I believe that the most important religious denominations in Cincinnati are the Episcopalian, the Baptist, and the Wesleyan. The first is under the superintendence of the learned and pious Bishop M'Ilvaine, whose apostolic and untiring labours have greatly advanced the cause of religion in the State of Ohio. There is a remarkable absence of sectarian spirit, and the ministers of all orthodox denominations act in harmonious combination for the general good. But after describing the beauty of her streets, her astonishing progress, and the splendour of her shops, I must not close this chapter without stating that the Queen City bears the less elegant name of Porkopolis; that swine, lean, gaunt, and vicious-looking, riot through her streets; and that, on coming out of the most splendid stores, one stumbles over these disgusting intruders. Cincinnati is the city of pigs. As there is a railway system and a hotel system, so there is also a pig system, by which this place is marked out from any other. Huge quantities of these useful animals are reared after harvest in the corn-fields of Ohio, and on the beech-mast and acorns of its gigantic forests. At a particular time of year they arrive by thousands—brought in droves and steamers to the number of 500,000—to meet their doom, when it is said that the Ohio runs red with blood! There are huge slaughterhouses behind the town, something on the plan of the abattoirs of Paris—large wooden buildings, with numerous pens, from whence the pigs march in single file along a narrow passage, to an apartment where each, on his entrance, receives a blow with a hammer, which deprives him of consciousness, and in a short time, by means of numerous hands, and a well-managed caldron system, he is cut up ready for pickling. The day on which a pig is killed in England constitutes an era in the family history of the year, and squeals of a terrific description announce the event to the neighbourhood. There is not time or opportunity for such a process at Porkopolis, and the first notification which the inhabitants receive of the massacre is the thousand barrels of pork on the quays, ready to be conveyed to the Atlantic cities, for exportation to the European markets. At one establishment 12,000 pigs are killed, pickled, and packed every fall; and in the whole neighbourhood, as I have heard in the cars, the "hog crop" is as much a subject of discussion and speculation as the cotton crop of Alabama, the hop-picking of Kent, or the harvest in England.
Kentucky, the land, by reputation, of "red horses, bowie-knives, and gouging," is only separated from Ohio by the river Ohio; and on a day when the thermometer stood at 103° in the shade I went to the town of Covington. Marked, wide, and almost inestimable, is the difference between the free state of Ohio and the slave-state of Kentucky. They have the same soil, the same climate, and precisely the same natural advantages; yet the total absence of progress, if not the appearance of retrogression and decay, the loungers in the streets, and the peculiar appearance of the slaves, afford a contrast to the bustle on the opposite side of the river, which would strike the most unobservant. I was credibly informed that property of the same real value was worth 300 dollars in Kentucky and 3000 in Ohio! Free emigrants and workmen will not settle in Kentucky, where they would be brought into contact with compulsory slave-labour; thus the development of industry is retarded, and the difference will become more apparent every year, till possibly some great changes will be forced upon the legislature. Few English people will forget the impression made upon them by the first sight of a slave—a being created in the image of God, yet the boná fide property of his fellow-man. The first I saw was an African female, the slave of a lady from Florida, with a complexion black as the law which held her in captivity. The subject of slavery is one which has lately been brought so prominently before the British people by Mrs. Beecher Stowe, that I shall be pardoned for making a few remarks upon it. Powerfully written as the book is, and much as I admire the benevolent intentions of the writer, I am told that the effect of the volume has been prejudical, and this assertion is borne out by persons well acquainted with the subject in the free states. A gentleman very eminent in his country, as having devoted himself from his youth to the cause of abolition, as a steadfast pursuer of one grand principle, together with other persons, say that "'Uncle Tom's Cabin' had thrown the cause back for many years!" [Footnote: It must be observed that I do not offer any opinion of my own upon 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' or upon the estimation in which it is held in the United States; but in order to answer questions which have frequently been put to me upon the subject, I have just given the substance of the remarks which have been made upon it by abolitionists in the Northern States.] The excitement on the subject still continues in England, though it found a safety-valve in the Stafford House manifesto, and the received impression, which no force of fact can alter, is, that slave-owners are divided into but two classes—brutalised depraved "Legrees," or enthusiastic, visionary "St. Clairs"—the former, of course, predominating.
