VII. DISREGARD FOR HUMAN LIFE.
We have already seen that one of the blessings which the slaveholders attribute to their favorite institution, is exemption from popular tumults, and from encroachments by the democracy upon the rights of property. Their argument is, that political power in the hands of the poor and laboring classes is always attended with danger, and that this danger is averted when these classes are kept in bondage. With these gentlemen, life and liberty seem to be accounted as the small dust of the balance, when weighed against slavery and plantations; hence, to preserve the latter they are ever ready to sacrifice the former, in utter defiance of laws and constitutions.
We have already noticed the murderous proposition in relation to abolitionists, made by Governor M'Duffie to the South Carolina Legislature in 1835: "It is my deliberate opinion that the laws of every community should punish this species of interference, by death without benefit of clergy." In an address to a legislative assembly, Governor M'Duffie refrained from the indecency of recommending illegal murder; but we will soon find that the public sentiment of the South by no means requires that abolitionists shall be put to death with legal formalities; but on the contrary, the slaveholders are ready, in the language of Mr. Payne, to "hang them like dogs."
We hazard little in the assertion, that in no civilized Christian community on earth is human life less protected by law, or more frequently taken with impunity, than in the slave States of the Federal Union. We wish to impress upon you the danger and corruption to which you and your children are exposed from the institution, which, as we have shown you, exists by your sufferance. But you have been taught to respect this institution; and hence it becomes necessary to enter into details, however painful, and to present you with authorities which you cannot reject. What we have just said of the insecurity of human life, will probably be deemed by you and others as abolition slander. Listen, then, to slaveholders themselves.
"We long to see the day," said the Governor of Kentucky in his message to the Legislature, 1837, "when the law will assert its majesty, and stop the wanton destruction of life which almost daily occurs within the jurisdiction of this commonwealth. Men slaughter each other with almost perfect impunity. A species of common law has grown up in Kentucky, which, were it written down, would, in all civilized countries, cause her to be re-christened, in derision, the land of blood."
The present Bishop of the Episcopal Church in Kentucky [10] a few years since, published an article on the murders in that State. He states that some with whom he had conversed, estimated them at 80 per annum; but that he had rated them at about 30; and that he had ascertained that for the last three years, there had not been "an instance of capital punishment in any white offender." "It is believed," says he, "there are more homicides on an average of two years in any of our more populous counties, than in the whole of several of our States of equal, or nearly equal, population to Kentucky."
[ [10] It is believed this gentleman is not a slaveholder.
Governor McVay, of Alabama, in his message to the Legislature, November 15, 1837, thus speaks, "We hear of homicides in different parts of the State continually, and yet have few convictions and still fewer executions! Why do we hear of stabbings and shootings almost daily in some part or other of our State?"
"Death by Violence.—The moral atmosphere in our State appears to be in a deleterious and sanguinary condition. Almost every exchange paper which reaches us, contains some inhuman and revolting case of murder, or death by violence. Not less than fifteen deaths by violence have occurred, to our certain knowledge, within the past three months."—Grand Gulf Miss. Advertiser, 27th June, 1837.
Contempt of Human Life.—In view of the crimes which are daily committed, we are led to inquire whether it is owing to the inefficiency of our laws, or to the manner in which these laws are administered, that this frightful deluge of human blood flows through our streets and our places of public resort.—New Orleans Bee, 23d May, 1838.
At the opening of the Criminal Court in New Orleans, November 4th, 1837, Judge Lansuque delivered an address, in which, speaking of the prevalence of violence, he used the following language:
"As a Louisiana parent, I reflect with terror, that our beloved children, reared to become one day honorable and useful citizens, may be the victims of these votaries of vice and licentiousness. Without some powerful and certain remedy, our streets will become butcheries, overflowing with the blood of our citizens!"
While the slaveholders are terrified at the idea of the "great democratic rabble," and rejoice in human bondage as superseding the necessity of an "order of nobility, and all the appendages of a hereditary government," they have established a reign of terror, as insurrectionary and as sanguinary in principle, as that created by the sans culottes of the French revolution. We indulge in no idle declamation, but speak the words of truth and soberness.
A public meeting, convened in the church!! in the town of Clinton, Mississippi, 5th September, 1835—
Resolved, "That it is our decided opinion, that any individual who dares to circulate, with a view to effectuate the designs of the abolitionists, any of the incendiary tracts or newspapers now in the course of transmission to this country, is justly worthy, in the sight of God and man, of immediate death; and we doubt not that such would be the punishment of any such offender, in any part of the State of Mississippi where he may be found."
