The Lansing state Republican. [volume] (Lansing, Mich.) 1855-1874, 1860-07-04

,nishn,e. Be- malicious, eru and e1ces-e '-Sanher v
1oct, Grcttan, e13 II
Can Barbarism further 60? Here is an ire.
.ponsible power, rendered more irresponsible
It'll BY the secuion Of the plantation, and abso-
utely fortified by the supplementary law exciud-
NO the testimony of slaves. That under its
shelter enormi,ies should occur, stranger than
6cton. too terrible for imagination, and surpass-
ing any individual experience, is simply accord /
ing TO the course of nature and the course of
history. The visitation of the abbeys in England
disclosed vice and disorder in startling forms, |
cloaked by the irresponsible privacy of monastic |
life. A similar visitation Of plantations, would
disclose more fearful results, cloake1 by the ire
sponsible privacy Of slavery. Every slave-master
on his plantation is a Bashaw, with all the pre-
negatives of a Turk. According to Hobbies, he
ia "a petty king" This is true; and every
plantation is of itself petty kingdom, with more
than the immunities Of an abbey. Six thousand
skulls of infants are said to have been taken
from a single fsh-pond near nunnery, TO the
dsmay of Pope Gregory. Under the law OF
slavery, infants the offspring of masters "who
dream of freedom in slaves embrace" are not
thrown into a fish-pond, but something worse is
glimpse. Slavery, in its recesses, is another
Bastile, whose horrors never will be known until
it all is RACED to the ground it is the dismal cas-
tie of Giant Despair, which, when captured by
the Pilgrims excited their wonder, as they saw
"the dead bodies that lay here and there in the
castle yard, and how full Of dead mems bones
the dungeon was" The recorded horrors of
slavery seem to be infinite, and each day, by the
escape Of its Victims they still further attest.
ed, while the door of the vast prison-house is
left ajar. But, alas unless the examples of
history and the lessons Of political wisdom are
alike delusiye, its unrecorjed horrors must as.
sumo a form of vet more fearful dimensions, as
we try to contemplate them. Battling all at
tempts at description, they sink into that chap
ter Of Sir Thomas Browne, entitled, Of sOsle Re
lations achose Truth sre fear: and among kin
dred things whereof, according TO this eloquent
philosopher, there remains no register but that
of hell
II this picture Of the relations Of slave masters
with their slaves could receive any further dark.
ness, it would be by introducing the figures OF
the congenial agents through which the Barba-
rism is maintained the .Sd0e-ocerSeer, the Slave
breeder, and the !&ace-hunter, each without a
peer except in his brother, and the whole consti.
tuting the triumvirate of slavery, in whom its
essential brutality, vugarity, and grossness, are
all embodied. There is the slaye.Overseer, with
his bloody lash, fifty described in his Life of Pat
rick Henry by Mr.. Writ, who, born in Virginia,
knew the class, as "last and lowest, most abject,
degraded, unprncipled," and his hands WELD at
| will the irresponsible power. There is the slave
breeder, who assumes higher character, and
even enters Legislative halls, where, in uncon-
scious insensibity, he shocks civilization by de-
nying, like Mr.. GholsOn, Of Virginia, any alleged
\ 4 =
brood mare" by openly asserting the necessary
respite from work during the CESSATION Of the
female slave as the ground of property in her
offspring, and by proclaimng that in this "yi-
gintiar' crop of human flesh consists much OF
the wealth of his State, while another Virginan,
not yet hardened to this debasing trade, whose
annual sacrifice reaches $4,000 human souls,
confesses the indignation and shame with which
he behOlds his State Converted into one grand
menagerie, where men are reared for the market,
like oxen for the shameless" And lastly there
is the slave-hunter, with the blood hound AS his
brutal symbol, who pursues slaves as the hunter
pursues game, and does not hesitate in the public
prints to advertise his Barbarism thus:
| "BIJOOD HOUNDS.-I have Two Of the FINEST DOGS
| for CATCHING NEGROES in tn. southwest They ca n
| take the trail TWELVE HOURS after the NEGRO HAS
| PASSED, and catch him with live four miles
southwest Of Bolivar the road leading from Bolivar
4
way negroes DAVID TURNER
| March >, 1855 "-W,7 Tennessee Ielaacr1.
The bloodhound was known in early Scottish
history; it was once vindictively put upon the
trail OF Robert Bruce, and in barbarous days, by
| a cruel license of war, il was directed against
the marauders of the Scottish border; but more
than a century has passed since the last survivor
OF the race, kept as curiosity, was fed on meal
| in Ettrick FOREST The bloodhound was en-.
L,-Sr Al
| tinent, and the eloquencc of Chatham never
touched a truer chord than when, gathering
| force from the condemnation of this brutality,
he poured his thunder upon the kindred brutal
ity of the scalping-kniie, adopted as an instru-
ment OF war by nation protesting civilization.
Tardily introduced into our Republic, some time
| after the Missouri Compromise, when slavery
became a political passion and slavc-masters
| began to throw aside all disguise, the blood
hound has become the representative of our Bar
barism in one Of its worst forms, when engaged
| in the pursuit of a fellOw.man who is asserting
his Unborn title to himself and this brute is in
deed, typical of the whole brutal leash of slave
hunters, who, whether at home on slave soil.
under the name OF slave-cathers, and kdnappers,
| or at distance, under potter names, insult hu-
man nature by the enforcement of this Barba.
| rism.
(3.) From this dreary picture of save-masters
with their slaves and their triumeirate of vulgar
instruments, l pass TO another more dreary still,
and more completely exposing the influence OF
Slavery; / mean the relations of Siove-,a masters
rith each other, also NTH Society and Gorern-
ment, or, in other words, the character of slave
masters, as displayed in the general relations of
life. And here l need your indulgence. Not in
triumph or in taunt do approach this branch
of the subject. Yielding only to the irresistible
exigency of the discussion and in direct response
to the assumptions On this floor, especially by
the Senator OF Virginia, Mr.. Mason, l shall
proceed. If l touch slavery to the quick, and
enable slave-masters to see themselves as Others
see them, l shall do nothing beyond the stric,es,
line Of duty in this debate.
One OF the choicest passages OF tie master
Italian poet, Dante, is where a scene of trans.
cendant virtue is described as sculptured in
visible speech" on the long gallery which led
to the Heavenly Gate. The poet felt the inspi-
ration OF the scene, and placed it on the way
side, where it could charm and encourage. This
was natural Nobody can look upon virtue and
justice if it be only in images and pictures, With
out feeling kindred sentiment. Nobody can
be surrounded by vice and wrong, by violence
and brutality, if it be only in images and pic
| lures, without coming under their degrading in.
fuence. Nobody can live with the one without
advantage; nobody can live with the other with.
out loss. Who could pass his life in the secret
chamber where are gathered the impure relics
Of Pompeii, without becoming Indifferent TO
loathsome things: But if these loathsome things