preceding pages, are hundreds of just such
testimonies; the voluntary and explicit testimony of slaveholders
against themselves, their families and ancestors, their constituents
and their rulers; against their characters and their memories; against
their justice, their honesty, their honor and their benevolence. Now
let candor decide between those two classes of slaveholders, which is
most entitled to credit; that which testifies in its own favor, just
as self-love would dictate, or that which testifies against all
selfish motives and in spite of them; and though it has nothing to
gain, but every thing to lose by such testimony, still utters it.

But if there were no counter testimony, if all slaveholders were
unanimous in the declaration that the treatment of the slaves is
_good_, such a declaration would not be entitled to a feather's weight
as testimony; it is not _testimony_ but _opinion_. Testimony respects
matters of _fact_, not matters of opinion: it is the declaration of a
witness as to _facts_, not the giving of an opinion as to the nature
or qualities of actions, or the _character_ of a course of conduct.
Slaveholders organize themselves into a tribunal to adjudicate upon
their own conduct, and give us in their decisions, their estimate of
their own character; informing us with characteristic modesty, that
they have a high opinion of themselves; that in their own judgment
they are very mild, kind, and merciful gentlemen! In these conceptions
of their own merits, and of the eminent propriety of their bearing
towards their slaves, slaveholders remind us of the Spaniard, who
always took off his hat whenever he spoke of himself, and of the
Governor of Schiraz, who, from a sense of justice to his own character
added to his other titles, those of, 'Flower of Courtesy,' 'Nutmeg of
Consolation,' and 'Rose of Delight.'

[Footnote 21: The law of which the following is an extract, exists in
South Carolina. "If any slave shall suffer in life, limb or member,
when no white person shall be present, or being present, shall refuse
to give evidence, the owner or other person, who shall have the care
of such slave, and in whose power such slave shall be, shall be deemed
guilty of such offence, _unless_ such owner or other person shall make
the contrary appear by good and sufficient evidence, or shall BY HIS
OWN OATH CLEAR AND EXCULPATE HIMSELF. Which oath every court where
such offence shall be tried, is hereby compared to adm