It would be tedious to copy the numerous resolutions of similar import, passed by public meetings in almost every slave State. You well know that the promoters of those lawless and sanguinary proceedings, did not belong to the "rabble"—they were not "mean whites," but rich, influential slaveholders. A meeting was held in 1835 at Williamsburgh, Virginia, which was harangued by no less a personage than John Tyler, once Governor of the State, and since President of the United States: under this gentleman's auspices, and after his address, the meeting resolved—
"That we regard the printing and circulating within our limits, of incendiary publications, tending to excite our slaves to insurrection and rebellion, as treasonable acts of the most alarming character, and that when we detect offenders in the act, we will inflict upon them condign punishment, without resorting to any other tribunal."
The profligacy of this resolution needs no comment. Mr. Tyler well knew that the laws of Virginia, and every other State were abundantly sufficient to punish crime: but he and his fellow lynchers wished to deter the people from receiving and reading anything adverse to slavery; and hence, with their usual audacity, they determined to usurp the prerogative of courts and juries, and throw down all the bulwarks which the law has erected for the protection of innocence.
Newspapers are regarded as the mirrors of public opinion. Let us see what opinions are reflected in those of the South.
The Charleston Courier, 11th August, 1835, declared that "the gallows and the stake" awaited the abolitionists who should dare to "appear in person among us."
"The cry of the whole South should be death, instant death to the abolitionist, wherever he is caught."—Augusta (Geo.) Chronicle.
"Let us declare through the public journals of our country, that the question of slavery is not and shall not be open to discussion; that the system is too deep-rooted among us, and must remain for ever; that the very moment any private individual attempts to lecture us upon its evils and immorality, and the necessity of putting means in operation to secure us from them, in the same moment his tongue shall be cut out and cast upon the dunghill."—Columbia (S.C.) Telescope.
This, it will be noticed, is a threat addressed, not to the Northern abolitionists, but to you, fellow-citizens, to the great majority of the white inhabitants of the South; and you are warned not to express an opinion offensive to your aristocracy.
"Awful but Just Punishment.—We learn, by the arrival of the steamboat Kentucky last evening from Richmond, that Robinson, the Englishman mentioned in the Beacon of Saturday, as being in the vicinity of Lynchburg, was taken about fifteen miles from that town, and hanged on the spot, for exciting the slaves to insurrection."—Norfolk (Va.) Beacon, 10th August, 1835.
"We can assure the Bostonians, one and all, who have embarked in the nefarious scheme of abolishing slavery at the South, that lashes will hereafter be spared the backs of their emissaries. Let them send out their men to Louisiana; they will never return to tell their sufferings, but they shall expiate the crime of interfering with our domestic institutions, by being burned at the stake."—New-Orleans True American.
"Abolition editors in slave States will not dare to avow their opinions. It would be instant death to them."—Missouri Argus.
Here, again, is a threat directed against any of you, who may happen to have the command of types and printer's ink.
Now, we ask what must be the state of society, where the public journals thus justify and stimulate the public thirst for blood? The very idea of trial is scouted, and the mob, or rather the slaveholders themselves, are acknowledged to be the arbiters of life and death. The question we put to you as to the state of society, has been already answered by the official declarations of the Governors of Kentucky and Alabama, and of Judge Lansuque, of New Orleans; as well as by the extracts we have given you from some of the southern journals, relative to the frequency of murders among them. We could farther answer it, by filling sheets with accounts of fearful atrocities. But we purposely refrain from referring to assassinations and private crimes; for such, as already remarked, occur in a greater or less degree in every community, and do not necessarily form a test of the standard of morals. But we ask your attention to a test which cannot be questioned. We will present for your consideration a series of atrocities, perpetrated, not by individuals in secret, but in open day by the slaveholding populace.
We have seen that two of the Southern papers we have quoted, threaten abolitionists with the stake. This awful and horrible punishment has been banished, by the progress of civilization, from the whole of Christendom, with the single exception of the American Slave States. It is scarcely necessary to say, that even in them, it is unknown to the laws, although familiar to the people. It is also deserving of remark, that the two journals which have made this atrocious threat were published, not among the rude borderers of our frontier settlements, but in the populous cities of Charleston and New-Orleans, the very centres of Southern refinement.
