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J. T. WOODBURY-E. LEWIS-E. C. DELEVAN.

JAMES T. WOODBURY.

We can vote slavery down in Columbia and in our territories. "But," it is objected, "it will dissolve the Union." Mr. Birney says, the South never will do it, for they cannot support themselves, and we are more liable to go there and fight, to keep their slaves in subjection. The slaves, if they are freed, will not come here, their labor is wanted in the South. The South do not hate the black skin with which God has covered them, as we do. "But O they smell bad." No bad smell while they are slaves; they are about the persons of their masters and mistresses, and nurse their children, and do not scent them with the bad smell, but as soon as they are free-bad smell.

EVAN LEWIS.

Much has been said by the advocates and apologists of slavery, about the danger of emancipation-that it would be accompanied or followed by insurrections, massacres, and servile war. Now no sane man desires to turn loose upon society, a horde of ignorant men, either white or black, without the salutary restraints of law. We wish to see the assumed right of property in human flesh abolished, and the laws made for the protection, as well as for the government and restraint, of every man of every nation and color. To place every man under the protection of the law, and to abolish that licentiousness and tyranny which are now tolerated, would be to restore society to its natural order, and give every man an interest in the preservation of the peace and harmony of the community. All fear of hostility and temptations to excite insurrections, or to shed the blood of the white men, would be banished with the removal of the cause which produce them. In all cases where the experiment has been tried, [in the West Indian Islands,] our reasoning from the nature of man, and the influence which just treatment will always exert on his moral character, has been proved by universal facts.—Genius of Universal Emancipation.

EDWARD C. DELEVAN.

I am glad to say that I have already joined the "Anti-Slavery Society." I have long felt that it was my duty to do so, and I have only been deterred by the fear of injuring the cause of Temperance, with which cause you know my name has in some measure been identified. I have, in fact, been practising that kind of expediency, which I have been so ready to condemn in others, with regard to the cause of Temperance. I have joined the " Anti-Slavery Society," for the reason that believe it to be doing about all that is now attempted for the relief of our country from the sin of slavery, for that slavery, as it now exists in these United States is a high handed. sin I have no doubt. Other societies may be doing much for Africa, and for the elevation of free colored people; but, for the final relief of our beloved country and our enslaved brethren, your society, among human instrumentalities, now seems to me the only hope. That the Anti-Slavery Society may be

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the instrument under God, by kind arguments and Christian entreaty, not only of enlightening the public opinion of the north as to the sin and evil of slavery, but, what is of still greater moment, of affecting the hearts of our christian brethren of the south and leading them as a matter of interest, as well as duty, to rid themselves of a curse, and our country of its deepest stain, shall be my daily prayer.—Letter to Gerrit Smith.

WILLIAM LEGGETT.

The opinions of the southern people themselves, with respect to the perfect right which every American citizen possesses, to discuss the subject of slavery, have undergone a world-wide change in the course of a few years. If they will look into the writings of Jefferson and Madison, they will find that those great men, though southerners and slaveholders, not only did not claim any such right of interdicting the subject as is now set up, but exercised it very freely themselves. If they will turn to the record of the debate which took place in congress in 1790, on the question of committing the memorial of the Society of Friends against the slave-trade, they will find that Mr. Madison explained the obligations of the federal compact, in a very different manner from that which it is the fashion of the present day to interpret them. They will find that, in the review which he entered into of the circumstances connected with the adoption of the constitution, he very clearly showed that the powers of congress were by no means as limited as it is now contended that they are. They will find that, in speaking of the territories of the United States, he expressly declared, from his knowledge, as well of the sentiments and opinions of the members of the convention, as of the true meaning and force of the terms of the compact, that there "congress have certainly the power to regulate the subject of slavery." It is fortunate that Madison and Jefferson did not live to this day, or they would have been denounced as abolitionists, fanatics, and incendiaries, and every thing else that is bad. Lieutenant Governor Robinson would no doubt have honored them with a place in his message, as ring-leaders of his "organized band of conspirators."

But though Madison and Jefferson are gone, the spirit which animated them still glows in many a freeman's bosom; while one spark of it remains, the South will storm and rave in vain, for it never can induce the northern states to give up freedom for the sake of union; to give up the end for the sake of the means; to give up the substance for the sake of the shadow.-The Plaindealer.

"A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring orth good fruit. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them."

JAMES H. DICKEY.

