The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 3 of 4
446 pages
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The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 3 of 4

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Title: The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 3 of 4
Author: American Anti-Slavery Society
Release Date: February 25, 2004 [EBook #11273]
Language: English
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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER, PART 3 OF 4 ***
Produced by Stan Goodman, Amy Overmyer, Shawn Wheeler and PG Distributed Proofreaders
THE ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER Part 3 of 4
By The American Anti-Slavery Society 1839
1.No. 10. American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses. 2.No. 10. Speech of Hon. Thomas Morris, of Ohio, in Reply to the Speech of the Hon. Henry Clay. 3.No. 11. The Constitution A Pro-Slavery Compact Or Selections From the Madison Papers, &c.
4.No. 11. The Constitution A Pro-Slavery Compact Or Selections From the Madison Papers, &c. Second Edition, Enlarged.
No. 10 THE ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER.
AMERICAN SLAVERY AS IT IS: TESTIMONY of A THOUSAND WITNESSES.
"Behold the wicked abominations that they do!"—Ezekial, viii, 2.
"The righteous considereth the cause of the poor; but the wicked regardeth not to know it."—Prov. 29, 7.
"True humanity consists not in a squeamish ear, but in listening to the story of human suffering and endeavoring to relieve it."—Charles James Fox.
NEW YORK: PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY,
OFFICE,
No. 143 NASSAU STREET. 1839.
This periodical contains 7 sheets—postage, under 100 miles, 10-1/2 cts; over 100 miles, 17-1/2 cents.
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 public, as vouchers for the truth of their statements. That they should utter falsehoods, for the sake of proclaiming their own infamy, is not probable.
Their testimony is taken, mainly, from recent newspapers, published in the slave states. Most of those papers will be deposited at the office of the American Anti-Slavery Society, 143 Nassau street, New York City. Those who think the atrocities, which they describe, incredible, are invited to call and read for themselves. We regret thatallof the original papers are not in our possession. The idea of preserving them on file for the inspection of the incredulous, and the curious, did not occur to us until after the preparation of the work was in a state of forwardness, in consequence of this, some of the papers cannot be recovered.Nearly all of them, however have been preserved. In all cases thenamethe paper is given, and, with very few of exceptions, the place and time, (year, month, and day) of publication. Some of the extracts, however not being made with reference to this work, and before its publication was contemplated, are without date; but this class of extracts is exceedingly small, probably not a thirtieth of the whole.
The statements, not derived from the papers and other periodicals, letters, books, &c., published by slaveholders, have been furnished by individuals who have resided in slave states, many of whom are natives of those states, and have been slaveholders. The names, residences, &c. of the witnesses generally are given. A number of them, however, still reside in slave states;—to publish their names would be, in most cases, to make them the victims of popular fury.
New York, May 4, 1839.
NOTE.
The Executive Committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society, while tendering their grateful acknowledgments, in the name of American Abolitionists, and in behalf of the slave, to those who have furnished for this publication the result of their residence and travel in the slave states of this Union, announce their determination to publish, from time to time, as they may have the materials and the funds, TRACTS, containing well authenticated facts, testimony, personal narratives, &c. fully setting forth the conditionof American slaves. In order that they may be furnished with the requisite materials, they invite all who have had personal knowledge of the condition of slaves in any of the states of this Union, to forward their testimony with their names and residences. To prevent imposition, it is indispensable that persons forwarding testimony, who are not personally known to any of the Executive Committee, or to the Secretaries or Editors of the American Anti-Slavery Society, should furnish references to some person or persons of respectability, with whom, if necessary, the Committee may communicate respecting the writer.
Facts and testimony respecting the condition of slaves, inall respects, are desired; their food, (kinds, quality, and quantity,) clothing, lodging, dwellings, hours of labor and rest, kinds of labor, with the mode of exaction, supervision, &c.—the number and time of meals each day, treatment when sick, regulations inspecting their social intercourse, marriage and domestic ties, the system of torture to which they are subjected, with its various modes; andin detail, theirintellectualandmoralcondition. Great care should be observed in the statement of facts. Well-weighed testimony and well-authenticated facts; with a responsible name, the Committee earnestly desire and call for. Thousands of persons in the free states have ample knowledge on this subject, derived from their own observation in the midst of slavery. Will such hold their peace? That which maketh manifest islight; he who keepeth his candle under a bushel at such a time and in such a cause as this,forges fetters for himself, as well as for the slave. Let no one withhold his testimony because others have already testified to similar facts. The value of testimony is by no means to be measured by thenoveltythe horrors which it describes. of Corroborative testimony,—facts, similar to those established by the testimony of others,—is highly valuable. Who that can give it and has a heart of flesh, will refuse to the slave so small a boon?
