Year: 1863

A SLAVE PICTURE--We have been looking at
picture of slavery in Mississippi the State where
we were raised, and over which the conlagration
of civil war has been surging like sand storms on
the desert There, were the blood hounds pur
suing and tearing down the fainting fugitive
There stood the trembling slave on the auction
block, with his swarthy mate crouching down on
her knees, pleading with the obdnrate soul. driver.
There the octoroon stripped to the waist was tied
to the whipping post, while her tender flesh rose
In discolored welts under the many stranded lash
of the overseer ; and there, too, was another in
furiated wretch mounted on horse, lashng u
worn.out and delinquent slave across the cotton
field.


Does the reader ask Are these things so ~
We answer, yes We have seen all these pictures
In real life, over and over. We have seen all the
griefs aud heart rendings and cold bloodedness
of the auction block and the slave pen. We have
seen the remains Of human being who had been
haunted down and torn to peices by more than
two score of blood dhounds with the entrals
traed about the ground and with the throat
still bleeding from the fangs of the dogs. We
have seen men sell their children aud their son 1
children at public auction. We have seen wo-
man with face rs white our own, stripped to
the waist, pnioned to the whipping post and
lashed till the blood ran down to her heels, while
the scars we're afterwards washed with brine to
prevent the acerated back of the chattle from
being fly blown. More than this, we have seen
an old man, crippled with chillblans, whipped
to the field while his feet were slunlng Off with
rottenness aud alive with maggots.


These are some of the aspects of slavery which
we have seen for ourself in bOyhood and maur-
er life. They are not " abolition lies" but are
the observations of one who was born aud lived
to almost manhood under all the influences and
preiudices of this cruel, remorseless and thrice
damned institution. The aboltiOnlsts have not
told and never knew half of the horrible truth,
or if they have, they have not been believed
The scenes above related occurred In LOwndes
county. Mississippi, near the town of Columbus
where in the tenderness of "a young child's heart
we have listened sympathe tically TO the pitiful
complaints OF these poor black people who learn
ed that we would not betray their cOnldence.-
1t Is true enough that these are the more horrible
features Of slavery, that all masters are not cruel ;
but mercy and kindness are the exceptions, and
cruelty aud stony heartcdness are the rule Of
course minded, bestial devils, usually employed
as overseers.


Now, will any Northern dough face, any cold
booded Democratic parasite who laps his prod
gal tongue about the shoe-soles Of slave holders,
who despise his unnatural servilty, be any longer
at loss to understand why we hate an institution
which is held accursed by every christian nation,
of every human impulse and when unspeakable
wlckedness il forever rising up in all its black


nsuiIerable delOrmity before the judgment seat
of just God to whom the rude tongue aud
swelling heart of the negro slave have been cry.
ing in pitiful abandonment II there were any
thing that could destroy our faith in the existence
of a righteous Almighty, it is the long time that
the outcry Of the tortured slave has been in
reaching the ear of Deity. But at length the
long suflerance of Heaven Is at an end Slug
gish Justice at last comes forth from beneath the
Throne thunders threaten in the sky and flaming
bolts drop upon and blast the land that has be-
come drunken with the blood Of these poor
frendless people. The Angel Of Rctribulion is
at last out on the war-path, and the doom OF
slavery is read both in the gloom OF the starless
night, by the first dim tapers that the berads Of
the morning hold over our old home Mississippi.
49, Sonora Flag.