Documenting the American South Logo
powered by google
  Highlights   |   About   |   Collections   |   Authors   |   Titles   |   Subjects   |   Geographic   |   Classroom   |   New Additions  

The Planter:
or, Thirteen Years in the South
by a Northern Man:

Electronic Edition.

David Brown (Northern Man)

Text scanned (OCR) by Dana Wishnick
Text encoded by Natalia Smith
First edition, 1997.
ca. 700K
Academic Affairs Library, UNC-CH
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
1997.
        © This work is the property of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text.


Call number E449 .B876 1853

The Planter:

or,

Thirteen Years in the South

By a Northern Man (David Brown)

Philadelphia:
H. Hooker
1853

        The electronic edition is a part of the UNC-CH digitization project, Documenting the American South, or, The Southern Experience in 19th-century America.

        Any hyphens occurring in line breaks have been removed, and the trailing part of a word has been joined to the preceding line.
        All quotation marks and ampersand have been transcribed as entity references.
        All double right and left quotation marks are encoded as " and " respectively.
        All single right and left quotation marks are encoded as ' and ' respectively.
        Indentation in lines has not been preserved.
        Running titles have not been preserved.
        Spell-check and verification made against printed text using Author/Editor (SoftQuad) and Microsoft Word spell checkers.

Library of Congress Subject Headings, 19th edition, 1996

        

Illustration

[Title Page Image]

THE PLANTER:

OR,

THIRTEEN YEARS IN THE SOUTH.



BY A NORTHERN MAN.

        "For much, and too often, we on one side, have cowered before the unseemly bearing of those who have assailed us. If there has been any of this giving ground, it is more than enough, it is more than was due; and it is time that we should repel all such violences." - RESTORATION OF BELIEF.

PHILADELPHIA:
H. HOOKER, CORNER OF CHESTNUT AND EIGHTH STS.
1853.


Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by
H. HOOKER,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

ADVERTISEMENT.

        IT is the proud boast of abolition authors and senators, that the literature of the age is all on their side. There let its infidel philosophies and licentious levities forever remain. When its destinies shall have been fulfilled, that literature will be found to have done much to settle men's minds in submission to God's Providence. People will then see and feel strongly that it is due to justice and truth, that the forged drafts on their imaginations must be protested. This boasted literature represents the condition of the Southern slave as enormously wretched; and the true facts appearing will be received as evidences of the enormous wickedness of abolition literature. The time is approaching for the reaction to commence. This truthful little work is designed to accelerate it, by showing that the world abounds with worse evils far, than Southern slavery, even as falsely represented by its calumniators. If it do a little to arrest the progress of error, and to induce the public mind to think soberly as it ought to think, the object of the writer will be attained.



Page 5

TABULAR VIEW.


Page 9


CHAPTER I.

AN INTRODUCTORY TABLE TALK.

        It was on the eastern bank of the Upper Delaware, in easy view of where, on both sides, the rocky hills are separated from the rocky river by the well paid labor of men, who had been sent to us by European misrule and oppression. So - though woes await the oppressor - so good cometh out of evil.

        It was a cold morning; and it was made more dreary by the falling, driving, and beating, sleet and snow. In contrast with the almost summer-like weather that had immediately preceded it, for invalids particularly, its character approached almost even to the hideous. But even then and there, a comfortable and thankful little family party was cosily seated around a breakfast table. It was in a small stove-room. Adjoining it was a kitchen, not less comfortable. It was occupied by a neat handed and newly and warmly clad Irish girl, - a good natured and faithful creature. She was one of the survivors of a packed cargo of emigrants from the almost desolated Connaught; - the daughter of a family, by oppression separated for the ever of this world.

        The breakfast party consisted of the host, the wife, the sister, two young daughters, and the DOCTOR; - a favorite and friendly guest. He was an old acquaintance of the host; and bad been with him through the hot sands and deep swamps, and many trials and perils in the far South, then perils there were real and not imaginary. In many

Page 10

labors, the Doctor had aided him. In many sorrows, he had wept with him. In many joys he had rejoiced with him. Of course, then, the Doctor was almost more than at home, in the retirement of his friend, on the banks and among the hills of the Delaware. Therefore, naturally and suitably he introduced and opened the following

DIALOGUE.

        THE DOCTOR. Taking from his pocket a newspaper: - "Ladies; here is something highly important; and of special interest and concern to yourselves."

        WIFE. In a semi-apparent alarm: - "TO us? How, Doctor?"

        DR. "To the women of this country, the noble and the simple women of England, - from duchesses down to plain misses, - address a petition to aid them, in the charitable work of subverting the institution of southern slavery; - or, at least to begin with, so to interfere with it as to prevent its 'frightful results.'"

        SISTER. "What frightful results? Are the negroes starving to death, like the poor people of Ireland and Scotland? and even of England and Germany?"

        FIRST DAUGHTER. "Or are they turned out of their cabins, and hunted away from their homes, as our good Peggy says the poor Irish women and children are, by thousands upon thousands; and that they may never get back to them, their poor hovels are all burnt down to the ground?"

        SECOND DAUGHTER. In tears: "Oh! I hope my dear old black friends who were so good to me; and Uncle Raphe, who used to carry me before him to school on the poney, are not turned out of doors to suffer!"

        HOST. "No fear of that, my daughters; they are no doubt as unsuffering and comfortable this cold morning, as even you could reasonably desire them to be. But,

Page 11

Doctor, let us hear what it really is that the noble ladies of England want of our republican women; and what are the frightful things they have discovered in the condition of our southern slaves?"

         THE DR. Having very solemnly read the Address: "Shall I read all these titles and names?"

        WIFE. "Certainly, Dr., let us hear them; by all means."

        THE DR. "There then, you have them, ladies; from the Duchess of Sutherland to Mrs. Rowland Hill."

        SISTER. "Mrs. Charles Dickens, inclusive. I wonder if Mrs. Charles Dickens has read Oliver Twist and the Bleak House? They might point her to other work to be done, nearer home, than our Southern States; where there is no poor Oliver 'to want more,' nor poor homeless Joe, who could not have had less."

        THE DR. "Mrs. Charles Dickens reads the COURT JOURNAL, and attends the aristocratic opera; and probably, sometimes goes to the Royal Chapel; and she must not therefore be expected to read, or to know any thing about such little dirty and starving humanities as Oliver Twist and poor Joe."

        WIFE. "Of course not. And as her husband insulted our country, it is not wonderful that she should embrace such an illustrious opportunity to add an injury to the insult."

        THE DR. "Well ladies, what is your intention to do In this matter? Of course, so polite a communication on a subject so important, must not be silently neglected."

        HOST. "No fear but that the convention women will have a special general convention, for the express objects of concocting a suitable and learned Reply to the Address of the Convention at Stafford House; and the organizing of a female crusade to unite its power and influence with that of the aristocratic organization on the other side of the water.

Page 12

        THE DR. "Yes, doubtless; and they will thereby confirm the women of England in their pernicious delusion with regard to the frightful results of our southern slavery. But would it not be kind and useful to undeceive them?"

        HOST. "It might, indeed, be kind and useful; if possible. But how is it to be done?"

        THE DR. "You might write a book to show, what you so well know of the condition of the slaves; and that the thus declared views of female England are preposterous. Yes, sir; write a book; and tell and explain at large, what are the comforts and privileges of the southern negroes in slavery, so called; and show how surpassingly better they are off, than the Africans at home; - the free blacks of any country; - and indeed, of the poor white laborers of Europe; or even than tens of thousands of them in our own country."

        SECOND DAUGHTER. With enthusiasm, "O, yes, father, do write a book."

        FIRST DAUGHTER. Quietly: "I wish you would write a book, dear father; if it be only to tell the good ladies of England, how very much they are mistaken about the slaves not being allowed religious privileges."

        WIFE. "But can it be, Dr., that they are sincere in what they say of the 'frightful results,' - interdictions, - separations, - and the like? Can we reasonably suppose educated and sensible women in such ignorance of a matter, so easy to obtain full and complete knowledge of? I can not easily suppose it."

        THE DR. "Madam, did you never hear of people who studied ignorance?"

        WIFE. "I think I never did, Dr., did you?"

        THE DR. "Certainly, madam; I have known plenty of them; - plentier than blackberries - students of ignorance on almost all subjects. And on this subject, in particular you may find all over the country, men and women

Page 13

by tens of thousands, who study hard, in their way, - to learn every possible objection against negro slavery; - which they carefully teach their children among their first and last lessons, - and not less hard do they study to shut out, from their thoughts and knowledge, every consideration that might in any way tend to remove, or palliate their objections. And that is what I call studying ignorance."

        HOST. "So it is indeed, Dr.; and very well explained. And in the matter of our southern slavery, you think the ladies of England are proficients in that science?"

        THE DR. "No doubt of it. Slavery by name, is a very unpopular subject in England; and the people are carefully taught that it is the most frightful thing imaginable; in order to keep them quiet under the far heavier yoke of their real slavery. And so long and zealously have the teachers been thus employed deceiving others, that the retributive justice has overtaken them at last, of being themselves deceived into believing and loving a lie. And so is it, in a large measure, in our own country. Learn the views of the first ten persons nearest you. Begin with your next door neighbors; and you shall find them all familiar with the popular objections to slavery; and not more than one, in the whole ten, at all familiar with any thing that may be urged in its defence. And this general prejudice, the natural result of thus studying ignorance, is termed public sentiment."

