]> <emph>Lunsford Lane; or, Another Helper from North Carolina:</emph> Electronic Edition. Hawkins, William G. (William George), 1823-1909 Funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities supported the electronic publication of this title. Text scanned (OCR) by Bethany Ronnberg Images scanned by Bethany Ronnberg Text encoded by Chris Hill and Natalia Smith First edition, 2000 ca. 520K Academic Affairs Library, UNC-CH University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2000.

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 Lunsford Lane; or, Another Helper from North Carolina. Lunsford Lane The Rev. William G. Hawkins, A. M., Author of “The Life of Hawkins.” 305 p.,1 ill. Boston Crosby & Nichols 1863 Call number C326.92 L26h.1 (North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

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 Library of Congress Subject Headings, 21st edition, 1998 English Latin Lane, Lunsford, b. 1803. African Americans -- North Carolina -- Biography. African American abolitionists -- Biography. Slaves -- North Carolina -- Biography. Freedmen -- United States -- Biography. Slavery -- North Carolina -- Raleigh -- History -- 19th century. United States. Army. Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, 54th (1863-1865) 2000-10-09, Celine Noel and Wanda Gunther revised TEIHeader and created catalog record for the electronic edition. 2000-05-24, Natalia Smith, project manager, finished TEI-conformant encoding and final proofing. 2000-05-23, Chris Hill finished TEI/SGML encoding 2000-05-08, Bethany Ronnberg finished scanning (OCR) and proofing.

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 LUNSFORD LANE; or, ANOTHER HELPER FROM NORTH CAROLINA. BY THE REV. WILLIAM G. HAWKINS, A. M. AUTHOR OF “THE LIFE OF HAWKINS.” BOSTON; CROSBY & NICHOLS, 117 WASHINGTON STREET. 1863. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by LUNSFORD LANE. In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. Geo. C. Rand & Avery, STEREOTYPERS AND PRINTERS

To T. W. WELLINGTON, ESQ., Of whose unobtrusive benevolence and genuine sympathy of heart, The disabled Soldier in the Hospital and the wronged fugitive Slave Have received many Substantial Tokens, THIS VOLUME is respectfully inscribed.

 PREFACE.

THE volume herewith given to the public has been prepared in moments snatched from professional duties. It is hoped that it will not be without some interest to the general reader.

The writer is himself a Southerner by birth, but now and for some time resident in the North. He has at different times resided in Virginia and Maryland, and has a personal knowledge of some of the incidents to which reference is made in the volume. His acquaintance with Lunsford Lane is quite recent; but, on hearing his story, he was able to verify the statements made by him. He has now performed the promise made, that, at some time, he would prepare the present volume for the press, hoping its circulation might be of service to the cause of the oppressed, and, at the same time, be of some benefit to a worthy family who were unwilling exiles from home. The book contains the particulars of a life replete with incident, not of what slavery is under its most revolting features, but of what it is to be a slave, with a sensitive nature, under the most favorable circumstances. The years of servitude were passed at Raleigh, the capital of North Carolina. He was himself thirty-two years a slave and spent eighteen years of his life in the purchase of himself and family, consisting of a wife and seven children. He acted acceptably for three years, as messenger and waiter under Governors Dudley and Morehead, and thus made the acquaintance of many members of the Legislature. He is finally compelled to flee with his family from the State, and reside in a climate unsuited to their health. The sketches of Southern life will be recognized as true by those who have resided in the Southern States. The incidents of kidnapping now belong to the documentary history of the country. Several chapters are devoted to the changed position into which the colored population are brought by the civil war. One or two chapters give some incidents in the organization and equipment of the Fifty-fourth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers, and their eventful history at the seat of war. It is hoped this account, compiled mostly from the press, will be acceptable to the friends of the colored soldier. What the contrabands are doing and what they can do, as soldiers and as citizens, are questions which have received some attention.

The subject of the prejudice against the colored race is briefly dwelt upon, but not to the extent demanded. The poor white man at the South, as well as a large portion of the people at the North, have much to unlearn upon this subject. It is hoped that this volume, from the plain style in which the narrative is given, may reach many of our colored fellow-citizens; and that the example of industry and of patient endurance of trials, and the integrity of character unfolded in the life of Lunsford Lane, may inspire them to the imitation of virtues, without which they can never secure the respect and sympathy of the good. And may all Christians see, in the revolution that is now proceeding in this land,—in the wide door thrown open for the moral elevation and civilization of nearly four millions of the human family,—the very grave responsibilities resting upon them. The dreaded cry of “Abolitionism” will not hereafter be of much power in causing us to withdraw our sympathies and of illustrating in our own land and before an unbelieving world the blessedness of the religion of Jesus. If these toiling and degraded millions can be “comforted,” then “blessed are they that mourn.” If we can secure them life and its blessings, and a portion of our extended territory which upon which to labor, then “blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.” And then, in due time the “peacemakers” shall come, bearing the richest blessings in their hands; while it will be found that they who are “merciful” “shall obtain mercy.”

With politicians we have no controversy; we have spoken of the subject simply as a part—a transcript—of our social history, the wrongs of which all good people should be ashamed.

If this unpretending volume shall be of any use in spreading more light upon a subject daily growing in importance, the writer will feel amply compensated for his labor. To that sweetest of all our poets, J. G. Whittier, whose notes of freedom are now sounding from the lips of the newly-emancipated “on St. Helena's Isle,” the writer is indebted for many gems sparkling through the tamest chapters of the volume. To L. Maria Child and others the writer has already acknowledged his obligations in the pages following.

W. G. H. WORCESTER, September 29, 1863. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. His birth, and the struggles of childhood. . . . . 13 CHAPTER II. His efforts for securing freedom . . . . . 23 CHAPTER III. Incidents by the way—Journey to Washington, N. C.—A troublesome companion—Slavery defended—Condemned out of their own mouths . . . . . 31 CHAPTER IV. His master's death—Continued efforts for freedom—Love of wife and children—The story of Matt. Harris . . . . . 46 CHAPTER V. Lunsford as a Christian—His religious teachers—Slavery seeking the aid of revelation—An honest religious teacher rebuking the slave-holders—Does not bear the light of history . . . . . 63 CHAPTER VI. His continued prosperity—Negotiates for the purchase of wife and children —Dark days—The slave-holder on his track—The cruel statute— Petitions the legislature—Fails in obtaining mercy—Darker days . . . . . 81 CHAPTER VII. New trials—Arrested in Baltimore by kidnappers—His defence—Trial before Judge Shane—Lawyer Walch—A friend in need—The land-sharks lose their prey—A conversation about matters of fact . . . . . 101 CHAPTER VIII. His mission to the North successful—Proceeds to Raleigh with family—Is seized—His trial—Honorable discharge—The mob, like hounds, pant for his blood—An eventful night—Tar and feathers—The home of freedom at length reached . . . . . 137 CHAPTER IX. Mr. Smith's pecuniary engagements —Various incidents in a Southern pastor's life—Shooting a slave —A sad funeral—The plantation near Tarboro'—Improvidence of slaves—Close of Lunsford's life in the South . . . . . 162 CHAPTER X. The rescued household on the soil of freedom—Attends the May anniversaries in New York and Boston—Addresses the anti-slavery convention —Is well received—Employed as lecturer—Removes to Oberlin, Ohio —Oberlin rescue case, and others . . . . . 174 CHAPTER XI. Practises the healing art—Dr. Lane's vegetable pills—His parents join him—Their quiet life at Wrentham —Their death—Lunsford's connection with the colored Baptist Church in Joy Street, Boston—Interesting documents . . . . . 194 CHAPTER XII. The Rebellion of slave-holders—Lunsford lectures on the subject &What shall be done with the freedmen?—The Wellington Hospital &Appointed as steward—Alacrity of colored men to aid the government—Their policy—Mr. Whiting's letter—The testimony of history on the subject of the employment of negroes in war . . . . . 202 CHAPTER XIII. The children of Lunsford entering the ranks of the loyal host for Union and Freedom—The Fifty-fourth Regiment of Massachusetts Colored Volunteers—Their organization and departure—Speeches of Gov. Andrew and Col. Shaw—Their eventful history on the field—Their bravery in the conflict—Their patient suffering in the hospitals at Beaufort—the question settled, the “negro” will fight . . . . . 218 CHAPTER XIV. The scene changed—Washington, N. C., in 1863—Enrolment of freedmen—Contrabands, and what to do with them—Dr. Stone's account—The progress of enlistment—The government makes provision for their support—“The poor white trash”—The labors of Gen. Thomas . . . . . 244 CHAPTER XV. The contrabands—What to do, and how to employ them—Report of government commissioners—Report of emancipation league—A plan for their colonization and support on Roanoke Island—What they have done In Liberia they may do better here—The darky making himself comfortable . . . . . 259 CHAPTER XVI. Prejudice against African race considered—The New York mob and the sufferings of the negro—Burning of the Colored Orphan Asylum—Notes of personal outrages—Conduct of the British Consul-General— Advice of the great O'Connell . . . . . 271 CHAPTER XVII. News from the old folks at home—Letter from Memphis, Tenn.—Lunsford at school—Visit of Layfayette to Raleigh—Lunsford noticed by him—Lafayette's opinions—The lyceum at the Mineral Spring—The negro debaters—The freedmen at Port Royal, as seen by a writer in the Atlantic Monthly . . . . . 280 MEMOIR OF LUNSFORD LANE. CHAPTER I. “Our fellow countrymen in chains! Slaves in a land of light and law! Slaves crouching on the very plain Where rolled the storm of Freedom's war! Oh! rouse ye, ere the storm comes forth— The gathered wrath of God and man— that which wasted Egypt's earth When hail and fire above it ran. Hear ye no warnings in the air? Feel ye no earthquake underneath? Up! Up! why will ye slumber where The sleeper only wakes in death?”

HIS BIRTH, AND THE EARLY STRUGGLES OF CHILDHOOD.

