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.