"'Poor human nature!' said the Judge. 'What should we all do, if we had not the sins of others to repent of and bewail?'
"There was a strong friend of temperance in the company from a north-western state. Travelling in the South for pleasure, some time ago, he was immediately struck with the comparative absence of intemperance among the slaves. On learning that the laws forbid the sale of intoxicating drink to them, and thinking of four millions of people in this land as delivered, in a great degree, from the curse of drunkenness, he says that he exclaimed: 'Pretty well for the "sum of all villanies." The class of people in the United States best defended against drunkenness are the slaves!' Some admonished him that the slaves did get liquor, and that white men ventured to tempt them. 'I don't care for that,' said he; 'of course, there are exceptions; the "sum of all villanies" is a Temperance Society!'
"A Northern gentleman, travelling through the South, said, 'As to the feelings of the North respecting a possible insurrection, I am satisfied, since visiting in different parts of the South, that a very common apprehension with us, respecting your liability to trouble from this source, is exaggerated by fancy.
"'We have a theoretical idea that you must be dwelling, as we commonly hear it said, with a volcano under your feet. Very many regard your slaves as a race of noble spirits, conscious of wrong, and burning with suppressed indignation, which is ready to break out at every chance. They think of you at the North as having guns and pistols and spears all about you, ready for use at any moment. But when I spend a night at your plantations, the owner and I the only white males, the wife and seven or eight young children having us for their only defenders against the seventy or hundred blacks, who are all about us in the quarters, the idea of danger has really never occurred to me; because my knowledge of the people has previously disarmed me of fear.'
"'Emissaries, white and black,' said a planter, 'can, make us trouble; but my belief is that we could live here to the end of time with these colored people, and be subject to fewer cases of insubordination by far than your corporations at the North suffer from in strikes. Your people, generally, have no proper idea of the black man's nature. God seems to have given him docility and gentleness, that he may be a slave till the time comes for him to be something else. So He has given the Jews their peculiarities, fitting them for His purposes with regard to them; and to the Irish laborer He has given his willingness and strength to dig, making him the builder of your railways. If we fulfil our trust, with regard to the blacks, according to the spirit and rules of the New Testament, I believe God will be our defender, and that all his attributes will be employed to maintain our authority over this people for his own great purposes. We have nothing to fear except from white fanatics, North and South.'
"'I have no idea,' said the Judge, 'of dooming every individual of this colored race to unalterable servitude. I am in favor of putting them in the way of developing any talent which any of them, from time to time, may exhibit. More of this, I am sure, would be done by us, if we were freed from the necessity of defending ourselves against Northern assaults upon our social system, involving, as these assaults do, peril to life, and to things dearer than life. But I see tenfold greater evils in all the plans of emancipation which have ever been proposed than in the present state of things.'
"The pastor of the place, who was present, had not taken much part in the discussion, though he had not purposely kept aloof from it. He was Southern born, inherited slaves, had given them their liberty one by one, and had recently returned from the North, where he had been to see two of them—the last of his household—embark as hired servants with families who were to travel in Europe.
"Some of us asked him about his visit to the North. Said he, 'I went to church one day, and was enjoying the devotional services, when all at once the minister broke out in prayer for the abolition of slavery. He presented the South before God as "oppressors," and prayed that they might at once repent, and "break every yoke," and "let the oppressed go free." I took him to be an immediate emancipationist, perhaps peculiar in his views. But in the afternoon I went into another church, and in prayer the minister began to pray "for all classes and conditions of men among us." I was glad to see, as I thought, charity beginning at home. But the next sentence took in our whole land; and the next was a downright swoop upon slavery; so that I regarded his previous petitions merely as spiral movements toward the South. If the good man's petitions had been heard, woe to him and to the North, and to the slaves, to say nothing of ourselves.
"'I stopped after service, and, without at first introducing myself, I asked him if he was in the habit of praying, as he had done to-day, for slave-holders. He said yes. I asked him if it was a general practice at the North. He thought it was. I inquired if he would have every slave liberated to-morrow, if he could effect it. "By all means," said he.—"Would they be better off?" said I.—"Undoubtedly they would," said he. "But that is not the question. Do right, if the heavens fall."—"What would become of them?" said I.—"Hire them," said he; "pay them wages; let husbands and wives live together; abolish auction-blocks, and"—"But," said I, "some of the very best of men in the world, at the South, are decidedly of the opinion that such emancipation would be the most barbarous thing that could be devised for the slaves."—"Are you a slave-holder?" said he.—"I was," said I; "but I have liberated my slaves, and I am in your city to see the last two of my servants sail with your fellow-citizens —— and ——" (naming them).—"You don't say so!" said he. "What did you liberate them for?"—"I could not take proper care of them," said I, "situated as I am."—"But," said he, "did you do right in letting them go to sea as you did? One of them will get no good with that man for a master. I would rather be your dog than his child."—"Then," said I, "you have 'oppressors' at the North, it seems."—"Well," said he, "some of our people are not as good as they ought to be."—"It is so with us at the South," said I.—"Preach for me next Sabbath, Sir," said he.—"Are you going to stay over?"—"Why," said I, "my dear Sir, would you and your people like to hear a man preach for you whom you, if you made the prayer, would first pray for as an 'oppressor?'"—"But you are not an oppressor," said he.—"But I am in favor of what you call 'oppression,'" said I.—"One thing I could pray for with you," said I.—"What is that?" said he.—"Break every yoke," said I. "This I pray for always. But how many 'yokes,'" said I, "do you suppose there are at the South?"—"I forget the exact number of the slaves," said he, in the most artless manner.'
"Hereupon the company broke out into great merriment. After they had enjoyed their laughter awhile, my Northern lady-friend said, 'Did you preach for him?'