Chapter XXIV: Section II: Rural Labour (2)

D. thinks slavery an enormous evil, but doubts whether something as bad would not arise in its stead. He is a colonisationist, and desires that the general government should purchase the slaves, by annual appropriations, and ship them off to Africa, so as to clear the country of the coloured people in forty or fifty years. If this is not done, a servile war, the most horrible that the world has seen, is inevitable. Yet he believes that the institution, though infinitely bad for the masters, is better for the slaves than those of any country in Europe for its working classes. He is convinced that the tillage of all the crops could be better carried on by whites, with the assistance of cattle and implements, than by negroes.

E. writes, (October 1835,) "Certain it is that if men of property and intelligence in the north have that legitimate influence which that class has here, nothing will come of this abolition excitement. All we have to say to them is, 'Hands off!' Our _political_ rights[21] are clear, and shall not be invaded. _We know too much about slavery to be slaves ourselves._ But I repeat, nothing will come of the present, or rather recent excitement, for already it is in a great degree passed. And the time is coming when a struggle between pauperism and property, or, if you choose, between labour and capital in the north, stimulated by the spirit of Jacksonism, will occupy the people of that quarter to the exclusion of our affairs. If any external influence is ever to affect the institution of slavery in the south, it will not be the vulgar and ignorant fanaticism of the northern States, intent upon a cheap charity which is to be done at our expense; but that influence will be found in English literature, and the gradual operation of public opinion. Slavery, so to speak, may be evaporated;--it cannot be drawn off. If it were, the whole land would be poisoned and desolated."

The best reply to this letter will be found in the memorable speech of Mr. Preston, one of the South Carolina senators, delivered in Congress, last spring. It may be mentioned, by the way, that the writer of the above is mistaken in supposing that there is at present, or impending, any unhappy struggle in the north between pauperism and property, or labour and capital. It is all property there, and no pauperism, (except the very little that is superinduced;) and labour and capital were, perhaps, never before seen to jog on so lovingly together. The "cheap charity" he speaks of is the cheap charity of the first Christians, with the addition of an equal ability and will to pay down _money_ for the abolition of the slaves, for whose sake the abolitionists have already shown themselves able to bear,--some, hanging;--some, scourging, and tarring and feathering; some, privation of the means of living; and all, the being incessantly and deeply wounded in their social relations and tenderest affections. Martyrdom is ever accounted a "cheap devotion," or "cheap charity," to God or man, by those who exact it of either religious or philanthropic principle.

Mr. Preston's speech describes the spread of abolition opinions as being rapid and inevitable. He proves the rapidity by citing the number of recently-formed abolition societies in the north; and the inevitableness, by exhibiting the course which such convictions had run in England and France. He represents the case as desperate. He advises,--not yielding, but the absolute exclusion of opinion on the subject,--exclusion from Congress, and exclusion from the slave States. This is well. The matter may be considered to be given up, unless this is merely the opinion of an individual. The proposal is about as hopeful as it would be to draw a cordon round the Capitol to keep out the four winds; or to build a wall up to the pole-star to exclude the sunshine.

One more sample of opinions. A gentleman who edits a highly-esteemed southern newspaper, expresses himself thus. "There is a wild fanaticism at work to effect the overthrow of the system, although in its fall would go down the fortunes of the south, and to a great extent those of the north and east;--in a word, the whole fabric of our Union, in one awful ruin. What then ought to be done? What measures ought to be taken to secure the safety of our property and our lives? We answer, let us be vigilant and watchful to the last degree over all the movements of our enemies both at _home_ and abroad. Let us declare through the public journals of our country, that the question of slavery is not, and shall not be open to discussion;--that the system is deep-rooted amongst us, and must remain for ever;--that the very moment any private individual attempts to lecture us upon its evils and immorality, and the necessity of putting measures into operation to secure us from them, in the same moment his tongue shall be cut out and cast upon the dung-hill. We are freemen, sprung from a noble stock of freemen, able to boast as noble a line of ancestry as ever graced this earth;--we have burning in our bosoms the spirit of freemen--live in an age of enlightened freedom, and in a country blessed with its privileges--under a government that has pledged itself to protect us in the enjoyment of our peculiar domestic institutions in peace, and undisturbed. We hope for a long continuance of these high privileges, and have now to love, cherish, and defend, property, liberty, wives and children, the right to manage our own matters in our own way, and, what is equally dear with all the rest, the inestimable right of dying upon our own soil, around our own firesides, in struggling to put down all those who may attempt to infringe, attack, or violate any of these sacred and inestimable privileges."

If these opinions of well-prepared persons, dispersed through the slave States, and entrusted with the public advocacy of their interests, do not betoken that slavery is tottering to its fall, there are no such things as signs of the times.

