SOLON ROBINSON, 1849 299 



Is it any wonder that a people naturally of a quick and 

 fiery temperament, should show some little excitement at 

 such wholesale slander upon such good men and devout 

 Christians as thousands of the slave holders of the South 

 most truly are, and daily show themselves to be, in all 

 things except this one damning sin of owning slaves, as 

 it is to be found in the following extracts, which have 

 been published in the "Indiana Freeman," a little echo 

 of loud English abolitionism, that is seeking through all 

 the willing tools who wickedly wish to dissolve this 

 Union, to effect the object by promoting discord, hatred, 

 jealousy and heart-burnings between the members of our 

 political family, under the hypocritical plea of releasing 

 the poor oppressed negroes from slavery. 



I am truly sorry that such a paper, which a southern 

 editor fitly calls a filthy sheet, exists in Indiana, under the 

 name of Freeman.^ Now that these pretented extracts 

 from southern runaway-slave advertisements, ever ex- 

 isted, except in the brain of some mischief maker, I will 

 not believe until I see the originals; for I have seen, for 

 a number of years past, a stereotype edition of these 

 "extracts," going the round of the abolition papers: but 

 in all my reading of southern papers, I never have seen 

 anything like one of these pretended advertisements, nor 

 in my anxious inquiry after truth have I ever seen any 

 evidence of this cutting and maiming, knocking out teeth 

 and branding; and it is just as easy for me to believe 

 that any sane man would knock out the front teeth of a 

 horse to mark him, as he would knock out those of a 

 slave, worth perhaps five or six hundred dollars, and by 

 which operation he would probably injure the value of 

 his property twenty-five per cent. But here are the 

 extracts : 



"Slavery. — Under the slave system of the United 

 States, the master may brand his slaves with hot iron, 

 maim them, or maltreat them in any manner whatever, 



' A short-lived newspaper published at Indianapolis during the 

 middle forties by H. W. Depuy. Sulgrove, Berry R., History of 

 Indianapolis and Marion County, 243 (Philadelphia, 1884). 



