"No, not contented. I do not claim that. I only say that they are unfit for freedom. I might cite a hundred instances in which it has been their ruin."
"I have not heard of one. It seems strange to me that a man who can support another cannot support himself."
"Oh! no, it's not at all strange. The slave has hands, and when the master gives him brains, he works well enough; but to support himself he needs both hands and brains, and he has only hands. I'll give you a case in point: At Wilmington, N. C., some years ago, there lived a negro by the name of Jack Campbell. He was a slave, and was employed, before the river was deepened so as to admit of the passage of large vessels up to the town, in lightering cargoes to the wharves. He hired his time of his master, and carried on business on his own account. Every one knew him, and his character for honesty, sobriety, and punctuality stood so high that his word was considered among merchants as good as that of the first business-men of the place. Well, Jack's wife and children were free, and he finally took it into his head to be free himself. He arranged with his master to purchase himself within a specified time, at eight hundred dollars, and he was to deposit his earnings in the hands of a certain merchant till they reached the required sum. He went on, and in three years had accumulated nearly seven hundred dollars, when his owner failed in business. As the slave has no right of property, Jack's earnings belonged by law to his master, and they were attached by the Northern creditors (mark that, by Northern creditors), and taken to pay the master's debts. Jack, too, was sold. His new owner also consented to his buying himself, at about the price previously agreed on. Nothing discouraged, he went to work again. Night and day he toiled, and it surprised every one to see so much energy and firmness of purpose in a negro. At last, after four more years of labor, he accomplished his purpose, and received his free-papers. He had worked seven years—as long as Jacob toiled for Rachel—for his freedom, and like the old patriarch he found himself cheated at last. I was present when he received his papers from his owner—a Mr. William H. Lippitt, who still resides at Wilmington—and I shall never forget the ecstasy of joy which he showed on the occasion. He sung and danced, and laughed, and wept, till my conscience smote me for holding my own niggers, when freedom might give them so much happiness. Well, he went off that day and treated some friends, and for three days afterward lay in the gutter, the entreaties of his wife and children having no effect on him. He swore he was free, and would do as he 'd—— pleased.' He had previously been a class-leader in the church, but after getting his freedom he forsook his previous associates, and spent his Sundays and evenings in a bar-room. He neglected his business; people lost confidence in him, and step by step he went down, till in five years he sunk into a wretched grave. That was the effect of freedom on him, and it would be the same on all of his race."
"It is clear," I replied, "he could not bear freedom, but that does not prove he might not have 'endured' it if he had never been a slave. His overjoy at obtaining liberty, after so long a struggle for it, led to his excesses and his ruin. According to your view, neither the black nor the poor white is competent to take care of himself. The Almighty, therefore, has laid upon you a triple burden; you not only have to provide for yourself and your children, but for two races beneath you, the black and the clay-eater. The poor nigger has a hard time, but it seems to me you have a harder one."
"Well, it's a fact, we do. I often think that if it wasn't for the color and the odor, I'd willingly exchange places with my man Jim."
The Colonel made this last remark in a half-serious, half-comic way, that excited my risibilities, but before I could reply, the carriage stopped, and Jim, opening the door, announced:
"We's har, massa, and de prayin' am gwine on."
[I] The foregoing statistics are correct. That small number of slave-holders sustains the system of slavery, and has caused this terrible rebellion. They are, almost to a man, rebels and secessionists, and we may cover the South with armies, and keep a file of soldiers upon every plantation, and not smother this insurrection, unless we break down the power of that class. Their wealth gives them their power, and their wealth is in their slaves. Free their negroes by an act of emancipation, or confiscation, and the rebellion will crumble to pieces in a day. Omit to do it, and it will last till doomsday.
The power of this dominant class once broken, with landed property at the South more equally divided, a new order of things will arise there. Where now, with their large plantations, not one acre in ten is tilled, a system of small farms will spring into existence, and the whole country be covered with cultivation. The six hundred thousand men who have gone there to fight our battles, will see the amazing fertility of the Southern soil—into which the seed is thrown and springs up without labor into a bountiful harvest—and many of them, if slavery is crushed out, will remain there. Thus a new element will be introduced into the South, an element that will speedily make it a loyal, prosperous, and intelligent section of the Union.
I would interfere with no one's rights, but a rebel in arms against his country has no rights; all that he has "is confiscate." Will the loyal people of the North submit to be ground to the earth with taxes to pay the expenditures of a war, brought upon them by these Southern oligarchists, while the traitors are left in undisturbed possession of every thing, and even their slaves are exempted from taxation? It were well that our legislators should ask this question now, and not wait till it's asked of them by THE PEOPLE.