all day
long in the ears of those who are on the plantation or in the
vicinity; and it is used with such dexterity and severity, as not only
to lacerate the skin, but to tear out small portions of the flesh at
almost every stroke.

"This is the general treatment of the slaves. But many individuals
suffer still more severely. _Many, many are knocked down; some have
their eyes beaten out: some have an arm or a leg broken, or chopped
off_; and many, for a very small, or for no crime at all, have been
beaten to death, merely to gratify the fury of an enraged master or
overseer."

Extract from an oration, delivered at Baltimore, July 4, 1797, by
GEORGE BUCHANAN, M.D., member of the American Philosophical Society.

Their situation (the slaves') is _insupportable_; misery inhabits
their cabins, and pursues them in the field. Inhumanly beaten, they
_often_ fall sacrifices to the turbulent tempers of their masters! Who
is there, unless inured to savage cruelties, that can hear of the
inhuman punishments _daily inflicted_ upon the unfortunate blacks,
without feeling for them? Can a man who calls himself a Christian,
coolly and deliberately tie up, _thumb-screw, torture with pincers_,
and beat unmercifully a poor slave, for perhaps a trifling neglect of
duty?--p. 14.

TESTIMONY OF HON. JOHN RANDOLPH, OF ROANOKE--A SLAVEHOLDER.

In one of his Congressional speeches, Mr. R. says: "Avarice alone can
drive, as it does drive, this _infernal_ traffic, and the wretched
victims of it, like so many post-horses _whipped to death_ in a mail
coach. Ambition has its cover-sluts in the pride, pomp, and
circumstance of glorious war; but where are the trophies of avarice?
_The hand-cuff; the manacle, the blood-stained cowhide!_"

MAJOR STODDARD, of the United States' army, who took possession of
Louisiana in behalf of the United States, under the cession of 1804,
in his Sketches of Louisiana, page 332, says:

"The feelings of humanity are outraged--the most odious tyranny
exercised in a land of freedom, and hunger and nakedness prevail
amidst plenty. * * * Cruel, and even unusual punishments are daily
inflicted on these wretched creatures, enfeebled with hunger, labor
and the lash. The scenes of misery and distress constantly witnessed
along the coast of the Delta, [of the Mississippi,] the wounds and
lacerations occasioned by demoralized masters and overseers, torture
the feelings of the passing stranger, and wring blood from the he