Chapter IX: Introduction: To Volume First (3)

Since we had left our pretty little village, a railroad track had been laid through, it. The depot was near Annie's house. As we had apprised no one of our arrival, we found ourselves alone on the platform when we stepped out of the cars.

'Let us call and see Annie,' said Miriam.

'Before you visit your father and mother?' said I, surprised.

'This is the hour Ackermann usually visits her.'

'I will go with you.'

It was but a few minutes' walk. We felt perfectly at home there. We opened the front door, and walked in without ceremony. No one was in the front rooms. We passed quickly through them into the little room at the foot of the back stairs. I noticed the furniture as soon as I entered. It was new, and was arranged pretty much as Miriam had described it. Ackermann and Annie stood by the window looking into the garden. I am not sure, but I think he was holding her hand. They turned as we entered, and, for a few minutes, were speechless with amazement. Annie was the first to recover herself.

'What a delightful surprise!' she exclaimed, running toward us; but she stopped before she was half across the room. Something in Miriam's manner arrested her. Ackermann's perceptions were quicker. He saw at one glance that Miriam knew all, and, though very much agitated, he stood, looking defiantly at her. She took no notice of Annie, but said to Ackermann:

'I trusted you. You have deceived me. I believed in your love so fully that I would have been yours faithfully until death. You lightly threw mine away. I thought your words of love so sacred that I kept them hid in my heart from the sight of the most faithful friends. You have made mine the subjects of jest. But I do not come here to reproach you. Henceforth you are nothing to me. I came to demand my ring.'

'I have no ring of yours,' said he, with calm decision. 'This ring that I wear you put upon my finger, and told me not to part with it under _any_ circumstances. You charged me to wear it until death. It is mine. I will not part with it, even to you.'

Miriam looked at him incredulously for a moment. Her fortitude began to give way.

'I do not know,' she said slowly, 'why you wish to keep that ring. You can never look at it without thinking of me, and of the words of love I have spoken to you. It is hateful to me to think that you have anything to remind you of the past. For this reason I want the ring. I will not wear it. I will not keep it. I will destroy it utterly. But by the memory of my past trust, I beseech you to give me that ring.'

A sneer curled the lip of Ackermann.

'I will not give it to you!' he said, decidedly.

Miriam did not look at him now, but at the ring. It glowed on his hand like a flame; for it was set with a cluster of diamonds.

'It will ruin you,' she said, raising her eyes slowly, and fixing them on his face. 'It will be your curse.'

She turned and left the room. Ackermann looked displeased, and annoyed. Annie was pale and frightened. I did not know whether to follow Miriam, or remain to hear Annie's explanations. I finally decided to do neither, and, walking out of the open window into the garden, I took another route to my sister's.

They say that no nature is thoroughly evil, that every man has some redeeming qualities. This is probably true, and I suppose Ackermann had his virtues, but I was never able to discover any. The only sides of his character presented to my observation were evil, and wholly evil. He loved Annie, it is true, but it was an unnatural, selfish, exacting love. Such a love is a curse to any woman, and it was doubly so to Annie, who loved him too entirely to see any faults in him, and was too weak minded to resist his merciless exactions. So thoroughly selfish was he that, notwithstanding his love for Annie, he would have married Miriam if she had not so peremptorily broken the engagement. Miriam was very wealthy, while Annie was comparatively poor. Ackermann himself was worth nothing. Why he persisted in keeping the ring I never knew, unless it was that Miriam's proud contempt and indifference roused his malignant temper to oppose her in the only way which lay in his power. He possessed the art of making himself agreeable, and had a very fair seeming, so that when his engagement to Annie was made public, she was warmly congratulated. His former engagement to Miriam was unknown, even to her own parents.

I saw but little of Ackermann and Annie, and never met them but in public. His wickedness and her weakness made them both contemptible in my eyes. And my mind was occupied in other matters. Miriam resolved to make the tour of Europe, and I was to accompany her--for she would take no denial. For many weeks we were busied in preparations for our departure; Miriam had settled all her affairs satisfactorily, and we were thinking of making the last farewells, when she was taken ill. The doctors said it was an organic disease of the heart. This was an hereditary disease in the family, but Miriam up to the time of her acquaintance with Ackermann had been entirely free from any symptom of it, or of any particular disease whatever. Whether this sudden exhibition of it was the effect of natural causes, or was produced by mortified love and pride, I leave the reader to conclude.