Communications may be addressed to Theodore D. Weld, 143 Nassau-street, New York. New York, May, 1839.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION. Twenty-seven hundred thousand free born citizens of the U.S. in slavery; Tender mercies of slaveholders; Abominations of slavery; Character of the testimony. PERSONAL NARRATIVES—PART I. NARRATIVE of NEHEMIAH CAULKINS; North Carolina Slavery; Methodist preaching slavedriver, Galloway; Women at child-birth; Slaves at labor; Clothing of slaves; Allowance of provisions; Slave-fetters; Cruelties to slaves; Burying a slave alive; Licentiousness of Slave-holders;
Rev. Thomas P. Hunt, with his "hands tied"; Preachers cringe to slavery; Nakedness of slaves; Slave-huts; Means of subsistence for slaves; Slaves' prayer. NARRATIVE of REV. HORACE MOULTON; Labor of the slaves; Tasks; Whipping posts; Food; Houses; Clothing; Punishments; Scenes of horror; Constables, savage and brutal; Patrols; Cruelties at night; Paddle-torturing; Cat-hauling; Branding with hot iron; Murder with impunity; Iron collars, yokes, clogs, and bells. NARRATIVE of SARAH M. GRIMKÉ; Barbarous Treatment of slaves; Converted slave; Professor of religion, near death, tortured his slave for visiting his companion; Counterpart of James Williams' description of Larrimore's wife; Head of runaway slave on a pole; Governor of North Carolina left his sick slave to perish; Cruelty to Women slaves; Christian slave a martyr for Jesus. TESTIMONY of REV. JOHN GRAHAM; Twenty-seven slaves whipped. TESTIMONY of WILLIAM POE; Harris whipped a girl to death; Captain of the U.S. Navy murdered his boy, was tried and acquitted; Overseer burnt a slave; Cruelties to slaves. PRIVATIONS OF THE SLAVES. FOOD; Suffering from hunger; Rations in the U.S. Army, &c; Prison rations; Testimony. LABOR; Slaves are overworked; Witnesses; Henry Clay; Child-bearing prevented; Dr. Channing; Sacrifice of a set of hands every seven years; Testimony; Laws of Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, South Carolina, and Virginia. CLOTHING; Witnesses; Advertisements; Testimony; Field-hands; Nudity of slaves; John Randolph's legacy to Essex and Hetty. DWELLINGS;
Witnesses; Slaves are wretchedly sheltered and lodged. TREATMENT OF THE SICK. PERSONAL NARRATIVES, PART II. TESTIMONY of the REV. WILLIAM T. ALLAN; Woman delivered of a dead child, being whipped; Slaves shot by Helton; Cruelties to slaves; Whipping post; Assaults, and maimings; Murders; Puryear, "the Devil,"; Overseers always armed; Licentiousness of Overseers; "Bend your backs"; Mrs. H., a Presbyterian, desirous to cut Arthur Tappan's throat; Clothing, Huts, and Herding of slaves; Iron yokes with prongs; Marriage unknown among slaves; Presbyterian minister at Huntsville; Concubinage in Preacher's house; Slavery, the great wrong. NARRATIVE of WILLIAM LEFTWICH; Slave's life. TESTIMONY of LEMUEL SAPINGTON; Nakedness of slaves; Traffic in slaves. TESTIMONY of MRS. LOWRY; Long, a professor of religion killed three men; Salt water applied to wounds to keep them from putrefaction. TESTIMONY of WILLIAM C. GILDERSLEEVE; Acts of cruelty. TESTIMONY of HIRAM WHITE; Woman with a child chained to her neck; Amalgamation, and mulatto children. TESTIMONY of JOHN M. NELSON; Rev. Conrad Speece influenced Alexander Nelson when dying not to emancipate his slaves; George Bourne opposed Slavery in 1810. TESTIMONY of ANGELINA GRIMKÉ WELD; House-servants; Slave-driving female professors of religion at Charleston, S.C.; Whipping women and prayer in the same room; Tread-mills; Slaveholding religion; Slave-driving mistress prayed for the divine blessing upon her whipping of an aged woman; Girl killed with impunity; Jewish law; Barbarities; Medical attendance upon slaves; Young man beaten to epilepsy and insanity; Mistresses flog their slaves; Blood-bought luxuries; Borrowing of slaves; Meals of slaves; All comfort of slaves disregarded; Severance of companion lovers; Separation of parents and children; Slave espionage; Sufferings of slaves; Horrors of slavery indescribable. TESTIMONY of CRUELTY INFLICTED UPON SLAVES; Colonization Society;
