"There's another thing I want to talk with you about, and that is amalgamation. If you carry out your principles, your children would intermarry with negroes; and how would you feel to see your daughter marry a great black buck nigger?"
"That is the least of my troubles in this lower world," said I. "But as far as amalgamation is concerned, you have twenty cases of amalgamation in the South to one in the North. I say this fearless of contradiction; it is a fruitful product of slavery. There are hundreds of slaves held as property by their own fathers. You'll find it wherever slavery exists. You find it here in your own city, Louisville."
Giving a shrug of his shoulders, he replied, "I will acknowledge this is a sorrowful fact that can not be denied."
This ended his talk on that subject.
After supper we were all enjoying a social chat before a blazing grate in the dining-room, and I was sitting near the kitchen door, that was ajar, where were their slaves in hearing. In their presence I had avoided answering some of his questions, but now a question was put within their hearing, which seemed to demand a square reply, and I gave it.
"I would like to know, Mrs. Haviland, where you abolitioners get your principles of equal rights. I'd like to know where you find them."
"We find them between the lids of the Bible. God created man in his own image—in his own likeness. From a single pair sprang all the inhabitants of the whole earth. God created of one blood all the nations that dwell upon the whole earth; and when the Savior left his abode with the Father, to dwell a season upon our earthly ball, to suffer and die the ignominious death of the cross, he shed his precious blood for the whole human family, irrespective of nation or color. We believe all are alike objects of redeeming love. We believe our Heavenly Father gave the power of choice to beings he created for his own glory; and this power to choose or refuse good or evil is a truth co-existent with man's creation. This, at least, is my firm conviction."
No reply was made, but, at his suggestion, we repaired to the parlor, where other conversation was introduced, but no reference made to Bible arguments.
During the time of waiting to see the sheriff the jailer's wife frequently spent an hour or two in social conversation. She said they never bought or sold a slave but at the earnest solicitation of the slave.
"Our black Mary was one of the most pitiable objects you ever saw. She was treated shamefully, and was put here in jail, where she lay three months, and was so sick and thin there wouldn't any body buy her. I felt so sorry for her I used to take her something she could eat, and I had her clothes changed and washed, or I reckon she would have died. She begged me to buy her, and I told Mr. Buckner that if she was treated half decent I believed she would get well. So I bought her and paid only four hundred dollars; and now you see she looks hale and hearty, and I wouldn't take double that for her. But there is poor black Sally, just four weeks ago today she was sold to go down the river in a gang, and I never saw any poor thing so near crazy as she was. She was sold away from her seven children. As I heard her screams I threw my bonnet and shawl on and followed her to the river, and she threw herself down on her face and poured out her whole soul to God to relieve her great distress, and save her poor children. Oh how she cried and prayed. I tell you no heart, not made of stone, could witness that scene and not melt. Many shed tears over poor Sally's prayer. A man standing by went to the trader and bought her, and went and told her that he lived only eight miles away, and had bought her, and she should come and see her children occasionally. She thanked him as he helped her to stand up, for she seemed weak. But in just two weeks from that day she died, and the doctors examined her, and said she died of a broken heart. They said there was no disease about her, but that she seemed to sink from that day, growing weaker and weaker until she died. That was just two weeks ago to-day."