A 
 
 SOUTH-SIDE VIEW 
 
 OP 
 
 SLAYERY. 
 
 BY 
 
 NEHEMIAH ADAMS, D. D. 
 
 POT7BTH 
 
 BOSTON: 
 TICKNOR AND FIELDS, 
 
 M. DCCC. LX. 
 

 
 Enteredj^iccording to Act ol Congress, in the year 1860, by 
 
 T. R. MARVIN, 
 In the Clerk s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 TO THE FOURTH EDITION, 
 
 RENEWED inquiries for this book lead us to as 
 sume the publication of it, and to issue this edition. 
 It was first published in 1854, and has been now 
 for some time out of print. 
 
 A few things in the book refer to events which 
 were passing when it first appeared ; but it is thought 
 best to reprint it without alteration. 
 
 At the end of the volume may be found some 
 opinions which the book has elicited from eminent 
 sources. 
 
 BOSTON, May 15, 1860. 
 
 (3) 
 
 42^238 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTEE PAGE 
 
 I, FEELINGS AND EXPECTATIONS ON GOING TO 
 
 THE SOUTH, 7 14 
 
 II. ARRIVAL AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS, . . 1519 
 
 III. NEW VIEWS OF THE RELATIONS OF THE 
 
 SLAVES, 2023 
 
 IV. FAVORABLE APPEARANCES IN SOUTHERN SO 
 
 CIETY AND IN SLAVERY, .... 24 43 
 Good Order. The Dress of the Slaves. 
 The Children of the Slaves. Labor and 
 Privileges. Personal Protection. Pre 
 vention of Crime. 
 
 V. SUBJECT CONTINUED, 44 46 
 
 Absence of Mobs. Personal Liberty. Ab 
 sence of popular Delusions. 
 
 VI. SUBJECT CONTINUED. 47 63 
 
 Absence of Pauperism. Wages of Labor 
 Religious Instruction. Review. 
 
 VII. REVOLTING FEATURES OF SLAVERY, . . 64 81 
 Slave Auctions. Domestic Slave Trade. 
 
 VIII. SUBJECT CONTINUED, 82 99 
 
 Homes of the Slaves. Domestic Evils de 
 plored by the Whites. Review. 
 
 (v) 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTEB PAO 
 
 IX. APPROACHES TO EMANCIPATION, . . . 100 114 
 
 X. WHAT SHALL WE DO ? 115 136 
 
 Dissolution of the Union an Absurdity. 
 Results to be expected from Emancipation. 
 Social Divisions deplored. Return to 
 the Constitution. 
 
 XI. NEW POSSIBLE ISSUES ON THE SUBJECT OF 
 
 SLAVERY, 137146 
 
 XII. DISSUASIVE FROM INTERFERENCE WITH THE 
 
 SOUTH, 147-167 
 
 XIII. INFLUENCE OF UNCLE TOM S CABIN AT HOME 
 
 AND ABROAD 158179 
 
 XIV. BRITISH INTEREST IN AMERICAN SLAVERY, . 180189 
 XV. THE BIBLE AND SLAVERY, .... 190301 
 
 XVI. FEELINGS OF SLAVES, AND FEELINGS FOR THE 
 
 SLAVES, CONTRASTED, 203207 
 
 XVII. CHEERFUL VIEWS. CONCLUSION, . . 208214 
 
SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 FEELINGS AND EXPECTATIONS ON GOING TO THE 
 SOUTH. 
 
 IT was well said by Rev. John Newton, of London, 
 that Job and his friends might have continued their dis 
 pute to the present time, if they had lived so long, unless 
 God had interposed to settle the controversy. 
 
 Good men, conscientiously persuaded of the truth and 
 importance of their respective partial views of a great 
 subject, pleading for God, and therefore convinced, each 
 of them, that the Most High is on his side, cannot yield 
 one to the other without doing violence to their con 
 sciences. 
 
 Some new development, some providential disclosure, 
 must be made to withdraw their thoughts from the 
 issue which, they insist, is the only one of which the sub 
 ject is capable ; otherwise, that which was mere contra 
 riety of opinion grows to alienation and strife, of which 
 no one sees the end. 
 
 He who proposes to write or speak at the present 
 time on the subject which has so long tried the patience 
 of good men as the subject of slavery has done, is justi 
 
 (7) 
 
&* < \L- 3Q OT;H-SIDB r VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 fied in asking attention only by the conviction which it 
 is supposed he feels that he can afford some help. 
 
 The writer has lately spent three months at the south 
 for the health of an invalid. Few professional men at 
 the north had less connection with the south by ties of 
 any kind than he, when the providence of God made it 
 necessary to become for. a while a stranger in a strange 
 land. He was too much absorbed by private circum 
 stances to think of entering at all into a deliberate con 
 sideration of any important subject of a public nature ; 
 yet for this very reason, perhaps, the mind was better 
 prepared to receive dispassionately the impressions which 
 were to be made upon it. The impressions thus made, 
 and the reflections which spontaneously arose, the writer 
 here submits, not as a partisan, but as a Christian ; not 
 as a northerner, but as an American ; not as a politician, 
 but as a lover and friend of the colored race. Having 
 unexpectedly experienced help and relief in some de 
 gree in contemplating the subject, perhaps others may 
 be assisted by noticing the process through which it was 
 derived. To give information about slavery, to depict 
 scenes at the south, to add any thing to the almost num 
 berless discussions of the subject, is not the object of 
 this book. 
 
 I will relate the impressions and expectations with 
 which I went to the south ; the manner in which things 
 appeared to me in connection with slavery in Georgia, 
 South Carolina, and Virginia ; the correction or confir 
 mation of my northern opinions and feelings ; the conclu 
 sions to which I was led ; the way in which our language 
 and whole manner toward the south have impressed me ; 
 and the duty which it seems to me, as members of the 
 Union, we at the north owe to the subject of slavery and 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OP SLAVERY. 9 
 
 to the south, and with the south to the colored race. I 
 shall not draw upon fictitious scenes and feelings, but 
 shall give such statements as I would desire to receive 
 from a friend to whom I should put the question, " What 
 am I to believe ? How am I to feel and act ? " 
 
 In the few instances in which I do not speak from 
 personal observation, I shall quote from men whom, in 
 many places at home and abroad, I have learned to re 
 spect very highly for their intellectual, moral, and social 
 qualities I mean physicians. Associated with all 
 classes at all times, knowing things not generally ob 
 served, and being removed by their profession from any 
 extensive connection with slavery as a means of wealth, 
 they have seemed to me unusually qualified to testify on 
 the subject, and their opinions I have found to be emi 
 nently just and fair. 
 
 Very early in my visit at the south, agreeable im 
 pressions were made upon me, which soon began to be 
 interspersed with impressions of a different kind in look 
 ing at slavery. The reader will bear this in mind, and 
 not suppose, at any one point in the narrative, that I am 
 giving results not to be qualified by subsequent state 
 ments. The feelings awakened by each new disclosure 
 or train of reflection are stated without waiting for any 
 thing which may follow. 
 
 JUST before leaving home, several things had prepared 
 me to feel a special interest in going to the south. 
 
 The last thing which I did out of doors before leaving 
 Boston was, to sign the remonstrance of the New England 
 clergymen against the extension of slavery into the 
 
10 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 contemplated territories of Nebraska and Kansas. I had 
 assisted in framing that remonstrance. The last thing 
 which I happened to do late at night before I began my 
 journey was, to provide something for a freed slave on 
 his way to Liberia, who was endeavoring to raise several 
 thousand dollars to redeem his wife and children from 
 bondage. My conversations relating to this slave and 
 his family had filled me with new but by no means 
 strange distress, and the thought of looking slavery in 
 the face, of seeing the things which had so frequently 
 disturbed my self-possession, was by no means pleasant. 
 To the anticipation of all the afflictive sights which I 
 should behold there was added the old despair of seeing 
 any way of relieving this fearful evil, while the unavail 
 ing desire to find it, excited by the actual sight of wrongs 
 and woe, I feared would make my residence at the south 
 painful. 
 
 ^FT Behind the tables at the hotel in New York, on my 
 way south, stood a row of black waiters no unusual 
 sight to me, indeed ; but with my thoughts of the south 
 and the slaves, it assumed new interest. I connected 
 them in my thoughts with the slaves. They seemed 
 like straggling cinders at no great distance from the 
 burning house which I was about to see. New sym 
 pathy for the slave was excited by their visages. If 
 these who are free wear such dreary looks as my own 
 thoughts imparted to them, how fearful must be the 
 faces of the bondmen ! I felt that I was in the entrance 
 way to the home of a race who would excite in me only 
 sorrow. 
 
 On board the steamship from New York to Savannah, 
 white faces took the place of the black complexion which 
 had become identified with serving men. "We belong 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 11 
 
 to a slave State, was the obvious reason given for this 
 substitution. Free negroes could not be received at the 
 southern port; slaves belonging to the steamer could 
 not be trusted at New York ; hence those white servants, 
 whose faces, to an eye which retained the recent im 
 pression of shining black skin, looked paler than ever. 
 
 We had been three days in a southern steamer, and 
 had sailed by Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North and 
 South Carolina, and had seen no slave. The sight was 
 yet in reserve ; curiosity, sympathy, pity, the whole as 
 semblage of northern fancies and feelings which gather 
 together at the mention of a slave, were " all hands on 
 deck " as we entered Savannah River. Climate now 
 ceased to be the only object of interest connected with 
 tte south. There lay the rice plantations ; but where 
 were the slaves ? Some feeling of dread was mingled 
 with curiosity. Cowper s lines, learned and declaimed 
 so often in boyhood, came to mind : 
 
 " for a lodge in some vast wilderness," &c., 
 
 " I would not have a slave to till my ground," &c., 
 
 with the poet s enumeration of cruelties and horrors. 
 The anticipation of hearing those groans which three 
 millions of our fellow-countrymen are represented in 
 our Fourth of July orations, and which I had myself in 
 such an oration many years ago represented, as sending 
 up to Heaven day and night, and the clanking of those 
 chains which on such occasions are said to be mingling 
 with John Adams s category of joyful noises forever to 
 usher in the nation s birthday, and the confident expec 
 tation of seeing at the landing, or in passing through the 
 market-place, a figure like the common touching vignette 
 
12 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 of a naked negro on one knee, with manacled hands 
 raised imploringly and saying, " Am I not a man and 
 brother ? " had made the thought of reaching the south 
 increasingly painful. 
 
 " So you are going south," said a good friend in Bos 
 ton. " Well," he continued, " you will, I suppose, have 
 your feelings of humanity strongly appealed to many 
 a time." I felt afraid to trust myself in scenes such as 
 I had heard described ; yet, as we came near Savannah, 
 there was a natural impatience to see and feel the dire 
 ful object of so much anticipation. 
 
 Within five miles of Savannah the steamer ran 
 aground, in the early fog of a warm day ; and as the tide 
 was ebbing, there seemed to be for the time no relief, 
 except as the agents in the city might learn our situa 
 tion through their spyglasses, or a passing boat report 
 us. The Florida steamer came alongside, took off 
 some passengers for Florida, and left us with our paddle 
 wheels out of water, and not even a slave to pity and 
 help us, and to be an object of pity, from me at least, in 
 return. 
 
 A steam tug returning from the mouth of the river 
 came alongside about noon, and took the passengers and 
 their baggage to the city. 
 
 On board this tug I looked for the first time in my 
 life upon a slave. All hands on board were slaves. 
 As the boat labored up the stream, I had leisure to in 
 dulge my eyes and thoughts in looking at them. Two, 
 with unquestionable marks of servitude in their whole 
 appearance, were talking together in the stern of the 
 boat, the broad brims of their old black hats flapping in 
 the wind over their faces, hiding partly the glances 
 which they gave me as they noticed my interested looks 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 13 
 
 at them. One of them whispered covertly to the other, 
 and both smiled with a kindly look. It was a different 
 look from that which you receive in a prison yard, where 
 shame and pain steal out in quick, uneasy glances. I 
 felt impelled to speak with them, but was not yet suffi 
 ciently at home. 
 
 In the growth of the human mind, fancy takes the 
 lead of observation, and through life it is always run 
 ning ahead of it. Who has not been greatly amused, 
 sometimes provoked, and sometimes, perhaps, been 
 made an object of mirth, at the preconceived notions 
 which he had formed of an individual, or place, or com 
 ing event ? Who has not sometimes prudently kept his 
 fancies to himself? Taking four hundred ministers of 
 my denomination in Massachusetts, and knowing how 
 we all converse, and preach, and pray about slavery,, and 
 noticing since my return from the south the questions 
 which are put, and the remarks which are made upon 
 the answers, it will be safe to assert that on going south 
 I had at least the average amount of information anc^ 
 ignorance with regard to the subject. Some may affect 
 to wonder even at the little which has now been dis 
 closed of my secret fancies. I should have done the 
 same in the case of another ; for the credulity or sim 
 plicity of a friend, when expressed or exposed, generally 
 raises self-satisfied feelings in the most of us. Our 
 southern friends, on first witnessing our snow storms, 
 sleigh rides, and the gathering of our ice crops, are full 
 as simple as we are in a first visit among them. We 
 "suffer fools gladly, seeing" that we ourselves "are wise." 
 Some intelligent men at the south, who have never seen 
 Lowell, will speak of our " operatives " in a way to ex 
 cite quite as much mirth as their northern visitors occa 
 
14 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 sion. We both need forbearance and charity one from 
 the other. 
 
 How to say enough of preconceived notions respect 
 ing slavery, so as to compare subsequent impressions 
 with them, and yet not enough to give southern friends 
 room to exult and say that we all have false and exag 
 gerated notions about slavery, is somewhat difficult. At 
 the risk of disagreeable imputations, and with a desire 
 to be honest and ingenuous, I will merely add, that there 
 was one thing which I felt sure that I should see on 
 landing, viz., the whole black population cowed down. 
 This best expresses in a word my expectation. " I am a 
 slave," will be indented on the faces, limbs, and actions 
 of the bondmen. Hopeless woe, entreating yet despair 
 ing, will frequently greet me. How could it be other 
 wise, if slavery be such as our books, and sermons, and 
 lectures, and newspaper articles represent? nay, if 
 southern papers themselves, especially their advertise 
 ments, are to be relied upon as sources of correct im 
 pressions ? 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 15 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ARRIVAL AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 
 
 THE steam tug reached the landing, and the slaves 
 were all about us. One thing immediately surprised 
 me ; they were all in good humor, and some of them in 
 a broad laugh. The delivery of every trunk from the 
 tug to the wharf was the occasion of some hit, or rep 
 artee, and every burden was borne with a jolly word, 
 grimace, or motion. The lifting of one leg in laughing 
 seemed as natural as a Frenchman s shrug. I asked one 
 of them to place a trunk with a lot of baggage ; it was 
 done ; up went the hand to the hat " Any thing more, 
 please sir?" Wlwrfc-a wiill asl, I involuntarily said to 
 
 jmy^ fn tW troop at. dip. Albany landing on omLJE**. 
 
 ern Rfl,]1r ng ^ * Q - n -^ on those piles of boards, and on the 
 roofs of the sheds, and at the piers, in New York ! I 
 began to like these slaves. I began to laugh with them. 
 It was irresistible. Who could have convinced me, an 
 hour before, that slaves could have any other effect upon 
 me than to make me feel sad ? One fellow, in all the 
 hurry and bustle of landing us, could not help relating 
 how, in jumping on board, his boot was caught between 
 two planks, and " pulled clean off ; " and how " dis ole 
 feller went clean over into de wotter," with a shout, as 
 though it was a merry adventure. 
 
 One thing seemed clear; they were not so much 
 
16 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 cowed down as I expected. Perhaps, however, they 
 were a fortunate set. I rode away, expecting soon to 
 have some of my disagreeable anticipations verified. 
 
 In pursuance of the plan indicated in the beginning, 
 I shall now relate the impressions which were invol 
 untarily made upon me while residing in some of the 
 slave States. As before mentioned, I was making no 
 deliberate investigations, and had no theory to maintain ; 
 but the things which daily passed before me led to 
 reflections and conclusions, which will appear, some of 
 them, as we proceed, but more especially in the review. 
 Should these pages meet the eyes of any to whom the 
 things here described are perfectly familiar, they will 
 read them with forbearance, and remember that the 
 writer s object is not to give descriptions, but just to 
 relate those things which led him to certain reflections 
 and conclusions ; these conclusions alone, so far as they 
 may be useful, constituting the purpose of the book. 
 
 All things being arranged at your resting-place, the 
 first impulse is to* see how the land lies, settle certain 
 landmarks, and, above all things, find the post-office. 
 ^TTie city of Savannah abounds in parks, as they are 
 called squares, fenced in, with trees. Young children 
 and infants were there, with very respectable colored 
 nurses young women, with bandanna and plaid cam 
 bric turbans, and superior in genteel appearance to any 
 similar class, as a whole, in any of our cities. They 
 could not be slaves. Are they slaves ? " Certainly," 
 says the friend at your side ; " they each belong to some 
 master or mistress." 
 
 In behalf of a score of mothers of my acquaintance, 
 and of some fathers, I looked with covetous feelings 
 upon the relation which I saw existed between these 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 17 
 
 nurses and children. These women seemed not to have 
 the air and manner of hirelings in the care and treat 
 ment of the children ; their conversation with them, the 
 degree of seemingly maternal feeling which was infused 
 into their whole deportment, could not fail to strike a 
 casual observer. 
 
 Then these are slaves. Their care of the children, 
 even if it be slave labor, is certainly equal to that 
 which is free. ^ 
 
 " But that was a freeman who just passed us ? " 
 
 " No ; he is Mr. W. s servant, near us." 
 
 " He a slave ? " Such a rhetorical lifting of the arm, 
 such a line of grace as the hand described in descending 
 easily from the hat to the side, such a glow of good feel 
 ing on recognizing neighbor B., with a supplementary 
 act of respect to the stranger with him, were wholly 
 foreign from my notions of a slave. " Where are your 
 real slaves, such as we read of ? " 
 
 " These are about a fair sample." 
 
 " But they seem to me like your best quotations of 
 cotton; where are your ord., mid. fair to fair, dam 
 aged, and poor ?" 
 
 >ur fancies with regard to the condition of the slaves 
 id from our northern repugnance to slavery, stim 
 ulated by many things that we read. The every-day 
 life, the whole picture of society at the south, is not pre 
 sented to us so frequently indeed it cannot be, nor can 
 it strike the mind as strongly as slave auctions and sep 
 arations of families, fugitives hiding in dismal swamps, 
 and other things which appeal to our sensibilities. 
 Whatever else may be true of slavery, these things, we 
 say, are indisputable ; and they furnish materials for the 
 fancy to build into a world of woe. 
 2 
 
18 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OP SLAVERY. 
 
 Without supposing that I had yet seen slavery, it 
 was nevertheless true that a load was lifted from my 
 mind by the first superficial look at the slaves in the 
 city. 
 
 It was as though I had been let down by necessity 
 into a cavern which I had peopled with disagreeable 
 sights, and, on reaching bottom, found daylight streaming 
 in, and the place cheerful. 
 
 ^^A-A. better-looking, happier, more courteous set of peo 
 ple I had never seen, than those colored men, women, 
 and children whom I met the first few days of my stay 
 in Savannah. It had a singular effect on my spirits. 
 They all seemed glad to see me. I was tempted with 
 some vain feelings, as though they meant to pay me 
 some special respect. It was all the more grateful, 
 because for months sickness and death had covered 
 almost every thing, even the faces of friends at home, 
 with sadness to my eye, and my spirits had drooped. 
 But to be met and accosted with such extremely civil, 
 benevolent looks, to see so many faces break into pleas 
 ant smiles in going by, made one feel that he was not 
 alone in the world, even in a land of strangers. 
 
 How such unaffected politeness could have been 
 learned under the lash I did not understand. It con 
 flicted with my notions of slavery. I could not have 
 dreamed that these people had been "downtrodden," 
 " their very manhood crushed out of them," " the galling 
 yoke of slavery breaking every human feeling, and re 
 ducing them to the level of brutes." It was one of the 
 pleasures of taking a walk to be greeted by all my 
 colored friends. I felt that I had taken a whole new 
 race of my fellow-men by the hand. I took care to 
 notice each of them, and get his full smile and saluta- 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OP SLAVERY. 19 
 
 tion ; many a time I would gladly have stopped and 
 paid a good price for a certain " good morning," cour 
 tesy, and bow ; it was worth more than gold ; its charm 
 consisted in its being unbought, unconstrained, for I was 
 an entire stranger. Timidity, a feeling of necessity, 
 the leer of obliged deference, I nowhere saw; but the 
 artless, free, and easy manner which burdened spirits 
 never wear. It was difficult to pass the colored people 
 in the streets without a smile awakened by the magnet 
 ism of their smiles. Let any one at the north, afflicted 
 with depression of spirits, drop down among these ne 
 groes, walk these streets, form a passing acquaintance 
 with some of them, and unless he is a hopeless case, he 
 will find himself in moods of cheerfulness never awak 
 ened surely by the countenances of the whites in any 
 strange place. Involuntary servitude did not present 
 itself to my eye or thoughts during the two weeks which 
 I spent in Savannah, except as I read advertisements 
 in the papers of slaves for sale. 
 
 How the appearance of the colored people in villages 
 and plantation districts would compare with that of city 
 household servants, was a question which was reserved 
 for future observation. 
 
20 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OP SLAVERY. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 NEW VIEWS OF THE RELATIONS OF THE SLAVES. 
 
 THE gentleman at whose house I was guest com 
 manded the military battalion. The parade day oc 
 curred during my visit. Three bands came successively 
 within an hour in the morning to salute him. These 
 bands were composed of slaves, so called ; but never did 
 military bands suggest the idea of involuntary servitude 
 less, or feel servitude of any kind for the time less, than 
 these black warriors. They approached with their 
 quickstep tunes, formed in front of the dwelling, faced 
 the street, (a respectful mano3uvre, unlike our salutes, 
 which make us all face the music,) performed their sa 
 lute, and marched off in good style. Their personal 
 appearance was in several instances very striking. One 
 of the bass drummers was a fine specimen of the hu 
 man frame, his points set off by his tight military dress, 
 while a pair of green periscopic spectacles gave an addi 
 tional touch to his looks. There was nothing grotesque 
 in their appearance, nothing corresponding to Ethiopic 
 minstrelsy in our northern caricatures ; any military 
 company at the north would have feelings of respect for 
 their looks and performances. 
 
 Going out with a friend to see the line formed, he 
 asked me to accept a cane for the walk. On declining, 
 I was pressed to take it by the remark that I surely 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 21 
 
 would if I would read the inscription : " From the live 
 oak of the frigate Constitution, presented," &c. What 
 had Georgians to do with that frigate, I said to myself, 
 the frigate which was the pride and boast of us Massa 
 chusetts boys in the war ? 
 
 The thought of our family of States came over me, 
 our States like the sea, " its waves many, its waters one," 
 each claiming the frigate Constitution as hers, "gallant 
 Hull " hers, our whole naval renown hers. Cords of 
 love stronger than death hold us together ; when the 
 attempt to break our Union begins to draw upon these 
 secret bands, they will be found invincible. Petulant, 
 angry members of the household will frequently threaten, 
 like passionate children, to leave the house. Let them 
 try. They will find secret weaknesses and childlike re- 
 lentings interfering with their sturdy anger, and tears 
 will start unbidden in better moments. 
 
 As the line was forming on " the Bay," the tender of 
 a locomotive happened to be drawn along on trucks, be 
 tween the spectators and the military, on its way to the 
 railroad station. The name of the engine and tender, 
 in large letters, on the tender, was NEW HAMP 
 SHIRE. My New England feelings arose and glowed 
 within me. It was weak, perhaps, to feel any thing like 
 a tear, even of pleasure ; but the sudden presentation of 
 a proud New England name, the momentary commin 
 gling there in Georgia of north and south, the kind 
 blending of Nebraska and Anti-Nebraska in that acci 
 dental meeting, the easy, home feeling with which the 
 New Hampshire took the liberty to pass along in the 
 midst of the pageant, and many other similar thoughts 
 and feelings, made me reflect what a death it would be 
 if our Union should suffer fratricide or suicide. 
 
22 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OP SLAVERY. 
 
 The commander of the military on this occasion, though 
 still justly claiming to be a young man, was an officer in 
 the U. S. Artillery on the north-eastern frontier during 
 our trouble respecting the boundary question. Maine 
 and Georgia were the same country to him. Should 
 the north ever need Georgia soldiers to battle against 
 a common foe, the hands of one who has no superior in 
 all that constitutes a Christian lady will, with the old 
 southern patriotism, tie his sash for him as she did on 
 that morning of the parade. 
 
 The tender (but let no one play upon the word from 
 the effect of the cumbersome thing on my feelings) be 
 ing out of the way, the bands wheeled into marching 
 order, and the battalion went to the parade ground to 
 the music of those colored men, affording a northerner 
 some novel and pleasant thoughts. It was one of the 
 last things which I had expected to see the soldiers 
 of the south following the music made by such men, 
 their step enlivened, their spirits cheered by them. It 
 was good and pleasant to see them in that unity, the 
 proverbial love of music in the colored race being per 
 mitted to gratify itself in discoursing martial sounds to 
 their masters. 
 
 When I awoke the next morning, I found that a slight 
 frost had touched some of my northernmost fancies 
 about the slaves. I knew that I had much yet to learn ; 
 but I had thus far seen things which had never been re 
 lated to me, and I took into my reckoning terms which 
 I had wholly neglected in trying to work out at home 
 the problem of human happiness at the south. 
 
 If it be less romantic, it is more instructive, to see the 
 fire department of a southern city composed of col 
 ored men in their company uniforms, parading, and in 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 23 
 
 times of service working, with all the enthusiasm of 
 Philadelphia or Boston firemen. Thus it is given to 
 the colored population of some cities and towns at the 
 south to protect the dwellings and stores of the city 
 against fire the dwellings and property of men who, 
 as slave owners, are regarded by many at the north with 
 feelings of commiseration, chiefly from being exposed, 
 as we imagine, to the insurrectionary impulses of an 
 oppressed people. To organize that people into a pro 
 tective force, to give them the largest liberty at times 
 when general consternation and confusion would afford 
 them the best opportunities to execute seditionary and 
 murderous purposes, certainly gave me, as a northerner, 
 occasion to think that whatever is true theoretically, and 
 whatever else may be practically true, with regard to 
 slavery, the relations and feelings between the white 
 and colored people at the south were not wholly as I 
 had imagined them to be. These two instances of confi 
 dence and kindness gave me feelings of affection for 
 the blacks and respect for their masters. Not a word 
 had been said to me about slavery ; my eyes taught me 
 that some practical things in the system are wholly dif 
 ferent from my anticipations. " I saw it, and received 
 
 instruction." 
 
 i 
 
24 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OP SLAVERY. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FAVORABLE APPEARANCES IN SOUTHERN SOCIETY 
 AND IN SLAVERY. 
 
 WHEN we find ourselves to have been under wrong 
 impressions, and begin to have our notions corrected, our 
 disposition is to reach an opposite extreme, and to see 
 things in a light whose glare is as false as the previous 
 twilight. I resolved to watch my feelings in this respect, 
 and take the true gauge of this subject. 
 
 SECTION I. Good Order. 
 
 The streets of southern cities and towns immediately 
 struck me as being remarkably quiet in the evening and 
 at night. 
 
 " What is the cause of so much quiet ? " I said to a 
 friend. 
 
 "Our colored people are mostly at home. After 
 eight o clock they cannot be abroad without a written 
 pass, which they must show on being challenged, or go 
 to the guard house. The master must pay fifty cents 
 for a release. White policemen in cities, and in towns 
 patrols of white citizens, walk the streets at night." 
 >/ Here I received my first impression of interference 
 fnth the personal liberty of the colored people. The 
 white servants, if there be any, the boys, the appren- 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OP SLAVERY. 25 
 
 tices, the few Irish, have liberty ; the colored men are 
 under restraint. 
 
 But though I saw that this was a feature of slavery, 
 I did not conclude that it would be well to dissolve the 
 Union in order to abolish it. Apart from the question 
 of slavery, it was easy to see that to keep such a part 
 of the population out of the streets after a reasonable 
 hour at night, preventing their unrestrained, promiscu 
 ous roving, is a great protection to them, as well as to 
 the public peace. In attending evening worship, in 
 visiting at any hour, a written pass is freely given ; so 
 that, after all, the bondage is theoretical, but still it is 
 bondage. Is it an illustration, I asked myself, of other 
 things in slavery, which are theoretically usurpations, 
 but practically benevolent ? 
 
 V From the numbers in the streets, though not great, 
 you would not suspect that the blacks are restricted at 
 night ; yet I do not remember one instance of rudeness 
 or unsuitable behavior among them in any place. Around 
 the drinking saloons there were white men and boys 
 whose appearance and behavior reminded me of " liberty 
 and pursuit of happiness " in similar places at the north ; 
 but there were no colored men there : the slaves are 
 generally free as to street brawls and open drunkenness. 
 I called to mind a place at the north whose streets every 
 evening, and especially on Sabbath evenings, are a nui 
 sance. If that place could enforce a law forbidding cer 
 tain youths to be in the streets after a certain hour with 
 out a pass from their employers, it would do much to 
 raise them to an equality in good manners with their 
 more respectable colored fellow-men at the south. I 
 had occasion to pity some white southerners, as they issued 
 late at night from a drinking-place, in being deprived of 
 
26 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 the wholesome restraint laid upon the colored population. 
 The moral and religious character of the colored people 
 at the south owes very much to this restraint. 
 
 Putting aside for the time all thoughts of slavery, I 
 indulged myself in thinking and feeling, here is strong 
 government. It has a tonic, bracing effect upon one s 
 feelings to be in its atmosphere ; and as Charles Lamb 
 tells us not to inquire too narrowly of every mendicant 
 whether the " wife and six young children " are a fiction, 
 but to give, and enjoy it, so there was a temptation to 
 disregard for the time the idea of slavery, and, becom 
 ing a mere utilitarian, to think of three millions of our 
 population as being under perfect control, and in this 
 instance indisputably to their benefit. 
 
 The first instance in which I saw slaves, men and 
 women, acting in an associated capacity, was in a colored 
 choir. My object in speaking of this will appear in 
 the sequel. Would that some of my musical friends 
 could enjoy the performances of that choir at that church. 
 A tall, stout negro, with an intelligent face, rose to sing, 
 and his choir stood up. He doubled back his little hymn 
 book in one hand, and held the singing book, doubled 
 back also, in the other, both at arm s length. He put 
 one foot in the chair where he had been sitting, as though 
 for greater purchase, and then pitched the tune with 
 marked distinctness, giving all the parts. Off he started 
 with an explosive note that waked up every echo, be 
 ginning, as directed, at the third verse, 
 
 " Fools never raise their thoughts so high." 
 
 His arms, his bended knee, his whole body, were instinct 
 with feeling. He made, perhaps, three times as many 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 27 
 
 notes as were written, counting his slurs, and his division 
 of white-faced notes into the due allowance of pointed 
 ones, with other embellishments, all so exciting that the 
 short yellow girl, the principal alto, with round face and 
 neat attire, standing next to him, feeling the windage of 
 his motions and the interruption to the movement by 
 his crotchets and fancies, stopped singing, shook with 
 an internal laugh, with an occasional heat-lightning be 
 trayal of her beautiful white teeth, which she covered 
 as quick as possible to conceal her mirth. She showed 
 wonderful self-control, and finally succeeded in carrying 
 her part ; but at the next singing, she and the other 
 girls removed to the other side of the pillar, which they 
 left between themselves and the leader in self-defence. 
 He was all the time solemn and devout ; his wish evi 
 dently being fulfilled, that his heart, whatever might be 
 said of his voice, might " in tune be found." An elderly 
 negro with white hair, his head thrown back ; an intensely 
 black man, of towering stature, in a Petersham coat ; a 
 genteel youth with master s plaid cassimere riding jacket; 
 and a few women, conspired to sing the hymn with an 
 effect deeply impressive and edifying, however much 
 some of the features in the performance might tend for 
 a moment to divert the feelings. No sooner was the 
 benediction pronounced than, in keeping with the custom 
 in some white congregations of interrupting the thoughts 
 of the retiring audience by boisterous organ playing, 
 this choir started a select piece : 
 
 "Hark ! the vesper hymn is stealing," &c. 
 
 It being not much after twelve at noon, this vesper was 
 as little appropriate as the organ playing just mentioned, 
 
28 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 but was sanctioned by the practice of those whose ex 
 ample the blacks follow for good or ill. 
 
 The impression here made upon me, or rather con 
 firmed and illustrated afresh, was, that the slaves, so far 
 as I had seen, were unconscious of any feeling of re 
 straint ; the natural order of life proceeded with them ; 
 they did not act like a driven, overborne people, stealing 
 about with sulky looks, imbruted by abuse, crazed, stu 
 pidly melancholic. People habitually miserable could 
 not have conducted the musical service of public wor 
 ship as they did ; their looks and manner gave agreeable 
 testimony that, in spite of their condition, they had 
 sources of enjoyment and ways of manifesting it which 
 suggested to a spectator no thought of involuntary ser 
 vitude. My theory was, that they ought to be perpetu 
 ally unhappy. I tried to persuade myself that they 
 were. Ten thousands of people are miserable on their 
 account, and my wonder was, that the slaves themselves 
 were not continually verifying and warranting all the 
 distress of which they are the occasion. This is one of 
 those northern fancies which ought not to be confessed, 
 if one has much regard to being ridiculed at the south, 
 and mourned over by some at the north. 
 
 Though not having as yet gone so far in looking 
 at slavery as Goldsmith s Traveler had wandered in 
 seeking for the best state of society, I was nevertheless 
 reminded, more than once, of the conclusion to which 
 he came on his return to England, 
 
 In every government, though terrors reign, 
 Though tyrant kings or tyrant laws restrain, 
 How small, of all that human hearts endure, 
 That part which laws or kings can cause or cure ! 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 29 
 
 In churches generally, the colored people occupy the 
 galleries, sometimes including that portion which with 
 us is used by the choir, the singers in such cases sitting 
 below. As a preacher and as a hearer, I have had op 
 portunities to witness their appearance in public worship, 
 and in no case have I seen inattention or sleep. With 
 much fixedness of posture, the face frequently resting 
 on the hand, with the elbow on the rail, some standing, 
 all looking at the speaker, they were an example of de 
 corum, and of that demeanor which encourages a public 
 speaker. In an audience in which a large number of 
 colored people were sitting in the gallery opposite the 
 pulpit, it being somewhat dark, I noticed occasional 
 quiet disclosures of white teeth, like fireflies after dark, 
 as feelings of gratification in one and another, at some 
 affecting expression in the sermon, made them smile. 
 
 My surprise and pleasure experienced a high tide as 
 I noticed something which I may find it difficult to make 
 some of my readers understand, or believe. 
 
 Coming out of church the first Sabbath which I spent 
 in a country village, I saw a group of colored men 
 standing under the trees around the house, waiting for 
 the rest of the people to pass out. I could not be mis 
 taken in my impression from their looks that they were 
 Christian men. Their countenances were intelligent 
 and happy ; but the thing to which I allude, and of which 
 these men gave me my first impression, was, the dress 
 of the slaves. 
 
 SECTION II. The Dress of the Slaves. 
 
 To see slaves with broadcloth suits, well-fitting and 
 nicely-ironed fine shirts, polished boots, gloves, umbrellas 
 
30 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 for sunshades, the best of hats, their young men with 
 their blue coats and bright buttons, in the latest style, 
 white Marseilles vests, white pantaloons, brooches in 
 their shirt bosoms, gold chains, elegant sticks, and some 
 old men leaning on their ivory and silver-headed staves, 
 as respectable in their attire as any who that day went 
 to the house of God, was more than I was prepared to 
 see. As to that group of them under the trees, had I 
 been unseen, I would have followed my impulse to shake 
 hands with the whole of them, as a vent to my pleasure 
 in seeing slaves with all the bearing of respectable, dig 
 nified Christian gentlemen. As it was, I involuntarily 
 lifted my hat to them, which was responded to by them 
 with such smiles, uncovering of the head, and graceful 
 salutations, that, scribe or Pharisee, I felt that I did love 
 such greetings in the market-places from such people. 
 
 Then I fell into some reflections upon the philosophy 
 of dress as a powerful means of securing respect, and 
 thought how impossible it must soon become to treat 
 with indignity men who respected themselves, as these 
 men evidently did ; nay, rather, how impossible it al 
 ready was for masters who would so clothe their ser 
 vants to treat them as cattle. Further acquaintance 
 with that place satisfied me that this inference was right. 
 There is one southern town, at least, where it would be 
 morally as impossible for a good servant to be reckless 
 ly sold, or to be violently separated from his family, or 
 to be abused with impunity, as in any town at the 
 north. 
 
 On seeing these men in their Sabbath attire, and feel 
 ing toward them as their whole appearance compelled 
 m to do, I understood one thing which before was not 
 explained. I had always noticed that southerners sel- 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 31 
 
 dom used the word slaves in private conversation. I 
 supposed that it was conscience that made them change 
 the word, as they had also omitted it in the Constitution 
 of the United States. But I was soon unable to use 
 the word myself in conversation, after seeing them in 
 their Sabbath dress, and as my hearers, and in families ; 
 their appearance and condition in so great a proportion 
 making the idea connected with the word slave incom 
 patible with the impressions received from them. Let 
 no one draw sweeping conclusions from these remarks, 
 but wait till we have together seen and heard other 
 things, and in the mean time only gather from what has 
 been said that our fancies respecting the colored people 
 at the south, as well as their masters, are not all of them, 
 probably, correct. 
 
 But the women, the colored women, in the streets on 
 the Sabbath, put my notions respecting the appearance 
 of the slaves to utter discomfiture. At the north an 
 elegantly-dressed colored woman excites mirth. Every 
 northerner knows that this is painfully true. Gentlemen, 
 ladies, boys, and girls never pass her without a feeling 
 of the ludicrous ; a feeling which is followed in some 
 would it were so in all by compunction and shame. It 
 was a pleasant paradox to find that where the colored 
 people are not free, they have in many things the most 
 liberty, and among them the liberty to dress handsome 
 ly, and be respected in it. 
 
 You do not see the tawdriness of color, the super 
 fluity of yellow, the violations of taste in the dress of 
 the colored women at the south to the degree which you 
 observe in some other places. One reason, if not the 
 chief, is, they each have a mistress, a matron, or young 
 lady, to advise and direct them, and to be responsible in 
 
32 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 the community for their good appearance. They also 
 wear fabrics and millinery which either good taste, or, 
 at least, means superior to theirs, originally selected for 
 the use of their mistresses and white members of the 
 family. It may seem extravagant to some, but the pride 
 we have in the respectable appearance of children is 
 felt by southern mistresses with regard to their servants. 
 A grotesque, ill-fashioned dress on a female servant ap 
 pearing in public on the Sabbath, would be sure to be a 
 subject of a hint from a neighbor or friend. My previ 
 ous images of slaves were destroyed by the sight of those 
 women with dresses which would have been creditable 
 to the population of any town at the north. The most 
 surprising sight of all, as an evidence of real refinement 
 and good taste, was, here and there, a simple straw 
 bonnet with a plain white ribbon, and a black silk dress. 
 Such is the ordinary appearance of the women in a 
 country town on the Sabbath, and indeed in the cities 
 Fashion hardly stretches her influence further. Mixed 
 with these specimens of the putting on of apparel are 
 seen, of course, very plain, humble clothing and turbans, 
 and instances of great neglect in dress. 
 
 It must be observed that these people, men and wo 
 men, were country people, many of them plantation 
 hands. The difference between them and city slaves 
 was only superficial. 
 
 SECTION III. The Children of the Slaves. 
 
 But of all the touching sights of innocence and love 
 appealing to you unconsciously for your best feelings of 
 tenderness and affection, the colored young children 
 have never been surpassed in my experience. Might I 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OP SLAVERY. 33 
 
 choose a class of my fellow-creatures to instruct and 
 love, I should be drawn by my present affection toward 
 them to none more readily than to these children of the 
 slaves ; nor should I expect my patience and affection to 
 be more richly rewarded elsewhere. Extremes of dis 
 position and character, of course, exist among- thp.m r na 
 Ulhon<; others ; but they are naturally as bri^hf^ 
 ate, and capable as other children, while the 
 
 which your instructions impress them, the reasonings 
 they excite, the remarks occasioned by them, are cer- 
 tainiy pfiftiilfop. 
 
 Their attachments and sympathies are sometimes 
 very touching. One little face I shall never forget, of 
 a girl about seven years old, who passed us in the street 
 on an errand, with such a peculiarly distressed yet 
 gentle look, that I inquired her name. A lady with 
 me said that she belonged to a white family, in which a 
 son had recently killed a companion in a quarrel, and 
 had fled. The natural anguish of a sister at some dire 
 ful calamity in a house could not have been more strik 
 ingly portrayed than in that sweet little dark face. It 
 had evidently settled there. 
 
 Going to meeting one Sabbath morning, a child, about 
 eight years old, tripped along before me, with her hymn 
 book and nicely-folded handkerchief in her hand, the 
 flounces on her white dress very profuse, frilled ankles, 
 light-colored boots, mohair mits, and sunshade, all show 
 ing that some fond heart and hand had bestowed great 
 care upon her. Home and children came to mind. I 
 thought of the feelings which that flower of the family 
 perhaps occasioned. Is it the pastor s daughter ? Is it 
 the daughter of the lady whose garden I had walked in, 
 but which bears no such plant as this ? But my musings 
 3 
 
34 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 were interrupted by the child, who, on hearing foot 
 steps behind, suddenly turned, and showed one of the 
 blackest faces I ever saw. It was one of the thousands 
 of intelligent, happy colored children, who on every 
 Sabbath, in every southern town and city, make a 
 northern visitor feel that some of his theoretical opin 
 ions at home, with regard to the actual condition of 
 slavery, are much improved by practical views of it. 
 
