Ex-slave

“ Ideas of the iniquity of slavery floated through our land for three centuries, yet the slave pen and auction block still cursed our land. At last an enthusiasm for man as man and a great passion for the poor stood behind these ideas of human brotherhood, and as powder stands behind the bullet, flinging forth its weapons, slavery perished before the onslaught of the heart. ”

“ Picture to the mind's eye this remarkable procession of nearly three thousand men, women and children fleeing from Slavery, and finding in this brave, large-hearted man, a friend equal to their needs in so critical an emergency! No wonder he was feared by the slave-holders, not alone of his own State, but of the whole South. If their human chattels once reached his outpost, there was indeed little hope of their reclamation. The friend and helper of fugitives from Slavery, truly their Moses, he was more than this, he was the discriminating, outspoken, uncompromising opponent of Slavery itself. ”

“ I knew the doom that awaited my fair baby in slavery, and I determined to save her from it, or perish in the attempt. I went to make this vow at the graves of my poor parents, in the burying-ground of the slaves. “There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary be at rest. There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor; the servant is free from his master.” ”

“ The Southern newspapers, with their advertisements of negro sales and personal descriptions of fugitive slaves, supply details of misery that it would be difficult for imagination to exceed. Scorn, derision, insult, menace—the handcuff, the lash—the tearing away of children from parents, of husbands from wives—the weary trudging in droves along the common highways, the labour of body, the despair of mind, the sickness of heart—these are the realities which belong to the system, and form the rule, rather than the exception, in the slave's experience. ”

“ "This is God's curse on slavery!—a bitter, bitter, most accursed thing!—a curse to the master and a curse to the slave! I was a fool to think I could make anything good out of such a deadly evil. It is a sin to hold a slave under laws like ours,—I always felt it was,—I always thought so when I was a girl,—I thought so still more after I joined the church; but I thought I could gild it over,—I thought, by kindness, and care, and instruction, I could make the condition of mine better than freedom—fool that I was!" ”

“ how heavily the weight of slavery pressed upon me then. I must toil day after day, endure abuse and taunts and scoffs, sleep on the hard ground, live on the coarsest fare, and not only this, but live the slave of a blood-seeking wretch, of whom I must stand henceforth in continued fear and dread. Why had I not died in my young years—before God had given me children to love and live for? What unhappiness and suffering and sorrow it would have prevented. I sighed for liberty; but the bondman's chain was round me, and could not be shaken off. ”

“ We have seen with what I barbarous disregard they are treated when dead; the body of the poor slave-boy dragged by a leg and arm, and thrown into a pit. Those who could treat with such insulting unconcern the remains of their dead slaves, we may be sure could not have been very tender to them while living. ”

“ I found it just as hard to be beaten over the head with a piece of iron in New York as it was in Virginia. Whips and chains are everywhere necessary to degrade and brutalize the slave, in order to reduce him to that abject and humble state which Slavery requires. ”

“ Multitudes of the slaves of the south bear about upon their persons a brand as indelible as that of Cain; but the mark has been fastened upon them, not for their own crimes, but for the crimes of their fathers. In the complexion of the slave, we read the horrid history of the guilt of the enslavers. They demonstrate that the one race has been to the other, not the object of benevolence, but the victim of licentiousness. ”

“ He saw them clinging to the half frantic husband and father, when the minions of a wicked law tore him away from them for ever. That intelligent, worthy, industrious man was ruthlessly plunged into the deep, dark grave of slavery, where tens of thousands perish yearly, and leave no record of their wrongs. ”

“ Now, fellow-citizens, you know that all the men who are guilty of these great derelictions from civil and social duty are the men who uphold the Fugitive Slave law.
I might touch upon more holy relations in life; upon virtues without which there is no home and no domestic sanctuary; without which there may be children, but the sacred institution of the family is gone. But I forbear. I only desire to awaken your attention to the great duty of extending the domain of conscience over politics ”

“ I will tell all these good things to all my black brethren—if I have a right to go, so have THEY—if my master's property is mine, so is it theirs also.—The poor deluded slave is thus set on fire, and thus he inflames the minds of all he knows.—They talk and converse, and dream of these good things—but they cannot easily run off—they become discontented—surly—unruly—idle—disobedient—and he who feeds, clothes, and takes care of them, can get little from them! ”

“ Now, I can truly say, that, during several years’ residence in the South, I have lived in families owning hundreds of negroes, and never saw any unnecessary severity, or wanton cruelty; but, on the contrary, ever saw the slaves treated with kindness and humanity, indeed, often with more than was judicious. And here I would inform the abolitionists that they are depriving the slaves of many privileges and advantages, by their incendiary doings. They are the worst enemy the slave now has. ”

“ These two reasons—that the new slavery is less evident than the old, and that the new slave-owners are much more numerous than the old ones—account for the fact that the slave-owners of our day do not see, and do not admit, the cruelty and criminality of their position, and do not free themselves from it. ”

“ They may be tied to the whipping-post and die under moderate punishment; but he dares not complain. If he murmur, there is the tormenting lash; if he resist, it is death. And the injustice extends even beyond the grave; for the story of the slave is told by his oppressor, and the manly spirit which the poor creature shows, when stung to the very heart's core, is represented as diabolical revenge. A short time ago, I read in a Georgia paper, what was called a horrid transaction, on the part of the negro. A slave stood by and saw his wife whipped, as long as he could possibly endure the sight ”