        HOST. "Dr., you must write the book."

         THE DR. "No indeed; not I. Once on a time, a book was about to be written, when I heard that in reference to the design, a certain man had said, 'O that my adversary would write a book.' And the book was never written."

        HOST. "That you might not gratify an adversary?"

        THE DR. "Perhaps partly that. More largely some-

Page 14

things else. But to get back to where we ought to be: Your missions in two of the southern states; and your travels over most of the others, with your eyes and ears open, have supplied your portfolio and memory with the materials; and you are bound to put them together into a book."

        FIRST DAUGHTER. "Dear father, do write a book; and tell the English ladies and every body else, about the beautiful churches which we saw in the south and south- west, built for the slaves; and about the Sunday schools; and how well the slave scholars behaved and learned; and how happy and good they were; and how sweetly they sang the lovely hymns that dear mother and aunty taught them to learn by heart. Do, father, write the book. It will make the good dear ladies of England very happy indeed to know that the slaves of the south are so well off as we know they are; and are so kindly treated and taught, as we know they are. Please, dear father, write the book."

        SISTER. "By all manner of means, brother, write the book."

        HOST. "And what say you, wife?"

        WIFE. "Certainly, write the book; and make the Doctor help you?"

        THE DR. Looking through the window into the storm; "Gladly would I do what I could; but I reckon I am off for the south again before many days."

        HOST. "Indeed, Dr., and why this sudden move?"

        THE DR. "This sudden snow storm."

        WIFE. "The Dr. will surely not leave us so. Don't fear?"

        HOST. "Suppose then, Dr., after due deliberation, the work of the proposed book be entered upon; how shall I proceed? Please sketch me an outline."

        THE DR. "Well; let us think about it a little, seriously. How would this, or something like this, do? In the first

Page 15

place, to show that the slaves of the south, - physically, socially, and morally - or spiritually, if you rather, though I understand them as identical, or including each other - are, in all these things, in a far better condition, than are the negro race in any other condition. This you may easily enough do. In the second place; that the results of emancipation have been, and are in general, frightfully cruel, - even murderous, - by forcing the poor creatures into the arena of a gradual and painful extermination. And thirdly; having established firmly these facts, and amply multiplied your defences by the use of select materials from a world full of them; - then, "carry the war into Africa." Teach the aristocracy of England what the people are anxious they should know; viz., that JOHN BULL IS A GREAT SLAVEHOLDER, AND A VERY HARD MASTER."

        HOST. "Is not that pretty high ground, Doctor?"

        THE DR. "Yes; but it is good and solid ground - sure footing - and if you would do any good for the cause of God's Providence, and of man's progress, you must take it, and stand on it firmly and fearlessly. The appointments of His Providence, God will surely vindicate, and make the truth to triumph. He can steady His own ark; and He will do it. And woe to the faithless and the presumptuous doubter who would put forth his hand to help Him."

        HOST. "Doctor! Doctor! what is your drift?"

        THE DR. "Portward, with a strong arm, a firm heart; without which no harbor can be made in this storm. Abolition, or intervention, is but a comparatively small lever of a huge engine that has been put in motion to disrupt every conservative institution of the age; and as it has been shown in other lands, how it could shake thrones into fragments, and again re-erect them with blood and bones; in our own land it has shown too, how it could upheave

Page 16

the masses like an earthquake, and rock the solid pillars of the Union."

        HOST. "Dr., do you indeed, apprehend any such danger to social order, as your words may seem to inculcate?"

        THE DR. "Danger? Yes, sir; I see, and feel it too. Dr. Thornwell says, eloquently, 'The parties in this conflict are not merely abolitionists and slaveholders - they are atheists, socialists, communists, red republicans, jacobins, on the one side, and the friends of order and regulated freedom on the other. In one word, the world is the battle-ground - Christianity and atheism the combatants, and the progress of humanity the stake.' I believe him. And, in this money and mischief loving age, I do apprehend danger. Not of the final issue; but of overwhelming calamities to the millions of mankind guiltless of the strife; and of a long and disastrous countermarch of Christian civilization."

        HOST. "Dr., do you perceive any thing of an alarming character in this lady-movement in England?"

        THE DR. "Yes, sir: we may talk lightly of it; newspapers may sport with it; shallow thinking people may laugh about it, till they crack their sides; but, seriously, it presents to my mind a phase of the subject of a most appalling character!"

        HOST. "As how, pray, my good Doctor?"

        THE DR. "As indicating on which side in this conflict, the power of Great Britain may arrange itself."

        HOST. "But do you think there is danger that England will take part with the confederacy enumerated by Dr. Thornwell - atheism and its allies?"

        THE DR. "It looks very like it. What is the British Parliament, with a few exceptions, but an aggregated mass of reckless trimmers? Among these women who are thus put forward on the platform of agitation, are conspicuous

Page 17

connexions of nearly, if not quite, every ruling family in Great Britain; and wives of the most influential commoners. Perhaps, very few of them know what they are doing; but nothing is plainer than that they are imbuing the whole nation with the fell spirit of a universal and atheistic revolution; compared with which the world has never seen a revolution. It is therefore now too late to go gingerly into the contest. When an atheistic universal prejudice is called the public opinion of the civilized world, and the cause of truth is placed under the ban of it; it is then too late for temporising; - too late for studying the expedient, instead of the right. England holds in her hand a mighty weight, which thrown into any of the world's scales, may give it a preponderance; and she must not therefore be allowed, unrebuked, to feed a powerful faction of our country, - a sworn brotherhood to subvert our institutions, - with female flattery; nor to call of the eyes of the rest of the world from her own frightful evils, to fix them, with scorn and hatred, on an institution of ours, which excites her envy."

        HOST. "Her ENVY, Doctor?"

        THE DR. "Yes, certainly; her deadliest envy."

        HOST. "How, Dr., I may not understand .you, rightly?"

        THE DR. "She has been at a great national expense to add many ten thousands to her pauper population; to ruin her West Indian possessions; and to reduce to beggary and vagabondism, their inhabitants, white and black; and to restore something like a balance, she would bring our southern states into the like condition; though she must be blind not to see, that it would add two millions more to her pauper population, from the three millions and a half, whose subsistence is derived from the manufacture of cotton. It would however be no more blind than much of her legislation has been.

Page 18

        "That's not all; though quite enough. Our slaveholding states have no starving poor. They have no poor taxes. They have no workhouses. What a contrast to her condition; with her millions of laborers and citizens, on the very verge of beggary; toiling to support millions already over the verge.

        "Yes, sir; it is my opinion that British envy helps to keep up and encourage this wicked agitation; and that to it, we are indebted for the grave discussions of antislavery philosophy; - the solemn instructions of transcendental and pantheistic pulpits; - the light effusions of the poet and the novelist, - male and female, on both sides of the wide water. For British fame, and for British gold, the abolitionist writes, and preaches, and sings. And in popular assemblies, and in legislative halls, he pours out his wrathful vials of execration and contempt, on the institution of slavery, to tickle the open ear of British envy, for British praise, and British pay."

        HOST. "Dr., are you in a fine frenzy? or is it possible that you have been speaking right words in truth and soberness? Is it possible that you are right?"

        THE DR. "Possible, sir? It is certain. I have been behind the scenes. I have smelt the tarred ropes and the tallow candles. And to my alarm and indignation, too, I have learned that there is a countless no-party party, yet unorganized perhaps, that gives to the abolition faction both countenance and sanction, with very much comfort; at the same time that they profess their antagonism to it. Among these are all such, - again to quote Dr. Thornwell, - as cannot find in their hearts to join in the violent maledictions which zeal for humanity has piled upon the slaveholders; but never venture upon a plea of justification in their defence. They pity their dear southern brethren. They lament their lot. They admit their case to be bad, - desperately bad; - but then, they think them not so much

Page 19

to blame as the abolitionists represent them to be. 'They curse them in their sympathies.' Of this party, it may almost be said, JOAB is their leader."

        HOST. "Do you think this party numerous, Doctor?"

        THE DR. "As to its numerical strength, you may be safely referred to certain prominent members of both branches of our national legislature, which have been sent there by it; and to certain popular newspapers represented there; and which contend, in words, with about equal force, for and against abolitionism; - or rather against the abolition party. Some time since, one of these double- faced newspapers had prepared a bitter draught for the party, but before commending the cup to their lips, extracted all its bitterness, to make more bitter, a cup for a great lamented senator, to punish him for the proposition, that 'under the present circumstances of civilization, the slavery of the south, is not a curse, but a blessing, to the negro.' For this, by a prominent anti-abolition newspaper, the author was held up to scorn and execration."

        HOST. "How strange that such a proposition should be denied by any one at all acquainted with the comforts of the southern slave, and also with the wretched condition of the northern free negroes, generally!"

        THE DR. "An eminent and popular writer, in a late number of a Washington paper, under the head of southern slavery, in reference to the Stafford House movement, which he condemns in manly terms, takes some pains, at the same time, to have it very distinctly understood, that he is not 'defending' the institution, and that he is 'no friend' to it. The faction demon gloated and chuckled over it delighted; and greatly was his delight increased by the plaudits of several eminently respectable anti-abolition papers, which copied it, and praised its dignified moderation."

Page 20

        HOST. "But, my dear Doctor, you do not condemn moderation."