 SECTION IV. Labor and Privileges. 
 
 Life on the cotton plantations is, in general, as severe 
 with the colored people as agricultural life at the north. 
 I have spent summers upon farms, however, where the 
 owners and their hands excited my sympathy by toils 
 to which the slaves on many plantations are strangers. 
 Every thing depends upon the disposition of the master. 
 It happened that I saw some of the best specimens, and 
 heard descriptions of some of the very bad. In the rice 
 swamps, malaria begets diseases and destroys life ; in the 
 sugar districts, at certain seasons, the process of manu 
 facture ^requires labor, night and day, for a considerable 
 time, xhere the different dispositions of the master 
 affect the comfort of the laborers variously, as in all 
 other situations. 
 
 But in the cotton-growing country, the labor, though 
 extending in one forin and another nearly through the 
 year, yet taking each day s labor by itself, is no more 
 toilsome than is performed by a hired field hand at the 
 north ; still the continuity of labor from February to 
 the last part of December, with a slight intermission in 
 midsummer, when the crop is " laid by," the stalks being 
 matured, and the crop left to ripen, makes plantation 
 life severe. 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OP SLAVERY. 35 
 
 Some planters allow their hands a certain portion of 
 the soil for their own culture, and give them stated times 
 to work it ; some prefer to allow them out of the whole 
 crop a percentage equal to such a distribution of land ; 
 and some do nothing of the kind ; but their hearts are 
 made of the northern iron and the steel. It is the com 
 mon law, however, with all who regard public opinion 
 at the south, to allow their hands certain privileges and 
 exemptions, such as long rest in the middle of the day, 
 early dismission from the field at night, a half day occa 
 sionally, in addition to holidays, for which the colored 
 people of all denominations are much indebted to the 
 Episcopal church, whose festivals they celebrate with 
 the largest liberty. 
 
 They raise poultry, swine, melons ; keep bees ; catch 
 fish ; peddle brooms, and small articles of cabinet mak 
 ing ; and, if they please, lay up the money, or spend it 
 on their wives and children, or waste it for things hurt 
 ful, if there are white traders desperate enough to defy 
 the laws made for such cases, and which are apt to be 
 most rigorously executed. Some slaves are owners of 
 bank and railroad shares. A slave woman, having had 
 three hundred dollars stolen from her by a white man, 
 her master was questioned in court as to the probability 
 of her having had so much money. He said that he not 
 unfrequently had borrowed fifty and a hundred dollars 
 of her, and added, that she was always very strict as to 
 his promised time of payment. 
 
 It is but fair, in this and all other cases, to describe 
 the condition of things as commonly approved and pre 
 vailing ; and when there are painful exceptions, it is but 
 just to consider what is the public sentiment with regard 
 to them. By this rule a visitor is made to feel that 
 
36 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 good and kind treatment of the slaves is the common 
 law, subject, of course, to caprices and passions. One 
 will find at the south a high tone of feeling on this sub 
 ject, and meet with some affecting illustrations of it. 
 
 You may see a wagon from a neighboring town in the 
 market-place of a city or large place, filled with honey 
 combs, melons, mops, husk mats, and other articles of 
 manufacture and produce, and a white man with his 
 colored servant selling them at wholesale or retail. It 
 will interest your feelings, and give you some new im 
 pressions of slave owners, to know that these articles 
 are the property of that servant, and that his master, a 
 respectable gentleman, with disinterested kindness, is 
 helping his servant dispose of them, protecting him from 
 imposition, making change for him, with the glow of 
 cheerfulness and good humor such as acts like these 
 impart to the looks and manner of a real gentleman, 
 who always knows how to sustain himself in an equivo 
 cal position. 
 
 Had that master overworked his servant in the sugar 
 season, or killed him in the field, we might have heard 
 of it at the north ; but this little wagon has come and 
 gone for more than a year on the market days, the 
 master and servant chatting side by side, counting their 
 net profits, discussing the state of the markets, inventing 
 new commodities, the master stepping in at the Savings 
 Bank, on the way home, and entering nine or ten dollars 
 more in Joe s pass-book, which already shows several 
 hundred dollars ; and all this has not been so much as 
 named on the platform of any society devoted to the 
 welfare of the slaves. True, there are masters, who, 
 as the psalm sung by the colored choir says, " never 
 raise their thoughts so high;" but it is gratifying to 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 37 
 
 know that such things as these characterize the inter 
 course of masters and servants at the south. Nameless 
 are they, in a thousand cases, and noiseless ; but the 
 consciousness of them, and of the disposition and feel 
 ings which prompt them, it was easy to see, gives to 
 our wholesale denunciations of slavery a character of 
 injustice which grieves and exasperates not a little. 
 
 Probably every northerner feels, on seeing the negro 
 cabins, that he could make them apparently more com 
 fortable on almost every plantation. The negroes them 
 selves could do so, if they chose, in very many cases ; 
 but the cabins will strike every one disagreeably at 
 first. We err in comparing them with dwellings suited 
 to people of different habits and choice from those of the 
 colored population at the south. A log cabin, plastered 
 with mud, whether at the south or west, seems to a 
 stranger a mean, pitiable place. I was, however, 
 amused with a man in the cars, whom I overheard com 
 plaining that in building a house for his own family, in 
 a new settlement, he was obliged to build with joists 
 and boards, as logs were not to be had. The log cabin 
 is cool in summer and warm in winter. An estimable 
 man, who had been a physician and became a planter, 
 built brick cabins for his people. They grew sick in 
 them, and he was obliged to erect log cabins. A great 
 fire, and at the same time thorough ventilation, are 
 essential to their comfort and health. Both of these 
 are obtained together in the cabins better than in framed 
 or brick dwellings. 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 SECTION V. Personal Protection. 
 
 A strong public sentiment protects the person of 
 the slave against annoyances and injuries. Boys and 
 men cannot abuse another man s servant. Wrongs to 
 his person are avenged. It amounts in many cases to 
 a chivalric feeling, increased by a sense of utter mean 
 ness and cowardice in striking or insulting one who can 
 not return insult for insult and blow for blow. Instances 
 of this protective feeling greatly interested me. One 
 was rather singular, indeed ludicrous, and made consid 
 erable sport ; but it shows how far the feeling can pro 
 ceed. A slave was brought before a mayor s court for 
 some altercation in the street ; the master privately re 
 quested the mayor to spare him from being chastised, 
 and the mayor was strongly disposed to do so ; but the 
 testimony was too palpably against the servant, and he 
 was whipped ; in consequence of which the master sent 
 a challenge to the mayor to fight a duel. 
 
 A gentleman, whose slave had been struck by a white 
 mechanic with Avhom the servant had remonstrated for 
 not having kept an engagement, went indignantly to the 
 shop with his man servant to seek explanation and re 
 dress, and in avenging him, had his arm stripped of his 
 clothing by a drawing knife in the hands of the mechanic. 
 
 It is sometimes asserted that the killing a negro is 
 considered a comparatively light offence at the south. 
 In Georgia it is much safer to kill a Avhite man than a 
 negro ; and if either is done in South Carolina, the law 
 is exceedingly apt to be put in force. In Georgia I 
 have witnessed a strong purpose among lawyers to pre 
 vent the murderer of a negro from escaping justice 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 39 
 
 A slave had recently set fire to a cotton house, after 
 the crop was in, and the loss was great. He was ar 
 raigned, and plead guilty. The judge asked who was 
 his master. He pointed to him. The judge inquired 
 if he had provided counsel for him. The master 
 honestly replied that as the slave was to plead guilty, 
 and there was no question in any mind of his guilt, 
 he had not thought it necessary. The judge told the 
 clerk not to enter the negro s plea, and informed the 
 master, that unless he preferred to pro-vide counsel,, 
 he would do it, as the law allowed him to do, at the 
 master s expence. The master brought forward two 
 young lawyers. The judge said, with due respect to 
 the young gentlemen, that the master knew how grave 
 was the offence, and that experienced men ought to 
 manage the case. He appointed two of the ablest 
 men at the bar to defend the negro. But the evi 
 dence, as all knew it would be, was overwhelming,, 
 and the jury convicted the prisoner. Whereupon one 
 of the counsel rose, and reminded the judge at what 
 disadvantage the defence had been conducted, and 
 moved for a new trial. It was granted. The case 
 was pending at my last information. 
 
 I asked myself, where at the North would a white 
 culprit meet with greater lenity and kindness ? If the 
 administration of justice is any good index of the 
 moral feeling in a community, I began to see that it 
 was wrong to judge such a community as the one in 
 question merely by their slave code, or by theoretical 
 views of slavery however logically true. 
 
 Not long since, two men were convicted of worrying 
 a negro with dogs, and killing him. They were con 
 fined in Charleston jail. The people of their own dis- 
 
40 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 trict meditated a rescue ; but the governor, without 
 changing the ordinary course of proceeding in such 
 cases, conveyed them, under military guard, to the dis 
 trict where the murder was committed, and they were 
 executed in sight of their neighbors. 
 
 There have been mournful cases in which the mur 
 derer of a negro has escaped deserved punishment ; but 
 it was not because it was a negro that was killed. The 
 murderers of white people have as frequently obtained 
 impunity. The arguments of lawyers at the bar have 
 been quoted to show that the life of a negro at the south 
 is not equivalent to the life of a white person ; even if 
 this be correct, we forget that lawyers, in changing sides, 
 sometimes change their minds, and are unwilling to have 
 their previous views quoted as authority. 
 
 The laws allow the master great extent in chastising 
 a slave, as a protection to himself and to secure subor 
 dination. Here room is given for brutal acts ; barba 
 rous modes of inflicting pain, resulting in death, are 
 employed ; but it is increasingly the case that vengeance 
 overtakes and punishes such transgressors. 
 
 It is well for themselves that the blacks do not have 
 the temptations which the liberty of testifying against 
 the whites would give them. While they are thus re 
 stricted by law, for obvious reasons, from giving testi 
 mony, their evidence has its just weight with juries, when 
 it is known. Offenders do not escape more frequently at 
 the south, by legal quibbles, imperfect legislation, and 
 the ingenuity of lawyers than in the free States. The 
 whole impression with regard to personal protection ex 
 tended over the slaves, as compared with personal safety 
 elsewhere, was far different from that which I had been 
 led to expect. 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 41 
 
 SECTION VI. Prevention of Crime. 
 
 Prevention of crime among the lower class of society 
 is one striking feature of slavery. Day and night every 
 one of them is amenable to a master. If ill disposed, 
 he has his own policeman in his owner. Thus three 
 millions of the laboring class of our population are in a 
 condition most favorable to preservation from crimes 
 against society. But the petty larcenies which swell our 
 public records of crime are, many of them, at the south 
 privately punished, and do not enter into the public 
 enumerations of offences. 
 
 A prosecuting officer, who had six or eight counties 
 in his district, told me that during eight years of ser- 
 vice, he had made out about two thousand bills of_ 
 indictment, of which not more than twelve were against 
 colored people. It must follow of necessity that a large 
 amount of crime is prevented by the personal relation 
 of the colored man to a white citizen. It would be a 
 benefit to some of our immigrants at the north, and to 
 society, if government could thus prevent or reach dis 
 turbances of the peace through masters, overseers, or 
 guardians. But we cannot rival in our police measures 
 the beneficial system of the south in its distributive 
 agencies to prevent burglaries and arson. 
 
 A physician, relating his experience in his rides at 
 night, said that in solitary places, the sudden appearance 
 of a white man generally excited some apprehension with 
 regard to personal safety, but the sight of a black man 
 was always cheering, and made him feel safe. Husbands 
 and fathers feel secure on leaving home for several days, 
 even where their houses are surrounded by negro cabins 
 
42 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 and the dwellings of the whites are much scattered. The 
 reading of this would awaken a smile in many a south 
 erner, for it is far below the truth. 
 
 On reaching the Great Pedee River near midnight, 
 on the way to Wilmington, North Carolina, the passen 
 gers leave the cars and go down into a rude scow or 
 raft, to be pulled over the stream. It is a dismal place. 
 Small piles of the pitch pine light wood are burning 
 here and there in place of lamps or moonlight ; negroes 
 stand within twelve or fifteen feet of each other, hold 
 ing aloft a blazing knot, the reflection of the blaze on 
 their dark skins giving them a fiery-red look ; while 
 twenty or thirty of them are seen each with baggage 
 on his shoulders, transferring it to the boat. It seems 
 just the place for some fearful catastrophe. The loco 
 motive is far above you on piles, looking over like a 
 frightened horse into the gulf; the yellow water is in 
 the swamps on either hand, with its brood of amphibious 
 creatures ; you strike your cane, or foot, against a log, 
 and pieces of phosphorescent wood fly about; all is 
 stagnant and deathlike; you are at your wits end as 
 to any way of escape from the doleful place without 
 help. The few white male passengers, with a large 
 number of women and children, would be very much at 
 the mercy of those brawny slaves, should they be dis 
 posed to assert their power ; but the patient looks of the 
 negroes, the silent manner in which they perform their 
 work, the care which they take in properly disposing 
 the smaller pieces of baggage so as not to be crushed 
 by trunks, and their whole appearance of cheerfulness, 
 awaken feelings of affection and gratitude instead of 
 alarm or thoughts of danger. There is something in 
 the apparent meekness of slaves in their work at such 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 43 
 
 times that makes one love them greatly and feel an in 
 tense desire to protect them from imperious, unfeeling 
 words and treatment. Their natural passions and pro 
 pensities sometimes get the mastery over them, because 
 they are men ; but they are not predisposed to violence 
 and insubordination. 
 
44 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 FAVORABLE APPEARANCES IN SOUTHERN SOCIETY 
 AND IN SLAVERY CONTINUED. 
 
 SECTION VII. Absence of Mobs. 
 
 ONE consequence of the disposal of the colored people 
 as to individual control is, the absence of mobs. That 
 fearful element in society, an irresponsible and low class, 
 is diminished at the south. Street brawls and conflicts 
 between two races of laboring people, or the ignorant 
 and more excitable portions of different religious denom 
 inations, are mostly unknown within the bounds of 
 slavery. Our great source of disturbance at the north, 
 jealousy and collisions between Protestant and Irish 
 Roman Catholic laborers, is obviated there. 
 
 When the remains of Mr. Calhoun were brought to 
 Charleston, a gentleman from a free State in the proces 
 sion said to a southern gentleman, " Where is your un- 
 derswell ? " referring to the motley crowd of men and 
 boys of all nations which gather in most of our large 
 places on public occasions. He was surprised to learn 
 that those respectable, well-dressed, well-behaved colored 
 men and boys on the sidewalks were a substitute for that 
 class of population which he had elsewhere been accus 
 tomed to see with repugnant feelings on public occa 
 sions. 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 45 
 
 SECTION VIII. Personal Liberty. 
 
 The personal liberty of the slaves is in contrast with 
 the notions which many hold. To trust them far out 
 of sight, many suppose, is unsafe and very unusual. This 
 is soon corrected on seeing such instances as these which 
 came to my knowledge, and which are not remarkable. 
 
 A gentleman sent a slave with a horse and buggy to 
 the plantation of a relative a hundred and ten miles 
 distant, to get some of the herb boneset for an invalid 
 daughter under medical treatment. Ralph was a culler 
 of simples, remembered where the herb grew, and was 
 sure that none could be found short of that plantation. 
 He returned in due time with " a smart heap of it." 
 
 I saw a slave who had been sent seven hundred miles, 
 to Washington, D. C., with his master s span of horses 
 and carriage, and a considerable amount of gold. This 
 man was once abducted, with others, at Washington, in a 
 well-known case, but voluntarily returned, with the loss 
 of his watch and money, to his master. The feeling of 
 masters is, that they will not keep a servant who is not 
 willing to remain with them. They are suffered to find 
 other masters. If on fleeing they are pursued, it is to 
 recover them as property ; but they are almost invaria 
 bly disposed of. 
 
 SECTION IX. Absence of popular Delusions. 
 
 There is another striking peculiarity of southern so 
 ciety which is attributable to slavery, and is very inter 
 esting to a northerner at the present day. While the 
 colored people are superstitious and excitable, popular 
 
* 46 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 delusions and fanaticisms do not prevail among them. 
 That class of society among us in which these things 
 get root has a substitute in the colored population. 
 Spiritual rappings, biology, second-adventism, Mormon- 
 ism, and the whole spawn of errors which infest us, do 
 not find subjects at the south. There is far more faith in 
 the south, taken as a whole, than with us. Many things 
 ; which we feel called to preach against here are con 
 fined to the boundaries of the free States ; yet the 
 white population are readers of books, though not of 
 newspapers, perhaps more generally than we. That 
 vast amount of active but uninstructed mind with us 
 which seizes every new thing, and follows brilliant or 
 specious error, and erects a folly into a doctrine with a 
 sect annexed, and so infuses doubt or contempt of things 
 sacred into many minds, is no element in southern life. 
 This is one reason why there is more faith, less infidelity, 
 at the south, than at the north. The opinions of a lower 
 class on moral and religious subjects have a powerful 
 effect on the classes above them more than is generally 
 acknowledged ; and hence we derive an argument in fa 
 vor of general education, in which moral and religious 
 principles shall have their important place. 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 47 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 FAVORABLE APPEARANCES IN SOUTHERN SOCIETY 
 AND IN SLAVERY CONTINUED. 
 
 SECTION X. Absence of Pauperism. 
 
 PAUPERISM is prevented by slavery. This idea is 
 absurd, no doubt, in the apprehension of many at the 
 north, who think that slaves are, as a matter of course, 
 paupers. Nothing can be more untrue. 
 jf Every slave has an inalienable claim in law upon his 
 owner for support for the whole of life. He can not be 
 thrust into an almshouse, he can not become a vagrant, 
 he can not beg his living, he can not be wholly neglected 
 when he is old and decrepit. 
 
 I saw a white-headed negro at the door of his cabin 
 on a gentleman s estate, who had done no work for ten 
 years. He enjoys all the privileges of the plantation, 
 garden, and orchard ; is clothed and fed as carefully as 
 though he were useful. On asking him his age, he said 
 he thought he " must be nigh a hundred ; " that he was 
 a servant to a gentleman in the army " when Washing 
 ton fit Cornwallis and took him at Little York." 
 
 At a place called Harris s Neck, Georgia, there is a ser 
 vant who has been confined to his bed with rheumatism 
 thirty years, and no invalid has more reason to be grate 
 ful for attention and kindness. 
 
48 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERT. 
 
 Going into the office of a physician and surgeon, I 
 accidentally saw the leg of a black man which had just 
 been amputated for an ulcer. The patient will be a 
 charge upon his owner for life. An action at law may 
 be brought against one who does not provide a comfort 
 able support for his servants. 
 
 Thus the pauper establishments of the free States, the 
 burden and care of immigrants, are almost entirely obvi 
 ated at the south by the colored population. While we 
 bow in submission to the duty of governing or maintain 
 ing certain foreigners, we can not any of us conceal that 
 we have natural preferences and tastes as to the ways of 
 doing good. In laboring for the present and future wel 
 fare of immigrants, we are subjected to evils of which 
 we are ashamed to complain, but from which the south 
 is enviably free. To have a neighborhood of a certain 
 description of foreigners about your dwellings; to see a 
 horde of them get possession of a respectable dwelling 
 in a court, and thus force the residents, as they always 
 do, to flee, it being impossible to live with comfort in 
 close connection with them ; to have all the senses as 
 sailed from their opened doors ; to have your Sabbath ut 
 terly destroyed, is not so agreeable as the presence of a 
 respectable colored population, every individual of which 
 is under the responsible oversight of a master or mis 
 tress, who restrains and governs him, and has a repu 
 tation to maintain in his respectable appearance and 
 comfort, and keeps him from being a burden on the 
 community. 
 
 I thought of our eleven thousand paupers who have 
 been received at Deer Island, in Boston harbor, during 
 the short time that it has been appropriated to that pur 
 pose, and of our large State workhouses, which we so 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 patiently build for the dregs of the foreign population. 
 This paragraph from the Boston Post is in place here : 
 
 HOUSE OF CORRECTION. There were yesterday six 
 hundred and fifty-four prisoners in the House of Correc 
 tion, with the promise of an addition of thirty more before 
 to-morrow. The accommodations are so limited that about 
 one hundred of them are compelled to sleep in one of 
 the workshops, and it is the intention of the master to 
 place a part of them in the chapel. So many are there, 
 that it is difficult to find any thing for a large portion of 
 them to do ; and sometimes from eighty to one hundred are 
 idle. When a call is made upon any of the idle ones to 
 do any work out doors, they jump with great alacrity to 
 
 Eerform it, being delighted to have an opportunity to 
 reathe the fresh air. 
 
 The south is saved from much of this by her colored 
 laboring class. We may say that we prefer even this to 
 slavery without it. They may reply as one of the Sacs 
 and Fox Indians said in his speech at our State-House 
 several years ago to the governor, alluding to our pen 
 insula: "We are glad you have got this island, and 
 hope you are contented with it." 
 
 The following case, that came to my knowledge, offers 
 a good illustration of the views which many slaves take 
 of their dependent condition. A colored woman with 
 her children lived in a separate cabin belonging to her 
 master, washing clothes for families in that place. She 
 paid her master a percentage of her earnings, and had 
 laid up more than enough to buy her freedom and that 
 of her children. "Why, as she might be made free, does 
 she not use it rather ? 
 
 She says that if she were to buy her freedom, she would 
 have no one to take care of her for the rest of her life. 
 Now her master is responsible for her support. She 
 4 
 
50 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 has no care about the future. Old age, sickness, poverty, 
 do not trouble her. " I can indulge myself and chil 
 dren," she says, " in things which otherwise I could not 
 get. If we want new things faster than mistress gets 
 them for us, I can spare money to get them. If I buy my 
 freedom, I cut myself off from the interests of the white 
 folks in me. Now they feel that I belong to them, and 
 people will look to see if they treat me well." Her only 
 trouble is, that her master may die before her ; then she 
 will " have to be free." 
 
 SECTION XL Wages of Labor. 
 
 One error which I had to correct in my own opinions 
 was with regard to wages of labor. I will illustrate my 
 meaning by relating a case. 
 
 A young colored woman is called into a family at the 
 south to do work as a seamstress. Her charge is, per 
 haps, thirty-seven and a half cents per day. 
 
 " Do you have your wages for your own use?" "No ; 
 I pay mistress half of what I earn." 
 
 Seamstresses in our part of the country, toiling all 
 day, you will naturally think, are not compelled to give 
 one half of their earnings to an owner. This may be 
 your first reflection, accompanied with a feeling of com 
 passion for the poor girl, and with some thoughts, not 
 agreeable, concerning mistresses who take from a child of 
 toil half her day s earnings. You will put this down as 
 one of the accusations to be justly made against slavery. 
 
 But, on reflecting further, you may happen to ask 
 yourself, How much does it cost this seamstress for 
 room rent, board, and clothing ? The answer will be, 
 nothing. Who provides her with these ? Her mistress. 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 51 
 
 Perhaps, now, your sympathy may be arrested, and may 
 begin to turn in favor of the mistress. The girl does 
 not earn enough to pay her expenses, yet she has a full 
 support, and lays up money. 
 
 Could we make such provision for the army of seam 
 stresses who work for the shops in New York and other 
 large places, making shirts at six or eight cents each, 
 and paying rent and board out of this, we should feel that 
 one heavy burden was lifted from our hearts ; and cer 
 tainly it would be from theirs. I compared the condi 
 tion of those colored seamstresses with that of the 
 seamstresses of London so often described and sung. 
 Thomas Hood has caused this inscription to be placed 
 on his monument : " He sung the Song of the Shirt." 
 Had he never seen any seamstresses but those who are 
 American slaves, he would not have had occasion to 
 write that song. 
 
 The accusation against slavery of working human 
 beings without wages must be modified, if we give a 
 proper meaning to the term wages. A stipulated sum per 
 diem is our common notion of wages. Avast many slaves 
 get wages in a better form than this in provision for 
 their support for the whole of life, with permission to 
 earn something, and more or less according to the dis 
 position of the masters and the ability of the slaves. A 
 statement of the case, which perhaps is not of much 
 value, was made by a slaveholder in this form : You 
 hire a domestic by the week, or a laborer by the month, 
 for certain wages, with food, lodging, perhaps clothing ; 
 I hire him for the term of life, becoming responsible for 
 him in his decrepitude and old age. Leaving out of 
 view the involuntariness on his part of the arrangement, 
 he gets a good equivalent for his services ; to his risk 
 
52 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 of being sold, and passing from hand to hand, there is an 
 offset in the perpetual claim which he will have on some 
 owner for maintenance all his days. Whether some of 
 our immigrants would not be willing to enter into such 
 a contract, is a question which many opponents of sla 
 very at the north would not hesitate to answer for them, 
 saying that liberty to beg and to starve is better than to 
 have all your present wants supplied, and a competency 
 for life guarantied, in slavery. Not to discuss the ques 
 tion of the comparative value of liberty in cases in which 
 all good is abstracted, and of slavery when furnished 
 with the comforts of life, it may not be amiss to remind 
 ourselves that the following description from the New 
 York Journal of Commerce cannot be verified within 
 the bounds of the slave States : 
 
 THE MISERIES OF NEW YORK. A number of hotels 
 and restaurants make a practice of distributing the frag 
 ments of food collected from the tables, to the poor, at 
 regular hours, every afternoon. By observing how this is 
 done, any curious person can readily obtain some insight 
 into the miseries of the city. By the same process, a par 
 tial cue may be had to the so called " mysteries of New 
 York," which have always afforded a prolific theme for 
 scribblers. The 1 place where these bounties are to be dis 
 pensed is indicated some time in advance by the throng 
 of wretched-looking people who eagerly crowd around, 
 with baskets, aprons, &c., in which to bear away the ex 
 pected gifts. The bloated inebriate, tottering creatures 
 enfeebled by disease, as well as many young girls, acting 
 as agents for others who remain in their own garrets and 
 cellars, all are represented. On the first appearance 
 of the provisions, which form a complete chowder of bread, 
 meats, pastry, lobster, fish, and vegetables, a general rush 
 is made, which has often to be forcibly repelled. With a 
 large scoop, broken plate, or something of the kind, a 
 quantity of the mixture is thrown into each vessel or other 
 receptaclej extended to receive it, with all possible rapidi 
 ty, the crowd meanwhile pressing closer and closer, 
 until again forced into the background. Every device is 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 53 
 
 resorted to in order to secure a double portion. A common 
 trick is, to have a basket placed one side, into which each 
 fresh instalment is deposited, until no more can be pro 
 cured. Another will have a capacious apron or bag sus 
 pended from the waist, secure from observation, while the 
 contents of the extended basket or dish are slyly thrust into 
 it unnoticed. Some, in this manner, obtain the lion s 
 share, while the weak, sick, or decrepit are turned off 
 empty. The scene would bear to be transferred to canvas 
 with an artist s pencil. 
 
 SECTION XII. Religious Instruction. 
 
 When religious instruction, the pure, simple gospel of 
 Jesus Christ, is extended to our laboring classes gener 
 ally, adults and children, as fully as it is enjoyed by the 
 slaves in such parts of the south as I visited, an object 
 will be gained of far more intrinsic importance to our na 
 tional prosperity than all questions relating to slavery. 
 
 Probably, in very many places at the south, a larger 
 proportion of the slaves than of the whites have given 
 evidence of being the children of God. The religious 
 condition of the slaves surprises every visitor. The 
 number of communicants among them, in proportion to 
 the whites, is frequently astonishing ; for example, in cases 
 known to me, one hundred and fifty blacks to fifty whites, 
 two hundred to twenty, four hundred to one hundred. 
 
 In Virginia, the whole number of communicants in the 
 Baptist churches is stated to me, by a Baptist pastor, to 
 be forty-five thousand blacks and fifty thousand whites. 
 
 In Savannah, Georgia, in a population of several thou 
 sand blacks, more than one third are church members. 
 Three colored pastors, with salaries from eight hundred 
 to a thousand dollars, are supported by subscriptions and 
 pew rents among their own members. More than one 
 
54 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OP SLAVERY. 
 
 third of the whole number of communicants reported 
 by the synod of South Carolina are colored people. Of 
 the three hundred and eighty-four thousand in that State, 
 one seventh, or more than fifty thousand, are professors 
 of religion. In 1853, fifteen thousand dollars were con 
 tributed by five thousand slaves, in Charleston, to benev 
 olent objects. These statistics, which are a fair sample, 
 might easily be multiplied, but it is unnecessary. Religion 
 has gained wonderful ascendency among this people. 
 
 I went to their prayer meetings. One of them will 
 represent the rest. They met in the choir-part of the 
 gallery, in the evening, once a week. A white brother 
 presided, as the law requires, and read a portion of 
 Scripture ; but the slaves conducted the meeting. They 
 came in with their every-day dresses, and each, as he 
 entered, prostrated himself in prayer. One of them 
 stood up before the desk, and repeated a hymn, two 
 lines at a time. At the singing of the last stanza in 
 each hymn, they all rose ; and they invariably repeated 
 the last two lines of a hymn. They prayed without 
 being called upon. Such prayers I never heard. There 
 was nothing during the week that I anticipated with so 
 much pleasure as the return of that prayer meeting. 
 Earnestness in manner, overflowing love to God, com 
 passion for their fellow-men every where, gratitude un 
 bounded to Christ for his great love wherewith he loved 
 them, a deep and touching sense of unworthiness, supplica 
 tions for mercy and for grace to keep them from sin, all 
 expressed in original, but frequently ungrammatical, yet 
 sometimes beautiful and affecting terms, characterized all 
 their prayers. " Lord, we prostrate ourselves before 
 thee on the sinful hands and knees of our poor miserable 
 bodies and souls." " O Lord, may our hearts all be sot 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 55 
 
 right to-night; may thy blessed Spirit shine away all 
 our doubts and fears." It was touching to hear one man 
 say, " Bless our dear masters and brothers, who come 
 here to read the Bible to us, and pay so much attention 
 to us, though we ain t that sort of people as can onter- 
 pert thy word in all its colors and forms." "0 my 
 heavenly Father," said an old man, "I am thy dear 
 child. I know I love thee. Thou art my God, my 
 portion, and nothing else. my Father, I have no 
 home in this world ; my home is very far off. I long 
 to see it. Jesus is there ; thou art there ; angels, good 
 men are there. I am coming home. I am one day 
 nearer to it." 
 
 The hymns being given out from memory, I was 
 much affected in noticing the description of hymns which 
 had been learned. Those by Watts, expressing native 
 depravity and need of regenerating grace, seemed to be 
 favorites, such, for example, as the versifications of the 
 fifty-first psalm : " Show pity, Lord, O Lord, forgive," 
 and, "How sad our state by nature is!" 
 
 I cannot soon forget the looks of one leader, and the 
 impression he and the hymn made upon me. When he 
 repeated two lines at a time, all the meeting joined in 
 singing that hymn " How oft have sin and Satan strove 
 To rend my soul from thee my God," &c. No one ever 
 seemed to feel the last verse of that hymn more than 
 they " The gospel bears my spirit up," &c. 
 
 1 never perceived in their prayers any thing that re 
 minded me of their condition as slaves. They made no 
 allusions to sorrows but those which are spiritual, and 
 they chiefly dwelt upon their temptations. But the love 
 of Christ and heaven were the all-inspiring themes of 
 their prayers and hymns. The pastor of a large colored 
 
56 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OP SLAVERY. 
 
 church, containing many free blacks, told me that he 
 was never reminded by their respective prayers of their 
 respective conditions, as bond or free. 
 
 One man prayed with a voice which I never heard 
 surpassed for strength. He had no control over it, so 
 that, when emotions set in with sudden power, they 
 would force it to an amazing pitch, though the sentiment 
 did not always warrant the proportion of stress. I have 
 no question that portions of his prayer could have been 
 heard distinctly across the Connecticut River in any part 
 of its course in a still night. Withal it was musical, 
 though wild and exciting. 
 
 During the Sabbath, in addition to their opportuni 
 ties of worship with the whites, a sermon is generally 
 preached to them separately, though the white people 
 are not excluded. The colored men are called upon to 
 offer prayers. The gospel which is preached to them, 
 so far as I heard it, is the same gospel which is preached 
 to us. The only difference between them and us, as to 
 religious instruction, is, they cannot generally read. The 
 white children teach many of them, and the colored 
 children are frequently able to read the Bible. The 
 colored choirs are, of course, able to read. 
 
 The laws forbidding their being publicly taught to 
 read are retained in order to be used against those who 
 teach them from motives of interference. But these 
 laws, so far as they restrict the liberty of the citizens in 
 giving instruction, are privately disregarded. A south 
 ern member of Congress told me that, in his State, they 
 were generally a dead letter, and that they would be 
 abolished, except that this would expose the people to 
 improper intrusions of teachers and books. In his own 
 case, for example, he was obliged to have men servants 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 57 
 
 that could read, if for no other reason, that they might 
 know the titles of books, superscriptions of letters, and 
 other things, in performing errands or receiving written 
 orders. 
 
 Their acquaintance with the word of God is, to a great 
 extent, through oral instruction ; yet in all that constitutes 
 Christian excellence, and that knowledge of God which 
 comes directly from him, they have no superiors. A 
 man who has spent a whole life in literary pursuits, and 
 in studying and preaching God s word, listens to those 
 slaves with their comparatively limited acquaintance with 
 the Bible, and feels humble to think that faith and good 
 ness in himself should bear no greater proportion to his 
 knowledge. It is an encouragement to all missionaries 
 among the heathen not to make literature or theoretical 
 instruction even in religion take precedence of simple 
 preaching ; there is a knowledge of God imparted to the 
 heart that loves him which far surpasses the instruction 
 of man s wisdom. 
 
 These slaves are a rebuke to certain members of 
 churches, men of cultivated minds, literary taste, or 
 general refinement, who are so apt to decline when 
 called upon in religious meetings to make remarks or 
 lead in prayer. The very men who, in many respects, 
 would be most acceptable and useful in these services, 
 generally are made so sensitive by intellectual and social 
 cultivation, that they add nothing to the spiritual inter 
 ests of a church. It is a sad contrast, a professor in a 
 college, for example, sitting silent for years in the de 
 votional meetings of his church, and a poor slave, who 
 cannot pray grammatically, so wrestling with God in 
 prayer as to make one say of him, " As a prince hast 
 thou power with God and with men." Sometimes the 
 
58 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 ordinary low responses of fellow-worshipers in the 
 Methodist prayer meetings would be excited, by seraphic 
 expressions in the prayer of a slave brother, to such a 
 pitch as to raise involuntary shoutings from the whole 
 meeting, in which I almost wished to join, for the thoughts 
 expressed were so awakening and elevating that, " or 
 ever I was aware, my soul made me like the chariots of 
 Amminadib." 
 
 Let us not fail to recognize this indisputable truth, 
 that the restriction laid upon publicly teaching the 
 slaves to read has stimulated Christain zeal and benev 
 olence, so that nowhere in our country are greater pains 
 taken than at the south to instruct the lower classes. 
 Love to the souls of men will find or make access to 
 them. The negroes are made to commit passages of 
 Scripture more generally than in our Sabbath schools ; 
 pains are taken with them which under other circum 
 stances they would not receive. 
 
 How frequently at the north, for example, can we 
 find a scene like this ? a Christian master, surrounded 
 every morning by fifty laborers in his employ hearing 
 the Bible read, repeating passages which were given out 
 the preceding day, singing, and praying, and then going 
 forth to their labor. Such scenes do occur, and are 
 becoming more frequent at the south. 
 
 A lady of wealth and refinement at the south collects 
 the mothers among her servants, and forms them into a 
 maternal association, reads to them on the subject of 
 education, and encourages them to talk freely with her 
 and with each other on their duties to their children. 
 This is only a specimen of the efforts of pious women at 
 the south in behalf of the slaves. 
 
 How wrong it is, in blaming the south for not giving 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 59 
 
 the Bible to the slaves without restriction, to shut our 
 eyes against these things ! Let the tongue be palsied that 
 will justify the shutting up of the book of God from a 
 human being ; but virtually this is not done at the south. 
 The negroes are as faithfully and thoroughly instructed 
 in the word of God as any class of people. It is true 
 of them, as the Catechism says, that " the Spirit of God 
 maketh especially the preaching of the word an effect 
 ual means of convicting and converting sinners, and 
 of building them up in holiness and comfort through 
 faith unto salvation." The time must come when every 
 slave can read the Bible ; but if one declares that the 
 withholding of it is fatal, it may be asked, How were men 
 saved before the art of printing made copies of the Bible 
 generally accessible ? Multitudes of our British ances 
 tors learned the way to heaven who never owned a copy 
 of the Scriptures. Those words, unintelligible to many, 
 in the title pages of Bibles, " appointed to be read in 
 churches," show how the people in those days obtained 
 their knowledge of the sacred oracles. The slaves are 
 far better off than they. Large numbers of them can 
 read, and are furnished with the Scriptures, and have as 
 good facility in quoting Scripture in their prayers as 
 Christians generally. 
 
 All this is perfectly obvious to any one with, a com 
 mon degree of fairness and candor; but still the whole 
 Bible committed to memory is not so available for 
 spiritual comfort and profit as to have the book in your 
 hand ; to have the attention arrested and fixed by the 
 sight of a passage ; to look upon the words, and to search 
 the Scriptures, rather than the memory. When the 
 Book of books can be furnished the New Testament 
 for six cents, and the whole Bible for fifteen it must 
 
60 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 be a peremptory reason indeed that will justify us in 
 not bestowing it upon our fellow-men. But we shall 
 resume this topic in another connection. 
 
 Of all the situations in which human beings can be 
 placed favorable to the salvation of the soul, under faith 
 ful efforts on the part of teachers, it is difficult to conceive 
 of one better suited to this end, and in fact more suc 
 cessful than the relation of these slaves to their Christian 
 masters. It seemed as though human influence went 
 further toward effecting the reception of the gospel by 
 the slaves than in any other cases. Suppose a family 
 of them bound to their master by affection and respect. 
 Whatever he can make appear to their understandings 
 and consciences to be right, he has as much power to 
 enforce upon them as ever falls within the power of 
 moral suasion. So it is, indeed, with pious military and 
 naval commanders, and their soldiers and sailors ; sub 
 ordination, attended with respect and love, opens the 
 widest door for persuasion ; and if the numbers of pious 
 slaves are an indication, it must be confessed that slave 
 owners, as a body, have performed their Christian duties 
 to their slaves to a degree which the masters of free 
 apprentices and the employers of free laborers have as 
 yet hardly equaled. 
 
 We have thus far looked at the slaves apart from 
 the theory of slavery and from slave laws, and from 
 their liability to suffering by being separated and sold. 
 These features of slavery deserve to be considered by 
 themselves ; we can give them and things of that class a 
 more just weight, and view the favorable circumstances 
 of their condition with greater candor. This I have 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 61 
 
 endeavored to do, describing every thing just as it struck 
 me, leaving out of the question the evils of slavery, and 
 abstract doctrines respecting it. 
 
 It will not be forgotten that I am describing the ap 
 pearance of things in a portion of southern society under 
 the highest cultivation. There is, then, a large part of 
 the slavcholding community in which the appearance 
 of the slaves makes agreeable impressions upon a 
 stranger. 
 
 Judging of them as you meet them in the streets, see 
 them at work, or at church, or in their prayer meetings 
 and singing meetings, or walking on the Sabbath or 
 holidays, one must see that they are a happy people, 
 their physical condition superior to that of very many 
 of our operatives, far superior to the common Irish 
 people in our cities, and immeasurably above thousands 
 in Great Britain. 
 
 Were their condition practically all that many im 
 agine, one thing is certain, viz., insanity would pre 
 vail among them to an alarming extent. Corroding 
 care, unmitigated sorrows, fear, and all the natural 
 effects of physical suffering; would produce the same 
 results of insanity with them as with corresponding 
 classes among ourselves. It is well known that the cen 
 sus for 1840 was erroneous with regard to insanity and 
 other diseases, as was ably shown by the American 
 Statistical Association of Boston in a memorial to Con 
 gress. Making the largest allowances, it is still true that 
 the comparative number of the insane among the slaves 
 is exceedingly small. 
 
 As responsibility, anxiety about the present and fu 
 ture, are the chief enemies to cheerfulness, and, among 
 mental causes, to health, it is obvious that if one can 
 
62 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 have all his present wants supplied, with no care about 
 short crops, the markets, notes payable, bills due, be re 
 lieved from the necessity of planning and contriving, all 
 the hard thinking being done for him by another, while 
 useful and honorable employment fills his thoughts and 
 hands, he is so far in a situation favorable to great com 
 fort which will show itself in his whole outer man. 
 Some will say, " This is the lowest kind of happiness." 
 Yet it is all that a large portion of the race seek for ; 
 and few, except slaves, obtain it. Thus far I am con 
 strained to say, that the relief which my feelings have 
 experienced in going to the south and seeing the slaves 
 at home is very great. Whatever else may be true of 
 their condition, to whatever perils or sorrows, from 
 causes not yet spoken of, they may be subjected, I feel 
 like one who has visited a friend who is sick and report 
 ed to be destitute and extremely miserable, but has found 
 him comfortable and happy. The sickness is there, but 
 the patient is not only comfortable, but happy, if the ordi 
 nary proofs of it are to be taken. We may wonder 
 that he should be ; we may prove on paper that he can 
 not be ; but if the colored people of Savannah, Colum 
 bia, and Richmond are not, as a whole, a happy people, 
 I have never seen any. 
 
