The preceding are but a few of a large number of similar cases contained in the foregoing testimonies.  The slaveholder mentioned by Mr. Ladd, p. 86, who knocked down a slave and afterwards piled brush upon his body, and consumed it, held the hand of a female slave in the fire till it was burned so as to be useless for life, and confessed to Mr. Ladd, that he had killed four slaves, had been a member of the Senate of Georgia and a clergyman.  The slaveholder who whipped a female slave to death in St. Louis, in 1837, as stated by Mr. Cole, p. 69, was a Major in the United States Army.  One of the physicians who was an abettor of the tragedy on the Brassos, in which a slave was tortured to death, and another so that he barely lived, (see Rev. Mr. Smith’s testimony, p. 102.) was Dr. Anson Jones, a native of Connecticut, who was soon after appointed minister plenipotentiary from Texas to this government, and now resides at Washington city.  The slave mistress at Lexington, Ky., who, as her husband testifies, has killed six of his slaves, (see testimony of Mr. Clarke, p. 87,) is the wife of Hon. Fielding S. Turner, late judge of the criminal court of New Orleans, and one of the wealthiest slaveholders in Kentucky.  Lilburn Lewis, who deliberately chopped in pieces his slave George, with a broad-axe, (see testimony of Rev. Mr. Dickey, p. 93) was a wealthy slaveholder, and a nephew of President Jefferson.  Rev. Francis Hawley, who was a general agent of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, confesses (see p. 47,) that while residing in that state he once went out with his hounds and rifle, to hunt fugitive slaves.  But instead of making further reference to testimony already before the reader, we will furnish additional instances of the barbarous cruelty which is tolerated and sanctioned by the ’upper classes’ of society at the south; we begin with clergymen, and other officers and members of churches.

That the reader may judge of the degree of ‘protection’ which slaves receive from ‘public opinion,’ and among the members and ministers of professed christian churches, we insert the following illustrations.

Extract from an editorial article in the “Lowell (Mass.) Observer” a religious paper edited at the time (1833) by the Rev. DANIEL S. SOUTHMAYD, who recently died in Texas.

“We have been among the slaves at the south.  We took pains to make discoveries in respect to the evils of slavery.  We formed our sentiments on the subject of the cruelties exercised towards the slaves from having witnessed them.  We now affirm that we never saw a man, who had never been at the south, who thought as much of the cruelties practiced on the slaves, as we know to be a fact.