APPENDIX.
Reading edition
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EXTRACT FROM WELD'S AMERICAN SLAVERY AS IT IS.
In the 'Charleston (South Carolina) Mercury' of October 12, 1838, we find an advertisement of half a column, by a Dr. T. Stillman, setting forth the merits of another 'Medical Infirmary,' under his own special supervision, at No. 110 Church street, Charleston. The doctor, after inveighing loudly against 'men totally ignorant of medical science,' who flood the country with quack nostrums backed up by 'fabricated proofs of miraculous cures,' proceeds to enumerate the diseases to which his 'Infirmary' is open, and to which his practice will be mainly confined. Appreciating the importance of 'interesting cases,' as a stock in trade on which to commence his experiments, he copies the example of the medical professors, and advertises for them. But, either from a keener sense of justice, or more generosity, or greater confidence in his skill, or for some other reason, he proposes to buy up an assortment of damaged negroes, given over as incurable by others, and to make such his 'interesting cases,' instead of experimenting on those who are the 'property' of others.
Dr. Stillman closes his advertisement with the following notice:—
"To Planters and others.—Wanted, fifty negroes. Any person having sick negroes, considered incurable by their respective physicians, and wishing to dispose of them, Dr. S. will pay cash for negroes affected with scrofula or king's evil, confirmed hypocondriasm, apoplexy, diseases of the liver, kidneys, spleen, stomach and intestines, bladder and its appendages, diarrhœa, dysentery, &c. The highest cash price will be paid on application as above."
The absolute barbarism of a 'public opinion' which not only tolerates, but produces such advertisements as this, was outdone by nothing in the dark ages. If the reader has a heart of flesh, he can feel it without help, and if he has not, comment will not create it. The total indifference of slaveholders to such a cold-blooded proposition, their utter unconsciousness of the paralysis of heart, and death of sympathy, and every feeling of common humanity, for the slave, which it reveals, is enough of itself to show that the tendency of the spirit of slaveholding is, to kill in the soul whatever it touches. It has no eyes to see, nor ears to hear, nor mind to understand, nor heart to feel for its victims as human beings. To show that the above indication of the savage state is not an index of individual feeling, but of 'public opinion,' it is sufficient to say, that it appears to be a standing advertisement in the Charleston Mercury, the leading political paper of South Carolina, the organ of the Honorables John C. Calhoun, Robert Barnwell Rhett, Hugh S. Legare, and others regarded as the elite of her statesmen and literati. Besides, candidates for popular favor, like the doctor who advertises for the fifty 'incurables,' take special care to conciliate, rather than outrage, 'public opinion.' Is the doctor so ignorant of 'public opinion' in his own city, that he has unwittingly committed violence upon it in his advertisement? We trow not. The same 'public opinion' which gave birth to the advertisement of Dr. Stillman, and to those of the professors in both medical institutions, founded the Charleston 'Work-House,'—a soft name for a Moloch temple dedicated to torture, and reeking with blood in the midst of the city; to which masters and mistresses send their slaves of both sexes to be stripped, tied up, and cut with the lash till the blood and mangled flesh flow to their feet, or to be beaten and bruised with the terrible paddle, or forced to climb the tread-mill till nature sinks, or to experience other nameless torments.—See Weld's American Slavery As it Is, p. 171.
FUGITIVE'S TRIUMPH.
Go, go, thou that enslav'st me, Now, now thy power is o'er; Long, long have I obeyed thee, I'm not a slave any more; No, no—oh, no! I'm a free man ever more! Thou, thou brought'st me ever, Deep, deep sorrow and pain; But I have left thee forever, Nor will I serve thee again; No, no—oh, no! No, I'll not serve thee again. Tyrant! thou hast bereft me Home, friends, pleasures so sweet; Now, forever I've left thee, Thou and I never shall meet; No, no—oh, no! Thou and I never shall meet. Joys, joys, bright as the morning, Now, now, on me will pour, Hope, hope, on me is dawning, I'm not a slave any more! No, no—oh, no, I'm a free man evermore!
THE BEREAVED SLAVE MOTHER.
Oh! deep was the anguish of the Slave Mother's heart, When call'd from her darling forever to part; So grieved that lone Mother, that heart-broken Mother, In sorrow and woe. The lash of the master her deep sorrows mock, While the child of her bosom is sold on the block; Yet loud shrieked that mother, poor heart-broken Mother, In sorrow and woe. The babe in return, for its fond mother cries, While the sound of their wailings together arise: They shriek for each other, the child and the Mother, In sorrow and woe. The harsh auctioneer, to sympathy cold, Tears the babe from its Mother and sells it for Gold; While the Infant and Mother, loud shriek for each other, In sorrow and woe. At last came the parting of Mother and Child, Her brain reel'd with madness, that mother was wild; Then the Lash could not smother, the shrieks of that Mother, Of sorrow and woe. The child was borne off to a far distant clime, While the Mother was left in anguish to pine; But reason departed, and she sunk broken-hearted, In sorrow and woe. That poor mourning Mother, of Reason bereft, Soon ended her sorrows, and sunk cold in death; Thus died that Slave Mother, poor heart-broken Mother, In sorrow and woe. Oh! list ye kind Mothers to the cries of the Slave; The Parents and Children implore you to save; Go! rescue the Mothers, the Sisters and Brothers, From sorrow and woe.