Richard Hildreth

“ If one of his servants was guilty of any thing, which in a slave, is esteemed especially enormous; such as running away, repeated theft, idleness, insolence or insubordination, major Thornton sent him off to be sold, By a strange, but common inconsistency, this man of feeling, who could not bear to whip a slave, or to see him whipped, or even to have him whipped on his own plantation, felt no scruples at all, at tearing him from the arms of his wife and children, and setting him up at public sale, to fall into the hands of any ferocious master, who might chance to purchase him! ”

“ We mounted, and had already taken the road to Carleton-Hall, when my master seemed to recollect that I had just found a wife from whom I had been long separated; and it began to occur to him, that possibly we might take some pleasure in being indulged with a little of one another's company. He gave me joy of my discovery, with an air half serious, half jocose, — as if in doubt whether a slave were properly entitled to a master's serious sympathy, — and remarked, in a careless tone, that perhaps I would like to spend the remainder of the day at Poplar-Grove. ”

“ Slavery, in those countries, by the force of causes now in operation, is fast approaching to its end; and let the African slave-trade be once totally abolished, and before the expiration of half a century, there will not a slave be found in either Spanish or Portuguese America.
It is in the United States alone, that country so apt to claim a monopoly of freedom, that the spirit of tyranny still soars boldly triumphant, and disdains even the most distant thought of limitation. Here alone, of all the world beside, oppression riots unchecked by fear of God, or sympathy for man. ”

“ To blindfold their own consciences, and to avoid-the possibility of a judicial investigation, each man of an attacking party takes care to see none of the others when they fire; and no one goes to the place to ascertain how many have been killed or disabled. The poor wretches who are not so fortunate as to be shot dead upon the spot, are left to the lingering torments of thirst, fever, starvation and festering wounds; and when at length they die, their skeletons lie bleaching in the Carolina sun, proud proofs of slave-holding civilization and humanity. ”

“ The intoxication of passion is the same in the slave and in the master; it is exquisite; and while it lasts, all-sufficient in itself. I found it so. With almost every thing to make me miserable, still was I happy, — for the excess of my passion rendered me insensible to any thing save its own indulgence.
But such ecstasies are unsuited to the human constitution. They are soon over, and perhaps are ever purchased at too dear a price; for they are but too apt to be succeeded by all the anguish of disappointed hope, and all the bitterness of deep despair. ”

“ She began with a long string of questions about what colonel Moore had said and done; but when Cassy did not seem inclined to give her any answer, she laughed, and thanked her, and told her she need not trouble herself, for she had been peeping and listening at the key-hole, the whole time. She said, she could not imagine, why Cassy made such a fuss. In a very young girl it might be excusable; but in one as old as she was, and a married woman too, she could not understand it. Such is the morality, and such the modesty to be expected in a slave! ”

“ In a short time, I made myself quite a favorite; and my master having taken a fancy to me, I was more indulged perhaps, than any servant on the place. But this could not make me happy.
Human happiness — with some very limited exceptions — is never in fruition, but always in prospect and pursuit. It is not this, that, or the other situation that can give happiness. Riches, power or glory, are nothing when possessed. It is the pleasure of the pursuit and the struggle, it is the very labor of their attainment, in which consists the happiness they bring. ”

“ This house, I had been enabled, in anticipation of my marriage, and through the bounty of Mrs Moore and her daughter, to fit up quite comfortably. It was furnished with a variety of things, seldom seen in a slave's cabin. But I found it stripped and plundered; every article of furniture was gone, and my chest was broken open and all my clothes taken away. For this I was no doubt indebted to my fellow servants. The strongest, or almost the strongest impulse of the human mind, is the desire of acquisition. This passion, the slave can only gratify by plunder. ”

“ She now comprehended his brutal purpose; — and giving one look of mingled horror and despair, sunk senseless to the ground. Peter was sent for water. He dashed it in her face, and she soon revived. They placed her on her feet, and colonel Moore again put the whip into her hand and repeated his orders. She threw it down, as if the touch had stung her; and looking him full in the face, the tears, all the while, streaming from her eyes, she said in a tone firm, but full of entreaty, "Master, he is my husband!" ”

“ It is impossible to describe the look of mingled terror, amazement and incredulity, with which the overseer heard these words. One moment, with a voice of authority, he bade us untie him; the next, he forced a laugh, and affected to treat what Thomas had said, as a mere jest; then, yielding to his fears, he wept like a child, and cried and begged for mercy.
"Have you shown it?" answered Thomas. Did you show it to my poor wife? You murdered her; and for he: life you must answer with your own."
Mr Martin called God to witness, that he was not guilty of this charge. ”

“ It is a common saying that a plantation seldom remains in the same family beyond the third generation. It is out of this class of the poor that the new proprietors spring up; and it is into this class of the poor that the families of the former proprietors subside. But consider how this class of the poor is sunk, deteriorated, and weighed down by slavery! No wonder that in wealth, industry, intelligence, every thing that makes a community respectable, we are so far behind the free states. ”

“ We were passing along a little depression in the level of the pine barrens, now dry, but in the wet season, probably the bed of a temporary stream, looking for a place in which to conceal ourselves, — when we suddenly came upon a man, lying, as it seemed, asleep in the midst of a clump of bushes, with his head resting on a bag of corn. We recognized him at once. He was a slave belonging to a plantation next adjoining Loosahachee, with whom we had had some slight acquaintance, but who, as we were informed, had been a runaway, for some two or three months past. ”

“ Whatever she might know, she discovered in it no impediment to my marriage with Gassy. Nor did I; for how could that same regard for the decencies of life — such is the soft phrase which justifies the most unnatural cruelty — that refused to acknowledge our paternity, or to recognize any relationship between us, pretend at the same time, and on the sole ground of relationship, to forbid our union? But I knew that Cassy felt, rather than reasoned; and though born and bred a slave, she possessed great delicacy of feeling. ”

“ Walking was too lazy a pace for him; if there was any occasion to go from one part of the field to another, it was to be in a run. Ann had perhaps forgotten, at all events, she was not complying with this ridiculous piece of plantation discipline. This was no sooner observed by the overseer, than he rode up to her; cursed her for a lazy vagabond; and commenced beating her over the head with his whip. Thomas happened to be working close by. He felt every stroke ten times as keenly as though it had lighted upon his own shoulders. ”

“ The good people of the free States have no slaves themselves. Oh no! Slave-holding they confess, is a horrible enormity. They hold no slaves themselves; they only act as bumbailiffs and tipstaves to the slaveholders!
My master, — for so even in the free city of New York 1 must continue to call him, — had seized me by one arm, and a friend of his held me by the other. He called me by name; and in the hurry and confusion of this sudden surprise, I forgot for a moment, how impolitic it was for me to appear to know him. A crowd began to collect about us. ”

“ I was not looked upon, as I suppose they now look upon a slave, who knows how to read and who exhibits some marks of sense and ability, as a dreadful monster breathing war and rebellion, and plotting to cut the throats of all the good people in America; I was regarded rather as a sort of prodigy — like a three legged hen, or a sheep with four eyes; a thing to be produced and exhibited for the entertainment of strangers. ”