In Kentucky, a plain citizen from Indiana, on a visit to his friends, was threatened with death by the rope.

In Alabama, a simple person from Connecticut, peddling books, was thrust into prison, amidst cries of “Shoot him!

Hang him!” In Virginia, a Shaker, from New York, peddling garden-seeds, was forcibly expelled from the State.

In Georgia, a merchant’s clerk, Irish by birth, who simply asked the settlement of a just debt, was cast into prison, robbed of his pocket-book containing nearly one hundred dollars, and barely escaped with life.

In South Carolina, a stone-cutter, also an Irishman, was stripped naked, and then, amidst cries of “Brand him!” “Burn him!” “Spike him to death!” scourged so that blood came at every stroke, while tar was poured upon the lacerated flesh.

These atrocities, calculated, according to the words of a great poet, to “make a holiday in Hell,” were all ordained by Vigilance Committees, or that swiftest magistrate, Judge Lynch, inspired by the demon of Slavery.

In perfect shamelessness, and as if to blazon this fiendish spirit, we have this winter had an article in a leading newspaper of Virginia, offering twenty-five dollars each for the heads of citizens, mostly Members of Congress, known to be…

In still another paper of Virginia we find a proposition to raise ten thousand dollars for the kidnapping, and delivery at Richmond, of a venerable citizen, Joshua R.

The Milledgeville “Federal Union,” a newspaper of Georgia, in 1836, contained an offer of ten thousand dollars for kidnapping a clergyman residing in the city of New York.

From the beginning, Slave-Masters have encountered argument by brutality and violence.

But the spirit of Slavery is the same in all churches.

Even in the Free States, these same partisans from the beginning acted under the inspiration of violence.

The demon of Slavery entered into them, and through its influence they have behaved like Slave-Masters.

Public meetings for the discussion of Slavery have been interrupted; public halls, dedicated to its discussion, have been destroyed or burned to the ground.

In all our populous cities the great rights of speech and of the press have been assailed precisely as in the Slave States.

In Boston, an early and most devoted Abolitionist was dragged through the streets with a halter about his neck; and in Illinois, another, while defending his press, was ferociously murdered.

Too strong for restraint, it finds no limitations except in its own barbarous will.

The Government becomes its tool, and in official acts does its bidding.

I might dwell on the degradation of the Post-Office, when its official head consented that for the sake of Slavery the mails themselves should be rifled.

With this barefaced defiance of justice and decency Slave-Masters inaugurated the system of violence by which they have sought to crush every voice raised against Slavery.

I do not adduce it for present criticism, but simply to enroll it in all its stages--beginning with the earliest pretension of South Carolina, continuing in violence, and ending in yet other pretensions--among the special instances where…

Thus, Sir, whether we look at individuals or at the community where Slavery exists, at lawless outbreaks or at official conduct, Slave-Masters are always the same.

It is the exhibition of Slave-Masters in Congressional history.

It follows that the passions and habits of Slave-Masters are naturally represented in Congress,--chastened to a certain extent, perhaps, by the requirements of Parliamentary Law, but breaking out in fearful examples.

Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.