Charleston is the place in which to see those contrasting scenes of human life brought under the eye which moralists gather together for the purpose of impressing the imagination. The stranger has but to pass from street to street, to live from hour to hour in this city, to see in conjunction the extremes between which there is everywhere else a wide interval. The sights of one morning I should remember if every other particular of my travels were forgotten. I was driven round the city by a friend whose conversation was delightful all the way. Though I did not agree in all his views of society, the thoughtfulness of his mind and the benevolence of his exertions betokened a healthy state of feeling, and gave value to all he said. He had been a friend of the lamented Grimké; and he showed me the house where Grimké lived and died, and told me much of him; of the nobleness of his character, the extent of his attainments, and how, dying at fifty-four, he had lived by industry a long life. My mind was full of the contemplation of the heights which human beings are destined to reach, when I was plunged into a new scene; one which it was my own conscientious choice to visit, but for which the preceding conversation had ill-prepared me. I went into the slave market, a place which the traveller ought not to avoid to spare his feelings. There was a table on which stood two auctioneers, one with a hammer, the other to exhibit "the article" and count the bids. The slaves for sale were some of them in groups below, and some in a long row behind the auctioneers. The sale of a man was just concluding when we entered the market. A woman, with two children, one at the breast, and another holding by her apron, composed the next lot. The restless, jocose zeal of the auctioneer who counted the bids was the most infernal sight I ever beheld. The woman was a mulatto; she was neatly dressed, with a clean apron and a yellow head-handkerchief. The elder child clung to her. She hung her head low, lower, and still lower on her breast, yet turning her eyes incessantly from side to side, with an intensity of expectation which showed that she had not reached the last stage of despair. I should have thought that her agony of shame and dread would have silenced the tongue of every spectator; but it was not so. A lady chose this moment to turn to me and say, with a cheerful air of complacency, "You know my theory, that one race must be subservient to the other. I do not care which; and if the blacks should ever have the upper hand, I should not mind standing on that table, and being sold with two of my children." Who could help saying within himself, "Would you were! so that that mother were released!" Who could help seeing in vision the blacks driving the whites into the field, and preaching from the pulpits of Christian churches the doctrines now given out there, that God has respect of persons; that men are to hold each other as property, instead of regarding each other as brethren; and that the right interpretation of the golden rule by the slaveholder is, "Do unto your slaves as you would wish your master to do unto you if you were a slave!" A little boy of eight or nine years old, apparently, was next put up alone. There was no bearing the child's look of helplessness and shame. It seemed like an outrage to be among the starers from whom he shrunk, and we went away before he was disposed of.
We next entered a number of fine houses, where we were presented with flowers, and entertained with lively talk about the small affairs of gay society, which to little minds are great. To me every laugh had lost its gayety, every courtesy had lost its grace, all intercourse had lost its innocence. It was a relief to think of Grimké in his grave, escaped from the hell in which we were pent. If there be a scene which might stagger the faith of the spirit of Christianity itself; if there be an experience which might overthrow its serenity, it is the transition from the slavemarket to the abodes of the slavemasters, bright with sunshine, and gay with flowers, with courtesies, and mirth.
If the moral gloom which oppresses the spirit of the stranger were felt by the residents, of course this condition of society would not endure another day. Much trouble is experienced, and there are many sighs over the system; but the anxiety is not to any great number what it was to the sisters of Grimké; such a poisoner of life as to induce them to sacrifice property, home, friends, and repose, in order to obtain ease of mind for themselves, and to do something towards destroying the curse by which their native region is blighted. Every day shows how many mansions there are in this hell; how variously the universally allowed evil visits minds of different strength and discernment. All suffer, from the frivolous and sophisticated child to the far-seeing and disciplined saint. The difficulty is to have patience with the diversity, and to wait, as God waits, till the moral gloom strikes upon every heart, and causes every eye to turn for light where some already see it. At the same hour when the customary sins of the slavemarket were being perpetrated, hundreds of the little people of Charleston were preparing for their childish pleasures—their merry dancing-schools, their juvenile fancy balls—ordering their little slaves about, and allowing themselves to be fanned by black attendants while reposing in preparation for the fatigues of the evening; ministers of the Gospel were agreeing to deprive persons of colour of all religious education; a distant Lynch mob was outraging the person of a free and innocent citizen; elegant ladies were administering hospitality, and exchanging gossip and sentiment; and Angelina Grimké was penning the letter which contains the following passages, a private letter to a friend who was shortly to undergo the strengthening process of being mobbed:—
"I can hardly express to thee the deep and solemn interest with which I have viewed the violent proceedings of the last few weeks. Although I expected opposition, yet I was not prepared for it so soon; it took me by surprise, and I greatly feared abolitionists would be driven back in the first onset, and thrown into confusion. So fearful was I, that, though I clung with unflinching firmness to our principles, yet I was afraid of even opening one of thy papers, lest I should see some indications of compromise, some surrender, some palliation. Under these feelings I was urged to read thy appeal to the citizens of Boston. Judge, then, what were my feelings on finding that my fears were utterly groundless, and that thou stoodst firm in the midst of the storm, determined to suffer and to die rather than yield one inch.