        THE DR. "Certainly not. I would be moderate in all things; and advise others to be so. I am not at all disposed to condemn or blame such writers and editors. Some of them are known to me as most worthy men who would not knowingly do any wrong thing. And if they are sincere in their halfway views, as here presumed; and if they honestly suppose, as here also presumed, that they are bound to publish them, they are right in doing so. It is doubtless, in some way, best that they should. But whether they intend it, or no, they are giving countenance, and adding strength to the abolitionists. Of this I am confident; and so is the faction into whose hands they are playing."

        HOST. "I think none of them will agree with you, Dr., that they are auxiliaries of abolitionism."

        THE DR. "I suppose not. And therein lies much of the danger. Nor will the authors of several portentous volumes of the same character and from the same platform."

        "On quite another, and higher platform, I hope you will take your stand, and give us a book that shall indicate its author as an unflinching, conscientious, and unqualified believer in the Bible; - a lover of his country, and of its blood-bought constitution; - a friend of the human race, of every condition and of every color."

        HOST. "DR., I really wish you would write the book. You shall have all my accumulated materials. And these, with your clear notions of what you think it should be, and with your retentive memory of your own experience and observations in the south, would enable you to do it well, and with ease and rapidity."

        THE DR. "I reckon it is much easier to tell what a book should be, than to make it what it should be. You

Page 21

know I can talk, much better than I can write; and if it may be said without offence, I think you can write better than you can talk. So then, go on with the book, you write, and I will talk. But, before you begin to write, let me talk a little more. What memoranda have you of our southern experience; and of your own, before I joined you?"

        HOST. "With certain preliminaries; I have some notes of my voyage and its adventures; - of my stay of a few days in Charleston, and what there I saw of the condition of the slaves, so incomparably better than I had expected; - of my passage to St. Augustine; and of there finding but one unhappy negro, and he a free one; - of the visits to the plantations, where they were anticipating holiday delights; - of the wedding party that you wot of, when the negroes were almost too joyous to be happy; - and of our boating party up the river to Lake George and Drayton Island."

        THE DR. "One of the most delightful incidents of my life; and among its pleasantest memories. There was seen negro happiness in perfection."

        HOST. "'THE PLEASURES OF SLAVERY,' I have entitled my account of it."

        THE DR. "Excellent. Appropriate, and graphically descriptive. You can soon make a right sort of a book, with such materials. By the way, - our visit to the Sea Islands, you must not forget. It almost ought to be a book by itself. I remember it as if yesterday; and I will help you if you need any help of memory."

        HOST. "Thank you, Dr., I accept the offered kindness. At your leisure I will read to you my Sea Island notes."

        THE DR. "But, as in the character, somewhat of a scribe for the ladies, I believe you should begin the book, with a chapter or more, directly addressed to the ladies of England, on the subject of their address to the women of

Page 22

America. And it might not be amiss to appropriate a few pages to the Earl of Carlisle, in his character of abolition editor."

        HOST. "Certainly, Doctor; neither the noble ladies, nor the ladies' noble editor, must be forgotten."

        THE DR. "Well; now I think you will do. Go at it. And I will try what may be done with the dog and the gun, in the way of a game dinner from the fields and the woods."

        The Doctor withdraws to prepare for his sport; the daughters take Peggy with them to put the study in order for work; the ladies remain to restore order to the breakfast room before resuming the daily needles; and the host prepares his feathered armor for the engagement; - a true labor of love, - battling for the truth.


Page 23

CHAPTER II.

TO THE "WOMEN OF ENGLAND," CONCERNING THEIR APPEAL TO THE "WOMEN OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA," FOR AID IN THEIR INTERVENTION TO REVOLUTIONIZE AN INSTITUTION OF OUR COUNTRY.

Ladies of England: -
        Rarely, with more painful sympathy, have I been exercised, than for your unhappy mistake, with respect to the social and spiritual condition of the African slaves in our country. And to relieve the heavy weight of sorrow for their imaginary sufferings, which is bearing upon your afflicted hearts, I hasten to correct the sad and saddening error, into which you have been so unkindly beguiled.

        It rejoices my aged, but still warm heart, that through much labor and sufferings, and through many perils, I have become so well able and prepared, by a long series of years, passed in the south among slaveholders and slaves, to set your disturbed hearts at rest, with respect to the social and spiritual condition and privileges of the slaves of our country.

        When I mention the fact, which I trust will not be quite uninteresting to you, that for more than thirteen years I was a Christian Missionary in several of the slaveholding states, it is hoped confidently, that you will receive kindly, and to your great relief, what I have imposed on myself as a duty to communicate to you.

        How you have been misled into the belief, that the slaves of our country have no sacred social privileges; and

Page 24

are not taught in the religion of the Gospel, nor allowed to be taught, is of minor importance. It is sufficient to know the unhappy fact, that such is your no doubt sincere belief.

        Ladies of England; pray pardon me for saying, what need not long remain to be proved, that you have been very grossly and most wickedly imposed on. Who the impostor may be; is of less concern. Would to God! - with fervent reverence be it spoken - would to God! that the poor white people of Europe, and even of our own country, had their personal comforts, and their social rights, as well secured as have the slaves of the south: and above all, that their souls were as faithfully and efficiently cared for!

        You speak, ladies, of "frightful results of negro slavery, even under kindly disposed masters." From this allusion, and from the notice of your amiable interference with the system, in the Manchester Guardian of December 1st, and other newspapers of your country, there seems show of reason, - without violence of inference, - to suppose your movement to have been impelled by a popular romance of a countrywoman of ours; who, it is said, is "a sort of divinity in the aristocratic boudoirs of the British metropolis."

        If the inference be not sustained by the fact, in your kindness and Christian charity, you will pardon it; - if it be, it may be no unkindness to communicate to you, in what estimation that strangely popular romance, is held by a very large majority of the respectable Christian communion to which that lady belongs by inheritance and education, as well as by profession; as indicated by its chief literary organ, one of the most able, and widely circulated religious newspapers in America.

        Thus speaks THE NEW YORK OBSERVER: -

        "We have read the book, and regard it as antichristian.

Page 25

We have marked numerous passages in which religion is spoken of in terms of contempt, and in no case is religion represented as making a master more humane; while Mrs. Stowe is careful to represent the indulgent and amiable masters as without religion. This taint pervades the work, just as it does the writings of all the modern school of philanthropy. It is certainly a non-religious, if not anti- evangelical school. Mrs. Stowe labors through all her book to render ministers odious and contemptible, by attributing to them sentiments unworthy of men or Christians."

        Ladies of England; - pardon me; - is this the school in which you have received willing instruction to interfere with our affairs, and to encourage our infidel calumniators? And is this the book, made up as it is mostly of deceptive fictions, seditious sentiments, and most offensive scoffs and sneers at things sacred! - is this, indeed the book, which has so filled the cup of your indignant charity, that "you cannot keep silence," nor withhold the blazing torch from Mrs. Stowe's man of straw?

        Indeed, Ladies of England, forgive, pray, this little outburst of honest indignation. KNOWING, as I do, most undoubtingly, that the book is a vile and mischievous calumny from beginning to end, it is found as impossible for me to speak of it with cool indifference, as it is for you to keep silent, believing it to be a true statement of the "frightful results of negro slavery." Ungrateful is the task, but it may be needful, to show briefly that it is entitled to no regard as an authority on the subject of which it treats.

                        "For me, I cannot bolt it to the bran
                        As can the holy Dr. Augustin."

        I cannot think of entering upon the painful and revolting task of dissecting this putrid body to expose all its sources of poison. It might disable me quite for my

Page 26

pleasant labor of love, in exhibiting to your happy eyes the reverse and bright side of the subject. For, as you shall see, if you will deign to look, that even slavery, through grace, has its bright side.

                        "Next to Sincerity, remember still,
                        Thou must resolve upon Integrity."

        It might be useful to show, how this bold woman has used unblenchingly, and unscrupulously, every popular element, to make her romance acceptable to a corrupt age, in which, - not common vices, merely, but even crimes of every dark shade, find their defenders and advocates, in such multitudes, as to make emperors and kings, - black and white, of their chiefs. But room only for passing allusions, or little more, may be allowed.

        This miserable thing of sin, cannot be examined with any discrimination, without discovering on its every page, that it has taken up among its destructive elements, every popular and infidel ultraism of the age, - sensual, social, political, philosophical, and religious.

        It flatters every phase of modern reform; - every feature of every faith, which freely admits antislavery and abolitionism into its creed.

        It censures, blindly, the government of the country; and it arrogantly denounces its acts in the most jacobinical and rancorous spirit. Your own radical authors and declaimers cannot go beyond it, on even their own superior vantage ground.

        The execution of the laws of the land, - even its organic laws, embodied in the constitution at the foundation of the nation, - it bitterly and treasonably execrates

        In morals, it is shamelessly profligate.

        It ministers to the licentious passions of the age, by gross allusions to illicit desire and indulgence, and it makes

Page 27

itself a guide-book to the market-place of abomination, for the use of travelling roues from the north.

        In religion, it oceupies the seat of the scorner and the hypocrite. At the same time that it affects great religious fervor, it showers the most offensive odium on the whole body of the ministry of every name; and fulminates special anathemas towards all who show the slightest reluctance to join in a seditious and infidel crusade against "Caesar" and against "God."

        Among the minsiters of the Gospel most distinguished for high character and deep learning, there are very many; - and millions of intelligent laymen, who religiously believe; and meekly, and in the fear of God, declare their belief, that the Bible fully sanctions the institution of slavery.

