Chapter XXX: Appendix: A (1)

MR. ADAMS'S SPEECH ON TEXAS.

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I suppose a more portentous case, certainly within the bounds of possibility--I would to God I could say not within the bounds of probability. You have been, if you are not now, at the very point of a war with Mexico--a war, I am sorry to say, so far as public rumour may be credited, stimulated by provocations on our part from the very commencement of this administration down to the recent authority given to General Gaines to invade the Mexican territory. It is said that one of the earliest acts of this administration was a proposal, made at a time when there was already much ill-humour in Mexico against the United States, that she should cede to the United States a very large portion of her territory--large enough to constitute nine States equal in extent to Kentucky. It must be confessed that a device better calculated to produce jealousy, suspicion, ill-will, and hatred, could not have been contrived. It is further affirmed that this overture, offensive in itself, was made precisely at the time when a swarm of colonists from these United States were covering the Mexican border with land-jobbing, and with slaves, introduced in defiance of the Mexican laws, by which slavery had been abolished throughout that Republic. The war now raging in Texas is a Mexican civil war, and a war for the re-establishment of slavery where it was abolished.--It is not a servile war, but a war between slavery and emancipation, and every possible effort has been made to drive us into the war, on the side of slavery.

It is, indeed, a circumstance eminently fortunate for us that this monster, Santa Ana, has been defeated and taken, though I cannot participate in that exquisite joy with which we have been told that every one having Anglo-Saxon blood in his veins must have been delighted on hearing that this ruffian has been shot, in cold blood, when a prisoner of war, by the Anglo-Saxon leader of the victorious Texan army. Sir, I hope there is no member of this house, of other than Anglo-Saxon origin, who will deem it uncourteous that I, being myself in part Anglo-Saxon, must, of course, hold that for the best blood that ever circulated in human veins. Oh! yes, sir! far be it from me to depreciate the glories of the Anglo-Saxon race; although there have been times when they bowed their necks and submitted to the law of conquest, beneath the ascendency of the Norman race. But, sir, it has struck me as no inconsiderable evidence of the spirit which is spurring us into this war of aggression, of conquest, and of slave-making, that all the fires of ancient, hereditary national hatred are to be kindled, to familiarise us with the ferocious spirit of rejoicing at the massacre of prisoners in cold blood. Sir, is there not yet hatred enough between the races which compose your Southern population and the population of Mexico, their next neighbour, but you must go back eight hundred or a thousand years, and to another hemisphere, for the fountains of bitterness between you and them? What is the temper of feeling between the component parts of our own Southern population, between your Anglo-Saxon, Norman, French, and Moorish Spanish inhabitants of Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Missouri? between them all and the Indian savage, the original possessor of the land from which you are scourging him already back to the foot of the Rocky Mountains? What between them all and the native American negro, of African origin, whom they are holding in cruel bondage? Are these elements of harmony, concord, and patriotism between the component parts of a nation starting upon a crusade of conquest? And what are the feelings of all this motley compound of your Southern population towards the compound equally heterogeneous of the Mexican population? Do not you, an Anglo-Saxon, slave-holding exterminator of Indians, from the bottom of your soul, hate the Mexican-Spaniard-Indian, emancipator of slaves and abolisher of slavery? And do you think that your hatred is not with equal cordiality returned? Go to the city of Mexico, ask any of your fellow-citizens who have been there for the last three or four years, whether they scarcely dare show their faces, as Anglo-Americans, in the streets. Be assured, sir, that, however heartily you detest the Mexican, his bosom burns with an equally deep-seated detestation of you.

And this is the nation with which, at the instigation of your Executive Government, you are now rushing into war--into a war of conquest; commenced by aggression on your part, and for the re-establishment of slavery, where it has been abolished, throughout the Mexican Republic. For your war will be with Mexico--with a Republic of twenty-four States, and a population of eight or nine millions of souls. It seems to be considered that this victory over twelve hundred men, with the capture of their commander, the President of the Mexican Republic, has already achieved the conquest of the whole Republic. That it may have achieved the independence of Texas, is not impossible. But Texas is to the Mexican Republic not more nor so much as the State of Michigan is to yours. That State of Michigan, the people of which are in vain claiming of you the performance of that sacred promise you made them, of admitting her as a State into the Union; that State of Michigan, which has greater grievances and heavier wrongs to allege against you for a declaration of her independence, if she were disposed to declare it, than the people of Texas have for breaking off their union with the Republic of Mexico. Texas is an extreme boundary portion of the Republic of Mexico; a wilderness inhabited only by Indians, till after the Revolution which separated Mexico from Spain; not sufficiently populous at the organisation of the Mexican Confederacy to form a State by itself, and therefore united with Coahuila, where the greatest part of the indigenous part of the population reside. Sir, the history of all the emancipated Spanish American colonies has been, ever since their separation from Spain, a history of convulsionary wars; of revolutions, accomplished by single, and often very insignificant battles; of chieftains, whose title to power has been the murder of their immediate predecessors. They have all partaken of the character of the first conquest of Mexico by Cortez, and of Peru by Pizarro; and this, sir, makes me shudder at the thought of connecting our destinies indissolubly with theirs. It may be that a new revolution in Mexico will follow upon this captivity or death of their president and commanding general; we have rumours, indeed, that such a revolution had happened even before his defeat; but I cannot yet see my way clear to the conclusion that either the independence of Texas, or the capture and military execution of Santa Ana, will save you from war with Mexico. Santa Ana was but one of a breed of which Spanish America for the last twenty-five years has been a teeming mother--soldiers of fortune, who, by the sword or the musket-ball, have risen to supreme power, and by the sword or the musket-ball have fallen from it. That breed is not extinct; the very last intelligence from Peru tells of one who has fallen there as Yturbide, and Mina, and Guerrero, and Santa Ana have fallen in Mexico. The same soil which produced them is yet fertile to produce others. They reproduce themselves, with nothing but a change of the name and of the man. Your war, sir, is to be a war of races--the Anglo-Saxon American pitted against the Moorish-Spanish-Mexican American; a war between the Northern and Southern halves of North America; from Passamaquoddy to Panama. Are you prepared for such a war?