I was her constant attendant during her sickness. She could scarcely bear me out of her sight. She had never spoken to me of Ackermann since the interview in Annie's room. Now she seemed to take delight in talking about him, and I was amazed at the intense hatred with which she regarded him. She was gentle and patient under her sufferings, and tender and loving at all times, except when speaking of him. Then all the bad passions of her nature were aroused. It was in vain that I represented to her that at such a time she should endeavor to be at peace with all the world, and forgive as she hoped to be forgiven.

'If I have sinned against my God, as Henry Ackermann has sinned against me, I neither expect or wish to be forgiven,'--was the only reply she would make to such arguments. She had not the slightest feeling of ill will against Annie; she spoke of her as a misguided, loving girl; but often repeated the assertion that Ackermann and Annie would never be married.

The physicians were inclined to think that Miriam would recover from this attack, but she knew, she said, that she must die, and she exacted a promise from me that I would watch over her body until it was consigned to the grave, imploring me not to let indifferent people be with her after death. I readily gave the promise, little knowing what a fearful obligation I was taking upon myself.

One morning I left Miriam's bedside, and walked through the village in order to get some exercise, and breathe the fresh air. I remember the day well. It was in the latter part of May--a warm, sweet, sunny day, with enough of chilliness in the air to give a zest to walking. I was surprised at the ripeness and luxuriance of the foliage, so early for a New England spring; but I was still more surprised at the aspect of our usually silent village. The streets were full of men hurrying to and fro, and groups of men, and women, too, stood at some of the corners. To my utter amazement I learned that Annie had disappeared mysteriously the night before. She had left home alone early in the evening, saying she was going to the river, and had not returned. Search was made for her during the night in all the houses of the village; that morning the river had been dragged; but not the slightest trace of Annie was anywhere to be found. Of course everybody was in a state of intense excitement. Ackermann was represented to me as almost distracted with grief, but he had been active in conducting the search for her.

I thought it best to tell this to Miriam as soon as I returned. It produced a strange effect upon her. It gave her a most intense desire for life.

'I do not desire life for myself,' said she to me, the next day, 'nor for any happiness it could confer upon me, for it has no gift that I value; but I wish to live that I may show Ackermann to the world, as he is, false, and cruel, and revengeful. I feel that I would have the power to do it, had I but health and strength; but what can a dead body do? Can the soul return to it again? Where does the soul go?'

I made no reply to this. I had gone over this ground very often with Miriam. It was not strange that one who had had such remarkable mental experiences should be a believer in spiritual agencies. She was also a firm believer in all the doctrines of the Bible, but she always maintained that this sacred book nowhere taught that the soul, on its release from the body, went directly to heaven. She argued that it was _impossible_ for it to go there immediately. Then where did it go? These ideas disposed her to a mystical kind of reading, with which I did not sympathize, and in which I never indulged.

I stood at the window some time, looking out, but seeing nothing, for I was thinking how strange it was that two girls so entirely opposite as Miriam and Annie should love the same man, and he so different from both. I was aroused by Miriam's voice hurriedly calling me. I hastened to her side. Never shall I forget her eyes as she fixed them upon me. The pupils were dilated, and intensely black, while they shone so brilliantly that it seemed as if a fire were burning within them. She spoke eagerly:

'Promise me once more, Hester, that you will not leave my body, after the soul has left it, until it is laid in the grave, and that you will not let idle curiosity come and gaze at it.'

I readily gave her this promise, thinking it was very little to do for a dying friend. The unnatural expression faded from her eyes. She seemed entirely satisfied.

It was late in the afternoon that I was aroused from a sound sleep by the intelligence that Miriam was dead. She died while asleep, without a struggle, or a groan. I called in Mrs. Grove, the housekeeper, who had been devotedly attached to Miriam, and we dressed her in a white robe, and scattered fragrant flowers around her, to take away, if possible, the horror and ghastliness of death. She did not look at all like the Miriam I had known and loved. Her features were sharp and pinched, and her face looked careworn, and _anxious_--if anything so lifeless can be said to have expression.

No one came into the room that evening but the family, and they retired early, and left me alone with the dead. Mrs. Grove sat up all night in the dining room, which was separated from Miriam's room by a narrow entry. She would have remained with me, but I saw that she was very nervous and timid, and insisted that she should leave me. I could not understand her feeling. I felt not the slightest fear of the inanimate body before me, or of the disembodied spirit. She had been my friend during her whole life--why should she harm me now?