The prohibition of books containing anything against slavery, has proceeded to a great length. Last year, Mrs. Barbauld's works were sent back into the north by the southern booksellers, because the "Evenings at Home" contain a "Dialogue between Master and Slave." Miss Sedgwick's last novel, "The Linwoods," was treated in the same way, on account of a single sentence about slavery. The "Tales of the Woods and Fields," and other English books, have shared the same fate. I had a letter from a Southern lady, containing some regrets upon the necessity of such an exclusion of literature, but urging that it was a matter of _principle_ to guard from attacks "an institution ordained by the favour of God for the happiness of man:" and assuring me that the literary resources of South Carolina were rapidly improving.--So they had need; for almost all the books already in existence will have to be prohibited, if nothing condemnatory of slavery is to be circulated. This attempt to nullify literature was followed up by a threat to refuse permission to the mails to pass through South Carolina: an arrangement which would afflict its inhabitants more than it could injure any one else.

The object of all this is to keep the children in the dark about how the institution is regarded abroad. This was evident to me at every step: and I received an express caution not to communicate my disapprobation of slavery to the children of one family, who could not, their parents declare, even feel the force of my objections. One of them was "employed, the whole afternoon, in dressing out little Nancy for an evening party; and she sees the slaves much freer than herself." Of course, the blindness of this policy will be its speedy destruction. It is found that the effect of public opinion on the subject upon young men who visit the northern States, is tremendous, when they become aware of it: as every student in the colleges of the north can bear witness. I know of one, an heir of slaves, who declared, on reading Dr. Channing's "Slavery," that if it could be proved that negroes are more than a link between man and brute, the rest follows of course, and he must liberate all his. Happily, he is in the way of evidence that negroes are actually and altogether human.

The students of Lane Seminary, near Cincinnati, of which Dr. Beecher is the president, became interested in the subject, three or four years ago, and formed themselves into an Abolition Society, debating the question, and taking in newspapers. This was prohibited by the tutors, but persevered in by the young men, who conceived that this was a matter with which the professors had no right to meddle. Banishment was decreed; and all submitted to expulsion but fourteen. Of course, each of the dispersed young men became the nucleus of an Abolition Society, and gained influence by persecution. It was necessary for them to provide means to finish their education. One of them, Amos Dresser, itinerated, (as is usual in the sparsely-peopled west,) travelling in a gig, and selling Scott's Bible, to raise money for his educational purposes. He reached Nashville, in Tennessee; and there fell under suspicion of abolition treason; his baggage being searched, and a whole abolition newspaper, and a part of another being found among the packing-stuff of his stock of bibles. There was also an unsubstantiated rumour of his having been seen conversing with slaves. He was brought to trial by the Committee of Vigilance; seven elders of the presbyterian church at Nashville being among his judges. After much debate as to whether he should be hanged, or flogged with more or fewer lashes, he was condemned to receive twenty lashes, with a cow-hide, in the market-place of Nashville. He was immediately conducted there, made to kneel down on the flint pavement, and punished according to his sentence; the mayor of Nashville presiding, and the public executioner being the agent. He was warned to leave the city within twenty-four hours: but was told, by some charitable person who had the bravery to take him in, wash his stripes, and furnish him with a disguise, that it would not be safe to remain so long. He stole away immediately, in his dreadful condition, on foot; and when his story was authenticated, had heard nothing of his horse, gig, and bibles, which he values at three hundred dollars. Let no one, on this, tremble for republican freedom. Outrages upon it, like the above, are but extremely transient signs of the times. They no more betoken the permanent condition of the republic, than the shivering of one hour of ague exhibits the usual state of the human body.

The other young men found educational and other assistance immediately; and a set of noble institutions has grown out of their persecution. There were professors ready to help them; and a gentleman gave them a farm in Ohio, on which to begin a manual labour college, called the Oberlin Institute. It is on a most liberal plan young women who wish to become qualified for "Christian teaching" being admitted; and there being no prejudice of colour. They have a sprinkling both of Indians and of negroes. They do all the farm and house work, and as much study besides as is good for them. Some of the young women are already fair Hebrew and Greek scholars. In a little while, the estate was so crowded, and the new applications were so overpowering, that they were glad to accept the gift of another farm. When I left the country, within three years from their commencement, they had either four or five flourishing institutions in Ohio and Michigan, while the Lane Seminary drags on feebly with its array of tutors, and dearth of pupils. A fact so full of vitality as this will overbear a hundred less cheering signs of the times. A very safe repose may be found in the will of the majority, wherever it acts amidst light and freedom.

