committed assault and battery upon their persons, knocked them down with stones, led them about with ropes, dragged them from their beds at midnight, gagged and forced them into vehicles, and driven them into unfrequented places, and there tormented and disfigured them—­that they have rifled their houses, made bonfires of their furniture in the streets, burned to the ground, or torn in pieces the halls or churches in which they were assembled—­attacked them with deadly weapons, stabbed some, shot others, and killed one.  They can believe all this—­and further, that a majority of the citizens in the places where these outrages have been committed, connived at them; and by refusing to indict the perpetrators, or, if they were indicted, by combining to secure their acquittal, and rejoicing in it, have publicly adopted these felonies as their own.  All these things they can believe without hesitation, and that they have even been done by their own acquaintances, neighbors, relatives; perhaps those with whom they interchange courtesies, those for whom they vote, or to whose salaries they contribute—­but yet, oh! they can never believe that slaveholders inflict cruelties upon their slaves!

They can give full credence to the kidnapping, imprisonment, and deliberate murder of WILLIAM MORGAN, and that by men of high standing in society; they can believe that this deed was aided and abetted, and the murderers screened from justice, by a large number of influential persons, who were virtually accomplices, either before or after the fact; and that this combination was so effectual, as successfully to defy and triumph over the combined powers of the government;—­yet that those who constantly rob men of their time, liberty, and wages, and all their rights, should rob them of bits of flesh, and occasionally of a tooth, make their backs bleed, and put fetters on their legs, is too monstrous to be credited!  Further these same persons, who ‘can’t believe’ that slaveholders are so iron-hearted as to ill-treat their slaves, believe that the very elite of these slaveholders, those most highly esteemed and honored among them, are continually daring each other to mortal conflict, and in the presence of mutual friends, taking deadly aim at each other’s hearts, with settled purpose to kill, if possible.  That among the most distinguished governors of slave states, among their most celebrated judges, senators, and representatives in Congress, there is hardly one, who has not either killed, or tried to kill, or aided and abetted his friends in trying to kill, one or more individuals.  That pistols, dirks, bowie knives, or other instruments of death are generally carried throughout the slave states—­and that deadly affrays with them, in the streets of their cities and villages, are matters of daily occurrence; that the sons of slaveholders in southern colleges, bully, threaten, and fire upon their teachers, and their teachers upon them; that during the last summer,