 Much remains to be told. Cases illustrating the op 
 posite of almost every agreeable statement now made 
 could also be multiplied ; still the things just described 
 are as represented, and he is not in a healthful state of 
 mind who cannot appreciate them. Our error has been 
 in mixing the dark and bright parts of slavery together. 
 This is wrong. We should never lose sight of dis 
 tinct moral qualities in character, as we do of different 
 colors in mixing paint. Let us judge Slavery in this 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 63 
 
 manner ; let us keep her different qualities distinct 
 abhor that in her which is evil, rejoice in that which is 
 good. 
 
 It so happened that my observations of things, and 
 my reflections thus far, as well as those which follow, 
 occurred very much in the order of my narrative. I 
 had been at the south four or five weeks before any 
 thing presented itself to my mind that excited painful 
 feelings ; but at length it came. 
 
64 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 REVOLTING FEATURES OF SLAVERY. 
 
 SECTION I. Slave Auctions. 
 
 PASSING up the steps of a court-house in a south 
 ern town with some gentlemen, I saw a man sitting on 
 the steps with a colored infant, wrapped in a coverlet, 
 its face visible, and the child asleep. 
 
 It is difficult for some who have young children not to 
 bestow a passing look or salutation upon a child; but be 
 sides this, the sight before me seemed out of place and 
 strange. 
 
 "Is the child sick?" I said to the man, as I was going 
 up the steps. 
 
 " No, master ; she is going to be sold." 
 
 " Sold ! Where is her mother ? " 
 
 " At home, master." 
 
 " How old is the child ? " 
 
 " She is about a year, master." 
 
 "You are not selling the child, of course. How 
 comes she here ? " 
 
 " I don t know, master ; only the sheriff told me to sit 
 down here and wait till twelve o clock, sir." 
 
 It is hardly necessary to say that my heart died with 
 in me. Now I had found slavery in its most awful 
 feature the separation of a child from its mother 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OP SLAVERY. 65 
 
 " The mother is at home, master." What are her feel 
 ings ? What were they when she missed the infant ? 
 Was it taken openly, or by stealth ? Who has done this ? 
 What shape, what face had he ? The mother is not 
 dead ; " the mother is at home, master." What did they 
 do to you, Rachel, weeping and refusing to be com 
 forted ? 
 
 Undetermined whether I would witness the sale, 
 whether I could trust myself in such a scene, I walked 
 into a friend s law office, and looked at his books. I 
 heard the sheriff s voice, the "public outcry," as the 
 vendue is called, but did not go out, partly because I 
 would not betray the feelings which I knew would 
 be awakened. 
 
 One of my friends met me a few minutes after, who 
 had witnessed the transaction. 
 
 " You did not see the sale," he said. 
 " No. Was the child sold ? " 
 " Yes, for one hundred and forty dollars." 
 I could take this case, so far as I have described it, go 
 into any pulpit or upon any platform at the north, and 
 awaken the deepest emotions known to the human heart, 
 harrow up the feelings of ever^ father and mother, and 
 make them pass a resolution surcharged with all the 
 righteous indignation which language can express. All 
 that any speaker who might have preceded me, sup 
 posing the meeting to be one for discussion, might have 
 said respecting the contentment, good looks, happy re 
 lations of the slaves, I could have rendered of no avail 
 to his argument by this little incident. No matter what 
 kindness may be exercised in ten thousand instances ; a 
 system in which the separation of an infant from its moth 
 er is an essential element can not escape reprobation. 
 5 
 
66 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 On relating what I had seen to some southern ladies, 
 they became pale with emotion ; they were silent ; they 
 were filled with evident distress. But before remark 
 ing upon this case, I will give another. My attention 
 was arrested by the following advertisement : 
 
 " Guardian s Sale. 
 
 " Will be sold before the court-house door in , on 
 
 the first Tuesday in May next, agreeably to an order of 
 
 the ordinary of county, the interest of the minors 
 
 of , in a certain negro girl named , said inter 
 est being three fourths of said negro." 
 
 Three fourths of a negro girl to be sold at auction ! 
 There was something here which excited more than or 
 dinary curiosity : the application of vulgar fractions to 
 personal identity was entirely new. I determined to 
 witness this sale. 
 
 An hour before the appointed time, I saw the girl 
 sitting alone on the steps of the court-house. She wore 
 a faded but tidy orange-colored dress, a simple hand 
 kerchief on her head, and she was barefoot. Her head 
 was resting upon her hand, with her elbow on her knee. 
 I stood unperceived and looked at her. Poor, lonely 
 thing, waiting to be sold on the steps of that court-house ! 
 The place of justice is a bleak promontory, from which 
 you look off as upon a waste of wateisi a-idreary, shore 
 less waste. What avails ev^ry mitigation of slavery ? 
 Had I become a convert to the system^ jlWe is enough 
 to counterbalance all my good impressipj>|. 
 
 The sheriff arrived at noon,and the*j>eople assem 
 bled. The purchaser was to have the Ifervices of the 
 girl three fourths of the time, a division of property 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 67 
 
 having given some one a claim to one fourth of her 
 appraised value. 
 
 The girl was told to stand up. She had a tall, slen 
 der form, and was, in all respects, an uncommonly good- 
 looking child. 
 
 The bidding commenced at two hundred dollars, and 
 went on in an animated and exciting manner. 
 
 The girl began to cry, and wiped her tears with the 
 back of her hand ; no one replied to her ; the bidding 
 went on ; she turned her back to the people. I saw her 
 shoulders heave with her suppressed crying; she said 
 something in a confused voice to a man who sat behind 
 the auctioneer. 
 
 When I was young I was drawn, by mingling with 
 some older schoolmates, strongly against my will, and 
 every moment purposing an escape, to see a youth exe 
 cuted for arson. I resolved that I would never look 
 upon such a sight again. But here I was beholding 
 something which moved me as I had not been moved 
 for all these long years. 
 
 She was fourteen years old. A few days before I 
 had sent to a child of mine, entering her fourteenth 
 year, a birthday gift. By this coincidence I was led 
 to think of this slave girl with some peculiar feelings. 
 I made the case my own. She was a child to parents, 
 living or dead, whose hearts, unless perverted by some 
 unnatural process, would yearn over her and be dis 
 tracted by this sight. 
 
 Four hundred and forty-five dollars was the last bid, 
 and the man sitting behind the sheriff said to her kindly, 
 " Well, run and jump into the wagon." 
 
 A large number of citizens had assembled to witness 
 the sale of this girl j some of them men of education 
 
DO A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 and refinement, humane and kind. On any question of 
 delicacy and propriety, in every thing related to the 
 finest sentiments, I would have felt it a privilege to learn 
 of them. How then, I said to myself as I watched 
 their faces, can you look upon a scene like this as upon 
 an ordinary business transaction, when my feelings are 
 so tumultuous, and all my sensibilities are excruciated? 
 You are not hard-hearted men; you are gentle and 
 generous. In my intercourse with you I have often felt, 
 in the ardor of new friendships, how happy I should be 
 to have you in my circle of immediate friends at home ; 
 what ornaments you would be to any circle of Christian 
 friends. Some of you are graduates of Yale College ; 
 some of Brown University : you know all that I know 
 about the human heart : I hesitate to believe that I am 
 right and you wrong. If to sell a human being at auction 
 were all which I feel it to be, you must know it as well 
 as I. Yet I cannot yield my convictions. Why do we 
 differ so in our feelings ? Instances of private humanity 
 and tenderness have satisfied me that you would not lay 
 one needless burden upon a human being, nor see him 
 suffer without redress. Is it because you are used to 
 the sight that you endure it with composure ? or be 
 cause it is an essential part of a system which you groan 
 under but cannot remove ? 
 
 To begin with the sale of the infant. During my 
 stay in the place, three or four estimable gentlemen said 
 to me, each in private, " I understand that you saw that 
 infant sold the other day. We are very sorry that you 
 happened to see it. Nothing of the kind ever took place 
 before to our knowledge, and we all feared that it would 
 make an unhappy impression upon you." 
 
 The manner in which this was said affected me almost 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OP SLAVERY. 69 
 
 as much as the thing which had given occasion to it. 
 Southern hearts and consciences, I felt reassured, were 
 no more insensible than mine. The system had not 
 steeled the feelings of these gentlemen ; the presence of 
 a northerner, a friend, retaining his private, natural con 
 victions, as they perceived, without unkindness of words 
 or manner, made them look at the transaction with his 
 eyes; every kind and generous emotion was alive in 
 their hearts ; they felt that such a transaction needed 
 to be explained and justified. 
 
 How could they explain it ? How could they justify 
 it ? With many, if not with all of my readers, it is a 
 foregone conclusion, as it had been with me, that the case 
 admits of no explanation or justification. 
 
 I received, as I said, three or four statements with 
 regard to the case, and this is the substance of them: 
 
 The mother of this infant belonged to a man who had 
 become embarrassed in his circumstances, in consequence 
 of which the mother was sold to another family in the 
 same place, before the birth of the child ; but the first 
 owner still laid claim to the child, and there was some 
 legal doubt with regard to his claim. He was disposed 
 to maintain this claim, and it became a question how the 
 child should be taken from him. A legal gentleman, 
 whose name is familiar to the country, told me that he 
 was consulted, and he advised that through an old execu 
 tion the child should be levied upon, be sold at auction, 
 and thus be removed from him. The plan succeeded. 
 The child was attached, advertised, and offered for sale. 
 The mother s master bought it, at more than double the 
 ratable price, and the child went to its mother. 
 
 Nor was this all. In the company of bidders there 
 was a man employed by a generous lady to attend the 
 
70 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 Bale, and see that the infant was restored to its mother. 
 The lady had heard that the sale was to take place, but 
 did not fully know the circumstances, and her purpose 
 was to prevent the child from passing from the parent. 
 Accordingly her agent and the agent of the mother s 
 master were bidding against each other for some time, 
 each with the same benevolent determination to restore 
 the child to its mother. 
 
 Rachel was comforted. Rather she had had no need 
 of being comforted, for the sheriff was in this case to be 
 her avenger and protector. Here was slavery restoring 
 a child to its mother ; here was a system which can 
 deal in unborn children, redressing its own wrong. 
 Moreover, the law which forbids the sale of a child un 
 der five years was violated, in order to keep the child 
 with its mother. Some other points might be stated, 
 but the accounts respecting them differed. 
 
 Had I not known the sequel of the story, what a 
 thrilling, effective appeal could I have made at the 
 north by the help of this incident. Then what injustice 
 I should have inflicted upon the people of that place ; 
 what stimulus might I have given to the rescue of a fu 
 gitive slave ; what resuscitation to the collapsing vocab 
 ulary of epithets. How might I hav ? e helped on the dis 
 solution of the. Union ; how have led half our tribes to 
 swear that they would have war with the rest forever, 
 when in truth the men and women who had done this 
 thing had performed one of the most tender arid humane 
 actions, and did prevent, and, if necessary, with their 
 earthly all, (for I knew them well,) would have prevented 
 that from ever taking place to which, in my ignorance 
 and passion, I should have sworn that I could bear wit 
 ness an infant taken from its mother s breast and sold. 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. rfl 
 
 The " three fourths " of the girl were bought by the 
 owner of the other fourth, who already had possession 
 of her. The sale took place that he might be her sole 
 owner. That word which followed the sale, " Well, run 
 and jump into the wagon," was music to the child. I 
 understood afterward why she turned her back to the 
 crowd, and looked at the man who sat behind the sheriff. 
 He was her master, and he owned her mother ; the girl 
 heard the bidding from the company, and heard her mas 
 ter bidding; the conflict she understood; she was at 
 stake, as she felt, for life ; it took some time for the bid 
 ding to reach four hundred dollars ; hope deferred made 
 her heart sick ; she turned and kept her eye on her 
 master, to see whether he would suffer himself to be 
 defeated. He sat quietly using his knife upon a stick, like 
 one whose mind was made up ; the result of the sale in 
 his favor excited no new feeling in him ; but the ready 
 direction, " Well, run and jump into the wagon," was as 
 much as to say, I have done what I meant to do when I 
 came here. 
 
 I did not see " Jacob," forty-five years of age, well 
 recommended, who was advertised to be sold at the same 
 time and place. The sheriff announced that the sale of 
 Jacob was merely to perfect a title. There was only 
 one bid, therefore six hundred dollars ; the owner 
 thus going through a form to settle some legal question. 
 We are all ready to inquire as to the views and feel 
 ings of good men at the south with regard to the sale of 
 slaves at auction. I felt great curiosity to know how 
 some of the best of men regarded it. 
 
 1. They say that very many of the slaves advertised 
 with full descriptions, looking like invitations to buy, are 
 merely legal appointments to determine claims, settle 
 
72 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 estates, without any purpose to let the persons offered 
 for sale pass from the families to which they belong. 
 
 It was some relief to know as much as this. At home 
 and at the south advertisements in southern papers of 
 negroes for sale at auction, describing them minutely, 
 have often harrowed our feelings. The minute descrip 
 tion, they say, is, or may be, a legal defence in the way 
 of proof and identification. 
 
 2. However trying a public sale may be to the 
 feelings of the slave, they say that it is for his interest 
 that the sale should be public. 
 
 The sale of slaves at auction in places where they are 
 known and this is the case every where except in the 
 largest cities excites deep interest in some of the citi 
 zens of that place. They are drawn to the sale with 
 feelings of personal regard for the slaves, and are vigi 
 lant to prevent unprincipled persons from purchasing 
 and carrying them away, and even from possessing them 
 in their own neighborhood. I know of citizens com 
 bining to prevent such men from buying, and of their 
 contributing to assist good men and women in purchas 
 ing the servants at prices greatly increased by such com 
 petition. In all such cases the law requiring and regu 
 lating public sales and advertisements of sales prevents 
 those private transfers which would defeat the good in 
 tentions of benevolent men. It is an extremely rare 
 case for a servant or servants who have been known in 
 town to be removed into hands which the people of the 
 place generally would not approve. 
 
 The sale of a negro at public auction is not a reckless, 
 unfeeling thing in the towns at the south, where the 
 subjects of the sale are from among themselves. In 
 settling .estates, good men exercise as much care with 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 73 
 
 regard to the disposition of the slaves as though they 
 were providing homes for white orphan children ; and 
 that too when they have published advertisements of 
 slaves in such connections with horses and cattle, that, 
 when they are read by a northerner, his feelings are 
 excruciated. In hearing some of the best of men, such 
 as are found in all communities, largely intrusted with 
 the settlement of estates, men of extreme fairness and 
 incorruptible integrity, speak of the word " chattel " as 
 applied to slaves, it is obvious that this unfeeling law 
 term has no counterpart in their minds, nor in the feel 
 ings of the community in general. 
 
 Slaves are allowed to find masters and mistresses who 
 will buy them. Having found them, the sheriffs and 
 administrators sales must by law be made public, the 
 persons must be advertised, and every thing looks like 
 an unrestricted offer, while it is the understanding of 
 the company that the sale has really been made in 
 private. 
 
 Sitting in the reading-room of a hotel one morning, I 
 saw a colored woman enter and courtesy to a gentleman 
 opposite. 
 
 " Good morning, sir. Please, sir, how is Ben ? " 
 " Ben he is very well. But I don t know you." 
 "Ben is my husband. I heard you were in town, 
 and I want you to buy me. My mistress is dead these 
 three weeks, and the family is to be broken up." 
 " Well, I will buy you. Where shall I inquire ? " 
 All this was said and done in as short a time as it 
 takes to read it ; but this woman was probably obliged 
 by law, in the settlement of the estate, to be advertised 
 and described. 
 
 All these things go far to mitigate our feelings with 
 
74 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 regard to the sale of slaves at auction in many cases. 
 But even with regard to these cases, no one who is not 
 used to the sight will ever see it but with repugnance 
 and distress. 
 
 I walked with a gentleman, esteemed and honored by 
 his fellow-citizens, and much intrusted with the gejj^e^ 
 ment of estates. I knew that he would appreciate my 
 feelings, and I disclosed them. I asked him if there 
 were no other way of changing the relations of slaves 
 in process of law, except by exposing them, male and 
 female, at auction, on the court-house steps. I told him 
 how I felt on seeing the girl sold, and that the knowl 
 edge subsequently of the satisfactory manner in which 
 the case was disposed of did not make me cease to feel 
 unhappy. I could not bear to see a fellow-being made 
 a subject of sale, even in form ; and I wondered that any 
 one could look upon it with composure, or suffer it tote 
 repeated without efforts to abolish it. 
 
 His reply was, for substance, that so far as he and the 
 people of his town were concerned, no case of hardship 
 in the disposal of a slave had ever occurred there, to his 
 knowledge ; that he had settled a large number of estates, 
 and in every case had disposed of the servants in ways 
 satisfactory to themselves ; that he had prevented cer 
 tain men from bidding upon them ; that he had prevailed 
 on others not to buy, because he and the servants were 
 unwilling to have these men for their masters ; and, 
 therefore, that the question was practically reduced to 
 the expediency of the form of transfer, viz., by public 
 vendue. 
 
 He repeated what I have said of the desirableness that 
 the sale or transfer should be public ; whether in a 
 room, or on steps, was unimportant, only that every 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 75 
 
 public outcry was ordained to be made at the court 
 house. He also said that the slaves, knowing that the 
 sale was a mere form, and that they were already dis 
 posed of, did not in such cases suffer to the degree which 
 strangers supposed. 
 
 It was evident, from all that he said, that he trans 
 fused his own kind, benevolent feelings, and those of his 
 fellow-citizens over every sale within the limits of his 
 town, and could not, therefore, see it with a northerner s 
 eyes and heart. 
 
 The forms of law are as inconsiderate of our feelings 
 as though they were acts of barbarians. A sheriff s 
 sale of house furniture in the dwelling of a man who has 
 fallen from opulence into insolvency is like the wheel 
 of torture, that breaks every bone and joint one by one. 
 The auctioneer, with precious household treasures, keep 
 sakes, memorials of dear departed friends, in one hand, 
 and a crumpled newspaper for a hammer in the other, 
 seems to be a most unfeeling man ; but he is not so ; it 
 is law, of which he is the exponent, that is so terrible. 
 
 No human being, innocent of crime, ought to be sub 
 jected to the rack of being offered for sale, nor ought 
 fellow-creatures ever to behold that sight. It will be 
 done away. Reproachful words, however, will not 
 hasten the removal of it. 
 
 I once stated the subject to a friend in this form : We 
 cannot expect that servants can abide in a house for 
 ever. Death breaks up their relations, and they must 
 have other masters. Allowing all you say of their being 
 necessarily a serving class, why not always give them a 
 voice in changing these relations ? This is done uni 
 formly in some of your towns. I could name one in 
 which no slave has been disposed of otherwise for ten 
 
76 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 years at least, except in cases of refractory and trouble 
 some persons. 
 
 Then let opportunity be given for private inquiry and 
 examination ; let the transfer be made without obliging 
 the slave to be present, and this will approximate as far 
 as possible to the method of obtaining servants at em 
 ployment offices. 
 
 At the Christmas holidays, some of the southern 
 cities and towns are alive with the negroes, in their best 
 attire, seeking employment for the year to come, chan 
 ging places, and having full liberty to suit themselves as 
 to their employers. The characters and habits of all 
 the masters and mistresses are known and freely dis 
 cussed by them. 
 
 So, instead of selling a family at auction upon the 
 death of a master, it is often the case that letters are 
 written for them to people in different States, where they 
 may happen to have acquaintances, perhaps to relatives 
 of the master s family, known and beloved, asking them 
 to buy ; and thus the family is disposed of to the satis 
 faction of all concerned. Wherever kindness prevails, 
 the evils of slavery can be made to disappear as much 
 as from any condition, especially where the servants 
 are worthy. 
 
 But then there are cases in which the feelings of the 
 slave are wantonly disregarded, and the owners make no 
 distinction, and are incapable of making any, between a 
 negro and a mule. 
 
 Then there are slaves who are vicious and disagreeable, 
 whom their owners are glad to sell out of their sight, as 
 other men are glad to be rid of certain apprentices or 
 refractory children, and feel happier the greater the 
 distance to which they remove. 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 77 
 
 Again, men in pecuniary straits, in the hands of a 
 broker or sheriff, do things which excruciate themselves 
 as much as their slaves. Thus, in part, the domestic 
 slave trade is maintained. 
 
 SECTION II. Domestic Slave Trade. 
 
 A southern physician described to me a scene in the 
 domestic slave trade. He touched at a landing-place in 
 a steamer, and immediately a slave coffle was marched 
 on board. Men, women, and children, about forty in 
 all, two by two, an ox chain passing through the double 
 file, and a fastening reaching from the right and left 
 hands of those on either side of the chain, composed 
 what is called a slave coffle. Some colored people were 
 on the wharf, who seemed to be relatives and friends of 
 the gang. Such shrieks, such unearthly noises, as re 
 sounded above the escape of steam, my informant said 
 can not be described. There were partings for life, and 
 between what degrees of kindred the nature of the cries 
 were probably a sign. 
 
 When the boat was on her way, my informant fell 
 into conversation with a distinguished planter, with re 
 gard to the scene which they had just witnessed. They 
 deplored it as one of the features of a system which they 
 both mourned over, and wished to abolish, or at least 
 correct, till no wrong, no pain, should be the fruit of it 
 which is not incidental to every human lot. 
 
 While they were discussing the subject, the slave- 
 dealer heard their talk, came up, and made advances to 
 shake hands with the planter. The gentleman drew 
 back, and said, " Sir, I consider you a disgrace to human 
 nature." He poured scorn and indignation upon him. 
 
78 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 He spoke the feelings of the south generally. Negro 
 traders are the abhorrence of all flesh. Even their 
 descendants, when they are known, and the property 
 acquired in the traffic, have a blot upon them. I never 
 knew a deeper aversion to any class of men ; it is safe 
 to say, that generally it is not surpassed by our feelings 
 toward foreign slave traders. 
 
 They go into the States where the trade is not pro 
 hibited by law, find men who are in want of money, or 
 a master who has a slave that is troublesome, and for the 
 peace of the plantation that slave is sold, sometimes at 
 great sacrifice ; and there are many of whom, under 
 pecuniary pressure, it is not always difficult to purchase. 
 
 There are some men whose diabolical natures are 
 gratified by this traffic passionate, cruel, tyrannical 
 men, seeking dominion in some form to gratify these in 
 stincts. The personal examinations which they make, 
 and the written descriptions which they give, of slaves 
 whom they buy, are sometimes disgusting in the extreme. 
 It is beyond explanation that good men at the south do 
 not clamor against this thing, till the transfer of every 
 human being, if he must be a slave, is made with all the 
 care attending the probate of a will. 
 
 The charge of vilely multiplying negroes in Vir 
 ginia, is one of those exaggerations of which this subject 
 is full, and is reduced to this that Virginia, being an 
 old State, fully stocked, the surplus black population 
 naturally flows off where their numbers are less. 
 
 I heard this conversation at the breakfast house of a 
 southern railroad. As several of us were warming our 
 selves at the fire, one of the passengers said to the keeper 
 of the house, 
 
 " Where is Alonzo now ? " 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 79 
 
 " He is in Alabama." 
 
 " I thought he had come back." 
 
 " Well, he was to come back some time ago ; but they 
 keep sending him so many negroes to sell, he can t 
 leave." 
 
 Alonzo is probably a negro trader of the better sort ; 
 a mere agent or factor. If slaves are to be sold, there 
 must be men to negotiate with regard to them; these 
 are not all of the vilest sort ; yet their occupation is 
 abhorred. 
 
 The separation of families seems to be an inevitable 
 feature of slavery, as it exists at present. If a man is 
 rich and benevolent, he will provide for his servants, 
 and tax himself to support them, let their number be 
 never so great, buying one plantation after another, 
 chiefly to employ his people. But the time will come 
 when he must die, and his people are deprived of his 
 protection. No one child, perhaps, can afford to keep 
 them together ; perhaps he has no children ; then they 
 must take their chance of separations to the widest bor 
 ders of the slave States. But here individual kindness 
 mitigates sorrow and distress. The owner of several 
 plantations at the south, with no children, has made his 
 slaves his heirs, on condition that they remove to Liberia. 
 
 It seems to be taken for granted that to be sold is 
 inevitably to pass from a good to an inferior condition. 
 This, is as much a mistake as it would be to assert the 
 same of changes on the part of domestic servants in the 
 free States. There are as good masters as those whose 
 death makes it necessary to scatter the slaves of an 
 estate. The change itself is not necessarily an evil. 
 
 We must remember that slaves are not the only inhab 
 itants, nor slave families the only families, in the land, 
 
80 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 that are scattered by the death of others. Sometimes 
 the demand seems to be that slaves should be kept to 
 gether at all events, and separations never be permitted. 
 This is absurd, upon the least reflection. No one ought 
 to demand or expect for them an experience better or 
 worse than the common lot of men. Let the slaves share 
 with us in the common blessings and calamities of divine 
 providence. What would become of our families of five 
 or ten children should their parents die ? Can we keep 
 our children about us always? Do none but black children 
 go to the ends of the Union and become settled there ? 
 How many white people there are that do this, who de 
 plorable truth ! cannot read and write, and seldom if 
 ever hear of their relatives from whom they are separated. 
 Let us not require too much of slavery. Let us not 
 insist that the slaves shall never be separated, nor their 
 families broken up ; but let it be done as in the course of 
 nature every where, with no more pain, nor pain of any 
 other kind, than must accrue to those who depend upon 
 their own efforts for a living. 
 
 Facts connected with this part of the subject have 
 given me deep respect and sympathy for those slavehold 
 ers who, from the number of instances which have come 
 to my knowledge, it is evident are by no means few, that 
 suffer hardship and loss in their efforts to keep the mem 
 bers of their slave families together. Our knowledge of 
 distressing cases, and the indisputable truth that slavery 
 gives the power of disposal to the owner at his will, no 
 doubt leads us to exaggerate the number of cases in 
 which suffering is unjustly inflicted. While we are sure 
 to hear of distressing cruelties, ten thousand acts of 
 kindness are not mentioned. These can not compensate, 
 however, for the liability to abuse which there is in 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 81 
 
 authority almost absolute ; but still let us discriminate 
 when we bring charges against a whole community, and 
 let us consider how far the evils complained of are insep 
 arable, not only from a system which is felt to be a bur 
 den, but also from human nature in every condition. 
 
 As was remarked with regard to sales by auction, it is 
 in vain to expect that painful separations of families in a 
 wanton manner, or by stress of circumstances, can wholly 
 cease, in the present system. It is indeed a burdensome 
 system, destroying itself by its own weight, unless re 
 lieved by some of those unnatural and violent expedi 
 ents. It is deplored for this and other reasons by mul 
 titudes at the south, whose voices we shall hear as soon 
 as our relations as north and south are such as will 
 allow them to speak. In the mean time, public sentiment 
 is fast correcting abuses under the system ; and not only 
 so, but through its influence and the power of Christian 
 love, the condition of families and individuals among the 
 slaves is becoming here and there as free from evil as 
 human nature permits in a dependent condition. 
 6 
 
82 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 1- 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 REVOLTING FEATURES OF SLAVERY CONTINUED. 
 SECTION III. Homes of the Slaves. 
 
 THE homes of the slaves is a topic of deep interest, 
 bearing in a vital manner upon the system. It can hardly 
 be said in general that slaves have regularly constituted 
 homes. Husbands and wives, in a large proportion of 
 cases, belong to different masters, and reside on separate 
 plantations, the husband sometimes walking several miles, 
 night and morning, to and from his family, and many of 
 them returning home only on Saturday afternoon. In 
 cities, also, husbands and wives most commonly belong 
 to different families. Laboring apart, and having their 
 meals apart, the bonds of domestic life are few and 
 weak. A slave, his wife, and their children, around that 
 charmed centre, a family table, with its influences of 
 love, instruction, discipline, humble as they necessarily 
 would be, yet such as God had given them, are too sel 
 dom seen. To encourage and protect their homes gen 
 erally would be in effect to put an end to slavery as it is. 
 
 It was remarked to me by an eminent and venerable 
 physician at the south, that maternal attachments in 
 slave mothers are singularly shortlived. Their pain 
 and grief at the sale of their children, their jealousy, 
 their self-sacrificing efforts for them, are peculiar ; but 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 83 
 
 they are easily supplanted. The hen, and even the timid 
 partridge, is roused when her young are in danger, 
 and her demonstrations of affection then are unsur 
 passed. Yet in a few weeks she will treat her offspring 
 as strangers. Maternal instincts in slave mothers (my 
 friend observed) were more like this than the ordinary 
 parental feelings of white people. 
 
 I told him that this disclosed to me one of the most 
 affecting illustrations of slavery, and that I needed not 
 to ask him for his explanation of it. Every one can see, 
 not only the probability, but the cause, of this limited 
 parental affection. From the first moment of maternal 
 solicitude, the idea of property on the part of the owner 
 in the offspring is connected with the maternal instinct. 
 It grows side by side with it, becomes a neutralizing ele 
 ment, prevents the inviolable links of natural affection 
 from reaching deep into the heart. We need no slave 
 auctions or separations of families to make us feel the 
 inherent, awful nature of the present system of slavery, 
 in view of this illustration. 
 
 Some use it in mitigation of the alleged wrongful- 
 ness of separating mothers and young children. Human 
 nature refuses to hear one who is capable of using such 
 an argument. 
 
 The same day that my friend made his remark to 
 me, I had an accidental confirmation of it in the conver 
 sation of an intelligent landlord, who was telling me of 
 the recent lamentable death of an old slave mother who 
 had nursed him and all his brothers and sisters. His 
 mother said to the dying woman, " How do you feel about 
 leaving your children ? " for she had several, who were 
 still young. " missis," she said, " you will take care 
 of them; I don t mind them. I don t want to leave 
 
84 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 you, missis, and your Charley and Ann. What will 
 they do without me, little dears ? " The gentleman men 
 tioned it as an affecting illustration, as it certainly is, of 
 the disinterested affection in these colored servants; 
 but I felt that there was something back of all this. 
 Slavery had loosened the natural attachments of this 
 woman to her offspring, and those attachments had 
 sought and found objects to grow upon in the children 
 of another. There must be something essentially wrong 
 in a system which thus interferes with the nature which 
 God has made. 
 
 The drapery of words is hardly sufficient, perhaps, to 
 clothe an idea which a slave mother in one of the best 
 of Christian families expressed ; but she was deprecating 
 the possibility of being a mother again. She said, " You 
 feel when your child is born that you can t have the 
 bringing of it up." 
 
 One evening, in a prayer meeting of slaves, the white 
 brother who presided read the chapter in Matthew con 
 taining the Lord s Prayer, and asked me to make some 
 remarks. I alluded to the Lord s Prayer, which had 
 just been read, and was proceeding to remark upon por 
 tions of it. I found myself embarrassed, however, at 
 once, in speaking about that overwhelming name of love 
 Our Father, who art in heaven ; for it flashed upon me, 
 these slaves, although they have the spirit of sons, al 
 though they cry " Abba, Father," as I seldom ever heard 
 other Christians use the name, can not appreciate any 
 illustrations of it which I may draw from earthly parent 
 age ; they know the thing ; the illustration they cannot 
 fully appreciate, for in effect the slave has no father. 
 He more frequently remembers his mother; but who was 
 his father ? His knowledge of him is far less frequent. 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 85 
 
 The annihilation by slavery, to a great extent, of the 
 father in the domestic relations of the slaves, is insepa 
 rable from it, as it exists at present. 
 
 Take a further illustration. I was in a large colored 
 Sabbath school. The superintendent at the close gave 
 the scholars a kind word of exhortation to this effect : 
 " Now, children, I want to repeat what I have said to you 
 so often ; you must all try to be good children, wherever 
 you are, remembering that you are never out of God s 
 sight. If you love and obey him, if you are good chil 
 dren at home, what a comfort you will be to your" [I ex 
 pected the words fathers and mothers ] " masters and mis 
 tresses." I felt as when I have heard the earth fall upon 
 a stranger s coffin ; it was all correct, all kind ; but the 
 inability to use those names, the perfect naturalness with 
 which other names came in to fill the place of father and 
 mother, brought to my heart the truth, the slaves gener 
 ally have no homes. 
 
 Living disintegrated as they now do, it is easier to 
 transfer them from place to place. Thus the prevalence 
 of homes in slavery, regularly constituted and defended, 
 would soon make slavery almost impracticable, or reduce 
 it to almost an unobjectionable form. The red sandstone 
 soil in parts of the south is destroyed, large sections 
 being washed away, leaving a hard, clayey surface. That 
 beautiful feature of New England, our northern grass, 
 does not prevail there, with its thick-set roots to bind 
 the soil. Homes among the slaves would be to them 
 what the grass would be to the soil. 
 
 Separated as they necessarily are under the present 
 system, the relations of husbands and wives are not so 
 inviolable as they otherwise would be. Marriage among 
 the slaves is not a civil contract j it is formed and con- 
 
86 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OP SLAVERY. 
 
 tinues by permission of the masters ; it has no binding 
 force, except as moral principle preserves it ; and it is 
 subject, of course, to the changes of fortune on the part 
 of the owners. This is the theory ; but humane and 
 benevolent hearts in every community combine to modi 
 fy its operation ; yet there are cases of hardship over 
 which they are compelled to weep, and very many of 
 them do weep as we should in their places ; still the sys 
 tem remains, and now and then asserts its awful power. 
 
 There is a lad at the south about fifteen years old, 
 whose form, features, manners, and general aptitude in 
 terested me in him very much, whose mother has had 
 three husbands sold within three years. To see him 
 while talking throw himself from one seat to another, 
 and upon the floor, in the abandonment of grief, with 
 wailings cursing his birth, it would seem is enough to 
 prevent any stranger from falling in love with sla 
 very. In these three cases, straitened circumstances 
 compelled the sales. 
 
 Yet the cases of violent separation of husband and 
 wife are not so many as the voluntary and criminal sepa 
 rations by the parties themselves. This, after all, is the 
 chief evil connected with the looseness of domestic ties 
 in slavery. Conjugal love among the slaves is not inva 
 riably the poetical thing which amateurs of slaves some 
 times picture it ; for there are probably no more happy 
 conjugal unions among the slaves than among the whites. 
 
 At the spring term, this year, of the court in one New 
 England State, there were eighty-three applications for 
 divorce ; thirty-three were granted, seven were refused, 
 and forty-three were reserved for consideration. In 
 another State, at the same term, there were seventy- 
 three applications; forty-two were granted, four were 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 87 
 
 refused, and three were settled ; the rest were continued. 
 Probably in no slave State were there more voluntary sep 
 arations of husbands and wives among the slaves than in 
 some of the New England States that could be specified 
 for the same period. The only difference is, the slave 
 does not go to court for his divorce. He absents him 
 self from his cabin, or procures another master ; or, be 
 longing to the same master with his wife, and being 
 unwilling to live within possible hearing of her, he flees 
 to the north. If he has a good degree of address, he 
 can rouse up the deep philanthropy of freemen, like a 
 ground-swell of the sea, in overwhelming pity and com 
 passion for him ; while the only unhappiness, after all, in 
 his particular case, was, that he could not have laws to 
 countenance and defend him in putting away his wife, 
 who had committed no crime, and marrying another. 
 The people of those communities whose laws of divorce 
 are of questionable morality, will not, of course, throw 
 the first stone at the south, for that looseness in the do 
 mestic relations of slaves which allows so many volunta 
 ry separations. 
 
 I have conversed with pastors of churches at the south 
 on this subject. Human nature is the same among \ 
 the whites as among the blacks, but the mode of life 
 among the slaves gives peculiar facilities for vice ; the 
 separation of husbands and wives by sale encourages 
 them to think lightly of mutual obligations, and conju 
 gal faithfulness for the time yields easily to temptation. 
 They are faithfully preached to from the pulpit on the 
 subject, religious restraints are felt, the expectation of 
 honorable marriage has influence, and it is libelous to 
 say that there are not very many in the churches who 
 keep themselves pure. Still it is universally confessed 
 
88 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OP SLAVERY. 
 
 that one prominent evil of slavery is seen in this. The 
 pastor of a colored church says to me, in a letter, " The 
 violation of the law of chastity among my congregation 
 is the besetting sin. Of the three hundred and seven 
 teen persons excluded during a certain period, as ap 
 pears by our church books, two hundred were for adul 
 tery." But this is a congregation in which an unusually 
 large proportion are free blacks. There are restraints 
 imposed upon slaves in this particular, in many cases, 
 which, of course, are not felt by those who are free. 
 Knowing, as ministers in cities are apt to do, the sta 
 tistics of crime, it would be gratifying if we could assert 
 that our northern cities are examples to the south in all 
 goodness. After reading all that has ever been written 
 respecting the sale and purchase of " yellow girls," and 
 the extent to which the sin alluded to prevails at the 
 south, you may obtain from any experienced policeman 
 in one of our cities disclosures which will give exercise 
 to virtuous abhorrence and indignation as great as the 
 statistics of sin and misery elsewhere can excite, unless, 
 indeed, wickedness at home fails to exert the enchant 
 ment which belongs to other men s sins. What if there 
 were some way in which this iniquity in the free States 
 proclaimed itself as it does through complexion at the 
 south ? 
 
 " Some men s sins are open beforehand, going before 
 to judgment, and some men they follow after." 
 
 Christian public sentiment at the south revolts at the 
 sale of one s own children as instinctively as at the north, 
 and points the finger at this abomination. 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 89 
 
 SECTION IV. Domestic Evih deplored by the Whites. 
 
 There are evils pertaining to slavery of which none 
 are so well aware as those who are subjected to them ; 
 and therefore the free and candid declaration of the 
 people at the south upon this part of the subject is far 
 more convincing and satisfactory than our theoretical 
 reasonings. 
 
 They complain of the injurious effect of slave labor 
 upon the soil, there being no motives with the slave to 
 improve or preserve it ; but this is too obvious a topic 
 to require a single remark. 
 
 Labor performed wholly by menial persons becomes 
 disreputable in the eyes of children. Those who can 
 afford to educate their children to live in affluence are 
 not oppressed by this evil as others are whose children 
 eschew trades and every thing requiring manual labor, 
 and, irrespective of talent, must resort to the army and 
 navy and the learned professions for a living. Society 
 is happier where a portion of its own talent and enter 
 prise is employed in the mechanic arts. It is the provi 
 dential arrangement that invention shall be the offspring 
 of labor, they who work being those ordinarily who con 
 fer upon the world the fruits of genius Slaves invent 
 little or nothing. The healthful stimulus of necessity 
 finds few heads or hands at the south among the labor 
 ing class, almost every thing necessary to quicken and 
 help labor being imported. It is a serious evil which 
 parents in slave States feel, that they do not enjoy the 
 privilege of employing the talents and aiding the con- 
 
90 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 stitutions of some of their children by addicting them 
 at home to the useful arts, which abound where labor is 
 honorable and is rewarded. Temptations to vice, and the 
 mischiefs of an aimless, idle life, are the source of great 
 solicitude and pain to many southern parents with re 
 gard to their sons. 
 
 We greatly err when we make this an occasion for 
 reproach. There is a way of taunting the south with 
 this and other inseparable inconveniences and evils of 
 their state of society which is unkind. Their reply 
 might well be, " God has given us a south land/ as 
 Caleb gave to his daughter. O that he could give us also, 
 as she requested, springs of water. Sources of refresh 
 ment and comfort which you at the north enjoy are, 
 some of them, withheld from us." 
 
 Were it not for the din and clamor of northern in 
 vectives against slavery, we should hear more distinct 
 ly the candid expressions of our southern friends with 
 regard to evils in the system. 
 
 They tell us and indeed every one sees it that 
 slave labor is in many cases oppressively expensive, and 
 the more so in proportion to the conscientiousness and 
 kindness of the owners. It takes more hands to do the 
 same amount of work than with us ; the servants are 
 hearty, and great consumers, frequently costing more for 
 their food than the rest of the family ; and some of them 
 could be dispensed with, but they came into the family 
 in ways, perhaps, which make their owners unwilling to 
 put them away. This is an evil in slavery of which we 
 at the north have very little idea, and it does much to 
 disabuse a spectator of wrong impressions made by his 
 associations with the word slavery and slave. One case 
 out of many in every southern town may be mentioned, 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 91 
 
 of a matron, a widow, who, during her husband s life, 
 was in easy circumstances ; but he having left her with 
 some colored women and their children, she receives 
 boarders that she may have means to support these 
 blacks, being unwilling to sell them, but expecting the 
 time when she can place them in advantageous situa 
 tions. She would pass at the north under the name of 
 " slaveholder," with all the peculiar associations with 
 that name in the minds of many. It was affecting to 
 hear her say, " If our friends at the north would devise 
 ways in which we could dispose of these poor people 
 for their good, I should then no longer be a servant of 
 servants." 
 
 There are, probably, few who would not abstractly 
 prefer free labor ; but what shall be done with the blacks ? 
 There has never been a time in the history of our dis 
 cussions on this subject, when, if the south had ex 
 pressed her willingness to part with the slaves, we at 
 the north could have agreed in what way they should 
 have been disposed of. Who has ever proposed a plan 
 of relief which could in a good measure unite us ? What 
 shall be done with the blacks ? On the evils of slavery 
 all are well informed. But as to this essential question 
 we get no light. 
 