Emancipation Society of North Carolina; Kentucky. PUNISHMENTS; Floggings; Witnesses and Testimony. SLAVE DRIVING; Droves of slaves. CRUELTY TO SLAVES; Slaves like Stock without a shelter; "Six pound paddle." TORTURES OF SLAVES. Iron collars, chains, fetters, and hand-cuffs; Advertisements for fugitive slaves; Testimony; Iron head-frame; Chain coffles; Droves of 'human cattle'; Washington, the National slave market; Testimony of James K. Paulding, Secretary of the Navy; Literary fraud and pretended prophecyby Mr. Paulding; Brandings, Maimings, and Gun-shot wounds; Witnesses and Testimony; Mr. Sevier, senator of the U.S.; Judge Hitchcock, of Mobile; Commendable fidelity to truth in the advertisements of slaveholders; Thomas Aylethorpe cut off a slave's ear, and sent it to Lewis Tappan; Advertisements for runaway slaves with their teeth mutilated; Excessive cruelty to slaves; Slaves burned alive; Mr. Turner, a slave-butcher; Slaves roasted and flogged; Cruelties common; Fugitive slaves; Slaves forced to eat tobacco worms; Baptist Christians escaping from slavery; Christian whipped for praying; James K. Paulding's testimony; Slave driven to death; Coroner's inquest on Harney's murdered female slave; Man-stealing encouraged by law; Trial for a murdered slave; Female slave whipped to death, and during the torture delivered of a dead infant; Slaves murdered; Slave driven to death; Slaves killed with impunity; George, a slave, chopped piece-meal, and burnt by Lilburn Lewis; Retributive justice in the awful death of Lilburn Lewis; Trial of Isham Lewis, a slave murderer. PERSONAL NARRATIVES.—PART III. NARRATIVE OF REV. FRANCIS HAWLEY; Plantations; Overseers; No appeal from Overseers to Masters. CLOTHING; Nudity of slaves. WORK; Cotton-picking; Mothers of slaves; Presbyterian minister killed his slave; Methodist colored preacher hung; Licentiousness; Slave-traffic;
Night in a Slaveholder's house; Twelve slaves murdered; Slave driving Baptist preachers; Hunting of runaways slaves; Amalgamation. TESTIMONY OF REUBEN C. MACY, AND RICHARD MACY. Whipping of slaves. Testimony of Eleazar Powel; Overseer of Hinds Stuart, shot a slave for opposing the torture of his female companion. TESTIMONY OF REV. WILLIAM SCALES. Three slaves murdered with impunity; Separation of lovers, parents, and children. TESTIMONY OF JOS. IDE. Mrs. T. a Presbyterian kind woman-killer; Female slave whipped to death; Food; Nakedness of slaves; Old man flogged after praying for his tyrant; Slave-huts not as comfortable as pig-sties. TESTIMONY OF REV. PHINEAS SMITH. Texas; Suit for the value of slave 'property'; Anson Jones, Ambassador from Texas; No trial or punishment for the murder of slaves; Slave-hunting in Texas; Suffering drives the slaves to despair and suicide. TESTIMONY OF PHIL'N BLISS. Ignorance of northern citizens respecting slavery; Betting upon crops; Extent and cruelty of the punishment of slaves; Slaveholders excuse their cruelties by the example of Preachers, and professors of religion, and Northern citizens; Novel torture, eulogized by a professor of religion; Whips as common as the plough; Ladiesuse cowhides, with shovel and tongs. TESTIMONY OF REV. WM. A. CHAPIN. Slave-labor; Starvation of slaves; Slaves lacerated, without clothing, and without food. TESTIMONY OF T.M. MACY. Cotton plantations on St. Simon's Island; Cultivation of rice; No time for relaxation; Sabbath a nominal rest; Clothing; Flogging. TESTIMONY OF F.C. MACY. Slave cabins; Food; Whipping every day; Treatment of slaves as brutes; Slave-boys fight for slaveholder's amusement; Amalgamation common. TESTIMONY OF A CLERGYMAN. Natchez; 'Lie down,' for whipping; Slave-hunting; 'Ball and chain' men; Whipping at the same time, on three plantations; Hours of Labor; Christiansslave-hunting; Many runaway slaves annually shot;