"Tuscaloosa (Alab.) June 20, 1827. The negro [one who had killed a Mr. McNeilly was taken before a Justice of the Peace, who waived his authority, perhaps through fear, as a crowd of persons had collected, to the number of seventy or eighty, near Mr. People's [the Justice] house. He acted as President of the mob, and put the vote, when it was decided that he should be immediately executed by being burned to death. The sable culprit was led to a tree and tied to it, and a large quantity of pine knots collected and placed around him, and the fatal torch applied to the pile, even against the remonstrances of several gentlemen who were present, and the miserable being was in a short time burned to ashes. This is the second negro who has been thus put to death, without judge or jury in this country."
On the 28th of April, 1836, a free negro was arrested in St. Louis (Missouri) and committed to jail on a charge of murder. A mob assembled and demanded him of the jailor, who surrendered him. The negro was then chained to a tree a short distance from the Court House, and burned to death.
"After the flames had surrounded their prey, and when his clothes were in a blaze all over him, his eyes burnt out of his head, and his mouth seemingly parched to a cinder, some one in the crowd, more compassionate than the rest, proposed to put an end to his misery by shooting him, when it was replied that it would be of no use, since he was already out of his pain. 'No,' said the wretch, 'I am not, I am suffering as much as ever; shoot me, shoot me.' 'No, no,' said one of the fiends who was standing about the sacrifice they were roasting, 'he shall not be shot, I would sooner slacken the fire, if that would increase his misery;' and the man who said this was, we understand, an officer of justice."—Alton Telegraph.
"We have been informed that the slave William, who murdered his master (Huskey) some weeks since, was taken by a party a few days since from the Sheriff of Hot Spring, and burned alive! yes, tied up to the limb of a tree and a fire built under him, and consumed in a slow lingering torture."—Arkansas Gazette, Oct. 29. 1836.
The Natchez Free Trader, 16th June, 1842, gives a horrible account of the execution of the negro, Joseph, on the 5th of that month for murder.
"The body," says that paper, "was taken and chained to a tree immediately on the bank of the Mississippi, on what is called Union Point. The torches were lighted and placed in the pile. He watched unmoved the curling flame as it grew, until it began to entwine itself around and feed upon his body; then he sent forth cries of agony painful to the ear, begging some one to blow his brains out; at the same time surging with almost superhuman strength, until the staple with which the chain was fastened to the tree, not being well secured, drew out, and he leaped from the burning pile. At that moment the sharp ring of several rifles was heard, and the body of the negro fell a corpse to the ground. He was picked up by two or three, and again thrown into the fire and consumed."
"Another Negro Burned.—We learn from the clerk of the Highlander that, while wooding a short distance below the mouth of Red river, they were invited to stop a short time and see another negro burned."—N. O. Bulletin.
Thus we see that burning negroes alive is treated as a spectacle, and strangers are invited to witness it. The victim of this exhibition was the negro Enoch, said to have been an accomplice of Joseph, and was burned a few days after the other.
We have thus given you no less than six instances of human beings publicly burned alive in four slave States, and in each case with entire impunity to the miscreants engaged in the horrible murder. But these were cases which happened to be reported in the newspapers, and with which we happened to become acquainted. There is reason to believe that these executions are not of rare occurrence, and that many of them, either through indifference or policy, are not noticed in the Southern papers.
A recent traveller remarks, "Just before I reached Mobile, two men were burned alive there in a slow fire in the open air, in the presence of the gentlemen of the city. No word was breathed of the transaction in the newspapers."—Martineau's Society in America, vol. i., p. 373.
But the murderous spirit deplored by the Governors of Kentucky and Alabama, and the "frightful deluge of human blood" complained of by the New Orleans editor, had no reference to the murder of negroes. Men who can enjoy the sight of negroes writhing in flames, and are permitted by the civil authorities to indulge in such exhibitions, will not be very scrupulous in taking the lives of each other. You well know how incessantly the work of human slaughter is going on among you: and no reader of your public journals can be ignorant of the frequent occurrence of your deadly street fights. But, for the reason already given, we meddle not with these. We charge the slaveholding community, as such, with sanctioning murder, and protecting the perpetrators, and setting the laws at defiance. This we know is a grievous charge, and most grievous the proof of it. But mistake not our meaning. God forbid we should deny that many of the community to which we refer, utterly abhor the atrocities we are about to detail. We speak of the murderous feelings of the slaveholding community, just as we speak of the politics, the manners, and the morals of any other community, freely acknowledging that there are numerous and honorable exceptions. For the general truth of our assertion, we appeal to the authorities and the facts we have already laid before you, and to those we are about to offer.