Just before I reached Mobile, two men were burned alive there, in a slow fire, in the open air, in the presence of the gentlemen of the city generally. No word was breathed of the transaction in the newspapers: and this is the special reason why I cite it as a sign of the times; of the suppression of fact and repression of opinion which, from the impossibility of their being long maintained, are found immediately to precede the changes they are meant to obviate. Some months afterwards, an obscure intimation of something of the kind having happened appeared in a northern newspaper; but a dead silence was at the time preserved upon what was, in fact, the deed of a multitude. The way that I came to know it was this. A lady of Mobile was opening her noble and true heart to me on the horrors and vices of the system under which she and her family were suffering in mind, body, and estate. In speaking of her duties as head of a family, she had occasion to mention the trouble caused by the licentiousness of the whites, among the negro women. It was dreadful to hear the facts which had occurred in her own household; and the bare imagination of what is inflicted on the negro husbands and fathers was almost too much to be borne. I asked the question, "Does it never enter the heads of negro husbands and fathers to retaliate?" "Yes, it does." "What follows?" "They are murdered,--burned alive." And then followed the story of what had lately happened. A little girl, and her still younger brother, one day failed to return from school, and never were seen again. It was not till after all search had been relinquished, that the severed head of the little girl was found in a brook, on the borders of a plantation. Circumstances were discovered that left no doubt that the murders were committed to conceal violence which had been offered to the girl. Soon after, two young ladies of the city rode in that direction, and got off their horses to amuse themselves. They were seized upon by two slaves of the neighbouring plantation; but effected their escape in safety, though with great difficulty. Their agitation prevented their concealing the fact; and the conclusion was immediately drawn that these men were the murderers of the children. The gentlemen of Mobile turned out; seized the men; heaped up faggots on the margin of the brook, and slowly burned them to death. No prudish excuses for the suppression of this story will serve any purpose with those who have been on the spot, any more than the outcry about "amalgamation," raised against the abolitionists by those who live in the deepest sinks of a licentiousness of which the foes of slavery do not dream. No deprecatory plea regarding propriety or decency will pass for anything but hypocrisy with those who know what the laws against the press are in the south-west, and what are the morals of slavery in its palmy state. I charge the silence of Mobile about this murder on its _fears_; as confidently as I charge the brutality of the victims upon its crimes.

Notwithstanding the many symptoms of an unmanly and anti-republican fear which met my observation in these regions, it was long before I could comprehend the extent of it; especially as I heard daily that the true enthusiastic love of freedom could exist in a republic, only in the presence of a servile class. I am persuaded that the southerners verily believe this; that they actually imagine their northern brethren living in an exceedingly humdrum way, for fear of losing their equality. It is true that there is far too much subservience to opinion in the northern States: particularly in New England. There is there a self-imposed bondage which must be outgrown. But this is no more like the fear which prevails in the south than the apprehensiveness of a court-physician is like the terrors of Tiberius Cæsar.

I was at the French theatre at New Orleans. The party with whom I went determined to stay for the after-piece. The first scene of the after-piece was dumb-show; so much noise was made by one single whistle in the pit. The curtain was dropped, and the piece re-commenced. The whistling continued; and, at one movement, the whole audience rose and went home. I was certain that there was something more in this than was apparent to the observation of a stranger. I resolved to find it out, and succeeded. The band was wanted from the orchestra, to serenade a United States senator who was then in the city; and one or two young men were resolved to break up our amusement for the purpose of releasing the band. But why were they allowed to do this? Why was the whole audience to submit to the pleasure of one whistler? Why, in New Orleans it is thought best to run no risk of any disturbance. People there always hie home directly when things do not go off quite quietly.

It is the same, wherever the blacks outnumber the whites, or their bondage is particularly severe. At Charleston, when a fire breaks out, the gentlemen all go home on the ringing of the alarm-bell; the ladies rise and dress themselves and their children. It may be the signal of insurrection: and the fire burns on, for any help the citizens give, till a battalion of soldiers marches down to put it out.

When we were going to church, at Augusta, Georgia, one Sunday afternoon, there was smoke in the street, and a cry of fire. When we came out of church, we were told that it had been very trifling, and easily extinguished. The next day, I heard the whole. A negro girl of sixteen, the property of a lady from New England, had set her mistress's house on fire in two places, by very in-artificially lighting heaps of combustible stuff piled against the partitions. There were no witnesses, and all that was known came from her own lips. She was desperately ignorant; laws having been fully enforced to prevent the negroes of Georgia being instructed in any way whatever. The girl's account was, that she was "tired of living there," and had therefore intended to burn the house in the morning, but was prevented by her mistress having locked her up for some offence: so she did it in the afternoon. She was totally ignorant of the gravity of the deed, and was in a state of great horror when told that she was to be hanged for it. I asked whether it was possible that, after her being prevented by law from being taught, she was to be hanged for her ignorance, and merely on her own confession? The clergyman with whom I was conversing sighed, and said it was a hard case; but what else could be done, considering that _Augusta was built of wood_? He told me that there was great excitement among the negroes in Augusta; and that many had been saying that "a mean white person" (a white labourer) would not have been hanged; and that the girl could not help it, as it must have been severity which drove her to it. In both these sayings, the slaves were partly wrong. A white would have been hanged; but a white would have known that she was committing crime. It did not appear that the girl's mistress was harsh. But what does not the observation convey? I have never learned, nor ever shall, whether the hanging took place or not. The newspapers do not insert such things.

