'Do most of them take to the swamps?'
'Yes, nine out of ten do, though now and then one gets off on a trading-vessel. It is almost impossible for a strange nigger to make his way by land from here to the free States.'
'Then why do you Carolinians make such an outcry about the violation of the Fugitive Slave Law?'
'For the same reason that dogs quarrel over a naked bone. We should be unhappy if we couldn't growl at the Yankees,' replied the Colonel, laughing heartily.
'We, you say; you mean by that, the hundred and eighty thousand nabobs who own five sixths of your slaves?' [4]
'Yes, I mean them, and the three or four millions of poor whites—the ignorant, half-starved, lazy vermin you have just seen. They are the real basis of our Southern oligarchy, as you call it,' continued the Colonel, still laughing.
'I thought the negro was the serf, in your feudal system?'
'Both the negro and the poor whites are the serfs, but the white trash are its real support. Their votes give the small minority of slave-owners all their power. You say we control the Union. We do, and we do it by the votes of these people, who are as far below our niggers as the niggers are below decent white men. Who that reflects that this country has been controlled for fifty years by such scum, would give a d—— for republican institutions?'
'It does speak very badly for your institutions. A system that reduces one half of a white population to the level of slaves can not stand in this country. The late election shows that the power of your 'white trash' is broken.'
'Well, it does, that's a fact. If the States should remain together, the West would in future control the Union. We see that, and are therefore determined on dissolution. It is our only way to keep our niggers.'