OFFICERS OF THE NEW-ENGLAND ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY PRESIDENT. GEORGE BENSON, Brooklyn, Ct. VICE-PRESIDENTS. REV. E. M. P. WELLS, Boston. REV. SIMEON S. JOCELYN, New Haven, Ct. REV. MOSES THACHER, North Wrentham, Mass. DAVID L. CHILD, Boston. PROF. CHARLES FOLLEN, Harvard University. Corresponding Secretary,-SAMUEL E. SEWALL, Boston. COUNSELLORS. REV. JAMES D. YATES, ABNER FORBES, WM. LLOYD GARRISON, ISAAC KNAPP. PROCEEDINGS OF THE NEW-ENGLAND ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, AT ITS SECOND ANNUAL MEETING. The second annual meeting of the New-England Anti-Slavery Society was held at Boylston Hall, on Wednesday evening, Jan. 15, 1834. Rev. E. M. P. Wells, of Boston, one of the Vice-Presidents, took the chair. The meeting was opened with prayer by Rev. Aaron Pickett of Reading, Mass. The Rev. Aaron Pickett and Capt. Jonas Parker of Reading, and Mr. Benjamin Brierly of Amesbury, appeared as Delegates from their respective Anti-Slavery Societies, and their credentials were read by the President. The Report of the Board of Managers was read by Samuel E. Sewall, Esq., Corresponding Secretary; and also highly interesting letters from the following gentlemen-Arnold Buffum, Philadelphia, Pa.; Rev. Samuel J. May, Brooklyn, Ct.; John G. Whittier, Esq., Haverhill, Mass.; and Rev. Elam Smalley of Franklin, Mass. Horace P. Wakefield, Esq. of Reading, moved that the Report be accepted and printed under the direction of the Board of Managers. He congratulated the Society upon the extraordinary advancement which the sacred cause of emancipation had made under its auspices. It was still going right onward; and no power could make it retrograde or stationary, but that which caused the shadow on the dial-plate of Ahaz to go backwards, and the sun to stay its course in the heavens. Mr. Garrison said he rose simply to second the motion for printing the Report-not to make a speech. Three years ago, he told the base plunderers of his species, in the slaveholding States, that they should hear him, of him, and from him, in a tone and with a frequency that should make them tremble. How faithful he had been in the performance of his pledge, let a quickened, an astonished, and a repenting nation testify. The motion was unanimously adopted. Rev. Mr. Phelps, of Boston, offered the following resolution: Resolved, That the condition of the slaves in the United States is such as to make a strong appeal to the sympathy and benevolence of every friend of God and man. Sir, said Mr. Phelps, in offering this resolution, it is my design to discuss the question of the slave's treatment. In so doing, however, I wish to say distinctly, at the outset, that I do not do it because I suppose the question of the guilt or innocence of slavery is one of treatment merely. It is often so regarded and so discussed. Multitudes seem to imagine that if the slave be kindly treated, his servitude is all very well-there is little or no harm-little or no guilt in it. And nothing more is needed, than to assure them that the slave is thus treated, and all their sympathies are lulled to sleep in a moment. This, however, is a mistaken view of the subject. The question of slavery-its guilt or innocence-is not one of treatment, kind or cruel. It is solely a question of PRINCIPLE, and I wish it to be so understood at the outset. What is it to me, Sir, whether a man robs me in a polite, genteel, gentlemanly way, or in a way somewhat more ruffianlike? That alters not the fact that I am robbed, and that the man who does this, is a robber. He is none the less a robber from the fact of his being a genteel, gentlemanly one. The question in such a case is solely a question of principle-the principle of the thing, not of the manner in which it is done. Sir, I am not going into the whole question of the treatment of the slaves. I will only take a single item-that of whipping. And here it should be borne in mind distinctly, that there are no laws at the south to prevent the master from inflicting any degree of cruelty on his slave-death itself even not excepted-if there be no white person present to witness and testify to the fact. Here are some fifteen different modes of whipping the slaves: 1. What is called Picketing-i. e. laying the slave prostrate, tying each hand and foot to a stake drove in the ground, and then whipping him on the bare back. And the whip, sir, you understand, consists of a short stout stick, with a long loaded lash, so that when used by an expert hand, every blow flays the skin from the flesh. Other modes of whipping are these. 2. Tying the hands under the knees, in such a way that the slave cannot help himself, and then whipping him at pleasure. 3. Tying the slave over a barrel, or something of the kind. One person said he had himself been whipped in this way until the skin was flayed from the flesh, from the small of his back to his thighs, in such a way that he was unable to sit down for several days. 4. Cobbing, as it is called. The individual in this case is stretched naked over a barrel, or something of the kind, and the blows are inflicted with a broad paddle, made of hard wood, smooth and perforated with holes of about half an inch in diameter.-At each blow, every hole raises a blister! 5. Catting. Here the individual is stretched on a ladder, and whipped as before on the bare back, at the pleasure and caprice of the master. Then a cat is taken and her claws drawn down the back, and sometimes the torment is consummated by washing the flayed back down with saltwater! 6. Sometimes their feet are fastened to ring-bolts in the floor, and the hands fastened to something overhead. One individual told me he had seen |