Another Slave Suicide. “The slave of a farmer in an adjoining county, (Jefferson,) having been jumped upon and stamped by his master, with spurs on, so as to cruelly lacerate his face as well as his body, he was found, next morning, in an adjacent pond or stream of water—having tied a stone to his own neck, (as it is said,) and plunged in, for the successful purpose of drowning himself, under the feelings of desperation caused by the fiendish treatment of his master!”—Balt. Sat. Visiter, Aug., 1846.

PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES.

No.Name. Native State.Born.Installed into office.Age at that time.Years in the office.Died. Age at his death.
1.Geo. WashingtonVirginia1732 1789 57 8 Dec. 14, 1799 68
2.John Adams Mass. 1735 1796 62 4 July 4, 1826 91
3.Thos. JeffersonVirginia1743 1801 52 8 July 4, 1826 83
4.James Madison Virginia1751 1809 58 8 June 28, 1836 85
5.James Monroe Virginia1758 1817 58 8 July 4, 1831 72
6.John Q. Adams Mass. 1767 1825 58 4
7.Andrew Jackson Virginia1767 1829 62 8 June 8, 1845 78
8.M. Van Buren N. York 1782 1837 55 4
9.Wm. H. HarrisonVirginia1773 1841 68 — April 4, 1841 68
10.John Tyler Virginia1790 1841 51 4
11.James K. Polk N. Car. 1795 1845 49

PRESIDENTIAL TESTIMONIES.

George Washington.—“I never mean, unless some particular circumstance should compel me to it, to possess another slave by purchase: it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery in this country may be abolished by law.”—Letter to John F. Mercer.

“There is not a man living, who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it (Slavery); but there is only one proper and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, and that is, by the legislative authority; and this, as far as my suffrage will go, will not be wanting.”—Letter to Robert Morris.

John Adams.—“Great is truth—great is liberty—great is humanity; and they must and will prevail.”

Thomas Jefferson.—“The rightful power of all legislation is to declare and enforce only our NATURAL RIGHTS AND DUTIES, and take none of them from us. No man has a natural right to commit aggressions on the equal rights of another, and this is ALL from which the law ought to restrain him. Every man is under a natural duty of contributing to the necessities of society, and this is all the law should enforce upon him. When the laws have declared and enforced all this, they have fulfilled their functions.”—“The idea is quite unfounded, that on entering into society, we give up any natural right.”

“The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions; the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. * * And with what execration should the statesman be loaded, who, permitting one-half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the others, transforms those into despots, and these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one part, and the love of country of the other. For, if a slave can have a country in this world, it must be any other in preference to that in which he is born to live and labor for another. * * And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people, that these liberties are the gift of God; that they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; and that his justice cannot sleep forever. * * When the measure of the slaves’ tears shall be full; when their tears shall have involved heaven itself in darkness; doubtless a God of justice will awaken to their distress, and by diffusing light and liberality among their oppressors, or, at length by his exterminating thunder, manifest his attention to things of the world, and that they are not left to the guidance of blind fatality.”—Notes on Virginia.