        All these, Mrs. S. virtually presumes to denounce as unworthy of common civility. And she would have them answered in no other, or more courteous style, than with a laugh of scorn. She holds them in too deep contempt to speak of them, even decently. And to condescend even to say to one of them, "stand by thyself, - come not near me, for I am holier than thou!" she seems to imagine it would be too much honor for her greatness to confer!

        Trusting in her own righteousness, she evidently despises all, whomsoever, that belongs not to her own school of the Pharisees.

        In fine, in her abuse of the Bible, and the clergy, it is certainly not too much to say, that she has, not only trenched on the domain of Fanny Wright, but even shown a superior title. With a far bitterer venom than Fanny, she has shown less regard for modesty and candor.

        The friends of Mrs. S. cannot plead for her even the miserab lemerit of fanaticism; which may be truly and honestly urged in favor - if so it be - of the extravagancies of very many of the most honest of her party.

Page 28

        "Fanaticism," says Jeremy Bentham, "never sleeps, it is never glutted. It is never stopped by philanthropy; for it makes a merit of trampling on philanthropy. It is never stopped by conscience, for it has pressed conscience into its service. Avarice, lust, and vengeance, have pity, benevolence, honor, - fanaticism has nothing to oppose it."

        Some of these frightful features of fanaticism are conspicuous in her character; but though with the peculiar talent of enlisting the fanatical element in her cause, for personal profit, she is not a fanatic. She may not, perhaps, be reasoned with any more properly, than if she were a fanatic; but it is because she is rendered unconscionable by her vanity and cupidity, her arrogance and ambition; - if not also by the addition of even lower vices of mind and heart; - but she is not a fanatic.

        Please now, Ladies of England, look at a few particulars of her performance, and plainly may you perceive, that it is entirely unworthy of your belief or regard; not to say your admiration.

        Alone, as a weapon of offence in the hand of the political demagogue, in his battle against truth and right, was it intended to have value; and surely it has no other possible. As such instrument of mischief and ruin, dear to the enemies of our country, and to all who would break down its institutions of every kind, - trample upon the religion of the Bible, - fill its pulpits with infidel lecturers, - make an eternal separation of enmity between your nation and ours; - as such it may remain in use, by the popular and efficient aid and countenance of the women of England, until the land of the South shall be drenched with the blood of both white and black, - sparing, perhaps, a sufficient number of the latter, to establish another Haytien Empire, with another QUASSIA, to take a daily imperial bath in the blood of his sable subjects!

Page 29

        By the way, Ladies, en passant, are you so deluded as to imagine the masses of the Haytiens, the population in gross - in as happy a condition as the negroes of our South?

        As a literary work of art, this popular novel, in the eyes of all candid persons whose personal knowledge of facts enables them to judge advisedly of its character, it is abhorrent to every principle of truth and taste. As a work of art, in its untruth to nature, it is a mere monster of deformity! But of necessity, you, Ladies of England; do not perceive its monstrosity; because you are unacquainted with the true facts of the subject. You know that your own great novelists present facts of fancy that are true to nature; and you are deceived into the unhappy belief that so does Mrs. Beecher Stowe.

        You naturally thus judge, because her work is thought to be popular at home; where, you suppose, people ought to know whether or not it be true to nature. It is not popular at home, but as a political missile only, with those who wish to throw it into the ranks of their opponents, except indeed with the mass of novel readers, who generally know no more of the South, than they know of Siberia; - thousands of them even less.

        You know that your Bulwer, and Dickens, and Warren, and Kingsley, your late Chancellor of the Exchequer, and such writers, have not overdrawn, the horrible pictures of crime, and poverty, and degradation, and oppression, in your own country; and it is therefore not strange, but natural, that you should receive as true to nature, Mrs. Stowe's paler pictures of suffering among our Southern slaves; whom hunger never leads to crime; as it does very largely the poor of Europe, and even of our own country.

        Had Mrs. S. laid her scenes on this side of "Mason's and Dixon's line," and drawn with truth the crimes and

Page 30

sufferings of the free negroes here, whose vices and miseries are crowding them into our penitentiaries and lunatic asylums, she might have produced a work of art, which would have secured to her a lasting and a fair fame; though it would have given her less of money, and less of popularity of numbers and RANK; but it would not have been suited by its subject, to the purposes of the unscrupulous political demagogues and disorganizers of the age, for whom her book has been written especially.

        Or she might have drawn from the immeasurable mass of facts connected with the terrific increase of crime and prostitution in our great cities; and so have presented a work true to nature, as known in cities, every where, that should have done good police service as a guide book, through the highways and byways, - the broad avenues, and dark alleys, - trodden by tens of thousands on their route to the gallows, - to the penitentiary, - to the asylum, - to the pauper's pallet, - to the Cyprian's den, or to the suicide's grave!

        In such work of truthfulness, she might have indulged to the full, in her love of the horrible, by reproducing, with embellishments to her taste, the mangled remains of Adams and Parkman; and from the life and writings of their murderers, she might have revealed to what class of religio-philosophers they belonged; - for they were both men of mark. Or she might have found in the police records of any of our cities, ready to her hand, in distinct outline, plenty of conjugal murders; infanticides by hundreds; and arraignments of thousands of children and adolescent youth of both sexes; - and told us of their training. Such works, well done, could not but do good to the public, whatever they might do for the author.

        Alas, she chose another subject; and so has she handled it, as to make her book a firebrand of destruction, of so deadly a character as to throw in deep shade the veriest

Page 31

infidel and seditious publications of the last hundred years.

        But a word more of it, as a work of art. I trust you will be no longer deceived, Ladies of England, into the absurd supposition, that this novel, like those of your own great artists, presents facts with fidelity, - in its abuse of the South, - for there is scarcely such an instance of any kind, in the whole book. It is full of false assumptions of the most mischievous character, and manifesting a wicked and malicious intention to deceive the unwary and the unknowing. It is not necessarily here intended to charge her with such reckless wickedness, as these hard words, which I did not make, ought to express; for, being bred in a school which compels conscience into its service, and confounds it with feeling, enthusiasm, education, prejudice, party-spirit, and I know not what, so called principle of a "higher law," of their own make, she may be very conscientious in her measures of mischief, and think even that she is doing God a service. So thought Uzzah, no doubt; and so did your own Guy Fawkes; so did the conscientious authors of the massacre of St. Bartholomew's. So did not their victims; - so did not the British Parliament; - so did not GOD. Uzzah died for his presumption; Guy, for his intention; and the St. Bartholomew assassins are

                         "Damned to everlasting fame."

Page 32

CHAPTER III.

TABLEAUX VIVANTS.


"Look here upon this picture, and on this."

        AND now, having made this only, but ample apology for Mrs. Beecher Stowe, - in the spirit of the only one that even Omniscience could discover for the misguided, on an ever memorable occasion, - we proceed to another look at her celebrated work, already famous in its "frightful results."

        Let it be viewed as a panorama, or as a picture gallery. Select for special notice, some of its most conspicuous groups, and single pieces; and examine their claims to be true to nature.

        Look at these tableaux vivants, in the mansion of Shelby, and in the cabin of Uncle Tom.


                        "Look first on this, and then on that."

        Can both be true to nature?

        See Tom and Chloe, the incorruptible, and the excellent; and the reverenced, loved, and trusted, undoubtingly, by their master and mistress; and all but adored by their only son; who is all but adored by his parents - young "mas'r George" - the intelligent, loving, energetic boy: - and little Mose and Pete are in the corner; - the little negroes, to whom Mrs. S. ascribes flashes of wit that would not have shamed even Foote and Sheridan.

        Leaving these little sable wits on that intellectual eminence,

Page 33

let us look at Aunt Chloe, feasting young "Mas'r George," at her own table.

        This group is true to nature. I have more than once been delighted with such pleasant scenes as this good old negress feasting a pet young master or mistress, - both parties joyous exceedingly; - but, O, never, never, on the same domain where the mansion scene could happen by any possibility.

        Skilfully wrought out and presented is this contrast, to suit the tastes of all such credulous lovers of the marvellous and the horrible, as are able to swallow any absurdity, for the sake of the pleasure of indulging their morbid appetites.

        The beautiful and natural cabin scene prepares the credulous reader to be as much and as deeply shocked, as even Mrs. S., or any other abolitionist can reasonably desire, by the revolting caricature exhibited in the mansion. But the party will all believe it; or, effectually school themselves, if need be, to believe it; because they love to have it so. And many other simple-hearted, honest and benevolent people, not perceiving its absurdities, have been already shocked into horror and indignation, and all uncharitableness, by the miserable and wicked fable.

        An agonizing sense of necessity secures the ready faith of the abolition faction, in every abominable fiction of this sort. It can neither consist, nor subsist, but by the most intemperate use of such garbage.

        Writers of the Stowe class; and kindred reverend Lecturers against the Bible, who declare themselves atheists to a God who sanctions slavery; and senators who deride the Constitution, are as indispensable to their existence as a faction, as was Voltaire and his school, to the cause of infidelity, and the infidel party in the last century. He

Page 34

too, was a, so called, PHILANTHROPIST! - A Theophilanthropist!!!

        Voltaire's works and his school have followed him. But their nefarious influence is yet felt around the globe. In other, and even christened forms, his disciples, in some bad sense, are busied, day and night, at their native and congenial work of political mischief, and social ruin.