And again I ask, what will be your _cause_ in such a war? Aggression, conquest, and the re-establishment of slavery where it has been abolished. In that war, sir, the banners of _freedom_ will be the banners of Mexico; and your banners, I blush to speak the word, will be the banners of slavery.

Sir, in considering these United States and the United Mexican States as mere masses of power coming into collision against each other, I cannot doubt that Mexico will be the greatest sufferer by the shock. The conquest of all Mexico would seem to be no improbable result of the conflict, especially if the war should extend no farther than to the two mighty combatants. But will it be so confined? Mexico is clearly the weakest of the two powers; but she is not the least prepared for action. She has the more recent experience of war. She has the greatest number of veteran warriors; and although her highest chief has just suffered a fatal and ignominious defeat, yet that has happened often before to leaders of armies, too confident of success, and contemptuous of their enemy. Even now, Mexico is better prepared for a war of invasion upon you, than you are for a war of invasion upon her. There may be found a successor to Santa Ana, inflamed with the desire, not only of avenging his disaster, but what he and his nation will consider your perfidious hostility. The national spirit may go with him. He may not only turn the tables upon the Texan conquerors, but drive them for refuge within your borders, and pursue them into the heart of your own territories. Are you in a condition to resist him? Is the success of your whole army, and all your veteran generals, and all your militia-calls, and all your mutinous volunteers, against a miserable band of five or six hundred invisible Seminole Indians, in your late campaign, an earnest of the energy and vigour with which you are ready to carry on that far otherwise formidable and complicated war?--Complicated did I say? And how complicated? Your Seminole war is already spreading to the Creeks; and, in their march of desolation, they sweep along with them your negro slaves, and put arms into their hands to make common cause with them against you; and how far will it spread, sir, should a Mexican invader, with the torch of liberty in his hand, and the standard of freedom floating over his head, proclaiming emancipation to the slave, and revenge to the native Indian, as he goes, invade your soil? What will be the condition of your States of Louisiana, of Mississippi, of Alabama, of Arkansas, of Missouri, and of Georgia? Where will be your negroes? Where will be that combined and concentrated mass of Indian tribes, whom, by an inconceivable policy, you have expelled from their widely-distant habitations, to embody them within a small compass on the very borders of Mexico, as if on purpose to give to that country a nation of natural allies in their hostilities against you? Sir, you have a Mexican, an Indian, and a negro war upon your hands, and you are plunging yourself into it blindfold; you are talking about acknowledging the independence of the Republic of Texas, and you are thirsting to annex Texas, ay, and Coahuila, and Tamaulipas, and Santa Fe, from the source to the mouth of the Rio Bravo, to your already over-distended dominions. Five hundred thousand square miles of the territory of Mexico would not even now quench your burning thirst for aggrandisement.

But will your foreign war for this be with Mexico alone? No, sir. As the weaker party, Mexico, when the contest shall have once begun, will look abroad, as well as among your negroes and your Indians, for assistance. Neither Great Britain nor France will suffer you to make such a conquest from Mexico; no, nor even to annex the independent State of Texas to your Confederation, without their interposition. You will have an Anglo-Saxon intertwined with a Mexican war to wage. Great Britain may have no serious objection to the independence of Texas, and may be willing enough to take her under her protection, as a barrier both against Mexico and against you. But, as an aggrandisement to you, she will not readily suffer it; and, above all, she will not suffer you to acquire it by conquest, and the re-establishment of slavery. Urged on by the irresistible, overwhelming torrent of public opinion, Great Britain has recently, at a cost of one hundred million of dollars, which her people have joyfully paid, abolished slavery, throughout all her colonies in the West Indies. After setting such an example, she will not--it is impossible that she should--stand by and witness a war for the re-establishment of slavery, where it had been for years abolished, and situated thus in the immediate neighbourhood of her islands. She will tell you, that if you must have Texas as a member of your Confederacy, it must be without the taint or the trammels of slavery; and if you will wage a war to handcuff and fetter your fellow-man, she will wage the war against you to break his chains. Sir, what a figure, in the eyes of mankind, would you make, in deadly conflict with Great Britain: she fighting the battles of emancipation, and you the battles of slavery; she the benefactress, and you the oppressor, of human kind! In such a war, the enthusiasm of emancipation, too, would unite vast numbers of her people in aid of the national rivalry, and all her natural jealousy against our aggrandisement. No war was ever so popular in England as that war would be against slavery, the slave-trade, and the Anglo-Saxon descendant from her own loins.