UPON a pleasant afternoon in October, a slave, completing the day's labor some hours sooner than usual, his bosom swelling with emotions peculiar to a man about enjoying his first moment of freedom, when, from being a chattel, he is about to experience the liberty wherewith God and Nature hath made him free! The mansion to which he is heading his weary steps is that of his “mistress,” the widow Haywood, pleasantly situated in the town of Raleigh, N. C. She is entertaining a pleasant company upon the veranda, which extended along three sides of the mansion. The slave approaches cautiously, and seating himself upon one of the steps leading to the veranda, awaits a pause in the happy conversation to introduce his business. Mrs. Haywood was a woman of a churlish temperament and an avaricious spirit. The slave-man at her feet, her superior in mental and in moral endowments, is about to pay her the last instalment of fifty dollars, the wages that his master, before his death, had agreed to take as compensation for his services. “Mistress,” said the slave, in language entirely free from that almost unintelligible jargon of the more ignorant of his race, “I have come to settle the little account which, though of no consequence to you, has been the object of many years of labor and anxiety.” Then, taking from his vest-pocket a roll of notes, he handed them to his mistress, who as yet sat with her back toward him, but deigned to listen for a moment to his story. With a movement almost of hauteur, she reached backward, and taking the money, she hastily conveyed it to her purse. “Mother,” said the daughter who sat near her, in a voice that was caught by the quick ear of the slave, “you promised the children that you would not exact that last payment from Lunsford. You know his faithfulness has been unsurpassed by any slave that you or pa have ever owned. I don't think you did right to take it from him.” “That, child, is a matter in regard to which I need no dictation from you; you had better give your attention to our friends here.” Freed now by the labor of his own hands, an effort of many years, performed during hours of the day and night, when service to his master was not exacted—(in this long period of toil his master died, but being a humane man, left a wish that his widow should adhere to the promise made the slave)—now emancipated from an illegal bondage, Lunsford hastens with joyful steps to the humble cottage where his wife and little ones dwell, but alas! his cup of enjoyment is mingled with sorrow still; for his wife and children are all slaves, and may be separated in a moment when he dreams not of it. “Martha,” said he as he entered, “I am now a freeman, or as free as a man can be in this land where laws in respect to slaves are so uncertain and partial. I cannot describe to you these queer and joyous feelings; none but one who has been a slave can experience such sensations. It seems as though I was in heaven. I shall sleep none this night; big thoughts are crowding themselves upon my soul, and I cannot sleep. How strange, too, these images that possess my mind!—like so many rivers of light; deep and rich are their waves as they roll by me. I am borne up as if on eagles' wings. These tears, too, are as rich as the emotions that call them forth. These are more to me than sleep, ay, more than soft slumber after months of faithful watching by the bedside of a dying friend. None but him who has passed from spiritual death to life, and has received witness within his soul of God's forgiveness, can possibly have such feeling as mine. It is like the rays of the rising sun just lighting upon the distant mountain-top that open the glories of the expanding heavens. This breaking the bonds of the slave gives to him at once the freedom of the earth and the skies.”

Lunsford Lane, upon whose strange history in his struggles for freedom we are now entering, was a man of no ordinary gifts and endowments. God had stamped upon his face not only the imprint of honesty, but great natural intelligence, with a soul big enough to comprehend the great boon of liberty, and the zeal and wisdom to obtain it. His name, like that of most slaves, has a curious origin, derived from his master or from some trivial circumstance, or from the whim of the owner. The territory upon which the town of Raleigh stands—but now a city and the capital of North Carolina—was once owned by Joel Lane, who settled early in the State, and brought with him a number of slaves; among these was the father of Lunsford and his wife and his sister, who derived their name from that of the master. Later in the history of the settlement, John Haywood, with several brothers from near Tarboro, Edgecomb County, removed thither and became interested in the increasing prosperity of the capital. At Lane's death, his estate is left in the hands of Mr. Haywood for settlement, and at the auction at which the goods and chattels are disposed of, he purchases the father and family of Lunsford, who is their only child. Mr. Haywood was for more than forty years the State Treasurer, and of course cultivated only the best society in the State. His house was frequented by men of taste and cultivation; the slave Lane and his son, who were both selected for house-servants and waiters, had thus rare opportunities for acquiring information; and such was their intelligence and smartness that each new-comer at the mansion had only words of praise to speak of their fitness for the position they each so well filled. Among these guests was a Mr. Lunsford Long, entertaining a high opinion for the slave-man and his accommodating child, so much so that he became their friend and benefactor. The father, desiring to retain remembrance of so kind a man, named the boy Lunsford.

Sherwood Haywood, the owner of this slave family, was a man of considerable respectability and wealth; he was the owner of three plantations in different parts of the State. To reach them he had to travel sometimes seventy-five miles from Raleigh. Two of them were near, and one the distance only of three miles from his city residence. The lot of the child Lunsford was not that of a field-hand, or his condition would have proved most unhappy. His master owned in all about two hundred and fifty slaves; but the child was destined to know but little of the miseries of the plantation, and the hopeless demoralization of unrequited toil.

The apartment where he first saw the light, and where he spent his youth, was a room in the “kitchen,” placed, as is the custom in the South, not far distant from the great house. Here the servants lodged and lived, and here the meals and “common doin's” were prepared for the aristocrats and lords of the mansion.

The occasional visits made by the slave to the plantation were sufficient to inspire a laudable ambition to retain the comfortable quarters at the mansion, rather than share their toil and their degradation. As the object of this narrative is to show what slavery is, even under its best features, there will be no horrid scenes of slave-whippings and tortures and death to recount. TO BE A SLAVE, with a sensitive nature, is sufficient to show that the system possesses no feature to shield it from the scorn and the just execration of mankind. Lunsford passed his childhood as pleasantly as most children who are owned by wealthy and kind masters; his early recollections when a boy are those of playing with the other boys and girls, white and colored, in the ample yard and grounds of the mansion, and occasionally performing such little tasks as one of so tender years could accomplish. In the play and glee of childhood no difference was observed between the master's own children and the boy-slave. If the master passed from his house to his business, he made no difference with the children on the lawn; he seemed to show an equal kindness to all; the cake or the sweetmeat was given with no appearance of favor for his own children,—so it seemed to the slave. As he increased in age, and the life of toil began, the keen wedge of slavery entered, to separate by a continually-increasing distance the tender endearments of childhood. He was a slave, and they were his young masters. The labor required by his master from ten to fifteen was not severe—wood-cutting in the yard in winter, and working in the garden in the summer. At fifteen, the care of his master's pleasure-horses was allotted to him, and at length the honorable position of carriage-driver; this with other light toil occupied the days of summer. As he grew older, he soon discovered the difference between himself and his young masters; his natural intelligence quite equalled, if it did not surpass theirs. He was required to obey them; and to be compelled as their slave to gratify the whims of boys of his own age, was galling in the extreme. “I found, too,” said he to the writer of this narrative, “that they had learned to read, whilst in me it was an offence almost unpardonable to be seen with a book in my hand. There was another sorrow, or rather dread, that took full possession of my soul. I had witnessed on my master's plantations the frequent selling of slaves, to be conveyed to the far South; and the pain of being separated from those who were dear to me rendered me continually unhappy. I knew, too, that others, situated similar to myself, for no crime, had been sold; and the fact, too, that I was considered so faithful a slave, might tempt the many Southern guests at my master's mansion to offer a large price for me. He had now the reputation of being wealthy; but should death suddenly, call him away, I had nothing to hope from his selfish wife. My friends were not numerous; but this made them all the more dear; and the thought of being torn from them haunted me in my hours of sleep. I had conversed with many slaves who had escaped from the rice and cotton plantations of Georgia and Alabama; and the story of their wrongs and exposures added nothing to my happiness.*

* Whilst Lunsford was entirely unacquainted with the almost inhuman laws that prevailed in the more southern States, he had daily evidences in the victims who escaped that it was a land of cruel scourgings and of early deaths.

It is a law of South Carolina, that “In case any person shall wilfully but out the tongue, put out the eyes cruelly, scald, burn, or deprive any slave of any limb, or member, or shall inflict any other cruel punishment, otherwise than by whipping, or beating with a horsewhip, cowskin, switch, or small stick, or by putting on irons, or confining, or imprisoning such slave, every such person, for every such offence, shall forfeit one hundred ponds current money.”And even by the laws of the State in which he lived, as shown in a Manual written by Mr. Haywood, his own master's relative, it is stated, that “Anyperson may LAWFULLY kill a slave who has been OUTLAWED for running away, lurking in swamps, &c.” He had frequently heard advertisements read by the white men who lounged about the stores in Raleigh, especially when slaves were present, and for their benefit,—such statements as these, taken from the Newbern and Wilmington (N. C.) papers:—

“$200 REWARD! Run away from the subscriber, about three years ago, a negro man named Ben. Also, another negro by the name of Rigdon, who ran away on the 8th of this month. I will give $100 reward for each of the above negroes, to be delivered to me, or confined in the jail of Lenoir Co., or for the killing of them, so that I can see them. W. D. COBB.”—Newbern Spectator.

“$100 will be paid to any person who may apprehend a negro man named Alfred. The same reward will be paid for satisfactory evidence of his having been killed. He has one or more scars on one of his hands, caused by his having been shot.”—Wilmington. (N. C.) Advertiser.

It may seem strange that the Southern people would be so unwise as to read such notices to their slaves, and yet we have abundant proof from living witnesses of escaped slaves, that such is the fact.

There was, also, the daily consciousness that I was not free to consult my own will; but always while I lived I was to be under the control of another; this was another bitter added to my cup of sorrow. Indeed, every circumstance that surrounded me made me FEEL what I before only dimly saw,—that I was a slave. The thought burned itself into my very soul, and preyed upon my heart like a never-dying worm. And yet, while I saw no prospect that my state would ever be changed, I strove to keep self-possessed, and employed my mind day and night planning how I might be FREE. I had no complaints to make of a master's cruelty. I believe I was highly prized by the family as their slave. I had good clothing and food. I was even made a companion by the younger members; and if they desired any information in regard to the private affairs of their wealthy neighbors, I found them always eager for the gossip. On this subject, Southern house-servants have a fabulous amount of knowledge. The two senses of seeing and hearing in the slave are made doubly acute by the very prohibition of knowledge. One day, whilst cogitating in mind how I might obtain my freedom, my father gave me a small basket of peaches, and stealing away from the ‘kitchen’ I soon disposed of them for thirty cents, which was the first money I ever possessed as my own in my life. Playing one day with the boys in the street, I won some marbles, and these I afterward sold for sixty cents. Shortly afterward, one of my master's guests from Fayetteville (Mr. Hogg) was so pleased with my attentions as house-servant, that he gave me on leaving one dollar.

“To this, from a similar source, was added another; and my master's son, for some favor done him, gave me fifty cents.

“These sums, though small, appeared large in my estimation; and hope again revived in my bosom that at some future time, by perseverance and economy, I might purchase my freedom. Henceforth I longed for money, and plans for money-making took principal possession of my thoughts. Often at night after my duties at my master's house were performed, I would steal away with my axe upon my shoulder, and get a load of wood to cut for twenty-five cents, and on the next morning would receive a reprimand, and at times barely escape a whipping for the offence. By these continued efforts I at last accumulated twenty dollars.”

He now began, as we learn from his statements, to think seriously of buying himself; and cheered by this hope, he went on from one thing to another, laboring often at “dead of night,” after the long and weary day's task for his master was completed. By this means he accumulated one hundred dollars.

This sum he kept hid sometimes in one place and sometimes in another. He dared not lend it or place it on interest, for fear of exciting suspicion or losing it.

 CHAPTER II. “Come hither, ye, that press your beds of down And sleep not; see him sweating o'er his bread Before he eats it. 'Tis the primal curse, But softened into mercy; made the pledge Of cheerful days and nights without a groan.”

HIS EFFORTS FOR SECURING FREEDOM.

ENCOURAGED by past success, he now economizes every moment of his time, rising long before day and retiring late at night, that he may add something to the concealed sum, consecrated to the purchase of his personal freedom. As yet he dared not speak out, even to his intimate friends, the great thought that burned within him. As steward and waiter in his master's house, he is attentive to all his wishes, and careful in the expenditure of funds placed in his keeping. He was thus intrusted with the purchase of almost every article needed for their daily food.