"Religious persecution always begins with mobs. It is always unprecedented in the age or country in which it commences, and, therefore, there are no laws by which reformers can be punished; consequently, a lawless band of unprincipled men determine to take the matter into their own hands, and act out in mobs what they know are the principles of a large majority of those who are too high in church and state to condescend to mingle with them, though they secretly approve and rejoice over their violent measures. The first Christian martyr was stoned by a lawless mob; and if we look at the rise of various sects, Methodists, Friends, &c., we shall find that mobs began the persecution against them, and that it was not until after the people had spoken out their wishes that laws were framed to fine, imprison, or destroy them. Let us, then, be prepared for the enactment of laws, even in our free states, against abolitionists. And how ardently has the prayer been breathed, that God would prepare us for all that he is preparing for us!
"My mind has been especially turned towards those who are standing in the forefront of the battle, and the prayer has gone up for their preservation; not the preservation of their lives, but the preservation of their minds in humility and patience, faith, hope, and charity. If persecution is the means which God has ordained for the accomplishment of this great end, emancipation, then, in dependance upon him for strength to bear it, I feel as if I could say, 'Let it come;' for it is my deep, solemn, deliberate conviction, that this is a cause worth dying for.
"At one time I thought this system would be overthrown in blood, with the confused noise of the warrior; but a hope gleams across my mind that our blood will be spilt instead of the slaveholders'; our lives will be taken, and theirs spared. I say 'a hope,' for, of all things, I desire to be spared the anguish of seeing our beloved country desolated with the horrors of a servile war."
The writer of this letter was born into the system, under the same circumstances with the ladies who repeatedly asked me if I did not find that the slaves were very happy. So widely different are the influences of the same circumstances upon different minds!
Our evening engagements were as strangely contrasted as those of the morning. We were at parties where we heard loud talk of justice and oppression; appeals to the eternal principles of the one, when the tariff was the subject, and expressions of the most passionate detestation of the other, which might, but for the presence of black faces in the rooms, lead a stranger to suppose that he was in the very sanctuary of human rights. We were at a young heiress's first ball, where every guest was presented with a bouquet on entering; where the young ladies waltzed, and the young gentlemen gave a loose to their spirits, and all who were present had kindly greetings for the stranger. Nothing could be gayer than the external aspect of these entertainments; but it is impossible for the stranger to avoid being struck with the anxiety which shows itself through it all. I think I never was in society in any of the Southern cities without being asked what I would do if I had a legacy of slaves, or told, in vindictiveness or sorrow, that the prosperity of the North was obtained at the expense of the South. I was never in Southern society without perceiving that its characteristic is a want of repose. It is restlessly gay or restlessly sorrowful. It is angry or exulting; it is hopeful or apprehensive. It is never content; never in such a state of calm satisfaction as to forget itself. This peculiarity poisons the satisfaction of the stranger in the midst of the free and joyous hospitality to which he would otherwise surrender himself with inconsiderate delight. While everything is done that can be conceived of to make you happy, there is a weight pulling at your heartstrings, because you see that other hearts are heavy, and the nobler the heavier. While the host's little child comes to you at first sight, and holds up her mouth for a kiss, and offers to tell you a story, and pours out all her mirth and all her generosity upon you, the child's father tells you that there is a dark prospect before these young creatures, and Heaven knows what lot is in store for them. Your vigilance is kept active by continual suggestions that society is composed of two classes, which entertain a mortal dread of each other. If ever you forget this for an hour, it is recalled by the sight of a soldier at the corner of a street, of a decaying mansion or deserted estate, or of some anti-republican arrangement for social or domestic defence. You reproach yourself because you are anxious and cannot be deceived; and feel as if it were ingratitude to your entertainers not to think them the secure and happy people which, in alternation with their complaints of all the external world, they assure you they are.
Our evenings were diversified with attendance upon phrenological lectures—which, however, soon ceases to be a variety, from the absolute sameness of all courses of lectures on that subject—with readings at home, and with a visit to a scene which I was strongly urged not to omit, the Saturday night's market held by the slaves.