As to the annexation of Texas to your Confederation, for what do you want it? Are you not large and unwieldy enough already? Do not two millions of square miles cover surface enough for the insatiate rapacity of your land-jobbers? I hope there are none of them within the sound of my voice. Have you not Indians enough to expel from the land of their fathers' sepulchres, and to exterminate? What, in a prudential and military point of view, would be the addition of Texas to your domain? It would be weakness, and not power. Is your southern and south-western frontier not sufficiently extensive? not sufficiently feeble? not sufficiently defenceless? Why are you adding regiment after regiment of dragoons to your standing army? Why are you struggling, by direction and by indirection, to raise _per saltum_ that army from less than six to more than twenty thousand men? Your commanding general, now returning from his excursion to Florida, openly recommends the increase of your army to that number. Sir, the extension of your sea-coast frontier from the Sabine to the Rio Bravo, would add to your weakness tenfold; for it is now only weakness with reference to Mexico. It would then be weakness with reference to Great Britain, to France, even perhaps to Russia, to every naval European power, which might make a quarrel with us for the sake of settling a colony; but, above all, to Great Britain. She, by her naval power, and by her American colonies, holds the keys of the Gulf of Mexico. What would be the condition of your frontier from the mouth of the Mississippi to that of the Rio del Norte, in the event of a war with Great Britain? Sir, the reasons of Mr. Monroe for accepting the Sabine as the boundary were three. First, he had no confidence in the strength of our claim as far as the Rio Bravo; secondly, he thought it would make our union so heavy, that it would break into fragments by its own weight; thirdly, he thought it would protrude a long line of sea-coast, which, in our first war with Great Britain, she might take into her own possession, and which we should be able neither to defend nor to recover. At that time there was no question of slavery or of abolition in the controversy. The country belonged to Spain; it was a wilderness, and slavery was the established law of the land. There was then no project for carving out nine slave States, to hold eighteen seats in the other wing of this capitol, in the triangle between the mouths and the sources of the Mississippi and Bravo rivers. But what was our claim? Why it was that La Salle, having discovered the mouth of the Mississippi, and France having made a settlement at New Orleans, France had a right to one half the sea-coast from the mouth of the Mississippi to the next Spanish settlement, which was Vera Cruz. The mouth of the Rio Bravo was about half way from the Balize to Vera Cruz; and so as grantees, from France of Louisiana, we claimed to the Rio del Norte, though the Spanish settlement of Santa Fe was at the head of that river. France, from whom we had received Louisiana, utterly disclaimed ever having even raised such a pretension. Still we made the best of the claim that we could, and finally yielded it for the Floridas, and for the line of the 42d degree of latitude from the source of the Arkansas river to the South Sea. Such was our claim; and you may judge how much confidence Mr. Monroe could have in its validity. The great object and desire of the country then was to obtain the Floridas. It was General Jackson's desire; and in that conference with me to which I have heretofore alluded, and which it is said he does not recollect, he said to me that so long as the Florida rivers were not in our possession, there could be no safety for our whole Southern country.

But, sir, suppose you should annex Texas to these United States; another year would not pass before you would have to engage in a war for the conquest of the Island of Cuba. What is now the condition of that island? Still under the nominal protection of Spain. And what is the condition of Spain herself? Consuming her own vitals in a civil war for the succession to the crown. Do you expect, that whatever may be the issue of that war, she can retain even the nominal possession of Cuba? After having lost _all_ her continental colonies in North and South America, Cuba will stand in need of more efficient protection; and above all, the protection of a naval power. Suppose that naval power should be Great Britain. There is Cuba at your very door; and if you spread yourself along a naked coast, from the Sabine to the Rio Bravo, what will be your relative position towards Great Britain, with not only Jamaica, but Cuba, and Porto Rico in her hands, and abolition for the motto to her union cross of St. George and St. Andrew? Mr. Chairman, do you think I am treading on fantastic grounds? Let me tell you a piece of history, not far remote. Sir, many years have not passed away since an internal revolution in Spain subjected that country and her king for a short time to the momentary government of the Cortes. That revolution was followed by another, by which, under the auspices of a French army with the Duke d'Angouleme at their head, Ferdinand the Seventh was restored to a despotic throne; Cuba had followed the fortunes of the Cortes when they were crowned with victory; and when the counter-revolution came, the inhabitants of the island, uncertain what was to be their destination, were for some time in great perplexity what to do for themselves. Two considerable parties arose in the island, one of which was for placing it under the protection of Great Britain, and another was for annexing it to the confederation of these United States. By one of these parties I have reason to believe that overtures were made to the Government of Great Britain. By the other _I know_ that overtures were made to the government of the United States. And I further know that secret, though irresponsible assurances were communicated to the then President of the United States, as coming from the French Government, that _they_ were secretly informed that the British Government had determined to take possession of Cuba. Whether similar overtures were made to France herself, I do not undertake to say; but that Mr. George Canning, then the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, was under no inconsiderable alarm, lest, under the pupilage of the Duke d'Angouleme, Ferdinand the Seventh might commit to the commander of a French naval squadron the custody of the Moro Castle, is a circumstance also well known to me. It happened that just about that time a French squadron of considerable force was fitted out and received sailing orders for the West Indies, without formal communication of the fact to the British Government; and that as soon as it was made known to him, he gave orders to the British Ambassador at Paris to demand, in the most peremptory tone, what was the destination of that squadron, and a special and positive disclaimer that it was intended even to visit the Havana; and this was made the occasion of mutual explanations, by which Great Britain, France, and the United States, not by the formal solemnity of a treaty, but by the implied engagement of mutual assurances of intention, gave pledges of honour to each other, that neither of them should in the then condition of the island take it, or the Moro Castle, as its citadel, from the possession of Spain. This engagement was on all sides faithfully performed; but, without it, who doubts that from that day to this either of the three powers might have taken the island and held it in undisputed possession?

