Extract of a letter dated July 2d, 1834, from Mr. NATHAN COLE, of St. Louis, Missouri, to Arthur Tappan, Esq. of this city:
"I am not an advocate of the immediate and unconditional emancipation of the slaves of our country, yet no man has ever yet depicted the wretchedness of the situation of the slaves in colors as dark for the truth.... I know that many good people are not aware of the treatment to which slaves are usually subjected, nor have they any just idea of the extent of the evil."
TESTIMONY OF REV. JAMES A. THOME, A native of Kentucky—Son of Arthur Thome Esq., till recently a Slaveholder.
"Slavery is the parent of more suffering than has flowed from any one source since the date of its existence. Such sufferings too! Sufferings inconceivable and innumerable—unmingled wretchedness from the ties of nature rudely broken and destroyed, the acutest bodily tortures, groans, tears and blood—lying forever in weariness and painfulness, in watchings, in hunger and in thirst, in cold and nakedness.
"Brethren of the North, be not deceived. These sufferings still exist, and despite the efforts of their cruel authors to hush them down, and confine them within the precincts of their own plantations, they will ever and anon, struggle up and reach the ear of humanity."—Mr. Thome's Speech at New York, May, 1834.
TESTIMONY OF THE MARYVILLE (TENNESSEE) INTELLIGENCER, OF OCT. 4, 1835.
The Editor, in speaking of the sufferings of the slaves which are taken by the internal trade to the South West, says:
"Place yourself in imagination, for a moment, in their condition. With heavy galling chains, riveted upon your person; half-naked, half-starved; your back lacerated with the 'knotted Whip;' traveling to a region where your condition through time will be second only to the wretched creatures in Hell.
"This depicting is not visionary. Would to God that it was."
TESTIMONY OF THE PRESBYTERIAN SYNOD OF KENTUCKY; A large majority of whom are slaveholders.