This burning would be a fearful art for the blacks to learn. There were four tremendous fires in Charleston, during the summer of 1835; and divers residents reported to the north that these were supposed to be the work of slaves.

Wherever I went, in the south, in whatever town or other settlement I made any stay, some startling circumstance connected with slavery occurred, which I was assured was unprecedented. No such thing had ever occurred before, or was likely to happen again. The repetition of this assurance became, at last, quite ludicrous.

The fear of which I have spoken as prevalent, does not extend to the discussion of the question of slavery with strangers. My opinions of slavery were known, through the press, before I went abroad: the hospitality which was freely extended to me was offered under a full knowledge of my detestation of the system. This was a great advantage, in as much as it divested me entirely of the character of a spy, and promoted the freest discussion, wherever I went. There was a warm sympathy between myself and very many, whose sufferings under the system caused me continual and deep sorrow, though no surprise. Neither was I surprised at their differing from me as widely as they do about the necessity of immediate action, either by resistance or flight, while often agreeing, nearly to the full, in my estimate of the evils of the present state of things. They have been brought up in the system. To them, the moral deformity of the whole is much obscured by its nearness; while the small advantages, and slight prettinesses which it is very easy to attach to it, are prominent, and always in view. These circumstances prevented my being surprised at the candour with which they not only discussed the question, but showed me all that was to be seen of the economical management of plantations; the worst as well as the best. Whatever I learned of the system, by express showing, it must be remembered, was from the hands of the slave-holders themselves. Whatever I learned, that lies deepest down in my heart, of the moral evils, the unspeakable vices and woes of slavery, was from the lips of those who are suffering under them on the spot.

It was there that I heard of the massacre in Southampton county, which has been little spoken of abroad. It happened a few years ago; before the abolition movement began; for it is remarkable that no insurrections have taken place since the friends of the slave have been busy afar off. This is one of the most eloquent signs of the times,--that, whereas rebellions broke out as often as once a month before, there have been none since. Of this hereafter. In the Southampton massacre, upwards of seventy whites, chiefly women and children, were butchered by slaves who fancied themselves called, like the Jews of old, to "slay and spare not."

While they were in full career, a Virginian gentleman, who had a friend from the north staying with him, observed upon its being a mistaken opinion that planters were afraid of their slaves; and offered the example of his own household as a refutation. He summoned his confidential negro, the head of the house establishment of slaves, and bade him shut the door.

"You hear," said he, "that the negroes have risen in Southampton."

"Yes, massa."

"You hear that they have killed several families, and that they are coming this way."

"Yes, massa."

"You know that, if they come here, I shall have to depend upon you all to protect my family."

The slave was silent.

"If I give you arms, you will protect me and my family, will you not?"

"No, massa."

"Do you mean, that if the Southampton negroes come this way, you will join them?"

"Yes, massa."

When he went out of the room, his master wept without restraint. He owned that all his hope, all his confidence was gone. Yet, who ever deserved confidence more than the man who spoke that last "No" and "Yes?" The more confidence in the man, the less in the system. This is the philosophy of the story.

I have mentioned the fact that no insurrections have for a long time taken place. In some parts of the slave regions, the effect has been to relax the laws relating to slaves; and such relaxation was always pointed out to me as an indication that slavery would go out of itself, if it were let alone. In other parts, new and very severe laws were being passed against the slaves; and this was pointed out to me as a sign that the condition of the negro was aggravated by the interference of his friends; and that his best chance lay in slavery being let alone. Thus the opposite facts were made to yield the same conclusion. A friend of mine, a slave-holder, observed to me, that both the relaxation and the aggravation of restrictions upon slaves were an indication of the tendency of public opinion: the first being done in sympathy with it, the other in fear of it.

There was an outcry, very vehement, and very general among the friends of slavery, in both north and south, against the cruelty of abolitionists in becoming the occasion of the laws against slaves being made more severe. In my opinion, this affords no argument against abolition, even if the condition of the slaves of to-day were aggravated by the stir of opinion. The negroes of the next generation are not to be doomed to slavery for fear of somewhat more being inflicted on their parents: and, severe as the laws already are, the consequence of straining them tighter still would be that they would burst. But the fact is, that so far from the condition of the slave being made worse by the efforts of his distant friends, it has been substantially improved. I could speak confidently of this as a necessary consequence of the value set upon opinion by the masters; but I know it also from what I myself saw; and from the lips of many slave-holders. The slaves of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana, have less liberty of communication with each other; they are deprived of the few means of instruction that they had; they are shut in earlier in the evening, and precluded from supping and dancing for half the night, as they used to do; but they are substantially better treated; they are less worked by hard masters; less flogged; better fed and clothed. The eyes of the world are now upon the American slave and his master: the kind master goes on as he did before: the hard master dares not be so unkind as formerly. He hates his slave more than ever, for slavery is more troublesome than ever; but he is kept in order, by the opinion of the world abroad and the neighbours around; and he dares not vent his hatred on his human property, as he once could. A slave-holder declared in Congress, that the slaves of the south knew that Dr. Channing had written a book on their behalf. No doubt. The tidings of the far-off movement in their favour come to them on every wind that blows, calming their desperation, breathing hope into their souls; making the best of their masters thoughtful and sad, and the worst, desperate and cruel, though kept within bounds by fear.