He would meet the poor farmers long before sunrise, at their places in the market, and make his purchases; he would even gratify the vanity of the family, (the Haywoods,) by a little display in the manner of his trades; these were generous; and such as to convey the idea to by-standers that he was acting for the aristocracy of the town. If chickens were wanted, he ordered them by the dozen. These were carefully placed in coops until consumed. Sometimes he purchased on his own account when salable articles were offered at low prices; these he stored in cellars of merchants of his acquaintance, and furnished to the families of the town as they were needed. In this way he increased the sum which he know would be demanded for his freedom. But his efforts ceased not here. Fortunately for him his duties at his master's mansion were not severe; besides, they admitted of his attendance upon other things during several hours of the day, when his services were not needed. These moments he spent industriously at the various stores in town in arranging their goods upon the sidewalk, and in certain labors that could be performed in the morning or evening without consuming much time. Being famous as a waiter, he was often called upon to attend evening parties, and for his valuable services on such occasions he was liberally compensated. At the season of the year when the Legislature was in session was his greatest harvest. Members having their private rooms at hotels or boarding-houses, were generally waited upon by servants of the wealthy in town who knew how to attend to their wants. Lunsford soon found himself a great favorite; and he know well how to make the best use of his time and talents. The members, though not early risers (except when the fox or the deer hunt was on hand), required his services early in the morning. Their boots were to be polished, their clothes brushed, and the early morning bitters mixed and brought to their bedsides. Mr. Lane declares that intemperance among the members at this period was fearful to contemplate. Few ever retired at night, among the younger members, who were not in some degree intoxicated, and often needing the attentions of these faithful slaves to see them safe in bed. Before leaving Raleigh, however, he had the satisfaction of witnessing the beneficial effects of the great Temperance Reformation of 1840, which swept over the North and the South.

Mr. Lane also furnished the members of the Legislature with their smoking-tobacco, and bad as the habit confessedly is, he succeeded in obtaining considerable gain from this little traffic. His father had taught him a mode of preparing the weed in a style which made it quite agreeable to his customers.

As this tobacco trade subsequently assumed considerable importance in a pecuniary way, it may be well to notice Mr. Lane's statement in reference to it. He says that this mode of preparing smoking-tobacco was quite new; nothing like it had been sold in Raleigh before. It had the twofold advantage of giving the tobacco a peculiar flavor, and of enabling him to manufacture a good article out of a very indifferent material. He improved, he says, upon the suggestion, and commenced the manufacture on a larger scale, doing, as usual, all his work at night. The tobacco he put into papers of about a quarter of a pound each and sold them at fifteen cents. But as the tobacco could not be smoked without a pipe, and as he imagined he had given the former a flavor peculiarly grateful, it “occurred to me that I might so construct a pipe as to cool the smoke in passing through it, and thus meet the wishes of those who are more fond of smoke than heat. This I effected by means of a reed which grows plentifully in that region. I made a passage through the reed with a hot wire, polished it, and attached a clay-pipe to the end, so that the smoke should be cooled in flowing through the stem.” These pipes he sold at ten cents apiece. In the early part of the night he would sell the tobacco and pipes, and manufacture in the latter part. His trade in town and with members of the Legislature, made him somewhat famous, not only in the city, but throughout the State, as a tobacconist. Thus he was able to make even the vices of the Southron to contribute to the one great object of his life,—the securing of his personal freedom.

Perceiving that he was getting on so well in business, he began, slave as he was, to think about taking a wife. The fearful responsibility of such a step he was not in a situation, as yet, to contemplate. His first advances were made, as he says, to a Miss Lucy Williams, a slave of Thomas Devereaux, Esq., an eminent lawyer in the place; but he was destined to fail in the undertaking. Discouraged in his first effort, for a time he had almost determined never to marry. At the end of two or three years this resolution gradually grow less controlling, and he set out again in pursuit of a companion to share his joys and sorrows. Fortunately his choice was a good one. The bargain between Miss Martha Curtis and himself was not long in being completed. He next proceeded to her master, Mr. Boylan, and asked him, according to the loose custom, if he might “marry his woman Martha.” His reply was, “Yes, if you will behave yourself.” “I said I would try.” “And will you make her behave herself?” To this also he assented. “The approbation of my master was granted without difficulty.” So in May, 1828, he was united as fast in the bonds of marriage as any slave can be. He know well that the bond could, at any moment, be severed at the will of either master, the bond not being recognized by the laws of the South. “One year after our marriage we were blessed with a son, and at the end of two with a daughter. In the mean time, in accordance with my fears, my wife had passed from the hands of Mr. Boylan into those of Mr. Benj. B. Smith, a merchant, a member and class-leader in the Methodist Church, and in much repute for his ardent piety and devotion to religion. This I deemed a fortunate circumstance; but I soon found that grace had not touched his nature in the same degree, in giving him a generous heart toward his slave, now my wife, as I had observed in her former kind master, Mr. Boylan. Before, she had sufficient food and clothing to render her comfortable; now I was compelled to draw from my slender resources to make up what was deficient. Mr. Boylan was regarded as a very kind master to all his slaves, especially his house-servants, and I seldom heard complaints of cruelties inflicted upon his field-hands. I had often been informed that the overseer upon his nearest plantation—I knew but little of the others—was a very cruel man, and in one instance, he had been known to whip a man to death; but no notice was taken of this case, and it was easy to persuade the public that his death resulted from some other cause. Still, it was the choice of my wife to pass into the hands of Mr. Smith, as she had become attached to him in consequence of belonging to the same church, and receiving his religious and counsel as her class-leader, and in consequence of the peculiar devotedness to the cause of religion for which he was noted, and which he always seemed to manifest. But, strange as it may seem, as her master, he withheld, both from her and her children, the needful food and clothing whilst he exacted from them, to the uttermost, all the labor they were able to perform. Almost every article of clothing worn either by my wife or children, especially every article of much value, I had to purchase, while the food he furnished the family amounted to less than a meal a day, and that of the coarser kind. I have no remembrance that he ever gave us a blanket or any other article of bedding, although it is considered a rule at the South that the master shall furnish each of his slaves with one blanket a year. So that, both as to food and clothing, I had in fact to support both my wife and the children, while he claimed them as his property and received all their labor.” The reader of this narrative will no doubt think it passing strange how a Christian man could thus impose upon a poor slave, compelling him, in fact, to support his own house-servant, whilst he derived all the value of her labor. Possibly he was aware of her husband's industry, and his readiness in accumulating money, and yet he was still a slave, and their masters are bound by, every legal and moral obligation to provide for their support. But slavery is demoralizing in its influence upon every over which it holds its sway. Let the mind once embrace the heresy that the negro is a chattel, to be bought and sold, with no natural inalienable right to freedom, to own his own labor, and you may readily account for the whole black catalogue of the wrongs that have been inflicted upon the unoffending race. His wife, although a member of the same church to which Mr. Smith belonged, had not even a chance to prove that she was honest in the affairs of the household. Her mistress gave out the articles to be cooked for the table, and watched the food so closely that she always required that it should all be returned. When the table was cleared away, the stern old lady would sit by and see that every dish (except the very meagre amount sent into the kitchen) was put away, then she would turn the key, feeling sure that her slaves would not commit the sin of wasting the bounties of Heaven. This was not precisely so at her former master, Mr. Boylan's, nor at his own. “Corn-bread and some meat were furnished in sufficient amounts to satisfy all the demands of nature, and on this ground I had no complaint to make of my master, Mr. Haywood. I remember, when a boy, it was the habit of the family to set the pot-liquor, in which the meat was boiled for the ‘Great House,’ together with some of the corn-meal balls that had been thrown in before the meat was done, in the centre of the yard; and a clam-shell or pewter spoon was given to each of the children, who gathered around the large tray into which the liquor was poured, and were ravenous as pigs over the delicious fare. The dignified as people of the house would stand upon the piazza and order the more stout and greedy ones to eat slower, that those more young and feeble might have a chance. But even these favors were not allowed by Mr. Smith, kind man as he no doubt considered himself. I soon found that the expense of providing for my wife and children made large inroads upon my scanty earnings. All I had earned, and all I could earn, by my labor at night, was consumed, until I found myself reduced to five dollars, and this I lost while on an errand to the plantation. My bright hopes appeared now almost to vanish; every prop seemed giving way under me. Dark despair possessed my soul, respecting my freedom. I began now to realize the wretchedness of my situation as I had not done before. I was a slave, a husband, the father of two children, a family looking up to me for bread, my wife and her offspring also slaves, and I penniless. I had, too, a well-grounded suspicion that I was watched by master, his wife, and his children, lest I should, perchance, catch the friendly light of the stars, to make something to supply the cravings of nature in those to whom I was bound by most sacred ties. They feared, too, I might be arranging some plan of freedom, by my midnight toil, after the day's labor was over, and they enjoying the hours in pleasure of sleep.

 CHAPTER III.

“I think that no ship of state was ever freighted with a more veritable Jonah than this domestic Institution of ours. Mephistopheles himself could not feign so bitterly, so satirically sad a sight as these four millions of human beings crushed beyond help or hope by this one mighty argument,—OUR FATHERS KNEW NO BETTER. Nevertheless, it is the unavoidable destiny of Jonahs to be cast overboard sooner or later . . . . Let us, then, with equal foresight and wisdom, lash ourselves to the anchor, and await, in pious confidence, the certain result.”

INCIDENTS BY THE WAY—JOURNEY TO WASHINGTON, N.C.—A TROUBLESOME COMPANION—SLAVERY DEFENDED—CONDEMNED OUT OF THEIR OWN MOUTHS.

THE condition of Lunsford, as body-servant and waiter in his master's fine mansion, with an abundance to eat and to drink, and clothed in comfortable raiment, would have made a man less sensitive than himself, happy. The only element lacking in his cup of enjoyment was freedom. He was still a SLAVE. This imbittered every pleasure. The passion for liberty took possession of his whole nature, and he used every moment of leisure, and every device consistent with integrity of character, to secure this end. Even the lavish kindness of his master and the family, of many amiable sons and daughters, who prized him on account of his intelligence, politeness, and amiable deportment, could not divert him from the goal of his desires. One day, calling upon the tailor, Litchford, to be measured for a new suit of clothes,—for it was the custom of his master to send him to the same tailor's at which his own clothes and those of his sons were made,—the patronizing tailor, after securing his measure, speaking of the happiness of his situation compared with that of thousands upon the plantations, said, “I suppose Lane, nothing could induce you to become a free man. You would not take Your freedom if it were offered you. You must be a happy man to be allowed to wear such fine clothes as these, your master has ordered you.” Lane hesitated to reply, revolving in his mind, as to whether the clothes' were not to be used to gratify the pride of the family, in whose presence and that of their fashionable guests they were to be worn, or to administer to his own comfort, and then fearing he might defeat the main object of all his efforts, by intimating that he was anything but happy as the slave of so kind a master, at length replied, “Oh, of course, no person ever had so kind a master as Mr. H. I often think myself very ungrateful (to the Lord, he said mentally) for the favors I receive.” Lunsford had too much sense to excite the ill-will of his master by circulating reports in the community of the unhappiness of his situation; besides, many would say, If Lane is unsatisfied and desires freedom, how can we ever succeed in pacifying this ungrateful race; even food and raiment as good as ourselves and our children wear, are not sufficient; they would turn from the thresholds of their benefactors, and live in poverty that they might be free. Is their freedom so dear that they would purchase it at the expense of enduring physical wretchedness? Those advocates of slavery never go deep enough into the subject to see the powerful incentive of free labor, in securing that undisturbed social happiness, for which every human, being should strive and for which they were made.