You have already seen that the pro-slavery press has recommended the murder of such northern abolitionists as may be caught in the South; we now ask your attention to the efforts made by the slaveholders to get prominent abolitionists into their power.
In 1831, a citizen of Massachusetts established a newspaper at Boston, called the Liberator, and devoted to the cause of negro emancipation. The undertaking was perfectly legal, and he himself, having never been in Georgia, had of course violated none of her laws. The legislature, however, forthwith passed a law, offering a bribe of $5000 to any person who would arrest and bring to trial and conviction, in Georgia, the editor and publisher of the Boston paper. This most atrocious law was "approved" on the 26th Dec., 1831, by William Lumpkin, the Governor. The object of the bribe could have been no other than the abduction and murder of the conductor of the paper—his trial and conviction under Georgia laws being a mere pretence: the Georgia courts have as much jurisdiction over the Press in Paris as in Boston. A Lynch court was the only one that could have taken cognizance of the offence, and its proceedings would undoubtedly have been both summary and sanguinary.
The horrible example thus set by the Georgia Legislature was not without its followers.
At a meeting of slaveholders at Sterling, Sept. 4, 1835, it was formally recommended to the Governor to issue a proclamation, offering the $5000 appropriated by the Act of 1831, as a reward for the apprehension of either of ten persons named in the resolution, citizens of New York and Massachusetts, and one a subject of Great Britain; not one of whom it was even pretended had ever set his foot on the soil of Georgia.
The Milledgeville [Ga.] Federal Union, of Feb. 1, 1836, contained an offer of $10,000 for kidnapping A. A. Phelps, a clergyman residing in the city of New York.
The Committee of Vigilance of the Parish of East Feliciana, offered in the Louisiana Journal of 15th Oct., 1835, $50,000 to any person who would deliver into their hands Arthur Tappan, a New York merchant.
At a public meeting of the citizens of Mount Meigs, Alabama, 13th August, 1836, the Honorable [!] Bedford Ginress in the chair, a reward of $50,000 was offered for the apprehension of Arthur Tappan, or Le Roy Sunderland, a clergyman of the Methodist Church residing in New York.
Let us now witness the practical operation of that murderous spirit which dictated the foregoing villainous bribes. We have already seen the conduct of the slave-holding community to negro offenders; we are now to notice its tender mercies to men of its own color.
In 1835, there was a real or affected apprehension of a servile insurrection in the State of Mississippi. The slaveholders, as usual on such occasions, were exceedingly frightened, and were exceedingly cruel. A pamphlet was afterwards published, entitled "Proceedings of the Citizens of Madison County, Miss., at Livingston, in July, 1835, in relation to the trial and punishment of several individuals implicated in a contemplated insurrection in this State.—Prepared by Thomas Shuckelford, Esquire. Printed at Jackson, Miss." This pamphlet, then, is the Southern account of the affair; and while it is more minute in its details than the narratives published in the newspapers at the time, we are not aware that it contradicts them. It may be regarded as a sort of semi-official report put forth by the slaveholders, and published under their implied sanction. It appears, from this account, that in consequence of "rumors" that the slaves meditated an insurrection—that a colored girl had been heard to say that "she was tired of waiting on the white folks—wanted to be her own mistress for the balance of her days, and clean up her own house, &c.," a meeting was held at which resolutions were signed, organizing a committee, and authorizing them "to bring before them any person or persons, either white or black, and try in a summary manner any person brought before them, with power to hang or whip, being always governed by the laws of the land, so far only as they shall be applicable to the case in question; otherwise to act as in their discretion shall seem best for the benefit of the country and the protection of its citizens."
This was certainly a most novel mode of erecting and commissioning a Court of judicature, with the power of life and death, expressly authorized to act independently of "the laws of the land."
The Constitution of the State of Mississippi, which no doubt many of the honorable Judges of the Court had on other occasions taken an oath to support, contains the following clause:—"No person shall be accused, arrested or detained, except in cases ascertained by law, and according to the forms which the same has prescribed; and no person shall be punished, but in virtue of a law established and promulgated prior to the offence, and legally applied."