Slavery, though under modifications which rendered it little more than the apprenticeship of our day, was permitted under the Mosaic dispensation; but it is contrary to the whole tenor of Christianity; and a system which lowers man as an intellectual and responsible being is no less morally than politically wrong. That it is a political mistake is plainly evidenced by the retarded development and apparent decay of the Southern States, as compared with the ceaseless material progress of the North and West. It cannot be doubted that in Alabama, Florida, and Louisiana, "Legrees" are to be found, for cruelty is inherent in base natures; we have "Legrees" in our factories and coal-pits; but in England their most terrible excesses are restrained by the strong arm of law, which, when appealed to, extends its protection to the feeblest and most helpless. What then must such men become in the isolated cotton or sugar plantations of the South, distant from the restraints which public opinion exercises, and where the evidence of a slave is inadmissible in a court of justice? The full extent of the cruelties practised will never be known, until revealed at the solemn tribunal of the last day. But we dare not hope that such men are rare, though circumstances of self-interest combine to form a class of slave-owners of a higher grade. These are men who look upon their slaves as we do upon our cows and horses—as mere animal property, of greater or less value according to the care which is taken of them. The slaves of these persons are well clothed, lodged, and fed; they are not overworked, and dancing, singing, and other amusements, which increase health and cheerfulness, are actively promoted. But the system is one which has for its object the transformation of reason into instinct the lowering of a rational being into a machine scarcely more intelligent in appearance than some of our own ingeniously-contrived steam-engines. Religious teaching is withheld, reading is forbidden, and the instruction of a slave in it punished as a crime, lest he should learn that freedom is his birthright.
A third and very large class of slave-owners is to be found, who, having inherited their property in slaves, want the means of judiciously emancipating them. The negroes are not in a condition to receive freedom in the reckless way in which some abolitionists propose to bestow it upon them. They must be prepared for it by instruction in the precepts of religion, by education, and by the reception of those principles of self- reliance, without which they have not the moral perception requisite to enable them to appreciate the blessings of freedom; and this very ignorance and obtuseness is one of the most telling arguments against the system which produces it. The want of this previous preparation has been frequently shown, particularly in Kentucky, where whole bodies of emancipated slaves, after a few days' experience of their new condition, have entreated for a return to servitude. These slave-owners of whom I now speak deeply deplore the circumstances under which they are placed, and, while wanting the spirit of self-sacrifice, and the moral courage, which would lead them, by manumitting their slaves, to enter into a novel competition with slave-labour on other estates, do their best to ameliorate the condition in which the Africans are placed, encouraging them, by the sale of little articles of their own manufacture, to purchase their freedom, which is granted at a very reduced rate. I had opportunities of conversing with several of these freed negroes, and they all expressed attachment to their late owners, and spoke of the mildness with which they were treated, saying that the great threat made use of was to send them "down south."
The slaves in the northern slave States are a thoughtless, happy set, spending their evenings in dancing or singing to the banjo; and 'Oh, carry me back to Old Virginny,' or 'Susannah, don't you cry for me,' may be heard on summer evenings rising from the maize and tobacco grounds of Kentucky. Yet, whether naturally humane instincts may lead to merciful treatment of the slave, or the same result be accomplished by the rigorous censorship of public opinion in the border States, apart from the abstract question of slavery, that system is greatly to be reprobated which gives power without responsibility, and permits the temporal, yes, the eternal well-being of another to depend upon the will and caprice of a man, when the victim of his injustice is deprived of the power of appeal to an earthly tribunal. Instances of severe treatment on one side, and of kindness on the other, cannot fairly be brought as arguments for or against the system; it must be justified or condemned by the undeviating law of moral right as laid down in divine revelation. Slavery existed in 1850 in 15 out of 31 States, the number of slaves being 3,204,345, connected by sympathy and blood with 433,643 coloured persons, nominally free, but who occupy a social position of the lowest grade. It is probable that this number will increase, as it has hitherto done, in a geometrical ratio, which will give 6,000,000, in 1875, of a people dangerous from numbers merely, but doubly, trebly so in their consciousness of oppression, and in the passions which may incite them to a terrible revenge. America boasts of freedom, and of such a progress as the world has never seen before; but while the tide of the Anglo-Saxon race rolls across her continent, and while we contemplate with pleasure a vast nation governed by free institutions, and professing a pure faith, a hand, faintly seen at present, but destined ere long to force itself upon the attention of all, points to the empires of a by-gone civilisation, and shows that they had their periods in which to rise, flourish, and decay, and that slavery was the main cause of that decay. The exasperating reproaches addressed to the Americans, in ignorance of the real difficulties of dealing with the case, have done much harm in inciting that popular clamour which hurries on reckless legislation. The problem is one which occupies the attention of thinking and Christian men on both sides of the Atlantic, but still remains a gigantic evil for philanthropists to mourn over, and for politicians to correct.
