ill a volume with similar
chronicles of slaveholding brutality. But time would fail us. Suffice
it to say, that since the organization of the government, a majority
of the most distinguished men in the slaveholding states have gloried
in strutting over the stage in the character of murderers. Look at the
men whom the people delight to honor. President Jackson, Senator
Benton, the late Gen. Coffee,--it is but a few years since these
slaveholders shot at, and stabbed, and stamped upon each other in a
tavern broil. General Jackson had previously killed Mr. Dickenson.
Senator Clay of Kentucky has immortalized himself by shooting at a
near relative of Chief Justice Marshall, and being wounded by him; and
not long after by shooting at John Randolph of Virginia. Governor
M'Duffie of South Carolina has signalized himself also, both by
shooting and being shot,--so has Governor Poindexter, and Governor
Rowan, and Judge M'Kinley of the U.S. Supreme Court, late senator in
Congress from Alabama,--but we desist; a full catalogue would fill
pages. We will only add, that a few months since, in the city of
London, Governor Hamilton, of South Carolina, went armed with pistols,
to the lodgings of Daniel O'Connell, 'to stop his wind' in the
bullying slang of his own published boast. During the last session of
Congress Messrs. Dromgoole and Wise[41] of Virginia, W. Cost Johnson
and Jenifer of Maryland, Pickens and Campbell of South Carolina, and
we know not how many more slaveholding members of Congress have been
engaged, either as principals or seconds, in that species of murder
dignified with the name of duelling. But enough; we are heart-sick.
What meaneth all this? Are slaveholders worse than other men? No! but
arbitrary power has wrought in them its mystery of iniquity, and
poisoned their better nature with its infuriating sorcery.

Their savage ferocity toward each other when their passions are up, is
the natural result of their habit of daily plundering and oppressing
the slave.

The North Carolina Standard of August 30, 1837, contains the following
illustration of this ferocity exhibited by two southern lawyers in
settling the preliminaries of a duel.

"The following conditions were proposed by Alexander K. McClung, of
Raymond, in the State of Mississippi, to H.C. Stewart, as the laws to
govern a duel they were to fight near Vicksburg:

"Article 1st. The parties shall meet opposite Vicksburg, in the State
of Louisiana, on Thurs