“ I had to be extremely careful in my deportment, more attentive if possible to my duty, so that there should be no suspicion that I had made up my mind to run away; for the slaveholder watches every movement of the slave, and if he is downcast or sad,—in fact, if they are in any mood but laughing and singing, and manifesting symptoms of perfect content at heart,—they are said to have the devil in them, which is the common term; and they are often whipped or sold for their supposed wicked intentions. But as for myself, the more I reflected upon my situation, the more cheerful I appeared to be. ”

“ As the anti-slavery movement developed, the call for immediate liberation became more insistent and imperative. The colonization method lost credit. Slavery was coming to be regarded by its opponents not merely as a social evil to be eradicated, but as a personal sin of the slave-holder, to be renounced as promptly as any other sin. ”

“ We hear often of the distress of the negro servants, on the loss of a kind master; and with good reason, for no creature on God's earth is left more utterly unprotected and desolate than the slave in these circumstances.
The child who has lost a father has still the protection of friends, and of the law; he is something, and can do something,—has acknowledged rights and position; the slave has none. ”

“ This benevolence has exploded the doctrine of all future punishment, and allowing men to enjoy themselves here, and play the fool and devil up to “the top of their bent,” will carry them to the paradise above, to revel in eternal enjoyments there.
There are hundreds of abolitionists—I quote their own language—who are so benevolent, that they could see every slave owner butchered in cold blood by his slaves—his family ruined and beggared—and the entire south turned into waste howling wilderness. ”

“ For instance: an aged negro of my acquaintance comes to me one day, with the astounding information that he, and a number of equally decrepit and unserviceable slaves, have been killed and buried by his master. In other words, the owners of these useless helots have hoodwinked the slave emancipators by representing their decrepit human property as defunct, while they substitute fresh importations in their places. ”

“ The sorrow and fearful apprehension of those wretched recaptured slaves can not be described nor imagined by any one except those who have experienced a like affliction. They had basked for a short season in the sunshine of liberty, and thought themselves secure from the iron grasp of Slavery, and the heel of the oppressor, when in the height of their exultation, they had been thrust down to the lowest depths of misery and despair, with the oppressor's heel again upon their necks. ”

“ Wherever slavery exists to any considerable extent, with the exception of some recently settled portions of the country, and which have not yet felt, in a great degree, the baneful and deteriorating influence of slave labor—we hear, at this moment, the cry of suffering. ”

“ This mode of reasoning has proved an apology to many a man for keeping his slaves in a position which he confesses to be a bad one; and it will be at once perceived that, should the position of the negro be conspicuously reversed in our northern states, the effect upon the emancipation of the slave would be very great. They, then, who keep up this prejudice, may be said to be, in a certain sense, slave-holders. ”

“ How far the slave laws are conducive to the enjoyment of those they govern, each individual can judge for himself. In the Southern papers, we continually see pictures of runaway negroes, and sometimes the advertisements identify them by scars, or by letters branded upon them. Is it natural for men to run away from comfort and happiness, especially when any one who meets them may shoot them, like a dog? and when whipping nearly unto death is authorized as the punishment? I forbear to describe how much more shocking slave whipping is than anything we are accustomed to see bestowed upon cattle. ”

“ Slaveholders have a method, peculiar to their institution, of getting rid of old slaves, whose lives have been worn out in their service. I knew an old woman, who for seventy years faithfully served her master. ”

“ The infusion of Anglo-Saxon with African blood has created an insurrectionary feeling among the slaves of America hitherto unknown. Aware of their blood connection with their owners, these mulattoes labour under the sense of their personal and social injuries; and tolerate, if they do not encourage in themselves, low and vindictive passions. On the other hand, the slave owners are aware of their critical position, and are ever watchful, always fearing an outbreak among the slaves. ”

“ And yet, while the "majority of slave-holders" in a certain section may be kind, the majority of slaves in that section will be treated with cruelty. This is the truth in many such cases, that while there may be thirty men who may have but one slave apiece, and that a house-servant, a single man in their neighborhood may have a hundred slaves,—all field-hands, half-fed, worked excessively, and whipped most cruelly. ”

“ Reasons for escape.—First, why did the slave seek to escape? However unlike the attending circumstances, we find upon investigation that the negro's desire to run away may be traced to one of but three or four motives. Among the more intelligent slaves, who could comprehend the nature and injustice of their position, it often rose solely from the upspringing in their hearts of that love of freedom natural to all men. ”

“ It was enacted, "That if any negro or other slave should withdraw himself from his master for the term of six months, or any slave, who was absent, should not return within that time, every such person should suffer death." ”

“ The existence of Slavery in its most cruel form among them, has a tendency to brutalize the humane and finer feelings of their nature. Daily witnesses of human suffering—listening to the agonizing screeches of the slave—beholding him writhing beneath the merciless lash—bitten and torn by dogs—dying without attention, and buried without shroud or coffin—it cannot otherwise be expected, than that they should become brutified and reckless of human life. ”

“ If a slave is unwilling to go with his new master, he is whipped, or locked up in jail, until he consents to go, and promises not to run away during the year. ”

“ The faithful slave, who, in this reciprocal destruction, came to claim the protection of his master against those who on either side sought his life, was in many instances put to death by that very master himself. This blind severity served no purpose but to swell the ranks of the rebels, for the peaceable negro could find no security for his life but by assuming arms in the ranks of his countrymen. ”

“ What else, indeed, can be the feeling of the slave, liable at every moment of his life to these frightful and unnecessary calamities, which may be caused by the caprice of the abandoned, or the supposed necessities of the better part of the slaveholders, and inflicted upon him without sympathy or redress, under the sanction of the laws which uphold the institution? ”