 TAKING all the ikvorrfflft ffflfrnffij ftnd all the evils of 
 southern sEvery together simply as to their bearing upon 
 the slave7Tf appears that, leaving out of view theTiaBiT- 
 ities to separation, to be a slave at the south is an evil 
 or not according to the character prjiabits of the master. 
 The master or mistress can make the relation of a slave 
 
92 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 the very best on earth for one who must be dependent. 
 One can not be long at the south, and not see for himself 
 that the perfection of human happiness in a serving class 
 is found among certain slaves. There is nothing that 
 approaches to it except the relation of certain servants 
 and dependants of noble families in Great Britain ; but 
 at the south the relation and the happiness do not depend 
 upon family and wealth ; every householder may be a 
 master or mistress to whom it will be a privilege to be 
 long. Instances come to mind of servants in whose con 
 dition nothing is wanting to promote happiness in this 
 world and preparation for the next ; and the only source 
 of disquietude in such cases you will hear thus expressed : 
 " Master may die, and then I shall have to be free. I 
 have laid up money, and am mentioned in the will, and 
 my free papers are made out." Such servants sometimes 
 select new masters, and prevail on them to buy them, 
 preferring the feeling of protection, the gratification of 
 loving and serving a white person, to abstract liberty. 
 
 Then there is another side to this picture. It is in 
 the power of a master or mistress to make the condition 
 of the slave a perpetual sorrow. It would be well ii 
 some men, and women too, could be debarred by law 
 from having authority over a human being. One looks 
 with pity even upon the animal that belongs to them. 
 Imperative, fierce, threatening in their tones, petulant 
 and cruel in their dispositions, capricious and contradic 
 tory in their orders, and full of scolding, the word and 
 blow coming together, they wear out the patience of their 
 servants. No wonder that the slaves of such men and 
 women run away, that white boys in similar circum 
 stances betake themselves to the sea, and girls elope or 
 go to service, as a refuge from such dispositions and 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 93 
 
 tongues. A certain distinguished slave owner seriously 
 entertains the desire, for which his friends banter him, 
 that every one proposing to be a slaveholder shall bring 
 certificates of good temper, and be examined. To one 
 who was a most thorough lover of the system of slavery 
 I put the question, in a favorable moment, " What, in 
 your view, is the greatest objection that can be made to 
 slavery ? " " O," said he, " this irresponsible power. 
 You can not prevent its abuse while human nature is what 
 it is. Good and kind men and women can make a slave 
 happier than he could be any where ; but certain mas 
 ters and mistresses of slaves are the worst of tyrants." 
 
 There are some men to whom a negro is merely an ox 
 or an ass. They buy, sell, work, treat, talk about, their 
 " niggers " as about cattle hard, sharp, vulgar men, of 
 whom we have a good idea in the following extract from 
 the journal of a traveler in Texas, which appeared some 
 time since in a newspaper, and which I read and veri 
 fied at the south. The writer says, 
 
 " I remember, now, one gentleman of property in , 
 
 sitting with us one night, spitting in the fire, and talking 
 about cotton. Bad luck he had had only four and a 
 half bales to the hand ; couldn t account for it bad 
 luck ; and next year he didn t reckon nothing else but 
 that there would be a general war in Europe, and then 
 he d be in a pretty fix, with cotton down to four cents a 
 pound. Curse those Turks ! If he thought there would 
 
 be a general war, he would take every nigger he d 
 
 got right down to New Orleans, and sell them for what 
 they d bring. They d never be so high again as they are 
 now, and if there should come a general war they wouldn t 
 be worth half so much next year. There always were 
 
94 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 some infernal rascals some where in the world trying to 
 prevent an honest man from getting a living. O, if 
 they got to fighting, he hoped they d eat each other 
 up. They just ought to be, all of them Turks, and 
 Russians, and Prussians, and Dutchmen, and French 
 men all of them just be put in a bag together, and 
 slung . That s what he d do with them." 
 
 It will generally be expected that punishment by 
 whipping should be mentioned among the revolting fea 
 tures of slavery. In a well-regulated southern house 
 hold, as in a well-ordered family of children, or a good 
 school, the rod is out of sight. It is seldom alluded to ; 
 threatenings are rare ; but the knowledge on the part 
 of each servant, child, and pupil, that there is a punish 
 ment in reserve for the last resort, will have a salutary 
 effect. Southern ladies, when they meet insolence or 
 disobedience in their slaves, have not our easy means of 
 relief in dismissing them at once, and repairing to the 
 intelligence offices for others. They must have them 
 punished, or they must continue to bear with them, as 
 they often do, with long and exemplary patience, shrink 
 ing as we should from subjecting them to punishment ; 
 or they must sell them, as incorrigible, to the slave trader, 
 which is far worse than chastisement, however severe. 
 In good hands this power is exercised without abuse. 
 
 This power is also in the hands of the cruel and un 
 principled, and is fearfully abused. Slaves, however, 
 are not the only subjects of these cruelties, nor masters 
 of slaves the only transgressors. The following extract 
 taken from a newspaper, with remarks upon it by a 
 southern editor, are given here partly for the sake of a 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OP SLAVERY. 95 
 
 comment upon the strictures of the editor. Some of 
 his remarks are just. It is the legislature of a free State 
 which is referred to. 
 
 " The legislature has before it an investigation into 
 
 the conduct of , of the state prison, who is accused 
 
 of cruelty toward a colored prisoner whom he suspected 
 of stealing from him three hundred dollars. It is alleged 
 he deprived him of his clothing, and confined him in a 
 dungeon without a bed for sixteen days. At three separate 
 times he was brought out, stripped to his skin, and whipped 
 with a cat till his back was cut to pieces, and the blood 
 made to flow from the wounds. In this condition he was 
 put back into his dark, damp, cold cell, without a bed or 
 particle of bedclothes, to pass three days and nights as 
 best he could. At the end of that time he was again taken 
 out, whipped as before, and this repeated for three times; 
 and when last put back, he was told that he would be con 
 fined and whipped every day till the expiration of his sen 
 tence, if he did not confess." 
 
 A southern editor says, with regard to this para 
 graph, 
 
 " It were an easy matter to cull from every northern mail 
 that reaches us accounts of individual instances of cruelty 
 and brutality. It would not be venturing too far to say, 
 that, for every three hundred and sixty-five days in the 
 year, the New York, Philadelphia, and Boston papers con 
 tain the particulars of some inhuman exercise of authority, 
 some outrageous case of arson or burglary, or some horri 
 ble murder of a wife by her husband, or of a husband by 
 his wife, of a child by its parent, or of a parent by the child. 
 We might make out a catalogue of sins and offences al 
 most sufficient to overwhelm these cities with the terrible 
 fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, should the divine justice 
 subject them to the same conditions imposed upon those 
 ancient sinks of iniquity. We might even arrive at the 
 conclusion that there was something radically wrong and 
 corrupt in the framework of society where enormities of 
 the most frightful and disgusting character are of such fre 
 quent occurrence. * # * We all know that the most 
 heinous violations of law, at the north as well as at the 
 south, are seldom followed by an execution. We know, 
 
96 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 further, that the disgusting details of a divorce case have 
 been known to divide public attention in New York with 
 a revolution in France, and that the brutal pugilist Tom 
 Hyer, on his return from his victory over Yankee Sullivan, 
 was paraded up Broadway in an open carriage. 
 
 " We do not choose, however, to abuse the position we 
 occupy as a public journalist. We know there are just 
 as good people at the north as there are at the south, or 
 any where else. We know there are violators of law in 
 all countries and under all circumstances of life, and that 
 it is both wrong and untruthful to charge their crimes upon 
 the communities in which they reside, or upon any one of 
 the institutions with which they are surrounded. Freedom 
 is not responsible for the sins of the north, nor is slavery 
 amenable for the transgressions of the south. Whatever 
 is wrong in either section should be ascribed to the proper 
 cause to that perverted nature which led Cain to take 
 the life of his brother, and which has filled the earth with 
 all the evil and woe which have afflicted it from that day 
 until this." 
 
 Now, suppose that the papers of the south should have 
 each a corps of reporters to pry every where for stirring 
 items in connection with slavery, and that those papers 
 should have the same inducements to publish them which 
 our papers have to report the last instances of abuse and 
 crime here. 
 
 We will not say that the balance in favor of the south 
 would be changed ; but the suggestion will not be gain 
 said, that to make the cases parallel, the means of in 
 formation in the two cases must be the same. 
 
 Passing by a plantation, I saw a white man standing 
 in a field near the road, with his arms folded, and a large 
 whip in his hand. A little farther on, I came to a row 
 of fifteen or twenty negroes, hoeing industriously, with 
 out lifting their heads to look at those who were going 
 by. Had I told this overseer how I felt on seeing him, 
 he would probably have replied, that my feelings were 
 northern prejudices ; that he never strikes the negroes, 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 97 
 
 and is on good terms with them ; that his whip is partly 
 in self-defence in case of need, and partly to enforce, by 
 its bare presence, his orders, in refractory cases, should 
 they occur. But he was a revolting sight. 
 
 Many planters do not employ white overseers, but 
 use some of the hands in their stead, paying them for 
 this responsibility. Touching instances of faithfulness 
 are related of these colored head men. The white over 
 seers have it in their power, of course, to perpetrate 
 many tyrannical and cruel acts ; but we must not sup 
 pose that southern masters are indifferent to wrongs and 
 outrages committed against their slaves. There is a 
 public sentiment to which they are amenable ; a cruel, 
 neglectful master is marked and despised ; and if cruel 
 or neglectful by proxy, he does not escape reprobation. 
 It was not unusual to hear one say of another, " I have 
 been told that he does not use his people well." This 
 is a brand upon a man which he and his family are made 
 to feel deeply. But this is true only of certain states 
 of society. 
 
 Slaveholding, like every relation, is a net which gath 
 ers of every kind. There are elements in it, at the 
 south, fitted to promote the highest happiness and wel 
 fare, temporal and spiritual, of the negro ; and it can 
 make him perfectly miserable. Many things charged 
 against slavery are chargeable to * construction account 
 in human nature. 
 
 The most common expression at the south, with re 
 gard to slavery, is, " It is a great curse." An intelligent 
 gentleman, a slaveholder, said, in answer to a question, 
 that unquestionably four-fifths of the people of his State, 
 one of the oldest ave States, would be entirely free from 
 7 
 
98 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 it were it possible. It is well known that several slave 
 States have been upon the borders of emancipation. In 
 the public debates which have been had in Virginia at 
 different times on this subject are to be found some of 
 the most able and thorough arguments against slavery. 
 Here is one illustration, among many which might be 
 given, of antislavery feeling at the south, just previous 
 to the recent excitement with regard to Nebraska and 
 Kansas. The Providence Journal says, 
 
 SLAVERY IN WESTERN VIRGINIA. A good deal of 
 excitement has been caused in Wheeling by the course 
 of the Times newspaper in that city, openly favoring the 
 abolition of slavery. There are few slaves in Western 
 Virginia, and the country is not adapted to slave labor; but 
 the sentiment of the State, its feelings, prejudices, and tra 
 ditions are all so intensely favorable to slavery, that it 
 requires no little boldness for a man to stand up in the 
 midst of all these unfavorable influences, and speak the 
 plain truth. The boldness of the Times in. doing so was 
 attempted to be rebuked by a public meeting, called to 
 condemn the abolitionism of that print. The meeting was 
 large ; the resolutions condemning the Times were voted 
 down, and others were substituted approving of the hon 
 esty and independence of its course. The following is the 
 manner in which the Times discusses the question of sla 
 very, and these are the sentiments which the people read, 
 and which they defend the editor for publishing : 
 
 11 We are in favor of taking the earliest possible means 
 of getting rid of slavery in the State of Virginia, with jus 
 tice to the master, safety to the State, and comfort and 
 convenience to the laboring population now in it. 
 
 " We desire it because it has retarded the progress of the 
 people since it became a State, impoverishing its inhabit 
 ants, reducing its population, and staying the development 
 of the vast natural resources that abound in the State, to a 
 greater extent than in any other State in the Union. Had 
 it not been for slavery, Norfolk would now be what New 
 York and Philadelphia are. Norfolk has the best harbor 
 in the Union, and the natural soil that extends from the 
 coast to the Blue Ridge is among the best in the country. 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 99 
 
 Had that institution not existed there, or if it should be 
 removed, how long would it be before Norfolk would be 
 among the first cities, and the worn-out lands in that region 
 of country, that are now owned in five hundred and one 
 thousand acre tracts, (and hardly support a family at that,) 
 would be divided into fifty acre tracts, each of which would 
 be tilled by the hands of the hardy and intelligent repub 
 lican, not only to yield a support, but competence and 
 riches, to a large and happy family happy in their indus 
 try and intelligence ? 
 
 " No one dare deny that such would be the result. Is it 
 not right, then, that we should express such opinions ? We 
 are parties interested as well as they ; for what benefits or 
 injures one part of the State, benefits or injures the other 
 part." 
 
 A southern correspondent of the New York Observer 
 thus expresses himself: "Though born and raised 
 among the Green Mountains, I have been more than 
 thirty years at the south, and I hold slaves ; yet I think 
 I can do justice to the feelings of north and south. I 
 believe slavery is a curse to the south, and many others 
 believe it, who will not own it, on account of the fanatic 
 efforts of the abolitionists. When I speak of it as a 
 curse, I mean in all its relations of master and servant 
 the bad influence it has upon our passions, upon our 
 children, destroying that sense of moral responsibility 
 which ought to bear upon us." 
 
100 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVEBT. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 APPROACHES TO EMANCIPATION. 
 
 THE country found in its bosom, at the time of our 
 confederation, about seven hundred thousand slaves. 
 The following, from a recent number of the National 
 Intelligencer, presents an accurate and clear view of an 
 important part of our history in connection with this 
 subject : 
 
 THE CONSTITUTION AND SLAVERY. The journal of 
 the Convention to frame the present Constitution of the 
 United States exhibits the following facts in connection 
 with the subject of slavery : 
 
 " The first committee on the subject consisted of Rut- 
 ledge of South Carolina, Randolph of Virginia, Wilson of 
 Pennsylvania, Gorham of Massachusetts, and Ellsworth of 
 Connecticut ; and they reported, as a section for the Con 
 stitution, that no tax or other duty should be laid on the 
 migration or importation of such persons as the several 
 States shall think proper to admit, nor shall such migration 
 or importation be prohibited. " 
 
 This was the first action of the Convention on the sla 
 very question ; and it will be seen that a committee, the 
 majority of which were from what are strong antislavery 
 States, reported against any future prohibition of the African 
 slave trade, but were willing to legalize it perpetually. 
 
 This section was subsequently referred to a committee, 
 selected by ballot, consisting of Langdon of New Hamp 
 shire, King of Massachusetts, Johnson of Connecticut, 
 Livingston of New Jersey, Clymer of Pennsylvania, Dick 
 inson of Delaware, Martin of Maryland, Madison of Vir- 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OS 
 
 ginia, Williamson of North Carolina, Pinckney of South 
 Carolina, and Baldwin of Georgia. 
 
 This committee, a majority of which were from slave 
 States, (then and now,) reported the clause, with authority 
 to Congress to prohibit the slave trade after the year 1800, 
 and in the mean time with authority to levy a tax on such 
 importations. This section was afterwards modified and 
 adopted as it now exists in the Constitution, extending the 
 time before which Congress could not prohibit the trade un 
 til 1808 Massachusetts. New Hampshire, and Connecti 
 cut, free States, and Maryland, North and South Carolina- 
 slave States, voting for the extension; New Jersey and 
 Pennsylvania, free States, and Delaware and Virginia, 
 slave States, voting against it. 
 
 From the above it appears 
 
 1. A committee, the majority of which were from free 
 States, report in favor of denying to Congress the power at 
 any period to prohibit the African slave trade. 
 
 2. That a subsequent committee, a majority of which 
 were from the slave States, reported a new section, author 
 izing Congress to abolish the trade after the year 1800. 
 
 3. That this period was extended until the year 1808, 
 thus giving eight additional years to the traffic, by the 
 vote of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, 
 whilst the vote of Virginia was against such extension. 
 
 The New York Tribune, of about the same date, 
 
 "Had the New England States voted against the 
 extension, the slave trade would have been abolished 
 eight years earlier, preventing the importation of more 
 than a hundred thousand into this country, and there 
 would have been at the present time a less number of 
 slaves in the United States by at least three hundred 
 thousand." 
 
 The southern heart and conscience at last found ex 
 pression on the subject of Slavery in that most remark 
 able document adopted by the General Assembly of the 
 
\A* pUTB>&JDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 Presbyterian Church of the United States in 1818, and 
 now contained in the Assembly s Digest. Its interest 
 and its connection with what follows warrant its inser 
 tion here. 
 
 " The committee to which was referred the resolution on 
 the subject of selling a slave, a member of the church, and 
 which was directed to prepare a report to be adopted by 
 the Assembly, expressing their opinion in general on the 
 subject of slavery, reported, and, their report being read, 
 was unanimously adopted, and referred to the same com 
 mittee for publication. It is as follows, viz. : 
 
 "The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, 
 having taken into consideration the subject of SLAVERY, 
 think proper to make known their sentiments upon it to the 
 churches and people under their care. 
 
 / " We consider the voluntary enslaving of one part of the 
 human race by another as a gross violation of the most 
 precious and sacred rights of human nature ; as utterly in 
 consistent with the law of God, which requires us to love 
 our neighbor as ourselves; and as totally irreconcilable 
 with the spirit and principles of the gospel of Christ, which 
 
 ; enjoin that all things whatsoever ye would that men 
 should do to you, do ye even so to them. Slavery creates 
 a paradox in the moral system it exhibits rational, ac 
 countable, and immortal beings in such circumstances 
 as scarcely to leave them the power of moral action. It 
 exhibits them as dependent on the will of others, whether 
 they shall receive religious instruction ; whether they shall 
 know and worship the true God ; whether they shall enjoy 
 the ordinances of the gospel ; whether they shall per 
 form the duties and cherish the endearments of husbands 
 and wives, parents and children, neighbors and friends; 
 whether they shall preserve their chastity and purity, or 
 regard the dictates of justice and humanity. Such are 
 some of the consequences of slavery consequences not 
 imaginary but which connect themselves with its very 
 existence. The evils to which the slave is always exposed 
 often take place in fact, and in their very worst degree and 
 form; and where all of them do not take place as we 
 rejoice to say that in many instances, through the influence 
 of the principles of humanity and religion on the minds of 
 masters, they do not, still the slave is deprived of his 
 natural right, degraded as a human being, and exposed tc 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 103 
 
 the danger of passing into the hands of a master who may 
 inflict upon him all the hardships and injuries which in 
 humanity and avarice may suggest. 
 
 " From this view of the consequences resulting from the 
 practice into which Christian people have most inconsist 
 ently fallen, of enslaving a portion of their brethren of 
 mankind, for God hath made of one blood all nations 
 of men to dwell on the face of the earth, it is mani 
 festly the duty of all Christians who enjoy the light of the 
 present day, when the inconsistency of slavery, both with 
 the dictates of humanity and religion, has been demon 
 strated, and is generally seen and acknowledged, to use 
 their honest, earnest, and unwearied endeavors to correct 
 the errors of former times, and as speedily as possible to 
 efface this blot on our holy religion, and to obtain the com 
 plete abolition of slavery throughout Christendom, and if 
 possible throughout the world. 
 
 " We rejoice that the church to which we belong com 
 menced as early as any other in this country the good work 
 of endeavoring to put an end to slavery, and that in the 
 same work many of its members have ever since been, 
 and now are, among the most active, vigorous, and effi 
 cient laborers. We do indeed tenderly sympathize with 
 those portions of our church and our country where the 
 evil of slavery has been entailed upon them ; where a 
 great, and the most virtuous, part of the community abhor 
 slavery, and wish its extermination, as sincerely as any 
 others^ but where the number of slaves, their ignorance, 
 and their vicious habits generally, render an immediate 
 and universal emancipation inconsistent alike with the 
 safety and happiness of the master and the slave. With 
 those who are thus circumstanced we repeat that we ten 
 derly sympathize. At the same time, we earnestly exhort 
 them to continue, and, if possible, to increase their exer 
 tions to effect a total abolition of slavery. We exhort them 
 to suffer no greater delay to take place in this most inter 
 esting concern than a regard to the public welfare truly 
 and indispensably demands. 
 
 " As our country has inflicted a most grievous injury on 
 tne unhappy Africans, by bringing them into slavery, we 
 cannot, indeed, urge that we should add a second injury to 
 the first, by emancipating them in such a manner as that 
 they will be likely to destroy themselves or others. But 
 we do think that our country ought to be governed, in this 
 matter, by no other consideration than an honest and im 
 partial regard to the happiness of the injured party, un- 
 
104 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 influenced by the expense or inconvenience which such a 
 regard may involve. We therefore warn all who belong to 
 our denomination of Christians against unduly extending 
 this plea of necessity ; against making it a cover for the 
 love and practice of slavery, or a pretence for not using 
 efforts that are lawful and practicable to extinguish the 
 evil. 
 
 " And we at the same time exhort others to forbear harsh 
 censures and uncharitable reflections on their brethren, 
 who unhappily live among slaves, whom they cannot im 
 mediately set free, but who, at the same time, are really 
 using all their influence and all their endeavors to bring 
 them into a state of freedom as soon as a door for it can 
 be safely opened. 
 
 " Having th-us expressed our views of slavery, and of the 
 duty indispensably incumbent on all Christians to labor 
 for its complete extinction, we proceed to recommend 
 and we do it with all the earnestness and solemnity which 
 this momentous subject demands a particular attention 
 to the following points : 
 
 " We recommend to all our people to patronize and en 
 courage the Society, lately formed, for Colonizing in Africa, 
 the land of their ancestors, the free people of color in our 
 country. We hope that much good may result from the 
 plans and efforts of this Society. And while we exceed 
 ingly rejoice to have witnessed its origin and organization 
 among the holders of slaves, as giving an unequivocal 
 pledge of their desire to deliver themselves and their coun 
 try from the calamity of slaver) , we hope that those por 
 tions of the American Union whose inhabitants are, by a 
 gracious Providence, more favorably circumstanced, will 
 cordially, and liberally, and earnestly cooperate with their 
 brethren in bringing about the great end contemplated. 
 
 " We recommend to all the members of our religious de 
 nomination, not only to permit, but to facilitate and en 
 courage, the instruction of their slaves in the principles 
 and duties of the Christian religion ; by granting them 
 liberty to attend on the preaching of the gospel, when 
 they have the opportunity ; by favoring the instruction of 
 them in Sabbath schools, wherever those schools can be 
 formed ; and by giving them all other proper advantages 
 for acquiring the knowledge of their duty both to God and 
 man. We are perfectly satisfied, that as it is incumbent 
 on all Christians to communicate religious instruction to 
 those who are under their authority, so the doing of this 
 in the case before us, so far from operating, as some have 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 105 
 
 apprehended that it might, as an excitement to insubor 
 dination and insurrection, would, on the contrary, operate 
 as the most powerful means for the prevention of those 
 evils. 
 
 " We enjoin it on all church sessions and presbyteries, 
 under the care of this Assembly, to discountenance, and, 
 as far as possible, to prevent, all cruelty of whatever kind 
 in the treatment of slaves ; especially the cruelty of sepa 
 rating husband and wife, parents and children ; and that 
 which consists in selling slaves to those who will either 
 themselves deprive these unhappy people of the blessings of 
 the gospel, or who will transport them to places where the 
 gospel is not proclaimed, or where it is forbidden to slaves 
 to attend upon its institutions. The manifest violation or 
 disregard of the injunction here given, in its true spirit and 
 intention, ought to be considered as just ground for the 
 discipline and censures of the church. And if it shall 
 ever happen that a Christian professor, in our communion, 
 shall sell a slave who is also in communion and good stand 
 ing with our church, contrary to his or her will and inclina 
 tion, it ought immediately to claim the particular attention 
 of the proper church judicature ; and unless there be such 
 peculiar circumstances attending the case as can but sel 
 dom happen, it ought to be followed, without delay, by a 
 suspension of the offender from all the privileges of the 
 church, till he repent, and make all the reparation in his 
 power to the injured party." 
 
 Should the Old School General Assembly of the Pres 
 byterian Church, embracing as it does most of the south 
 ern Presbyterian churches, adopt at their next annual 
 meeting such an expression as this of their views in 
 regard to slavery, would not the country feel that a vast 
 ly important step had been taken, if not toward the 
 abolition of slavery, at least toward such an ameliora 
 tion of it that it would soon cease to be an evil ? "What 
 more would the north ask for the first step in that direc 
 tion ? Rather, would not a somewhat general apprehen 
 sion be, that perhaps the Assembly had gone a little too 
 far, and that greater caution, through fear of reaction, 
 would have been advisable ? What ecclesiastical body 
 
106 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 at the north would or could now express a more deci 
 sive protest against the system ? Every thing looked 
 like as speedy a removal of the evils of slavery as the 
 imperfection of human society and the slow processes 
 of reforming ancient customs allowed. This was not a 
 mere ecclesiastical movement, nor an impulse of right 
 feeling in the more zealous or fervent members of the 
 community. Before the development of the cotton 
 interest, public sentiment warranted and sustained 
 such action. Jefferson s well-known protestations against 
 slavery were not the voice of one crying in a wil 
 derness, but the exponent of extensive feeling on the 
 subject. Washington had said, " It is among my first 
 wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery may 
 be abolished by law." Madison, a slaveholder, also said, 
 " It is wrong to admit into the Constitution the idea of 
 property in man." After the ordinance of 1787 had 
 been passed, an interesting decision was made in Congress, 
 which was like a refusal to re-consider, and a re-affirma 
 tion. Indiana, then a part of the North West Territory, 
 petitioned Congress for leave to hold slaves for a certain 
 term. A committee, of which a southern slaveholder 
 was chairman, reported against it, and the petition was 
 rejected.* But we now speak of a later period. 
 
 A great change very soon came over the south. Re 
 monstrances from among themselves, legislative meas 
 ures, free, earnest discussions of slavery, all tending to 
 its removal as soon as the best method could be deter 
 mined, were suddenly hushed. 
 
 This phenomenon is strangely accounted for, on the 
 part of many at the north, by saying that about this 
 
 * Oration, July 4, 1854, by T. K. King, Esq., Providence, E. I 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 107 
 
 time the cotton interest assumed very great importance, 
 and the antislavery feeling at the south was therefore 
 suppressed. 
 
 He who believes this, makes an imputation which 
 hardly does credit to his knowledge of human nature ; 
 it certainly reflects too much upon the Christian char 
 acter of a community distinguished for intellectual and 
 moral excellence. The names of some who were fore 
 most at that day in guiding public sentiment sufficiently 
 refute this suspicion. Neither can it be shown that 
 there were at that time those astounding revelations of 
 the profitableness of cotton as would suggest the proba 
 bility of so great a change of views and feelings with 
 regard to a moral question ; and as such, slavery spe 
 cially presented itself. 
 
 The manner in which this change of feeling and ac 
 tion is now universally accounted for at the south sug 
 gests the more probable explanation. 
 
 About that time people at the north were seized with 
 deep convictions that American slavery was a system of 
 iniquity, and should forthwith be abolished ; that it was 
 a sin per se to hold a fellow-being in bondage ; and that 
 all sin should be immediately repented of and forsaken. 
 Accordingly abolition societies were formed to effect the 
 immediate emancipation of the slaves. Publications 
 were scattered through the south whose direct tendency 
 was to stir up insurrection among the colored people. 
 
 A traveling agent of a northern society was arrested, 
 and, on searching his trunk, there were found some 
 prints, which might well have wrought, as they did, upon 
 the feelings of the southern people. These prints were 
 pictorial illustrations of the natural equality before God 
 of all men, without distinction of color, and setting forth 
 
108 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 the happy fruits of a universal acknowledgment of this 
 truth, by exhibiting a white woman in no equivocal 
 relations to a colored man. Incendiary sentiments and 
 pictures had for some time made their appearance on 
 northern handkerchiefs, for southern children and ser 
 vants. The old-fashioned, blue-paper wrappers of 
 chocolate had within them some eminently suggestive 
 emblems. When these amalgamation pictures were dis 
 covered, husbands and fathers at the south considered 
 that whatever might be true of slavery as a system, 
 self-defence, the protection of their households against a 
 servile insurrection, was their first duty. Who can won 
 der that they broke into the post-office, and seized and 
 burned abolition papers ; indeed, no excesses are sur 
 prising, in view of the perils to which they saw them 
 selves exposed. Then, ensued those more stringent 
 laws, so general now throughout the slaveholding States, 
 forbidding the slaves to be publicly instructed. Those 
 laws remain to the present day ; they are disregarded, 
 indeed, to a very great extent, by the people themselves ; 
 but they remain in order to be enforced against north 
 ern interference. 
 
 Yet the paralyzing influence of the causes which led 
 to such legislation continues. We wonder at it, and so 
 do our southern friends. To the question why vari 
 ous things are not done to improve the condition of the 
 blacks, the perpetual answer from men and women 
 who seek no apology for indolence or cupidity is, " We 
 are afraid of your abolitionists. Whoever moves for 
 redress in any of these things is warned that he is 
 playing into the hands of northern fanatics." They 
 seem to be living in a state of self-defence, of self-pres 
 ervation, against the north. 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 109 
 
 The following communications to the New York 
 Observer contain valuable information : 
 
 JEFFERSON Co., Va., February 13. 
 
 Messrs. Editors : In answer to your request that some 
 of your readers acquainted with the laws of Virginia would 
 send you the truth of the matter relating to the teaching of 
 slaves, I have referred to the Virginia code. In chapter 
 198, entitled, Of Offences against Public Policy, section 31 
 provides, every assemblage of negroes, "for the purpose 
 of instruction in reading and writing, or in the nighttime 
 for any purpose, shall be an unlawful assembly." " Any 
 justice may issue his warrant to any officer, or to any other 
 person, requiring him to enter any place where such assem 
 blage may be, and seize any negro therein ; and he, or any 
 other justice, may order any such negro to be punished 
 with stripes." 
 
 Section 32 is as follows : " If a white person assemble 
 with negroes for the purpose of instructing them to read or 
 write, or if he associates with them in an unlawful assembly, 
 he shall be confined in jail not exceeding six months, and 
 fined not exceeding one hundred dollars ; and any justice 
 may require him to enter into a recognizance, with suf 
 ficient security, to appear before the Circuit, County, or 
 Corporation Court, of the county or corporation where the 
 offence was committed, to answer therefor, and in the mean 
 time to keep the peace and be of his good behavior." 
 
 You will perceive that by the terms of this law a master 
 or mistress is not forbidden to teach his or her own ser 
 vants to read. Such, I believe, is the general understanding 
 in the State ; and it often happens that the young mem 
 bers of the family do teach the negroes in the family to 
 read. 
 
 This law was first passed in 1830 or 1831. 
 
 A VIRGINIA LAWYER. 
 
 Messrs. Editors : In your paper of the 9th, information 
 is asked from some one "acquainted with the laws of 
 Virginia" on the subject of " teaching slaves." I can fur 
 nish it in the simple recital of a historical fact. 
 
 About five years ago, Dr. E., of A county, died, 
 
 leaving, by will, all his slaves, some thirty-four in number, 
 free, and appropriated fifty thousand dollars in bonds, well 
 secured, for their personal benefit. They were to be kept 
 on the plantation for five years, to be educated and pre 
 pared for freedom under the control and direction of the 
 
110 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 nephew of the testator, who was the executor of the will 
 and residuary legatee. As agent of the Colonization 
 Society, the subject came under my cognizance. The 
 nephew was anxious to fulfill the important trust com 
 mitted to him, and proposed to petition the legislature to 
 allow him to educate the slaves in letters. This led me to 
 a personal and thorough investigation of the subject. I 
 then learned from the highest authority, legal and political, 
 that the statute on the subject allowed owners to teach 
 their slaves in their own families, but not to employ a 
 schoolmaster for this purpose. Thus the law, somewhat 
 equivocal in terms, has always been construed. The 
 object of the law was not designed to control the liberality 
 of the master in the matter, but to protect the country 
 against a foreign influence by excluding irresponsible 
 teachers. 
 
 History contains few plots more appalling than some 
 which were detected among the slaves just on the eve of 
 being carried into effect. As northern Seal has pro 
 mulgated bolder sentiments with regard to the right and 
 duty of slaves to steal, burn, and kill, in effecting their 
 liberty, the south has intrenched itself by inore vigor 
 ous laws and customs ; and it is not strange that in argu 
 ment also some positions should be taken which once 
 would have found no defenders. Nothing forces itself 
 more constantly upon the thoughts of a northerner at 
 the south, who looks into the history and present state 
 of slavery, than the vast injury which has resulted from 
 northern interference. We sometimes speak of the 
 black man, in his relation to the human family, as 
 "Joseph," whom his brethren have sold into slavery. 
 If the black man at the south is "Joseph," there are 
 those at the north, who, with less violence to truth than to 
 rhetorical correctness, may be called " Potiphar s wife," 
 by whom " Joseph " has been put into deeper bondage ; 
 " whose feet they hurt with fetters ; he was laid in irons." 
 A pastor of a large colored church at the south writes 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. Ill 
 
 to me, " Many of the higher class of citizens sustain me 
 in my labors by their approval ; but many cherish, I fear, 
 a latent suspicion of abolition, insurrection, &c. Mean 
 while, I strive simply to preach Christ crucified." 
 
 There are men at the south who maintain that so long 
 as the existence of society there depends upon the sub 
 jection of the colored to the white race, it is better for 
 the blacks to depend wholly on oral instruction. Taught 
 to read, it is said, they will be unfitted for their servile 
 condition, through the information which they will in 
 many ways acquire. It has been said, for substance, by 
 high authority, in the debates of a State convention at 
 the south, " To make the slaves most useful to us, and 
 most contented and happy, we must shut up some of the 
 avenues by which knowledge would reach their minds. 
 They can be taught orally every thing essential to sal 
 vation ; they can thus be made familiar with the word 
 of God ; they can be intelligent Christians, as we see 
 many of them are, without reading." Those who say 
 this will tell you that their philanthropy in this thing is 
 wiser and better than yours, and that, after all, they give 
 their slaves more instruction than white servants receive. 
 
 Though this is not the common sentiment, it is never 
 theless fortified and defended by appeals made to the prin 
 ciples of self-preservation in southern citizens against 
 the north. Were there entire kindness and confidence 
 between the north and south on the subject of slavery, 
 any attempt to shut up the Bible from the most unre 
 stricted use by the slaves would be overborne by Chris 
 tian benevolence. Nothing could prevent the slaves 
 from being as generally instructed as the whites are 
 where common schools do not prevail ; and where they 
 do prevail, the slaves would indirectly partake of these 
 
112 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 benefits. But if one tiling is more obvious than an 
 other to a friendly northerner at the south, it is that 
 northern interference is largely responsible for withhold 
 ing the Word of God from the hands of millions of souls 
 in our land. A common and favorite name of some at 
 the north, who are extremely and conscientiously inter 
 ested in the abolition of slavery, is, " friends of the 
 slave." It would make some of them weep to see what 
 a practical misnomer this is. 
 
 Invariably, the answer to every question about teach 
 ing the slaves to read, from men who were not capable 
 of excusing themselves from Christian duty, was, " If 
 you will give us a chance to do something besides 
 defending ourselves against northern agitators, we will 
 satisfy every reasonable expectation on those points. 
 While we are cursed, and threatened, and ecclesiastical 
 bodies are making presentments of us before Heaven, 
 and invoking divine vengeance upon us, and foreign 
 people are stirred up against us, and we are irritated by 
 having our colored people decoyed from us, and we 
 know not who are lurking among us to excite insurrec 
 tions, how can we be expected to make progress in ref 
 ormations ? Grant that it is our plain duty to instruct 
 the slaves in reading the Word of God in defiance of all 
 danger. It is not in human nature to do its duty under 
 compulsion from equals. When you say to a man, 
 You shall, human nature says, I won t, however 
 just your demand may be. We at the south are no bet 
 ter naturally than you, and you would do as we do, if 
 you were treated like us." 
 
 Bad men at the south are furnished by some forms of 
 northern agitation, not only with excuses for their con 
 sciences, but with the short logic of retaliation, to justify 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 113 
 
 the hardships in slavery ; and there are enough of such 
 men every where, loud and denunciatory, to exert great 
 control in popular assemblies, where Christian meekness 
 can not make its voice heard. Good men every where 
 are apt to give way before the furious blasts of passion 
 which come from such a quarter; and though they mourn 
 over it, they say it is useless to resist, for such men 
 get the popular ear, and stir up popular feeling against 
 a good measure. Conservative men, even when in 
 the majority, are disposed to yield when conscientious 
 radicals oppose them ; and they submit to defeat by such 
 men with a good grace, while radicals are apt to be 
 factious and rebellious if they can not have their own way. 
 When a strong movement was made in one of the legis 
 latures at the south to raise the term of years within 
 which a child should not be sold, something was indeed 
 gained ; but one argument against the whole proposition 
 was, " It is a concession to the abolitionists." The gen 
 tleman who drafted the act told me that the proposition 
 to forbid the sale of a child under twelve or thirteen 
 years of age was voted down under the influence of ap 
 peals and warnings, strange as they seem to us, against 
 northern exultations. Now, a child five years old may,, 
 in that State, be sold and removed from its parents. We 
 are verily guilty concerning our brother. Wisdom and 
 kindness in a private individual lead him to refrain from 
 exasperating even the unreasonable feelings of one who 
 is believed to be in error ; to cease from aggravating 
 prejudice and passion is commonly regarded as the most 
 effectual way to promote a desirable object. This has 
 not characterized our treatment of slavery and the 
 south Up to the present moment outrages are com 
 mitted in the name of freedom and humanity, which 
 8 
 
114 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 must result, if not checked, in a state of things which it 
 is sad to contemplate. What community can long en 
 dure such assaults as these without resorting to retalia 
 tory measures leading to scenes of personal and section 
 al contest? Late papers tell us that, within a few 
 weeks, 
 
 "A slave girl was taken from a railroad train at 
 Salem, Columbiana county, Ohio, by force. She clung 
 to her mistress, but was carried off by a large negro, 
 who flourished a pistol amidst the applause of the spec 
 tators. Her master offered to go before an officer with 
 her and execute free papers, leaving the girl to remain 
 free or to go forth with him ; but the mob would not 
 suffer it." 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 115 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 WHAT SHALL "WE DO? 
 
 WE have been most, singularly foiled in our plans and 
 purposes with regard to the removal of slavery from 
 this country, and more recently with regard to its ex 
 tension beyond its old dominion. We have legislated 
 arid protested, prayed and preached, against the ex 
 tension of slavery, and this day it is more than ever 
 lengthening its cords and strengthening its stakes. 
 
 We have done that which we supposed to be our duty. 
 We have walked according to the best light that we 
 could obtain. We have become educated to a more in 
 tense interest in the black man than in all the other races 
 together ; and perhaps it is because God intends that we 
 should have more to do on this continent with him than 
 with any other race. 
 
 What strange adversity has followed those who have 
 been foremost in the antislavery cause ! The south was 
 Justontl^ * *f oVir.i.Vhfan. nlflTcry. the abolitionicfc 
 arose, and putjtjjack within its innermost intrenchments. 
 We had succeeded, as we thought, in restricting Slavery 
 to its ancient limits, when the liberty party, by their well- 
 known decisive influence in a presidential election, added 
 that vast State of Texas to slave territory. 
 
 By our antislavery agitation and its influence on the 
 south, as we are told, she has simply acted in self- 
 
116 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 defence and has just succeeded in getting permission for 
 slavery to extend itself into the new regions of our 
 country. 
 
 What is to be the end of this contest ? What shall 
 we do? 
 
 SECTION I. Dissolution of the Union an Absurdity. 
 
 " Let us peaceably dissolve the Union," is one answer. 
 " Let us make a partition of our whole territory, and let 
 slavery have undisturbed possession of its separate 
 domain." 
 
 A peaceable separation of the Union is an impossi 
 bility. Peace at the separation, or afterwards, will be 
 looked for in vain. A peaceable dissolution of our plan 
 etary system might almost as well be expected. 
 
 But allowing it to be possible, some thoughts and ques 
 tions naturally arise at such a proposition. 
 
 Would slavery be diminished by this movement? 
 Would the wrongs and woes of the black man be les 
 sened ? Clearly not, as a necessary result. 
 
 " But we should wash our hands from all participation 
 in them." 
 
 This end of responsibility would no doubt be a sublime 
 spectacle to some ; but there is an undefined and unsus 
 pected step connected with every thing sublime, which 
 sometimes lands the actor at the foot of all his great 
 ness. 
 
 If men s consciences and sensibilities are now disturbed 
 so much at the " enormous wrongs of slavery," how 
 would it be if tales of perpetual woe should reach them 
 from that future prison ship, the southern confederacy, 
 with its growing millions of slaves confined beneath the 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 117 
 
 hatches ? If the slave trade has moved civilized nations 
 to arm themselves against it, could our northern philan 
 thropists be quiet with a land of slavery festering, as 
 they would suppose, with pollution and guilt ? 
 
 Suppose that the slave trade should be revived by the 
 south, at least through privateers from the south and 
 north. War would then cover the seas ; commerce 
 would faint and fail. Fugitive slaves would be de 
 manded at the point of the bayonet, and armies would 
 meet armies. 
 
