The Great Slave Market

I find in a late number of the Albany Patriot a letter from a gentleman in the city of Washington addressed to the Editor, from which I tafce the following paragmpb. "This year over 500 have already been eold in our dens of diabolism, and many more hearl-stringg will be broken before the winter sets in, by sundering all the tfes öf iife to meet the demand for human victims in the Lotiisiann market. In Florida also, the demnnd has been greatly increased by the diabólica! law td 'encourage the armed settlement' of that slavery-cur8ed territory, ai)d thus increase the polilieul weight of the slave systrm in the councils of the cotintry. "Scènes have taken place in Washington tais eiimmer that would mnke the levil blush through The darkness of the pit, if he liad heon caught in them. A fortnight sgo Hst Tuesday, no less than S1XTYHUMAN BEINGS were carried right by the Capítol yard to the slave ship! The rnen were chained in couples nnd fnstened to a log-chain, as it is common in this región. The women walked by their side. Thelittle children were carried along in wagens." In the eummerof 1840 when in Washington, I toek occasion in compnny with two friende, to visit the principal slave-trading eetabhshments in the District. In Alexandria at the grent slave prison, formerly known as Franklin and Armfield's, there were about fifty slaves. They were enclosed by high, etrong walls, with grated iron doors. Amonj them was a poor womau who had escaped twelve years before from slavery, and who had married a free man. She had been hunted out by some of these human blood-hounds, who are in the detestable occupntion of slavecatchers, separattd from her hmsband, and with her child hud been sold to the speculators for the New Orleans market. Another woman whose looks Si mannêr wei e expreseive of deep anguish, had, with her nine children been sold nway from her husbund - an everlasting separation ! But her porrows had but just begun. Long ere this she nnd her children have probably been reoid, scattered and divided, and are now toiling in hopeless bereiivement, or buried like bruces, without a tenr or Christian rite, on the banks of the Mississippi. From this horrible MARKET HOUSE of HUMAN flesh, we are informed that from 150C to 2000steves are sometimes sent tothe Soutlr in a single year. At the Alexandria public ja il was a poorlad who had come to the city in a vessel, and had been seized and imprisoned on suspicion of his being a elave. As he happened to have uo document to prove his freedom, after having been kept in close confinement in a prison cell for twelve months, he was in a few days to be sold as a slave to pay the fces of the jailbr! We visited the next day a slave dealer's es tablishmcnt in the city of Washington. It stood somewhat apart from the of the city, yet in full view of the Capítol . lts dark strong walís rose in grim contrast with the jreen beauty of early Summer,-- a horror and jn abomination-- a blot upon the fair and jleañant landsrape. We looked in upon a ïroup of human beings, herded together like cattle for the market. The young man in attendonce inforsned us that there were flve or six other regular dealers in the city, who having no prisons of their own, kept their slaves in this establisment or in the city prison. The following advertisement of this infernal house, I have copied from the Washington Globe and the Intellgencer-"CASH FOR NEGROES." The 8iibscriber wishes to purchaee a numjer of negroes for the Louisinna and Mïssissippi markets. He will pay the highest price which the market will justify. Himself or in agent at all times, can he found at his JAIL on 7ih streef, the first house south of market bridge, on the west side. Letters ad dressed to him will receive the earliest attentiun. WM. H. WILLIAMS. In the same papers, four other regular dealers in human belngs advertised themselves. - In addition, Geo. Kephart, of Alexandria, advertised 'the copper-fastened brig,Isaac Franklin,' it was nearly ready lo eail with elnves for New Orleans. So much for the National newspaper organs of the Whig and Democratie parties! What mvist be the state of partiep which can acknowledge Buch papers as their mouth pieces!On the walls of the slave-dealer's office were suspended some low and disgraceful picttires and caricatures, in which abolitionists and blacks were represented, and in which Daniel O'Connell and John Quincy Adams held a prominent position, as objects for the obscene jokes and wiuicism6 of the scoundrel traffickers. For one, I regarded it as an honoroble testimony to the faithfulness and heroism of these greatand good msn, in their advocacy of Human Freedom. The timéis,] trust, not far distant, when those very picturee shnll cause the knees of the base piratcs wbo congrégate in that den ofiniquity to smite togetber. Known to Gou only, ia the dreadful amount of human agony and stiffering which from this slave-jail has Bent its cry, unïieard or unheeded of man, up to His ear. The mother weeping for her children - the wife separated from her husband, breaking the night eilence with shrieks of broken hearts! Now and then an oppuling fact sheds light upon the secret horrors of the prison-house. In the winter of 1838, a poor colored man, overeóme whh horror at being sold to the south put an end to his Ufe by cutting his throat. From the private establishment, we next proceeded to the old city prison - built by the people of the United States, - the common property of the nation. It is a damp, dark, Joathsome building. We passed between two ranges of small stone cells filled with blacks. We noticed five or six in a single cell which seeraed scarcely large enough for a solitary tenant. The heat was sufibcating. In rainy wea.th.er tbe keeper told