An unexceptional censure ought not to be pronounced without a more complete knowledge of the subject than can be gained from novels and newspapers; still less ought this censure to extend to America as a whole, for the people of the Northern States are more ardent abolitionists than ourselves—more consistent, in fact, for they have no white slaves, no oppressed factory children, the cry of whose wrongs ascends daily into the ears of an avenging Judge. Still, blame must attach to them for the way in which they place the coloured people in an inferior social position, a rigid system of exclusiveness shutting them out from the usual places of amusement and education. It must not be forgotten that England bequeathed this system to her colonies, though she has nobly blotted it out from those which still own her sway; that it is encouraged by the cotton lords of Preston and Manchester; and that the great measure of negro emancipation was carried, not by the violent declamation and ignorant railings of men who sought popularity by exciting the passions of the multitude, but by the persevering exertions and practical Christian philanthropy of Mr. Wilberforce and his coadjutors. It is naturally to be expected that a person writing a book on America would offer some remarks upon this subject, and raise a voice, however feeble, against so gigantic an evil. The conclusions which I have stated in the foregoing pages are derived from a careful comparison and study of facts which I have learned from eminent speakers and writers both in favour of and against the slave- system.
CHAPTER VIII.
The hickory stick—Chawing up ruins—A forest scene—A curious questioner —Hard and soft shells—Dangers of a ferry—The western prairies— Nocturnal detention—The Wild West and the Father of Rivers—Breakfast in a shed—What is an alligator?—Physiognomy, and its uses—The ladies' parlour—A Chicago hotel, its inmates and its horrors—A water-drinking people—The Prairie City—Progress of the West.
A bright September sun glittered upon the spires of Cincinnati as I reluctantly bade it adieu, and set out in the early morning by the cars to join my travelling companions, meaning to make as long a détour as possible, or, as a "down-east" lady might say, to "make a pretty considerable circumlocution." Fortunately I had met with some friends, well acquainted with the country, who offered to take me round a much larger circle than I had contemplated; and with a feeling of excitement such as I had not before experienced, we started for the Mississippi and the western prairies en route to Detroit.
Bishop M'Ilvaine, anxious that a very valued friend of his in England should possess something from Ohio, had cut down a small sapling, which, when divested of its branches and otherwise trimmed, made a very formidable-looking bludgeon or cudgel, nearly four feet long. This being too lengthy for my trunks was tied to my umbrella, and on this day in the cars excited no little curiosity, several persons eyeing it, then me, as if wondering in what relation we stood to each other. Finally they took it up, minutely examining it, and tapping it as if to see whether anything were therein concealed. It caused me much amusement, and, from its size, some annoyance, till at length, wishing to leave it in my room at a Toronto hotel while I went for a visit of a few days, the waiter brought it down to the door, asking me "if I wished to take the cudgel?" After this I had it shortened, and it travelled in my trunk to New York, where it was given to a carver to be fashioned into a walking-stick; and, unless the tradesman played a Yankee trick, and substituted another, it is now, after surviving many dangers by sea and land, in the possession of the gentleman for whom it was intended.