 The south, perhaps, would enter into a commercial 
 treaty with Great Britain. Canada would then be closed, 
 if not before, against fugitive slaves. The south would 
 have its own tariff and ships. Our ship builders would 
 go where their business led them ; cotton would no less 
 rule the world than now. A great impulse would be 
 given to the planting interest. Manufactures go with 
 commerce. The north would pay a good price for her 
 virtuous abhorrence of evil, and look like a ghostly an 
 chorite, while British capitalists, descendants of Clarkson 
 and Wilberforce, (such is human nature,) would no doubt 
 profit by our dissolution of partnership. 
 
 This is one picture. Another is this. The Christian 
 men and women at the south, relieved of all interference 
 from the north, would begin the work of reforming every 
 evil among them incident to slavery. Treaties with 
 Great Britain would prevent slaves from fleeing to Can 
 ada, and the free States would reject them. The parti 
 tion of the Union would give the south more territory 
 to be an outlet for their surplus black population. Laws 
 would be passed more humane to the slave than we ever 
 dreamed of, and a great and flourishing community of 
 Christianized black people would cover the slaveholding 
 
118 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 States. The American Colonization Society the child 
 of the south would receive multitudes of emancipated 
 negroes to Christianize and colonize Africa. Such have 
 been the marvelous acts of divine grace to the Africans, 
 in bringing them, through the cupidity and sinfulness of 
 men, to this country, and saving a great multitude of 
 them, that it requires neither strong faith nor fancy to 
 suppose that this work might still go on, in the form of 
 interchange of the blacks between Africa and the South 
 ern States. The south has learned to be, and is fitted 
 to be, the protector and friend of the African. The 
 proportion of cruelty and wickedness due to human na 
 ture every where has been, of course, enacted there; 
 but God is there, and his gospel, and his Spirit, and his 
 elect ; and as sure as Christ is to reign through the earth, 
 the Christians at the south will vindicate themselves as 
 the benefactors of the colored race. A great amount of 
 influence at the south is ready to assert its power in this 
 direction as soon as the necessity of self-defence is taken 
 away by the restoration of sympathy and kindness on 
 our part. Far better than to rend this Union into two 
 hostile republics, or to let the south, by separating our 
 selves from her, accomplish by herself what might be 
 her destined ministry toward the colored race, there is a 
 way of peaceful agreement and of union to do an im 
 mense amount of good to the colored people, which we 
 may reach if God will but hold us back awhile from 
 our precipitancy. 
 
 We had in 1850 three millions two hundred and four 
 thousand three hundred and thirteen slaves in the United 
 States, and in 1860 we shall have not far from nine hun 
 dred thousand more ; for their increase for the last ten 
 years was at the rate of twenty-eight and eight tenths 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 119 
 
 per centum. They cannot be emancipated to remain 
 here. It would be to their misery and destruction. 
 
 SECTION II. Results to be expected from Emanci 
 pation. 
 
 The conviction forced itself upon my mind at the / 
 south, that the most disastrous event to the colored 
 people would be their emancipation to live on the same 
 soil with the whites. 
 
 The two distinct races could not live together except 
 by the entire subordination of one to the other. Pro 
 tection is now extended to the blacks; their interests 
 are the interests of the owners. But ceasing to be a 
 protected class, they would fall a prey to avarice, suffer 
 oppression and grievous wrongs, encounter the rivalry 
 of white immigrants, which is an element in the question 
 of emancipation here, and nowhere else. Antipathy to 
 their color would not diminish, and being the feebler 
 race, they would be subjected to great miseries. 
 
 All history shows that two races of men approaching 
 in any considerable degree to equality in numbers can 
 not live together unless intermarriages take place.* 
 The Sabine women prepared the way for the admission 
 of the Sabines to Rome, and gave them a place among 
 the conscript fathers. Alexander, having conquered 
 Persia, married the Persian Roxana, and thus lessened 
 the social distance between the new provinces and 
 the original empire. Alaric, Clovis, Henry I. of 
 England, in Italy, Gaul, and among the Saxons, re 
 spectively, resorted to the same policy of intermarriage 
 
 * Carey s Domestic Slavery. 
 
120 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 for the same purpose. The long dissensions between 
 the Normans and Saxons under William Duke of Nor 
 mandy and William Rufus disappeared when the two 
 races followed the example of Henry. We know the 
 happy results. 
 
 On the other hand, Egypt and Israel, the Hebrew 
 people and the nations conquered by them, the Span 
 iards and Moors, many modern nations and the Jews, 
 prove the impossibility of two races living together un 
 less one race is dependent, or they intermarry. Like 
 the Moors and the Jews, the blacks would eventually be 
 driven out. Even now, in some places at the south 
 thQ free blacks are prohibited by the laws of certain 
 crafts, the stone cutter s for example, from lifting a tool 
 in their work. White servants are exclusively employed 
 in one of the largest hotels at the south. 
 
 The fighting propensity of the lower class of the 
 Irish would expose the blacks to constant broils through 
 the rivalry of labor. The following is a specimen: 
 
 IRISH AND NEGRO Row IN BUFFALO. There was a 
 protracted and somewhat bloody fight yesterday afternoon, 
 on the dock at the foot of Washington Street, between 
 some negroes and Irishmen. The parties were about 
 equal in point of numbers when the affair began ; but the 
 Irish soon collected in great force, and considering it a 
 free fight, counted themselves in, until poor CufTee had 
 not a ghost of a chance. Three of the negroes were bad 
 ly beaten, one of them to such an extent that it was sup 
 posed he must die; but he is better this morning, and will 
 probably recover. Some six or eight of the combatants, 
 black and white, were before the justice this morning, 
 with a large number of witnesses to complicate the inves 
 tigation. It seems to have been a sort of spontaneous 
 outbreak, without any other cause than the mutual jeal 
 ousy and dislike subsisting between the Celtic and Afri 
 can races. Before the police were able to suppress the 
 row, something like a thousand persons had collected, be 
 sides those directly engaged in the affray. Buffalo Ad 
 vertiser, June 5, 1854. 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OP SLAVERY. 121 
 
 It would not be strange if, as the least evil, and to 
 prevent their being exterminated, or driven out, as John 
 Randolph s emancipated slaves and other companies of 
 emancipated negroes have been, by one free State after 
 another, or leading a wretched life like that of our New 
 England Indians, it should be considered best for all 
 concerned that they should enter again, after being 
 emancipated, into some form of subordination to the 
 whites. Their present bondage, with all its evils, real 
 or supposed, it would then be seen, is by no means 
 the worst condition into which they could fall. 
 
 Their women would be debased without measure if 
 set free. So far from being surprised at any degree 
 of looseness in morals among the slaves, one can only 
 feel grateful for the influences of religion and so much 
 of public sentiment as prevail among them to keep so 
 large a proportion of them virtuous, as, considering their 
 temperament and their place in society, it is believed 
 exists. But let them be thrown wholly upon their own 
 resources for subsistence, or subjected to the idle life 
 which they would be tempted to lead, and the probable 
 consequence to the blacks and whites, and to their pos 
 terity, would be fearful. 
 
 As an ardent friend of the colored race, I am com 
 pelled to believe that while they remain with us, sub 
 ordination in some form to a stronger race is absolutely 
 necessary for their protection and best welfare a subor 
 dination, however, which shall be for the interests of the 
 black man, as well as for his superiors, and from which 
 every degree of oppression shall be purged away, the 
 idea of their being doomed as a race or caste being 
 abolished, and individual tendencies and aptitudes being 
 regarded. If our southern brethren will protect and 
 provide for them for this world and the next, we, as 
 
122 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 friends of man, should feel that we owe them a debt of 
 gratitude and should be willing to assist, if necessary, in 
 promoting their welfare. 
 
 Suppose, then, that we begin to take some new view 
 of our duty with regard to slavery, having long enough, 
 and uselessly, and injuriously enough beleaguered and 
 battered it, only to find, in 1854, that, in spite of all 
 our efforts and prayers, it is taking a stride more vast 
 and astonishing than ever. A physician who had failed 
 in his course of treatment, as we have with slavery, 
 would ordinarily change it. Perhaps we are wrong. 
 If our aim is good, perhaps we can effect it in a better 
 way a way in which the south itself will cooperate 
 with us. Perhaps this whole continent can be paci 
 fied on this subject consistently with truth and right 
 eousness, and to the increased happiness of all con 
 cerned. 
 
 SECTION III. Social Divisions deplored* 
 
 May we see the day when, like mercy and truth, the 
 north and south shall meet together, and righteousness 
 and peace shall kiss each other. There is real respect 
 for the north, and attachment to it, on the part of the 
 south, when they are not reminded of differences of 
 opinion about slavery. They earnestly covet our ad 
 vantages of education for their children, whom they 
 would be glad to send here during some portion of 
 their school days ; but non-intercourse, except for pur 
 poses of trade, greatly prevails. Teachers from the 
 north are sometimes subject to the jealousies and un- 
 kindness of those who, having no personal interest in 
 their object as teachers, look upon them as spies, and 
 deprecate the influence over young persons and ser- 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 123 
 
 vants which the natural repugnance of these northern 
 teachers to slavery may silently exert. 
 
 The privileges of our sea-shore retreats, so highly 
 prized by southerners, are not enjoyed by them as 
 formerly. There are cases of real suffering in which 
 many people at the south feel themselves debarred 
 from our northern means of health and comfort. 
 
 How sad it made me feel to see the g**eat Baptist 
 communion in our country divided by this slavery 
 question; and when my soul was melted by the elo 
 quence of Methodist brethren preaching Jesus to the 
 slaves, it was painful to think that the same plough 
 share had furrowed a deep line of separation between 
 them and their northern friends ; nor could I without 
 sorrow hear members of those Presbyterian churches of 
 the south, which still prefer to cooperate with the 
 American Board of missions, lament that the Board can 
 not consistently send its agents into slave States to 
 foster the spirit of missions. thou enemy of God and 
 man, what joy must it be to thee in this way, and by 
 this means, to have rent asunder God s elect, prevent 
 ing them, too, from affectionate counsel and effort for 
 the good of the African. 
 
 What communion we used to have with southern 
 friends here! But now they feel and act as though 
 accused of crime. Indeed every where in the south, 
 where you get access to the hearts of the people, there 
 is something like the sorrowful moaning of the sea, as 
 though there had been, or would yet be, a great tempest. 
 
 I felt that we had not treated the south as we would 
 desire to be treated as human nature requires to be 
 treated ; that we had not spoken to her, or dealt with 
 her, as we ought to have done. 
 
124 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 On what subject, except slavery, has the south ever 
 divided from the north, in Congress or out of Congress, 
 in war or peace ? 
 
 What pride we have had in her patriots, statesmen, 
 and scholars, and what fellowship with her sainted 
 dead! 
 
 What a goodly land she possesses ; what historical 
 associations belong to her ; what resources of wealth are 
 there ; what renown by sea and land ; in cabinets, at 
 home and abroad ! 
 
 If the south should by any means obtain and keep 
 the ascendency in our national councils, in what way 
 would she have the power and disposition to conflict 
 with northern interests, leaving the subject of slavery 
 and our sensibilities out of the question ? 
 
 With regard to what are called the encroachments of 
 the slave power, the demands of the south, are they at 
 all to our injury except as they offend our opinions and 
 feelings on the subject of slavery ? Political appoint 
 ments would be made with less of a sectional spirit if 
 we were at peace. 
 
 One would think that the south were Philip of Mace- 
 don, and we at the north the states of Greece, judging 
 from our philippics against her. But her great offence 
 is, independently of every thing else, the perpetuation 
 of an evil under which both of us were born, but which 
 we at the north were enabled to remove ; an effort on 
 the part of the south to defend and maintain her insti 
 tution of slavery under the constitution : to maintain the 
 right guarantied by our social compact, but assailed by 
 us. We seem to have forgotten how the royal family 
 of the mother country, the king and queen at the head, 
 and many of the nobles, contributed toward the first 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 125 
 
 importation of slaves from Africa to this country ; how 
 Jefferson in his first draught of the Declaration of Inde 
 pendence, charges the king with making depredations 
 on an innocent people, and inflicting them as slaves on 
 us ; and how, at the close of the war, we at the north 
 lengthened out the importation of slaves to the south 
 beyond the term voted for by a majority of the Southern 
 States. Nor do we consider that the south was approx 
 imating the work of emancipation by public discussions, 
 by acts of assembly drawn up and ready to be proposed, 
 and by votes in her ecclesiastical bodies, when the out 
 break of northern opposition to slavery, and attempts to 
 emancipate the slaves at once, drove back the south , 
 from her purpose, and that all her subsequent attempts 
 at the extension of slavery have been intended as retal 
 iatory acts, or in self-defence. 
 
 This is true up to the time of the Nebraska bill and 
 the repeal of the Missouri compromise, measures capa 
 ble of no defence. The hitherto indomitable attach 
 ments of party are yielding to the stronger, the uncor- 
 rupted sense of violated truth. The accumulating force 
 of public opinion is sweeping down upon all who dare 
 defend that disregard of those principles which every 
 man needs for his protection. 
 
 It is not yet time, but the day may not be distant, 
 when, with sorrow over our vanquished opponent in this 
 Nebraska measure, we shall begin to think whether we 
 have not extended our retaliatory feelings too indiscrim 
 inately against southern men. For, after all, the peo 
 ple at the south generally took but little interest in the 
 Nebraska measure. I was in South Carolina when the 
 news of the passage of the Nebraska bill arrived ; and 
 it was received with almost no sensation, except where 
 
126 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 the struggle had been watched, and there the decision 
 of course brought relief. But a very frequent expres 
 sion was, * It is a great pity that our politicians should 
 have stirred up this strife ; we were doing very well 
 before ; it will make trouble for us, and we shall gain 
 nothing/ It deserves to be considered that politicians 
 at the south lead the people far more than with us. We 
 have more popular assemblages ; public opinion is ascer 
 tained more readily, and is brought to bear more forci 
 bly upon public men here. Besides, at the south, the 
 towering names and influence of a long succession of ac 
 complished statesmen have given the people more of ac 
 quiescence in their political leaders. Immigration and 
 the general weakening of all political relationships are 
 every where effecting a change in this respect. But 
 should we punish the south for the acts of her politicians, 
 for which, indeed, she must be held responsible, the peo 
 ple generally would not be conscious of having done any 
 thing to deserve chastisement. 
 
 Then with regard to some of those who at home ad 
 vocated the measure. While we look at it as extending 
 a great curse over a territory dedicated to freedom, some 
 of them, who are not influenced by political considera 
 tions, take no such view of slavery, but think of a plant 
 er removing to Nebraska with slaves, as of a Massachu 
 setts man removing to Rhode Island with his appren 
 tices. This does not extenuate their disregard of our 
 feelings and opinions, but may serve to lower the tone 
 of our retaliation as against the whole southern people. 
 
 This breach of national faith is so remarkable that it 
 places itself among those convulsions in the moral world 
 which under God have prepared the way for great de 
 velopments in the destiny of a people. What good will 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OP SLAVERY. 127 
 
 ever result from it, or what its evil consequences may 
 be, human foresight cannot discover. If some great de 
 velopment of Providence with regard to the African 
 race in connection with the American people were ap 
 proaching, we should connect the two things in our 
 thoughts, and wait for the result. Let us think of this. 
 We look at the Africans only as slaves ; God looks at 
 them as immortal beings. We legislate about them as 
 a basis of representation ; God plans for them as sub 
 jects of redeeming love. Our thoughts are absorbed by 
 their sufferings in slavery; God contemplates them in a 
 worse bondage, and would bring them into his family. 
 If he has any further designs for the good of their race 
 by our means, this beginning of a revelation, this open 
 ing of a seal, has taken place with as little violence, as, 
 under the circumstances, we could have expected. 
 
 Fraudulent as we declare the Nebraska measure to 
 have been, yet considering the violent opposition to the 
 fugitive slave law at the north, we can not wonder that 
 southern politicians caught at it, when offered to them 
 by northern men, as affording a defence to slavery at 
 home against the north. What had the south done to 
 injure us, except through our sensibilities on the subject 
 of slavery ? What have we done to her, but admonish, 
 threaten, and indict her before God, excommunicate 
 her, stir up insurrection among her slaves, endanger her 
 homes, make her Christians and ministers odious in 
 other lands ? And now that she has availed herself of a 
 northern measure for her defence, we are ready to move 
 the country from its foundations. We ought to reflect, 
 whether we have not been enforcing our moral senti 
 ments upon the south in offensive ways, so as to consti 
 tute that oppression which makes even a wise man mad. 
 
128 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 All this time we have overlooked the intrinsic diffi 
 culties of the evil which the south has had to contend 
 with ; have disagreed among ourselves about sin per se, 
 and about the question of immediate or gradual eman 
 cipation, and yet have expected the south to be clear on 
 these points, and to act promptly. Previous to her re 
 cent conduct, instead of being more passionate and re 
 vengeful under such treatment, it is rather to be wondered 
 at that the south had conducted herself so well. What 
 had she ever done, except in self-defence, in our long quar 
 rel, which, upon reconciliation, would rankle in our mem 
 ories, and make it hard for us to forgive and forget? 
 Positively, not one thing. We have been the assailants, 
 she the mark ; we the prosecutors, she the defendant ; 
 we the accusers, she the self-justifying respondent. 
 
 Unless we choose to live in a state of perpetual war, 
 we must prevent and punish all attempts to decoy slaves 
 from their masters. Whatever our repugnance to sla 
 very may be, there is a law of the land, a Constitution, 
 to which we must submit, or employ suitable means to 
 change it. While it remains, all our appeals to a 
 "higher law" are fanaticism. 
 
 *0 
 
 SECTION IV. Return to the Constitution. 
 
 / We must return to that simple provision in that 
 Constitution which cemented our confederation. -We 
 must do this, or break up the compact. If enactments 
 are necessary to enforce this provision, they must not 
 trench upon other rights. They must especially guard 
 every free man from having his liberty put in peril. The 
 common gratuity of justice to every accused person 
 presumption of innocence must be extended to the 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 129 
 
 colored man under arrest. We must review our doings 
 on this subject, and come to an agreement, by which the 
 provisions of the Constitution shall be enforced with the 
 least possible ground of objection. The north will never 
 rest till some obnoxious features in the present fugitive 
 slave law are changed. 
 
 We are liable to imposition from colored men through 
 strong sympathy for fugitive slaves. Cases are known 
 in which the same set of papers has been used by differ 
 ent colored men to collect money. In a city of Mas 
 sachusetts, there were not long since, and probably are 
 now, several hundred dollars, which a colored man, pre 
 tending to be a fugitive slave, had collected ; but being 
 exposed, he has since been afraid to appear and claim 
 the money, though he has employed various means to 
 come into possession of it. 
 
 We must not think that every fugitive slave is neces 
 sarily and properly the object of compassion, to be 
 cherished and caressed; that his master is a proper 
 object of aversion. Some at the north have sympa 
 thized with a fictitious being in the person of a fugitive 
 slave. I will relate a case of deep interest, well known 
 at the south, and representing other cases which in our 
 zeal we overlook. 
 
 A slave came to the door of a rich gentleman, an ex 
 cellent man, in a southern city, representing that, being 
 in feeble health and unable therefore to do his master s 
 work, he had obtained leave from his master to become 
 this gentleman s servant if he would buy him. The 
 gentleman did not need him, but, from compassion, 
 bought him, and favored him in his labor. Some time 
 after, on going with his family to the north, he took this 
 slave with him, chiefly because it would be for his health. 
 9 
 
130 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 While at the north, the servant came to him, and asked 
 for money to buy some articles for his wife at home. He 
 received some money, and that night deserted his mas 
 ter, and was brought before the court to have his free 
 dom effected by his friends. 
 
 The master stated to the court that the servant was 
 of hardly any value to him ; at present he was an ex- 
 pence and burden; and that he was perfectly willing 
 to abandon him, though he expressed his opinion of such 
 conduct on the part of the slave, and his apprehension 
 that freedom would not prove to be his greatest bless 
 ing. He obtained his freedom. 
 
 Had that slave fled to my house for refuge the even 
 ing that he left his master, and had I known all the cir 
 cumstances of his case, would I have done well to har 
 bor or countenance him ? 
 
 " Certainly," replies one ; " to be owned as property by 
 a fellow-being is a greater wrong than any theft, ingrati 
 tude, or unkindness, of which he may be guilty. I would 
 deliver him from bondage, then reprove him, and let him 
 suffer for his wrong doing." 
 
 But for the conclusion of the story. When the mas 
 ter was returning to the south, the weak, sickly man 
 came to him, and besought him to take him back. He 
 protested that he had had enough of freedom, that he 
 had been imposed upon by his friends, and that he 
 should be miserable to be left behind. 
 
 Should his master have yielded to his request? 
 " No," says one ; " he had no right to own a fellow-being 
 as a slave ; not even to support him without any remu 
 neration, or to nurse him in sickness, or to pension him 
 for life from his estate. Better, far better, to do right 
 than to do kindly. Fiat justitia ruat ccelum" 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OP SLAVERY. 131 
 
 The master at first declined to receive him, but final 
 ly referred him to the ladies of the family, through 
 whose influence he obtained leave to go back. He was, 
 however, told by his master to return to his " friends," 
 and consult with them, and, if he concluded to go back 
 to the south, to be on board the steamer by a certain 
 hour. Early the next morning he secretly hired a car 
 riage and went on board, and is now at the south. 
 
 All that I saw and heard has brought me to this con 
 clusion that, in aiding a fugitive slave on his way to 
 Canada, if at all, I must know whom I am helping, and 
 for what reasons he has fled. I do not feel as I once 
 did, that his fleeing from slavery is presumptive evi 
 dence that he ought to be assisted to escape. On his 
 arrest he ought to be presumed to be free till he is 
 proved to be a slave. We must insist on this ; we have 
 free colored citizens who otherwise may be kidnapped; 
 but a fugitive slave may owe service to one who has re 
 deemed him, at his own request, from a bad master, or 
 in other ways laid himself under obligations, which he 
 violates in fleeing, as much as any fugitive debtor. A 
 fugitive slave is not necessarily, nor as a matter of 
 course, an object of compassion ; it is not certain that 
 he has fled from a bad to a better condition ; that free 
 dom in Boston is invariably preferable to slavery in 
 Charleston. 
 
 We of the free States are too apt to invest a slave, 
 especially a fugitive, with an interest which may be 
 overwrought ; to our eye he is the incarnation of injured 
 innocence; liberty, priceless liberty, is personated in 
 him ; to have fled from a master at the south is incon 
 testable evidence, in our eyes, that he is a true man, con- 
 
132 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 tending for Heaven s boon, freedom, and in his proportion 
 he seems worthy of a place with patriots. 
 
 All this seems humane and philanthropic ; it reads 
 well ; in a speech it brings applause, in a sermon tears ; 
 but now and then it is likely to be misplaced philan 
 thropy, the sheerest of romancing, and practically great 
 unkindness to its object. There are colored men and 
 women at the north and west who have fled from brutal 
 treatment, such as would make any human being risk 
 death in any shape to escape from it. Masters acknowl 
 edge this, and men who are guilty of the treatment re 
 ferred to are as much detested and avoided at the south 
 as the bad members of any craft with us are by their 
 fellows. Should a fugitive bring me proof that he was 
 fleeing from certain planters whom I could name, my 
 instinctive feeling would be the same as in pulling a 
 shipmate away from a shark. Southerners would feel 
 in the same way. No rule was ever made that could 
 determine a man s duty in such cases. If we go to the 
 Bible, we find, on the one hand, Hagar, sent back, not to 
 Abraham, but to Sarai, her mistress, who had " dealt 
 hardly with her ; " and she is told to " submit " herself 
 " under her hands." Again : the Apostles are repeatedly 
 set free from prison by divine interposition. Socrates 
 refuses an opportunity to escape, and gives his reasons 
 for remaining in prison and drinking the hemlock ; while 
 a hundred cases in which good men have acted other 
 wise are not condemned by the voice of mankind. We 
 can not settle questions on this subject by a rule any 
 more than we can give a rule for revolutions. There are 
 some things, however, pertaining to this subject, which 
 are clear. Our error at the north is in supposing that 
 every fugitive must be presumed to be worthy of aid in 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 133 
 
 effecting his escape. Romantic adventures, by women 
 as well as men, in secreting and sending away safely a 
 fugitive slave sometimes have the thrilling interest of the 
 rescue of a child from a burning house, or from the 
 waves ; when, perhaps, great injustice and unkindness 
 have been perpetrated. Some children escaping from 
 parents, some wives from husbands, would properly be 
 protected and aided, the world over ; but we may as 
 justly aid in every case of elopement, or get a voyage 
 for every runaway boy, as help every fugitive slave. If 
 called upon by a sheriff to aid in capturing a fugitive of 
 any description, I have a right to decide whether I will 
 not refuse, and abide the penalty of a refusal. 
 
 Every man can abate a nuisance without waiting for 
 a process of law ; but he must convince the court that it 
 was a nuisance which would not admit of delay. If he 
 proves this, he is justified. On this principle we may 
 help any fugitive slave ; but we are held to answer 
 before a higher law than that of man whether the 
 circumstances justified us in setting aside or resisting the 
 laws of the land. If not, though we may escape in hu 
 man courts, our sin against God, through his ordinance 
 of government, remains. 
 
 After we have said and done all which it is possible 
 for human wisdom to do in making the recovery of 
 slaves inoffensive, as things now are, there will remain 
 in many the deep sectional difference of inborn feel 
 ings with regard to the whole subject ; and it can never 
 cease, as now viewed by both sides, from being a source 
 of disquietude, resulting in alienations and unnumbered 
 private and public evils, unless we all agree to abide 
 faithfully by the Constitution until it is changed. It 
 offends our moral sense, we will suppose, to have a 
 
134 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 man who has tried to escape and be free, taken back 
 to involuntary servitude. But there are other in 
 terests for moral sense to be concerned about besides 
 those of a fugitive black man. Until we are sepa 
 rated from the south by dividing the Union, while we 
 live under our present Constitution, our moral sense 
 must be more intelligent and comprehensive. We may 
 well be reminded that moral sense agreed in 1787, for 
 the sake of certain objects which could not otherwise be 
 accomplished, to suffer in silence, and let persons held to 
 service and escaping be recovered. Now, to rouse our 
 selves up, and say it shall not be done, is treacherous. 
 We have obtained the benefits of constitutional gov 
 ernment ; and shall we now repudiate the compro 
 mise by which they were gained? We may use all 
 proper means to have slavery abolished ; but while it re 
 mains as it now is, we must submit to the recovery of 
 fugitive slaves, or to anarchy, or to dissolution of the 
 Union. All appeals to our feelings, on this subject, 
 when the case of a fugitive slave is pending, are as really 
 out of place, if the object be to hinder the process of 
 law, as appeals against a sheriff s doings in attaching 
 and selling private property. 
 
 Can any one inform us where northern moral sense 
 was, or whether it was in the convention when the north 
 protracted the slave trade eight years longer than the 
 south wished to endure it ? If in the convention, it 
 must have had leave of absence when the vote on that 
 measure was taken. It is now very clamorous in every 
 debate on slavery, and it ought to be called to order, 
 being reminded that its silence or consent in 1787, works 
 a forfeiture of all right of remonstrance now, at least 
 till it has raised money enough to pay for three hundred 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 135 
 
 thousand slaves which are here in consequence of those 
 eight years during which the slave trade was contin 
 ued by northern votes. 
 
 When a slave has fled, and established himself in busi 
 ness here, and a family is rising around him, an attempt 
 to force him back to slavery does violence to the feel 
 ings of every citizen. If a statute of limitations with 
 regard to debts, libels, land titles, and other things, is 
 founded on natural principles of justice, we may expaCt 
 that when a better state of feeling exists between the 
 north and south, we shall obtain a statute of limitations 
 with regard to the recovery of slaves. Until that time, 
 cases of a trying nature must be provided for in an 
 amicable manner. It is easy to clamor about such cases, 
 but it is wiser to treat them as we do other trials ; and 
 these certainly are among the afflictions which are not 
 relieved by violence. 
 
 A distinguished advocate, defending a fugitive slave 
 before a court, urged this as a reason why the slave 
 should not be given up that he might be, or would be, 
 sold by his master as soon as he should arrive in a south 
 ern State. 
 
 This would be a proper and commendable motive in 
 defending one not yet proved to be a slave ; but if urged 
 as a reason why the slave, being proved such, should 
 not be delivered to his master, it expresses, with all its 
 kindness and tenderness, the principle of mob law. 
 Soft and gentle, like thistle down it has a seed of evil 
 for its centre. What though the probability were that 
 the slave would be sold at auction as soon as he could 
 be taken over the boundary line of a slave State ? The 
 Constitution of the United States must not be nullified 
 in its fugitive slave provision for that reason, unless we 
 
136 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 seek to make a revolution. We must go to work in 
 another way to make things accord with our sense of 
 justice ; and if that way be slow, it is the only way to 
 prevent still greater evils. Until we divide the Union, 
 or procure a change in the Constitution, if we resist one 
 of its provisions from repugnance to it, and so nullify 
 it, we make a breach in a dam which has behind it a 
 desolating river. That lawyers should do or counsel 
 this, not from professional necessity, but moved by 
 their sensibilities, fills even some clergymen with sur 
 prise. Our clerical calling cherishes our sensibilities, 
 makes them quick and impulsive ; but a lawyer is sup 
 posed to discriminate between what is specially benevo 
 lent and the obligations which we owe to the social com 
 pact: from him we expect to learn that an unlawful 
 way of seeking a supposed good is fraught with a de 
 structive principle, before which every thing may be laid 
 waste. That compassion for a fugitive slave which leads 
 one to abrogate the constitution of society is not benev 
 olent, nor does it secure respect from any but radicals 
 a class of men, in all ages of the world, who have uni 
 formly failed to secure the confidence of mankind. 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 137 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 NEW POSSIBLE ISSUES ON THE SUBJECT OF 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 AND can there be no end to our division and strife 
 with regard to this subject ? Are we to spend the rest 
 of this century debating it and contending over it? 
 None can describe the vast harm which it has done to 
 all our social relations. It has been the occasion of more 
 unkind feelings and words, probably, than any other sub 
 ject ; it has alienated friends, divided great ecclesiastical 
 communions, disturbed the peace of churches and par 
 ishes, led to the dismission of ministers, driven many 
 into infidelity, embarrassed legislation, filled great sec 
 tions of the country with jealousy of each other, con 
 sumed the strength and zeal which were needed to rem 
 edy evils among ourselves, and, at the present time, is 
 threatening us with greater mischief than ever before. 
 
 The question which has hitherto absorbed our thoughts 
 has been, " In what way shall slavery be disposed of 
 consistently with the safety and interests of this nation ? " 
 This question seems as far as ever from a satisfactory 
 answer. 
 
 Perhaps it may not be long before different questions 
 will be forced upon our attention, which, while they will 
 gratify and satisfy the interest of good men in the sub 
 ject as moral and philanthropic questions, will unite us 
 
138 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 at the north, and also, by the national relation of the 
 subject, with the south. 
 
 Let us then imagine for a few moments that the north 
 and south, through some unforeseen harmonious influence, 
 are actually losing all other thoughts upon this subject 
 in their interest on this question, " AVhat duties do the 
 American people owe to the African race here and else 
 where ? " It is a question which the providence of God, 
 in the remarkable history and continuance of slavery in 
 this country, may have intended, from the beginning, to 
 force upon our attention. 
 
 We may be too impatient with regard to the con 
 tinuance of American slavery. Mingled with the sys 
 tem there are mitigating elements which we do not suf 
 ficiently consider ; but above and beyond this there are 
 hopeful and even cheerful views of it for those who will 
 connect it with their belief in the sure progress of hu 
 man redemption. The continuance to the present time 
 of slavery, unprotected by old feudal institutions, but 
 surrounded by the popular influences of such a land and 
 such an age as this, its evident strength, its step ad 
 vancing against such powerful opposition, must awaken 
 thoughtfulness in the minds of all who are disposed 
 to reflection. Is this system to be utterly abolished? or 
 can it be that in some form it is connected, in the mys 
 terious purposes of God, with his great plan of good will 
 toward men, and especially toward the African race ? 
 The contemplation of this question in a candid spirit 
 will soothe our feelings and modify our views and 
 measures with regard to this great national concern. 
 
 Could this question, in some practical form, get pos 
 session of the public mind, it is evident that antagonism 
 between the north and south, on the subject of slavery. 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 139 
 
 would soon be destroyed. " The expulsive power of a 
 new affection," as a theologian has expressed it, is constant 
 ly illustrated in change of personal habits and character, 
 in love, in business, and religion ; attachments, seeming 
 ly invincible, to certain views, are at once and wholly 
 destroyed by the entrance of a new master passion. 
 
 Never can the instincts of people unused to slavery 
 be overcome by argument; never can the most law- 
 abiding, patriotic submission at the north to the recov 
 ery of slaves cease to be accompanied, in the minds of 
 many, with repugnance and distress, so long as they re 
 tain their present associations with slavery. On the 
 other hand, a southerner, looking at the slaves from 
 childhood, regarding the Constitution of the United 
 States as the rule by which we are to be governed, 
 can not appreciate our difficulties. Discussion may pro 
 ceed without end and in vain. No limit seems possible 
 to disagreement on the subject of slavery ; claims 
 founded upon it and resisted, irritating acts, and unkind, 
 hostile words threaten to make the days of the years of 
 the life of this nation, like those of Jacob, however pro 
 tracted, seem few and evil. Some great question is 
 capable of so absorbing our minds as to have all the 
 effect of agreement on the subject, by leading us to act 
 efficiently, and on a large scale, for the welfare of the 
 African race here and on the continent of Africa. 
 
 The object is not to propose any way in which this 
 may be effected, but merely to suggest the possibility of 
 such relief. God can arrest the career of our present 
 thoughts and purposes on this subject by some surpris 
 ing event of his providence toward us or toward that 
 people. His Spirit changes the views and feelings of 
 individuals, makes entire revolutions in the opinions of 
 
140 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 whole communities, brings stillness and fear upon the 
 hearts of men at the approach of divine judgments, fills 
 multitudes with solemn religious impressions by means 
 of some providential event. It is in his power to bring 
 over the entire mind of this nation, agitated by the sub 
 ject of slavery, a calm like that of twilight; he can 
 make us drop our contentions and forget our differences 
 by some influence of his, as at the curfew knell the 
 Britons covered their fires. With men this is impossi 
 ble ; legislation, ecclesiastical censures, compromises, dis 
 cussions, political parties, can not do it ; but it can be 
 done by Him in whose works, at the beginning, darkness 
 preceded the light, and by whose appointment, in private 
 experience and in great national histories, it is the same 
 now as when " the evening and the morning were the 
 first day." 
 
 It would not be a more surprising event than the de 
 velopment of the California enterprise within a few 
 years past, if some development in Africa should draw 
 attention to it in connection with the employment of 
 portions of our colored people there. The possibility 
 of this, and of many other ways of relief which will oc 
 cur to a reflecting mind, should help our faith and pa 
 tience. Instead of contending with one another, and en 
 dangering our future means of doing good to the colored 
 race through impatience at present and temporary evils, 
 necessary, in the providence of God, as it may prove, 
 to prepare us all for his further benevolent purposes, let 
 us endeavor to heal the breaches between us, and inter 
 change kind words and deeds. 
 
 Africa is still, to a great extent, a land of bondage. 
 Three millions and a quarter of her children are slaves 
 in Brazil, nine hundred thousand in the Spanish colonies. 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 141 
 
 eighty-five thousand in the colonies of Holland, a hun 
 dred and forty thousand in European establishments in 
 Africa, and over three millions in the United States. 
 
 Here, then, is a member of the human family whom 
 God in his sovereignty has for five centuries suffered to 
 bow its neck to other races. The susceptibility of these 
 people to servitude should touch the hearts of their fel 
 low-men, and stir them up to defend and protect them. 
 The reverse of this has been the history of their treat 
 ment ; but there is a day of redemption at hand ; they 
 will see good according to the days in which they have 
 seen evil. 
 
 Amid all the tumultuous excitement on the subject of 
 American slavery and the din of approaching conflict, I 
 cannot help looking at the south as the appointed pro 
 tectors of this feeble member of the human family. 
 Brought to them indeed in transgression, and subjected 
 to every injury, the importation of them protracted by 
 northern votes eight years against the wishes of the 
 south, the great law of human progress is nevertheless 
 reaching them. Instead of regarding the south as hold 
 ing their fellow-men in cruel bondage, let us consider 
 whether we may not think of them as the guardians, edu 
 cators, and saviors of the African race in this country. 
 
 Only they who have been brought up with them from 
 childhood are qualified, as a general thing, to succeed 
 well in the care and management of them. The com 
 mon remark, that slaveholders from the free States are 
 the worst masters, has honorable exceptions, owing to 
 moral qualities in certain men which sustain them amidst 
 great trials of patience ; to which trials, ordinarily, one 
 must have been used from infancy, not to be intol 
 erant and severe toward the slaves. A man from New 
 
142 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 England, accustomed to have his orders obeyed promptly 
 and with the faithfulness which self-interest dictates, finds 
 it hard to bear the slack manner of that " eye service " 
 against which an Apostle admonishes " servants." If 
 we are to do further good to the African race in this 
 country, we must be obliged to our southern brethren 
 and sisters to do it for us. 
 
 "We frequently meet with the proposition to bring over 
 Asiatic free laborers to supplant the Africans. If the 
 object of this be to drive out slavery and the colored 
 race with it, we shall gain nothing in the matter of races 
 by taking the Asiatics in the place of the Africans, nor 
 will the condition of the Asiatics here long be any more 
 agreeable to them and to us than slavery now is. 
 
 The revival of the trade in African negroes is men 
 tioned now and then at the south ; but it will be in time 
 to discuss that scheme when it is seriously entertained 
 by any Christian nation. 
 
 Among the strange and extremely improbable things 
 which are sometimes proposed, the voluntary immigra 
 tion of Africans to our southern regions, if any one could 
 bring it about and make it acceptable to the south, would 
 no doubt be for the good of that race. 
 
 The immigration of Africans to the south would be 
 better than that of coolies, or any other new race, while 
 their labor might be equally cheap, being essentially 
 free labor under strong regulations, and obviating the 
 present enormous and increasing expense of buying the 
 person of the colored man. It is by no means certain 
 that some great change in the system of black labor, on 
 account of the great prices demanded for slaves, will not 
 be indispensable if the cotton interest in this country is 
 to con inue. 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 143 
 
 It is only because it is hardly safe to deny that any 
 thing is possible, that we say it may turn out, after all, 
 as some suppose, that God has ordained us to receive 
 the African race still more extensively for their benefit 
 and ours, as we already are as an asylum to the op 
 pressed and poor of other lands. His plan seems to be, 
 that suffering nations shall resort hither. As we give 
 the wheat-growing districts to the Europeans, perhaps 
 the tropical regions on this continent are to be the tem 
 porary abode of the African, from which he will go 
 forth, as Moses did, to look upon his brethren and de 
 liver them. How they are to come, and whether they 
 will be received, is not considered. 
 
 We have reason to pause and wonder at the ill suc 
 cess, hitherto, of efforts to rid ourselves of the blacks ; 
 and moreover the providence of God, the God of nature 
 and the God of nations, with respect to that great staple 
 of commerce, our cotton, is worthy of consideration. It 
 is not unfrequently the case that the word cotton is 
 made a byword ; it is spoken with a sneer ; it is cotton, 
 we are told, that keeps^ three millions in bondage, and it 
 is denounced as the foe of human liberty. Now, the 
 great God that formed all things has seen fit to con 
 nect this product of ours with the comfort and happiness 
 of a large portion of the earth, and by its connection 
 with mercantile exchanges, being eighty-six per cent of 
 the cotton raised on the whole earth, it exerts a preemi 
 nent influence upon the world s commerce. The rainy 
 season in the ^East Indies occurs at a part of the year 
 which makes it impossible for that district of the earth 
 to compete with us in the supply of this article ; we are 
 appointed to this work; the south was about to free 
 herself of her slaves ; northern interference, seeking to 
 
144 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 hasten the day, prevented it, perhaps forever ; and now 
 we will not dispute with those who say that the south, 
 and other portions of our land and continent, are, per 
 haps, to be the nursery of millions more of Africans, for 
 their present and eternal good, and for the increasing 
 supply of the world with a great necessary of life. 
 Perhaps, in future, the failure of southern efforts at 
 emancipation may be the occasion of unparalleled good 
 to that race, by bringing us to unite in the only com 
 promise that will save us from ruin and them from pro 
 tracted misery. That which we do not know can not 
 bring us much comfort ; yet we admit that, could we 
 bring the slaves, every where, through our example and 
 efforts, under the social and religious influences which 
 many of the slaves at the south enjoy, it would be, in 
 fact, breaking every yoke. At all events, let us look 
 above sectional and political considerations. There is a 
 stone cut out of the mountains without hands which is 
 destined to fill the earth. Oppression will flee before 
 it ; and whatever relation the colored man may sustain 
 to the white man, it must be only such as will be for 
 the benefit of both. We must not be prejudiced by our 
 associations with the word slavery, but consider what 
 the nature and influences of the relation designated by it 
 are ; and if necessary hereafter, whether our brethren, the 
 colored men, may not be related to us even more exten 
 sively than now, as dependent objects of a benevolence 
 which this nation will be so fully prepared to render, 
 in view of the wrongs and woes of which we have 
 been the occasion. 
 