        They have already done much; - perhaps, - God, in mercy, grant it, - the most of what they may be allowed to do, to subvert the blessings of our revealed religion, by ignoring its Divine history; and to subvert our government and laws, by deriding the Constitution and sapping its foundation.

        But should they succeed in their untiring and ruthless efforts to bring the constitution under the contempt and abhorrence of the millions, whose faith in the Bible they have shaken; they may finally overturn our government, and bring about a revolution, compared with which, the old French revolution was a mere village brawl!

        Glance we now our mind's eye on the mansion scene. It is too disgusting an invention for more than a glance.

        A table with wine and dessert of fruit, &c. The master of the mansion, a refined and intelligent gentleman, accustomed to the best society, seems unconscious of the incongruity of his situation at the table, and familiarly conversing with a negro trader of the very coarsest dimensions of vulgar brutality! A bad specimen of a universally detested class! Strange, is it not? Has he dined with that refined host? O yes, and he is now taking wine and fruit with him in the most familiar manner!

        Nay, in the style of the vilest slang, the brute of a guest is telling the host incredible lies about incidents of his trade - things that in the South would soon rid the world of such a monster - and he is listened to with undisturbed courtesy!

Page 35

        Still more strange, - he proposes to buy Tom; and is allowed to retain his seat! Incredible! Worse yet; - the master consents to part with the incorruptible and faithful Uncle Tom, to this brute! but he cannot endure the sight of Tom's "taking off," and must absent himself! It is an unsolved mystery why he should particuIarly want Tom, a man quite too old for the slave market; but Tom he must have.

        There comes, springing into the dining-room, a little yellow boy of four years old; and though declared impossible, as he is a pet of the lady, whose maidservant is its mother, the insatiate wretch must have the child too; though too young for his business. And, with agonizing reluctance the master consents! Amazing!

        But passing over the brute's "undisguised admiration" of the child's mother, and Mrs. Stowe's voluptuous description of her charms, which so fascinated him, we proceed to the question, how these things, so strange, are to be explained, to make the tale plausible, of the despotic powers of the vile negro trader over the master of these slaves?

        Did his life, or that of any, or all of his family, depend on his submission to this ruthless tyrant

        Oh, no.

        What then? Had he the planter so completely in his power that, unless he submitted to his whim to have Old Tom and little Henry, he could so ruin him at once as to reduce himself and family to beggary?

        Nothing of all this.

        What then?

        Why, he held a promissory note agai nst him. And by the time that the planter could grow two crops, he might force the payment of it. So much; no more, is the planter in the trader's power. Such is the slight foundation on which Mrs. Stowe has erected the main building of her showy and admired edifice.

Page 36

        And as it is not therefore necessary for the distracted mother of little Harry to run away with her child, and to cross the Ohio river on floating ice; nor for the conscientious and peaceable Quakers to fight in her defence; nor for Uncle Tom to be whipped to death in an "ogre's den," we may retire from the contemplation of these TABLEAUX VIVANTS.

        But the author herself seems not fully to trust in this kind of logic, but to introduce it for the sake of embellishment; for she is careful throughout the narrative, and to declare as much in her preface and concluding remarks, that such cases of cruelty, as the separation of mothers and children, are by no means uncommon; - a mere every-day, matter of course affair! It is terrible to think of, that persons can be so depraved by party prejudice and rancour, as to allow themselves in such malignant calumny.

        By the statute laws of the State where this scene is laid, no child, until over ten years of age, may be separated by sale from its mother. Such a sale would therefore be illegal and null; or rather perhaps equivalent to the emancipation of the child, at least. And people who suppose that such rights of slaves are not protected by the law are greatly mistaken; and still not less greatly are they mistaken, if they suppose the slaveholders are not generally vigilant to see that the laws are not violated.

        But Mrs. S., not satisfied with calumniating the people of the South, presumes also to libel even the laws themselves. She would have it believed, that every one of her "frightful results of slavery" - every abuse of the institution - were sanctioned by law. What can be more daringly wicked?.. Was it not enough, by a cruel silence, tacitly to deny the existence of laws securing the rights and privileges of slaves wherever slaves are found in our country?

        No; for her and her party, it was not enough. The

Page 37

laws themselves must be compelled into their hard service. The book is full of malicious and impossible inventions; but, to my mind, this seems the most gravely wicked; - if indeed, among infinitely abhorrent things, it be not an absurd attempt to find the basest.

        Hear this; and try to imagine any thing on the pages of the most diabolical calumniator, more diabolically calumnious?

        "Whoever visits some estates, and witnesses the good-humored indulgence of some masters and mistresses, and the affectionate loyalty of some slaves, might be tempted to dream the oft-fabled poetic legend of a patriarchal institution and all that; but over and above the scene, there broods a portentous shadow - the shadow of law."

        How impossible, after reading this, thoughtfully, not to find one's imagination wandering far back to the garden scene, where innocence was perfect, peace undisturbed and happiness unalloyed? It was the blessed lot of a loving and loyal pair, until one entered the garden, and envied them, and plotted their ruin. It was DIABOLOS! THE SLANDERER! "The father of lies!"

        He, - and not the law, under which they lived and loved; and but for him would still have found themselves protected in their possessions by that law, - he brooded over them as a portentous shadow - the shadow of death!

        "The shadow of LAW," brooding over such a scene of patriarchal happiness, and ready to descend upon and make it a scene of misery! She would so have her duped victims to believe. But what law in particular is to do this Satanic deed?

        Is it the law, which forbids the separation of mothers and children, and secures this blessing to the slave as it is no where secured to the poor hireling - the slave of stringent circumstances, which are daily separating parents and children?

Page 38

        Is it the law, which enjoins on the master to provide comfortably for slave children, and for the sick, and for the aged, as no law provides for the poor in any other condition?

        Is it the law which provides that no slave shall be made to work more than a moderately prescribed number of hours? A law that the poor white man, under the despotic rule of his hard fate, would be unable to avail himself of, if made in his favor?

        Or, is it the law which empowers and commands the magistrate to find a better master for an ill-treated slave? Is it either of these laws? But did Mrs. S. know of the existence of such laws? Aye; and that they are in force, and faithfully executed. Not better was it known by the first enemy of our race, that our primal parents were under a law divinely adapted to their peculiar circumstances to secure their happiness.

        So much for Mrs. Stowe's "Shadow of Law." Ladies of England; is it not rather a rose-colored shadow? Does it not seem more like the brooding of a good, than of an evil spirit? This, however, is one of her bashful slanders. Alas! - a fact too shocking to be contemplated! - this terrific calumniator defames our Southern States, by charging them with being in a conspiracy against both justice and humanity! She charges all their executives, legislators, and judges, with the most awful and devilish corruption; - a corruption, - that, perhaps, no other human mind than her's was ever able to conceive, or to imagine! In most unmistakable terms, she frames the horrible slander, - worthy of the prime Slanderer himself, - that the laws of the South are "so arranged," as to allow masters to murder their slaves! Hear her: -

        "Facts too shocking to be contemplated occasionally force their way to the public ear, and the comment one often hears made on them is more shocking than the thing

Page 39

itself. It is said, 'Very likely such cases may now and then occur, but they are no samples of general practice.'"

        In passing to our main point, - is it indeed, more shocking, so to say, than to do, what is too horrible to be thought of? Let it be applied to the case of the murder of Dr. Parkman, in Boston; or to that parallel case in New York; or to any of a thousand mangling murders which the last year's newspapers recorded; and its absurdity will be transparent. I cannot think it very shocking, - if wicked at all - to say, and to hope, that the cases of men being murdered and dismembered by educated gentlemen of high standing in the community, in payment of a debt, are very rare and uncommon cases!

        "If the laws of New England," she continues, "were so arranged that a master could NOW and THEN torture an apprentice to death without a possibility of being brought to justice, would it be received with equal composure? Would it be said these cases are rare, and no samples of general practice?" I should hope, indeed, it might be so said, without any shocking offence. If Dr. Webster's science had not been at fault as much as his purse, even he might have escaped.

        But her slanders and insinuations, with her admirers, pass for arguments. If arguments, wherein is found their cogency? Are the laws of the South "so arranged" that a master may indeed openly murder his slave with impunity? Intentionally, so arranged? That is certainly her meaning. So, doubtless, she would be understood; - and then, the words yet remain to be invented, which may at all duly express the indignation and horror that such a calumny ought to excite! - must excite, every where, out of an "Ogre's den" of the malignant fanaticism!

        Surely, she could not have presumed to find credit any where else; and least of all among the noble, and educated,

Page 40

and Christian ladies of England! And has her noble editor found no difficulty in the endorsement of so horrible a calumny? - and knowing as he does, that it is such calumny? Has madness fallen on the nobility and gentry of England, indicative of a coming destruction? May Heaven, in mercy, defeat the omen!

        What! are all the Governors, Legislators, and Judges, so diabolically depraved, as to so conspire unanimously against justice and humanity, as to have framed, - "so arranged" - a system of statute laws for each and all the Slave States, as to allow masters, without fear of punishment, to murder their slaves? Are elections and appointments of executive and judicial functionaries so made as to secure the administration of the laws in accordance with such arrangement?

        How deplorable must be the state of mind and heart of a human being who can imagine such wickedness! - such an extended and populous territory of deliberate murderers! What a reproach on the age or country in which such malignity can be popular! The subject is too revolting to dwell upon. It is a fact too shocking to be contemplated, that such a malignant calumny can be believed, and praised, and munificently rewarded!