At this time circumstances have changed--popular revolutions both in France and Great Britain have perhaps curbed the spirit of conquest in Great Britain, and France may have enough to do to govern her kingdom of Algiers. But Spain is again convulsed with a civil war for the succession to her crown; she has irretrievably lost all her colonies on both continents of America. It is impossible that she should hold much longer a shadow of dominion over the islands of Cuba and Porto Rico; nor can those islands, in their present condition, form independent nations, capable of protecting themselves. They must for ages remain at the mercy of Great Britain or of these United States, or of both; Great Britain is even now about to interfere in this war for the Spanish succession. If by the utter imbecility of the Mexican confederacy this revolt of Texas should lead immediately to its separation from that Republic, and its annexation to the United States, I believe it impossible that Great Britain should look on while this operation is performing with indifference. She will see that it must shake her own whole colonial power on this continent, in the Gulf of Mexico, and in the Caribbean Seas, like an earthquake; she will see, too, that it endangers her own abolition of slavery in her own colonies. A war for the restoration of slavery where it has been abolished, if successful in Texas, must extend over all Mexico; and the example will threaten her with imminent danger of a war of colours in her own islands. She will take possession of Cuba and of Porto Rico, by cession from Spain or by the batteries from her wooden walls; and if you ask her by what authority she has done it, she will ask you, in return, by what authority you have extended your sea-coast from the Sabine to the Rio Bravo. She will ask you a question more perplexing, namely--by what authority you, with freedom, independence, and democracy upon your lips, are waging a war of extermination to forge new manacles and fetters, instead of those which are falling from the hands and feet of man. She will carry emancipation and abolition with her in every fold of her flag; while your stars, as they increase in numbers, will be overcast with the murky vapours of oppression, and the only portion of your banners visible to the eye will be the blood-stained stripes of the taskmaster.

Mr. Chairman, are you ready for all these wars? A Mexican war? a war with Great Britain, if not with France? a general Indian war? a servile war? and, as an inevitable consequence of them all, a civil war? For it must ultimately terminate in a war of colours as well as of races. And do you imagine that while with your eyes open you are wilfully kindling, and then closing your eyes and blindly rushing into them; do you imagine that while, in the very nature of things, your own Southern and Southwestern States must be the Flanders of these complicated wars, the battle-field upon which the last great conflict must be fought between slavery and emancipation; do you imagine that your Congress will have no constitutional authority to interfere with the institution of slavery _in any way_ in the States of this Confederacy? Sir, they must and will interfere with it--perhaps to sustain it by war; perhaps to abolish it by treaties of peace; and they will not only possess the constitutional power so to interfere, but they will be bound in duty to do it by the express provisions of the Constitution itself. For the instant that your slaveholding States become the theatre of war, civil, servile, or foreign, from that instant the war powers of Congress extend to interference with the institution of slavery in every way by which it can be interfered with, from a claim of indemnity for slaves taken or destroyed, to the cession of the State burdened with slavery to a foreign power.

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B.

GENERAL AND STATE FINANCES.

_Statement of Moneys received into the Treasury from all sources, for the year 1832._

Dollars. Cts. From the Customs 22,178,735 30 Public Lands 2,623,381 03 From dividends on Stock in the Bank of the United States 490,000 00 Sales of Stock in Bank of the United States 169,000 00 Arrears of direct tax 6,791 13 Arrears of internal revenue 11,630 65 Fees on Letters Patent 14,160 00 Cents coined at the Mint 21,845 40 Fines, penalties, and forfeitures 8,868 04 Surplus emoluments of officers of the Customs 31,965 46 Postage on letters 244 95 Consular receipts 1,884 52 Interest on debts due by Banks to United States 136 00 Persons unknown, said to be due to United States 500 00 Moneys obtained from the Treasury on forged documents 115 00 Moneys previously advanced for Biennial Register 37 00 Securing Light-house on the Brandy-wine Shoal 1,000 00 Light-house on Mahon's Ditch, Delaware 4,975 00 Balance of advances in the War Department, repaid 15,679 24 ---------- 119,832 39 Deduction, &c. 1,889 50 --------- 117,942 89 ------------- 25,579,059 22

_Statement of Expenditures of the United States, for 1832._

Dollars. Cts.
Civil, miscellaneous, and foreign intercourse 4,577,141 45
Military establishment 7,982,877 03
Naval establishment 3,956,370 29
--------------
16,516,388 77

Such were the expenses of the federal government of the United States, exclusive of the Debt, of which nearly 35,000,000 dollars were that year paid.

For the State of Connecticut, the same year, the receipts were,--

Ds. Cts. From interest on United States 3 per cents 1,382 00 Tax on non-resident owners of Bank stock 2,817 00 Avails of State prison 5,000 00 Dividends on Bank stock, owned by the State 25,670 00 Fines and miscellaneous receipts 7,448 00 State tax 37,984 00 ----------- 80,301 00

Disbursements were--

For ordinary expenses of government 60,852 00
For public buildings and institutions 10,774 00
-----------
71,626 00

Population in 1830,--297,665.

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I will give also the receipts and expenditure of one of the largest and busiest of the States, with a population (in 1830) of 1,348,233.

PENNSYLVANIA. 1832 AND 1833.