The word 'hatred' is not too strong for the feeling of a large proportion of slave-holders towards particular slaves; or, as they would call them, (the word 'slave' never being heard in the south,) their 'force,' their 'hands,' their 'negroes,' their 'people.' I was frequently told of the 'endearing relation' subsisting between master and slaves; but, at the best, it appeared to me the same 'endearing relation' which subsists between a man and his horse, between a lady and her dog. As long as the slave remains ignorant, docile, and contented, he is taken good care of, humoured, and spoken of with a contemptuous, compassionate kindness. But, from the moment he exhibits the attributes of a rational being,--from the moment his intellect seems likely to come into the most distant competition with that of whites, the most, deadly hatred springs up;--not in the black, but in his oppressors. It is a very old truth that we hate those whom we have injured. Never was it more clear than in this case. I had, from time to time in my life, witnessed something of human malice; I had seen some of the worst aspects of domestic service in England; of village scandal; of political rivalship; and other circumstances provocative of the worst passions; but pure, unmitigated hatred, the expression of which in eye and voice makes one's blood run cold, I never witnessed till I became acquainted with the blacks of America, their friends and oppressors: the blacks and their friends the objects; their oppressors the far more unhappy subjects. It so happens that the most remarkable instances of this that I met with were clergymen and ladies. The cold livid hatred which deformed, like a mask, the faces of a few, while deliberately slandering, now the coloured race, and now the abolitionists, could never be forgotten by me, as a fearful revelation, if the whole country were to be absolutely christianized to-morrow. Mr. Madison told me, that if he could work a miracle, he knew what it should be. He would make all the blacks white; and then he could do away with slavery in twenty-four hours. So true it is that all the torturing associations of injury have become so connected with colour, that an institution which hurts everybody and benefits none, which all rational people who understand it dislike, despise, and suffer under, can with difficulty be abolished, because of the hatred which is borne to an irremovable badge.

This hatred is a sign of the times; and so are the alleged causes of it; both are from their nature so manifestly temporary. The principal cause alleged is the impossibility of giving people of colour any idea of duty, from their want of natural affection. I was told in the same breath of their attachment to their masters, and devotion to them in sickness; and of their utter want of all affection to their parents and children, husbands and wives. For "people of colour," read "slaves," and the account is often correct. It is true that slaves will often leave their infants to perish, rather than take any trouble about them; that they will utterly neglect a sick parent or husband; while they will nurse a white mistress with much ostentation. The reason is obvious. Such beings are degraded so far below humanity that they will take trouble, for the sake of praise or more solid reward, after they have become dead to all but grossly selfish inducements. Circumstances will fully account for a great number of cases of this sort: but to set against these, there are perhaps yet more instances of domestic devotion, not to be surpassed in the annals of humanity. Of these I know more than I can here set down; partly from their number, and partly from the fear of exposing to injury the individuals alluded to.

A friend of mine was well acquainted at Washington with a woman who had been a slave; and who, after gaining her liberty, worked incessantly for many years, denying herself all but absolute necessaries, in order to redeem her husband and children. She was a sick-nurse, when my friend knew her; and, by her merits, obtained good pay. She had first bought herself; having earned, by extra toil, three or four hundred dollars. She then earned the same sum, and redeemed her husband; and had bought three, out of her five, children when my friend last saw her. She made no boast of her industry and self-denial. Her story was extracted from her by questions; and she obviously felt that she was doing what was merely unavoidable. It is impossible to help instituting a comparison between this woman and the gentlemen who, by their own licentiousness, increase the number of slave children whom they sell in the market. My friend formerly carried an annual present from a distant part of the country to this poor woman: but it is not known what has become of her, and whether she died before she had completed her object, of freeing all her family.

There is a woman now living with a lady in Boston, requiring high wages, which her superior services, as well as her story, enable her to command. This woman was a slave, and was married to a slave, by whom she had two children. The husband and wife were much attached. One day, her husband was suddenly sold away to a distance; and her master, whose object was to increase his stock as fast as possible, immediately required her to take another husband. She stoutly refused. Her master thought her so far worthy of being humoured, that he gave her his son,--forced him upon her, as her present feelings show. She had two more children, of much lighter complexion than the former. When the son left the estate, her master tried again to force a negro husband upon her. In desperation, she fled, carrying one of her first children with her. She is now working to redeem the other, a girl; and she has not given up all hope of recovering her husband. She was asked whether she thought of doing anything for her two mulatto children. She replied that, to be sure, they _were_ her children; but that she did not think she ever _could_ tell her husband that she had had those two children. If this be not chastity, what is? Where are all the fairest natural affections, if not in these women?