On entering the house, Lunsford found the family in a considerable state of pleasant excitement about a visit to Washington,*

* This place is a present held by the U. S. forces. In the siege of Washington, the slaves were found faithful, and assisted the forces greatly.

on the Tar River, and as this was only some fifty miles beyond Mr. Haywood's plantation, near Tarboro', they determined to call upon their return. Mr. H. had two married daughters living at Washington and Mrs. H., with one or more of the unmarried ones, often joined him on these expeditions. Being an ambitious woman, she felt a desire to witness the prosperity of her family abroad; to see how the promising grandchildren of the Haywoods had been benefited by the wise training her own had received, and which ought to be seen in its matured fruits in them; besides, might not Miss Eliza and Miss Lucy be as fortunate as their sisters, and Washington might present inducements leading to their permanent residence. North Carolina did not abound, in those days, in thrifty enterprising villages, located at frequent intervals along its highways, and hence the traveller, when he left his comfortable mansion, left also many of the conveniences of living. The country between Raleigh and the Tar River, and thence to Washington, was by no means thickly settled, and but few comfortable public houses were to be found,—generally at the cross-roads a place called a tavern, where a man might find a night's lodging and fodder for his horse, but beyond this it was in vain for him to look. The Haywoods, however, were old roaders; they had often been over this portion of the State, and hence the character of the preparation they now made. A day or two was given to baking and boiling. The ample basket, made to fit most conveniently under the driver's seat, was filled with boiled tongue and cheese and biscuit and sweet buns, to which was added a flask of brandy, and one of wine,—good scuppernong. This furnished for the inner man, other preparations were speedily completed. Lunsford, as driver, was reinforced by an additional servant-man in Jake, a likely negro, whose heels exhibited almost as much enjoyment as his eyes, at the idea of seeing so much of the country, and then the stock of knowledge gained by the expected adventures was no mean consideration. The family carriage was at length brought to the mansion; and now commenced the process of stowing the luggage necessary for the human freight. Mrs. H. was a woman of large ideas for one of her education, but these ideas were not in the region of metaphysics, or history, or philosophy, but nevertheless she thought she filled a large space in the world, and that many eyes in the town were turned upon her, and she did not wish to disappoint them. If her neighbors did not know that Mrs. H. and daughters were about to leave town in their coach-and-two, attended by four servants, two as driver and attendant, and two as waiting-maids, why, it was not her fault. The carriage had now been waiting over two hours, and it was near nine o'clock before the ladies made their appearance. Its doors had been opened and shut a dozen times by the servants, to add to its contents of eatables. At length they came. “Lunsford,” said Mrs. H., “I hope you have the horses in good condition; take us through the town at a brisk pace.” It was a pleasant day in October, and the weather at that season in the South is warm and genial, and Nature seems as yet to have had no thought of disrobing herself for the long slumber of winter; the birds were beginning to gather in flocks, and though many flowers had ceased to bloom, many new candidates were demanding our attention and inviting us to enjoy their delicious odors. The Haywoods were in the habit of patronizing only one public house, on their frequent journeyings to Washington, and this house was kept by Jake Wilson, whose ideas, it is true, were not quite up to those of the proprietors of the Astor or the St. Nicholas, yet his intentions were the best in the world, and I suppose his taste was good for the locality. But the Haywoods had no intention of eating in his house; they only desired to stretch their limbs and rest for the night. They had taken care that provender for the inner man was not lacking, though they might desire some for their horses and the chattels. Besides, Wilson's house was convenient, as it was reached at the close of a day's drive, at a cross-road forty miles on their way.

After Mrs. H. and daughters had retired to their rooms, Lunsford and Jake, wrapped in their blankets, threw themselves, in the more democratic style, on the floor near the kitchen fire, not far from the landlord's dog and cat, which had already composed their limbs to sleep. Bright and early the party set out on the following morning, and by three in the afternoon reach their destination. Of course there was the usual amount of kissing; and the little ones jumped up and down at the bare hint of the presents yet unloaded from the ample box of the carriage. Washington, in those days, was the seat of considerable trade with the North. The cotton and corn and bacon of the rich region bordering upon the Tar River was floated down to this point and then sent to New York in vessels, by way of Pamlico Sound. But slavery, which has blighted all the South, has smothered all enterprise and kept it an inferior village, when its position would, had it enjoyed the enterprise of free labor, have made it a thriving city. Mrs. H. was, therefore, a great accession to the society of the place, and her arrival would have been announced the village paper, had there been one. The three days of her stay was enough to satisfy her that things were not going very badly, and she hastened her departure so that she might have some time to visit the plantations on the way home. On the evening before they were to leave, a few friends bad been invited in by the daughters, and among them Mr. Jaquith, from the North, who had been for several years engaged in teaching in the place; and, although he had married the daughter of one of his patrons, he had not lost any of his aversion to slavery. In the course of the conversation, which turned upon the subject of slavery, he was contrasting the thrift and enterprise of Northern towns and villages with the lack of the same qualities to be found in Slave States. Here the soil and climate were far superior; and, “if free, requited labor were only added, what a paradise should we behold,” said he, in reply to the remarks of Mrs. H. “Ah, madam! within the pestilential atmosphere of slavery, nothing succeeds. Progress and prosperity are unknown; inanition and slothfulness ensue; everything becomes dull, dismal and uncomfortable; wretchedness and desolation stand or lie in bold relief throughout the land; and an aspect of most melancholy inactivity and dilapidation broods over every city and town; and ignorance and prejudice sit enthroned over the minds of the people.”

“Why, Mr. Jaquith, you perfectly astonish me by the extravagance of these remarks, and had you not married a Southern lady, you would be in danger of a coat of tar and feathers.”

“Yes, madam, the best argument I suppose you capable of replying. Had I time, I could produce abundant testimony from Southern statesmen and others, all concurring in the view I have given of the institution. Not many years since, Thomas Marshall stated in the Virginia Legislature, that ‘Slavery is ruinous to the whites. It retards improvement, roots out an industrious population, banishes the yeomanry of the country, deprives the spinner, the weaver, the smith, the shoemaker, the carpenter of employment and support.’”

“I admit that Judge Marshall held many very unsound opinions on the subject, but you will find few Southerners of much ability or reputation agreeing him.”

“In the Virginia Convention held not many years since, where this whole subject was discussed, many of Virginia's ablest sons did not hesitate to utter the honest convictions of their minds in regard to the ruin which slavery was bringing upon the land.

“The Hon. C. F. Mercer there declared—but I will give you his very words;” and taking from the library the volume of the reports of the Virginia Convention of 1829, he read the following words from Mr. Mercer's speech:—“‘As I descended the Chesapeake the other day, I thought of the early descriptions of Virginia by the followers of Raleigh and Smith, and I said to myself How much it has lost of its primitive loveliness! Does the eye dwell with most pleasure on its wasted fields, or its stunted forests of secondary growth of pine and cedar? Can we dwell but with mournful regret on temples of religion sinking into ruin, and those spacious dwellings whose doors, once opened by the hand of liberal hospitality, are now fallen upon their portals or closed in tenantless silence? Except on the banks of its rivers, the march of desolation saddens this once beautiful country. The cheerful notes of population have ceased. The wolf and wild-deer, no longer scared from their ancient haunts, have descended from the mountains to the plains. They look on the graves of our ancestors and traverse their former paths.’”

“Now, Mr. Jaquith, you know that is only the rhetorical flourish of a politician, who was speaking to gratify some of his Western Virginia friends; and you know the western part of that State is of comparatively recent settlement, and has had no chance to experience the blessing and the wealth of slavery.”

“And I trust, madam, in her further settlement and progress she never will. But I will read you one other opinion of a young and rising statesman, C. J. Faulkner, who was a member of the Virginia Legislature in 1832. I have the volume here; he says, ‘If there be one who believes in the harmless character of this institution, let him compare the condition of the slaveholding portion of this commonwealth, barren, desolate, and seared as it were by the avenging hand of Heaven, with the descriptions we have of this country from those who first broke its soil. To what is the change ascribable? Alone to the withering and blasting effects of slavery; to that vice in the organization of society by which one-half of its inhabitants are arrayed in interests and feeling against the other half. Let me refer the incredulous to the two States of Kentucky and Ohio. No difference of soil, no diversity of climate, no diversity in the original settlement of those two States, can account for the remarkable disproportion in their national advancement. Separated by a river alone, they seem to have been purposely and providentially designed to exhibit in their future histories the difference which necessarily results from a country free from the curse of slavery, and a country afflicted with it. The same may be said of the two States of Missouri*

* At the time of this present writing, Missouri, having passed through a baptism of blood, is about abolishing slavery, in which Congress may grant aid to the amount of $20,000,000.

and Illinois.’ But I have one other testimony which should certainly have great weight with all Southerners. George Washington,**

** See Mrs. L. Maria Child's tract on the Patriarchal Institution.

 in a letter to Sir John Sinclair, speaks of the exhausted condition of land in Maryland and Virginia, particularly in the vicinity of Mount Vernon, where plantations were not worth more than five dollars an acre. He states that the price of land in Pennsylvania averaged more than twice that amount, giving as a reason, that emigrants were attracted thither ‘because there are in Pennsylvania laws for the gradual abolition of slavery, which neither Maryland nor Virginia have at present; but which nothing is more certain than that they must have, and at a period not remote.’ You and I have lived to see slavery abolished in Pennsylvania, and the wealth and enterprise of its citizens far surpassing her neighbors, Maryland and Virginia. The day of North Carolina's deliverance must come, and let us pray that it may not come in blood!”

At this moment, Lunsford entered and said, “I beg your pardon, mistress, for interrupting your conversation but as we are to leave early in the morning on our journey homeward, I came to ask if you have any special orders about preparations for leaving?”

“No, Lunsford; you have always carried us safely through, so far, and I shall leave matters wholly in your hands; see that the other servants retire early, and have us all up by five.”

Mr. Jaquith, as he looked at Lunsford and saw his fine form, his ease and grace of manner, his intelligence, and correct use of language, said to himself, “This man is out of his place; Nature has endowed him with rare abilities; and as a freeman, with a Northern education, he might rise to eminence, and bee become a deliverer of his race.” Bidding good-evening to his friends, he wended his way homeward, reflecting upon the selfishness of human nature in cherishing sins certain in the end to defeat the object of life's battle,—the securing of happiness.

