FOOTNOTES:
[1] Many freemen have been kidnapped in Illinois and sold into slavery.
[2] Evidently an allusion to the “underground railroad,” or smuggling of runaway slaves, which is generally supposed to be managed mainly by Quakers. This shows how knowledge of the abolition agitation must be carried among the slaves to the most remote districts.
[3] Creole means simply native of the region, but in Louisiana (a vast region purchased, by the United States, of France, for strategic reasons, and now proposed to be filibustered away from us), it generally indicates French blood.
[4] I also saw slaves at work every Sunday that I was in Louisiana. The law permits slaves to be worked, I believe, on Sunday; but requires that some compensation shall be made to them when they are—such as a subsequent holiday.
[5] The following resolutions were proposed (I am not sure that they were adopted) in the Southern Commercial Convention, at New Orleans, in 1855:
“Resolved,—That this Convention strongly recommends the Chambers of Commerce and Commission Merchants of our Southern and South-western cities to adopt such a system of laws and regulations as will put a stop to the dangerous practice, heretofore existing, of making advances to planters, in anticipation of their crops—a practice entirely at variance with everything like safety in business transactions, and tending directly to establish the relations of master and slave between the merchant and planter, by bringing the latter into the most abject and servile bondage.
“Resolved,—That this Convention recommend, in the most urgent manner, that the planters of the Southern and South-western States patronize exclusively our home merchants, and that our Chambers of Commerce, and merchants generally, exert all their influence to exclude foreign agents from the purchase and sale of produce in any of our Southern and South-western cities.
“Resolved, further,—That this Convention recommend to the legislatures of the Southern and South-western States to pass laws, making it a penitentiary offence for the planters to ask of the merchants to make such pecuniary advances.”
[6] The Junta was a filibustering conspiracy against Cuba.
[7] Cocoa is a grass much more pernicious, and more difficult of extirpation when it once gets a footing upon a sugar plantation, than the Canada thistle, or any other weed known at the North. Several plantations have been ruined by it, and given up as worthless by their owners.
[8] See “Resources;” article, “Mississippi,” etc.
[9] At Wilmington, North Carolina, on the night of the 27th of July (1857), the frame-work of a new building was destroyed by a number of persons, and a placard attached to the disjointed lumber, stating that a similar course would be pursued in all cases, against edifices that should be erected by negro contractors or carpenters, by one of which class of men the house had been constructed. There was a public meeting called a few days afterwards, to take this outrage into consideration, which was numerously attended. Resolutions were adopted, denouncing the act, and the authorities were instructed to offer a suitable reward for the detection and conviction of the rioters. “The impression was conveyed at the meeting,” says the Wilmington Herald, “that the act had been committed by members of an organized association, said to exist here, and to number some two hundred and fifty persons, and possibly more, who, as was alleged, to right what they considered a grievance in the matter of negro competition with white labour, had adopted the illegal course of which the act in question was an illustration.” Proceedings of a similar significance had occurred at various points, especially in Virginia.
[10] See De Bow’s Review, for August, 1857 p. 117.
[11] Religion in Virginia.—A mass meeting of citizens of Taylor county, Virginia, was held at Boothesville recently, at which the following, among other resolutions, was passed unanimously:
“That the five Christian Advocates, published in the cities of New York, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Chicago, having become Abolition sheets of the rankest character, we ask our commonwealth’s attorneys and post-masters to examine them, and, if found to be of an unlawful character, to deal with them and their agents as the laws of our State direct.”—Washington Republic.
[12] “This latter received its beautiful and expressive name from its beautifully variegated surface of hills and valleys, and its rare combination of all the qualities that are most desired in a planting country. It is a region of almost fairy beauty and wealth. Here are some of the wealthiest and most intelligent planters and the finest plantations in the State, the region of princely taste and more than patriarchal hospitality,” etc.—Norman’s New Orleans.
[13] “Fine Prospect for Hay.—While riding by a field the other day, which looked as rich and green as a New England meadow, we observed to a man sitting on the fence, ‘You have a fine prospect for hay, neighbour.’ ‘Hay! that’s cotton, sir,’ said he, with an emotion that betrayed an excitement which we cared to provoke no further; for we had as soon sport with a rattlesnake in the blind days of August as a farmer at this season of the year, badly in the grass. * * *
“All jesting aside, we have never known so poor a prospect for cotton in this region. In some instances the fields are clean and well worked, but the cotton is diminutive in size and sickly in appearance. We have seen some fields so foul that it was almost impossible to tell what had been planted.
