y are thus compelled to drag out a
life in chains! subjected to the most terrible inflictions if in any
way they manifest a wish to be released.--Let us reverse the question.
What evil has been done to them by those who call themselves masters?
First let us look at their persons, "neither clothed nor naked"--I
have seen instances where this phrase would not apply to boys and
girls, and that too in winter. I knew one young man seventeen years of
age, by the name of Dave, on Mr. J. Swan's plantation, worked day
after day in the rice machine as naked as when he was born. The reason
of his being so, his master said in my hearing, was, that he could not
keep clothes on him--he would get into the fire and burn them off.

Follow them next to their huts; some with and some without floors:--Go
at night, view their means of lodging, see them lying on benches, some
on the floor or ground, some sitting on stools, dozing away the
night:--others, of younger age, with a bare blanket wrapped about
them; and one or two lying in the ashes. These things _I have often
seen with my own eyes._

Examine their means of subsistence, which consists generally of seven
quarts of meal or eight quarts of small rice for one week; then follow
them to their work, with driver and overseer pushing them to the
utmost of their strength, by threatening and whipping.

If they are sick from fatigue and exposure, go to their huts, as I
have often been, and see them groaning under a burning fever or
pleurisy, lying on some straw, their feet to the fire with barely a
blanket to cover them; or on some boards nailed together in form of a
bedstead.

And after seeing all this, and hearing them tell of their sufferings,
need I ask, is there any evil connected with their condition? and if
so; upon whom is it to be charged? I answer for myself, and the reader
can do the same. Our government stands first chargeable for allowing
slavery to exist, under its own jurisdiction. Second, the states for
enacting laws to secure their victim. Third, the slaveholder for
carrying out such enactments, in horrid form enough to chill the
blood. Fourth, every person who knows what slavery is, and does not
raise his voice against this crying sin, but by silence gives consent
to its continuance, is chargeable with guilt in the sight of God. "The
blood of Zacharias who was slain between the temple and altar," says
Christ, "WILL I REQUIRE OF THIS GENERATION."

Look at the slave, his