        It would be very strange, should it never happen, that a bad master, of an ungovernable and cruel temper, in a paroxysm of malicious passion, take the life of an offending slave, under circumstances in which the felony might be concealed. Perhaps, more strange still would it be, that there should be no such bad tempered men among the great body of slave-holders.

        Wicked and bad tempered men are found every where; and every where the wicked do wickedly; and whoever, in any capacity, is under their rule, from the wife and child, down to the servant and the domestic animal, may suffer even death from their inhumanity. Such husbands have

Page 41

murdered their wives, and escaped unwhipt of justice; and such masters their apprentices and employes; and such superiors their subordinates, in every capacity and relation of life. And often, no doubt, do they escape detection and punishment. But who before ever heard of the laws of a country being so arranged that the guilty might go unpunished?

        Can any thing possibly go beyond this? And yet, the ladies of England profess to believe it, and are organising a crusade to correct it; and the Earl of Carlisle has endorsed it with his noble name and title, and given it currency, by sealing it, perhaps, with his hereditary coat of arms! Does the noble Lord, also, disclaim political motives? Perhaps so; but woes will befall my country if such disclaimers are allowed as sincere and satisfactory.

        Ladies of England; it is here believed and hoped that you have been beguiled into this injurious crusade against your friends; and that, not willingly, have you thus put yourselves in the wrong. If so, then for your own, and for your country's sake; let your recantation be prompt and public, that otherwise inevitable "frightful results" may be avoided. On this side of the water it is clearly enough understood why your powerful influence has been thus employed; but in this, I hope respectful and friendly communication, it is taken for granted, that, personally, you have no political or sinister motive; nor other than humane and Christian motives.

        But I must not leave Mrs. Stowe, till she is made to confess with sufficient precision, for all practical purposes, that she has deceived you into the unhappy notion that the slaves of the South are not allowed to be taught in the Gospel nor to enjoy Gospel privileges. How was it with Uncle Tom? His story is very edifying as regards this question. It is of incalculable value in several views of it. Fairly understood, it completely destroys its author's

Page 42

theory of the unmitigated evil of slavery; and it shows clearly, that the notion of the Women of England about the interdiction, is without foundation to rest upon.

        Tom is represented to be, not only in a general sense, a Christian man, with a Christian family, but, an eminently Christian man - "a man of incorruptible fidelity, piety, and honesty." Nay, conclusive to the point: "The incorruptible fidelity, piety, and honesty of Uncle Tom, had more than one development to her knowledge." No doubt. Any where in the Slave States she might have found very many such developments.

        But how is this?

        Let us pause a moment and think!

        Does she mean by this explicit declaration of personal knowledge, of an indefinite number of such incorruptible, faithful, pious, honest men, as Uncle Tom, that so much good can come out of such a Nazareth as Southern slavery?

        How then can it be the altogether and horrible evil, - the "Ogre's den," which herself and school-party declare it to be?

        Such results are certainly not frightful. An institution which can turn out a great number of such good Christians, must really have some good in it.

        Ladies of England; please think of this; and be comforted by the assurance of your illustrious American sister, that many are the good and happy Christians among the Southern slaves; and, anon, I will delight your grateful hearts with real, truthful pictures - pictures of what I have seen - of happy Christian slaves in such multitudes as shall rejoice you with the pleasing conviction, that in their Christian privileges, of pastoral care and instruction, they are peculiarly, and uncommonly happy.

        In passing, as a fit conclusion to this brief notice of the spiritual privileges of the Southern peasantry - there may

Page 43

be said, in anticipation of a more extended survey, what may astonish, but delight, the pious Ladies of England, that of the whole body of Southern slaves, a greater proportion of them are blessed with Christian privileges, than of the population of London, or New York; and that of those who profess to believe the Gospel, a far greater proportion are communicants in good standing, than of any people of our country, or of yours.

        And now, Christian Ladies of England, pray be happy in the reassurance, that no such awful system obtains, on this side of the Atlantic, and most certainly not, either by statute or by custom, among the slaves of our Southern States, as "interdicts education in the truths of the Gospel and the ordinances of Christianity." Where else soever, to any race of man the Gospel is denied or withheld, it is not there. To whomsoever else the blessings and privileges of the Gospel ordinances are interdicted, they are not to the slaves of the South.


Page 44

CHAPTER IV.

"A DEEPER DEEP."

        "The weakness of man can never make that straight which God hath made crooked. - THORNWELL."

        IT seems by their address, that these distinguished Ladies consider slavery as inconsistent with God's Word; with the inalienable rights of immortal souls; and with the pure and merciful spirit of the Christian religion!

        Is it indeed so? Is this really your meaning, ladies, that slavery, per se, is inconsistent with God's Word? And that under any and every modification of justice and of mercy, slavery is more than other subordination, - more than poverty and its evils - inconsistent with the Christian religion?

        If so be your meaning, your reading or understanding of God's Holy Word, differs much from mine; and not from mine only, but from all your own great divines and commentators; and from all Christian antiquity. I need not quote your own great teachers to show their agreement with the Bible in teaching the people that the government of masters, as well as of fathers, is an appointment of God, and therefore to be honored. In this connection, I say nothing of the authority of husbands, lest you erroneously suspect a desire to weaken your disclaimer of political motives.

        That the Bible is full of recognitions of the institution of slavery; and of its character as an instrument in the hands of God to chasten the idolatry of His chosen people; and to punish the nations that forget Him, in order to

Page 45

bring to their remembrance that doubtless, "verily there is a God that judgeth the earth," - the Christian women of England, of all ranks, cannot require to be informed or reminded.

        Here, therefore, I may be content with a short quotation from one of your late excellent divines, to exemplify how it is recognized in the Christian Scriptures, and still understood by Christian teachers of great wisdom and piety.

        The late worthy and Rev. Mr. Nicholls, of Queen's College, Cambridge, in one of his most valuable works, "HELP TO THE READING OF THE BIBLE," thus notices the Epistle to Philemon.

        "Philemon, to whom St. Paul wrote this Epistle, was an inhabitant of Colosse, and probably owed his conversion to the Apostle. Onesimus, his slave, had run away, and wandered to Rome, where he met with Paul, then a prisoner there, through whom he was converted to Christianity. The object of this Epistle, of which Onesimus was the bearer, was to persuade his master to receive him back, not merely as a slave, but with feelings of esteem as a fellow Christian. To accomplish this, the Apostle uses the most skilful address, touching with the greatest delicacy, yet with much force, on those points which were most likely to influence Philemon."

        "We have here," as Paley remarks, "the warm, affectionate, authoritative teacher, interceding with an absent friend for a beloved convert; aged and in prison, content to supplicate and entreat, yet so as not to lay aside the respect due to his character and office." ....While Onesimus, as a Christian, became the Apostle's son, and Philemon's brother, "this in no respect interfered with the civil duties he owed to Philemon as his master."

        It will be here perceived - profitably it is hoped - how the celebrated Dr. Paley, the Divine, and expositor of

Page 46

Scripture, differs from Dr. Paley, the anti-slavery politician, and author of a system of moral philosophy, not inaptly styled "THE SELFISH SYSTEM," - a great authority with abolitionists. V. also, Whitby, Tomline, McKnight, Grotius, et al.

        But perhaps I may not understand aright the language of the Address of the Ladies of England. I wish it may be so on this point. Perhaps they may intend to speak only of the abuse of the institution, and not of the institution itself. If so, they will please pardon this diversion, which even so, may not be quite useless. Perhaps only to the fancied frightful results, they allude as not being in "accordance with God's Holy Word; the inalienable rights of immortal souls; and the pure and merciful spirit of the Christian religion."

        If so, their unfortunate credulity is only to be commiserated. Not that there are no evils resulting from slavery. This it would be folly to pretend. Even "frightful results" are not denied. But if that is to be allowed as an argument against the institution, what institution is safe? What social, religious, civil, political; or of any other character, can bear such test?

        In the abeyance of the institution of matrimony, civilisation could not exist. But countless thousands fall victims to its abuse. From ecclesiastical institutions, the most "frightful results" have ensued; but shall they be abolished, therefore? The institutions of Government and laws are indispensable. But do not "frightful results" flow from them in even rivers of blood? No other institution on earth may bear such test any better than the institution of Slavery.

        The Women of England speak feelingly of "laws of our country which deny to the slave the sanctity of marriage; and separate at the will of the master, the wife from the husband, and the children from the parents."

Page 47

        Ladies; no doubt, from this movement of intervention, you believe that such laws exist in our statute books. And perhaps you suppose they are acted upon to the disruption of many slave families. It is not so, ladies, Christian masters encourage, and not deny to their slaves, "the sanctity of marriage, with all its joys, rights, and obligations," and never, "at their will," separate the wife from the husband, and the children from the parents. If it be done, it is their "strange work," not their willing. In my mission to the South, I married many pairs of slaves, who were in no more danger of being separated than any lord and lady of your land; - where, even such things have sometimes happened. In every case, in which I thought there was danger that man might put asunder what God had joined together, the masters were required to obligate themselves to prevent their being sundered. Pray believe this, ladies, for your comfort and for the correction of your erroneous belief drawn from the mischievous and unprincipled calumniators of our country and its institutions.