us that the prison was uncomfortably In the winter there could benoñrein these cells. The keeper, with come reluctan.ee, admitted that he receivedalavés from the troders, nnd kept thero unt1 they were sold, at thirty-four cents per day. Men of the North ! i was your money which helped pile the ranite of these cells, nnd forgo the massy i ron doors, for the benefit ofslave-traders! It ia your property whicli s tlms perverted! But to me this prison had a painful and peculiar interest. It was here that Dr, Crandall of New York, was confined for severa! months. His health was completely braken down, and he was released only to find a grave. Do you ask what was his crime? He had circulated among some members o[ his profession at Washington, a copy of a pamphlet written by myself on the subject of Slavery and in favor of Freedom! Here in darkness, dampness and silence, his warm, generous heart died within him And this was in Washington - in the metropolis of oavfree sountry - in the nineteenth century. Scarcely an hour befoi'e my visit to the prison, I had been in the Senatc chamber Df the United States. I had seen the firm lip, the broad full brow, and beaming eye :f Calhoun,. - the stern repose of a face ivritten over with thought, and iiTadiated ivith the deep still fires of genius. I had ;onversed with Henry CJay, once the obiect of my boyish enthusiasm, and enïountered the fascination of his smile and vinning voice, as he playfully reproached Tie for deserting an old frienrt. I had i ;here.in spite of my knowledge of its gross jerversion to the support of wrong, feit : ïomething of that respect and reverence vbich is alwa}rs extorted by intellectual 5ower. For the moment I half forgot, in Tiy appreciation of the gifts of genius with vhich these men have been so wonderfuly endowed, the fact that they have emloyed their talents in upholding a system tvhich crushes and kills the mind of millions. But here in the loathsome slaverrison,I saw them in another light. The fascination of genius which, Iike the siler veil of the Eastern Prophet, had covsred them, feil off, and left only tle defbrmity of tyrranny. ï looked upon the 3ne as the High Priest of slavery, ministering at its altar and scowling defiance to the religión and the philanthropy of Christendom - the fitting champion of that Southern Democracy, whose appropriate emblem is the Slave-ichip, with a negro at one end and an overseer at the other. And as I looked down that range of duneons, filled with God's immortal children onverted into merchandise, I thought of Eïenry Clay's declaration, 'that is proper;y which law makcs property,' and that two hundred years had sanctioned and sanctified slavery.' I thought of Van Buen's Veto Pledge - and its reiteration in Gren. Harrison's Inaugural Message - and )f the two great parties thus pledged by :heir chiefs to the support of the system ivhose bitter fruits were now visible before me. I saw the intímate and complete ïonnexion between the planter who raises the slave for market, the dealer who buys him, the Iegislator who sustains and Iegalizes the traffic,and the Northern f 'reeman, who by Jiis vote places the Iegislator in power. In the silence of my soul, I pledged myself anew to Liberty; and feit at that moment the baptism of a new life-long consecration to the cause. God helping me, the resolution which I then formed shall be fulfilled to the uttermost! 'I left that prison with mmgled feelmgs }f shame, sorrow and indignation. Before me was the great dome of the Capítol - our national representatives were passing and repassing on the marble stairs - over all, the stripes and stars fluttered in the breeze which swept down the Potomac. I was thus compelled to realize the fact that the abominations I had looked upon were in the District of Columbia - the chosen home of our republic - the hearth-stone of the national honor - that the representatives of the nations of Europehere looked at one and the same glance upon the capítol and the slave-jail.Not long before a friend had placed in my hand a letter from Seidensticker, one öf the leaders? of the patriotic movement in behalf of Germán liberty in 1831. It was written. from the prison of Celle, where he has been for eight years a living martyr to the cause of freedom. In this letter the noble Germán expresses his indignant astonishment at the speeches of Calhoun and others in Congress on the subject of slavery, and deplores the sad infiuence which our slave system is exerting upon the freedom of Europe. I could thus estímate, in some degree, the blighting effects of our union of liberty and slavery, upon the cause of political reform in the old world, strengthening the hands of the Peels and Metternichs, and deepening around the martys and confessors of European freedom, the cold shadows of their prisons. All that I had said or done for the cause of Emancipation heretofore, seemed cold and trifling at that moment; and even now, when I am disposed to blame the ardor and enthusiasm of some of my friends, and censure their harsh denunciations of slavery and its abettors, I think of the slave-jails of the District of Columbia, and am constrained to exclaim with Jonathan Edwards, when in his day, he was accused of fanaticism: - "If these things be enthusiasm and the fruits of a distempered imagination,let me still overmore possess them." It is a very easy thing, at our comfortable northern-firesides to coudemn and deplore the zeal andextravagance of the abolitionists, and to reach the conclusión that slavery is a trifling matter in comparison with the grave qucstions of Banks and Sub-Treasuries; but he who can visit the Slave-Markets of the District, without feeiing his whole nature aroused in indignation, must be more or less than a man.