Page:The Barbarism of Slavery - Sumner - 1863.pdf/46

.

Bolivar, to catch

40

on the road leading from Bolivar runaway negroes.

" March

2,

1853.

— West-Tennessee

to Whitesville.

I

am

ready

at all

timos

DAVID TURNER.

Democrat.

The blood-hound was known in early Scottish history it was once vindictively put upon the trail of Eobert Bruce, and in

barbarous days, by a cruel license of war,

it

was

directed against

but more than a century has passed since the last survivor of the race, kept as a curiosity, was fed on meal in Ettrick Forest.* The blood-hound was emthe marauders of the Scottish border



ployed by Spain, against the natives of this continent, and the eloquence of Chatham never touched a truer chord than when, gathering force from the condemnation of this brutality, he poured his thunder upon the kindred brutality of the scalpingadopted as an instrument of war by a nation professing Tardily introduced into our Republic, some time after the Missouri Compromise, when Slavery became a political passion and Slave-masters began to throw aside all disguise, the blood-hound has become the representative of our Barbarism in

knife,

civilization.

one of

its

man who is,

worst forms,

when engaged

in the pursuit of a fellow-

asserting his inborn title to himself

is



and

this brute

indeed, typical of the whole brutal leash of Slave-hunters,

who, whether at home on Slave-soil, under the name of Slavecatchers, and kidnappers, or at a distance, under politer names, insult Human Nature by the enforcement of this Barbarism. (3.)

From

this dreary picture of Slave-masters

with their

and their triumvirate of vulgar instruments, I pass to another more dreary still, and more completely exposing the

slaves

influence of Slavery



I

mean

each other, also with Society

the relations of Slave-masters ivith or, in other words,

and Government,

the Character of Slave-masters, as displayed in the general relations of

life.

And here I need your indulgence. Not in triumph

or in taunt do I approach this branch of the subject.

Yielding

exigency of the discussion and in direct response to the assumptions on this floor, especially by the SenaIf I touch tor from Virginia, [Mr. Mason,] I shall proceed. themselves Slave-masters to see Slavery to the quick, and enable only to the

irresistible

as others see them, I shall

do nothing beyond the

strictest line

of duty in this debate.

One

of the choicest passages of the master Italian poet, Dante,
 * Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel.

Notes y Canto V.