"Did you ever hear de like?" added Billy Lee, "thinking of de saddle when de balls was a flyin most in our eyes. But it's always de same wid master. He thinks of every thing."
I agree with the humane jurist quoted by Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe: "The worst use you can put a man to is to hang him." She thinks slavery is worse still; but when "I think of every thing," I am forced to differ from her.
The most of our Southern slaves are happy, and kindly cared for; and for those who are not, there is hope for the better. But when a man is hung up by the neck until he is dead, he is done for. As far as I can see, there is nothing that can be suggested to better his condition.
I have no wish to uphold slavery. I would that every human being that God has made were free, were it in accordance with His will;—free bodily, free spiritually—"free indeed!"
Neither do I desire to deny the evils of slavery, any more than I would deny the evils of the factory system in England, or the factory and apprenticeship system in our own country. I only assert the necessity of the existence of slavery at present in our Southern States, and that, as a general thing, the slaves are comfortable and contented, and their owners humane and kind.
I have lived a great deal at the North—long enough to see acts of oppression and injustice there, which, were any one so inclined, might be wrought into a "living dramatic reality."
I knew a wealthy family. All the labor of the house was performed by a "poor relation," a young and delicate girl. I have known servants struck by their employers. At the South I have never seen a servant struck, though I know perfectly well such things are done here and everywhere. Can we judge of society by a few isolated incidents? If so, the learned professors of New England borrow money, and when they do not choose to pay, they murder their creditors, and cut them in pieces! or men kill their sleeping wives and children!
Infidelity has been called a magnificent lie! Mrs. Stowe's "living dramatic reality" is nothing more than an interesting falsehood; nor ought to be offered, as an equivalent for truth, the genius that pervades her pages; rather it is to be lamented that the rich gifts of God should be so misapplied.
Were the exertions of the Abolitionists successful, what would be the result? The soul sickens at the thought. Scenes of blood and horror—the desolation of our fair Southern States—the final destruction of the negroes in them. This would be the result of immediate emancipation here. What has it been elsewhere? Look at St. Domingo. A recent visitor there says, "Though opposed to slavery, I must acknowledge that in this instance the experiment has failed." He compares the negroes to "a wretched gibbering set, from their appearance and condition more nearly allied to beasts than to men." Look at the free colored people of the North and in Canada.
I have lived among them at the North, and can judge for myself. Their "friends" do not always obtain their affection or gratitude. A colored woman said to me, "I would rather work for any people than the Abolitionists. They expect us to do so much, and they say we ought to work cheaper for them because they are 'our friends.'" Look at them in Canada. An English gentleman who has for many years resided there, and who has recently visited Washington, told me that they were the most miserable, helpless human beings he had ever seen. In fact he said, "They were nuisances, and the people of Canada would be truly thankful to see them out of their country." He had never heard of "a good missionary" mentioned by Mrs. Stowe, "whom Christian charity has placed there as a shepherd to the outcast and wandering." He had seen no good results of emancipation. On one occasion he hired a colored man to drive him across the country.