Slaves in the stocks; Slave branding. CONDITION OF SLAVES. Slavery is unmixed cruelty; Fear the only motive of slaves; Pain is the means, not the end of slave-driving; Characters of Slave drivers and Overseers, brutal, sensual, and violent; Ownership of human beings utterly destroystheircomfort. OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED: I. Such cruelties are incredible. Slaves deemed to be working animals, or merchandize; and called 'Stock,' 'Increase,' 'Breeders,' 'Drivers,' 'Property,' 'Human cattle'; Testimony of Thomas Jefferson; Slaves worse treated than quadrupeds; Contrast between the usage of slaves and animals; Testimony; Northern incredulity discreditable to consistency; Religious persecutions; Recent 'Lynchings,' and Riots, in the United States; Many outrageous Felonies perpetrated with impunity; Large faith of the objectors who 'can't believe'; 'Doe faces,' and 'Dough faces'; Slave-drivers acknowledge their own enormities; Slave plantations in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi 'second only to hell'; Legislature of North Carolina; Incredulity discreditable to intelligence; Abuse of power in the state, and churches; Legal restraints; American slaveholders possess absolute power; Slaves deprived of the safe guards of law; Mutual aversion between the oppressor and the slave; Cruelty the product of arbitrary power; Testimony of Thomas Jefferson; Judge Tucker; Presbyterian Synod of South Carolina, and Georgia; General William H. Harrison; President Edwards; Montesquieu; Wilberforce; Whitbread; Characters. OBJECTION II.—"Slaveholders protest that they treat their slaves well." Not testimony but opinion; 'Good treatment' of slaves; Novel form of cruelty. OBJECTION III.—"Slaveholders are proverbial for their kindness, and generosity." Hospitality and benevolence contrasted; Slaveholders in Congress, respecting Texas and Hayti; 'Fictitious kindness and hospitality.' OBJECTION IV.—"Northern visitors at the south testify that the slaves are not cruelly treated." Testimony; 'Gubner poisened'; Field-hands; Parlor slaves; Chief Justice Durell. OBJECTION V.—"It is for the interest of the masters to treat their slaves well." Testimony; Rev. J.N. Maffitt; Masters interest to treat cruelly the great body of the slaves; Various classes of slaves; Hired slaves; Advertisements.
OBJECTION VI.—"Slaves multiply; a proof that they are not inhumanly treated, and are in a comfortable condition." Testimony; Martin Van Buren; Foreign slave trade; 'Beware of Kidnappers'; 'Citizens sold as slaves'; Kidnapping at New Orleans; Slave breeders. OBJECTION VII.—"Public opinion is a protection to the slave." Decision of the Supreme Court of North and South Carolina; 'Protection of slaves'; Mischievous effects of 'public opinion' concerning slavery; Laws of different states; Heart of slaveholders; Reasons for enacting the laws concerning cruelties to slaves; 'Moderate correction'; Hypocrisy and malignity of slave laws; Testimony of slaves excluded; Capital crimes for slaves; 'Slaveholding brutality,' worse than that of Caligula; Public opinion destroys fundamental rights; Character of slaveholders' advertisements; Public opinion is diabolical; Brutal indecency; Murder of slaves by law; Judge Lawless; Slave-hunting; Health of slaves; Acclimation of slaves; Liberty of Slaves; Kidnapping of free citizens; Law of Louisiana; FRIENDS', memorial; Domestic slavery; Advertisements; Childhood, old age; Inhumanity; Butchering dead slaves; South Carolina Medical college; Charleston Medical Infirmary; Advertisements; Slave murders; John Randolph; Charleston slave auctions; 'Never lose a day's work'; Stocks; Slave-breeding; Lynch law; Slaves murdered; Slavery among Christians; Licentiousness encouraged by preachers; 'Fine old preacher who dealt in slaves'; Cruelty to slaves by professors of religion; Slave-breeding; Daniel O'Connell, and Andrew Stevenson; Virginia a negro raising menagerie; Legislature of Virginia; Colonization Society; Inter-state slave traffic; Battles in Congress; Duelling;
Cock-fighting; Horse-racing; Ignorance of slaveholders; 'Slaveholding civilization, and morality'; Arkansas; Slave driving ruffians; Missouri; Alabama; Butcheries in Mississippi; Louisiana; Tennessee; Fatal Affray in Columbia; Presentment of the Grand Jury of Shelby County; Testimony of Bishop Smith of Kentucky. ATLANTIC SLAVEHOLDING REGION. Georgia; North Carolina; Trading with Negroes; Conclusion.
