ILLUSTRATIONS OF AMERICAN SLAVERY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VI, Issue 433, 27 December 1856, Page 3

ILLUSTRATIONS OF AMERICAN SLAVERY.

THE TABBING- OF THE KEY. PAKDEE BUTLEHj DESCRIBED BY HIMSELF. One year ago I came to Kansas, and bought a, claim on Sugar Creek, Atchison County. On the 16th August, the border ruffians of the town of Atchison sent me down the Missouri river on a raft. We parted under a mutual pledge—l, that if my life was spared, I would come back to Atchison ; and they, that if I did come back, they would hang me. April 30th, I returned to Kansas, and crossed the Missouri at Atchison. I spoke to no one in town, save with two merchants of the place, with whom I had business transactions since my first arrival in the territory. Having remained only a few minutes, I went to my buggy to resume my journey, when I was assaulted by Robert S. Kelly, junior editor of the ' Squatter Sovereign,' and others; was dragged into a grocery, and there surrounded by a company of South Carolinians, who are reported to have teen sent out by a Southern Emigration Aid Society. They, yelled—'Kill him! — Mil him! —kill him .' — hang the d —d abolitionist!' One of their number bustled up to me, and 'demanded — ' Have you a revolver P' I replied—'No.' He handed me a pistol saying —' There, take that, and stand off ten steps, and G—d d—n you, I will blow you through in an instant!' I replied—' I have no use for your weapon.' I afterwards heard them congratulating themselves in reference to this—that they had been honourable with nie. They pinioned my arms behind me, obtained a rope, but were interrupted by the entrance of a stranger—a gentleman from Missouri, since ascertained to be General Tut, a lawyer, of Buchanan county. They dragged me into another grocery, and appointed a moderator. Kelly told his story. I rose to my feet, and calmly, and in respectful language began to tell mine. I was repeatedly jerked to my seat, and so roughly handled that I was compelled to desist. My friend from Missouri again earnestly besought them to set me at liberty. Mr. Lamb, a lawyer in Atchison, and Mr. Dickson, a merchant of the same place, both pro-slavery men, also united with General Tut in pleading that I might be set at liberty. While these gentlemen were thus speaking, i

I heard my keepers mutter, < D—n you, if you don t hush up, we'll tar and feather you.' When lielly saw how matters stood, he came forward and said—' He did not take Butler to have him hanged, only tarred and feathered.' Yet in the other grocery they had said to the mob that they should do as they pleased !' He dared not take the responsibility of taking my life ; bufc when these unfortunate men, whose one-idea-ism on the subject of Slavery and Southern Bights has become insanitv —when these irresponsible South Carolinians," sent out to be bulldogs and bloodhounds for Atchison and Stringfellow—when they could be used as tools to take my life, he was ready to do it. Our gunpowder Moderator cut the discussion short, by saying, ' It is moved that Butler be tarred and feathered, and receive thirty-nine lashes.' A majority said ' ay,' though a number of voices said 'no.' The Moderator said, 'The affirmative has it.' The Moderator again came forward, and, in an altered voice, said— ' It is moved that the last part of the sentence be rescinded.' It was rescinded.

I was given into the hands of my South Carolina overseers to be tan-ed and feathered. They muttered and growled at this issue of the matter. 'By ,' said they, 'if we had known it would have come out in this way, we would have let shoot Butler at the first. He would have done it quicker than a flash.' One little sharp-visaged, dark-featured, blackeyed South Carolinian, as smart as a cricket, who_ seemed to be the leader of the gang, was particularly displeased. ' you,' said lie, ' if I came all the way from South Carolina, and spent so much money to do things up in such milk and water style as this.' They stripped me naked to the waist, covered my body with tar, and then, for the Avant of feathers, applied cotton wool. Having appointed a committee of three to certainly hang me the next time I should come to Atchison, they tossed my clothes into my buggy, put me therein, accompanied me to the suburbs of the town, and sent me naked cut upon the prairie. I adjusted my attire about me as best I could, and hastened to rejoin my wife and two little ones on the banks of the Stranger Creek. It was ratliei|a sorrowful meeting after so long a parting. Still we were very thankful that under the blessing of a good Providence, it had fared no worse with us all. The first mob that sent me down the Missouri river on a raft —always excepting Robert S. Kelly—were courteous gentlemen compared with this last one. When I was towed out into the middle of the stream, I do not remember to have heard a word spoken by the men on the shore. This last mob, when they left me on the border of the town, shrieked and yelled like a pack of New Zealand cannibals. The first mob did not attempt to abridge my right of speech. In reply to all the hard and bitter things they said against me, they patiently heard me to the end. But these men who had come to introduce into Kansas that order of things that now exists in South Carolina, savagely gagged me into silence by rappiug my face, choking me, pulling my beard, jerking me violently to my seat, and exclaiming, ' D—n you, hold your tongue ! All this was done while my arms were pinioned he' Jrind me !