I put out the light, and seated myself by the open window at the foot of the bed. The round, full moon, in a cloudless sky, made every object in the room and out of it as distinct as in the day. I looked at the fountain, which spun its threads of light under the window; and at the little flowers just peeping above the ground; and at the foliage, with its many-shaded green; and occasionally I looked at the body stretched upon the bed. And each time that I looked it seemed to me that it gently stirred. This did not startle me at all, for I was accustomed to the appearance of death. Who that has lost a friend does not find it impossible to realize that the form is utterly without life? And who has ever gazed long at a corpse without fancying that it moved? So again and again I looked at Miriam, and again and again I fancied there was a slight motion, scarcely perceptible. At last the constant repetition of this feeling made me uneasy, and to quiet my mind, and satisfy myself that it was only _seeming_, I went to the bed and bent over Miriam.

My blood ran cold in my veins, as I encountered the eyes of Miriam, open, dilated, and black, fixed upon mine! There was a strange light in them. It scarcely looked like life, and yet it surely could not be death. It seemed more like a light shining far down some black and deep sepulchre. Half frenzied with terror, and scarcely knowing what I did, I forced down the eyelids and shut out that hateful light; but the instant I removed my fingers the eyes opened upon me again. This time it seemed the expression was more life-like--there was _eagerness_ in it. Again I pressed down the eyelids, but now there was resistance to my touch. I could feel it. The hands, which had lain quiet on her breast, were convulsively raised. I stepped back from the bed, and Miriam sat upright! Incredible as it may appear, the frenzy of my terror was gone. Miriam looked like herself. The ghastly pallor of death, the sunken cheek, the pinched features were all there; but there was something in the face which made me think of the Miriam of olden days--the Miriam I had known before this last terrible sickness came upon her. I was not entirely free from fear, but it was a charmed fear. I never thought of calling any one. I could do nothing but watch Miriam.

After a few convulsive efforts she got off the bed, and stood erect for a moment. I remember thinking that all this was very strange, and wondering what she would do next. She moved slowly to the door. I followed her with my eyes. At the door she turned, and looked at me. And then there rushed upon my mind the whole weight and responsibility of the promise I had made her, that I would never leave her body until it was consigned to the tomb! I comprehended that I must follow her, and mechanically I obeyed the impulse. She took her way through the dining room. Mrs. Grove was sitting in an easy-chair, fast asleep. I wondered how she could sleep with this awful presence in the room. Miriam did not glance at her, but passed out of the front door, into the street. My mind was in a constant state of activity. My will was under the guidance of Miriam. I had no control over it. My thoughts were my own, and wandered from object to object. As we were passing down the steps I thought how beautifully the river would look in the moonlight; but Miriam turned in an opposite direction from the river, and I was disappointed. How fearfully quiet was everything! I would have given worlds, had I possessed them, if I could have seen a familiar face. I even had a half-formed thought to scream loudly for help, but I could not do it. My will was utterly powerless. We approached the house where Ackermann resided, and I was seized with horror, thinking it possible that she might murder him while I witnessed the bloody deed, powerless to prevent it. But she never once looked at the house while passing it. This phantom--whatever it might be--seemed to be entirely free from human feelings. I do not think this idea tended to reassure me, and when we left the closely built street, and merged into the open country, where the fields stretched away on every side of us, with no life in them, and where loneliness and desolation reigned supreme, I felt a new terror, and longed to turn, and flee back to human life. But no! I must follow my conductress wherever she chose to lead me!

Miriam walked slowly at first, but had increased her speed as she proceeded, and now she was walking so swiftly that I could scarcely keep pace with her. I saw white marbles gleaming among the trees at the top of a hill, and knew that we were approaching the graveyard. It was a dreary-looking place--a disgrace to the village. The stone wall was in a dilapidated condition, and in some places there were gaps in it. The graves were overgrown with rank weeds, and many old gray tombstones lay on the ground. The gate was swinging loosely on its hinges, and we passed swiftly through it. And now, thought I, the mystery is solved. Miriam is going to bury herself, and has brought me to fill the grave, so that no one may see her body but me, I can never, never do it, if she fixes those terrible eyes upon me! An open grave lay in our pathway. The red clay soil, which was heaped around it, was moist. I felt my feet sink in it as we passed over it--for around the grave we went on our swift, unerring course--although I knew the grave had been that day dug for Miriam! Did she know this? If so, she gave no sign of that knowledge, and I breathed more freely when we were fairly out of the graveyard. On the other side of it was a thick wood, into which I had never penetrated. Indeed the thorny thickets, and low, poisonous bushes made it impenetrable to any one, and yet it was into this wood that Miriam led the way. How we pushed through it I do not know. My clothes were nearly torn into rags, and so were Miriam's. My flesh was torn also in several places. I had no means of knowing whether hers was torn also.

