Cleveland morning leader. [volume] (Cleveland [Ohio]) 1854-1865, 1860-07-03
ID RARBARIsaI OF sI.AvRRY.
sPEECH
Hon. Charles Sumner,
Bin for the Admission Of kansas as a Free
Stare.
In THH U. S. srnArE, JusE, 4, 1860.


has inquiry burst into that gloomy world Of
bondage, and disclosed is secrets. But
enough is already known to arouse the indig-
nant condemnation of mankind. For in
stance, here is q simple advertisment-on of
thOusands-ifOm the Georgia AessslgeT.
" RUS AWAr-My man Fountain; has holes in
his ears, scar ON the right side Of his forehead ;
has been shot in the hind part ofhis legs; is mark
/ cd on his back with the Whip. Apply TO Robert
I Beasley, Macon, Ga"
Holes in the ears; scar on the forehead
shot in the legs, and marks Of the lash on
the back Such are the tokens by which
/ Slaye-master proposes 10 identify his slave
And here is another advertisement, revealing
Slaye-masters in a different light. II is from
the National Intelligencer, here in the Capt.
tai; and ! confess the pain with which l
cite such an indecency in a journal Of such
respectability. OF course it appeared with
out the knowledge Of the editors; but it is
none the less an Illustrative example.
''FoR sALE.-An accomplished aud handsome Ia.
A. maid. she 3 Just sixteen years Of agei was
raised 10 genteel family in Maryland and is now
proposed 70 be sold, not for Ruy fault bnt simply
beoause the owner has no further use for her. A
nsle directed % e c. Gsdsby's Hotel, viii receive
A sailed Gbertins, in land where vice is
legalized, could not expose his victim with
apter words. These two instances viii IL
lustrate class. In the recent work of Mr..
0lmstead, close observer and traveller in
the slave states, which abounds in pictures Of
slavery, expressed with caution, and evident
regard 10 truth, will be found still another,
where aslave-master thus frankly confesses
his experience
Il can tell you how you can break nigger Of rum
ning away, certain, said tho slaVe-master. fherS
was an old fellow used 70 know in Georgia, that
always cured his Af q Niger ran away, when he
caught him, he would bind his knee over log and
fst8n him ~ be couldnt stir then he take pair
Of pinchsrs and pull ore Of his toe nails out by the
ro0ts aud tell him that Il he run away again.
he would pun ont two Of them and If he run away
again amer that he told him he'd pull out four Of
them, and 50 on doubling each time. He never had
0illsisad's 4ezas Journey lu5-
Like this story, which is from the lips of
Slave master, is another, where the master,
angry becaHse his slave had sought to regain
his God-given liberty, deliberately cut the
tendons Of his heel, thus horribly manning
him for life
It is in vain that these instances are de-
MED. Their aecumulating number, anthem
ucated in every possible manner, by the
press, by a cloud of witnesses, and by the
confession Of slave masters, stares US con-
stantly in the face.
And here we are brought again to the
slave code, under the shelter of which these
and worse things may be done, with COM
plete impunity. Listen to the remarkable
words of Chief Justice Rufin, of North Car
Olina, who, in a solemn decision, thus por
trays, afirms and deplores this terrible lati-
tude:
THE obedience Of the slave he saws sis the con-
sequence only Of uncontrolled s,ltori " over he body
L. a. Las PoigeT g ~ master must e absolute g res
CONFESS my sense OF the harshnesa Of this proposition
4 iesi Il as deeply any can. And, as u prin-
eple Of moral right every person in his retirement
must repudiate IL, But in the actual condition Of
discipline belongs ke state f Slavery Il Is inher
snt in the relation Of master and ElaVe.-Tho SatsV
And the same terrible latitude has been
thus expOunded in a recent judicial decision
Of Virginia:
1T IS the policy Of the law in respect 70 the rsa-
ton Of master and slave, and for the sake Of secur
mg proper subOrdinati0n and obedience the part
q the slave % protect he master from prosecution
and excessive -'-SdHtheTv. Clpet Z Gratiah 673.
Can Barbarism further go2 Here is an
irresponsible power, rendered more irrespOn-
sible still by the seclusiOn of the plantation,
and absolutely fortified by the supplementary
law excluding the testimony Of slaves That
under its shelter enormities should occur,
stranger than fiction, too terrible for imagin-
alton, and surprising any individual expert
ence, is simply according to the course of ma
ture and the course of history. The vista
ton of the abbeys in England disclosed vice
and disorder in startling FORMS cloaked by
the irresponsible privacy of monasic life
A similar visitation Of plantations, would
disclose more fearful results, cloaked by the
irresponsible privacy Of slavery. Every
slaye-master on his plantation is a Bashaw,
vuifh all h.. - A
cording to Hobbies, he is "a petty king
This IS truei and every plantation is of it.
self petty kingdom, with more than the
immunities of an abbey. Six thousand
skull Of infants are said to have been taken
from single 6sh-pond near nunnery, to
the dismay Of Pope Gregory. Under the
law Of slavery, infants, the offspring of mas
ters ''whO dream of freedom in a slaves en-
brace, are not thrown into fish-pond, but
something worse is done. They are sold.-
But this is only a single glimpse. Slavery
in its recesses, is another Bastile, whose hor-
ors will never be known until it all is razed
q the ground; it is the dismal castle of giant
despair, which, when captured by the Pill
grims, 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 wasn The recorded hor-
rors of slavery seem to be infinite, and each
day, by the escape of its victims, they are
still further sttested, while the door of the
prison-house is left ajar. But alas unless
the examples Of history and the lessons of
political wisdom are alike delUsiVe, its unre-
corded horrors must assume form of yet
more fearful dimensions, as we try to contem-
plate them. Battling all attempts at descrip-
ton, they sink into that chapter of Sir
Thomas Browne entitled, Of some Relations
lgtose Truth l0s fear and among kindred
things whereof, according to this eloquent
philosopher, there remains no register but
thEtOf he'll.
If this picture of the relations of slave
masters with their slaves could receive any
further darkness, Would be by introducing
the figures of the congenial agents through
which the Barbarism is maintained; The
SlaDs-oBeTSeeT, the SIGDs-bTeeder, and the SLaUs-
hultsf, each without q peer except in his
brother, and the wh5e constituting the
triumvirate Of slavery, N whom its essen
tial brutality, vulgarity, and grossness are
all embodied. There is the SlaEe-overseer,
with rs bloody lash, fly deefibed in his
In d Patrick Henry by Mr.. Writ, who,
born g irginia, knew the classy as 'last and
lowest, most ahject, degraded, unpCincipled,"
and his hand wields at will the irresponsible
power. There is the Slaye-breeder, who as
sumes higher character, and even enters
legislative halls, where in unconscious insen-
sibrlity, he shocks civilization by denying,
Ike Mr.. Gholson Of Virginia, any alleged
olstnctlon between the fafenale slave and
tine brood mare" by openly asserting the
necessary respite from work during the ges-
tation Of the female slave as the ground Of
property In her offspring, and by prOclaiming
that IN this "virgintile' crop Of human flesh
consists much of the wealth Of his State
while another Virginian, not yet hlvrdened to
this debasing trade, whose annual sacrifice
reaches $4,000 human souls, contests the in
dlgnation and shame with which he beholds
his state converted into one grand meaqge-
re, where men are reared tor the mar ket, ike
oxen for the shGmbles." And lastly there is
the SlaVe-hunter with the Hood 4, tund as