At a very disorderly hotel in South Carolina, we were waited upon by a beautiful mulatto woman and her child, a pretty girl of about eight. The woman entreated that we would buy her child. On her being questioned, it appeared that it was "a bad place" in which she was: that she had got her two older children sold away, to a better place; and now, her only wish was for this child to be saved. On being asked whether she really desired to be parted from her only remaining child, so as never to see her again, she replied that "it would be hard to part," but for the child's sake she did wish that we would buy her.

A kind-hearted gentleman in the south, finding that the laws of his State precluded his teaching his legacy of slaves according to the usual methods of education, bethought himself, at length, of the moral training of task-work. It succeeded admirably. His negroes soon began to work as slaves are never, under any other arrangement, seen to work. Their day's task was finished by eleven o'clock. Next, they began to care for one another: the strong began to help the weak:--first, husbands helped their wives; then parents helped their children; and, at length, the young began to help the old. Here was seen the awakening of natural affections which had lain in a dark sleep.

Of the few methods of education which have been tried, none have succeeded so well as this task-work. As its general adoption might have the effect of enabling slavery to subsist longer than it otherwise could, perhaps it is well that it can be employed only to a very small extent. Much of the work on the plantations cannot be divided into tasks. Where it can, it is wise in the masters to avail themselves of this means of enlisting the will of the slave in behalf of his work.

No other mode of teaching serves this purpose in any degree. The shutting up of the schools, when I was in the south, struck me as a sign of the times,--a favourable sign, in as far as it showed the crisis to be near; and it gave me little regret on account of the slave children. Reading and writing even (which are never allowed) would be of no use to beings without minds,--as slaves are prior to experience of life; and religious teaching is worse than useless to beings who, having no rights, can have no duties. Their whole notion of religion is of power and show, as regards God; of subjection to a new sort of reward and punishment, as regards themselves; and invisible reward and punishment have no effect on them. A negro, conducting worship, was heard to pray thus; and broad as the expressions are, they are better than an abject, unintelligent adoption of the devotional language of whites. "Come down, O Lord, come down,--on your great white horse, a kickin' and snortin'." An ordinary negro's highest idea of majesty is of riding a prancing white horse. As for their own concern in religion, I know of a "force" where a preacher had just made a strong impression. The slaves had given up dancing, and sang nothing but psalms: they exhibited the most ludicrous spiritual pride, and discharged their business more lazily than ever, taunting their mistress with, "You no holy. We be holy. You no in state o' salvation." Such was the effect upon the majority. Here is the effect upon a stronger head.

"Harry," said his master, "you do as badly as ever. You steal and tell lies. Don't you know you will be punished in hell?"

"Ah, massa, I been thinking 'bout that. I been thinking when Harry's head is in the ground, there'll be no more Harry,--no more Harry."

"But the clergyman, and other people who know better than you, tell you that if you steal you will go to hell, and be punished there."

"Been thinking 'bout that too. Gentlemen _be_ wise, and so they tell us 'bout being punished, that we may not steal their things here: and then we go and find out afterwards how it is." Such is the effect of religion upon those who have no rights, and therefore no duties. Great efforts are being now made by the clergy of four denominations[22] to obtain converts in the south. The fact, pointed out to me by Mr. Madison, that the "chivalrous" south is growing strict, while the puritanic north is growing genial, is a very remarkable sign of the times, as it regards slavery. All sanctions of the institution being now wanted, religious sanctions are invoked among others. The scene has been acted before, often enough to make the catastrophe clearly discernible. There are no true religious sanctions of slavery. There will be no lack of Harrys to detect the forgeries put forth as such: and, under the most corrupt presentments of religion, there lives something of its genuine spirit,--enough to expand, sooner or later, and explode the institution with which it can never combine. Though I found that the divines of the four denominations were teaching a compromising Christianity, to propitiate the masters, and gross superstitions to beguile the slaves,--vying with each other in the latter respect, that they might outstrip one another in the number of their converts,--I rejoiced in their work. Anything is better for the slaves than apathetic subjection; and, under all this falsification, enough Christian truth has already come in to blow slavery to atoms.

The testimony of slave-holders was most explicit as to no moral improvement having taken place, in consequence of the introduction of religion. There was less singing and dancing; but as much lying, drinking, and stealing as ever: less docility, and a vanity even transcending the common vanity of slaves,--to whom the opinion of others is all which they have to gain or lose. The houses are as dirty as ever, (and I never saw a clean room or bed but once, within the boundaries of the slave States;) the family are still contented with their "clean linen, as long as it does not smell badly." A new set of images has been presented to the slaves; but there still remains but one idea, by and for which any of them live; the idea of freedom.

Not for this, however, is the present zeal for religion a less remarkable sign of the times.