The sun was just creeping over the hills as Lunsford, with the ladies, drove out of the town; the slaves were just departing from their cabins to the fields to enter upon the day's labor. As they stopped at the first watering-place to rest the horses a moment, they were overtaken by a cousin of the young ladies, who owned a farm near Tarboro'. As Mrs. H. and the two daughters had no gentleman in their party, (though they felt perfectly safe in the hands of their trusty slaves,) Mr. Galt insisted upon making one of the party as far as Wilson's tavern, though this would take him some twenty miles out of his way. Mr. Galt had been to Washington to recover a runaway man-servant, whom he found secured in prison, awaiting the owner's call.

The man was strongly bound, both hands and feet, and tied to the back seat of his dog-wagon;—a style of vehicle quite fashionable in England among the gentry, the hinder portion being arranged for the conveyance of their dogs when in the chase.

Although Mrs. Haywood did not quite relish the idea of Mr. Galt and his bound slave in their party upon the public highway, their relationship forbade her intimating in his presence anything but pleasure at their good fortune in securing his company; but he had no sooner fallen behind a short distance than she said in very decided terms, in which she was overheard by the servants on the box, “I wish Galt and his runaway, had followed their own way, and not troubled us with their company; many people will think I have been to Washington on the mean errand of slave-catching.” Now, Mrs. Haywood, who felt so badly in this particular case, would have had no objection, had any slave of hers escaped, to having him brought home under almost any other circumstances than the present. But as it could not be helped, they conversed as pleasantly as their relative positions in the two vehicles would admit. About noon they arrived at a spring by the roadside, which sent up into the bright sunlight its double columns of refreshing water. This was a place famous to travellers and pedestrians, who were in the habit of spreading their repast here, in the shade of the adjacent grove. While Lunsford and the man Jake attended to the horses, the maid-servants brought out the basket of fried chicken and other inviting refreshments and spread them upon the ground. Mr. Galt, leaving his wagon in Lunsford's care by the roadside, had joined the party, and was busily engaged in doing the honors of the rural board; and so interested had he become in the gossip of his fair cousins that he had for the time forgotten the runaway. Lunsford and Jake, up to this time, had not interchanged a word with the bound negro; and yet the language of the eyes and certain gestures had established very satisfactory relations between them. At intervals the slave was observed bending his head in the direction of his hands and feet, and apparently using his teeth. At last, after no little effort, his hands are freed, and in a moment the cords are loosed; and with no apparent alarm or perturbation of mind, he quietly steps from the wagon and joins the servants, Lunsford and Jake, who are hidden from the party in the grove by the family carriage.

“Mr. Galt,” at length said Mrs. Haywood, “you have a troublesome negro there, I suppose; what is his fault?”

“Fault! why, this is the third time the rascal has run away; and it is only nine months since I purchased him in Washington, where, I understand, he has a wife and several children. I have almost made up my mind never to buy a married negro again; but, notwithstanding that, I intend to teach him to remain in his place. By the way, I must keep an eye on him, or he will be up to some trick.”

He stepped into the road, and finding his man untied, and standing composed by Lunsford and the rest, restrained the outburst of rage which prudence told him to repress until he had secured his chattel. Approaching them, he said,—

“Well, Isaac, whose work is this,—yours or these d—d city negroes?”

“Massa, I done it myself; Lunsford nor none of the res' didn't do nuffin 'bout it.”

The negro was a powerful fellow, and appeared completely self-possessed; but there was a meaning in his look which seemed to say, “You must keep your hands off;” besides, a dense wood was on either side of the road, and in an instant he could elude pursuit.

“Now, Isaac, I regret that I am compelled to treat you in this way, and I want you to promise me that you will behave yourself in future, and return to your work.”

“I have always done my work, massa; but I must be allowed to see my wife, and children sometimes, and the overseer says I shall not. I only want to go once a month.”

“Well, what are you going to do now?”

“I am going back to Washington” (some twenty miles distant) “and see how my family is; for the officers cotched me jus' as I git in town, and lock me in de prison.”

“Well,” said his master, “it is now Wednesday; and I will give you until Monday morning to see them and return to the plantation; you must be there in season to go into the field with the other hands.”

Isaac escapes upon much easier terms than he had expected; and yet this involved a journey afoot of over fifty miles,—twenty to Washington and thirty to his master's,— a part to be performed on Sunday, during the shades of the night; and yet he left, or was about to do so, in a very happy state of mind.

“Mr. Galt,” said Miss Haywood, who had now joined them in the road, “you have forgotten that your man needs something to eat with such a journey before him; let the servants bring him something; run, Jane, and get him some meat and bread.”

“Well, cousin, since you wish it; but really, the scamp deserves to find his own food, since he has voluntarily left the quarters I have provided him.”

Mr. Galt, finding a long afternoon's ride before him, determined to leave his cousins at this point, and, jumping into his wagon, he bade them good-by, and turned off by a cross-road to his plantation near Tarboro'.

Lunsford and the party reached “Wilson's” as the sun was sinking behind the distant hills, pleased to accept of the poor accommodations of this poverty-stricken inn-keeper. The relaxation from their confined position in the carriage was refreshing indeed and the accommodating landlord brought out chairs,—rude ones, it is true,—and placed them upon the rickety veranda. The cooling breeze was refreshing to the weary travellers, and the limpid stream that meandered gently by seemed almost to incite them to slake their thirst at its edge. The lingering sunbeams were just leaving a golden tinge in the sky.

“What a delightful evening, mother,” said one of the daughters; “this is what I love,— ‘I love the balmy air of eve,With dewy tears and zephyr sighs;It doth the ruffled wind relieve,And soothes the spirit ere it flies.’ I love, too, the humming and chirping of these multitudinous insects in the wood. Their time comes when the busy works of man have ceased, and slumber closes his eyelids; their chirping seems to put me to sleep immediately.”

“Lunsford,” said Mrs. H., when he returned from the stable, “we must be off early in the morning. I am anxious to reach home early in the afternoon, or Mr. Haywood will be uneasy; I wrote him that he might expect us early.”

“Yes, mistress, I think you may rely upon me.”

By three in the afternoon of the following day, the carriage of the Haywoods was rattling its way over the rough pavements of Raleigh; and Lunsford landed his charge in safety at the open door of the mansion, into which Mr. H. welcomed his returning family.

 CHAPTER IV. “‘Slavery's a thing thet depends on complexion, It's God's law thet fetters on black skins don't chafe; Ef brains was to settle it (horrid reflection!) Wich of our onnable body'd be safe?’ Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he, Sez Mister Hannegan Afore he began agin, ‘Thet exception is quite oppertoon,’ sez he.” See Debate in U. S. Senate. “Hold, while ye may, your struggling slaves, and burden God's free air With woman's shriek beneath the lash, and manhood's wild despair; Cling closer to the ‘cleaving curse,’ that writes upon your plains The blasting of Almighty wrath against a land of chain.”

HIS MASTER'S DEATH—CONTINUED EFFORTS FOR FREEDOM—LOVE OF WIFE AND CHILDREN—THE STORY OF MATT. HARRIS.

AN event now occurred which cast great gloom over the prospects of many of his fellow-slaves. Their master died. Mr. Lane and the numerous retinue of men-servants and women-servants in the household and upon the plantations felt a degree of security in their position, and in their social relations while Mr. Haywood lived. Many of them had families, and some a numerous offspring. Being in repute a man of great wealth and of kind disposition, they had little fear of those heart-rending separations from home and kindred that they had observed upon many of the neighboring plantations. They never dreamed that his sudden death might change every pleasing prospect, and put out in darkness the brightest hopes of life. His widow, by his will, became the sole executrix of his large property. To the surprise of all, the bank, of which he had been cashier for many years, presented a claim against the estate of forty thousand dollars. By a compromise, the particulars of which it is unnecessary to mention, this sum was reduced to twenty thousand dollars. To meet this, several plantations, together with all their live stock of men and cattle, had to be sold. Some of her best and most trusty slaves were hired out. To Lunsford's great joy, he succeeded in hiring his own time from his mistress, for which he agreed to pay a price varying from one hundred to one hundred and twenty dollars per annum.

This was indeed a privilege which comparatively few slaves at the South enjoy, inasmuch as it is in violation of the laws of the State,—a slave having no legal right to make a contract of this kind which would be binding. In Raleigh, it was sometimes winked at. “I knew,” says he, “one slave man who was doing well for himself and for his master, taken up by the public authorities and hired out for the public good, three times in succession.” It was found that the example was injurious upon the other slaves, making them restless and discontented,—this being a quasifreedom stimulates to great industry, and often inspires higher hopes. In many cases, however, if the slave is orderly, gives no intimation of insubordination, and appears to be MAKING NOTHING, neither he nor the master interfered with. “This relation to my mistress made me too happy to think of betraying the confidence now reposed in me.

“I now commenced business for myself, and entered upon the manufacture of pipes and tobacco upon a large scale. I opened a regular place of business,—a humble one, it is true,—and I labelled my tobacco in a conspicuous manner, attaching the names of the proprietors, ‘EDWARD AND LUNSFORD LANE.’ We (my father being in the business with me) pushed the enterprise so far as to establish agencies for the sale in various parts of the State; one at Fayetteville, one at Salisbury, and one at Chapel Hill; the latter place being the seat of the University of North Carolina and of other minor institutions made the place one of considerable importance for the slaves who were ambitious enough to supply the students and the town's people with their homely productions, and receive their pocket-money in exchange.”

The Lanes managed to get their full share, but it is questionable whether the equivalent returned in tobacco and pipes was not greatly to the detriment of the rising generation.

The influence of Father Trask had not as yet extended so far as Raleigh, and his tracts on this important subject would have been but “dead letters” to the mass of the benighted of both colors. He sold these articles also at his own unpretending shop, and about town, and also deposited them in stores on commission. “Thus, after paying my mistress what was considered the full value of my time, and rendering such support as was necessary to my family, I found in the space of some six or eight years I had collected the sum of one thousand dollars; and this was in addition to paying my mistress over one thousand dollars, as stated in the first chapter, for the privilege of laboring for myself, to which God and nature had already given me an inalienable right. Fearful that the accumulation of so much money might prove disastrous to my hopes, should it be known, I deemed it politic, during all this time, to go shabbily dressed, and to appear as poor as possible, but to pay my mistress for my services promptly. My funds I kept hid, never venturing to lend or invest a penny in anything likely to create suspicion; nor did I let any one but my wife know that I was making any.

“Supposing that one thousand dollars was about the amount my mistress would ask for my freedom, I determined what course to pursue. Going to her, I casually asked her price, provided I should desire my freedom. She said she would be satisfied with one thousand dollars. I then frankly told her I greatly desired my freedom, and asked if she was ready to execute the deed, provided I could find some person whom I could trust, by whom the purchase in my behalf could be made.” The reader should remember that no slave has the right, according to Southern laws, to make such a contract, not even to purchase himself. Even the money he had accumulated through those long years of toil belonged to his mistress, and had she been bad enough, she could have compelled him, by law, to transfer, all his possessions, while a slave, to her hands. “I had known instances of slaves who had paid a portion of the money demanded for their freedom, and had yet been cruelly retained in servitude. My mistress, covetous as she was of money, thought too much of her reputation for good breeding to be guilty of so base a piece of injustice.