“All this backwardness is attributable to the cold, wet weather that we have had almost constantly since the planting season commenced. When there was a warm spell, it was raining so that ploughs could not run to any advantage; so, between the cold and the rain, the cotton crop is very unpromising. * * *
“The low, flat lands this year have suffered particularly. Thoroughly saturated all the time, and often overflowed, the crops on them are small and sickly, while the weeds and grass are luxurious and rank.
“A week or two of dry hot weather will make a wonderful change in our agricultural prospects, but we have no idea that any sort of seasons could bring the cotton to more than an average crop.”—Hernando (Miss.) Advance, June 22, 1854.
[14] “Sectional excitement” had given a great impetus to educational projects in the South, and the Mississippi newspapers about this time contained numerous advertisements of a similar character to the following:
“Calhoun Institute—For Young Ladies; Maçon, Noxubee County, Mississippi.—W. R. Poindexter, A.M., Principal and Proprietor.—The above School, formerly known as the ‘Maçon Female Institute,’ will be reopened on the first of October, 1855, with an entirely new corps of teachers from Principal down. Having purchased the property at public sale, and thus become sole proprietor, the Principal has determined to use all means he can now command, as well as he may realize for several years yet to come, in building, refitting and procuring such appurtenances as shall enable him to contribute his full quota, as a professional man, to the progress of the great cause of ‘Southern Education.’”
[15] As “A Southern Lawyer,” writing for Harper’s Weekly (February, 1859), observes: “The sudden acquisition of wealth in the cotton-growing region of the United States, in many instances by planters commencing with very limited means, is almost miraculous. Patient, industrious, frugal, and self-denying, nearly the entire amount of their cotton-crops is devoted to the increase of their capital. The result is, in a few years large estates, as if by magic, are accumulated. The fortunate proprietors then build fine houses, and surround themselves with comforts and luxuries to which they were strangers in their earlier years of care and toil.”
[16] The following is a characteristic newspaper item of this vicinity:—
From the West Feliciana Whig.—“On Saturday last, a runaway negro was killed in the parish of East Baton Rouge, just below the line of this parish, under the following circumstances: Two citizens of Port Hudson, learning that a negro was at work on a flat boat, loading with sand, just below that place, who was suspected of being a runaway, went down in a skiff for the purpose of arresting him.
“Having seized him and put him into the skiff they started back, but had not proceeded far when the negro, who had been at the oars, seized a hatchet and assaulted one of them, wounding him very seriously. A scuffle ensued, in which both parties fell overboard. They were both rescued by the citizen pulling to them with the skiff. Finding him so unmanageable, the negro was put ashore, and the parties returned to Port Hudson for arms and a pack of negro dogs, and started again with the intention to capture him. They soon got on his trail, and when found again he was standing at bay upon the outer edge of a large raft of drift wood, armed with a club and pistol.
“In this position he bade defiance to men and dogs—knocking the latter into the water with his club, and resolutely threatening death to any man who approached him. Finding him obstinately determined not to surrender, one of his pursuers shot him. He fell at the third fire, and so determined was he not to be captured, that when an effort was made to rescue him from drowning he made battle with his club, and sunk waving his weapon in angry defiance at his pursuers. He refused to give the name of his owner.”
[17] This may be compared with the town of Springfield, county of Sangammon, Illinois, in which, with a population of 19,228 (nearer to that of Natchez than any other town I observe in the Free States), the number of registered school children is 3,300, the public libraries contain 20,000 volumes, and the churches can accommodate 28,000 sitters.
[18] “The Washington Remedies—To Planters and Others.—These Remedies, now offered to the public under the title of the Washington Remedies, are composed of ingredients, many of which are not even known to Botany. No apothecary has them for sale; they are supplied to the subscriber by the native red-men of Louisiana. The recipes by which they are compounded have descended to the present possessor, M. A. Micklejohn, from ancestors who obtained them from the friendly Indian tribes, prior to and during the Revolution, and they are now offered to the public with that confidence which has been gained from a knowledge of the fact that during so long a series of years there has never been known an instance in which they have failed to perform a speedy and permanent cure. The subscribers do not profess these remedies will cure every disarrangement of the human system, but in such as are enumerated below they feel they cannot fail. The directions for use have only to be strictly followed, and however despairing the patient may have been he will find cause for blissful hope and renewed life.