INTRODUCTION.
Reader, you are empannelled as a juror to try a plain case and bring in an honest verdict. The question at issue is not one of law, but of facts—"What is the actual condition of the slaves in the United States?" A plainer case never went to a jury. Look at it. TWENTY-SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND PERSONS in this country, men, women, and children, are in SLAVERY. Is slavery, as a condition for human beings, good, bad, or indifferent? We submit the question without argument. You have common sense, and conscience, and a human heart;—pronounce upon it. You have a wife, or a husband, a child, a father, a mother, a brother or a sister—make the case your own, make it theirs, and bring in your verdict. The case of Human Rights against Slavery has been adjudicated in the court of conscience times innumerable. The same verdict has always been rendered—"Guilty;" the same sentence has always been pronounced, "Let it be accursed;" and human nature, with her million echoes, has rung it round the world in every language under heaven, "Let it be accursed. Let it be accursed." His heart is false to human nature, who will not say "Amen." There is not a man on earth who does not believe that slavery is a curse. Human beings may be inconsistent, but humannatureis true to herself. She has uttered her testimony against slavery with a shriek ever since the monster was begotten; and till it perishes amidst the execrations of the universe, she will traverse the world on its track, dealing her bolts upon its head, and dashing against it her condemning brand. We repeat it, every man knows that slavery is a curse. Whoever denies this, his lips libel his heart. Try him; clank the chains in his ears, and tell him they are forhim; give him an hour to prepare his wife and children for a life of slavery; bid him make haste and get ready their necks for the yoke, and their wrists for the coffle chains, then look at his pale lips and trembling knees, and you havenature'stestimony against slavery.
Two millions seven hundred thousand persons in these States are in this condition. They were made slaves and are held each by force, and by being put in fear, and this for no crime! Reader, what have you to say of such treatment? Is it right, just, benevolent? Suppose I should seize you, rob you of your liberty, drive you into the field, and make you work without pay as long as you live, would that be justice and kindness, or monstrous injustice and cruelty? Now, every body knows that the slaveholders do these things to the slaves every day, and yet it is stoutly affirmed that they treat them well and kindly, and that their tender regard for their slaves restrains the masters from inflicting cruelties upon them. We shall go into no metaphysics to show the absurdity of this pretence. The man whorobsyou every day, is, forsooth, quite too tender-hearted ever to cuff or kick you! True, he can snatch your money, but he does it gently lest he should hurt you. He can empty your pockets without qualms, but if yourstomachis empty, it cuts him to the quick. He can make you work a life time without pay, but loves you too well to let you go hungry. He fleeces you of yourrights with a relish, but is shocked if you work bareheaded in summer, or in winter without warm stockings. He can make you go without yourliberty, but never without a shirt. He can crush, in you, all hope of bettering
your condition, by vowing that you shall die his slave, but though he can coolly torture your feelings, he is too compassionate to lacerate your back—he can break your heart, but he is very tender of your skin. He can strip you of all protection and thus expose you to all outrages, but if you are exposed to theweather, half clad and half sheltered, how yearn his tender bowels! What! slaveholders talk of treating men well, and yet not only rob them of all they get, and as fast as they get it, but rob them ofthemselves, also; their very hands and feet, all their muscles, and limbs, and senses, their bodies and minds, their time and liberty and earnings, their free speech and rights of conscience, their right to acquire knowledge, and property, and reputation;—and yet they, who plunder them of all these, would fain make us believe that their soft hearts ooze out so lovingly toward their slaves that they always keep them well housed and well clad, never push them too hard in the field, never make their dear backs smart, nor let their dear stomachs get empty.
