A reason for the
preference he shows in this case, that will not be misunderstood, is
the fact that one of the men was his uncle and the other his father.
James Kedzie and John Hume were plain country farmers residing in
southwestern Ohio, neither very rich nor very poor. They were natives
of Scotland, and stating that fact is almost equivalent to saying
they were Abolitionists. None of the Scotch of the writer's personal
knowledge, at the period referred to, were otherwise than strongly
Anti-Slavery. There are said to be exceptions to all rules, and there
was one in this instance. He was a kinsman of the author, and a "braw"
young Scotchman who came over to this country with the expectation of
picking up a fortune in short order. Finding the North too slow, he
went South. There he met a lady who owned a valuable plantation well
stocked with healthy negroes. He married the woman, and became
something of a local nabob, with the reputation of great severity as a
master. One day, with his own hand, he inflicted a cruel flogging on a
slave who had the name of a "bad nigger." That night, when the master
was playing chess with a neighbor by candlelight on the ground floor
of his dwelling, all the windows being open, the negro crept up with a
loaded gun and shot him dead.
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