursue their victims with bloodhounds, and capture them with impunity wherever th...

The sufferings to which slaves are subjected by separations of various kinds, cannot be imagined by those unacquainted with the working out of the system behind the curtain. Tak...

No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such s...

We would not detract aught from what is justly their due; but it is as reprehensible to give them credit for _what they did not possess_, as it is to rob them of what is theirs....

But to survey a multitude bewilders; let us look at a single nation. We instance Rome; both because its history is more generally known, and because it furnishes a larger propor...

Mr. SMITH (of S.C.) said, that as the petitioners had particularly prayed Congress to take measures for the annihilation of the slave trade, and that was admitted on all hands t...

In the debate on the Missouri question in the U.S. Congress, 1819-20, the admission of Missouri to the Union, as a slave state, was urged, among other grounds, as a measure of h...

"In the eastern part of the state, the slaves considerably outnumber the free population. Their situation is there wretched beyond description. Impoverished by the mismanagement...

[Footnote 10: The fact that Mr. Paulding, in the reprint of these "Letters," in 1835, struck out this passage with all others disparaging to slavery and its supporters, does not...

B.F. CHAPMAN, Sheriff, Natchitoches (La.) advertises in the 'Herald,' of May 17, 1837, that he has "_committed to_ JAIL, as a runaway a negro boy BETWEEN 11 AND 12 YEARS OF AGE."

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 representation, ostensibly of slaves, under the name of persons, was in its operation an exclusive grant of power to one class of proprietors, owners of one species of prope...

"It was said we had just assumed a place among the independent nations in consequence of our opposition to the attempts of Great Britain to _enslave us_; that this opposition wa...

Law-making is a formal, deliberate act, performed by persons of mature age, embodying the intelligence, wisdom, justice and humanity, of the community; performed, too, at leisur...

FURTHER the _inhumanity_ of a slaveholding 'public opinion' toward slaves, follows legitimately from the downright ruffianism of the slaveholding _spirit_ in the 'highest class...

But there is no end to these absurdities. Are slaveholders dunces, or do they take all the rest of the world to be, that they think to bandage our eyes with such thin gauzes? Pr...

The reason assigned by the legislature for enacting a law which punished the wilful murder of a human being by a _fine_, was that 'CRUELTY _is_ HIGHLY UNBECOMING,' and 'ODIOUS.'...

"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,...

Mr. Smith (of S.C.) said, the gentleman from Massachusetts, (Mr. Gerry,) had declared that it was the opinion of the select committee, of which he was a member, that the memoria...

"A near female friend of mine in company with another young lady, in attempting to visit a sick woman on Washington's Bottom, Wood county, Virginia, missed the way, and stopping...

_Protection of slaves_.--"The criminal offence of assault and battery _cannot, at common law, be committed on the person of a slave_. For, notwithstanding for some purposes a sl...

Mr. King rose to explain it. There has, says he, been much misconception of this section. It is a principle of this Constitution, that representation and taxation should go hand...

The 'North Carolina Literary and Commercial Journal,' of January 20, 1838, published at Elizabeth City, devotes a column and a half to a description of the lynching, tarring, fe...

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 very first view of these petitioners against our right of petition strikes the mind that more is intended than at first meets the eye. Why was the committee on the District...

That slaveholders do not practically regard slaves as _human beings_ is abundantly shown by their own voluntary testimony. In a recent work entitled, "The South vindicated from...

Mr. Ellsworth was for taking the plan as it is. This widening of opinions had a threatening aspect. If we do not agree on this middle and moderate ground, he was afraid we shoul...

Mr. Dickinson wished the clause to be confined to the States which had not themselves prohibited the importation of slaves; and for that purpose moved to amend the clause, so as...

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE READER. A majority of the facts and testimony contained in this work rests upon the authority of slaveholders, whose names and residences are given to the p...

WITNESSES. Abbot, Jordan Abdie, P. Adams, Mr. African Observer Alexandria Gazette Allan, Rev. William T. Alston, J.A., Heirs of Alton Telegraph Alvis, J. Anderson, Benjamin Andr...

Habits of slave-drivers Hampton Wade, murderer of slaves Handcuffs "Hands tied" Hanging of nine slaves Harris Benjamin, slave murderer Head found Head of a runaway slave on a po...

The gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Calhoun] seemed, at the conclusion of the argument made by the Senator from Kentucky, to be filled not only with delight but with ecstasy....

The benefits of the Constitution of the United States, were the restoration of credit and reputation, to the country--the revival of commerce, navigation, and ship-building--the...