[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.