Previous to the organization of this Court, five slaves had already been hung by the people. The Court, or rather, as it was modestly called by the meeting who erected it, "the committee," proceeded to try Dr. Joshua Cotton, of New England. It was proved to the satisfaction of the committee that he had been detected in many low tricks—that he was deficient in feeling and affection for his second wife—that he had traded with negroes—that he had asked a negro boy whether the slaves were whipped much, how he would like to be free? &c. It is stated that Cotton made a confession that he had been aiming to bring about a conspiracy. The committee condemned him to be hanged in an hour after sentence.
William Saunders, a native of Tennessee, was next tried. He was convicted "of being often out at night, and giving no satisfactory explanation for so doing"—of equivocal conduct—of being intimate with Cotton, &c. Whereupon, by a unanimous vote, he was found guilty and sentenced to be hung. He was executed with Cotton on the 4th of July.
Albe Dean, of Connecticut, was next tried. He was convicted of being a lazy, indolent man, having very little pretensions to honesty—of "pretending to make a living by constructing washing machines"—of "often coming to the owners of runaways, to intercede with the masters to save them from a whipping." He was sentenced to be hung, and was executed.
A. L. Donavan, of Kentucky, was then put on his trial. He was suspected of having traded with the negroes—of being found in their cabins, and enjoying himself in their Society. It was proved that "at one time he actually undertook to release a negro who was tied, which negro afterwards implicated him," and that he once told an overseer "it was cruel work to be whipping the poor negroes as he was obliged to do." The committee were satisfied, from the evidence before them, that Donavan was an emissary of those deluded fanatics of the North, the abolitionists. He was condemned to be hung, and suffered accordingly.
Ruel Blake was next tried, condemned and hung. "He protested his innocence to the last, and said his life was sworn away."
Here we have a record of no less than ten men, five black and five white, probably all innocent of the crime alleged against them, deliberately and publicly put to death by the slaveholders, without the shadow of legal authority.
The Maysville, Ken. Gazette, in announcing Donavan's murder, says, "he formerly belonged to Maysville, and was a much respected citizen."
A letter from Donavan to his wife, written just before his execution, and published in the Maysville paper, says, "I am doomed to die to-morrow at 12 o'clock, on a charge of having been concerned in a negro insurrection, in this State, among many other whites. We are not tried by a regular jury, but by a committee of planters appointed for the purpose, who have not time to wait on a person for evidence.... Now I must close by saying, before my Maker and Judge, that I go into his presence as innocent of this charge as when I was born.... I must bid you a final farewell, hoping that the God of the widow and the fatherless will give you grace to bear this most awful sentence."
And now, did these butcheries by the Mississippi planters excite the indignation of the slaveholding communities? Receive the answer from an editor of the Ancient Dominion, replying to the comments of a Northern newspaper. "The Journal may depend upon it that the Cottons and the Saunders, men confessing themselves guilty of inciting and plotting insurrection, will be hanged up wherever caught, and that without the formality of a legal trial. Northern or Southern, such will be their inevitable doom. For our part, we applaud the transaction, and none in our opinion can condemn it, who have not a secret sympathy with the Garrison sect. If Northern sympathy and effort are to be cooled and extinguished by such cases, it proves but this, that the South ought to feel little confidence in the professions it receives from that quarter."—Richmond Whig.
About the time of the massacre in Clinton County, another awful tragedy was performed at Vicksburg in the same State. Five men, said to be gamblers, were hanged by the mob on the 5th July, in open day.
The Louisiana Advertiser, of 13th July, says, "These unfortunate men claimed to the last, the privilege of American citizens, the trial by Jury, and professed themselves willing to submit to anything their country would legally inflict upon them: but we are sorry to say, their petition was in vain. The black musicians were ordered to strike up, and the voices of the supplicants were drowned by the fife and drum. Mr. Riddle, the Cashier of the Planters' Bank, ordered them to play Yankee Doodle. The unhappy sufferers frequently implored a drink of water, but they were refused."
The sympathy of the Louisiana editor, so different from his brother of Richmond, was probably owing to the fact, that the murdered men were accused of being gamblers, and not abolitionists.
When we said these five men were hung by the mob, we did not mean what Chancellor Harper calls "the democratic rabble." It seems the Cashier of a Bank, a man to whom the slaveholders entrust the custody of their money, officiated on the occasion as Master of Ceremonies.