        Families, in the Providence of God, both white and black, are lamentably often disrupted and dispersed. But for one family that is broken up by the institution of slavery in the South, - and that one by the visitation of God, the misfortune of the master, or the crime of the slave; - there are hundreds separated among free people, by cupidity, or other vice or crime, or by the oppressive power of poverty. Of the tens of thousands of poor Irish labourers employed on our canals and railroads, &c., - driven from home by an oppression worse than slavery, - a very small proportion have all their families with them; and very many of them never can have.

        Ladies, unless your celebrated Mr. Dickens be as reckless a romancer as our Mrs. Stowe, your own institutions of Jurisprudence, alone, disrupt and ruin, in person and estate, many more families than do our institutions of

Page 48

Slavery. But the fancies of romance aside, the authenticated facts communicated by your Parliamentary investigations of the working of your poor laws, and even of your poor-house reports, tell of such cruelties as are utterly unknown to our system of slavery, and in such numbers as to make any heart but one of stone to bleed, if not to break!

        Aye, Ladies of England, finally, - pray your pardon if any thing offensive to your tastes be found herein; - if our slaves were made to endure but the tithe of the cruelties that are visited continually on the poor of Europe, in hardships, in family disruptions, in destitution of every comfort of life; in famine, in starvation, in carelessness for their souls, as well as for their bodies, then well might the Women of England unite in appeal to the Women of America, to interfere for their amelioration. But even then, would it not seem as reasonable for them, to raise their voices of sympathy, and to employ their full and jewelled hands of charity, to relieve their own poor, downtrodden, and suffering people?

        Ladies, permit one parting word of sound counsel: -

        "To do good, and to distribute, forget not; for with such sacrifices God is well pleased."

        "Be merciful after your power;" and "provide for the sick and needy."

        And when none nearer you require your aid; O then, come, and help us; and what you lay out "shall be paid you again."


Page 49

CHAPTER V.

MEMORY OF THE SOUTH.

        VERY pleasant is the memory of having found comfort, where discomfort was expected to be found, and joys, where sorrows were looked for; and happiness, where I had been taught that only misery could dwell. This pleasure of memory is a boon of great value to my declining life, in my almost solitary retirement, in the narrow valley of the upper Delaware. It is usually obedient to my behest, too, to cheer my solitude; and never more pleasant, than when it revives some of the unlooked for scenes of the sunny South, among the joyous children of the Sun in servitude; with whom I had been taught to look for unhappiness alone. Almost twenty years ago, my thoughts were turned towards the South, in the hope of benefit to a constitution impaired by the wear and tear of northern life, to which it was not originally well adapted. By the urgent suggestion of many anxious friends, I should have gone South, long years before; but that from an unfortunate prejudice, I had contracted a loathing dislike of the Southern institution of slavery.

        I had seen misery and suffering in many and dreadful forms among the poor; and often with added oppression by the less poor, and by the rich. Often had I seen women and children turned out of doors; and their little furniture sold by the law, to pay the rent of the wretched habitation, from which they had been ejected, and thrown upon the cold charity of a cold world. And, in my frail

Page 50

health, I trembled with the painful apprehension of seeing more cruel things at the South - chains and lashes and mangled limbs - human beings treated as beasts of prey!

        Often had I seen the unhappy laborer in a vain and sad pursuit of leave to toil for food and fuel, to save his poor wife and children from hunger and cold; and I have seen the grateful tear bathe his honest and hardy cheek, when gratuitous relief was urged upon him. Recently had I witnessed the sweeping death by cholera, breaking into the abodes of poverty, unresisted; and gorging himself unrebuked, and undisturbed by the also well-fed mortals around - calling themselves Christians!

        By some strange and unhappy, but perhaps not uncommon illusion, I had been impressed by the false and injurious notion, that a cruel bondage of the southern slave was an addition to all these sufferings of northern poverty.

        It was with neither views nor hopes, of finding relief from the illusion, that, on an early day in November, with trembling reluctance, I stepped on the deck of a ship bound for Charleston; where I looked to witness the very horrors of slavery. Among the passengers, - some going in pursuit of health, and some returning to their homes to enjoy its possession, - there were several agreeable southern ladies; and three southern gentlemen, of characteristics too well marked, to be easily forgotten. One of them was a no mean poet - now a celebrated and favorite author, in both prose and poetry; the others, a father and son, of the best class of planters. The poet had been making a northern tour for amusement, in the primitive meaning of the term. The father had accompanied his charming family, for the improvement of their mental and physical health by travel; and the son, an intelligent, robust, gentle, and joyous young man of twenty, had passed a portion of the season in superintending the work

Page 51

of a piano maker in the erection of an instrument for his own use. He had with him a German teacher of music and mathematics.

        So unexpectedly pleasant was our voyage, that some of us, outward bound, would willingly have protracted it. On the third day, having passed "Mason's and Dixon's Line," the general conversation of the passengers, easily and naturally fell into the discussion of Southern Slavery. Some of us turned away from the subject with deep distaste, as one that should be tabooed in every promiscuous company; lest some super-sensitive philanthropist should perchance be too painfully shocked.

        At that time, blinded by a sickly and ignorant prejudice, I should have vied with the rabidest of abolitionists in gloating over the down-trodden law of the land and of all lands, tolerating the abominable thing. This, per se, is not a pleasant memory. It is humiliating, to be obliged to admit, among the happy things of memory, such a justly mortifying recollection of a disgraceful and degrading prejudice. It even makes me shudder to think of it!

        But then, I find a miserable comfort - still a comfort - in the knowledge, that far greater, wiser, and better men, have been not less deeply involved in the same palpable darkness. When Wilberforce, and Clarkson, with their illustrious compeers; and the whole body of Friends - among them many wise and excellent persons, come up before my mind's eye; - and when I think of all these, as devoting their lives and talents, and making great personal and pecuniary sacrifices, to abolish negro slavery; - when I remember Johnson's toast of 'Success to the next Jamaica insurrection;' - when I hear, above the thunder of the Mountain of the Decalogue, the maxim of Dr. Channing - 'Any thing but Slavery!' - and now especially, when the titled, and other excellent women of

Page 52

England, are found weeping over the fictions of negro sufferings, and with bleeding hearts, appealing to the women of America, to aid in the holy cause of softening them; I feel boldness to look back on my former self with less of displacency.

        But to return from this digression to the conversation on the ship's deck. It soon became animated, and unexpectedly interesting. My attention was irresistibly arrested by the strangely sounding declaration of the father, before named: -

        "Had I my life to live over again, and could I advisedly make my choice, to be either the master of a large number of good slaves, or the slave of a good master, so far as the ease and comfort of life are concerned, I am sure my judgment would prefer the latter. I cannot say I should so choose," he added; "for pride, or vanity, or some other folly or vice, might influence me to choose less wisely."

        He was one of the most sober, calm, and sensible of men, and from his character and manner, it was impossible to question his sincerity. He was gazed at by many of us with surprise; but not unmingled with reverence; for he had already been received among us as the true and accredited representative of all that is excellent in man: - piety, purity, honesty, and benevolence.

        "You present an even stronger case than does the author of the 'West India Journal,' M. G. Lewis," said the poet, "in favor of the negro's condition in slavery."

        "What says the Monk?" said the younger Mr. R. "In 1816, he thus wrote, what, unfortunately, remained till this year, in manuscript, in consequence of his death, on his return voyage two years later:

        "If I were now standing on the banks of Virgil's Lethe, with a goblet of the waters of oblivion in my hand, and asked whether I chose to enter life anew, as an

Page 53

English laborer or a Jamaica negro, I should have no hesitation in preferring the latter."

        "That was saying very little in commendation of the condition of the slave," remarked an English Chartist; "for I would prefer to be of the race of the Baboon, than be of the degenerate race of English laborers, - man, woman, or child, - dwarfed and deformed, as the mass of them are physically; and mentally and morally depraved almost to the level of the brute; and many of the less miserable below, by hunger, hardship, and hatred. But the declaration of Mr. R. surprises me."

        "And some other of our fellow passengers," respectfully added the poet, "seem to look on your declaration as coming in a questionable shape."

        "It is quite true," remarked one of the northern invalids, "we have been accustomed to hear slavery spoken of far otherwise than as a desirable condition; and for one, I should feel myself obliged by an explanation of the paradox, that the condition of a good slave of a good master, is happier than that of the good master of a good slave."

        "Such, I believe," replied the venerable man, "were not my words, exactly; for they would contradict one of my most cherished and favorite principles; - that the truly good are equally happy in all conditions or stations of life. My meaning was, - perhaps not as definitely expressed as it should have been - that, as far as comfort is concerned, the condition of the slave is quite as desirable as that of the master, - the master and man both being what they ought to be in their respective stations. And this may be easily explained and verified; paradox as it may seem, or sound."

        In an aside, by a passenger, - "nothing can make slavery desirable."

        "Yes, comparatively;" in an under tone, said the poet, "and generally, if not always, for the negro race."

Page 54

        The momentary interruption was not observed by Mr. R., and he resumed:

        "Perhaps the most satisfactory explanation I can give, may be in the way of personal narrative of my experience."

        All ears were open, and attentions riveted.

COMFORTS OF SLAVES.

        "At my first coming to manhood, I was the only son of my mother, and she a widow. My father had died and left her with four children, myself and three younger sisters. During her life, as the widow of our father, she was to remain in the proprietorship of the estate and head of the family. When their school days were over, so long as they should remain unmarried, my sisters were to aid me in the management of the estate and household, under the eye and approbation of our mother; and when married, with her consent, certain legacies were to be paid them from an accumulated fund, and from the produce of the plantation; but not by infringement on it. It was not to be diminished in size, nor the number of the people, by sale or purchase, to be either diminished or increased.

