Canada and the States - Sir E. W. Watkin

"'NEGROES WANTED.—I will pay the highest prices, in cash, for any number of Negroes with good titles, slaves for life, or for a term of years, in large or small families, or single Negroes. I will also purchase Negroes restricted to remain in the State, that sustain good characters. Families never separated. Persons having Slaves for sale, will please call and see me, as I am always in the market with the cash. Communications promptly attended to, and liberal commissions paid, by John D. Denning, No. 18, South Frederick-street, between Market and Second-streets, with trees in front of the house.'

"Maryland has 89,000 slaves, and the number is decreasing. Virginia, its neighbour State, has 448,000—the total number in the Union being 2,487,000.

"I have found throughout my tour, what all English travellers must find—that slavery is a question which it is better not to go out of one's way to discuss. For, although I have had many friendly conversations with its most ardent supporters and most violent opponents, I soon discovered, on the one hand, that the question is practically compromised by the great political parties in the Free States, from time to time, in order to conciliate Southern votes; and, on the other, that the slave-owners consider the word 'abolition' as synonymous with confiscation and civil war. The latter meet you at the outset of the argument by stating that their whole property consists of land and slaves. That their lands of course derive their value from cultivation; and that, apart from the mere question of cost, that cultivation is impossible in the hands of the white man. They tell you, that while the negro endures the labour of the rice field mid-leg deep in water, and with a scorching sun above his head, without danger, and can withstand the miasma-hanging in the night air on the plantations— the white man is attacked with hopeless fever if he exposes himself to these influences. They declare that the unconditional abolition of slavery, in a country abounding in unappropriated lands, where men may squat without being disturbed, means simply the confiscation of three hundred millions sterling, the value of the slaves, in the first place, and the abandonment and destruction of the entire planting interest, in the second. To urge the morality of the question with these men, would be as successful as a similar appeal to our opium traders; to the maker of fire-arms certain to burst; or, to use an American free State illustration—to the successful manufacturer of wooden nutmegs.

"After hearing these statements, doubtless exaggerated, but which were made with earnestness, and are at least partially true, I was not surprised to learn, that since the forcible seizure of a slave at Boston, some months ago, by the abolitionists of that city, many of the Southern merchants have transferred their purchases of manufactured goods to New York, to an extent which, were it not stated on authority, would be beyond belief. Indeed I learn, that so strong is this anti- abolition feeling, that where any option exists, the avowed abolitionists are systematically avoided in business dealings. A first- class firm in New York, having a magnificent shop in the Broadway, see their old Southern customers pass by to a rival establishment in the same street, the only reason being that they are known to be earnest abolitionists, while their rival has never publicly expressed any opinion on the question.

"This feeling, showing itself in an endless variety of shapes, is just now most-fierce, owing to an outrage which has occurred in Pennsylvania, in which a Mr. Gorsuch has been shot down, and his son seriously wounded, in an attempt to seize a fugitive slave (under the provisions of the 'fugitive slave law'), which was resisted by a rising of the free black population, and of some white abettors.

"The 'fugitive slave law' is, indeed, simply a declaratory act. For it is unfortunately the fact, that the Southern States gave in their adhesion to the Federal Republic solely on condition that, while the slave trade should cease, the institution of slavery should be respected, and they should have the right to follow and seize fugitive slaves in any part of the Union. The 'fugitive slave law' was the work of the 'Union' party—a party composed of men of all shades of opinion, who wished, by conciliation, to prevent the threatened withdrawal of South Carolina and other slave States from the Union.

"Greatly as all just and dispassionate men must abhor slavery, every one must admit the difficulties with which its immediate abolition is here surrounded. The negro does not possess the cordial sympathy of the white man. For while a small, and, politically speaking, uninfluential, party are prepared to make every sacrifice and run all risks in order to blot out slavery on the instant, the influential and acting leaders of the majority, whatever their occasional language of denunciation, and affectation of horror, are not disposed to brave the rebellion of the South, and the possible disruption of the Republic, for the sake of shortening the thraldom of the negro some fifty years. They profess to rely upon the natural progress of events, which, by quiet change, has already banished slavery from the majority of the States originally parties to the Union; and has, within the last few years, forbidden the future existence of slave States north of latitude 36 degrees 3o'—for the gradual extinction of the system; and in the meantime they are prepared to alleviate the lot of the slave; to refuse any extension of slavery; and, as far as concession can obtain it, to narrow the area which it now occupies.

"Perhaps, should these cold political views still hold possession of the moving spirits of the country, the next practical step in advance may be to secure to the slave a personal right to some small portion of the day, and to the produce of his labour in that portion;—to say, in fact, that after a stipulated number of hours' labour for his master, the remainder of his time shall be his own. The effect of this would be to enable him legally to accumulate property. And if, in addition, a minimum price be fixed at which his master should be bound to allow him to redeem himself, and savings' banks were opened to receive the produce of his free earnings—some glimmering of daylight would dawn upon his lot, and his condition, as a 'chattel' to be bought and sold, would not be hopeless."

Referring to what I hereafter relate of the incident at Saratoga, I may, at this point, remind the reader that, as late as 1862, President Lincoln, a sincere abolitionist, could not see his way to declare the freedom of the slave. He told a deputation from Chicago that "a Pope once issued a Bull against an eclipse, but the eclipse came along nevertheless." The moment I saw black soldiers in Northern uniform, carrying Northern muskets, at the end of 1863, I made up my mind that the North had won. In 1865 Dr. Mackay, registrar, showed me the registry of the passage of John Brown's, corpse through New York. I quote from memory; but if I recollect rightly, it was this:—