“These preparations are no Northern patent humbug, but are manufactured in New Orleans by a Creole, who has long used them in private practice, rescuing many unfortunate victims of disease from the grave, after they have been given up by their physicians as incurable, or have been tortured beyond endurance by laceration and painful operations.”
[19] “The bacon is almost entirely imported from the Northern States, as well as a considerable quantity of Indian corn. This is reckoned bad management by intelligent planters. * * * On this plantation as much Indian corn was raised as was needed, but little bacon, which was mostly imported from Ohio. The sum annually paid for this article was upwards of eight hundred pounds. Large plantations are not suited to the rearing of hogs; for it is found almost impossible to prevent the negroes from stealing and roasting the pigs.” Mr. Russell, visiting the plantation of a friend near Natchez.—North America: its Agriculture, etc., p. 265.
[20] This would give at this season hardly less than sixteen hours of plodding labour, relieved by but one short interval of rest, during the daylight, for the hoe-gang. It is not improbable. I was accustomed to rise early and ride late, resting during the heat of the day, while in the cotton district, but I always found the negroes in the field when I first looked out, and generally had to wait for the negroes to come from the field to have my horse fed when I stopped for the night. I am told, however, and I believe, that it is usual in the hottest weather, to give a rest of an hour or two to all hands at noon. I never happened to see it done. The legal limit of a slave’s day’s work in South Carolina is fifteen hours.
[21] I was told by a gentleman in North Carolina, that the custom of supplying molasses to negroes in Mississippi, was usually mentioned to those sold away from his part of the country, to reconcile them to going thither.
[22] In De Bow’s ‘Resources of the South,’ vol. i., p. 150, a table is furnished by a cotton-planter to show that the expenses of raising cotton are “generally greatly underrated.” It is to be inferred that they certainly are not underrated in the table. On “a well improved and properly organized plantation,” the expense of feeding one hundred negroes, “as deduced from fifteen years’ experience” of the writer, is asserted in this table to be $750 per annum, or seven dollars and a half each; in this sum is included, however, the expenses of the “hospital and the overseer’s table.” This is much less than the expense for the same purposes, if the overseer’s account was true, of the plantation above described. Clothing, shoes, bedding, sacks for gathering cotton, and so forth, are estimated by the same authority to cost an equal sum—$7.50 for each slave. I have just paid on account of a day labourer on a farm in New York, his board bill, he being a bachelor living at the house of another Irish labourer with a family. The charge is twenty-one times as large as that set down for the slave.
[23] “I was informed that some successful planters, who held several estates in this neighbourhood [Natchez] made it a rule to change their overseers every year, on the principle that the two years’ service system is sure to spoil them.”—Russell’s North America: its Agriculture, etc., p. 258.
“Overseers are changed every year; a few remain four or five years, but the average time they remain on the same plantation does not exceed two years.”—Southern Agriculturist, vol. iv., p. 351.
[24] “On Monday last, as James Allen (overseer on Prothro’s plantation at St. Maurice) was punishing a negro boy named Jack, for stealing hogs, the boy ran off before the overseer had chastised him sufficiently for the offence. He was immediately pursued by the overseer, who succeeded in catching him, when the negro drew a knife and inflicted a terrible gash in his abdomen. The wounds of the overseer were dressed by Dr. Stephens, who pronounces it a very critical case, but still entertains hope of his recovery.”—Nachitoches Chronicle.
[25] Mr. Russell makes an observation to the same effect with regard to the Cuba plantations, p. 230. On these large cotton plantations there are frequently more men than women, men being bought in preference to women for cotton picking.
The contrary is usually the case on the small plantations, where the profits of breeding negroes are constantly in view.
[26] “A woman, calling herself Violet Ludlow, was arrested a few days ago, and committed to jail, on the supposition that she was a runaway slave belonging to A. M. Mobley, of Upshur county, Texas, who had offered through our columns a reward of fifty dollars for her apprehension. On being brought before a justice of the peace, she stated that she was a white woman, and claimed her liberty. She states that she is a daughter of Jeremiah Ludlow, of Pike county, Alabama, and was brought from that country in 1853, by George Cope, who emigrated to Texas. After arriving in Texas, she was sold by George Cope to a Doctor Terry, in Upshur county, Texas, and was soon after sold by him to a Mrs. Hagen, or Hagens, of the same county. Violet says that she protested against each sale made of her, declaring herself a free woman. She names George Gilmer, Thomas Rogers, John Garret, and others, residents of Pike county, Alabama, as persons who have known her from infancy as the daughter of one Jeremiah Ludlow and Rene Martin, a widow at the time of her birth, and as being a free white woman, and her father a free white man. Violet is about instituting legal proceedings for her freedom.”—Shreveport Southwestern.
