Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/44

Rh A Texan newspaper, the Columbian Planter, of April 5, 1863, deprecates all discussion of Slavery, and thus speaks of the slave code of that State:—"We consider it the duty of the County Court to have these local laws compiled and printed in a cheap form, and a copy placed on each plantation in the county. But we cannot, with what we consider the true policy and interest of the South, open the columns of the Planter for their publication." "We regard the institution of domestic slavery as purely a local subject, which should lie at the feet of the Southern press with deathlike silence; for its great importance will not admit of its discussion."

I will mention three cases of cruelty which have lately come to my knowledge. A black free man, in a city of Kentucky, had a wife who was a slave. One evening her master, who had a grudge against the husband, found him in the kitchen with her, and ordered him out of the house. He went, but left the gate of the back yard open as he passed out. The white man ordered him to return and shut it; the black man grumbled and refused; whereupon the white man shot him dead! The murderer was a "class leader" in the church, and attended a meeting shortly after this transaction. He was asked to "comfort the souls of the meeting, and improve his gift" by some words of exhortation. He declined on the ground that he felt dissatisfied with himself, that he himself "needed to be strengthened, and wished for the prayers of the brethren." They appointed a committee to look into the matter, who reported that he had done nothing wrong. The affair was also brought before a magistrate, who dismissed the case!

Here is another, yet more atrocious. A slave-holder in South Carolina had inflicted a brutal and odious mutilation, which cannot be named, on two male slaves for some offence. Last year the master attempted to inflict the same barbarity upon a third slave. He ordered another black man to help bind the victim. The slave, struggling against them both, seized a knife, killed the master, and then took his own life. The neighbours came together, ascertained the facts, and hung up the slave's dead body at the next four corners, as a terror to the coloured people of the place! No account of it was