creened from justice, by a large number of influential
persons, who were virtually accomplices, either before or after the
fact; and that this combination was so effectual, as successfully to
defy and triumph over the combined powers of the government;--yet
that those who constantly rob men of their time, liberty, and wages,
and all their _rights_, should rob them of bits of flesh, and
occasionally of a tooth, make their backs bleed, and put fetters on
their legs, is too monstrous to be credited! Further these same
persons, who 'can't believe' that slaveholders are so iron-hearted as
to ill-treat their slaves, believe that the very _elite_ of these
slaveholders, those most highly esteemed and honored among them, are
continually daring each other to mortal conflict, and in the presence
of mutual friends, taking deadly aim at each other's hearts, with
settled purpose to _kill_, if possible. That among the most
distinguished governors of slave states, among their most celebrated
judges, senators, and representatives in Congress, there is hardly
_one_, who has not either killed, or tried to kill, or aided and
abetted his friends in trying to kill, one or more individuals. That
pistols, dirks, bowie knives, or other instruments of death are
generally carried throughout the slave states--and that deadly affrays
with them, in the streets of their cities and villages, are matters of
daily occurrence; that the sons of slaveholders in southern colleges,
bully, threaten, and fire upon their teachers, and their teachers upon
them; that during the last summer, in the most celebrated seat of
science and literature in the south, the University of Virginia, the
professors were attacked by more than seventy armed students, and, in
the words of a Virginia paper, were obliged 'to conceal themselves
from their fury;' also that almost all the riots and violence that
occur in northern colleges, are produced by the turbulence and lawless
passions of southern students. That such are the furious passions of
slaveholders, no considerations of personal respect, none for the
proprieties of life, none for the honor of our national legislature,
none for the character of our country abroad, can restrain the
slaveholding members of Congress from the most disgraceful personal
encounters on the floor of our nation's legislature--smiting their
fists in each other's faces, throttling and even _kicking_ and trying
to _gouge_ each other--that during the sess