“Some days since, a woman named Pelasgie was arrested as a fugitive slave, who has lived for more than twelve years in this city as a free woman. She was so nearly white that few could detect any traces of her African descent. She was arrested at the instance of a man named Raby, who claimed her as belonging to an estate of which he is heir-at-law. She was conveyed to the First District guard-house for safe keeping, and while there she stated to Acting Recorder Filleul that she was free, had never belonged to Raby, and had been in the full and unquestioned enjoyment of her freedom in this city for the above-mentioned period. She also stated that she had a house, well furnished, which she was in the habit of letting out in rooms.”—New Orleans Picayune.
[27] “Bishop Polk, of Louisiana, was one of the guests. He assured me that he had been all over the country on Red River, the scene of the fictitious sufferings of ‘Uncle Tom,’ and that he had found the temporal and spiritual welfare of the negroes well cared for. He had confirmed thirty black persons near the situation assigned to Legree’s estate. He is himself the owner of four hundred slaves, whom he endeavours to bring up in a religious manner. He tolerates no religion on his estate but that of the Church. He baptizes all the children, and teaches them the Catechism. All, without exception, attend the Church service, and the chanting is creditably performed by them, in the opinion of their owner. Ninety of them are communicants, marriages are celebrated according to the Church ritual, and the state of morals is satisfactory. Twenty infants had been baptized by the bishop just before his departure from home, and he had left his whole estate, his keys, &c., in the sole charge of one of his slaves, without the slightest apprehension of loss or damage. In judging of the position of this Christian prelate as a slave-owner, the English reader must bear in mind that, by the laws of Louisiana, emancipation has been rendered all but impracticable, and, that, if practicable, it would not necessarily be, in all cases, an act of mercy or of justice.”—The Western World Revisited. By the Rev. Henry Caswall, M.A., author of “America and the American Church,” etc. Oxford, John Henry Parker, 1854.
[28] In White’s ‘Statistics of Georgia’ (page 377), the citizens of Liberty county are characterized as “unsurpassed for the great attention paid to the duties of religion.”—Dr. Stevens, in his ‘History of Georgia,’ describes them as “worthy of their sires,” who were, “the moral and intellectual nobility of the province,” “whose accession was an honour to Georgia, and has ever proved one of its richest blessings.”—In the biography of General Scrivens the county of Liberty is designated “proud spot, of Georgia’s soil!”—Dr. J. M. B. Harden, in a medical report of the county, says: “The use of intoxicating drinks has been almost entirely given up” by its people.—White says (‘Statistics,’ p. 373), “The people of Liberty, from their earliest settlement, have paid much attention to the subject of education. Excellent schools are found in different portions of the county, and it is believed a greater number of young men from Liberty graduate at our colleges than from any [other] section of Georgia. Indeed, it has been proverbial for furnishing able ministers and instructors.”
[29] The following newspaper paragraph indicates the wholesale way in which slaves may be nominally Christianized:—
“Revival among the Slaves.—Rev. J. M. C. Breaker, of Beaufort, S.C., writes to the Southern Baptist, that within the last three months he has baptized by immersion three hundred and fifty persons, all of them, with a few exceptions, negroes. These conversions were the result of a revival which has been in progress during the last six months. On the 12th inst., he baptized two hundred and twenty-three converts—all blacks but three—and the ceremony, although performed with due deliberation, occupied only one hour and five minutes. This is nearly four a minute, and Mr. Breaker considers it a demonstration that the three thousand converted on the day of Pentecost could easily have been baptized by the twelve apostles—each taking two hundred and fifty—in an hour and thirteen minutes.”
[30] “A small farmer,” who “has had control of negroes for thirty years and has been pursuing his present system with them for twenty years,” and who “owning but a few slaves is able,” as he observes, “to do better by them” than large planters, writing to Mr. De Bow, says: “I have tried faithfully to break up immorality. I have not known an oath to be sworn for a long time. I know of no quarrelling, no calling harsh names, and but little stealing. Habits of amalgamation, I cannot stop. I can only check it in name. I am willing to be taught, for I have tried everything I know.” He has his field-negroes attend his own family prayers on Sunday, prayer meetings at four o’clock Sunday mornings, etc.—De Bow’s Resources, vol. ii., p. 337.