Another is, a proposition lately made in Charleston to remove the slave-market further from public observation. This acknowledgment, in such a place, that there is something distasteful, or otherwise uncomfortable, in the sale of human beings, is portentous. I was in that Charleston slave-market; and saw the sale of a woman with her children. A person present voluntarily assured me that there was nothing whatever painful in the sight. It appears, however, that the rest of Charleston thinks differently.

I was witness to the occasional discussion of the question whether Congress has power to prohibit the internal slave trade; and found that some very eminent men had no doubt whatever of such power being possessed by Congress, through the clause which authorises it to "regulate commerce among the several States." Among those who held this opinion were Mr. Madison and Mr. Webster.

The rapid increase of the suffrage in the north, compared with the south, affords an indication of some speedy change of circumstances. Three fifths of the slave population is represented; but this basis of representation is so narrow in contrast with that of the populous States where every man has the suffrage, that the south must decrease and the north increase, in a way which cannot long be borne by the former. The south has no remedy but in abolishing the institution by which her prosperity is injured, and her population comparatively confined. She sees how it is in the two contiguous States of Missouri and Illinois: that new settlers examine Illinois, pass on into Missouri, where land is much cheaper, and return to Illinois to settle, because there is no slavery there: so that the population is advancing incalculably faster in Illinois than in Missouri. Missouri will soon and easily find her remedy, in abolishing slavery; when the whites will rush in, as they now do into the neighbouring States. In the south, the case is more difficult. It will be long before white labour becomes so reputable there as elsewhere; and the present white residents cannot endure the idea of the suffrage being freely given, within any assignable time, to those who are now their slaves, or to their dusky descendants. Yet this is what must be done, sooner or later, with more or fewer precautions, if the south means to hold an important rank in Congress. It is in contemplation of this difficulty that the loudest threats are heard of secession from the Union; a movement which, as I have before said, would be immediately prevented, or signally punished. The abolition of slavery is the only resource.

Upon the most remarkable of all the signs of the times relating to slavery, it is not necessary to say much. Those which I have mentioned are surely enough to show, as plainly as if a ghost had come from the grave to tell us, that the time is at hand for the destruction of this monstrous anomaly. What the issue of the coming change will be is, to my mind, decided by a consideration on which almost every man is vociferating his opinion,--the character of the abolitionists.

It is obvious enough why this point is discussed so widely and so constantly, that I think I may say I heard more upon it, while I was in America, than upon all other American matters together. It is clearly convenient to throw so weighty a question as that of abolition back upon the aggregate characters of those who propose it; convenient to slave-holders, convenient to those in the north whose sympathies are with slave-holders, or who dread change, or who want an excuse to themselves for not acting upon the principles which all profess. The character of the abolitionists of the United States has been the object of attack for some years,--of daily and hourly attack; and, as far as I know, there has been no defence; for the plain reason that this is a question on which there can be no middle party. All who are not with the abolitionists are against them; for silence and inaction are public acquiescence in things as they are. The case is, then, that everybody is against them but their own body, whose testimony would, of course, go for nothing, if it were offered; which it never is.--I know many of them well; as every stranger in the country ought to take pains to do. I first heard everything that could be said against them: and afterwards became well acquainted with a great number of them.

I think the abolitionists of the United States the most reasonable set of people that I ever knew to be united together for one object. Among them may be enjoyed the high and rare luxury of having a reason rendered for every act performed, and every opinion maintained. The treatment they have met with compels them to be more thoroughly informed, and more completely assured on every point on which they commit themselves, than is commonly considered necessary on the right side of a question, where there is the strength of a mighty principle to repose upon. The commonest charge against them is that they are fanatical. I think them, generally speaking, the most clear-headed, right-minded class I ever had intercourse with. Their accuracy about dates, numbers, and all such matters of fact, is as remarkable as their clear perception of the principles on which they proceed. They are, however, remarkably deficient in policy,--in party address. They are artless to a fault; and probably, no party, religious, political, or benevolent, in their country, ever was formed and conducted with so little dexterity, shrewdness, and concert. Noble and imperishable as their object is, it would probably, from this cause, have slipped through their fingers for the present, if it had not been for some other qualities common among them. It is needless to say much of their heroism; of the strength of soul with which they await and endure the inflictions with which they are visited, day by day. Their position indicates all this. Animating as it is to witness, it is less touching than the qualities to which they owe the success which would otherwise have been forfeited through their want of address and party organisation. A spirit of meekness, of mutual forbearance, of mutual reverence, runs through the whole body; and by this are selfish considerations put aside, differences composed, and distrusts obviated, to a degree which I never hoped to witness among a society as various as the sects, parties and opinions which are the elements of the whole community. With the gaiety of heart belonging to those who have cast aside every weight; with the strength of soul proper to those who walk by faith; with the child-like unconsciousness of the innocent; living from hour to hour in the light of that greatest of all purposes,--to achieve a distant object by the fulfilment of the nearest duty,--and therefore rooting out from among themselves all aristocratic tendencies and usages, rarely speaking of their own sufferings and sacrifices, but in honour preferring one another, how can they fail to win over the heart of society,--that great heart, sympathising with all that is lofty and true?[23]