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? Protesting their kind regard for those whom they hourly plunder of all they have and all they get! What! when they have seized their victims, and annihilated all theirrights, still claim to be the special guardians of theirhappiness! Plunderers of their liberty, yet the careful suppliers of their wants? Robbers of their earnings, yet watchful sentinels round their interests, and kind providers for their comfort? Filching all their time, yet granting generous donations for rest and sleep? Stealing the use of their muscles, yet thoughtful of their ease? Putting them underdrivers, yet careful that they are not hard-pushed? Too humane forsooth to stint the stomachs of their slaves, yet force theirminds to starve, and brandish over them pains and penalties, if they dare to reach forth for the smallest crumb of knowledge, even a letter of the alphabet!
It is no marvel that slaveholders are always talking of theirkind treatmentof their slaves. The only marvel is, that men of sense can be gulled by such professions. Despots always insist that they are merciful. The greatest tyrants that ever dripped with blood have assumed the titles of "most gracious," "most clement," "most merciful," &c., and have ordered their crouching vassals to accost them thus. When did not vice lay claim to those virtues which are the opposites of its habitual crimes? The guilty, according to their own showing, are always innocent, and cowards brave, and drunkards sober, and harlots chaste, and pickpockets honest to a fault. Every body understands this. When a man's tongue grows thick, and he begins to hiccough and walk cross-legged, we expect him, as a matter of course, to protest that he is not drunk; so when a man is always singing the praises of his own honesty, we instinctively watch his movements and look out for our pocket-books. Whoever is simple enough to be hoaxed by such professions, should never be trusted in the streets without somebody to take care of him. Human nature works out in slaveholders just as it does to other men, and in American slaveholders just as in English, French, Turkish, Algerine, Roman and Grecian. The Spartans boasted of their kindness to their slaves, while they whipped them to death by thousands at the altars of their gods. The Romans lauded their own mild treatment of their bondmen, while they branded their names on their flesh with hot irons, and when old, threw them into their fish ponds, or like Cato "the Just," starved them to death. It is the boast of the Turks that they treat their slaves as though they were their children, yet their common name for them is "dogs," and for the merest trifles, their feet are bastinadoed to a jelly, or their heads clipped off with the scimetar. The Portuguese pride themselves on their gentle bearing toward their slaves, yet the streets of Rio Janeiro are filled with naked men and women yoked in pairs to carts and wagons, and whipped by drivers like beasts of burden.
Slaveholders, the world over, have sung the praises of their tender mercies towards their slaves. Even the wretches that plied the African slave trade, tried to rebut Clarkson's proofs of their cruelties, by speeches, affidavits, and published pamphlets, setting forth the accommodations of the "middle passage," and their kind attentions to the comfort of those whom they had stolen from their homes, and kept stowed away under hatches, during a voyage of four thousand miles. So, according to the testimony of the autocrat of the Russias, he exercises great clemency towards the Poles, though he exiles them by thousands to the snows of Siberia, and tramples them down by millions, at home. Who discredits the atrocities perpetrated by Ovando in Hispaniola, Pizarro in Peru, and Cortez in Mexico,—because they filled the ears of the Spanish Court with protestations of their benignant rule? While they were yoking the enslaved natives like beasts to the draught, working them to death by thousands in their mines, hunting them with bloodhounds, torturing them on racks, and broiling them on beds of coals, their representations to the mother country teemed with eulogies of their parental sway! The bloody atrocities of Philip II, in the expulsion of his Moorish subjects, are matters of imperishable history. Who disbelieves or doubts them? And yet his courtiers magnified his virtues and chanted his clemency and his mercy, while the wail of a million victims, smitten down by a tempest of fire and slaughter let loose at his bidding, rose above theTe Deums that thundered from all Spain's cathedrals. When Louis XIV. revoked the edict of Nantz, and proclaimed two millions of his subjects free plunder for persecution,—when from the English channel to the Pyrennees the mangled bodies of the Protestants were dragged on reeking hurdles by a shouting populace, he claimed to be "the father of his people," and wrote himself "His mostChristianMajesty."
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