[31] The “Southern Presbyterian,” in reviewing some observations made before a South Carolina Bible Society, in which it had been urged that if slaves were permitted to read the Bible, they would learn from it to be more submissive to the authority which the State gives the master over them, says that the speaker “seems to be uninformed of the fact that the Scriptures are read in our churches every Sabbath day, and those very passages which inculcate the relative duties of masters and servants in consequence of their textual, i. e. legally prescribed connections, are more frequently read than any other portions of the Bible.”
[32] Organized action for the abolition of slavery in the island of Java, has since been authentically reported.
[33] Twice it happened to come to my knowledge that sons of a planter, by whom I was lodged while on this journey—lads of fourteen or sixteen—who were supposed to have slept in the same room with me, really spent the night, till after daybreak, in the negro cabins. A southern merchant, visiting New York, to whom I expressed the view I had been led to form of the evil of slavery in this way, replied that he thought I over-estimated the evil to boys on the plantations, but that it was impossible to over-estimate it in towns. “I have personal knowledge,” he continued, “that there are but two lads, sixteen years old, in our town, [34] Jefferson fails to enumerate, among the evils of slavery, one of its influences which I am inclined to think as distinct and as baneful to us nationally as any other. How can men retain the most essential quality of true manhood who daily, without remonstrance or interference, see men beaten, whose position renders effective resistance totally impracticable—and not only men, but women, too! Is it not partially the result of this, that self-respect seldom seems to suggest to an angry man at the South that he should use anything like magnanimity? that he should be careful to secure fair play for his opponent in a quarrel? A gentleman of veracity, now living in the South, told me that among his friends he had once numbered two young men, who were themselves intimate friends, till one of them, taking offence at some foolish words uttered by the other, challenged him. A large crowd assembled to see the duel, which took place on a piece of prairie ground. The combatants came armed with rifles, and at the first interchange of shots the challenged man fell disabled by a ball in the thigh. The other, throwing down his rifle, walked toward him, and kneeling by his side, drew a bowie knife, and deliberately butchered him. The crowd of bystanders not only permitted this, but the execrable assassin still lives in the community, has since married, and, as far as my informant could judge, his social position has been rather advanced than otherwise, from thus dealing with his enemy. In what other English—in what other civilized or half-civilized community would such cowardly atrocity have been endured? [35] Richland District contains seven thousand white, and thirteen thousand slave population. The Report is published in the Charleston Standard, October 12th, 1854. [36] “Most persons allow their negroes to cultivate a small crop of their own. For a number of reasons the practice is a bad one. It is next to impossible to keep them from working the crop on the Sabbath. They labour at night when they should be at rest. There is no saving more than to give them the same amount; for, like all other animals, the negro is only capable of doing a certain amount of work without injury. To this point he may be worked at his regular task, and any labour beyond this is an injury to both master and slave. They will pilfer to add to what cotton or corn they have made. If they sell the crop and trade for themselves, they are apt to be cheated out of a good portion of their labour. They will have many things in their possession, under colour of purchases, which we know not whether they have gained honestly.”—Southern Cultivator. [37] P. W. Fraser, p. 574, Pub. Doc. VI., 1846. [38] Among the thousands of applicants for soup, and bread, and fuel, as charity, I never saw, during “the famine” in New York, one negro. Five Points Pease said to me, “The negro seems to be more provident than the Celt. The poor blacks always manage to keep themselves more decent and comfortable than the poor whites. They very rarely complain, or ask for charity; and I have often found them sharing their food with white people, who were too poor to provide for themselves.” A great deal of falsehood is circulated and accredited about the sufferings of the free negroes at the North. Their condition is bad enough, but no worse than that of any men educated and treated as they are, must be; and it is, on an average, far better than that of the slave. [39] In the obscure country papers of Northern Alabama and Georgia, and Western South Carolina, I have seen many more descriptions, similar to these, of this famine; but I cannot now lay my hand on them. These I have by accident, not having taken pains to collect them for this purpose. In a district of the Slave States, where it is boasted that more than a hundred bushels of maize to the acre has been raised, and where not one out of five hundred of the people is engaged in any other than agricultural industry, I have myself bought maize, which had been raised by free labour, in Ohio, at two dollars a bushel. [40] “North America, its Agriculture and Climate,” by Robert Russell, Kilwhiss. Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1857. [41] De Bow, vol. iii., p. 342. [42] See De Bow’s “Resources,” art. Tobacco. [43] Vol. i., p. 175, “Resources.” [44] In my Notes on Eastern Virginia, it was mentioned that a tobacco planter informed me that he could not raise the finer sorts of tobacco with profit, because he could not make his slaves take pains enough with it; and in certain localities in Ohio, having a favourable soil for the production of fine or high-priced tobacco, it appears that free labour is engaged more profitably in the cultivation of tobacco than in the cultivation of corn. It is the same in parts of Connecticut and of Massachusetts. Except in these limited districts, however, it is found that the labour of Ohio, as of Connecticut and Massachusetts, is more profitably directed to the cultivation of Indian corn and other crops than of tobacco. [45] “Resources,” p. 175. [46] Virginia, with 10,360,135 acres of improved land, produced, according to the last census returns,
| 35,254,319 | bushels of corn, |
| 56,803,227 | pounds of tobacco. |
Ohio, with 9,851,493 acres of improved land, produced
| 59,078,695 | bushels of corn, |
| 10,454,449 | pounds of tobacco. |
The aggregate value of these two products alone, at present New York prices, would be
| Ohio | $5,127,223,565 |
| Virginia | $3,564,639,385 |
Actual crops per acre, on the average, as returned by the marshals for 1849-50 (Census Compilation, p. 178):
| Corn. | Tobacco. | |
| Ohio | 36 bushels | 730 pounds. |
| Virginia | 18 ” | 630 ” |
[47] “North America, its Climate,” etc., p. 286.
[48] De Bow’s “Resources.” See “Seaboard Slave States,” pp. 463 and 586, for further southern evidence.
[49] A writer in “Household Words,” speaking of the “popular fallacy that a man cannot do a hard day’s work in the climate of India,” says:—
“I have seen as hard work, real bone and muscle work, done by citizens of the United Kingdom in the East, as was ever achieved in the cold West, and all upon rice and curry—not curry and rice—in which the rice has formed the real meal, and the curry has merely helped to give it a relish, as a sort of substantial Kitchener’s zest, or Harvey’s sauce. I have seen, likewise, Moormen, Malabars, and others of the Indian labouring classes, perform a day’s work that would terrify a London porter, or coal-whipper, or a country navvy, or ploughman; and under the direct rays of a sun that has made a wooden platform too hot to stand on in thin shoes, without literally dancing with pain, as I have done many a day, within six degrees of the line.”
[50] Dr. Barton, of New Orleans, in a paper read before the Academy of Science of that city, says: “The class of diseases most fatal in the South are mainly of a ‘preventible nature,’ and embraces fevers and intestinal diseases, and depends mostly on conditions under the control of man, as drainage, the removal of forest growth—of personal exposure and private hygiene. The climate further north is too rigid the greater part of the year for personal exposure to the open air, so essential to the enjoyment of health, and when the extremes are great and rapid, another class of maladies predominate—the pulmonary, as well as others arising from crowding, defective ventilation and filth—exacting preventive measures from the public authorities with as much urgency as the worst fevers of the South.”
[51] Indian corn has been considered an exception, and there are probably larger corn fields in Indiana than cotton fields in Mississippi.
[52] I believe that plantations or agricultural operations devoted to a single crop are, as a general rule, profitable in proportion to their size in the Free States, unless, indeed, the market is a small one and easily overstocked, which is never the case with the cotton market.
[53] Vol. i., p. 175, “Resources.”
[54] Some one can render a service to civilization by publishing precisely what feudal rights, so called, were abolished in large parts of Germany and Hungary in 1848, and what results to the commerce of the districts affected the greater freedom and impulse to industry arising therefrom has had. If I am rightly informed, trade, in many cases, both export and import, has already much more than quadrupled in value, thousands of peasants now demanding numerous articles and being able to pay for them, which before only a few score or hundred proprietors were expected to buy.
