ather
of his people," and wrote himself "His most _Christian_ Majesty."

But we will not anticipate topics, the full discussion of which more
naturally follows than precedes the inquiry into the actual condition
and treatment of slaves in the United States.

As slaveholders and their apologists are volunteer witnesses in their
own cause, and are flooding the world with testimony that their slaves
are kindly treated; that they are well fed, well clothed, well housed,
well lodged, moderately worked, and bountifully provided with all
things needful for their comfort, we propose--first, to disprove their
assertions by the testimony of a multitude of impartial witnesses, and
then to put slaveholders themselves through a course of
cross-questioning which shall draw their condemnation out of their own
mouths. We will prove that the slaves in the United States are treated
with barbarous inhumanity; that they are overworked, underfed,
wretchedly clad and lodged, and have insufficient sleep; that they are
often made to wear round their necks iron collars armed with prongs,
to drag heavy chains and weights at their feet while working in the
field, and to wear yokes, and bells, and iron horns; that they are
often kept confined in the stocks day and night for weeks together,
made to wear gags in their mouths for hours or days, have some of
their front teeth torn out or broken off, that they may be easily
detected when they run away; that they are frequently flogged with
terrible severity, have red pepper rubbed into their lacerated flesh,
and hot brine, spirits of turpentine, &c., poured over the gashes to
increase the torture; that they are often stripped naked, their backs
and limbs cut with knives, bruised and mangled by scores and hundreds
of blows with the paddle, and terribly torn by the claws of cats,
drawn over them by their tormentors; that they are often hunted with
bloodhounds and shot down like beasts, or torn in pieces by dogs; that
they are often suspended by the arms and whipped and beaten till they
faint, and when revived by restoratives, beaten again till they faint,
and sometimes till they die; that their ears are often cut off, their
eyes knocked out, their bones broken, their flesh branded with red hot
irons; that they are maimed, mutilated and burned to death over slow
fires. All these things, and more, and worse, we shall _prove_.
Reader, we know whereof we affirm, we have weighed it well; _more and
worse_ WE