"

President Edwards, the younger, in a sermon preached half a century ago,
at New Haven, Conn., says, speaking of the allowance of food given to
slaves--"They are supplied with barely enough to keep them from
starving."

In the debate on the Missouri question in the U.S. Congress, 1819-20,
the admission of Missouri to the Union, as a slave state, was urged,
among other grounds as a measure of humanity to the slaves of the south.
Mr. Smyth, a member of Congress, from Virginia, and a large slaveholder,
said, "The plan of our opponents seems to be to confine the slave
population to the southern states, to the countries where sugar, cotton,
and tobacco are cultivated. But, sir, by confining the slaves to a part
of the country where crops are raised for exportation, and the bread and
meat are purchased, _you doom them to scarcity and hunger_. Is it not
obvious that the way to render their situation more comfortable is to
allow them to be taken where there is not the same motive to force the
slave to INCESSANT TOIL that there is in the country where cotton,
sugar, and tobacco are raised for exportation. It is proposed to hem in
the blacks _where they are_ HARD WORKED and ILL FED, that they may be
rendered unproductive and the race be prevented from increasing. * *
* The proposed measure would be EXTREME CRUELTY to the blacks. * * *
You would * * * doom them to SCARCITY and HARD LABOR."--[Speech of
Mr. Smyth, of Va., Jan. 28, 1820.]--See National Intelligencer. ]

[Footnote D: See law of Louisiana, Martin's Digest, 6, 10. Mr. Bouldin,
a Virginia slaveholder, in a speech in Congress, Feb. 16, 1835, (see
National Intelligencer of that date,) said "_he knew_ that many negroes
had died from exposure to weather." Mr. B. adds, "they are clad in a
flimsy fabric that will turn neither wind nor water." Rev. John Rankin
says, in his Letters on slavery, page 57, "In every slaveholding state,
_many slaves suffer extremely_, both while they labor and while they
sleep, _for want of clothing_ to keep them warm. Often they are driven
through frost and snow without either stocking or shoe, until the path
they tread is died with their blood. And when they return to their
miserable huts at night, they find not there the means of comfortable
rest; but _on the cold ground they must lie without covering, and shiver
while they slumber_." ]

[Footnote E: See law of Louisiana, act of July 7, 1806, Martin's Digest,
6, 10-12. The law o