[55] From an “Address on Climatology,” before the Academy of Science, by Dr. Barton, of New Orleans:—
“The institution of slavery operates by contrast and comparison; it elevates the tone of the superior, adds to its refinement, allows more time to cultivate the mind, exalts the standard in morals, manners, and intellectual endowments; operates as a safety-valve for the evil disposed, leaving the upper race purer, while it really preserves from degradation, in the scale of civilization, the inferior, which we see is their uniform destiny when left to themselves. The slaves constitute essentially the lowest class, and society is immeasurably benefitted by having this class, which constitutes the offensive fungus—the great cancer of civilized life—a vast burthen and expense to every community, under surveillance and control; and not only so, but under direction as an efficient agent to promote the general welfare and increase the wealth of the community. The history of the world furnishes no institution under similar management, where so much good actually results to the governors and the governed as this in the Southern States of North America.”
“It is by the existence of slavery, exempting so large a portion of our citizens from labour, that we have leisure for intellectual pursuits.”—Governor Hammond, in South. Literary Mess.
“Would you do a benefit to the horse or the ox, by giving him a cultivated understanding, or fine feelings? So far as the mere labourer has the pride, the knowledge, or the aspirations of a free man, he is unfitted for his situation, and must doubly feel its infelicity. If there are sordid, servile, and laborious offices to be performed, is it not better that there should be sordid, servile, and laborious beings to perform them?”—Chancellor Harper; Address to South Carolina Institute.
“The relations between the North and the South are very analogous to those which subsisted between Greece and the Roman Empire, after the subjugation of Achaia by the Consul Mummius. The dignity and energy of the Roman character, conspicuous in war and in politics, were not easily tamed and adjusted to the arts of industry and literature. The degenerate and pliant Greeks, on the contrary, excelled in the handicraft and polite professions. We learn from the vigorous invective of Juvenal, that they were the most useful and capable of servants, whether as pimps or professors of rhetoric. Obsequious, dexterous, and ready, the versatile Greeks monopolized the business of teaching, publishing, and manufacturing in the Roman Empire—allowing their masters ample leisure for the service of the State, in the Senate or in the field.”—Richmond Enquirer.
[56] The business committee of the South Carolina State Agricultural Society reported, Aug. 9, 1855:—
“Our old fields are enlarging, our homesteads have been decreasing fearfully in number. * * * We are not only losing some of our most energetic and useful citizens to supply the bone and sinew of other States, but we are losing our slave population, which is the true wealth of the State, our stocks of hogs, horses, mules, and cattle are diminishing in size and decreasing in number, and our purses are strained for the last cent to supply their places from the North-western States.”
[57] De Bow’s “Review,” vol. xviii. p. 790.
[58] “Georgia Scenes,” by the Rev. and Hon. Judge Longstreet, now President of the University of Mississippi. Harper’s edition, p. 76.
[59] Address before the South Carolina Institute.
[60] Fifth Annual Report to Directors of Graniteville Company.
[61] Mr. Russell uses the language of England. There are several collections of houses on this river bank, the inhabitants of which would consider it an insult if they should hear such a humble term as “village” applied to their pseudo towns and cities.
[62] “North America; its Agriculture and Climate,” p. 290.
[63] It was not long since estimated in the Legislature of Kentucky as seven to one in that State.
[64] I fear that it must be confessed that this general rule has now a multitude of exceptions in our large towns, where, in New York, especially, we seem taking some pains to form a permanent lower class. With the present great and apparently permanent falling off in the European emigration it can hardly last, however.
| The ratio of white illiterate to white population, per cent., as returned, is, | ||
| {Free States, | 3.36 | |
| {Slave States | 8.27 | |
| of the native population, over twenty years old, it is, | ||
| {Free States, | 4.12 | (Census Compendium, pp. 152, 153). |
| {Slave States | 17.23 | |
The ability to merely read and write may itself be of little value, but the fact of a child’s having had the painstaking necessary to so far instruct him is in some degree a means of measuring his other inherited wealth, and thus his breeding.
[66] “Resources,” vol. ii., pp. 197, 198.