A few days after the murders at Vicksburg, a negro named Vincent was sentenced by a Lynch club at Clinton, Miss., to receive 300 lashes, for an alleged participation in an intended insurrection. We copy from the Clinton Gazette.
"On Wednesday evening Vincent was carried out to receive his stripes, but the assembled multitude were in favor of hanging him. A vote was accordingly fairly taken, and the hanging party had it by an overwhelming majority, as the politicians say. He was remanded to prison. On the day of execution a still larger crowd was assembled, and fearing that the public sentiment might have changed in regard to his fate, after everything favorable to the culprit was alleged which could be said, the vote was taken, and his death was demanded by the people. In pursuance of this sentiment, so unequivocally expressed, he was led to a black jack and suspended to one of its branches—we approve entirely of the proceedings; the people have acted properly."
Thus, sixteen human beings were deliberately and publicly murdered, by assembled crowds, in different parts of the State of Mississippi, within little more than one week, in open defiance of the laws and Constitution of the State.
And now we ask, what notice did the chief magistrate of Mississippi, sworn to support her Constitution, sworn to execute her laws—what notice, we ask, did he take of these horrible massacres? Why, at the next session of the Legislature, Governor Lynch, addressing them in reference to abolition, remarked, "Mississippi has given a practical demonstration of feeling on this exciting subject, that may serve as an impressive admonition to offenders; and however we may regret the occasion, we are constrained to admit, that necessity will sometimes prompt a summary mode of trial and punishment unknown to the law."
The iniquity and utter falsehood of this declaration, as applied to the transactions alluded to, are palpable. If the victims were innocent, no necessity required their murder. If guilty, no necessity required their execution contrary to law. There was no difficulty in securing their persons, and bringing them to trial.
In 1841, an unsuccessful attempt was made in Kentucky to murder a man. The assailants were arrested and lodged in jail for trial. Their fate is thus related in a letter by an eye-witness, published in the Cincinnati Gazette:—
"Williamstown, Ky., July 11, 1841.
"The unfortunate men, Lyman Couch and Smith Maythe, were taken out of jail on Saturday about 12 o'clock, and taken to the ground where they committed the horrid deed on Utterback, and at 4 o'clock were hung on the tree where Utterback lay when his throat was cut. The jail was opened by force. I suppose there were from four to seven hundred people engaged in it. Resistance was all in vain. There were three speeches made to the mob, but all in vain. They allowed the prisoners the privilege of clergy for about five hours, and then observed that they had made their peace with God, and they deserved to die. The mob was conducted with coolness and order, more so than I ever heard of on such occasions. But such a day was never witnessed in our little village, and I hope never will be again."
The fact that this atrocity was perpetrated in "our little village," and by a rural population, affords an emphatic and horrible indication of the state of morals in one of the oldest and best of our slave States.
Would that we could here close these fearful narratives; but another and more recent instance of that ferocious lawlessness which slavery has engendered, must still be added. The following facts are gathered from the Norfolk (Va.) Beacon of 19th Nov., 1842.
George W. Lore was, in April, 1842, convicted in Alabama, on circumstantial evidence, of the crime of murder. The Supreme Court granted a new trial, remarking, as is stated in another paper, that the testimony on which he was convicted was "unfit to be received by any court of justice recognized among civilized nations." In the mean time, Lore escaped from jail, and was afterwards arrested. He was seized by a mob, who put it to vote, whether he should be surrendered to the civil authority or be hung. Of 132 votes, 130 were for immediate death, and he was accordingly hung at Spring Hill, Bourbon County, on the 4th November.
And now, fellow-citizens, what think you of Mr. Calhoun's "most safe and stable basis for free institutions?" Do you number trial by jury among free institutions? You see on what basis it rests—the will of the slaveholders. You see by what tenure you and your children hold your lives. In New York, you are told by high Southern authority, "you may find loafer, and loco-foco, and agrarian, and the most corrupt and depraved of rabbles." But we ask you, where would your life be most secure if charged with crime, amid the rabble of New York or that of Clinton, Vicksburg, and Williamstown? We think we have fully proved our assertion respecting the disregard of human life felt by the slaveholding community; and of course their contempt for those legal barriers which are erected for its protection. Let us now inquire more particularly how far slavery is indeed a stable basis, on which free institutions may securely rest.