“Many whose labor is heavy, being followed at their business in the field by a man with a whip, hired for that purpose,—­have, in common, little else allowed them but one peck of Indian corn and some salt for one week, with a few potatoes. (The potatoes they commonly raise by their labor on the first day of the week.) The correction ensuing on their disobedience to overseers, or slothfulness in business, is often very severe, and sometimes desperate.  Men and women have many times scarce clothes enough to hide their nakedness—­and boys and girls, ten and twelve years old, are often quite naked among their masters’ children.  Some use endeavors to instruct those (negro children) they have in reading; but in common, this is not only neglected, but disapproved.”—­p. 12.

TESTIMONY OF THE ‘MARYLAND JOURNAL AND BALTIMORE ADVERTISER,’ OF MAY 30, 1788.

“In the ordinary course of the business of the country, the punishment of relations frequently happens on the same farm, and in view of each other:  the father often sees his beloved son—­the son his venerable sire—­the mother her much loved daughter—­the daughter her affectionate parent—­the husband sees the wife of his bosom, and she the husband of her affection, cruelly bound up without delicacy or mercy, and without daring to interpose in each other’s behalf, and punished with all the extremity of incensed rage, and all the rigor of unrelenting severity.  Let us reverse the case, and suppose it ours:  ALL IS SILENT HORROR!”

TESTIMONY OF THE HON.  WILLIAM PINCKNEY, OF MARYLAND.

In a speech before the Maryland House of Delegates, in 1789, Mr. P. calls slavery in that state, “a speaking picture of abominable oppression;” and adds:  “It will not do thus to ... act like unrelenting tyrants, perpetually sermonizing it with liberty as our text, and actual oppression for our commentary.  Is she [Maryland] not ... the foster mother of petty despots,—­the patron of wanton oppression?”

Extract from a speech of Mr. RICE, in the Convention for forming the Constitution of Kentucky, in 1790: 

“The master may, and often does, inflict upon him all the severity of punishment the human body is capable of bearing."

President Edwards, the Younger, in a sermon before the Connecticut Abolition Society, 1791, says: 

“From these drivers, for every imagined, as well as real neglect or want of exertion, they receive the lash—­the smack of which is all day long in the ears of those who are on the plantation or in the vicinity; and it is used with such dexterity and severity, as not only to lacerate the skin, but to tear out small portions of the flesh at almost every stroke.

“This is the general treatment of the slaves.  But many individuals suffer still more severely. Many, many are knocked down; some have their eyes beaten out:  some have an arm or a leg broken, or chopped off; and many, for a very small, or for no crime at all, have been beaten to death, merely to gratify the fury of an enraged master or overseer.”