“One instance of this kind occurred in Raleigh which made a deep impression on me at the time.

“An intelligent and active man-servant, belonging to a neighbor of my master, who bore not the best reputation for honesty in his business relations, was offered his freedom by the payment of eight hundred dollars. He set himself industriously to work; hired his time; went to Chapel Hill; opened a little shop, and after several years of hard toil laid by four hundred dollars, which he took to his master and paid as the first instalment,—one-half of the purchase money. After receiving the money, he informed his slave that he had changed his mind as to his value and the amount to be paid, demanding, as a condition of his freedom, eight hundred dollars, making twelve hundred! The utter hopelessness of his condition at first almost crushed him; finally, the feeling of the unmitigated wrong which he had suffered aroused him to renewed efforts to secure his freedom at all hazards. He procured from his master a pass to trade in different portions of the State and in Virginia; the cupidity of his master induced him to grant it readily; by a series of skilful manœuvres he succeeded in travelling not only through North Carolina and Virginia, but into the Free States; and I had the pleasure several years after of taking him by the hand in the streets of Boston. By the guidance of a kind Providence I was more successful in my present effort, but it was not accomplished without difficulty. I found in my wife's master, Mr. Smith, a man whom I could trust. Upon consulting with Mr. Smith, I determined to give him my money, intrusting him with the negotiation with my mistress; it was determined best, that he should purchase my freedom, holding me nominally as his slave until I could be formally and legally emancipated. The laws forbade emancipation, except in one case, i. e. ‘meritorious conduct,’ and as I could not claim the benefit of this exception the effort was fruitless. I made personal application to the court, but it was judged that I had done nothing ‘meritorious;’ and thus I remained the slave of Mr. Smith for one year, when, feeling unsafe in that relation, I accompanied him to New York, whither he was going to purchase goods, and there I was legally and in due form made a FREEMAN, and there my manumission is recorded. I returned with Mr. Smith to Raleigh, where I hoped to live in peace in the society of my family and friends, and to care for my little household as a freeman should. I had known in mental agony, that I cannot describe, what it was to be a slave, and I was in a condition to know what it was to be FREE.”

The change in the condition of Mr. Lane, from that of former privations, was indeed great; the long season of toil and waiting issued at last into an exuberant joy. Though the road he had trodden was not so thorny as that of many of his fellow-slaves, yet he felt himself most happy at escaping the possibilities of his situation.

In speaking of this portion of his life, he declares to the present writer, “I do not desire to dwell upon its dark features, but upon those portions of my path where the light of God's good providence was permitted to stream. His goodness had followed me from infancy; and at length I was conducted quite out of the abyss of bondage. Cowper's beautiful words seemed well suited to express my feelings as I turned my eyes upon the past:— ‘When all thy mercies, O my God,My rising soul surveys,Transported with the view, I'm lostIn wonder, love, and praise.’ I had endured what a freeman of the North would have called hard usage; but my lot upon the whole had been a favored one as a slave. It is known that there is a wide difference in the situations of what are termed house-servants and plantation-hands. I, though sometimes employed upon the plantation, belonged to the former, which is the favored class. My master was esteemed a kind and humane man, and in almost every respect I fared differently from the many poor slaves, whose sorrows in life I knew well, some of them hopelessly confined to the plantation, with not enough food, and that little of the coarsest kind, insufficient to satisfy the gnawing of hunger; compelled oftentimes to steal away in the night season, when worn down with excessive labor, and appropriate such things as they could lay their hands upon, and privately devour them in their cabins; made to feel the rigors of bondage with no cessation; torn away sometimes from the few friends whom they dared to love, friends doubly dear because they were few; at times transported to a climate where, in a few years they die, and then borne without ceremony, and with few mourners, to their last resting-place beneath the sod, the burial-place being a corner of a field upon the master's plantation, which before many years will be ploughed and sown and reaped as other acres. It is true, at times, in the cool evening, and even during the hours of toil, the air is enlivened by a merriment which, even in its rude style, serves to mitigate the sorrows of their lot. Such I knew to be the fate of plantation slaves generally, but such was not mine, and I thanked God and took courage. My way was comparatively far happier, and, what is better, led to freedom. God had given me great powers of endurance and a disposition to labor. My wife and children were still with me, and to live for them was a pleasure. After my master's death, my mistress, it is true, sold a number of her slaves from their families and friends, but not me. Children were torn from their parents, but mine were with me still. Two husbands had been sold from their wives, but I was still unvisited with this sorrow. One wife was sold from her husband, but mine was still left to comfort me. With me, and in my humble home, the tender tendrils of the heart still clung to where they had entwined,—like the pleasant vine that clung about the entrance to our cabin, its shade and its fruits were delicious to our taste. Still we know and we felt that we were slaves, and did not venture to peer into the future.”

The compiler of this biography, having been born in the South and well acquainted with the institution of slavery and the many circumstances which lead to the separation of families, can well account for the undisturbed relation of Lunsford Lane in this respect. It is true that the strong attachment to home and family he evinced does not pertain to a majority of the slaves, though the institution is responsible for all this. Where families are to be separated due consideration is made in regard to those where this family attachment is not strong; these may be sold first. In this respect there is a fearful laxity of morals, the immediate result of slavery. And yet thousands are governed by very high and pure motives and attachments, and when the master can, he hesitates to sever ties of so sacred a kind. But in many instances even humane masters have no control over their property, and in more instances the barbarism of slavery has crushed in their hearts the emotions of humanity.

The writer, who has quite an extensive acquaintance in some of the Southern States, is convinced, allowing for the difference in social condition and education, that the attachment and strength of moral obligation exhibited in the colored race, free and slave, are as strong as they are to be found anywhere.

In instances where the tie is uncommonly strong, and an attempt is made to separate the family, we have witnessed the most heroic efforts, on the part of slaves, to prevent the occurrence of so dreadful an event. The history of Lunsford Lane and of others could be adduced.

The following narrative has recently been published, and as the writer was personally conversant with the facts, the reader may rely upon their entire truthfulness and fidelity. It was communicated to a friend in Massachusetts by the surgeon of the U. S. ship R. R. Cuyler, and occurred in connection with her duty in the blockade of Mobile.*

* See the Weekly Massachusetts Spy for July, 1863.

“A few days ago, I happened to be talking with—— ——, who, though absolutely loyal, is a born Kentuckian, and a firm believer in the blessings of the ‘peculiar institution.’ He was telling me how, on many of the large plantations, chaplains were employed to attend to the spiritual condition of the hands.

“ ‘Still,’ said I, ‘they would like to have a right to their own children, I suppose.’

“ ‘Oh,’ he answered, ‘you refer to the separation of families. Now I can tell yon that I never knew that to be done, unless the person sold had been convicted of some crime which would send him to a common jail. Ten years ago, when my uncle proposed to move to Missouri, many of his male slaves had wives owned on adjoining plantations. He said to them that if they could find some one to give a nominal price for them, he should be glad to have them; to which they answered that they did not wish to leave him. “But what will you do about your wives?” he asked; and they answered, “Oh, never mind dem; find plenty more out dar.” So you will find it,’ said——; ‘they do not think so much of these things as we do.’

“ ‘You did not find it so with Matt. Harris,’ I answered.

“ ‘Oh, well; he is one of ten thousand. I don't know many white men who would do as he did.’

“It seems to me that the story of the adventures of Matt. Harris deserves all the praise that this gentleman awards it; and though it may be difficult to describe all the obstacles that he met and overcame, so that you at that distance will fully comprehend them, I hope to set them before you with sufficient plainness to command your attention and respect. Matt. Harris was born the slave of a man living a few miles above Mobile, and has always worked for him on a flat-boat, running between his saw-mill and the city. He is now about thirty-five years of age, and a free mulatto. There is nothing African about his features, except his complexion; and his thin, straight nose, full, prominent brow, with a certain breadth of skull through the head in front of the ears, convey to my mind evidences of considerable mental capacity.

“On the ninth of April this man came off to the Colorado, with another, in an open boat. They represented that they were three days lying in wait around the ‘Point,’ before they dared to come off, and that they were a week getting down the river. In the course of a day or two they were transferred to this vessel, and I improved the first favorable opportunity to speak with Matt. about his history, intentions, and prospects. In answer to questions, he told me there was little to eat around Mobile, which poor people could buy; that he did not run away from work, of which he says he was not afraid; that all the slaves around Mobile had heard of the President's Proclamation, but did not know how it could help them, and that his only idea in coming out was to got some place where he could work and get enough to eat. I asked him how he knew that we should not send him back, or misuse him? He said that about three months before, Jesse had come out in the same manner, and after staying in the fleet some time, had suddenly disappeared after the vessel went to Pensacola for coal. Suddenly he reappeared in Mobile among his friends, with a most doleful story of his sufferings. He had been beaten, starved, nearly drowned, and was glad to get back with his life. Jesse's story was published in the papers around Mobile, and Jesse himself went on a kind of missionary tour among the discontented of his people, to tell them what he had suffered. But when he could choose his audience, he told his people that he was perfectly well used, and when he could manage to get his wife away be would go again, and ‘not come back no mo'.’

“The first accurate information in regard to the river defences and obstructions came from Matt. Harris. The number of guns, rams, gunboats, the armament, draught of water, fighting capacity of the latter two, the water in the various channels, the name, stowage, capacity, and rate of sailing of different blockade runners, the names of different vessels which have been in Mobile in years past,—on all these subjects he has answered hundreds of questions, put in many cases by persons who were acquainted with the facts, and anxious to prove him unreliable, in a manner so straightforward, unhesitating, and reasonable, that I have never heard any man pretend to doubt his perfect accuracy. Above all, he has the rare grace of not pretending to know what he does not; and it has often amused me to see with what delightful firmness he refuses to infer anything that he does not know. Toward the last of April we went to Pensacola for coal, passing, on our way up, a burning blockade-runner, near the entrance of Perdido River, about ten miles west of Pensacola Light.

“The first day after our arrival, all hands had liberty to take a run ashore; and at night all were present or accounted for except Matt. The last that was seen of him was about noon, when he was sitting on a log talking with one of his color, who lives at Warrenton. I kept hoping, up to the last moment, that he would return, and justify the good opinion that was formed of him; but at the end of three days we went back to the fleet, and Matt. was reported as a deserter. Now copperheadism was jubilant. Never a man among them but was sure of his being a spy, who had come out with such a story as the rebels instructed him to tell, and now had gone back with accurate news from the fleet and the navy yard.

“‘I suspected that fellow from the first,’ said the chaplain of the Colorado. ‘I noticed that he would drop his eyes when I looked at him;’ which we must admit was quite conclusive.

Thus things remained until the eighth of May, when soon after daylight, the officer of the watch saw an open boat coming out from Sand Island, about one-third of the way over to Fort Morgan. Soon, with a glass, he saw a little child sitting in the after-part, and quickly after, a man and a woman pulling the boat along with not over-skilful strokes. They headed directly for this vessel, and just after sunrise came upon our deck,—Matt. Harris, wife, and female child fifteen months old. The boat was very rickety, nearly half-full of water, and badly fitted in regard to oars; but they managed to get off their clothing in two trunks, and considerable bed-clothing. The captain gave them a little room upon the upper deck, and before nine o'clock the little one was munching a piece of sweet-cake at her mother's knee, while Matt. had gone to his work again.