[67] The late Mr. Brooks’ character should be honestly considered, now that personal enmity toward him is impossible. That he was courteous, accomplished, warm-hearted, and hot-blooded, dear as a friend and fearful as an enemy, may be believed by all; but, in the South, his name is yet never mentioned without the term gallant or courageous, spirited or noble, is also attached to it; and we are obliged to ask, why insist on this? The truth is, we include a habit of mind in these terms which slavery has rendered, in a great degree, obsolete in the South. The man who has been accustomed from childhood to see men beaten when they have no chance to defend themselves; to hear men accused, reproved, vituperated, who dare not open their lips in self-defence or reply; the man who is accustomed to see other men whip women without interference, remonstrance, or any expression of indignation, must have a certain quality, which is an essential part of personal honour with us, greatly blunted, if not entirely destroyed. The same quality which we detest in the assassination of an enemy, is essentially constant in all slavery. It is found in effecting one’s will with another, when he cannot, if he would, defend himself. Accustomed to this in every hour of their lives. Southerners do not feel magnanimity and the “fair-play” impulse to be a necessary part of the quality of “spirit,” courage, and nobleness. By spirit they apparently mean only passionate vindictiveness of character, and by gallantry mere intrepidity.
[68] From the Introduction to “The Englishman in Kansas,” (by the author of this work).
[69] That slaves have ever been burned alive has been indignantly denied. The late Judge Jay told me that he had evidence in his possession of negro burnings every year in the last twenty.
[70] 2 Devereaux’s North Carolina Reports, 263.
[71] The real object of the systematic mail robbery which is maintained throughout the South, and of the censorship of the press which is otherwise attempted, was once betrayed by a somewhat distinguished Southern editor, Duff Green, in the United States Telegraph, in the following words:—
“The real danger of this [slave insurrection] is remote. We believe we have most to fear from the organized action upon the consciences and fears of the slaveholders themselves; from the insinuation of their dangerous heresies into our schools, our pulpits, and our domestic circles. It is only by alarming the consciences of the weak and feeble, and diffusing among our people a morbid sensibility on the question of slavery, that the Abolitionists can accomplish their object.”
[72] Elsewhere the Messrs. Appleton are spoken of as “the great Abolition publishers of New York.”
[73] Note the argument, I pray you, reader. Why, indeed? Why is there not a Feejee Iliad? Are not the Feejees heathen, as Homer was? Why should not the Book of Mormon be as good a thing as the Psalms of David? Was not Joseph Smith also a polygamist?
[74] From the Columbia (S. C.) Times, quoted without dissent in the conservative South Carolina paper, the Charleston Mercury:—
“The loss that the South annually sustains by the running of slaves into Canada, is of sufficient importance to justify her public men in insisting upon some action of the Government of the United States in the premises. And we confess our surprise that Southern statesmen have submitted with so much patience to the annual robbery of thousands of dollars’ worth of property to which she has as good a right as the land they cultivate. The time is propitious for the acquisition of all disputed rights from European powers. They cannot afford to break just now with the United States. Let our public men move in the matter, and we question not but that the President and the American Minister at St. James’s will give the movement a cordial support. Besides, this is a golden moment which may never return. Before we get another sound man in the presidential chair, peace may be made in Europe, and the European powers be less inclined to look with favour upon the demands of America.”
[75] “While it is far more obvious that negroes should be slaves than whites, for they are only fit to labour, not to direct; yet the principle of slavery is itself right, and does not depend upon difference of complexion. Difference of race, lineage, of language, of habits, and customs, all tend to render the institution more natural and durable; and although slaves have been generally whites, still the masters and slaves have generally been of different national descent. Moses and Aristotle, the earliest historians, are both authorities in favour of this difference of race, but not of colour.”—Richmond Enquirer.
[76] Abstract of the Seventh Census, and the able work of Professor Tucker, on the “Progress of the United States in Population and Wealth.”
[77] The population, following Mr. White, is given in round numbers, from the State Census of 1845; average personal estate, per family of citizens, reckoned from an official return, published in the “Soil of the South” (Columbus, Georgia, 1852, p. 210), the amount given for each county being divided by one-fifth the number of its population (for families). Observations on education and the character of the people, from “White’s Statistics of Georgia” (generally in quotations). School, library, and church statistics, in figures from official United States Census, 1850.
[78] The presence of these few planters, with their valuable human property, makes the average nominal wealth of each white family, at first sight, appear large. If, however, the slaves had been appraised at only $500 each, which would be low, they would alone amount in value in some counties to the sum assigned for the whole personal property of the citizens. This item is not, therefore, trustworthy, but, in comparing the coast and second tier counties, it serves to show the great difference in the average wealth of the citizens of each. A similar division of personal estate, as officially returned for the city of New York, would give $4,660 to each family.
[79] “White’s Statistics,” p. 224.
[80] Hewitt, —; “Seaboard Slave States,” p. 528.