"Why so?" asked another.
"Because, if he had been, Hamlin would become President, and it would be a shame to have a mulatto at the head of the Government."
A little discussion which followed developed that every lady present, except one, believed Mr. Hamlin a mulatto. Yet the company was comparatively intelligent, and all its members live in a flourishing commercial metropolis. You may infer something of the knowledge of the North in rural districts, enlightened only by weekly visits from Secession newspapers!
We are enjoying that soft air "which comes caressingly to the brow, and produces in the lungs a luxurious delight." I notice, on the streets, more than one premonition of summer, in the form of linen coats. The yards and cemeteries, smiling with myriads of roses and pinks, are carpeted with velvet grass; the morning air is redolent of orange and clover blossoms, and nosegays abound, sweet with the breath of the tropics.
Northerners Living in the South.
March 15.
Men of northern nativity are numerous throughout the Gulf States. Many are leading merchants of the cities, and a few, planters in the interior. Some have gone north to stay until the storm is over. A part of those who remain out-Herod the native fire-eaters in zeal for Secession. Their violence is suspicious; it oversteps the modesty of nature. I was recently in a mixed company, where one person was conspicuously bitter upon the border slave States, denouncing them as "playing second fiddle to the Abolitionists," and "traitors to southern rights."
"Who is he?" I asked of a southern gentleman beside me.
"He?" was the indignant reply; "why, he is a northerner, ---- him! He is talking all this for effect. What does he care about our rights? He don't own slaves, and wasn't raised in the South; if it were fashionable, he would be an Abolitionist. I'd as soon trust a nigger-stealer as such a man!"