_Receipts._

Ds. Cts. Lands and Land-office fees 48,379 64 Auction commissions and duties 94,738 08 Dividends on various stock 171,765 20 Tax on bank dividends 45,404 91 Tax on offices 14,399 51 Tax on writs, &c. 24,771 00 Fees, Secretary of State's office 728 33 Tavern licenses 52,267 16 Duties on dealers in foreign merchandise 61,480 86 State maps 131 30 Collateral inheritances 160,626 26 Pamphlet laws 96 26 Militia and exempt fines 1,693 00 Tin and clock pedlars' licences 2,461 93 Hawkers' and pedlars' licences 3,025 45 Increase of county rates and levies 185,177 32 Tax on personal property 43,685 37 Escheats 1,746 99 Canal tolls 151,419 69 Loans, and premiums on loans 2,875,638 72 Premiums on Bank charters 102,297 90 Old debts and miscellaneous 5,119 74 -------------- 4,047,054 62

_Expenditures._

Ds. Cts.

Internal improvements 2,588,879 13 Expenses of government 212,940 95 Militia expenses 20,776 99 Pensions and gratuities 29,303 21 Education 7,954 48 House of Refuge 5,000 00 Interest on loans 94,317 47 Pennsylvania claimants 351 00 State maps 187 30 Internal improvement fund 755,444 01 Penitentiary at Philadelphia 44,312 50 Penitentiary near Pittsburg 23,047 75 Conveying convicts 1,350 22 Conveying fugitives 581 50 Miscellaneous 12,187 97 Defence of the State 160 00 -------------- 3,796,794 48

NORTH CAROLINA.

Receipts, for 1832, 3 188,819 97 Disbursements 138,867 46

Population in 1830,--737,987.

C.

RECOLLECTIONS OF A SOUTHERN MATRON.

CHAP. VI.

"_Mrs. Page._--Sir Hugh, my husband says my son profits nothing in
the world at his book. I pray you ask him some questions in his
accidence."

"_Evans._--Come hither, William, hold up your head, come."

After the departure of our Connecticut teacher, Mr. Bates, papa resolved to carry on our education himself. We were to rise by daylight, that he might pursue his accustomed ride over the fields after breakfast. New writing-books were taken out and ruled, fresh quills laid by their side, our task carefully committed to memory, and we sat with a mixture of docility and curiosity, to know how he would manage as a teacher. The first three days our lessons being on trodden ground, and ourselves under the impulse of novelty, we were very amiable, he very paternal; on the fourth, John was turned out of the room, Richard was pronounced a mule, and I went sobbing to mamma as if my heart would break, while papa said he might be compelled to ditch rice fields, but he never would undertake to teach children again.

A slight constraint was thrown over the family for a day or two, but it soon wore off, and he returned to his good-nature. For three weeks we were as wild as fawns, until mamma's attention was attracted by my sun-burnt complexion, and my brothers' torn clothes.

"This will never answer," said she to papa. "Look at Cornelia's face! It is as brown as a chinquapin. Richard has ruined his new suit, and John has cut his leg with the carpenter's tools. I have half a mind to keep school for them myself."

Papa gave a slight whistle, which seemed rather to stimulate than check her resolution.

"Cornelia," said she, "go directly to your brothers, and prepare your books for to-morrow. _I_ will teach you."

The picture about to be presented is not overwrought. I am confident of the sympathy of many a mother, whose finger has been kept on a word in the dictionary so long a time, that her pupils, forgetting her vocation, have lounged through the first interruptions and finished with a frolic.

One would suppose that the retirement of a plantation was the most appropriate spot for a mother and her children to give and receive instruction. Not so, for instead of a limited household, her dependants are increased to a number which would constitute a village. She is obliged to listen to cases of grievance, is a nurse to the sick, distributes the half-yearly clothing; indeed, the mere giving out of thread and needles is something of a charge on so large a scale. A planter's lady may seem indolent, because there are so many under her who perform trivial services, but the very circumstance of keeping so many menials in order is an arduous one, and the _keys_ of her establishment are a care of which a northern housekeeper knows nothing, and include a very extensive class of duties. Many fair and even aristocratic girls, if we may use this phrase in our republican country, who grace a ball-room, or loll in a liveried carriage, may be seen with these steel talismans, presiding over store-houses, and measuring with the accuracy and conscientiousness of a shopman, the daily allowance of the family; or cutting homespun suits, for days together, for the young and old slaves under their charge; while matrons, who would ring a bell for their pocket-handkerchief to be brought to them, will act the part of a surgeon or physician, with a promptitude and skill, which would excite astonishment in a stranger. Very frequently, slaves, like children, will only take medicine from their superiors, and in this case the planter's wife or daughter is admirably fitted to aid them.

There are few establishments where all care and responsibility devolves on the master, and even then the superintendence of a large domestic circle, and the rites of hospitality, demand so large a portion of the mistress's time, as leaves her but little opportunity for systematic teaching in her family. In this case she is wise to seek an efficient tutor, still appropriating those opportunities which perpetually arise under the same roof, to improve their moral and religious culture, and cultivate those sympathies which exalt these precious beings from children to friends.

The young, conscientious, ardent mother must be taught this by experience. She has a jealousy at first of any instruction that shall come between their dawning minds and her own, and is only taught by the constantly thwarted recitation, that in this country, at least, good housekeeping and good teaching cannot be combined.

But to return to my narrative. The morning after mamma's order, we assembled at ten o'clock. There was a little trepidation in her manner, but we loved her too well to annoy her by noticing it. Her education had been confined to mere rudiments, and her good sense led her only to conduct our reading, writing, and spelling.

We stood in a line.

