He argued that if one slave refused to be
corrected, and escaped with his life, the other slaves would soon copy
the example; the result of which would be, the freedom of the slaves,
and the enslavement of the whites. Mr. Gore's defence was satisfactory.
He was continued in his station as overseer upon the home plantation.
His fame as an overseer went abroad. His horrid crime was not even
submitted to judicial investigation. It was committed in the presence of
slaves, and they of course could neither institute a suit, nor testify
against him; and thus the guilty perpetrator of one of the bloodiest
and most foul murders goes unwhipped of justice, and uncensured by the
community in which he lives. Mr. Gore lived in St. Michael's, Talbot
county, Maryland, when I left there; and if he is still alive, he very
probably lives there now; and if so, he is now, as he was then, as
highly esteemed and as much respected as though his guilty soul had not
been stained with his brother's blood.
I speak advisedly when I say this,--that killing a slave, or any colored
person, in Talbot county, Maryland, is not treated as a crime, either by
the courts or the community. Mr. Thomas Lanman, of St. Michael's, killed
two slaves, one of whom he killed with a hatchet, by knocking his brains
out. He used to boast of the commission of the awful and bloody deed. I
have heard him do so laughingly, saying, among other things, that he was
the only benefactor of his country in the company, and that when others
would do as much as he had done, we should be relieved of "the d----d
niggers.
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