 Then, the north and the south having a common aim 
 with regard to the African race, every thing in the 
 nature of oppressive laws made necessary by the self- 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 145 
 
 defence of one section of the country against the other, 
 and all usages not approved by an enlightened and be 
 nevolent mind, will be done away. 
 
 Then that cause of endless irritation and war, as 
 things now are, escape from the south, will be harmoni 
 ously adjusted ; and it is impossible to see in what other 
 way it ever can cease to divide and embroil us. 
 
 Then the long-vexed question about the right of man 
 to hold property in man will forever cease among us by 
 our universal agreement to stand in the relation to the 
 African as a stronger and more highly favored brother. 
 
 Then our brethren and friends, those noble and brave 
 spirits who emigrate from us to the new Territories, in 
 stead of rushing to shut the gates against slaveholding 
 immigrants, will be relieved of all apprehension of con 
 flict by a general agreement what portions of our un 
 settled lands will be most favorable for the African race 
 in connection with white men. 
 
 Then this most perplexing subject, which irritates and 
 divides us against each other at the north, and array* 
 the north and west against the south, will be taken out 
 of the way. God hasten it in his time. 
 
 We may yet thank and bless the south for being 
 willing to continue her relation to the colored race ; it 
 may yet seem to us one of the greatest illustrations of 
 divine wisdom in the affairs of men that she was pre 
 vented from throwing off the blacks. 
 
 Some of these reflections may serve to nourish hope, 
 keep us from desperation or despondency, make us for 
 bearing, and teach us to connect every thing in the 
 affairs of the world with the beneficent plan of God 
 and the sure law of human progress. No one can tell 
 the result of this agitation on the subject of slavery; 
 10 
 
146 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OP SLAVERY. 
 
 but no one can consider its remarkable history and not 
 feel that there may be some great design in it which 
 will satisfy those who prefer the will of God to their 
 own philosophy. 
 
 If any of the foregoing new schemes which are now 
 afloat for the Africans may be pronounced visionary, as 
 they seem to be, it is a relief, at least, to have a slight 
 variety in our fanaticism on this subject, which has been 
 more fruitful of fanaticism than any other subject in 
 our history. 
 
 One thought only shall be added here. Past events 
 teach us that this whole subject is a great deep ; and we 
 have had sufficient admonition to be very humble and 
 patient as to future disclosures in connection with it. 
 He who insists upon any definite scheme with regard to 
 the subject seems as sure to draw upon himself a just 
 suspicion of unsoundness of mind as he who professes 
 to have a key to Daniel or the Apocalypse. 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 147 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 DISSUASIVE FROM INTERFERENCE WITH THE 
 SOUTH. 
 
 THE north must take the first step in pacifying the 
 country on this subject ; and to some it will seem to be 
 a backward step. 
 
 We must begin to be " friends of the master," if we 
 would be truly " friends of the slave." Our only way 
 of benefiting the slave is through his master. 
 
 Let us then think of that great body of Christian men 
 at the south, who are perfectly competent to manage this 
 subject, and meet their accountability to God without 
 our help. 
 
 The Presbyterian, the Methodist, the Baptist, the 
 Episcopal ministry there are a goodly fellowship of 
 men, who, if drawn up over against us northern minis 
 ters, would strike a feeling of diffidence in us, to say 
 the least, with regard to any bold, hasty imputation of 
 injustice, cruelty, or enormous wrong ; men who know 
 more than we can tell them about the evils of slavery ; 
 who are incapable of being seduced or overawed by 
 wickedness; and who are fully competent to struggle 
 with the evils of the system, and to reform them, with 
 out one word of exhortation or advice from us ; and 
 whose daily prayer, with regard to us, is, that if there be 
 any consolation in Christ, if any bowels of mercies, we 
 
148 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 would let them alone. Remember what they said and 
 did before we drove them to personal self-defence. 
 Mingle with them as friends, and not as antagonists ; 
 hear them preach and pray; talk with them as you 
 loiter in the woods, or ride, or sail ; and let them tell 
 you, as they will be sure to do, all their burden on this 
 subject, and compare it with what you see in the streets, 
 and in families, and in all the unconstrained intercourse 
 of society ; and you will be sure to feel that the greatest 
 kindness which we at the north can bestow upon the 
 slaves, is to be no longer the seeming enemies, the cen 
 sors, the civil and ecclesiastical judges of the masters. 
 
 We must, therefore, change our manner and tone with 
 regard to the south, and study ways to signify such a 
 change. One expression of kind feeling, one frater 
 nal act on the part of the north toward the south, in 
 exchange for the almost unremitted expressions of dis 
 pleasure with which she is addressed, would do much to 
 restore a good understanding, not by its influence at the 
 south, but by putting ourselves into a more suitable 
 attitude. Any thing like inviting the south to a com 
 promise on this subject, or obtaining from her a promise 
 that certain things shall be done on certain conditions, is 
 absurd. We must of our own selves correct the spirit 
 and manner in which we have conducted toward her. 
 
 Little things may involve great principles, and are 
 connected with important effects ; and therefore the fol 
 lowing obvious illustration of what has now been said 
 will not be considered trivial. 
 
 There is one form of unkindness and hardship in 
 flicted on southerners, which, for the good effect the 
 change would have upon ourselves, we shall do well to 
 remove. 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OP SLAVERY. 149 
 
 We will suppose that a husband at the north is ad 
 vised to take his wife to the south for several months, 
 to save, or at least, prolong life. She has a young and 
 only child. There is a domestic in the family, between 
 whom and the child there has been and is an attach 
 ment almost romantic, and in whom the parents place 
 unlimited trust, who, besides her valuable services to the 
 patient, will make the child happy, and so relieve the 
 mother wholly of care. The privilege of taking such a 
 domestic to a distant part of the country, under such 
 circumstances, is beyond price. 
 
 Now, there are husbands and wives at the south in 
 corresponding circumstances. To spend the hot season 
 on our seaboard, or at the water-cures, seems necessary 
 to save life. They have a colored nurse, who is to 
 them all that the domestic just mentioned is in her 
 place; and no one could be more. The nurse knows 
 no happiness compared with ministering to this family ; 
 but she is in law a slave. A slave can not set foot in 
 Massachusetts, for example, without being, by that act, 
 free, and may go or come at pleasure. Were this family 
 sure that no inducements would be offered to draw this 
 nurse away from them clandestinely, they would take 
 the risk of her deserting them. But to have a vigilance 
 committee about their premises at the north, tampering 
 with the woman; to miss their nurse suddenly when 
 their need may be sorest ; to follow the habeas corpus 
 and the crowd to court ; and to be gazetted, and to see 
 the happiness for life of an estimable servant put in 
 jeopardy through some powerful temptation, or sudden 
 indiscretion, induces them to forego the privilege of 
 taking her with them, and either to endure the trouble 
 and risk of obtaining a suitable nurse at the north, or 
 to stay at home. 
 
150 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 It is easy to see that there is a large amount of incon 
 venience and suffering occasioned by such liabilities, 
 which is not of course published, but to which northern 
 ers would submit with very poor grace. We desire to 
 guard against the possibility of slavery being reestab 
 lished in Massachusetts, as might be the case if slaves 
 were brought into the State to remain indefinitely, at the 
 pleasure of the master or mistress. This self-defence we 
 can not yield. But it seems hard if some good under 
 standing can not be had, to the effect that travelers from 
 the south, visitors, are to be protected in the enjoyment of 
 services rendered by members of their families, who, if 
 left to themselves, would not exchange their condition, 
 with its name slavery, for any thing under the name of 
 freedom. Now, they must either stay at home or leave 
 their favorite servants behind them the skillful driver, 
 the almost physician, who has dressed the chronic sore 
 for months ; the maid, who is a rival with the mother in 
 the child s love ; this must be foregone, because of our 
 practice of waylaying with the habeas corpus every 
 colored servant from the south. 
 
 Let our people be appealed to against this injustice 
 and unkindness. Legislation can not well remedy the 
 evil, especially if its only remedy be the poor donation 
 of leave to stay a few weeks, and no more, with a slave 
 at the north, as some of the free States have enacted. 
 This concession makes visitors from the south feel that 
 they are under obligations to us for that which ought not 
 to be placed on the ground of permission. 
 
 Would that, for our own sakes, we could enjoy the 
 pleasure more frequently of becoming acquainted with 
 the citizens of the south in their domestic relations , 
 We are becoming mutually repulsive, through northern 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 151 
 
 jealousy and fear. Are we afraid that the sight of the 
 happy relation subsisting between masters and their 
 slaves will make our people in love with the institution ? 
 Would that all could see instances of such relationships 
 under this system. It would do much toward abolishing 
 things objectionable in slavery, by making us discrimi 
 nating and just in our censure, if there should be need 
 of any. It would do much toward satisfying us that the 
 south is competent to manage this subject without our 
 help. 
 
 As a dissuasive from interference with the south with 
 regard to slavery, it is deeply interesting to consider the 
 impulses of their intelligent and good men in measures 
 of relief and kindness toward the colored people. 
 
 Notwithstanding the powerful pressure from jealousy 
 of northern interference with which these impulses are 
 obliged to contend, philanthropy is working out benevo 
 lent plans for the slaves. 
 
 Men at the south, in places of influence, whose opinions 
 have a controlling effect, are meditating the following 
 changes, among others, in the slave code. 
 
 One is, to raise the term of years within which no 
 child shall be separated from its parents. The age pro 
 posed in the case to which I allude, and which would 
 have been adopted by the legislature had it not been for 
 some appeals with regard to northern interference, was 
 thirteen. In that State, a child over five years of age 
 may now be separated from its parents. 
 
 Another proposition generally entertained is, to forbid 
 the sale of a slave for debt. This would prevent, of 
 course, a vast proportion of painful separations. It 
 would greatly change the nature of slavery. 
 
 Another proposition is, that slaves shall by law have 
 
152 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 a right of release from a cruel master, as provided for 
 by slave codes of some other nations. 
 
 In recent numbers of the New Orleans Crescent we 
 find a series of articles in favor of giving the right of 
 suffrage to the native free colored population. 
 
 But the most interesting and important proposition 
 whicli is discussed in some quarters is that of legalizing 
 the marriage of slaves. There is a strong sentiment in 
 favor of this measure. 
 
 Surely there is progress in a right direction at the 
 south ; and may we at the north but exercise wisdom 
 and discretion, we shall soon see great changes in favor 
 of the colored race. These changes have begun where 
 slavery has felt the influence of the best state of society ; 
 but they will in time reach the relation of master and 
 slave in all the land. 
 
 Let us grant for a moment all that the strongest advo 
 cates of the right and duty of intervention by the north 
 with southern slavery have ever claimed. It shall be 
 allowed that we are accountable to God for every 
 oppression which exists in our slave States, and that 
 our first duty, to which no claims at home, even, are 
 superior, is, to see that this system of slavery is vir 
 tually abolished. What is the best way to accomplish 
 the object? 
 
 We have tried one method for more than a quarter 
 of a century. So long we have been practising upon 
 our patient, and to-day the disease is extending more 
 rapidly than ever. Some practitioners would, in such 
 a case, have misgivings about the mode of treatment ; 
 and we may well indulge a similar distrust. 
 
 If the object be to subdue the south as a political 
 enemy, and abridge her influence in the general govern- 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 153 
 
 merit, the only way is to plot and counterplot against 
 her by means of political organizations and party war 
 fare, and leave every thing to the fortunes of the war. 
 
 But is it the sincere and kind desire of any to see 
 the supposed wrongs and woes of the colored race 
 redressed, and our system of slavery purged of every 
 objectionable influence, and thus, if in no other way, to 
 prevent it from further afflicting the white and black 
 races ? Is this the form of our antislavery ? Does this 
 express the substance of our abolitionism ? 
 
 We are sitting down like an army before an impreg 
 nable wall, battering the gates and throwing bombs pro 
 miscuously into the place. A strong party within are 
 in principle essentially with us, and, if suffered to exert 
 their influence unmolested from without, would effect all 
 that we desire. As it is, they are opposed to have their 
 houses and lives destroyed by our indiscriminate shot, 
 nor are they willing that we should march in and give 
 laws. Therefore they combine with their civil opponents 
 to resist their military assailants. Never will they cease 
 to resist and oppose us, not for our principles, but for our 
 mode of enforcing them. If conquest be not our aim, 
 or the gratification of malignant passions, but simply to 
 have justice executed, our surest way to effect this is, 
 to withdraw our forces, and leave the cause in the hands 
 of those who but for us would long since have made their 
 influence effectual. This will not prevent us from using 
 all proper measures of simple self-defence. To do more 
 than this, under existing circumstances, is to perpetuate 
 the evil which we would see removed. 
 
 There are many things in slavery which, as human 
 beings, fellow-creatures with the slaves, we intensely 
 desire to see abolished. Let no man say here, " Why 
 
154 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 take an interest in my servants ? " But if he says 
 this, we will remind him of a well-known scene in a 
 Roman theatre, where these words of a former slave, " I 
 am a man, and nothing that pertains to man do I con 
 sider as not pertaining to me," brought down thunders 
 of applause. We reciprocate, for all his fellow-servants 
 and fellow-men every where, the noble sentiment of this 
 slave ; nor would pagan Rome reprove us. Every week, 
 events within the bounds of slavery make us cry out to 
 know what can be done to prevent them. Tell us, friends 
 and brethren at the south, what shall we at the north do, 
 or cease to do, to help you prevent these -enormities ? 
 The last that came to the knowledge of some of us was 
 a well-authenticated case, in which forty persons, de 
 scendants of a freed slave, some of whom had been free 
 for thirty years, were to be reduced again to slavery, on 
 the claim of one man. Can you do nothing to prevent 
 such things? Can we help you, either by act or by 
 silence ? Tell us if we have any duty whatever in the 
 case. If it were the Greeks, or the Poles, or the starv 
 ing Irish, or the Madiai, who were suffering these things, 
 you and we would inquire at the capital whether, as a 
 nation, we had no call to interfere. 
 
 We do not wish to be contending against brethren and 
 friends in a good cause. We can not desire to perpetuate, 
 by our well-meant endeavors, the evils which you and 
 we seek to remove. Who of you, then, will speak out, 
 and, recognizing the evils to which we allude, show us 
 our duty ? Be sure that your directions will be grate 
 fully received and honorably regarded. 
 
 It is appalling to think of a presidential campaign in 
 which the subject of slavery, with its potent sway over 
 human passions, shall be the all-absorbing question. We 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 155 
 
 are going into battle with conscience exalted to absolute 
 monarchy and dictatorship ; conscience, under whose 
 banner, in the name of God, wars, persecutions, tor 
 tures, and massacres have made the earth reel, and the 
 blood of saints has reached to the horses bridles. The 
 destiny of unborn millions, as slaves or free, will excite 
 one party beyond all former experience, and under the 
 combined heat of conscience, humanity, fancy, sectional 
 feelings, fanaticism, and recollections of recent defeat in 
 the Nebraska measure, even adamantine bonds will melt. 
 On the other hand, domestic institutions, homes, the 
 whole mysterious, complicated system of life, in one en 
 tire and united section of the country, will arm fifteen 
 States of the Union with a desperation such as they only 
 feel who are in the agony of a last hope. Let us not 
 see that contest. " The shields of the earth belong unto 
 the Lord." 
 
 There is such a mixture of political and moral questions 
 in this subject of slavery, that no one can tell by what 
 motives men are influenced in their opposition. Some, 
 whose thoughts and purposes are wholly political, never 
 theless make use of our sensibility to the moral relations 
 of the subject, and complicate the bare question of the 
 moral character of slavery with appointments to foreign 
 political offices, and the customs, and post-offices. Thus 
 they justly incur the opposition of the south by their in 
 vectives against slavery, when their chief objection to it 
 is the influence which it exerts in the government. 
 Could the subject become a simple moral question, and 
 be discussed apart from politics, the jealousy and opposi 
 tion of the south would have far less excitement. The 
 best thing which we at the north can do to pacify the 
 country, to help the colored race, to prevent further 
 
156 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 Nebraska measures, and promote our common interests 
 as a nation, is to reconsider our feelings and conduct in 
 times past toward the south. A penitential state of 
 mind becomes us. In that statesman s manual, the Bible, 
 there is a passage of history most pertinent in its appli 
 cation to us at the north. The tribe of Benjamin had 
 been guilty of an " enormous wrong " in the case of the 
 Levite and his concubine. The other tribes assembled 
 before God, prepared for war. Their question was, 
 " Which of us shall go up first to the battle against Ben 
 jamin ? " Not, Shall we go up ? nor, In what way shall 
 we best bring the offender to repentance ? 
 
 The answer was in anger. Thrice Israel was smit 
 ten, and at last the offending tribe was defeated, with a 
 slaughter on both sides, in the three battles, of sixty- 
 five thousand men. Then the nation wept over the 
 almost ruined tribe, and resorted twice to the stealing 
 of women from neighboring people to repair it. 
 
 So much for unwarrantable methods of redressing 
 " enormous wrongs " in the bosom of a nation. 
 
 Let it be repeated, we must not seek to obtain from 
 the south any expression in the way of confession, or 
 concession, or promise. We are not properly a ruler 
 or a judge over them, though we have assumed both 
 offices. Let us adopt the principle that the south is 
 competent to manage the subject of slavery, and straight 
 way cease from all offensive action. Proper defences 
 for free colored citizens must be secured, and, if sought 
 for, disconnected with the agitation of the subject of sla 
 very, as a political or sectional interest, can unquestion 
 ably be obtained. We must put a stop to the unlawful 
 seizure of colored servants passing with their masters 
 through a free State. We must in some way prevent 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 157 
 
 the annoyance to which southern travelers are exposed 
 of having their colored servants enticed away, or 
 brought before the courts to be emancipated. Perhaps 
 these things, in connection with our whole manner of 
 treating the south, have created a state of mind in which 
 it was easy to violate compromises. 
 
 Two things they do not ask nor expect of us, viz., to 
 express any approbation of slavery, nor to sympathize 
 with them. A northerner at the south soon perceives 
 that, if he feels and shows in a proper manner a natural 
 repugnance to slavery, they respect him for it, while 
 they greatly suspect and distrust those from the north 
 who seem in favor of the system. Moreover, any con 
 dolence with them at the evils of slavery, or show of in 
 terposition for their benefit, is wholly out of place. 
 
 A slaveholder of liberal education and great influence 
 at the south, and withal an extreme defender of the 
 system of slavery, made a declaration, which, for many 
 reasons, impressed me, perhaps, more than any thing 
 which fell from the lips of a southerner. He said, " If 
 the north had directed its strength against the evils of 
 slavery instead of assailing it as a sin per se, it could 
 not have survived to the present day." This is con 
 firmed by many witnesses, and may teach us wisdom in 
 time to come. 
 
 But our invectives against the south, our exaggerated 
 representations of slavery, our indiscriminate imputations 
 of connivance with its abuses, our political opposition, 
 our resistance of southern rights under the Constitution, 
 and our efforts to decoy the servants, at home and abroad, 
 excite opposition which renders all our desire for the 
 benefit of the colored race in this country entirely hope 
 less. We may drive the south and her slaves from the 
 Union, but we thereby gain nothing for the slaves. 
 
158 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 INFLUENCE OF UNCLE TOM S CABIN AT HOME AND 
 ABROAD. 
 
 ONE thing which interested me at the south was the 
 spirit in which Uncle Tom s Cabin was frequently men 
 tioned. Some of the warmest advocates of slavery said 
 that they could parallel most of the abuses in slavery 
 mentioned in the book out of their own knowledge ; 
 and on speaking of some bad master, and wishing to 
 express his tyrannical character and barbarous conduct, 
 they would say, He is a real Legree ; or, He is worse 
 than Legree. The book was mentioned with candor, 
 and with little appearance of wounded sensibility. Yet 
 many criticisms were made upon it, both of a sectional 
 and general nature. 
 
 There was one criticism on the plan of the book 
 which may be heard from every southerner, even from 
 those among them who are antislavery men. The scene 
 with which the book opens, they say, is unnatural. A 
 gentleman embarrassed and constrained to sell a slave, 
 and especially a child, would not act the part of Mr 
 Shelby, in that conversation and drinking scene which 
 are described in the first chapter. If, by the strangest 
 combination of events, he should be led to do it, he would 
 fling himself, with such a slave and child, into the hands 
 of a trader, in the same state of mind with which he 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OP SLAVERY. 159 
 
 would surrender his wife s wardrobe, or her jewelry, in 
 herited from her mother; but to sit and laugh, and 
 hold up the glass, and uncork a new bottle of wine, 
 and peel an orange, and haggle with a fiend like Ha 
 ley, they say, is not according to human nature among 
 slaveholders, in any man who had not himself become 
 a fiend. But above all, to represent a southern gentle 
 man, a man having " the appearance of a gentleman," 
 "the arrangements of the house and the general air 
 of the housekeeping indicating easy and even opulent 
 circumstances," as suffering Haley to bid for such a 
 woman as Eliza, with a view to her peculiar fitness for 
 the New Orleans market, " slapping Mr. Shelby on the 
 shoulder," and coaxing him to let him have her for this 
 purpose, it may well be conceived by honorable and 
 virtuous gentlemen, is felt to be an affront by every 
 decent man at the south a coarse, broad, disgusting 
 caricature, which, as a libel on a community, they say, 
 hardly has a parallel. 
 
 The tone of fairness with which the book is men 
 tioned at the south makes one feel that they have 
 reasons in their consciousness for protesting as they do 
 against this part of the book, or rather this part of its 
 plan. The manner in which the criticism is made gives 
 one a favorable and deep impression of the relation be 
 tween a master and a good slave ; it is not a mercenary 
 relation. This impression is confirmed every day in the 
 mind of a visitor, until, on reperusing the opening scene 
 in Uncle Tom, he finds that the representation of a 
 southerner with "the appearance of a gentleman, in 
 easy and even opulent circumstances," in connection with 
 the abominable talk and purposes of that scene, is an 
 imposition and a cruel injustice. 
 
160 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 While many things in the book are paralleled by- 
 characters and events at the south, and while the Key 
 more than proves it, still, like all other novels, it de 
 ceives. At the north I partook fully in the general 
 effect of the book upon our feelings, as the author knows 
 full well ; but at the south, even after seeing or hearing 
 things like many which are related in the story, I found 
 that still the whole impression of the book on my mind 
 was that of a falsehood. Perhaps this was in part my 
 fault as a reader ; it is in part the fault of novel writing, 
 its intrinsic evil. 
 
 The first thing in which I found myself misled by the 
 impressions to which I had yielded in the book, was 
 with respect to the children of the slaves. I had fixed 
 the image of Topsy in my mind as the exponent of col 
 ored children, and of Eva as their contrast. I supposed 
 that generally a black child was, as Topsy said of her 
 self, " nothing but a nigger " in its own esteem and that 
 of the whites. I expected to find in those black children 
 imps, Shakspeare s Calibans and Flibbertigibbets, a pro 
 voking, disgusting brood. I was angry with myself to 
 find how I had suffered poor Topsy to form my notions 
 of childhood and youth among the slaves ; but I may be 
 alone in the impression which she had the misfortune to 
 give me of her race. I saw specimens of some, who, 
 with a little change, in the hands of a fictitious writer, 
 would answer for Topsys girls as disagreeable and im 
 practicable as their prototype; but they are the* excep 
 tions ; there is such a class ; Topsy is a fact ; and this 
 is all which the volume intended to say, and by no means 
 to libel the whole rising generation among the slaves, 
 by setting forth Topsy to represent them to the world. 
 But notwithstanding the writer s good intentions, she did 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 161 
 
 not, she could not limit the influence of her book upon 
 the fancies and feelings of her readers. I found myself 
 frequently stopping to talk with the black children, for 
 the pleasure of hearing them talk, and secretly feeling 
 also, that I owed them some atonement for the injustice 
 which I had done to them in my thoughts. 
 
 The next thing in which I found myself repenting of 
 the impressions which, with no such design on the part 
 of the writer, the book had given me, was with regard 
 to the influence of slavery on female character. I did 
 not suppose that Mrs. St. Clair was a true picture of 
 southern women, for I knew better ; at the same time, 
 when I saw the women of the south in their families, on 
 their plantations, in their Sabbath schools, and heard 
 them speak of their servants, and found them making 
 the garments worn by field hands, superintending the 
 distribution of food, nursing tfie sick, and enduring toils 
 for them to which northern ladies are generally stran 
 gers, I felt that that miserable woman was out of place in 
 any prominent connection with descriptions of southern 
 character. Many, of course, were the instances in which 
 a character illustrating the entirely opposite effects of 
 slaveholding upon the women of the south occurred to 
 me, and so had they done to the narrator of Mrs. St. 
 Glair s biography ; all that I would say is, I wondered 
 that such a woman should have been permitted to be 
 the prominent figure among her sex in the antislavery 
 romance. The writer s object was by no means to de 
 scribe southern women ; no one more than she would 
 deplore unjust impressions with regard to them derived 
 from her writings ; yet one who has received the natural 
 impression of the book will find at the south that he dis 
 likes Mrs. St. Clair, for new reasons, more than ever. 
 11 
 
162 SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 And then, as a whole, I found that the book gives a 
 northerner false conceptions of the actual state of 
 things at the south, not excepting abuses in slavery ; for 
 with respect even to them, after reading the book, appari 
 tions will be ever present to one s thoughts, which will 
 not be laid except by going south. There he sees that 
 many things referred to can and may take place ; but 
 if he has taken the book into his mind almost as a trav 
 eler in the East takes the book of Joshua, if he expects 
 frequently or necessarily to pattern after the book in 
 his observations, he will be displeased with himself 
 more than with the writer at his mistake. 
 
 By using any simile to illustrate what has now been 
 said, there is danger of doing to the reader what the 
 book in question does to us. But it occurred to me 
 that Uncle Tom s Cabin was in some sense like a solar 
 microscope applied to vinegar. Fearful are the sights 
 thus revealed in that liquid. Lizards, ichthyosaurians, 
 and megalatheria in general, are there without number ; 
 and the impression is, that the element in which they 
 li ve is appropriate to their dispositions, for they are evi 
 dently carrying on an internecine war. Are not those 
 things there ? will you dispute the evidence of sight ? 
 is it not the essential nature of vinegar to generate such 
 things ? and will you ever taste a drop of vinegar here 
 after ? This simile is capable of great perversion and 
 abuse ; and so is the author s design in the Cabin. 
 
 The truth is, the writer of Uncle Tom s Cabin is not 
 only the foe, but the Defoe, of slavery, and Uncle Tom 
 is the Robinson Crusoe of involuntary servitude. Now, 
 if people, as far as possible from the seaboard, should 
 ask me for a book giving a true picture of a sailor s 
 experience, it would be as fair to give them Robinson 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 163 
 
 Crusoe as to put Uncle Tom s Cabin into the hands of a 
 foreigner who wished to learn what American slavery ac 
 tually is. Robinson Crusoe is all probable, has all been 
 verified ; but the journals of our merchantmen do not 
 ordinarily correspond with the experiences of that book, 
 and still every crew, in every voyage, is liable to verify 
 it for substance, in every part of the earth. 
 
 Having written the foregoing at the south, I was 
 much interested a week or two afterwards, on receiving 
 the Boston Daily Advertiser, in meeting with the fol 
 lowing coincidence of opinion and expression in an 
 article by one of the respected editors of that paper, 
 being a notice of an article in the North American 
 Review for April, on Robinson Crusoe : 
 
 "Robinson Ciusoe has a peculiar interest to American 
 students, because properly an American novel, written by 
 a Puritan, with its locality, scenery, and moral all strictly 
 American. It is worth remark that the play Shakspeare 
 is said to have valued most was the Tempest, whose 
 scenery is all American also. The greatest English ro 
 mance and the greatest English drama are ours, the first 
 fruits of the new world to English literature. 
 
 % " We are tempted to add, as a suggestion to his next re 
 viewer, that Robinson Crusoe, and the only other English 
 romance which has ever attained an equal popular circu 
 lation, both novels of American life, illustrate together 
 the vanity of the argument from invented example/ or 
 rather the ease with which fiction may be turned to sup 
 port either side of a moral question. 
 
 ^ Uncle Tom s Cabin the only romance which has 
 gained a popular circulation equal to Robinson Crusoe 
 is the history of a slave, written to expose, and wonder 
 fully successful in exposing, the horrors of the slave 
 system. Robinson Crusoe, on the other hand, whom every 
 reader loves, was a slave trader, shipwrecked on a voy 
 age to the Guinea coast for slaves, which he never re 
 gretted for its wickedness j and one of the features of his 
 life for which certainly he is least blamed, is his holding 
 
164 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 Friday, whom he has preserved (servus quia servatvu erat) 
 as his slave. The Christian slave Uncle Tom and the 
 Christian slaveholder Robinson Crusoe are the two most 
 popular heroes of English romance. So little is really 
 proved by the argument from invented example." 
 
 Let us imagine an intelligent community in Southern 
 India, where custom, we will suppose, had for gen 
 erations forbidden widowers with children to marry. 
 The proposition being made to set aside this custom, 
 some, who are still in favor of the prohibition, cause 
 to be translated and circulated a book written in Amer 
 ica called the Stepmother. It is a novel. The author 
 having been deeply affected by the acknowledged mis 
 ery resulting in very many cases, from the injustice 
 and cruelty of stepmothers, constructs a most thrilling 
 tale, which makes more weeping than any book of 
 its time. Objections having been made to the repre 
 sentations in the book, the author gives a Key in 
 which she prints authentic letters detailing scenes of 
 exquisite domestic misery in consequence of second 
 marriages. Her novel is most fully sustained by these 
 cases ; and indeed the one half has not been told. 
 
 Perhaps the nucleus of the story was furnished by a 
 transaction which we all know to be true, and which at 
 the time made a sensation that needed no aid from 
 fancy. An adopted boy told his father of some impro 
 prieties which he had accidentally witnessed in his step- 
 dame in connection with a gentleman. The wife denied 
 it, and required that the boy be whipped for falsehood. 
 The father was deacon of a church. He whipped the 
 little fellow till a pool of blood stood at his feet, the child 
 protesting his innocence and truthfulness ; and with his 
 dying accents, (for he died,) after saying, " I feel cold," 
 as the chill of death came over him, he said, " Dear 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 165 
 
 father, I love you." The two parents were at the last 
 accounts in jail awaiting their trial. I give the nar 
 rative from memory ; a fictitious case would serve my 
 purpose, but this appeared in an authentic manner 
 not long since in the papers. The writer of the fiction 
 which we are supposing would need to alter this case so 
 far as to call this adopted child an own child of this 
 father, and the woman a stepmother. But, for the vast 
 good which was meant to be accomplished, how few fic 
 titious writers would consider it wrong to make even so 
 essential an alteration ! 
 
 No fictitious narrative of slavery or piracy could 
 make a deeper impression than a book on this subject 
 written by a female hand which knew well how to touch 
 the chords of the human heart, especially if there were 
 interspersed skillful representations of the unnaturalness 
 of second love, of the impossibility that maternal affec 
 tion should be imitated, and that where a stepmother has 
 children of her own, there is the strongest temptation to 
 partiality, with other theoretically truthful things which 
 a woman of genius would know so well how to set forth. 
 The book, then, is published in India. 
 
 Should visitors in India from America be reproached 
 with this picture of domestic life in second marriages, 
 and should they complain that it is unjust, every mouth 
 could be stopped by the question, " Is there a word in 
 the book which is not true ? Do you deny the facts ? " 
 
 It would all be true; but the common law adage 
 would apply, in a sense different, it is true, from its in 
 tended meaning, " The greater the truth, the greater the 
 libel." 
 
 Husbands and fathers who have found for their moth 
 erless children second mothers whose disinterested, im- 
 
166 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 partial, generous love for their stepchildren approaches 
 nearer than any thing else on earth to the ministry of 
 angels, must feel that such a book, with all its candid 
 and fair protestations in favor of the many exceptions 
 to the general rule of the unnaturalness of second mar 
 riages and second mothers, would make a false impres 
 sion in a country where the whole truth could not be 
 known, the necessity of second marriages be appreciated, 
 and the incidental evils of the relation in question, and 
 its abuses, be distinguished from its normal operation 
 under moral and Christian principle. 
 
 How natural and kind it would be for the women of 
 India, led by that accomplished woman, the lady Rajah 
 Seringapatam, to join in an address to the stepmothers 
 of the United States, deploring the existence of such 
 enormous wrongs, and remonstrating with their Christian 
 sisters ! If the burning of widows on the same funeral 
 piles with the bodies of their husbands were at the date 
 of the address still practised, the sympathy of those East 
 Indian women with our domestic histories would be bet 
 ter appreciated, especially if the suttees should be passed 
 over with but a slight allusion. 
 
 Now, it is not necessary to my argument that this case 
 should be shown to be parallel with slaveholding and 
 with a book written to show the evils of slavery. The 
 only point of the illustration (and let nothing else be 
 confounded with it) is this that the truth, fairly, dis 
 criminatingly, kindly spoken, and confirmed by more 
 than sufficient cases, the truth itself may operate most 
 cruelly if presented in the form of fictitious narrative. 
 This is an illustration, to those who wish to use it, of the 
 pernicious influence of novels. We can not describe a 
 character or class of men in any place without imprint- 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 167 
 
 ing almost the whole surface of a reader s mind with 
 the image of the persons described, so as to fill his vision 
 whenever he hears of or sees that place. Not to seem 
 like laying blame on the writer of the book in question 
 as a sinner above all others, but rather to comfort her in 
 view of the harm she has done, by a somewhat flattering 
 illustration, it may be observed that, passing through 
 Coventry, England, I was sure that I saw survivors of 
 FalstafF s ragged regiment ; and whoever has read 
 Shakspeare will find them there to-day. One man, in 
 particular, stood as a specimen of them in the public 
 square, at six o clock in the morning, in the position of 
 erect and somewhat opened dividers, his hands in his 
 pockets, his coat torn under the right shoulder behind. 
 I made no question that he was a survivor of his regi 
 ment. " I ll not march through Coventry with them," 
 said Falstaff. But I could not help thinking that he 
 did, and that some of them had never left the place. 
 That ancient regiment, and Shakspeare, and " Peeping 
 Tom," are no more to blame for our having few other 
 thoughts at first in Coventry except those which are lu 
 dicrous, than are the Haleys and their inventor, and 
 " Uncle Tom," for making us project the images of those 
 characters all about us at first in the slaveholding States. 
 
 While we confine the influence of this imagination to 
 our private thoughts, the practical evil, of course, is 
 limited, though it is an evil ; for it is not the truth ; it is 
 not the case as it exists. 
 
 But when this wrong impression, innocently made, 
 instead of being left like a fugitive water color, becomes 
 like a water color which is rolled over with a chemical 
 preparation to sink and fix it ; when a romance is followed 
 by a book of facts to prove the tale, and this originally 
 
1G8 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OP SLAVERY. 
 
 wrong impression becomes an exasperated conviction 
 leading us to take counsel and revolutionize a country, 
 to exscind whole communities, to fill the air over their 
 heads with imprecations to Heaven for vengeance upon 
 them it behooves us to pause and see whether our 
 premises are true ; whether other things equally true do 
 not so modify the case, as presented in the novel, that 
 the fiction becomes false and injurious. With all my 
 feelings in favor of the work referred to, and against 
 our system of slavery, on going to the south as a place of 
 refuge in sickness with no purpose to become in any 
 wise interested in the subject of slavery, but rather 
 studying how to defend myself against the impressions 
 which I supposed it would make upon me, I found my 
 self, for three months, in a state of society, in different 
 places, which made me say, " If Uncle Tom s Cabin is 
 true, there are other things just as true which ought to 
 modify every judgment of slavery as dictated by that 
 book." 
 
 The reply to this is, " You saw the best specimens of 
 slaveholding." Truly, I did ; and gave thanks for the 
 power of the gospel in its direct and indirect influences 
 upon the master and slave. I took courage in thinking 
 what that gospel would continue to do there, if " the 
 wrath of man " could only be taught that it " worketh 
 not the righteousness of God." But if the remark im 
 plies that I did not see and feel the evils of slavery, some 
 of the preceding pages, I trust, are a sufficient answer. 
 
 Indignity to the human person, meek sufferings under 
 cruelty, woman in the power of a brutal nature, child 
 hood s innocence and simplicity, maternal instincts, the 
 pathetic themes of redemption, with interchanges of 
 drollery and brogue, that stroke of art to keep the sol- 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 169 
 
 emn and pathetic from palling upon the mind, and the 
 didactic from seeming prosy, these, combined by the 
 hand of genius into a novel to make southern slavery 
 abhorred, create an impression against the south itself 
 which many can not see and feel to be in a most im 
 portant sense, and to a great extent, unjust, till they 
 mingle with the masters and servants. Had I read a 
 novel designed to eulogize and commend the system, 
 written with the power of this book, my disappointment 
 and revulsion in another direction would have been no 
 less real, though producing a different effect upon my 
 feelings. 
 
 This book has entered like an alcoholic distillation 
 into the veins and blood of very many people in the free 
 States. They did not, nor do they now, make any dis 
 tinction between Red River and any other river, south, 
 or south-west ; nor did the author mean that they should, 
 for the Key applies the whole power of the book against 
 slavery in all the south, and brings facts from the 
 Southern States generally to corroborate the fiction. 
 
 At the south its effect is more secret. There are in 
 juries which pride forbids men to retaliate at a time or 
 in a way which will show that they are capable of being 
 offended by them. In the secret places of the heart, 
 the smothered fire slowly generates heat, which makes 
 combustion fierce when the flame kindles. This book 
 has had much to do with preparing a state of feeling at 
 the south by which Nebraska measures are more will 
 ingly sustained. Yet most southerners would scorn the 
 thought of being offended or influenced from such a 
 source.* 
 
 * It will illustrate this topic to speak of Rev. Dr. Perkins s ser 
 mon preached at Oroomiah, Persia, entitled " Our Country s Sin." 
 
170 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 But what impression must the book have made on 
 foreign nations, was a question which occurred to me, 
 if its impression on an American be thus false ? What 
 ideas must Frenchmen, and the Swiss, and Germans, 
 and the converts from heathenism and paganism, have 
 of our southern men universally, if, for example, Topsy 
 gave me such impressions respecting the slave children 
 as a race of chimney sweeps ? 
 
 This question had ceased to interest me, for I had 
 concluded that my own impressibility was in some way 
 wrong, and that no one else would fall into the same 
 error. 
 
 On looking at " Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands," 
 
 Private letters from abroad inform us that it was written under the 
 influence of the Cabin. A word of personal explanation will be 
 excused. Dr. Perkins quotes from a sermon of mine on Mr. Web 
 ster the words, " Let the land have a Sabbath on this subject, (sla 
 very,) and let this Sabbath be the long, long days of our mourning," 
 &c., and he devotes some space, and uses strong language, in la 
 menting and reproving the idea of keeping " a Sabbath silence " 
 with regard to slavery. My previous sentence would seem to make 
 this meaning of my language improbable: " And now, as we sail 
 away from the sea-girt tomb of our pilot, let us all agree, north, 
 south, east, and west, to throw into the waves, as a sacrifice, our un 
 kind feelings and bitter words on the subject of American slavery. 
 Let the land have a Sabbath with regard to this subject," mean 
 ing, and no doubt I should have added these words, as thus dis 
 cussed; the idea of silence on this or any other great moral question 
 being foreign from my thoughts. The blame of this sermon must 
 not be laid at the door of that far-off mission home, with its priva 
 tions and sorrows, but at the door of the Cabin, which led a mis 
 sionary of the cross to employ the sacramental occasion to pour out 
 his excruciated feelings to his little company of exiled brethren in 
 reproof of pastors and religious editors here at home, whose chief, 
 if not their only regret at the sermon, is the pain which it must 
 have cost him to write and preach it. We are not offended. We 
 can not, indeed, call his smiting of us " excellent oil," yet, like such 
 oil, it has not broken our heads. 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 171 
 
 I came to this passage in the author s account of what 
 she saw and heard in Geneva, Switzerland, at Castle 
 Chillon : 
 
 " After we left the dungeons, we went up into the judg 
 ment hall, where prisoners were tried, and then into the 
 torture chamber. Here are pulleys by which limbs were 
 broken ; the beam, all scorched with the irons by which 
 feet were burned ; the oven where the irons were heated ; 
 and there was the stone where they were sometimes laid to 
 be strangled after the torture. On that stone, our guide 
 told us, two thousand Jews, men, women, and children, had 
 been put to death. There was also, high up, a strong 
 beam across, where criminals were hung, and a door, now 
 walled up, by which they were thrown into the lake. I 
 shivered. "Twas cruel, she [the guide] said; "twas 
 almost as cruel as your slavery in America. " 
 
 " Then she took us into a tower," &c. Vol. ii. pp. 
 273, 274. 
 
 Here I found that my false impressions with regard 
 to slavery, made by reading the Cabin were proba 
 bly not peculiar, and that, without doubt, unjust impres 
 sions have been given by the book to millions of foreign 
 people. The torments of Chillon Castle, organized, 
 administered religiously, scientifically, and with that 
 diabolical cruelty in which passion has given place to 
 stolid indifference, these are, in the view of a Swiss 
 reader of the Cabin, " almost as cruel as your slavery 
 in America." No rebuke, no correction is given. And 
 all this time that the book is making these impressions 
 with regard to the slaves, those slaves, notwithstanding 
 the inherent evils and liabilities of their state, surpass 
 any three millions of laboring people, in any foreign 
 land, in comforts, in freedom from care, in provision for 
 the future, in religious privileges and enjoyment, and 
 probably send tenfold more from their number to be in 
 heaven kings and priests to God. 
 