"Spell _irrigate_," said she. Just then the coachman entered, and bowing, said, "Maussa send me for de key for get four quart o'corn for him bay horse."

The key was given.

"Spell _imitate_," said mamma.

"We did not spell _irrigate_," we all exclaimed.

"Oh, no," said she, "_irrigate_."

By the time the two words were well through, Chloe, the most refined of our coloured circle, appeared.

"Will mistress please to _medjure_ out some calomel for Syphax, who is feverish and onrestless?"[38]

During mamma's visit to the doctor's shop, as the medicine-closet was called, we turned the inkstand over on her mahogany table, and wiped it up with our pocket-handkerchiefs. It required some time to cleanse and arrange ourselves; and just as we were seated and had advanced a little way on our orthographical journey, maum Phillis entered with her usual drawl, "Little maussa want for nurse, marm."

While this operation was going on, we gathered round mamma to play bo-peep with the baby, until even she forgot our lessons. At length the little pet was dismissed with the white drops still resting on his red lips, and our line was formed again.

Mamma's next interruption, after successfully issuing a few words, was to settle a quarrel between La Fayette and Venus, two little blackies, who were going through their daily drill, in learning to rub the furniture, which with brushing flies at meals constitutes the first instruction for house servants. These important and classical personages rubbed about a stroke to the minute on each side of the cellaret, rolling up their eyes and making grimaces at each other. At this crisis they had laid claim to the same rubbing-cloth; mamma stopped the dispute by ordering my seamstress Flora, who was sewing for me, to apply the weight of her thimble, that long-known weapon of offence, as well as implement of industry, to their organ of firmness.

"Spell _accentuate_" said mamma, whose finger had slipped from the column.

"No, no, that is not the place," we exclaimed, rectifying the mistake.

"Spell _irritate_" said she, with admirable coolness, and John fairly succeeded just as the overseer's son, a sallow little boy with yellow hair, and blue homespun dress, came in with his hat on, and kicking up one foot for manners, said, "Fayther says as how he wants master Richard's horse to help tote some tetters[39] to t'other field."

This pretty piece of alliteration was complied with, after some remonstrance from brother Dick, and we finished our column. At this crisis, before we were fairly seated at writing, mamma was summoned to the hall to one of the field hands, who had received an injury in the ancle from a hoe. Papa and the overseer being at a distance, she was obliged to superintend the wound. We all followed her, La Fayette and Venus bringing up the rear. She inspected the sufferer's great foot, covered with blood and perspiration, superintended a bath, prepared a healing application, and bound it on with her own delicate hands, first quietly tying a black apron over her white dress. Here was no shrinking, no hiding of the eyes, and while extracting some extraneous substance from the wound, her manner was as resolute as it was gentle and consoling. This episode gave Richard an opportunity to unload his pockets of groundnuts, and treat us therewith. We were again seated at our writing-books, and were going on swimmingly with "_Avoid evil company_," when a little crow-minder, hoarse from his late occupation, came in with a basket of eggs, and said,

"Mammy Phillis send Missis some egg for buy, ma'am; she ain't so bery well, and ax for some 'baccer."

It took a little time to pay for the eggs and send to the store-room for the Virginia-weed, of which opportunity we availed ourselves to draw figures on our slates: mamma reproved us, and we were resuming our duties, when the cook's son approached and said,

"Missis, Daddy Ajax say he been broke de axe, and ax me for ax you for len him de new axe."

This made us shout out with laughter, and the business was scarcely settled, when the dinner-horn sounded. That evening a carriage full of friends arrived from the city to pass a week with us, and thus ended mamma's experiment in teaching.

Our summers were usually passed at Springland, a pine-settlement, where about twenty families resorted at that season of the year. We were fortunate to find a French lady already engaged in teaching, from whom I took lessons on the piano-forte and guitar. The summer passed swiftly away. Papa was delighted with my facility in French, in which my brothers were also engaged, and we were happy to retain Madame d'Anville in our own family, on our return to Roseland.

In the middle of November a stranger was announced to papa, and a young man of very prepossessing appearance entered with a letter. It proved to be from our teacher, Mr. Bates. The contents were as follows:--

"_Respected Sir._--I now sit down to write to you, to inform you that I am well, as also are Sir and Mar'm, my sister Nancy, and all the rest of our folks except aunt Patty, who is but poorly, having attacks of the rheumatiz, and shortness of breath. I should add, that Mrs. Prudence Bates, (who after the regular publishment on the church-doors for three Sundays, was united to me in the holy bands of wedlock, by our minister Mr. Ezekiel Duncan,) is in a good state of health, at this present, though her uncle, by her father's side, has been sick of jaundice, a complaint that has been off and on with him for a considerable spell.

"The bearer of this epistle is Parson Duncan's son, by name Mr. Charles Duncan, a very likely young man, but poorly in health, and Dr. Hincks says, going down to Charleston may set him up. I have the candour to say, that I think him, on some accounts, a more proper teacher than your humble servant, having served his time at a regular college edication.

* * * * * *

"I have writ a much longer letter than I thought on, but somehow it makes me chirpy to think of Roseland, though the young folks were obstreperous.