        "It had been the unvarying rule of my father, that no negro child was to be taken from the personal care of its mother until ten years old; and no old man or woman be required to work after seventy. This rule was to be religiously pursued. It has been, and will be; and under it we have a dozen or more old people, all things considered, more comfortable than I expect to be, should I live to their age.

        "By a provision in my father's will, the system was to be forever continued, of allotments of land to each family of negroes, equal to an acre for each member, between ten and seventy, with time to work it equal to half a day in every week; that the Lord's day might never be desecrated by secular employment.

Page 55

        "In addition to their allowed exemption from labor for their owners, by early rising to their prescribed tasks, they could gain more than ample time for all the purposes of their own culture. By this pleasant arrangement, which is usual among the planters of my acquaintance, the enterprising and industrious portion of the negroes, by early rising, have the most, if not all of every afternoon in the cropping season to work their own grounds; or if this is not required, to do extra work, if they choose on the plantation, for which they receive full pay. In fact, several fine fellows on my plantation, by the aid of the exempts of their family, for months together, eat their breakfast after finishing their day's work. The negroes prefer late breakfasts.

        "The cabins, or rather cottages, of all these are, at the least, as comfortable as their master's mansion; and if they are so disposed, as well supplied with extra comforts, which they are not less able than he to procure. The income of several of them this year will be not less than from fifty to seventy-five dollars.

        "In addition to their ample allowance of meat, bread, and vegetables, my negroes may supply themselves at pleasure, with fish, clams, oysters, &c., or with game from the woods or shores. Their living is therefore not only abundant, but if they choose, luxurious. The ugly fear of want, they know nothing about. In a bad season, many a planter may find himself embarrassed to provide ways and means; but no such embarrassment ever reaches them. Whatever else may fail, their food and raiment must not fail, though ruin descend on the master. Nothing is more common, than a stress of circumstances in unfavorable seasons, to make it necessary for the family of whites on a plantation, to deny themselves many a common indulgence, that the negroes may not be denied any of their usual comforts.

        "Another circumstance in their favor is not less obvious

Page 56

or striking. All told, including about thirty distinct families, there are, of our out household, or plantation negroes, about two hundred. Among so many of all ages, from infancy up to very old age, - from seventy to almost a hundred, five or six of them - there are few nights in the year, in which I am not disturbed, - often more than once - to attend to some complaint of indisposition, and to administer remedies. When I am abroad, which is seldom, that not easy office is in the special charge of a competent person specially employed for the purpose; and with authority to call a physician at discretion. But not one of those negroes is ever disturbed of his rest on account of any sickness of myself or family. All their rights and rests are inviolable. And now," said the good man, blushing as if he had been unaccustomed to talk so long at a time, and owed an apology to us; - "And now, I hope the paradox of the slave having a more comfortable life than the master, is satisfactorily explained." And he left us to join his family in the cabin.

        No statement that he had made; no word that he had spoken, was doubted by any of us.

        By several of the northern passengers, frank declarations were made that they had received some quite new ideas, and new impressions, of southern slavery.

        "But," said the poet, "you must not expect to find all masters like Mr. R. He has always felt his great responsibility deeply, as a Christian master of slaves; and with his best powers and faculties, he fulfils its obligations, faithfully and affectionately. Among all the apostles, there was but one St. John."

        "And but one Judas," interposed a bystander.

        "True," continued the poet; "and if there be not fo und among slaveholders, - as I think there are not, - a greater proportion who shamefully and cruelly betray their trust, there would seem no good reason for the wholesale condemnation

Page 57

of the institution; which we are so often pained to hear, knowing as we do, that the laboring negroes of the South are so far more comfortable than the laboring poor, both white and black, at the North."

        "And yet," said one, "Slavery is still slavery."

        "Yes; and poverty is still poverty; and misery is still misery; and evil, of every kind, is still evil; and it is likely, for a long time to come, to remain so. Every condition of life has its own peculiar evils; and that would seem the most desirable which has the least and the fewest."


Page 58

CHAPTER VI.

CHARLESTON.

        DURING several days detention in Charleston, awaiting a passage to the Land of Flowers, we had the advantage of seeing slavery in various aspects. The working of the system was found by us, northern strangers, very different from the anticipations with which we left home. At our landing we found no lack of drays and coaches; but happily, an entire absence of the boisterous and angry competition, among the drivers, which so annoys and often terrifies, at least the female portion of northern travellers.

        At the hotel, without blustering or noise; and in quiet cheerfulness, the servants of the house - all slaves - attended to us courteously, and in the apparent spirit of cordial hospitality. From what we had heard on shipboard, and from all that here appeared for days together, we began to have dreamy thoughts of the Southern slave, as rescued from the curse of the fall, in a peculiar and almost paradisiac sense; unknown to other conditions of human life!

        So extremes meet. Too soon we found ourselves undeceived. Some of the evils incident to our fallen race, cleave still to the lot of man in all conditions. A scene, such as at home we had been accustomed to think of with unmitigated horror, presented itself: - an auction sale of negroes. The very thought was revolting Happily, we

Page 59

looked in vain for the barbarous pictures and incidents that so often we had heard and read of

        It was a solemn, but not a barbarous scene. Hundreds of people were collected; but not a smile even appeared on any countenance; nor one uncivil or discourteous remark heard. Men spoke in whispers to each other. The voice even of the auctioneer was subdued and respectful, exceedingly. It appeared like any thing else than an ordinary northern auction sale, of even the furniture of a ruined family, such as, alas, I had often been so unhappy as to witness.

        The slaves were intelligent and very neat looking house-servants of a family fallen into a melancholy embarrassment. Their late head, - a man of munificent benevolence, had died insolvent. The servants seemed sorrowful, but not overwhelmed. Some tears they shed on perceiving the approach of a young man in deep mourning. He was the much-loved surviving son of their late master. He had come from his weeping mother and sisters, with words of comfort for them, which caused their old Christian mother to exclaim with clasped hands and lifted eyes, 'Thank the Lord! thank the Lord!' and, adding, as she looked with piety and love on the younger ones, 'I told you, my children, that the dear Lord would not forsake the widow and the fatherless, nor the faithful servants, of our good master.' And their silent tears fell fast at the name and thought of the 'good master,' gone to the better Master.

        The consoling message, brought them by the young man, informed them that they were to be sold together, to remain in the city; and that the privilege had been secured to the family of a repurchase without advance. The pleasant result was, that they were purchased by a friend of the family, and sent quietly away with their young master, to gladden the sad hearts of the mourning

Page 60

widow and her fatherless family. It was a scene of much interest and feeling; but by no means an uncommon one in the generous South.

        This sober and feeling scene of the drama passed away; and another of a quite different character came forward upon the stage. Some half a dozen - a whole family of field hands, came forward; - real Guinea negro looking ones, - laughing and joking, and playing monkey tricks with one another. In this; manner and spirit they mounted the stand; were at once sold off in a lot; and they marched off with their new master in apparent delight, full of fun and frolic. Yet they were going from the easier work of a cotton, to a sugar plantation; which, though heavier labor, is a negro's ideal of paradise on earth.

        As there are ofttimes compulsory removals and dispersions of people, of a very painful nature, in every other condition of life; so, undoubtedly, like evils await and befal the negro slave. But yet I am quite confident - and have the fullest right to be so - that the enterprises and necessities; the artificial conventionalisms, - the vices and crimes of northern life, cruelly disrupt more families, and effect more unwilling and unfortunate removals, by a thousand times, than southern slavery ever does. This in passing to a happier theme; and in ill accordance with the unfortunate notion of the Duchess of Sutherland and her associates, that the slaves of the South are interdicted, by their condition, the privileges and blessings of the Gospel and the church.

        With much of surprise, and with high and grateful pleasure, I learned practically, that in Charleston, no class of people whatsoever, had more spiritual privileges, or pastoral care, than the slave population; and that none better availed themselves of them, or more heartily enjoyed them. Beautifully blessed was the sight, when, on a Lord's day, I beheld, of more than a hundred colored communicants of

Page 61

that class of Christians - models of cleanliness, and patterns of reverential propriety - partaking at the same sacred banquet, of the consecrated elements, with their masters and mistresses! And in every church in the city - now many more than then - the same grateful scene may be witnessed; and in several of them, in very far larger numbers!

        Surely, great is the error of the women of England, in supposing that southern slavery is that awful system which interdicts to any race of man, or any portion of the human family, education in the truths of the Gospel and the ordinances of Christianity! But this greatly interesting subject of the SPIRITUAL FREEDOM of the southern slave, here but alluded to, will be found more at length discussed under its proper head.


Page 62

CHAPTER VII.

PASSAGE TO ST. AUGUSTINE.

        IN our pleasant passage of three days to St. Augustine, we witnessed with wonder and delight, the sublime, enchanting, and most gorgeous phenomenon, of the descent of a protracted shower of meteors, which frightened and alarmed so many people on the night of the 13th Nov., 1833. It was a glorious sight beyond any thing our eyes had ever beheld, or ever again are likely to behold in this world.

        A brief description of it may not be quite uninteresting. The previous sunset was remarkable, and a fitting herald of the approaching wonder - the coming glories of the night.