In the summer of 1822, as I returned with my family from a visit to the Barrens of Kentucky, I witnessed a scene such as I never witnessed before, and such as I hope never to witness again. Having passed through Paris, in Bourbon county, Ky., the sound of music (beyond a little rising ground) attracted my attention; I looked forward and saw the flag of my country waving. Supposing that I was about to meet a military parade, I drove hastily to the side of the road; and having gained the top of the ascent, I discovered (I suppose) about forty black men all chained together after the following manner; each of them was handcuffed, and they were arranged in rank and file. A chain, perhaps forty feet long, the size of a fifth-horse-chain, was stretched between the two ranks, to which short chains were joined, which connected with the handcuffs. Behind them were, I suppose, about thirty women in double rank, the couples tied hand to hand. A solemn sadness sat on every countenance, and the dismal silence of this march of

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despair was interrupted only by the sound of two violins; yes, as if to add insult to injury, the foremost couple were furnished with a violin apiece; the second couple were ornamented with cockades, while near the centre waved the republican flag carried by a hand literally in chains. I perhaps have mistaken some punctilios of the arrangement, for "my soul was sick," my feelings were mingled and pungent. As a man, I sympathized with suffering humanity; as a Christian, I mourned over the transgressions of God's holy law; and as a republican, I felt indignant to see the flag of my beloved country thus insulted. I could not forbear exclaiming to the lordly driver who rode at his ease along side: "Heaven will curse that man who engages in such traffic, and the government that protects him in it." I pursued my journey till evening, and put up for the night. When I mentioned the scene I had witnessed, "Ah!" cried my landlady, "That is my brother." From her I learned that his name is Stone, of Bourbon county, Kentucky, in partnership with one Kinningham of Paris; and that a few days before he had purchased a negro woman from a man in Nicholas county; she refused to go with him; he attempted to compel her, but she defended herself. Without further ceremony, he stepped back, and by a blow on the side of her head with the butt of his whip brought her to the ground; he tied her, and drove her off.

GEORGE WHITFIELD.

As I lately passed through your provinces in my way hither, I was sensibly touched with a fellow-feeling for the miseries of the poor negroes. Whether it be lawful for Christians to buy slaves, and thereby encourage the_nations_from who they are bought to be at perpetual war with each other, I shall not take upon me to determine. Sure I am it is sinful, when they have bought them, to use them as bad as though they were brutes, nay worse; and whatever particular exceptions there may be (as I would charitably hope there are some) I fear the generality of you, who own negroes, are liable to such a charge; for your slaves, I believe, work as hard, if not harder than the horses whereon you ride. These, after they have done their work, are fed and taken proper care of; but many negroes when wearied with labor on your plantations, have been obliged to grind their corn after their return home. Your dogs are caressed and fondled at your table; but your slaves, who are frequently styled dogs or beasts, have not an equal privilege. They are scarce permitted to pick up the crumbs which fall from their master's table. Not to mention what numbers have been given up to the inhuman usage of cruel taskmasters, who, by their unrelenting scourges have ploughed their backs, and made long furrows, and at length brought them even unto death. When passing along I have viewed your plantations cleared and cultivated, many spacious houses built, and the owners of them faring sumptuously every day, my blood has frequently almost run cold within me, to consider how many of your slaves had neither convenient food to eat nor proper raiment to put on, notwithstanding most of the comforts you enjoy were solely owing to their indefatigable labors.-Letter to the inhabitants of Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, 1739.

In connexion with their extreme suffering occasioned by want of clothing, I shall notice those which arise from want of food. As the making of grain is the main object of their mancipation, masters will sacrifice as little as possible in giving them food. It often happens that what will barely keep them alive, is all that a cruel avarice will allow them. Hence, in some instances, their allowance has been reduced to a single pint of corn each, during the day and night. And in some places the best allowance is a peck of corn each during the week, while perhaps they are not permitted to taste meat so much as once in the course of seven years, except what little they may be able to steal! Thousands of them are pressed with the gnawings of cruel hunger during their whole lives-an insatiable avarice will not grant them a single comfortable meal to satisfy the cravings of nature! Such cruelty far exceeds the powers of description!

The slaveholder has it in his power to violate the chastity of his slaves. And not a few are beastly enough to exercise such power. Hence it happens, that in some families it is difficult to distinguish the free children from the slaves. It is sometimes the case, that the largest part of the master's own children are born, not of his wife, but of the wives and daughters of his slaves, whom he has basely prostituted as well as enslaved. His poor slaves are his property, and, therefore, must yield to his lusts as well as to his avarice! He may perpetrate upon them the most horrid crimes, and they have no redress! The wretched slave must, without a murmuring word, give up his wife, or daughter, for prostitution, should his master be vile enough to demand her of him! It must be a horrid crime for any state to give one man such power over another, and such crime has every slaveholding state committed. I am far from wishing to intimate that this power is generally so grossly exercised as it might be. Some slaveholders are, doubtless, as chaste as any other people, and conscientiously endeavor to preserve the chastity of their slaves; but I wish to show the extent of the power with which they are vested, and the shocking manner in which it is sometimes exercised.

In this place I will further remark, that slavery not merely puts the chastity of the slave in the power of the master, but also exposes it to attacks from every lecherous class of men. Slaves cannot bear testimony against people that are white and free-hence a wide door is opened for the practice, both of violence and seduction, without detection; and the consequences of this are exceedingly manifest in every slaveholding country-every town and its vicinity soon become crowded with mulattoes. In this respect slavery is the very sink of filthiness, and the source of every hateful abomination. It seems to me astonishing that any government, much more that of the United States, should sanction such a source of monstrous crime as slavery evidently is!

A wealthy citizen of Georgia purchased, on shipboard, six African girls, who probably were directly from Africa, and having brought them home, he put them into the hands of his overseer, and ordered him to assign them a certain portion of labor during each day of the week,