"Give my love nevertheless to them, and Miss Wilton, and all the little ones, as also I would not forget Daddy Jacque, whom I consider, notwithstanding his colour, as a very respectable person. I cannot say as much for Jim, who was an eternal thorn in my side, by reason of his quickness at mischief, and his slowness at waiting upon me; and I take this opportunity of testifying, that I believe if he had been in New England, he would have had his deserts before this; but you Southern folks do put up with an unaccountable sight from niggers, and I hope Jim will not be allowed his full tether, if so be Mr. Charles should take my situation in your family. I often tell our folks how I used to catch up a thing and do it rather than wait for half-a-dozen on 'em to take their own time. If I lived to the age of Methusalem, I never could git that composed, quiet kind of way you Southern folks have of waiting on the niggers. I only wish they could see aunt Patty move when the rheumatiz is off--if she isn't spry, I don't know.

"Excuse all errors, "Yours to serve, "JOSEPH BATES."

I detected a gentle, half-comical smile on Mr. Duncan's mouth as he raised his splendid eyes to papa, while delivering Mr. Bates' letter; but he soon walked to the window, and asked me some questions about the Cherokee-rose hedge, and other objects in view, which were novelties to him. I felt instantly that he was a gentleman, by the atmosphere of refinement which was thrown over him, and I saw that papa sympathised with me, as with graceful courtesy he welcomed him to Roseland.--_Southern Rose-bud._

D.

The following is such information as I have been able to obtain respecting the public Educational provision in the United States, from the year 1830 to 1835.

_The Free States in 1830._

MAINE.--"By a law of the State, every town, however large or small, is required to raise annually, for the support of schools, a sum equal at least to _forty cents._ for each person in the town, and to distribute this sum among the several schools or districts, in proportion to the number of scholars in each. The expenditure of the sum is left principally to the direction of the town, and its committee or agents, appointed for that purpose. In the year 1825, the legislature required a report from each town in the State, respecting the situation of the schools."--_United States Almanack._

At that time, the number of school districts in ten counties was, 2,499.

The number of children between 4 and 21 was 137,931 The number who usually attend schools 101,325

Dollars. Amount required by law to be expended annually 119,334 Amount raised from taxes 132,263 Amount from the income of permanent funds 5,614 Total annual expenditure 137,878

The number of incorporated academies in the State was 31; 4 of which were for girls: the amount of funds varying from 2,000 to 22,000 dollars a-year.

NEW HAMPSHIRE.--"From the year 1808 to 1818, there were raised in New Hampshire 70,000 dollars annually by law, for the support of common schools. This amount was raised by a separate tax, levied throughout the State, in the ratio of taxation for the State Tax. Since 1818, the yearly amount of the sum raised has been 90,000 dollars. This is the amount required by law, but a few towns raise more than they are required. The legislature assumes no control over the immediate appropriation, but leaves this to each town."

The State had also, in 1830, an annual income of 9,000 dollars, and a literary fund of 64,000 dollars, raised by a tax of a half per cent. on the capital of the banks; both to be, from that time, annually divided among the towns, in the ratio of taxation.

Some of the towns had separate school funds.

The white population of New Hampshire at this time was 268,721 The coloured population 607

VERMONT.--An act was passed in 1827 to provide for the support of common schools. About 100,000 dollars was raised in 1830. A fund was also accumulating, which was to be applied whenever its income would support a common free-school in every district of the State, for two months in the year.

There were about 20 incorporated academies in the State, where young men were fitted for college. The number of students was supposed to average 40 at each.

MASSACHUSETTS.--"By the returns from 131 towns, presented to the legislature, it appears that the amount annually paid in these towns for public schools, is 177,206 dollars.

"The number of scholars receiving instruction 70,599 The number of pupils attending private schools in those towns 12,393

At an expense of 170,342 dollars.

"The number of persons in those towns, between the ages of 14 and 21, unable to read and write, is 58.

"In the town of Hancock, in Berkshire county, there are only 3 persons between 14 and 21 who cannot read and write; and they are _mutes_."--_American Annual Register._

RHODE ISLAND.--"In January, 1828, the legislature appropriated 10,000 dollars annually for the support of public schools, to be divided among the several towns, in proportion to the population, with authority for each town to raise, by annual tax, double the amount received from the Treasury, as its proportion of the 10,000 dollars.

"There has been as yet no report of the number of school establishments under the act, but it is thought that they may safely be put down at 60, as all the towns have availed themselves of its provisions. The whole number of schools in the State now probably exceeds 650."--_American Almanack._

The white population in 1830 93,621 The coloured 3,578

CONNECTICUT.--The revenue derived from the school fund amounted to 80,243 dollars. The State is divided into 208 school societies, which contained in the aggregate 84,899 children, between the ages of 4 and 16.

The white population in 1830 289,603 The coloured 8,072

NEW YORK.

The number of school districts was 8,609 Number of children between 5 and 15 449,113 Number of children taught in the schools 468,205

This estimate does not include the scholars instructed in the two great cities, New York and Albany.

Dollars. Amount paid to the districts 232,343 Of this, there came out of the Treasury 100,000 Raised by tax upon the towns 119,209 From a local fund 13,133 Voluntary tax by the towns 19,209

PENNSYLVANIA.--This State was in the rear. Not above 9,000 children were educated at the public charge, of about 16,000 dollars.

The white population in 1830 1,309,900 The coloured 38,333

NEW JERSEY.--A fund of 222,000 dollars being realised, a system of Common School education was about to be put in action; an appropriation of 20,000 dollars per annum being ordered to be distributed among the towns for that purpose.

OHIO.--In Cincinnati, the first anniversary of free-schools was kept in 1830. Three thousand pupils belonged to the free-schools of Cincinnati. The amount of the school-tax was about 10,000 dollars.

INDIANA.--A committee of the legislature was appointed to consider and report upon the expediency of adopting the Common School system.