“He intended to try this thing ever after he got aboard this vessel. To only one man did he reveal his plan, and he kept the secret. Matt. watched by the sentry at the west gate of the navy yard, until he saw him nodding at his post, and then slipped out by him. He bought six pounds of ship-bread in Warrenton, and at night took the road for Mobile. He walked in the road until morning and then took to the woods which skirt the Perdido River, intending to cross at Unis's Ferry, about fifteen miles from the mouth of the river. But he got lost in the woods, and by mistake turned toward Pensacola again, crossed his track, and at night came to the river close to the seashore. Turning back again, he went along his yesterday's route and missing the path to Unis's Ferry, passed five miles beyond, and at last came to the river at Holcomb's Ferry. It was fortunate that he did so; for if he had tried to cross at Unis's he would have been arrested by a guard detailed by the rebels for arresting runaways at that point. At Holcomb's he found a skiff, in which he paddled over, and immediately on landing found himself surrounded by a patrol guard, who were very anxious to know his business. He told them that he was a free man, that he had been engaged in running the blockade, that he got through twice, that the last time his vessel had got driven ashore at Perdido and burnt, that he had lost his papers, been imprisoned in the navy yard, had escaped, and was now on his way back to Mobile. (Here were just as many lies as there are commas in the sentence, Matt., and I hope the recording angel will not put them down against you.)

“The soldiers let him go and he went directly up to the house of the keeper of the ferry. To him he told the same story, but not with quite the same success, for the man insisted that he should stay there that night, and in the morning go to the colonel commanding in the district and get a pass, if all right, as he told him not even a white man could travel without a pass. Matt. was obliged to consent, though discovery stared him in the face, and he lay down to rest with a heavy heart. There was only one expedient. He lay down quietly until he knew his friend was asleep, and then rising, noiselessly crept to the shore, and taking the horse of the man, rode rapidly toward Mobile. (Theft, Matt!) He rode until morning, and then turning his horse took to the woods again. In the course of the day he saw, in a muddy place, dog-tracks, a common thing enough, but to him, it meant blood-hounds, pursuit, capture, perhaps death. Most of that day was spent without walking; much of the time standing in running water. At night he managed to find out in what direction the dogs would run the next day, and then took the trail again.

“Thus he was five days going the forty miles between Pensacola and Mobile, arriving on Friday night. He immediately communicated with his wife (the only person who saw him, except the boy who told him about the dogs), and made arrangements to start on the next Tuesday night. The days of the intervening time were spent in the marshes opposite the city, and the nights with his wife in the city. Tuesday night, at half-past ten, they dropped down the current, and from that time they slowly worked their way down the river at night, lying concealed in the day-time. They lived, during the time, upon bread that they had bought before starting, and upon cold boiled chicken which she had laid in. Three times, as the day came on, and they sought a place of refuge, he took her on his back and bore her through the water to the land. And after all, this poor woman, well advanced in pregnancy, took an oar and helped her husband in his last struggle for liberty.

“Matt. is now about this ship. Hardly a day passes in which our captain does not call him from his work to got some advice in relation to the harbor; and I often think his conduct, Kentuckian born as he is, puts some of us Free-State men to the blush. The wife and baby are at Pensacola, comfortably settled, and this little family seem at last to have begun to live. Matt.'s term of service expires with the commission of the ship, (he has been offered and has refused his discharge from the commodore since his return), and if he remains by her until she comes North, I will try and bring him to Worcester, that you may judge whether he is a trustworthy man.”

 CHAPTER V. “What, ho! our countrymen in chains! The whip on WOMAN'S shrinking flesh! Our soil yet reddening with stains, Caught from her scourging warm and fresh! What! mothers from their children riven! What! God's own image bought and sold! AMERICANS to market driven, And bartered as the brute far gold! Shall every flap of England's flag Proclaim that all around are free, From “farthest Ind.” to each blue crag That beetles o'er the Western sea? And shall we scoff at Europe's kings, When freedom's fire is dim with us, And round our country's altar clings The damning shade of Slavery's Chains?”

LUNSFORD AS A CHRISTIAN—HIS RELIGIOUS TEACHERS—SLAVERY SEEKING THE AID OF REVELATION—AN HONEST RELIGIOUS TEACHER REBUKING THE SLAVEHOLDER—DOES NOT BEAR THE LIGHT OF HISTORY.

THUS far but little has been said of Lunsford's religious character. It will be seen that he was a man of a deeply religious nature; his piety was ardent and sincere, but he had to encounter many things which in a person of weaker mind and less natural reverence for holy things, would have made him reckless and defiant of all efforts at his improvement. In religious matters he chose to be free, and nobly did he vindicate in his life the religion of his Saviour, in his efforts to impress the precepts of the Bible upon his brethren in bonds. He had never in his youth been permitted to learn to read, but the habit of close attention to all he heard and a wonderfully retentive memory enabled him to lay up a valuable store of learning. He had a ready and easy way of conveying his thoughts to others, and soon became a recognized leader in the religious meetings of the slaves and the free colored people of Raleigh. Speaking of these early opportunities of religious improvement, he says, “I was permitted to attend church, and this I esteemed a great blessing; it was there I received much instruction, which I trust was of great benefit to me. I trusted, too, that I had experienced the renewing influences of divine grace; I looked upon myself as a great sinner before God, and upon the doctrine of the great atonement through the suffering and death of the Saviour as the source of continual joy to my heart. After obtaining from my mistress a written permit, a thing always required in such cases, I had been baptized, and received into fellowship with the Baptist denomination. Thus in religious matters, I had been indulged in the exercise of my own conscience; this was a favor not always granted to slaves. There was one hard doctrine, to which we, as slaves, were frequently compelled to listen, which I found difficult to receive. We were often told by the minister how much we owed to God in bringing us over from the benighted shores of Africa, and permitting us to listen to the sound of the gospel. In ignorance of any special revelation that God had made to master, or to his ancestors, that my ancestors should be stolen and enslaved on the soil of America, to accomplish their salvation, I was slow to believe all that my teacher enjoined on this subject. How surprising, then, this high moral end being accomplished, that no proclamation of emancipation had before this been made! Many of us were as highly civilized as some of our masters, and as to piety, in many instances their superiors.

“I was rather disposed to believe that God had originally granted me temporal freedom, which wicked men had forcibly taken from me,—which now I had been compelled to purchase at great cost.

“I often heard select portions of the Scriptures read in our social meetings and comments made upon them. On Sunday we always had one sermon prepared expressly for the colored people, which it was generally my privilege to hear. So great was the similarity of the texts that they wore always fresh in my memory: ‘Servants, be obedient to Your masters’'—‘not with eye-service, as men-pleasers.’ ‘He that knoweth his master's will and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes;’ and some others of this class. Similar passages, with but few exceptions, formed the basis of most of these public instructions. The first commandment was to obey our masters, and the second like unto it: labor as faithfully when they or the overseers were not watching, as when they were. I will not do them the injustice to say that connected with these instructions there was not mingled much that was excellent.

“There was one very kind-hearted clergyman whom I used often to hear; he was very popular with the colored people. But after he had preached a sermon to us in which he argued from the Bible that it was the will of Heaven from all eternity that we should be slaves, and our masters be our owners, many of us left him, considering, like the doubting disciple of old, ‘This is a hard saying, who can hear it?’ ”

This whole argument of the divine right to enslave the African race has been so often refuted, and is so much opposed to the instincts of our nature, and to the fundamental rights of every human being, that we do not feel it necessary to consume much of the reader's time in its discussion. It maybe well, perhaps, to refer to some very judicious remarks made upon this subject by an honored son of North Carolina, who was at one time professor in the University of the State, at Chapel Hill. Holding sentiments on the subject of slavery which could not be tolerated, he secured his personal safety by removing from the State. His work on the Impending Crises, by its large circulation, has done much toward arousing the people to consider the stupendous wrong and infamy of slavery. “Every person,” he observes, “who has read the Bible, and who has a proper understanding of its leading moral precepts, feels in his own conscience, that it is the only original and complete anti-slavery text-book. In a crude state of society—in a barbarous age, when men were in a manner destitute of wholesome laws, either human or divine,—it is possible that a mild form of slavery may have been tolerated, and even regarded as an institution clothed with the importance of temporary recognition. But the Deity never approved it, and, for the very reason that it is impossible for him to do wrong, he never will, he never can approve it.”

The worst system of servitude of which we have any account in the Bible—and, by the way, it furnishes no account of anything so bad as slavery—was far less rigorous and atrocious than that now established in the Southern States of this confederacy. Even that system, however, the worst which seems to have been practised to a considerable extent by those ancient patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, was one of the monstrous inventions of Satan, that God winked at, and to the mind of the biblical scholar nothing can be more evident than that he determined of old that it should in due time be abolished.

To say that the Bible sanctions slavery is to say that the sun loves darkness; to say that one man was created to domineer over another is to call in question the justice, mercy, and goodness of God.

We will now listen to a limited number of the precepts and sayings of the Old Testament:—

“Proclaim liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof!”

“Let the oppressed go free!”

“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

“Thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty, but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbor.”

“The wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning.”

“Envy thou not the oppressor, and choose none of his ways.”

“Execute judgment and justice, take away your exaction from my people, saith the Lord God.”

“Do justice to the afflicted and needy, rid them out of the hand of the wicked.”

“Therefore, thus saith the Lord, Ye have not hearkened unto me it, proclaiming liberty every one to his brother, every man to his neighbor. Behold, I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence, to the famine, and I will make you to be renowned in all the kingdoms of the earth.”

“He that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.”

“Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry, and shall not be heard.”

“He that oppresseth the poor, reproacheth his Maker.”

“I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord of Hosts.”

We select a few precepts and sayings from the New Testament:—

“Call no man master, neither be ye called master.”

“All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them.”

“Be kindly affectionate one to another with brotherly love; in honor preferring one another.”

“Do good to all men as ye have opportunity.”

“If thou mayest be made free, use it rather.”

“The laborer is worthy of his hire.”