172 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OP SLAVERY. 
 
 In view of the injury inflicted on the south by this 
 novel in the opinions and feelings of humane people 
 all over the earth, the meekness and kindness with which 
 it has been privately spoken of by many southerners 
 awaken sympathy and love toward them, which, though 
 slow, may one day overtake the injustice, and make com 
 pensatory reaction. 
 
 Many things in the book are specifically true ; it 
 has afforded an inestimable amount of pleasure; the 
 author has been placed by it in situations of rich enjoy 
 ment, for which every generous mind is glad : and now 
 we wish that the same genius might be employed in 
 doing justice to private characters at the south, to the 
 benevolent effects, in the providence of God, and the 
 possible prospective relations, of slavery slavery as it 
 really is slavery as it may be. 
 
 But the genius that dictated the Cabin would fail 
 here. There would be no bad passions to be stimulated ; 
 hatred of the south would not be stirred; the self- 
 righteousness of foreign people would be disturbed by 
 the dark shade into which the bright side of slavery 
 would throw their laboring poor. No political party, 
 no rival religious publication societies, would get any 
 help from it ; certain aspirants for the presidency would, 
 by its influence, see their prospects as in the light of a 
 waning moon. Some would even burn the book on their 
 platform with the Constitution of the TTnited States. In 
 fidels and atheists, who every year in May drink to 
 gether the Circean cup of radicalism, would trample her 
 book under their feet, and turn again and rend her. 
 How she would use her well-known facility in quoting 
 Scripture then : " My soul is among lions ; and I lie even 
 among them that are set on fire, whose teeth are spears 
 and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword." 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 173 
 
 The book will have the effect to make slaveholders, 
 in many instances, feel the vast responsibleness which 
 rests upon them to render to their servants that which 
 is just and equal, knowing that they also have a Master 
 in heaven, and that the world looks on to see how they 
 use a trust by which they can do more good or more 
 harm directly to a human being than in any other rela 
 tion except that of a parent. 
 
 Now that we are upon this subject, something may be 
 said, perhaps to good effect, as certainly it is dictated by 
 kind feelings in which personal attachments also mingle, 
 with regard to the manner in which the south and our 
 country are spoken of, through the influence of northern 
 hostility to slavery, not only by Americans, but by for 
 eigners. Southerners have need of patience in view of 
 the manner in which they are commonly spoken of by 
 many. There is a saucy way of talking about slave 
 holders, a slurring manner of alluding to them in the 
 style of byword, which ought to be reproved. The book 
 already quoted, Sunny Memories, &c.,* affords an illus 
 tration of this in the Journal of the author s brother, who 
 may as well be quoted for a casual example as any man, 
 and who knows how to answer for himself. He is de 
 scribing his altercation with a mule which had suddenly 
 refused to move ; he stones him in three distinct pitched 
 onsets, each graphically described, and we hope in an 
 exaggerated manner; for, had some southern gentle 
 men been passing by, they would have said, Were you 
 a passionate negro, we should reprove you ; but being 
 one of the prominent exposers to the world of southern 
 inhumanity, it must of course be all right. The mule, in 
 
 * Vol. ii. pp. 257, 258. 
 
174 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 one of his caprices, does some obstinate thing, and his 
 driver then compares him to " a proslavery demagogue." 
 His mode of dealing with the mule was so much like the 
 way in which, doubtless, he has heard some men reason 
 with the south, that while employed in showering granite 
 upon the dumb beast, proslavery men were readily sug 
 gested to his thoughts. The trimmings of low discourse 
 with some whom he can call to mind are flings at slave 
 holders. How strange it would seem to hear certain 
 men speak of slaveholders with courtesy, and of their 
 alleged sins with Christian sorrow, or even with a Chris 
 tian indignation. 
 
 As specimens of the unjust manner in which our 
 country is regarded and spoken of under the influence 
 of certain representations of slavery, the following in 
 stances are in place. In this last-named book we read 
 that, 
 
 " Madam Belloc received, a day or two since, a letter 
 from a lady in the old town of Orleans, which gave name 
 to Joan of Arc, expressing the most earnest enthusiasm in 
 the antislavery cause. Her prayers, she says, will ascend 
 night and day for those brave souls in America who are 
 conflicting with this mighty injustice." Vol. ii. p. 416. 
 
 The question arises, " Who are these brave souls ? " 
 "We know, probably, to whom this refers ; but what claim 
 have they to be called brave ? They have said a great 
 many brave things, but have they done any ? They have 
 added the great State of Texas to slave territory, and 
 this is characteristic of their history ; their efforts have 
 all redounded to prevent emancipation, and strengthen 
 and extend slavery. They are like an army with no 
 weapons but boomerangs, which, before reaching the 
 object, turn in the air, and come back in the faces of those 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 175 
 
 who hurl them. For ill-adapted, unsuccessful efforts, no 
 party ever made such an impression upon bystanders. 
 Deborah would have felt obliged to upbraid them as she 
 did Reuben in her war ; Elijah, seeing them leaping on 
 their altar at their anniversary, crying and cutting them 
 selves, would have bid them cry louder; while as to 
 some of their number who kept not their first estate, 
 the apostle Jude could most appropriately have charac 
 terized and denounced them. They fling the Bible 
 across the platform ; impiously boast on whom they would 
 put their feet, if He should teach otherwise than their 
 resolutions have it ; then pause for a poor non-resistant 
 but extra-clamorous fanatic to be lifted out of doors by 
 his hands and heels, when they proceed to assail that 
 church of which they have been forewarned from the 
 beginning that they should " never prevail against it." 
 
 The rest of us in this land, in the view of estimable 
 foreigners whose knowledge with regard to our slaves 
 began and ended in the Cabin, are a cruel, prejudiced, 
 besotted people, upholding a mighty injustice, while a 
 few " brave souls," comprising most of the piety and 
 humanity in the United States, are contending with us 
 at fearful odds in the spirit of Christian heroes. 
 
 In another part of the book the author describes a 
 class of Americans in Paris who plunge into the stream 
 of fashion and pleasure, and " speak with heartless levity 
 of the revolutions in France as of a pantomime got up 
 for their diversion:" they are "young America, fresh 
 from the theatres and gambling saloons, declaring, be 
 tween the whiffs of his cigar, that the French are not 
 capable of free institutions ; that the government of Louis 
 Napoleon is the best thing France could have, " and 
 dividing the time between defences of American slavery 
 
176 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 and efforts to attach themselves to the skirts of French 
 tyranny. 7 Having described this class of men, the 
 writer remarks, 
 
 " Thus from the plague spot at her heart has America 
 become the propagandist of despotism in Europe." Vol. ii. 
 p. 418. 
 
 These few yoigig gentlemen of the town, then, are 
 America s representatives, for whose judgments and 
 flashy sayings all the north, and west, and south are re 
 sponsible, and by whom we are u propagating despotism," 
 because, before they sailed for Paris, the country had 
 not been able to agree as to the proper light in which to 
 regard and treat the subject of slavery. For very 
 many private reasons, it is painful to make these re 
 flections ; but it is time to see if we can not arrest the 
 hurtful way in which some speak of their country in 
 connection with slavery, or, at least, to let the more 
 sensible among them see how their mode of speaking 
 strikes some among their friends, of whose candor and 
 kindness they have had sufficient proof. Here is an 
 illustration : 
 
 " In the course of the afternoon a telegraph came from 
 the mayor of Liverpool, to inquire if our party would ac 
 cept a public breakfast at the town hall, before sailing, as 
 a demonstration of sympathy with the cause of freedom." 
 Vol. ii. p. 431. 
 
 The words italicized (not by the author) are like 
 thousands of similar instances in other writers and speak 
 ers ; but the sentence which follows the above deepens 
 the impression by awaking a melancholy feeling : 
 
 " Remembering the time when Clarkson began his career 
 amid such opposition in Liverpool, we could not but regard 
 such an evidence of its present public sentiment as full of 
 encouragement." 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 177 
 
 We see no proportion nor contrast between this offer 
 of a breakfast to our American antislavery friends and 
 the original opposition to Clarkson. 
 
 Here is something entertaining : 
 
 " A French gentleman who was greatly distressed in 
 view of the sufferings of the negro race in America, said, 
 
 naively enough, to Mrs. C , that he had heard that the 
 
 negroes had great capability for music, dancing, and the 
 fine arts, and inquired whether something could not be 
 done to move sympathy in their behalf, by training them 
 to exhibit characteristic dances and pantomimes." Vol. 
 ii. p. 416. 
 
 Here I recalled the impressions made upon me by the 
 respectable appearance and the religious demeanor of 
 the slaves in southern towns and cities, and thought how 
 little those slaves need this good monsieur to "move 
 sympathy " for them, and what an injurious, insulting 
 proposition this seems, to one recently from the south, 
 that those slaves should be taken about to jump Jim 
 Crow for the benefit of abolitionism. These "friends 
 of the slaves," to whom this benighted speech was made, 
 had no correction at hand for it ; but 
 
 " Mrs. C quoted to him the action of one of the great 
 
 ecclesiastical bodies iri America, in the same breath de 
 clining to condemn slavery, but denouncing dancing as so 
 wholly of the world lying in wickedness as to require 
 condign ecclesiastical censure. The poor man was whol 
 ly lost in amazement." Vol. ii. p. 416. 
 
 There is a strange comparison in this book of the 
 French and American republics, in view of the aboli 
 tion of slavery in French colonies, and our refusal to 
 emancipate the slaves, who are a part of society here. 
 Passing this, we come to the following, which is a great 
 trial of American equanimity : 
 
 " A deputation from Ireland here met me, presenting a 
 12 
 
178 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 beautiful bog-oak casket, lined with gold, and carved with 
 appropriate national symbols. They read a beautiful ad 
 dress, and touched upon the importance of inspiring with 
 the principles of emancipation the Irish nation, whose in 
 fluence in our land is becoming so great." Vol. ii. p. 431. 
 
 To excite the poor Irish emigrants with zeal against 
 American slavery is to some of equal importance with 
 lifting them from their proximity to the brutes. One 
 great cause of reluctance to emancipate, is and will con 
 tinue to be, the fear that our colored people would be 
 come what these Irish are at home. 
 
 Once more. The writer is at the Pantheon in Paris. 
 
 " Now, this Pantheon seems to me a monument of the 
 faults and the weakness of this very agreeable nation. Its 
 history shows their enthusiasm, their hero worship, and the 
 want of stabler religious convictions. Nowhere has there 
 been such a want of reverence for the Creator, unless in 
 the American Congress." Vol. ii. p. 399. 
 
 There have been infidels, atheists, and all descriptions 
 of men in the American Congress, individuals who have 
 at times spoken in a way to pierce the heart of the 
 country to the core. So in State legislatures, lyceums, 
 conventions, freedom of speech has been indulged to 
 licentiousness. But the American Congress maintain 
 daily prayers and public worship on the Sabbath, and a 
 private prayer meeting has for a long time been attend 
 ed by a goodly number of that body. This comparison 
 in the Pantheon of our national legislature with French 
 infidels, in the matter of irreverence toward God, shows 
 a state of feeling toward her country for which neither 
 the writer s descent, education, or natural disposition is 
 answerable, for they are above reproach ; but she is 
 unduly affected by her party position with regard to 
 slavery. She sees a negro standing in the sun, as she 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OP SLAVERY. 179 
 
 looks from foreign shores to her own land, and this is 
 Uncle Tom s right ascension in her astronomy of our 
 heavens. In her reperusal abroad of Walter Scott, did 
 this writer forget the Lay of the Last Minstrel and never 
 say to her soul 
 
 " This is my own, my native land " ? 
 
 Yes, but the book, the romance, had been written, and it 
 created an atmosphere which is a sufficient apology for 
 every thing. We enter an arrest of judgment for her 
 against the poet. She shall not " forfeit fair renown." 
 She will live, we trust, to change the tone of her present 
 feelings, when the providence of God unfolds something 
 more of his mysterious, but, we will persist in our hope, 
 benevolent, purposes in connection with American sla 
 very. When we all think and feel alike in regard to 
 this perplexing and now inscrutable subject, we shall 
 rejoice to see this prophetess in Africa s captivity tak 
 ing her timbrel and leading us forth in songs and dances 
 at Africa s redemption. 
 
180 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 BRITISH INTEREST IN AMERICAN SLAVERY. 
 
 THERE is no land in which the common people are 
 better clothed, sheltered, and fed than in the United 
 States, with the exception of one class ; and that is, some 
 who come to us from Great Britain, the poorer class of 
 the Irish Catholics. Human nature in civilized life sel 
 dom goes down to worse degradation than in them, and 
 the land that suffers such specimens of moral deformity 
 to go from her, not in solitary instances, but in ship 
 loads, never should offer compassionating prayers and 
 exhortations, much less reproaches with regard to any 
 other nation, until this class of her own subjects is 
 improved. The most appropriate object in this country 
 for British commiseration and tears, and for addresses 
 from ladies to their sisters here, is the condition of their 
 own people, exiles from Great Britain, some of whom 
 look as the old Egyptians would on whom a few of the ten 
 plagues should have made their mark. To go from their 
 cellars and garrets in Boston and New York, and look 
 upon the southern slaves enjoying not only the necessa 
 ries, but in towns and cities the luxuries, of life, in 
 dulged with all the comforts, and even, in many cases, 
 with the superfluities, of dress, the most cheerful class 
 of people that meets the eye of a stranger in this or any 
 land, and every where enjoying the influences of pure 
 
A. SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 181 
 
 religion, makes one consider what misplaced pity there 
 is in British lamentations over American slavery. 
 
 The abolition of British slavery gives no right to 
 speak to us even in the language of instruction. To 
 abolish slavery in a foreign colony is like cutting off a 
 wen from the body ; our slavery is in our constitution, 
 our blood. Great Britain has never exercised any thing 
 like the curative, painful, critical treatment which eman 
 cipation here would be to us. There is no parallel in 
 raising twenty millions of pounds, and setting free the 
 blacks of the British West Indies, to abolishing Ameri 
 can slavery from the very warp and woof of human life 
 in one third of this nation. 
 
 This venerable mother England, her hoary age reck 
 oned by centuries, has only a few years since begun to re 
 form certain dreadful oppressions and wrongs among her 
 population at home, yet has seemed unwilling to allow 
 her daughter, just come of age, a little time to dispose 
 of one evil imposed upon us by her own hands, and 
 which the country, as such, has no power to remove. 
 
 In Charlotte Elizabeth s Wrongs of Women, and 
 Hewitt s Rural Life in England, there are materials 
 for a more powerful appeal to the feelings of humanity 
 than can be found in American slavery, provided they 
 could be wrought by true genius into the form of a tale. 
 Indeed, there are appeals founded on facts, in the first- 
 named book, in behalf of the milliners, seamstresses, 
 pin makers, lace makers, and colliers of England, which 
 leave an American reader at a loss to account for Brit 
 ish interest, in years past, with regard to our slaves, 
 while such disclosures and remonstrances were published 
 in Great Britain. Well did Charlotte Elizabeth say, 
 " Infanticide in India or China is a very awful thing ; 
 
182 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OP SLAVERY. 
 
 slavery on the African coast makes our freeborn blood 
 tingle in our veins ; and against both, man s lip can utter 
 most persuasive sounds of eloquent appeal, woman s 
 eye can shed a torrent of soft tears over the tale, but 
 infanticide in Nottingham or Birmingham, slavery in 
 Manchester or Leeds our excited feelings are calmed 
 down ; the bright flame of our zeal expires." * 
 
 A good way to correct a morbid state of feeling pro 
 duced by reading a novel founded on American slavery 
 is to read, for example, a piece by the above-named 
 writer, which parallels any thing which slavery has ever 
 furnished. Let it be remembered that the evils of sla 
 very are mostly its abuses, but the evils depicted in 
 such descriptions as the one that follows are system 
 atized wrongs, which within a few years the English 
 have begun to remove, but find that the abolition of evils 
 interwoven with society at home is not a simple and 
 easy work. 
 
 Nell Carter was employed about an English coal 
 mine, and Alice Smith, a villager s wife, had come 
 with her husband to the manufacturing district to 
 earn money. Nell unfolds to Alice the mysteries of 
 the pits : f 
 
 " ( You see that girl with red hair, the most foul-mouthed 
 young slut that ever used bad words well, she is one of 
 nine children, all living in this place ; and I think not one 
 of them knows who made ; em, they re so ignorant. Their 
 mother was a tidy girl, married, very young, to a miner; 
 and he had hardly got her into his power when he took her 
 down into the coal pits " to hurry " for him. You don t 
 know what that is ? Tis the drawing of a wooden car- 
 riage 3 heavy loaded with coals, along the seams of a mine, 
 
 * Wrongs of Women, p. 278, New York ed 
 f Ibid. pp. 99-101. 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OP SLAVERY. 183 
 
 where a body couldn t stand half upright, where all is 
 dark as midnight, except the candlestick in the miner s 
 cap; and where she had to slave like a brute beast, in 
 nothing but her body linen, with a coarse pair of trousers, 
 a thick leathern belt round her waist, a heavy iron chain 
 fastened to it, passing between her legs and hooked on to the 
 carriage, and she dragging it, almost on all fours, through 
 these passages ; ten, twelve, fourteen, or sixteen hours I 
 was going to say every day but there was no day for 
 her. It was dark night always in that frightful mine, and 
 dark nights above ground before she could leave it. 
 
 " e She toiled so for a few months, with her own husband to 
 drive her on in the work ; but he found her earnings would 
 keep him idle half the week, and so he left her there poor 
 young thing among such a set that the worst you ever saw 
 here are angels to them. She worked till the morning of 
 the day her first child was born, a lovely boy, and had 
 to go down again in less than a fortnight, to the same life. 
 Till then, she had kept herself different from the rest ; but 
 it seemed the parting her from the baby made her desper 
 ate. I was told her wild laugh would ring again through 
 the long, black galleries, and her jests keep them all merry ; 
 but her heart was breaking as fast as it could then, and it 
 had broke. But we are blind creatures, and can t tell what 
 is best. It was a great lord owned all these mines ; his 
 agent gave good wages, and got the worth of them out of 
 the miners too. Penrose, seeing the value his wife s toil 
 was of, took some pains to keep her from sinking, and she 
 came round a little, especially when he gave her a holiday 
 now and then to nurse her boy. She had that girl, yonder, 
 for her next; and by the time the third was born, I think 
 she d as little of human nature left about her as could well 
 be found even in a coal pit. My heart has ached to see 
 her, all black and filthy, with a pipe in her mouth, swag 
 gering or standing about, swearing and talking as nobody 
 in a Christian land should be let talk. And it was with her 
 own consent that at four years old her little boy was carried 
 down to his work in the pit. 
 
 " She pauses, for all the color has left Alice Smith s 
 face ; then hastily resumes. 
 
 " t Don t suppose they set the baby " to hurry ; " no, he 
 was only a trapper, sitting behind a door to pull it open 
 with a string, when any of the cobs came up. But it was 
 all in darkness, cold, and silence ; and the child dared not 
 sleep through the long, long, black hours : and he said, 
 poor little thing ! but no matter for that j we will talk of 
 
184 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 the mother. Ah, you begin to feel in your heart, now, that 
 your lot isn t so bad as it might be ! I see that. The poor 
 woman bore ten or eleven children ; nine lived, which was 
 a wonder in all the place. She died at last by an awful 
 death. One of her own children was winding at the pit s 
 mouth, and, by carelessness natural in a child, overwound 
 the rope ; the bucket was drawn over the roller, and down, 
 down she went, how many hundred feet I can not say ; but 
 there was no life in the mangled body. " 
 
 While such fearful things as these abounded in the 
 English collieries, and while every dressmaking estab 
 lishment, as this writer says, in the language of an 
 agent, "killed a gal a year," and Thomas Hood was 
 writing the Song of the Shirt, addresses, remonstrances, 
 were sent over by public bodies to this country, plead 
 ing for the slave. The ladies, who were responsible 
 for the woes of the laboring classes of women, joined 
 in appeals to their sisters here with regard to the con 
 dition of the slaves ; but, most wonderful of all, remon 
 strances came from ecclesiastical bodies in Ireland, which 
 was then depositing upon our shores a population which 
 had few rivals in misery. Well may we use Whitefield s 
 well-known exclamation, "Lord, what is man"! The 
 truth is, this subject of slavery has been the occasion of 
 more fanaticism than almost any thing since the crusades. 
 
 We will not recriminate ; but a sense of injustice to us 
 compels us to allude to one thing for which England has 
 not exercised sufficient repentance, nor made sufficient 
 atonement, to warrant many tears on our account. The 
 wrongs and woes inflicted on young children in Great 
 Britain have nothing to correspond with them in any 
 Christian country. Allusion is made to this topic in the 
 extract already given. There is a piece of poetry by 
 Miss Barrett (Mrs. Browning) which is unsurpassed in 
 the English language for its power to move the feelings, 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 185 
 
 called the " Cry of the Children." Sent down at four 
 years of age, many of them, to work under ground, they 
 find an eloquent pleader in this exquisite poetess, as 
 follows,(the dashes indicating imperfect quotations:) 
 
 " Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers ? 
 Do you question the young children in their sorrow ? 
 Your old earth, they say, is very dreary. 
 Our young feet, they say, are very weak. 
 The graves are for the old. 
 Little Alice died last year ; 
 We looked into the pit prepared to take her ; 
 There was no room for any work in the close clay ; 
 From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her, 
 Crying, Get up, little Alice ; it is day. 
 If you listen by that grave in sun and shower. 
 With your ear down, little Alice never cries. 
 It is good when it happens, say the children, 
 That we die before our time. 
 Go out, children, from the mine. 
 Pluck the meadow cowslips. 
 If we cared for any meadows, it were merely 
 To lie down in them and sleep. 
 The reddest flowers would look as pale as snow." 
 
 " All day long the wheels are droning, turning ; 
 
 Their wind comes in our faces ; 
 Till our hearts turn, and our heads with pulses burning, 
 
 And the walls turn in their places. 
 Turns the sky in the high window, blank and reeling, 
 
 Turns the long light that droopeth down the wall, 
 Turn the black flies, that crawl along the ceiling ; 
 
 Are all turning all the day, and we with all ! 
 And sometimes we could pray, 
 ye wheels, stop, be silent for a day." 
 
 " And well may the children weep before ye ; 
 They are weary ere they run. 
 
 They know the grief of men, but not the wisdom ; 
 Are slaves without liberty in Christdom ; 
 Are martyrs by the pang without the palm." 
 
 Then comes this awful close : 
 
186 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 " How long, they say, how long, O cruel nation, 
 
 Will you stand, to move the world, on a child s heart, 
 Trample down with mailed heel its palpitation, 
 
 And tread onward to your throne amid the mart ? 
 Our hlood splashes upward, O our tyrants, 
 
 And your purple shows your path, 
 But the child s sob curseth deeper in the silence 
 
 Than the strong man in his wrath." 
 
 A nation who had had such a piece as this written about 
 them, verified by commissioners of Parliament, ought 
 to have been sure that no trace of this enormous wrong 
 remained when they rejected American preachers for 
 not being up to their mark on the subject of abolishing 
 slavery, and before they remonstrated with slaveholders. 
 Let any one read Miss Barrett s piece at the south, in 
 sight of some little negroes, on any plantation, or in any 
 town or city. Their condition is paradise compared 
 with that of those whose " cry " is echoed by this lady. 
 What if the colored children in the slave States should 
 have had this piece read and explained to them, and an 
 address should have been written for them to Mrs. 
 Browning, thanking her for her interest in the suf 
 fering children of her own realm, and inviting her to 
 make the tour of the Southern States. We could have 
 made speeches and presented addresses about " the cry 
 of the children " in England which would have been 
 extremely distasteful across the water, especially if Eng 
 land itself were at that time exasperated by a sectional 
 controversy on the subject almost to the point of a civil 
 war. 
 
 It is an occasion for wonder to think of the common 
 antislavery feelings of our own people at the north, com 
 pared with the small amount of zeal and effort employed 
 in behalf of the British outcasts in our cities. Were such 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 187 
 
 meetings and such speeches as are employed to rouse up 
 the north against slavery used to direct public attention 
 to these unhappy creatures, no infidel orator at those 
 meetings would then be subjected to the divine reproach 
 of something worse, if possible, than his infidelity, name 
 ly, of not providing for his own. When shall we send 
 food, and raiment, and shelter, and means of cleanliness, 
 not to say Christian teachers, to the poor of our own 
 cities, to the degree in which the slaves at the south en 
 joy these blessings ? Let us use in behalf of our own 
 poor those stirring appeals drawn from "one blood," "all 
 men free and equal," " am I not a man and brother ? " 
 and add, if we please, "Bunker Hill," " Bill of Rights," 
 "American Independence." There are men, women, 
 and children, who are our neighbors, that need this elo 
 quence in their behalf more than the slaves. They can 
 not recompense us, it is true, with notoriety ; nor with 
 political advantage, except that we shall do most, in car 
 ing for them, to save the country. You may establish 
 schools among these with no danger of imprisonment ; 
 visit them in their miserable homes, and talk kindly to 
 them, without being suspected of incendiary motives ; 
 protect fugitives from God and virtue without breaking 
 any laws. No chains about the Court House prevent you 
 from interposing as bail for tempted souls in their first 
 step into crime ; no Mason s and Dixon s line makes a 
 boundary to your lawful zeal. These poor ye have al 
 ways with you, and when ye will ye may do them good. 
 If the saying be true, that a man who goes to law 
 should have clean hands, he who reproves others for neg 
 lect and sin should be sure that the God before whom he 
 arraigns them can not wither him by that rebuke, " Thou 
 hypocrite ! first cast out the beam out of thine own eye ! " 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 In the following extract from a late number of the 
 New Orleans Creole, we find this subject set forth in an 
 interesting and forcible manner : 
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION OF THE BLACKS IN NEW 
 ORLEANS. No one who has spent a month in New Or 
 leans will deny the fact that the colored population of our 
 city is a happy, well-dressed, and improving race. They 
 are far above the poorer class, or day laborers, of northern 
 towns, in all that tends to comfort and freedom from care. 
 
 It affords matter of astonishment, and an interesting 
 subject for reflection, to those from the Northern States, to 
 stand on the corners of any of our thoroughfares, of a Sab 
 bath morning or an afternoon, and witness the constant 
 succession of group after group of colored people, arrayed 
 in plain, neat, and elegant attire, consisting often of whole 
 families, from aged grandsire to toddling grandchild ; their 
 faces expressive of content and abundance ; their conver 
 sation indicative of genuine happiness, as they wend their 
 way to the various places of worship provided in the city 
 for their accommodation. There is no countenance sharp 
 ened by want ; there is no miserable caricature of human 
 ity, redolent with filth, with rags fluttering in the breeze ; 
 there is no infantile visage crushed into the mould of age ; 
 but ever varied as our colored population is in features and 
 dress, there is the undoubted proof of enjoyment, of plenty, 
 of kind treatment, and of contentedness. 
 
 In the family circle, they receive religious instruction, as 
 well as from the pulpits of their churches. The Sabbath 
 school and the lecture room are open to their entrance. 
 
 We wandered, a week or two since, to the neighborhood 
 of one of their principal places for worship. Before us 
 the street was dotted with gay troops of black, brown, and 
 tawny, on their way to the church. Long before we reached 
 the edifice, the notes of sacred music broke upon the 
 ear, chanted by voices of black worshipers. As we came 
 to the door of the sacred edifice, a novel scene was pre 
 sented. The pulpit was occupied by a preacher of ebony 
 blackness ; around the altar sat several white men, under 
 whose especial care were the exercises of the occasion, 
 who did not, however, interfere with the management o? 
 the religious services. There was a gravity in the gathered 
 audience, filling the entire area of the building, which 
 whiter congregations, in some places, might happily imitate. 
 
 It was soul-inspiring to witness the enthusiasm with 
 which the hymn was sung, the whole audience rising in 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 189 
 
 token of respect : and untutored as were the voices of the 
 many, a note of liquid sweetness was heard, which would 
 have brought down the theatrical critics with thunders of 
 applause. When the prayer was offered, they all bowed, 
 as though each one was personally interested in the peti 
 tion, fervently but rudely uttered. How simply the wants 
 of that crowd were presented ! How trustingly the peti 
 tion was made ! 
 
 The topic of the preacher was the glory of heaven. 
 The speaker knew his hearers. He adapted his language 
 to their capacity. We can not avoid giving an instance of 
 illustration, apt and forcible : 
 
 " My bredren," said he, as he pointed to a stagnant ca 
 nal and filthy thoroughfare, " de streets here am full ob 
 mud ; de water still until it is full of corruption ; de hot sun 
 makes it steam up with bad smells, and often fill de whole 
 city wid death. But, bressed be God, my bredren, dare is 
 no muddy streets in heben : dare are golden pavements 
 and pure waters, and de air is full ob de smell ob de violet 
 and de rose, and de face ob God ever makes de place glo 
 rious wid hebenly light." 
 
 The muttered exclamation of assent showed he had 
 awakened the feelings of his hearers ; and the swinging 
 to and fro of the crowds proved the enthusiasm with which 
 they were moved. 
 
 This scene is repeated on a smaller or larger scale all 
 over the south. The Methodist and Baptist black churches 
 in this city have a very large number of communicants. 
 It is generally acknowledged, by all classes of the com 
 munity, that religious advantages for the slave are imper 
 atively demanded from the master. 
 
 Our plantation slaves on the coast have their regular 
 ministers in religious things ; generally a white clergyman 
 of standing, who preaches at three or four places of a Sab 
 bath day. 
 
 We are familiar with the means of religious instruction 
 for the poor in northern cities, and we can safely aver that 
 their advantages fall far short of those granted the blacks 
 of the south. 
 
190 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE BIBLE AND SLAVERY. 
 
 WHEN the Hebrew nation was organized oy the Most 
 High, he found among the people masters and slaves. 
 He could have purged out slaveholding by positive 
 enactments; he could have rid the people of all the 
 slave owners by making their dead bodies fall in the wil 
 derness. Instead of this, he made slavery the subject 
 of legislation, prescribed its duties, and protected the 
 parties concerned in the performance of them. 
 
 But who can withhold his tribute of love and adora 
 tion at the divine goodness and wisdom which mark the 
 whole Mosaic code, as illustrated in that honorable re 
 gard for man, as man, which strove continually to lift and 
 break the yoke of bondage to his fellow-man from his 
 neck ? They who assert that the Bible sanctions the 
 relation of master and slave are bound to show in what 
 spirit and with what intentions the Most High per 
 mitted the relation to remain. Otherwise they commit 
 the fearful mistake of making infinite goodness and wis 
 dom countenance oppression. 
 
 There are some extremely interesting and even beau 
 tiful illustrations in the Bible of the destiny of involun 
 tary servitude to be from the first a waning, transient 
 relation. Every thing pointed to freedom as the desira 
 ble condition ; easements, deliverances from it, were 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 191 
 
 skillfully prepared in the Hebrew constitution. Maim 
 ing, concubinage, the children of concubines, years of 
 release, jubilees, all the various conditions and seasons 
 connected with the termination of bondage, show that 
 slavery was a condition out of which it is the destiny of 
 human nature to rise ; and falling into it is a calamity, 
 a retrogression. 
 
 The preferableness of freedom to slavery, in the divine 
 mind and plan, is set forth in the passage where Jere 
 miah, in the name of God, directed, in the last days of 
 the nation, that every Hebrew servant should be manu 
 mitted according to law ; for afflictions were making them 
 break off their sins. This divine injunction was obeyed ; 
 but afterwards they reconsidered their repentance, and 
 the servants were reduced again to bondage. God ap 
 peals to them against this outrage, by reminding them 
 of Egypt, and of his appointment in their early history 
 of years of release, and charges them with " polluting " 
 his name by the reestablishment of slavery over those 
 who had a right to liberty, threatening them for this in 
 these words of awful irony : " Behold, I proclaim a lib 
 erty for you, saith the Lord, to the sword, to the pesti 
 lence, and to the famine ; and I will make you to be 
 removed into all the kingdoms of the earth." * 
 
 The New Testament speaks out, not in ordinances, 
 but in words, and teaches more distinctly that freedom 
 is to be preferred when it may be had. " If thou mayest 
 be free, use it rather." 
 
 It is as though bondage were incident to darkness and 
 twilight, and removable only by the clear sunlight of a 
 state of society which would be incompatible with every 
 
 * Jer. xxxiv. 8-22. 
 
192 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 form of oppression. So we find that wherever the influ 
 ence of religion reaches a high point, slavery wholly 
 changes its character, though it may continue in form and 
 name. It may be benevolent to individuals, to a class, 
 that the form of slavery remain ; but in such a case the 
 yoke is broken, and to fight against the form and the 
 name, when the thing itself had ceased to be an evil, 
 would be to fight a shadow. 
 
 The wise manner in which the Apostles deal with 
 slavery is one incidental proof of their inspiration. 
 The hand of the same God who framed the Mosaic code 
 is evidently still at work in directing his servants, the 
 Apostles, how to deal with slavery. Men with their 
 benevolence and zeal, if left to themselves, would, some 
 of them, have gone to extremes on that subject; for 
 " ultraism," as we call it, is the natural tendency of good 
 men, not fully instructed, in their early zeal. The dis 
 position to put away a heathen husband or wife, abstain 
 ing from marriage and from meats, Timothy s omission 
 to take wine in sickness, show this, and make it re 
 markable that slavery was dealt with as it was by the 
 Apostles. Only they who had the Spirit of God in them 
 could have spoken so wisely, so temperately, with regard 
 to an evil which met them every where with its bad 
 influences and grievous sorrows. Some in their day, who 
 professed to be Christian teachers, were " ultraists," and 
 could not restrain themselves, but evidently encouraged 
 servants not to count their masters worthy of all honor, 
 and to use the equality of divine grace to them and their 
 believing masters, as a claim to equality in other things, 
 thus despising their believing masters because they were 
 brethren. Never is the Apostle Paul more severe in the 
 use of epithets than in denouncing such teachers and 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 193 
 
 their doctrines. Far as possible from countenancing 
 servitude as a condition which man has a right to per 
 petuate, or to which any class of men is doomed, but 
 declaring plainly that freedom is to be preferred by the 
 slave, he and his fellow-laborers employed themselves 
 in disseminating those principles and that spirit which 
 would make slavery as an oppression impossible, chan 
 ging its whole nature by abolishing all the motives which 
 create such an institution. But as it is not sunrise in 
 every place at the same moment, and in places where 
 the sun has risen there are ravines and vales, where the 
 light is slow to enter, so we can not expect that the evils 
 of slavery will disappear at once, even where the religion 
 of Christ generally prevails ; but in proportion as it ex 
 tends its influence, slavery is sure to cease in all its 
 objectionable features. An interesting illustration of 
 this, on a large scale, is afforded by the state of slavery 
 in the United States and Cuba. Spanish slavery has a 
 very mild code, but is severe and oppressive. American 
 slavery has perhaps as rigid a code as any ; but practi 
 cally, it is the mildest form of involuntary servitude, 
 and few would justify themselves in doing no better for 
 their slaves than the law requires. Pure religion must 
 have the credit of this difference, teaching us that to 
 remove slavery we must promote spiritual religion, and 
 to this end use every means to propagate Christian 
 knowledge and Christian charity. 
 
 We are not as wise as Paul if we withdraw our 
 Christian teachers and books, imbued with the great 
 principles of pure religion, from communities where we 
 are not allowed to do all the good which we may de 
 sire, or to present a duty in such specific forms as our 
 preferences dictate. Our principle ought not to be, to 
 13 
 
194 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OP SLAVERY. 
 
 abandon men as soon as we are resisted, or can not say 
 and do all that we would ; but we should study ways to 
 remain, trusting to the power of light and love to open 
 doors for us. The dust which we too readily shake off 
 from our feet against men will be a witness against us, 
 rather than against them. It must gratify the arch 
 enemy to see us withdraw our forces in solemn indigna 
 tion at his show of resistance. The children of this 
 world do not suffer themselves to be so easily foiled, nor 
 do they force unacceptable offerings upon Japan, but 
 ply her with things to tempt her desire for further com 
 modities, representing their usefulness in ways which 
 do not excite national jealousy and pride. 
 
 It is refreshing to escape from those books of over 
 heated zeal which attack slavery, and read the passages 
 in the New Testament relating to the subject ; breath 
 ing a spirit fatal to oppression, yet counseling no meas 
 ures against it because of its seeming trust in its own 
 omnipotent influence wherever it shall build its throne. 
 
 Paul s refusal to interfere between Onesimus and his 
 master is one of those gentle lessons of wisdom on this 
 subject which are so characteristic of his spirit in deal 
 ing with this public evil. That small epistle to Phile 
 mon, that one chapter, that little piece of parchment, 
 that mere note of apology, that this should have 
 fallen into the sacred canon, and not the epistle to La- 
 odicea, is curious and interesting to those who regard 
 the providence of God in the canon of Scripture. That 
 little writing is like a small, firm beach, where storms 
 have beaten, but have left it pure and white. It is the 
 least of all seeds in Paul s Epistles. It is a curiosity of 
 inspiration, a solitary idiom in a language, a Stonehenge 
 in a country, a warm stream in the sea ; it begins with 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 195 
 
 loving salutations, ends with affectionate Christian mes 
 sages, and sends back a servant to his master and to a 
 system of slavery under which this fugitive could, if his 
 master required, be put to death. Now, he who argues 
 from this that he has an unqualified right to reclaim his 
 slave, and subject him to just such treatment as he 
 pleases, is as much at fault as those who are at the 
 other extreme. It was to a Philemon that Onesimus 
 was returned ; it was to Abraham s house that Hagar 
 was remanded. While the abstract principle of owner 
 ship is defended by these examples, he who uses them to 
 the injury of a fellow-being will find that God has stores 
 of vengeance for him, and that his own " Master in 
 heaven" is the inexorable Judge. 
 
 The difference in the Apostles way of dealing with 
 slavery, and with other evils, teaches clearly that the 
 relation itself is not in their view sinful. Many insist 
 that it is sinful, that the Apostles must so have regarded 
 it, and that the reason why they did not attack it is, they 
 would not interfere with the laws and government. It 
 is said " they girdled slavery, and left it to die." 
 
 But this surely is not in accordance with the apostolic 
 spirit. There is no public wickedness which they mere 
 ly girdled and left to die. Paul did not quietly pass his 
 axe round the public sins of his day. His divine Mas 
 ter did not so deal with adultery and divorces. James 
 did not girdle wars and fightings, governmental measures. 
 Let Jude be questioned on this point, with that thunder 
 bolt of an Epistle in his hand. Even the beloved dis 
 ciple disdained this gentle method of dealing with pub 
 lic sins when he prophesied against all the governments 
 of the earth at once. 
 
 ^ut slavery, declared by some to be the greatest sin 
 
196 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 against God s image in man, most fruitful, it is said, of 
 evils, is not assaulted, but the sins and abuses under it are 
 reproved,* the duties pertaining to the relation of master 
 and slave are prescribed, a slave is sent back to servitude 
 with an inspired epistle in his hand, and slavery itself 
 is nowhere assailed. On the contrary, masters are in 
 structed and exhorted with regard to their duties as slave- 
 holdersy Suppose the instructions which are addressed 
 to slaveholders to be addressed to those sinners with 
 whom slaveholders are promiscuously classed by many, 
 for example : " Thieves, render to those from whom you 
 may continue to steal, that which is just and equal." "And, 
 ye murderers, do the same things unto your victims, 
 forbearing threatening." " Let as many as are cheated 
 count their extortioners worthy of all honor." If to be a 
 slave owner is in itself parallel with stealing and other 
 crimes, miserable subterfuge to say that Paul did not 
 denounce it because it was connected with the institu 
 tions of society ; that he " girdled it, and left it to die." 
 Happy they whose principles with regard to slavery 
 enable them to have a higher opinion of Paul than thus 
 to make him a timeserver and a slave to expediency. 
 v But was he therefore " a proslavery man " ? Not he. 
 Would he have spoken against the system of American 
 slavery had he lived in our day ? Surely he would ; 
 against its evils, its abuses, its sins, but not against the 
 relation of master and slave.. Suppose that Philemon 
 had thrown Onesimus into prison for absconding, and 
 Paul had heard of his having lain there three months 
 till he was sick with jail fever, and likely to die. If he 
 could have reached Philemon through church discipline, 
 and the offender had persisted in his sin, we can imagine 
 Paul directing the church "in the name of the Lord Jesus 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 197 
 
 to deliver such an one to Satan for the destruction of the 
 flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord 
 Jesus." Any church that suffers a member to deal 
 wrongfully with his servant, or suffers a slave member 
 to be recklessly sold, has in Paul s epistles single words 
 and whole sentences which ought to make it quail. Yet 
 there is not a word there against the relation of master 
 and slave ; and for what reason ? 
 
 The way in which the Apostles evidently purposed 
 to remove slavery, was by creating a state of things in 
 which it would cease. This method is not analogous to 
 girdling trees, but to another process resorted to by hus 
 bandmen. Their only method of expelling certain 
 weeds sorrel, for example is, to enrich the soil. 
 The gospel is to slavery what the growing of clover is 
 to sorrel. Religion in the masters destroys every thing 
 in slavery which makes it obnoxious ; and not only so, 
 it converts the relation of the slave into an effectual 
 means of happiness. In many instances at the south, 
 for example, slavery is no more slavery so long as those 
 masters live ; and if religion were every where pre 
 dominant, their servants would not suffer by the death 
 of their masters any more than by time and chance, 
 which happen to all. Religion will never remove men s 
 need of being served and of serving ; but it will make 
 service an honorable and happy employment, under what 
 ever name it may pass. And as farmers do not attack 
 weeds for the mere sake of expelling them, but to use 
 their place for something better, so the New Testament 
 does not attack slavery to drive it out, but gets posses 
 sion of the heart, which is naturally tyrannical and cov 
 etous, and, filling it with the fruits of the Spirit, the 
 works of the flesh disappear. 
 