The white population in 1830 339,399 The coloured 3,632

ILLINOIS contained less than 160,000 persons in 1830, and had no public schools.

_The Slave States in 1830._

MARYLAND.--Provision was made for the establishment of Primary Schools throughout the State. One was opened in Baltimore in 1829.

There were 8 or 10 academies, which received annually from 400 to 600 dollars from the Treasury of the State.

Grants to the University of Maryland 5,000 dollars. Grants to Colleges, Academies, and Schools 13,000

DELAWARE.--A law ordaining the establishment of a Common School system was passed in 1829, and the counties were being divided into districts in 1830.

NORTH CAROLINA had a literary fund of 70,000 dollars; but nothing had yet been done towards applying it.

VIRGINIA.--No free-schools.

SOUTH CAROLINA.--"It appeared by a Report of a Committee on Schools, that the number of public schools established in the State was 513, wherein 5,361 scholars were educated at the annual expense of 35,310 dollars."

"The benefit derived from this appropriation," says the governor, "is partial, founded on no principle, and arbitrarily dispensed by the Commissioners. If the fund could be so managed as to educate thoroughly a given number of young men, and to require them afterwards to teach for a limited time, as an equivalent, the effects would soon be seen and felt."--_American Annual Register._

The white population in 1830 257,863 The coloured 323,322

GEORGIA.--The appropriations for county academies amounted to 14,302 dollars: and the poor school fund, 742 dollars.

The white population in 1830 296,806 The coloured 220,017

ALABAMA.--No schools.

MISSISSIPPI.--No schools.

MISSOURI.--No schools.

LOUISIANA.--Instead of schools, a law making imprisonment the punishment of teaching a slave to read.

TENNESSEE.--A fund is set to accumulate for the purpose of hereafter encouraging schools, colleges, and academies.

KENTUCKY.--The Common School system was established by law, and provisions made for the division of the counties into districts, and the levying of the poll and property taxes for the purpose.

"The Louisville Advertiser announces the establishment by that city of a school at the public expense, stated to be the first south of the Ohio. It is opened to the children of all the citizens. The number of pupils entered is 300."--_American Annual Register._

_The Free States in 1833 to 1835._

MAINE, 1835.

Annual expenditure for free-schools 156,000 dollars. Aggregate number of pupils 106,000 Academies, 12; Colleges, 2.

NEW HAMPSHIRE, 1835.--Amount expended on primary schools, 101,000 dollars.

MASSACHUSETTS, 1834.--Returns not received from 44 towns out of 261.

Boys, between 4 and 16 years, attending school 67,499 Girls, of the same age 63,728 Number of persons, between 16 and 21, unable to read and write 158 Number of male teachers 1,967 Number of female teachers 2,388 Amount of school-money raised by tax 310,178 dollars. Amount of school-money raised by contribution 15,141 Average number of scholars attending academies and private schools 24,749 Estimated amount paid for tuition in academies and private schools 276,575 dollars.

RHODE ISLAND, 1835.

Revenue from school tax 10,000 dollars. Permanent school fund 50,000 Amount raised by the towns besides 11,490 Public Schools in the State (in 1832) 324 Children educated in them 17,114 Private schools 220 Scholars in them 8,007 Estimated expense of private schools 81,375 dollars.

CONNECTICUT.--The capital of the School Fund on the 1st of April, 1833, amounted to 1,929,738 dollars: and the dividend, in 1834, was at the rate of one dollar to each child in the State, between the ages of 4 and 16. Number of such children, under the returns,--83,912.

NEW YORK, 1835.

School-houses 9,580 Public school money 316,153 dollars. Paid besides to teachers 398,137

Number of children receiving instruction in the Common Schools, 534,002, being 50 to 51 of the whole population.

PENNSYLVANIA.--There had been difficulties about putting the act in operation; and no returns had been made in 1835.

OHIO.--"Our system of Common Schools has not advanced with the rapidity that was anticipated. It was at first unpopular with the people in some parts of the State; but it has gradually become more and more in favour with them. Its utility is now acknowledged."--_Governor's Message_, Dec. 6, 1834.

Nothing more done in the Slave States.

* * * * *

SUNDAY SCHOOLS.

The Reports of the Sunday School Union up to May, 1835, show that there are, or have been, connected with it, (besides a large number of unassociated schools,) upwards of 16,000 schools, 115,000 teachers, and 799,000 pupils. The officers and managers are all laymen.

COLLEGES.

Colleges in the United States 79 The number of students varying from 15 to 523.

THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES.

Theological Seminaries in the United States 31 Number of students varying from 1 to 152.

MEDICAL SCHOOLS.

Medical Schools in the United States 23 Number of students varying from 18 to 392.

LAW SCHOOLS.

Law Schools in the United States 9 Number of students varying from 6 to 36.

E.

DISCOURSE ON THE WANTS OF THE TIMES.

* * * * *

The age, and especially the country, in which we live, are peculiar. They, therefore, require a peculiar kind of instruction, and, I may say, a peculiar mode of dispensing christian truth. They are unlike any which have preceded us. They are new, and consequently demand what I have called a new Dispensation of Christianity, a dispensation in perfect harmony with the new order of things which has sprung into existence. Yet of this fact we seem not to have been generally aware. The character of our religious institutions, the style of our preaching, the means we rely upon for the production of the christian virtues, are such as were adopted in a distant age, and fitted to wants which no longer exist, or which exist only in a greatly modified shape.