As was said to me, "the Searcher of hearts is passing through the land, and every one must come forth to the ordeal." This Searcher of hearts comes now in the form of the mighty principle of human freedom. If a glance is cast over the assemblage called to the ordeal, how mean and trivial are the vociferations in defence of property, the threats of revenge for light, the boast of physical force, the appeal to the compromises which constitute the defects of human law! How low and how sad appear the mercenary interests, the social fears, the clerical blindness or cowardice, the morbid fastidiousness of those who, professing the same principles with the abolitionists, are bent upon keeping those principles for ever an abstraction! How inspiring is it to see that the community is, notwithstanding all this, sound at the core, and that the soundness is spreading so fast that the health of the whole community may be ultimately looked for! When a glance shows us all this, and that the abolitionists are no more elated by their present success than they were depressed by their almost hopeless degradation, we may fairly consider the character of the abolitionists a decisive sign of the times,--a peculiarly distinct prophecy that the coloured race will soon pass from under the yoke. The Searcher of hearts brings prophecies in his hand, which those who will may read.[24]

I cannot give much space to the theories which are current as to what the issue will be if the abolition of slavery should not take place. To me it seems pretty clear, when the great amount of the mulatto population is considered. Within an almost calculable time, the population would be wholly mulatto; and the southern States would be in a condition so far inferior to the northern, that they would probably separate, and live under a different form of government. A military despotism might probably be established when the mixture of colours had become inconvenient, without being universal: slavery would afterwards die out, through the general degradation of society; and then the community would begin again to rise, from a very low point. But it will be seen that I do not anticipate that there will be room or time for this set of circumstances to take place. I say this in the knowledge of the fact that a very perceptible tinge of negro blood is visible in some of the first families of Louisiana; a fact learned from residents of high quality on the spot.

How stands the case, finally?--A large proportion of the labour of the United States is held on principles wholly irreconcilable with the principles of the constitution: whatever may be true about its origin, it is now inefficient, wasteful, destructive, to a degree which must soon cause a change of plan: some who see the necessity of such a change, are in favour of reversing the original policy;--slavery having once been begun in order to till the land, they are now for usurping a new territory in order to employ their slaves: others are for banishing the labour which is the one thing most needful to their country, in every way. While all this confusion and mismanagement exist, here is the labour, actually on the land, ready to be employed to better purpose; and in the treasury are the funds by which the transmutation of slave into free labour might be effected,--at once in the District of Columbia; and by subsequent arrangements in the slave States. Many matters of detail would have to be settled: the distribution would be difficult; but it is not impossible. Virginia, whose revenue is derived from the rearing of slaves for the south, whose property is the beings themselves, and not their labour, must, in justice, receive a larger compensation than such States as Alabama and Louisiana, where the labour is the wealth, and which would be therefore immediately enriched by the improvement in the quality of the labour which would follow upon emancipation. Such arrangements may be difficult to make; but "when there's a will there's a way;" and when it is generally perceived that the abolition of slavery must take place, the great principle will not long be allowed to lie in fetters of detail. The Americans have done more difficult things than this; though assuredly none greater. The restoration of two millions and a half of people to their human rights will be as great a deed as the history of the world will probably ever have to exhibit. In none of its pages are there names more lustrous than those of the clear-eyed and fiery-hearted few who began and are achieving the virtuous revolution.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] I might add their matter-of-fact credulity, strongly resembling romance. As a specimen of the _quizzing_ common with regard to the Germans, I give an anecdote. At the time when the struggle between Adams and Jackson was very close, a supporter of Adams complained to Mr. W. that it was provoking that somebody had persuaded the Germans in Pennsylvania that Mr. Adams had married a daughter of George III.; a report which would cost him all their votes. Mr. W. said, "Why do not you contradict it?" "O," replied his friend, "you know nothing of those people. They will believe everything, and unbelieve nothing. No: instead of contradicting the report, we must allow that Adams married a daughter of George III.; but add that Jackson married two."

[13] I heard some interesting facts about the Germans in Pennsylvania from Mr. Gallatin, who lived among them for some time. A fact regarding this gentleman shows what the obscurity of country life in the United States may be. His estate was originally in Virginia. By a new division, it was thrown into the back of Pennsylvania. He ceased to be heard of, for some years, in the interval of his engaging in public affairs. During this time, an advertisement appeared in a newspaper, asking for tidings of "one Albert Gallatin" and adding that if he were still living, he might, on making a certain application, hear of something to his advantage.

[14] I need hardly mention that I read "England and America" before I set out on my travels. It will appear that I am under obligations to that valuable work for much guidance.

[15] See Appendix A.