But to return to our narrative. Besides these religious privileges enjoyed by Lunsford, he had some dear friends among the better informed and religious people of Raleigh, who were looking with interest at his struggles to release himself from bondage. Some even went so far as to offer him words of cheer, hoping that the time would come when his wife and children might enjoy the same blessings. The Rev. Dr. Heath, of the Presbyterian Church, he found a true friend to the colored race. Himself originally from Virginia, where he once owned a largo number of slaves, as a humane man he sought to free them; but as this could not be effected, owing to legal difficulties, he colonized them in Africa, furnishing them with a liberal outfit. This divine, who afterwards is known through the Northern States as one of the most eloquent of all the advocates of the temperance reform, we shall notice particularly. At the time of which we are speaking, he was just beginning to rise into public favor by his pulpit eloquence. He had several years before abandoned his calling as planter for the sacred office of the ministry. He was called to the pastorate of the First Presbyterian Church in Raleigh, chiefly on the ground of his faithfulness and eloquence as a divine. He had a well-educated congregation, but most of them were slave-holders. His having freed his own slaves was a suspicions circumstance to those who were disposed to find fault with his close sermons to musters, for he was a bold man, and did not hesitate to reprimand any injustice practised by the master toward his slaves. He was free to express his views to some of his parishioners that slavery was demoralizing in its influence, and the responsibility of its continuance was fearfully great. His personal efforts at elevating the race he evinced by retaining two men-servants in his household as waiter and driver. Lunsford had often seen these men sitting in the study of Dr. Heath, perusing his books, and thus cultivating their minds and securing useful knowledge. These men had been emancipated, and were so strongly attached to their former master that they had no disposition to leave him.

Among the visitors to his house was Col. Polk, a large owner of slaves. He had but lately despatched a large colony to Tennessee, where he had purchased a plantation for his son. Feeling in some doubt as to the doctor's soundness upon the institution, he took an early opportunity to open a conversation which would be satisfactory to his own mind, and perhaps quiet the minds of other members of the congregation who were troubled like himself. So deep was the hold which their pastor had upon his flock that they would tolerate a degree of freedom of expression on this subject that would in all probability subject a stranger from the North to immediate tar and feathers, and perhaps hanging.

The colonel, on calling, opened the conversation cautiously.

“I perceive, doctor, that you have been perusing the late work of De Tocqueville on Democracy in America.” The volume was lying open upon his centre-table, apparently about half read. “I am glad that an American publisher has been found to give to the world an edition so creditably executed. I doubt if the English edition is much better.”

“Yes, sir; the art of printing is making rapid advances in America, and I hope soon that we shall be entirely emancipated from all our notions of English superiority, especially in the art of printing.”

“But, doctor, although I have heard much of this great work of De Tocqueville, I have never had the time to peruse a page; my information is wholly derived from certain criticisms which I have seen in the papers. I understand he does not speak very favorably of our Southern institutions. He makes some strictures that are quite distasteful, I find. If you have the time, I should be glad to have you give me some account of what you have read so far.”

The doctor, thinking this a fine opportunity of imparting correct views upon the fundamental principles of a true democracy, which, in his own view contained no such discordant principle as chattel slavery, was quite willing to comply with his request.

“De Tocqueville, in his first chapter, begins by sketching the history of American civilization. He declares that it exhibits none of that mythological obscurity which pertains to the history and origin of almost all former people. It was commenced in the full blaze of the revived learning of all Europe. The philosophical historians of England, France, and Germany may sit down to the study of our annals with a certainty of understanding all the facts pertaining to our most intimate social life. If nothing satisfactory can be ascertained as to the fundamental causes and principles of the ancient democracies, no such obscurity is to be found here. All the phenomena attending our origin and settlement are matters of very minute record by the founders themselves. This is owing, in some measure, to their having started in their career after the revival of learning, and after the Art of printing was discovered.

“He begins his examination of our social and political state with the very just remark, which I will read, ‘Providence has given us a torch which our forefathers did not possess, and has allowed us to discern fundamental mental causes in the history of the world which the obscurity of the past obscures from us.’ The value of these studies he considers of great importance in reviewing the past. Many things heretofore obscure are now luminous with meaning. Whether other writers will find them of as great importance as he estimates them, remains to be seen. He declares, ‘If we can fully examine the social and political history of America after having studied its history, we shall remain perfectly convinced that not an opinion, not a custom, not a law, I may say not an event is upon record which the origin of that people will not explain.’ He next proceeds to speak of some of the elements pertaining to the settlement of the different colonies. Some of these circumstances are alike; but in many very important particulars dissimilar and inharmonious. ‘The colonies are mostly of the English race and speak that language. In the North they establish a true democracy; in the South, unfortunately for succeeding generations, they have not yet lost all love of an aristocracy,—landed proprietors with their retinue's of slaves. The Pilgrims came to promote education, religion, and establish freedom. Social equality was the initial principle of the rising State; labor was the lot of all, and honorable in all. How different were the facts pertaining to Southern settlements. The men sent to Virginia were seekers of gold, adventurers without resources and without character, whose turbulent and restless spirits endangered the infant colony, and rendered its progress uncertain. The artisans and agriculturists arrived afterwards; and although they were a more moral and orderly race of men, they were nowise above the level of the inferior classes in England. No lofty conceptions, no intellectual system directed the foundation of these new settlements. The colony was scarcely established when slavery was introduced, and this was the main circumstance which has exercised so prodigious an influence on the character, the laws, and all the future prospects of the South.’”

The colonel, who had listened with close attention to the last few sentences, while admitting mentally the truthfulness of the description, interposed a word of comment.

“If this be true, and our civilization is to become homogeneous, I can see no escape from a terrible and protracted contest in the future, unless, indeed, the South becomes a distinct confederacy, which might be effected by peaceable means.”

“The severe justice of the Puritan character, to say nothing of the great interests of humanity, both in Europe and America, which would be involved, would not admit of so peaceable a separation as you and I might desire,” replied the doctor. “De Tocqueville in maintaining these statements quotes largely from contemporaneous history, and also from subsequent records. He refers to the work of Wm. Stith, who was, I believe the first president of William and Mary College, at Williamsburg, Va.*

* This institution has been disbanded, and the town almost destroyed by the tramp of armed hosts in the present war for the perpetuity of the Union. Its inhabitants are scattered, and its strong men slain in battle.

He was the author of a history of the first discovery and settlement of Virginia. He died in 1750. He says that a large portion of the adventurers were unprincipled young men of family whom their parents were glad to ship off, discharged servants, fraudulent bankrupts, and debauchees, and others of the same class,—people more apt to pillage and destroy than to assist the settlement, and were the seditious chiefs who easily led this band in every kind of extravagance and excess.” These statements are confirmed by the testimony of Smith and Beverly. The chief element of their decaying civilization was unfortunately introduced in 1620 by a Dutch vessel, which landed twenty negroes on the banks of the James.

The reader can see, in the light of the present rebellion, which is in progress while we write, the truthfulness of De Tocqueville in his reasonings on this subject, to which this proud Southerner was compelled to listen, who was no less a personage than the father of that distinguished champion of Southern rights, Major Gen. Leonidas Polk, of the release of whose slaves, in Tennessee we have lately had intelligence.

“‘Slavery,’” continued the doctor, quoting De Tocqueville, “‘as we shall afterwards show, dishonors labor; it introduces idleness into society, and with idleness, ignorance and pride, luxury and distress; it enervates the powers of the mind, and benumbs the activities of man. The influence of slavery, united to English character, explains the manners and social condition of the Southern States.’ It was not until some time after their first settlement in Virginia that a few rich English capitalists came to fix themselves in the colony.*

* See De Tocqueville, chap. ii. (notes).

“In entire contrast to these circumstances, he notices, particularly, the history of the founding of the New England colonies. In his first chapter, he had noticed at some length the differences of soil and climate, both greatly favoring the South. The foundation of New England was a novel spectacle, and all the circumstances attending it were singular and original. The large majority of the other colonies, in the Old and New World, have been first inhabited, either by men without education and without resources, driven by their poverty and their misconduct from the land which gave them birth, or by speculators and adventurers, greedy of gain. Some settlements cannot even boast so honorable an origin. St. Domingo was founded by buccaneers, and, at the present day, the criminal courts of England supply the population of Australia.**

** The tide of this class of people which is being turned upon our shores will most surely workout the most unhappy consequences. Some of the bitter fruits we are now reaping.

The settlers who established themselves on the shores of New England all belonged to the more independent classes of their native country. Their union on the soil of America at once presented one singular phenomenon of a society containing neither lords nor common people, neither rich nor poor. These men possessed in proportion to their number a greater mass of intelligence than is to be found in any European nation of our own time. All, without a single exception, had received a good education; many of them were known in Europe for their talents and their acquirements. The other colonies have been founded by adventurers, without family; the emigrants of Now England brought with them the best elements of good order and morality. They landed in the desert, accompanied by their wives and children. But what most especially distinguished them was the aim of their undertaking. They had not been obliged by necessity to leave their country; the social position they abandoned was one to be regretted, and their means of subsistence were certain. Nor did they cross the Atlantic to improve their situation or to increase their wealth. The call which summoned them from the comforts of their homes was purely intellectual, and in facing the inevitable sufferings of exile, their object was the triumph of a great idea.

“When,” continued the doctor, “the author comes to the annals left us by these heavenly-minded men, the account of their own intentions, the humanity which marked every moment, he is awe-struck at the wonderful providences which attended them and preserved them alive amid all their disasters. They came, led by an unseen hand, to secure a home in the wilderness of America, where they might freely worship God, and begin a new civilization, founded in the virtue, intelligence, and equality of its people.

“They started in their frail vessels for the shores of the Hudson, but the winds and the storm wafted them to Plymouth rock. He sees, even in the sacredness with which their descendants regard this rock, an evidence of the grandeur of their ideas. ‘I have seen,’ he remarks, ‘bits of it carefully preserved, in several towns of the Union. Does not this sufficiently show that all human power and greatness is in the soul of that man? Here is a stone which the feet of a few outcasts pressed for an instant, and this stone becomes famous; it is treasured by a great nation; its very dust is shared as a relic. And what is become of the gateways of a thousand palaces?' In his further study of those singular people, he does not find them given to wild speculations as to the mode of living, but their first act is to combine themselves into a community, and subject themselves to a written constitution,—a covenant for their mutual security and good order. They even acknowledge among themselves in the first written expression of their opinions, as the ‘legal subjects of their dead sovereign, Lord King James.’ The population of New England increased rapidly, and while the hierarchy of rank despotically classed the inhabitants of the mother country, the colony continued to present the novel spectacle of a community homogeneous in all its parts. A democracy, more perfect than any which antiquity had dreamed of, started in full blaze and panoply from the midst of an ancient feudal society. I doubt not,” said Dr. H., in concluding his remarks on De Tocqueveille, “that the English government was glad to be relieved of the discordant elements of her society, and was pleased to allow the infant colonies the enjoyment and development of their own wild dreams of a new state. The policy of Great Britain was to allow their ideas the freest and fullest scope, assured that if any good came of them, her superior power and ownership of the territory would in the end only add to her greatness.” During all this time the doctor had carefully abstained from making any comments upon the views of De Tocqueville, and was willing to allow the truths which his friend had received to produce their own fruit. He could not be certain that the seed was sown, into good ground. His personal interest in the institution was very great, and mere argument, however powerful, would effect but little. As the colonel went into the hall, and was about to leave, they met Lunsford, who had called upon an errand. “Ah, Lunsford, I am glad to see you. I suppose we are to have another happy free negro in our midst, to make our happy slaves all unhappy. I hope you will have the good sense to use your liberty as not abusing it. Have you heard anything of my man Solomon?” “Yes, master; he returned from Tarboro' last night, and says he has found a master for his wife, and he is ready to take her away as soon as you will