198 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 When a man repents and is converted, he does not 
 repent of his sins one by one, but there is a state of heart 
 created within him, with regard to all sin, which constitutes 
 repentance. In accordance with this we do not find the 
 Bible laboring merely to make a man specifically peni 
 tent, but it uses one sin and another to lead the man back 
 to that heart which is the root of all his sins. Those who 
 preach to convicts tell us that when they are convinced 
 of sin, if they fix their thoughts upon particular trans 
 gressions, and make them the special subjects of repent 
 ance, one of two things happens ; they either see the 
 whole of their sin and misery by means of these in 
 stances of wickedness, or they confine their thoughts to 
 these items, and then become superficial and self-righteous. 
 David s sin, as we see by the fifty-first Psalm, led him to 
 feel and deplore his ruined nature. Many attempts to 
 reform particular evils in society which grow out of hu 
 man wickedness have no effect to make men true peni 
 tents, though reformations of morals and of abuses are al 
 ways auxiliary to religion ; but if an equal amount of zeal 
 employed in assailing abuses were employed in promot 
 ing Christian piety and charity by diffusing Christian 
 knowledge and ordinances, and also by the influence of 
 a good temper and spirit, especially where Christian men 
 are the objects of our zeal, and their cooperation and 
 influence are our surest means of success, we should see 
 changes in society brought about in a healthful way, 
 which would be permanent because of the basis of char 
 acter on which they would rest. But all this antifebrile 
 sentiment is scorned by overheated zealots. Still there 
 is sound discretion in these words of Dr. Chalmers : 
 
 " I have been a projector in my day, and, much as I have 
 been employed with the economics of society, my convic 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 199 
 
 tion is more and more strengthened in the utter vanity of 
 all expedients short of faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ; 
 whose disciples are the salt of the earth, and through whose 
 spirituality and religion, alone, we can look for the perma 
 nent civilization and comfort of the species, or even for 
 earthly blessings ; which come after, and not before, the 
 kingdom of God and his righteousness." * 
 
 The apostolic spirit with regard to slavery, surely, is 
 not of the same tone with the spirit which encourages 
 slaves every where to flee from their masters, and teaches 
 them that his swiftest horse, his boat, his purse, are theirs, 
 if they wish to escape. Philemon, traveling with Ones- 
 imus, was not annoyed by a vigilance committee of Paul s 
 Christian friends with a habeas corpus to rescue the ser 
 vant from his master ; nor did these friends watch the 
 arrival of ships to receive a fugitive consigned by " the 
 saints and faithful brethren which were at Colosse" to the 
 " friends of the slave " at Corinth. True, these disci 
 ples had not enjoyed the light which the Declaration of 
 American Independence sheds on the subject of human, 
 rights. Moses, Paul, and Christ were their authorities 
 on moral subjects ; but our infidels tell us that we should 
 have a far different New Testament could it be writ 
 ten for us now ; but since we can not have a new Bible 
 now and then, this proves that " God can not make a 
 revelation to us in a book." Every man, they say, must 
 decide as to his duty by the light of present circumstances,, 
 not by a book written eighteen hundred years ago. Zeal 
 against American slavery has thus been one of the chief 
 modern foes to the Bible. Let him who would not be 
 come an infidel and atheist beware and not follow his 
 sensibilities, as affected by cases of distress, in preference 
 
 * Sab. Readings, Deut. xxxiv. 
 
200 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 to the word of God, which the unhappy fate of some 
 who have made shipwreck of their faith in their zeal 
 against slavery shows to be the best guide. 
 
 I may be allowed to state the manner in which my 
 own mind was relieved at the south with regard to the 
 prospects of slavery. From youth, I had believed that 
 its removal is essential to our continued existence as a 
 nation, and yet no one saw in what way this change 
 was to be effected. My error was in supposing that the 
 blacks must be removed in order to remove slavery, or, 
 that they must be emancipated ; that we must have some 
 " first of August" to mark a general manumission. Now 
 there are many slaveholders at the south who make 
 the condition of their slaves as comfortable and happy 
 .as the condition of the same persons could be in any cir 
 cumstances. Wicked men are permitted by the present 
 laws to practise iniquity and oppression; but when 
 the influence of good men so far prevails as to make 
 laws which will restrain and govern those who are 
 susceptible to no influence but that of authority, the 
 form of slavery will be all pertaining to it which will 
 remain, and this only while it is for the highest good 
 of all concerned, and acknowledged to be so by both 
 parties, the doom of the blacks, as a race, being aban 
 doned, and the interests of each individual, his inclina 
 tion and aptitude, being regarded in finding employ 
 ment for him. I saw that if good men at the south 
 were left to themselves without annoyance by foreign in 
 tervention, the spirit of the New Testament with regard 
 to slavery might ere long be fulfilled. Nor would the 
 Old Testament jubilee, or seventh year release, be 
 necessary ; these, like other things in Moses, being done 
 away in Christ by the bestowal of liberty, or protection 
 
A SOUTH- SIDE VIEW OP SLAVERY. 201 
 
 under Christian masters ; no ceremonial, therefore, being 
 needed to effect or announce their liberty, and jubilees 
 and seventh years, indeed, not coming fast enough, and 
 being too formal for the times. Let us feel and act frater 
 nally with regard to the south, defend them against inter 
 ference, abstain from every thing assuming and dictatorial, 
 leave them to manage their institution in view of their 
 accountability to God, and, if we please, in view of the 
 line upon line and precept upon precept which we, their 
 many and very capable instructors, male and female, 
 have vouchsafed to them, and we may expect that Amer 
 ican slavery will cease to be any thing but a means of 
 good to the African race. When no longer available 
 for good, the form itself will be abolished. 
 
 Suppose that we should receive a report from mission 
 aries giving an account of three millions of people 
 brought out of heathenism and elevated to the position 
 of the slaves in our Southern States. While we should 
 join with the missionaries to deplore remaining evils 
 and certain liabilities to evil among them, we should fill 
 our prayers with praises at the marvelous work of grace 
 among that people. And were the foreign lords of that 
 people generally in favor of their improvement, and 
 very many of them examples of all kindness and faith 
 fulness, we should be careful how we interfered with the 
 leaven which was leavening, slowly, but surely, the whole 
 mass of the population. Some, however, as now, would 
 wish to precipitate the process. 
 
 In addition to what has been said of the way in which 
 the gospel will affect slavery, it may be observed that 
 common humanity, self-interest, and law may, each in 
 its own method, do all the good in its power, without 
 waiting for the higher motives of spiritual religion. 
 
202 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 Nor are we to neglect or disparage means and measures 
 which tend to good, though actuated merely by considera 
 tions of policy. Yet spiritual religion is God s chosen 
 instrument of doing the greatest amount of good in the 
 best possible way. It puts every thing at work for its 
 object ; it purifies our motives ; it makes the result per 
 manent ; it saves men from the temptations incident to 
 victory and defeat. 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 203 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 FEELINGS OF SLAVES, AND FEELINGS FOR THE 
 SLAVES, CONTRASTED. 
 
 THE feelings and language of some leading opposers 
 of slavery are greatly to be deplored for the bad effect 
 which they have upon the country and upon the best 
 interests of the slave. No one can be at the south for 
 a while and not feel that the spirit, language, and meas 
 ures of such men are very hurtful, being not only use 
 less, but positively frustrating the good which is profess 
 edly sought. 
 
 At the south, after reading the report of an abolition 
 meeting in New York in May last, at which the speak 
 ers seemed to be in throes of anguish on account of 
 slavery, and were for dissolving the Union, declaring also 
 the Christian church to be the great defender of the 
 greatest of sins, and representing the house of bondage 
 at the south as a universal mass of corruption through 
 festering sins and wounds, I happened to attend a re 
 ligious meeting of slaves on the Sabbath. Their pas 
 tor, a white man, preached a sermon to them on the 
 assurance of Christian hope. They stood up to sing. 
 Such was the evident contrast between the report of 
 the meeting in New York, with its infidelity and almost 
 blasphemy, and this company of worshiping slaves, that 
 it seemed to me, could that song of the slaves have 
 broken in upon the abolition meeting, it would have 
 been to it almost as when one in another place " saw 
 
V 
 
 NC 
 
 204 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom." The 
 pastor from the pulpit called on one of the colored men 
 to conclude with prayer. He kneeled before a seat in 
 the aisle, an elderly negro with a gray head, and seemed 
 to forget that there was any ear but that of God that 
 listened to his humble, earnest prayer. Thus, while 
 some are burning the Constitution and pulling down the 
 fabric of the American Union to rid themselves of sla 
 very, the great plan of human redemption, as it respects 
 the African race, is proceeding noiselessly at the south, 
 and there is joy more frequently perhaps in the pres 
 ence of the angels of God over a penitent sinner there 
 than among the same number of souls in any part of 
 our land.^ One of the best of men, who ministers to a 
 hurch having-Dn its list twenty-seven hundred blacks, 
 writes to me, " In the church I serve there are some 
 of the most beautiful specimens of Christian character 
 I ever saw. Often have I witnessed the calm, intelli 
 gent, triumphant death bed, and have said in my soul, I 
 shall not be fit to sit at the feet of these in heaven. I 
 experience from them great affection, and regret most 
 deeply that, as reputation among men can not operate as 
 an incentive to preparation, I have not a more simple 
 love to Christ and souls to urge me to diligence in 
 studying for the pulpit." 
 
 A slave, with a subdued, touching face, stood up one 
 evening in a prayer meeting of the colored people, and 
 broke the silence by repeating two lines at a time of the 
 hymn beginning thus : 
 
 " How sad our state by nature is ! 
 
 Our sin how deep it stains ! 
 And Satan binds our captive minds 
 Fast in his slavish chains. 
 
 " But there s a voice of sovereign grace," &c. 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 205 
 
 It would seem strange to many that a slave should 
 feel that there are " chains " more to be deplored than 
 those of southern slavery ; but they would find in the 
 religious meetings of the colored people that there is 
 a bondage which, in the view of the slaves, would more 
 appropriately be the subject of certain conventions which 
 have been held, than American slavery a bondage which 
 makes infidel opposers of slavery proper objects of com 
 passion and subjects of prayer with the slaves as they 
 look down with concern from their religious assemblies 
 upon those unbelievers who meet to pity them. 
 
 Tens of thousands among them feel and speak as 
 one of them did to whom in conversation I ventured to 
 put the question whether he would like to be free. 
 Twisting the withes of old grape vines around the ends 
 of rails in mending a fence, he thought a moment, 
 turned his face toward me, while he held a rail, half 
 tied, in its place, and emphasizing his words with motions 
 of his head, he replied, each word being deliberately 
 separated from the rest : " I want to be free from my 
 sins ; them s all my burden ; and if I can get that, the 
 balance of the rest may go from me." We were in the 
 woods alone ; I had spoken of heaven ; he feared he 
 should " never see that happy place ; " I spoke of par 
 don through Christ ; his hopes revived ; he promised 
 that he would look to Christ alone for salvation, and 
 after I had gone from him some way, he broke out 
 with the well-known tune of Ortonville : 
 
 " Majestic sweetness sits enthroned 
 Upon the Saviour s brow." 
 
 The woods were filled with his powerful voice. I 
 thought of those words, which can seldom be quoted at 
 
206 A SOUTH-SIDE VIET7 OF SLAVERY. 
 
 the present day with safety to one s reputation as being 
 " right on the subject of slavery," but which were illus 
 trated in him " Art thou called being a servant ? 
 care not for it." Paul evidently was not so much dis 
 tressed in his mind about slavery and the slaves, as 
 some of us are who know less about slavery than he, 
 and feel far less than he what it is to be " called." 
 
 We frequently hear it said, referring to the duty of re 
 moving slavery, that we must break every yoke. Many 
 who say this reckon that in the United States there are 
 three million two hundred and four thousand three hun 
 dred and thirteen " yokes," this being the number of 
 slaves. 
 
 Now, you can not pass through the south and not see 
 that a very large number may at once be struck from 
 this reckoning of yokes ; that there are very many slaves 
 who, if you should propose to break a " yoke " for them, 
 would not understand you. The question is not as to 
 enslaving a new people ; nor does it relate to the An 
 tilles, nor to Guiana, nor to Mexico ; it relates to these 
 people who are here ; and the proper question is not an 
 abstract one with regard to slavery, but what is best for 
 this people in their circumstances. The troubles which 
 we impute to their condition are many of them like the 
 most of our own, viz., " borrowed troubles ; " we make 
 them in our thoughts bear the burdens of all the possi 
 ble evils which theoretically belong to the system of 
 slavery. Even if we take all these into view, the amount 
 of happiness among them compares favorably with that 
 among the same number of people elsewhere. If there 
 are some evils to which they are exposed, there are 
 others from which they are exempt. The feeling in 
 voluntarily arose within me at the south, and especially 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OP SLAVERY. 207 
 
 in the religious meetings of the, slaves, Would that 
 all Africa were here ! Could villages and tribes of 
 Africans be by any means induced to emigrate to this 
 land, and be placed under the influences which the 
 slaves enjoy, Ethiopia would stretch out her hands to God 
 sooner than the most sanguine interpreters of prophecy 
 now dare to hope. It is deeply affecting to hear 
 the slaves give thanks in their prayers that they have 
 not been left like the heathen who know not God, 
 but are raised, as it were, to heaven in their Christian 
 privileges. 
 
208 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 CHEERFUL VIEWS. CONCLUSION. 
 
 WE ought to be the happiest people on earth. The 
 strongest mutual affection should exist between the dif 
 ferent parts of a country constituted as we are. Our 
 family of States, so many sovereignties governing them 
 selves, yet consenting to be governed, like constellations, 
 each with its own order and laws, but all obeying one 
 great rule, suggesting, as organized communities, more 
 than any other nation, the divine pattern of the tribes 
 in the Hebrew commonwealth; our heroic origin sur 
 passing even the fabulous romantic beginnings of other 
 nations, but superior to them in its pious and benevolent 
 motives ; the names of our States holding charmed asso 
 ciations of adventure and exploit, the Indian relics, 
 shrined in the names, growing more and more interest 
 ing with age ; our enthusiastic union in times of peril ; 
 the reception, one by one, of new members into the house 
 hold, and thereupon one star after another quietly taking 
 its place in the field of our flag ; the beautiful respect 
 paid to the humblest member of the family by her 
 equality of representation in the Senate with the proud 
 est State ; our territory compassed overhead by such a 
 zone and around by oceans, yet the sea shores exceeded 
 by the coasts of navigable inland lakes ; our rivers ; our 
 soil adapted to almost every culture ; the absence of 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 209 
 
 social disabilities, and the political equality of the citi 
 zens ; our freedom of faith and speech ; our rulers 
 chosen by the people ; our ability to receive and pro 
 tect the oppressed of other lands ; our schools, our Sab 
 bath, our vigorous manhood, reached at the period of 
 the world s history when we can be preeminently useful 
 by our example and influence, bring together more 
 elements of happiness for a nation than are elsewhere 
 found. 
 
 It might well be said to us, "Beloved, if God so 
 loved us, we ought also to love one another." 
 
 The providence of God, as it shall unfold with regard 
 to the African race, will no doubt greatly affect our 
 hearts. We are apprehending trouble and sorrow on 
 account of this people. In the abyss of the future we 
 hear such confused noises as might have been heard in 
 the sounding deep of chaos, when mountains and seas 
 were jostling into their places. Order was asserting her 
 sway, and at the present time, while " chains and sla 
 very" fill the ears and appall the hearts of many, some 
 great development of providence with regard to the Afri 
 can race may be approaching. Let us settle this in our 
 minds, that progress and improvement are to be the rule 
 of human destiny, and let us have patience one with 
 another. Never, we are constrained to think, could 
 slavery have existed so long amidst such influences of 
 Christianity as prevail in this country, and such efforts 
 of the southern people themselves to abolish it, were it 
 not that God intends to use us as the chief instruments 
 of good to the African race. Therefore he has suffered 
 us to be greatly afflicted on account of them ; and now 
 he may be leading us to the brink of ruin by our con 
 nection with this people, to show us that we must unite 
 14 
 
210 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY 
 
 to redeem and bless them, if it be only for our own pres 
 ervation. Their increase has averaged in each ten 
 years four or five per centum more than that of the 
 whites. Had it not been for the foreign immigration 
 of white persons, they would have been in 1850 nearer 
 to an equality with the whites by three hundred and 
 fifty or four hundred, thousand. The time must come 
 when the slaves will outnumber the whites in some dis 
 tricts of the country. A leader only will be necessary 
 to place them in a position in which they can make their 
 own terms with us. Surely we are bound by sentiments 
 of common human brotherhood, riot to say by ties of 
 country, to look upon the south not as an enemy, but as 
 one whom we would invite and encourage to lead our 
 efforts in union with theirs in behalf of this people.* 
 
 We turn to our southern brethren and friends, there 
 fore, and with no obtrusive zeal we beg them to let us 
 stand related to them, and to this subject, as their 
 friends and brethren ; not repelling us, but encouraging 
 every sign of desire to promote a good understanding. 
 Let us together wait and hope till Providence discloses 
 ways of doing good to the African race, in which we 
 shah 1 have been prepared to cooperate by a previous 
 cultivation of mutual good feelings. God will not leave 
 us always to contend together. "The north and the 
 south, thou hast created them ; Tabor and Hermon shall 
 rejoice in thy name." 
 
 A young missionary from the south was embarking 
 for Africa. His mother was taking leave of him ; her 
 
 * See some valuable statistics with regard to the blacks in this 
 country, in several articles in the Boston Courier, ending March 2, 
 1853, understood to be from the pen of Dr. J. Chickering. 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 211 
 
 arms were round his neck. She cried, " O Granville, 
 Granville, my dear son, how can I give you up ! " The 
 son, without embracing his mother, stood, and lifted his 
 arms above her, and stretched them out beyond her, and 
 cried, louder than his mother, " Africa, Africa, how 
 can I give you up ! " At foreign missionary meetings in 
 the Southern States I noticed that African missions in 
 terested the people most deeply. The south is best 
 qualified to lead the whole country in plans and efforts 
 for the African race. We will follow her. 
 
 In the first part of this book I have spoken of a choir 
 whose performances were not so cultivated as edifying ; 
 but there was one occasion, when, in listening to the per 
 formances of a colored choir on the Sabbath, it is no 
 exaggeration to say that I enjoyed more than in the per 
 formance of sacred music at any time by any other choir, 
 such was the perfect time, accentuation, judicious stress, 
 varied movement, and just conception of the sentiments 
 of the hymns sung by fifteen voices of remarkable va 
 riety. One development of African talent hereafter 
 will no doubt be in music. Even now we have illus 
 trations of the power which some of their popular airs 
 have over the common mind in whistling boys, and 
 military bands, and the merry making parlor music. 
 The colored people will give us music of a natural 
 order, full of genuine feeling, opening its way directly 
 to the general heart. Their voices probably surpass all 
 voices known to us in sweetness, compass, and power ; 
 male tenor voices, so rare among us, abound among them ; 
 large additions to human happiness await us from this 
 source, under proper cultivation. In the choir now al 
 luded to there was a man whose voice was like a reed 
 
212 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 instrument ; and in other choirs and meetings no such 
 vocal phenomena have ever occurred to me as among 
 the blacks. This choir sung a hymn, a voluntary per 
 formance, at the opening of public worship, which in the 
 state of mind with which I was thinking of the slaves, 
 seemed as though I was hearing it sung to them by 
 those who sung over Bethlehem at the nativity. That 
 slaves, though a few of this choir were free, that 
 these representatives of Africa, should sing this hymn 
 with perfect skill and deep feeling, seemed beautifully 
 prophetic. The tune was " Marton," in Cantica Lau- 
 dis: 
 
 " On the mountain top appearing, 
 Lo, the sacred herald stands, 
 Joyful news to Zion bearing, 
 Zion long in captive lands. 
 
 Mourning captive ! 
 God himself will loose thy bands. 
 
 " Lo, thy sun is risen in glory ; 
 
 God himself appears thy friend ; 
 All thy foes shall flee before thee ; 
 Here their boasted triumphs end. 
 
 Great deliverance ! 
 Zion s King vouchsafes to send. 
 
 " Enemies no more shall trouble ; 
 
 All thy wrongs shall be redressed ; 
 For thy shame thou shalt have double, 
 In thy Maker s favor blest. 
 
 All thy conflicts 
 End in an eternal rest." 
 
 Those who wait for the consolation of Africa, and who 
 love to sing, can make this hymn and tune keep fresh 
 their best affections for that people, and help their peti 
 tions for the approach of the time when "for their shame 
 
A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 213 
 
 they shall have double, and for confusion they shall 
 rejoice in their portion." 
 
 If the nations of the earth celebrate in heaven their 
 national experiences under the providence and grace of 
 God, Africa s song will probably do as much as any to 
 illustrate them. But who will write Africa s hymn? 
 What mysteries of providence and grace, what remem 
 brances of woe, what corresponding heights of joy and 
 bliss, what forgiveness and love, what adoration, what 
 sweet affections born of chastisement, what appreciation 
 of heaven, with its liberty, and equality, and recompense 
 of patient suffering, will that hymn contain, and with 
 what voices will it be sung ! No man can learn that 
 song, no man can write it, but some African slave. We 
 from America shall listen to that song with feelings unlike 
 those of any other nation. 
 
 If there were truth in the fancy that angels are per 
 mitted to invent flowers, he must have been the most 
 original, and the most to be wondered at, who invented 
 the cactus, the rough, misshapen thing, which puts forth 
 a flower surpassed by nothing in the kingdom of nature. 
 As though to vex and repel for a time, and then to as 
 tonish, and to secure the love and care of woman ; as 
 though it were a hieroglyphic, coarse in its engraving 
 and exquisite in its sense; an emblem of God s afflictions 
 and their fruits in those whom he loves ; a promise vege 
 tating ; faith, having no sight ; hope, with the reward of 
 patience concealed in it, this cactus always impressed 
 me more than any other plant. When, at the south, I 
 spent a morning in a burying ground of the colored 
 people, reading the simple, touching inscriptions, 
 
 " Their names, their years, spelt by the unlettered muse," 
 
214 A SOUTH-SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 and saw, all about in the grass, the prickly pear, embryo 
 cactuses, gathering round the graves of the slaves, I felt 
 no need of one to interpret for me. The deep murmur 
 in the tops of the pines overhead, with the birds singing 
 in the branches, comported well with the discovery of 
 this token of present, thorny sorrow, this emblem of 
 Africa in her past history and her coming beauty, and 
 in the love which she is to win from all hearts. 
 
NOTICES. 
 
 From the Presbyterian Witness, Nashville, Tenn. 
 Upon the whole we regard it as the most calm, truthful, manly, 
 and sensible book that has ever yet appeared from the Northern 
 or Southern press, on the subject of Slavery. 
 
 From Chancellor JOHNSTON, South Carolina. 
 I have read Dr. Adams s production with care, and, besides, I 
 have the opinion of one or two friends in whose hands I placed 
 it ; and our unanimous judgment is, it is one of the best works, 
 if not the very best, on the subject to which it relates, that has 
 emanated from the press. It manifests exceeding candor, dis 
 criminating and penetrating observation, and an uncommon pow 
 er of setting the conclusions to which he has come, as well as the 
 reasons of them, in a clear light. He has shown himself a true 
 philanthropist, a just man, a genuine patriot, and a sincere and 
 fearless lover of the truth. His sagacity in so completely seeing 
 through the workings of a social system so entirely different from 
 any that had ever before fallen under his personal observation, 
 is indeed wonderful. The whole country, North and South, the 
 whole of this great Federal Republic, owes a deep and inextin 
 guishable obligation to Dr. Adams for his noble effort and his 
 masterly performance of it. 
 
 From Hon. E, A. NESBIT, formerly Judge of the Supreme* 
 
 Court, Georgia. 
 
 In common with thousands of our people, I have read the 
 South Side View of Slavery with extraordinary interest. We are 
 so unaccustomed to be treated with justice by the writers of the 
 Free States, that this calm, kind, enlightened, and encouraging 
 demonstration is hailed with gratitude and admiration. His 
 moral courage is as eminent as his Christian charity is conspic 
 uous. Inspired by a charity as great as this great nation, and as 
 broad as Christianity, he has quietly, yet clearly and bravely, 
 asserted the just rights of our section under the Constitution. 
 
 (215) 
 
216 NOTICES. 
 
 I testify to the general correctness of his representations of 
 Slavery. It is a wonder to us how, with all the prejudices of 
 education to overcome, and all the committals of position and 
 association to resist, he is so often sound, ourselves being judges. 
 The good sense and conscience of New England will find it hard 
 to resist either the logic or the religion of the South Side View 
 of Slavery. It is incontestably true, that if " the friends of the 
 slaves" ever are enabled to benefit the objects of their solicitude, 
 it will be in the spirit of Dr. Adams s book. 
 
 From Hon. JOHN B. O NEALL, Chief Justice of the Supreme 
 
 Court, South Carolina, to a Gentleman of Philadelphia. 
 I had received the South Side View of Slavery, and was 
 delighted with the work. I think it will do great good among us. 
 
 From the Richmond (Va.) Dispatch. 
 
 We hesitate not to say, that this book is the fairest picture of 
 Southern Slavery ever drawn by a Northern pen. The evident 
 honesty, sincerity, dispassionateness, the earnest desire to learn 
 the truth and to tell the truth, and the genuine Christian spirit 
 which breathes from every page, must gain for this book the ear 
 and the heart of every honest and Christian man in the country. 
 No one can read it without the deepest respect for the author as 
 a patriot, a Christian, and a man. If this book, with its sober, 
 truthful, ingenuous statements and reflections, could obtain a gen 
 eral audience of the Northern public, it would do more to dispel 
 ignorance and prejudice, and to cement the bonds of the American 
 Union, than any book on the subject that has ever been printed. 
 
 From Hon. G. M. DUDLEY, Americus, Ga. 
 I have just been permitted to read, with intense interest, the 
 South Side View of Slavery. And these are the sentiments of a 
 Bostonian ! As one of the 90,000 voters of Georgia, as a humble 
 citizen of the best government it has pleased God to bestow on 
 man, I thank the author for the book. As surely as mind acts on 
 mind, it is destined to exert a happy if not a controlling influence 
 for good upon the future destinies of our Republic. 
 
 From the "Southern Baptist," Charleston, S. C. 
 As a book of facts, it will bear the test of criticism ; and for 
 vigorous writing, it is a model of its sort. Large-minded men 
 from abroad Sir Charles Lyell, for example have quickly 
 adopted the same liberal and comprehensive views with Dr. A. 
 
NOTICES. 217 
 
 From Eev. CYRUS KINGSBURY, D. D., Choctaw Mission. 
 
 I had formed my opinions relative to Slavery from the experi 
 ence of almost forty years in the midst of it. I have become no 
 more reconciled to the evils of Slavery than I was before leaving 
 New England. But as to the manner of dealing with Slavery, I 
 am fully satisfied that our friends at the North are generally in 
 the wrong. Often have I desired to see the subject placed in a 
 correct point of view before the Christian public. This book 
 meets my wishes. He deserves the thanks of the country for 
 what he has done. It is calculated to do good in every section. 
 I am desirous that it should be extensively read, North and South. 
 
 From Hon. EUFTJS CHOATE, Boston. 
 
 It is a most manly, conscientious, and admirable testimony, 
 soothing, wise, and wholly right. I admire its spirit, its Chris 
 tianity, its nationality, its love of white men and black men, and 
 I am most proud of its author. 
 
 From Hon. JOEL GILES, Boston. 
 
 It is the best work on Slavery in the United States that has 
 ever been written. The author has done his country a states 
 man s service of the highest order. 
 
 From the Christian Observer, Philadelphia. 
 
 This book will relieve the minds of thousands of a great burden 
 of factitious sentimentalism, created by works of fiction. The 
 author gives us more truth and more information respecting the 
 state of society at the South, on five pages, than can be gathered 
 from a hundred pages of romance. 
 
 From the German Reformed Messenger, Chamhersburg, Pa. 
 "We admire the generous tone and spirit of the man the 
 large-heartedness and world-embracing philanthropy, which can 
 free itself from sectional and party feelings, and seek the good 
 of the whole country. 
 
 From NORTON S Literary Magazine, New York. 
 Is it an apology for Slavery ? By no means. Nor is it a rabid 
 ebullition of feeling against it. He observed, reflected, and here 
 we have his clear and candid mind on many important points 
 connected with Slavery and Freedom. He speaks with a candor, 
 moderation, and Christian simplicity, worthy of all acceptation. 
 
218 NOTICES. 
 
 Properly read and understood, this work will be seen to have a 
 strong bearing against the system of American Slavery, while no 
 reader can well be offended by any thing that is said. 
 
 From Eev. Dr. SPEAGUE, in the Puritan Recorder. 
 No candid reader will doubt that the author intended to make 
 a fair report of both the good and the evil of Slavery, as it came 
 under his observation, without regard either to the partialities or 
 prejudices of other people. He was evidently a careful observer, 
 and had good opportunities for forming an accurate judgment. 
 He has written with marked ability and exemplary moderation, 
 and in a deeply serious and earnest tone, which we think must 
 secure to the work an extensive circulation. It is strongly mon 
 itory both to the North and to the South. It is a model in point 
 of style. 
 
 From SIDNEY E. MOUSE, Esq., in the N. Y. Observer. 
 Though it is no part of his object to write down Slavery, he 
 incidentally shows its intrinsic badness by proofs both from rea 
 son and Scripture, more profound, more effectual, more unassail 
 able by sophistry, than any that Mr. Garrison ever knew. And 
 yet the book contains nothing which any decent man s slave 
 might not read without hating his master. It was not written 
 to promote the interests or secure the favor of any party, North 
 or South. Those who know any thing of the author need not be 
 told that there is nothing dull in this book. It deals in facts so 
 clearly apprehended and graphically described, and possessing 
 such a living, human interest, that they enchain the reader as 
 fiction is seldom able to do. 
 
 From Eev. ALFRED ELY, D. D., Monson, Mass. 
 I have read it with great satisfaction. The views it presents 
 are such as I have long entertained, and which I hope will prevail 
 at the North when the steam of fanaticism shall have passed 
 away. The book is timely, and I do hope it will be extensively 
 read. 
 
 From Eev. SAMUEL H. COX, D. D., St. Louis Eepublican, Mo. 
 For calmness and candor, for Christian kindness and ministe 
 rial dignity, for comprehension and discrimination, for exemplary 
 patriotism and impartial philanthropy, for sound American prin 
 ciple and right scriptural views, for suggestive and instructive 
 wisdom, for originality and independence, for large reading and 
 
NOTICES. 219 
 
 mature thought, for the array of facts and the statement of just 
 inferences, and for the pervading and permeating temper of kind 
 ness arid consistency that characterize it, it has no peer ; it is 
 singular, and deserves the palm. It is a blessing to every " side." 
 It is a gem for the country. I thank God that such a book is 
 abroad. 
 
 From Rev. HEMAN HUMPHREY, D. D., Pittsfield, Mass. 
 
 I thank you kindly for sending me Dr. A. s South Side View 
 of Slavery. It is one of the honestest books that ever were writ 
 ten on that subject. It carries this feature on the face of it, from 
 beginning to end. I am glad he has put down his impressions 
 and conclusions, and that you have published them. The book 
 will be read. It is admirably written. It shows him to be schol 
 ar, a gentleman, a philanthropist, a patriot, and a Christian. 
 
 From Rev. JOHN MALTBY, Bangor, Me. 
 I thank the author I thank God for the book. I am glad 
 that another element is born into the history of the nineteenth 
 century a green spot where the fires have passed. 
 
 From Rev. JOHN LEIGHTON WILSON, New York. 
 
 It commends itself to my own mind not more for the justice it 
 does the Christian feeling of the South than for the plain and 
 faithful manner with which it deals with many of the evils of 
 Slavery. There are laws on the subject of Slavery in many of 
 the Southern States, that are not approved by the great mass of 
 the Christian people there ; and this book, I have no doubt, will 
 do more to effect the repeal of those laws than any thing that has 
 been published in this part of the world for a long time. 
 
 From a Member of the Society of Friends. 
 I read thy book, "A South Side View of Slavery." It is patri 
 otic, enlightened, and humane, and it would be well if the zealous 
 portion of the people on this subject would take heed to thy coun 
 sels. I presented several copies to my friends, from one of whom 
 I received the letter which I send you from London County, Va. 
 My eightieth year is behind me. 
 
 From a Gentleman in Loudon County, Va. 
 I do not hesitate to pronounce it, for fairness, justice, and can 
 dor, the best work on the subject for years. I hail it as the dawn 
 of a better temper, by which the investigation and discussion of 
 
220 NOTICES. 
 
 the subject are to be distinguished. It will be vain for the aboli 
 tion party at the North to seek to mitigate the force of it by the 
 ascription of unworthy motives or the application of reproachful 
 epithets. It will be sustained by every candid mind that takes 
 the trouble to examine the subject as he has done. He deserves 
 the hearty plaudits of the wise and good in both sections. 
 
 From Rev. HENRY NEILL, Detroit, Michigan, (formerly 
 of Lenox, Mass.) 
 
 I know of no achievement equal to it, in the last ten years, in 
 the field of morals or of intellect. And it is because of the evi 
 dence which it gives that an American mind can be sufficiently 
 controlled by candor and religion to look at even the subject of 
 Slavery without passion, and with manifest intent to know and 
 announce the truth, that the book stands out to me not only above 
 other books, but above most other mental products, on that subject. 
 
 From the Watchman and Observer, Richmond, Va. 
 
 The whole subject of Slavery is discussed with a calmness, a 
 wisdom, a fairness and kindness to the South, a .Christian spirit 
 and a patriotic spirit, that place Dr. Adams among the very first 
 men of the time in regard to this momentous matter. 
 
 From Rev. JOSEPH C. STILES, D. D., New Haven, Conn, 
 I honor its Northern author, its Christian candor, its love of 
 justice in the teeth of long-cherished prejudices, its Christian 
 manliness. I admire the fairness, the firmness, the clearness, 
 and the kindness of this valuable and seasonable contribution. 
 
 From a Missionary in Africa. 
 
 Doubtless you hear from many parts of our country, and it may 
 be from different parts of the world, with regard to this book, but 
 I will venture to say, not from many parts of Africa. As it chiefly 
 regards the welfare of her children, I will send you a line from 
 Africa. I think at times my companion at this station and 
 myself are ready to exclaim, Would that all Africa were at the 
 South. Would that villages and tribes of these poor people could 
 be induced to emigrate to our Southern country, and be placed 
 under the influences which the slaves enjoy. My brother thinks 
 that he would sooner run the risk of a good or bad master, and be 
 a slave in the South, than to be as one of these heathen people. 
 He refers, when he thus speaks, both to his temporal and eternal 
 
NOTICES. 221 
 
 welfare. If the North and the South would only meet together 
 in love, and adopt some plan for the colored man at home, and for 
 Africa, how good it would be ! We must change our manner and 
 tone with regard to the South, and study ways to accomplish it. 
 May the Lord make this book the instrument of doing much to 
 effect this change. 
 
 From the Southern Presbyterian Review. 
 
 The hook is a faithful record of the impressions made on a 
 mind of singular candor and due penetration. It is just in its 
 general conclusions, and pervaded by a cheerful, philanthropic 
 spirit. 
 
 From a Virginia Correspondent of a Boston Paper. 
 
 Men here of the highest character for intelligence and candor, 
 in the ministry, in the church and out of it, assure me that Dr. 
 A. s South Side View of Slavery is a fair, candid, and honest 
 statement of facts respecting the good and the evil connected 
 with the system. It contains facts and opinions directly opposed 
 to the system, and condemnatory of the wrongs and abuses in 
 cident to the system, as well as to all despotic power. This is 
 admitted by Christian masters, and acknowledged to be so, be 
 cause the abuses and wrongs are stated with a kind and candid 
 spirit, and in decorous language. There are to my knowledge 
 many masters in the South whose consciences have been quick 
 ened by this book to correct these abuses, and who will testify that 
 this book has done more toward reforming abuses and wrongs 
 than all the anti-slavery books and novels ever written at the 
 North. 
 
 A distinguished Christian scholar of the North has said that to 
 write the " South Side View " was worth living a lifetime. This 
 is the judgment of a man who, though born in Virginia, was 
 educated and has lived at the North, and has been for fifty years 
 intimately acquainted with the practical working of the system. 
 
 From the Boston Post. 
 
 A remarkable book. It regards Slavery all through to be an 
 evil, and is as thoroughly anti-Nebraska as language can make it, 
 yet deals with Slavery as a fact. There runs through it an even- 
 balanced judgment, a kindly-intentioned, love-of-country spirit 
 a quiet mode of statement and logic, which cuts like a keen-edged 
 Damascus. "We would ask nothing better than to put the book 
 itself into the hands of any man of common sense as a fit answer 
 to any thing we have seen. 
 
222 NOTICES. 
 
 From the Boston Courier. 
 
 No work has appeared so well adapted to enlighten the people 
 on Slavery as this. Such books would soon abolish Slavery, or 
 entirely take away its revolting features, if works of a contrary 
 class were out of existence. 
 
 From the Boston Daily Advertiser. 
 
 There is no danger that people at the North will fall in love 
 with the peculiar institution ; but if they learn to look with more 
 charity and forbearance on their Southern brethren, no harm will 
 be done. It is not amiss to have a sensible man show that there 
 are some compensating circumstances in the system. 
 
 From the Boston Transcript. 
 
 We are glad the work is published. There is an air of sin 
 cerity and candor in the chapters. The views of honest men of 
 all sects are much needed. 
 
 From the Boston Traveller. 
 
 We are disposed to accept with thankfulness Dr. Adams s 
 South Side View of Slavery. It is an extremely interesting book ; 
 one which few will begin to read and not finish. We believe he 
 has fairly, carefully, conscientiously, and exactly related what he 
 saw and learned at the South. 
 
 From a Massachusetts Pastor. 
 
 I most heartily thank you for the stand you have taken. You 
 deserve the devout thanks of every true friend of his country, of 
 his race, of his God. It will accomplish a noble work. It is 
 making, I learn, a deep impression on thinking men, and gradu 
 ally but surely accomplishing its mission. 
 
 From a Massachusetts Pastor. 
 
 I have often vindicated it from the charge of Pro-slavery, so 
 easily and often made without the shadow of a foundation. The 
 design and tendency of the book are to bring good men at the 
 North and South together, and combine their influence against 
 Slavery. 
 
 From Rev. Dr. PRIME, of the New York Observer. 
 I regard it as incomparably the best book the Slavery question 
 has ever called forth. 
 
NOTICES. 223 
 
 From a Massachusetts Pastor. 
 
 It is true from the beginning to the end. It might well assume 
 a title of less modest pretensions. It is more than a " South Side 
 View" or a one-side view it is Christian, in its broadest 
 sense. 
 
 From an American Clergyman in Havre, France. 
 I have just finished reading the book, and at the close could not 
 but lift up my heart in thanksgiving and prayer to God thanks 
 giving that the author had been to the South, and had seen things 
 with his own eyes, and that God gave him grace and courage to 
 give his impressions and thoughts to the world ; and prayer, that 
 the book may be instrumental in opening the eyes of thousands 
 who will never go South. It ought to be published and circulated 
 in England. I would have given much to have had just such a 
 book while there. 
 
 From a Gentleman in La Grange, Georgia. 
 My sincere thanks for this inestimable work. What an amount 
 of good would follow its general circulation ! God will bless this 
 patriotic Christian effort. Th author has made his mark on the 
 age in which he lives. It will elicit the gratitude of thousands. 
 
 From a Pastor in Missouri. 
 
 It will do more to stimulate masters to seek the conversion and 
 promote the truest welfare of the slave than all the writings of the 
 Abolitionists. It conveys more truths to the minds of slave 
 holders than they have for a long time been willing to read from a 
 Northern pen. 
 
 From Rev. ASA CUMMINGS, D. D., Portland, Me, 
 If Slavery in our land is to be brought to a peaceful end by 
 Christian means, myriads on myriads will hereafter thank Dr. 
 A., and bless his memory for this labor of love. His book does 
 not lessen in any degree our horror of Slavery, but it opens a 
 door of hope for relief. 
 
 From Rev. J. N. DANFORTH, Alexandria, D. C. 
 In these days of sweeping generalities, of unreasoning enthu 
 siasm, and fiery invectives, it is refreshing to meet with calm, 
 philosophical, and Christian investigation. Dr. A. has done great 
 service to the cause of truth, justice, patriotism, and humanity, 
 by publishing his book. 
 
224 NOTICES. 
 
 From the New York Journal of Commerce. 
 It is a medicine for a wide-spread fanaticism. It is rapidly 
 taking the sting out of rabid Abolitionism. The author has had 
 the magnanimity to show the lights, as well as the shades, of a 
 system which we could not introduce to this section of the coun 
 try if we would, and we would not if we could. 
 
 From Hon. Judge ROST, Louisiana, (Convention Speech at 
 Baton Rouge.) 
 
 It should be read by every man, woman, and child in the 
 country. 
 
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