At last she stopped before a mass of--but my heart grows sick and my brain dizzy when I think of that--I cannot describe it, but I knew by unmistakable evidences that the lost Annie was found!

I looked at Miriam, but she did not return my glance. I could not see her face. She stopped only a moment, and continued her walk. And now I followed fearlessly. As soon as I discovered that the phantom had a _human_ purpose, my terror abated. I was now in a state of feverish excitement, wondering what other discoveries would be made. Our way lay along the bank of a little brook. The space was more open. The weeds and bushes had evidently been trampled down, and broken away. Miriam walked more slowly, and looked upon the ground. At last she again paused, and pointed with a rigid, bony finger to a little alder twig, which was trembling in the breeze. I could see nothing there but a dewdrop sparkling in the moonlight; but, obeying the impulse of my will, which was in obedience to Miriam, I stooped to touch the dewdrop, and instead, I took off the twig--a ring! It was the diamond ring, which Miriam had given to Ackermann. I clutched it in my hand, and turned to Miriam, but she was retracing her steps.

I remember nothing of the return home. I saw nothing, felt nothing. I seemed to be sailing through the air, so exhilarated was I. I can compare my state to nothing but that of a person who has been taking ether. I took but little notice of Miriam, until we entered the village, when I observed that she walked more slowly. After a time it seemed to be an effort to her to walk at all, until finally she tottered, and fell close by her own door. I stood an instant, and looked at her. She lay on the step, a stiff and rigid corpse. Her eyes were open, but they were fixed in the glassy stare of death! I ran into the house. Mrs. Grove was in the dining room, sleeping heavily. I was about to awaken her, when I remembered that I would have to account for the strange fact of the body lying at the front door. How could I tell Mrs. Grove, who had showed herself to be a weak and nervous woman, the wonderful story of our night walk? Would she be able to help me if she knew it? I thought of calling upon Miriam's father, but that seemed horrible. These thoughts rushed through my mind with the rapidity of lightning, and I ran out of the door again, not knowing what to do. A man was standing on the step: I suppose he happened to be passing, and stopped in amazement at the sight; but I did not pause to look at him, or ask him any questions. I had no time to give him explanations, for I saw the gray dawn was breaking in the eastern sky, and feared that soon other persons might come along the street. I gave him a confused and hurried account of how we had thought Miriam dead, and how she had walked that far, and fallen; and I begged him to help me carry her in the house. He consented, and then I remembered that there was a side door, which was near Miriam's room, and if we carried the body through that we should avoid waking Mrs. Grove. I passed silently through the dining room, and, having unbolted the door, I returned, and lifted the body of my poor friend in my arms, while the stranger raised her head. And thus we carried her in the house, and laid her on the bed. I smoothed her dishevelled hair, and arranged her torn dress, forgetting that any one else was in the room, until I was startled by a groan. And then for the first time I looked at the stranger. It was Ackermann!

My fingers involuntarily closed tighter around the ring, which, all this time, I had kept shut up in my hand. Not for the world would I have had him to see it then. I was more afraid of him than I had been of Miriam during all our journey. She might be called an Avenging Angel. He was a destroying Fiend.

He trembled violently. He laid his hand heavily upon my arm. It was as cold as ice, and made a chilly horror creep over me.

'Tell me, Hester,' he said, in a hoarse voice, 'what is the meaning of this? You and Miriam have been farther than the front door, or your clothes would not be in this cut and ragged condition. Why do you look at me so strangely--so horribly? Speak to me! Speak!'

I longed to show him the ring, and confront him then with his horrid crimes, but he looked so fiercely I dared not. It is well that I did not. I know not what might have been the result. Justice might have been cheated of her proper prey, and I not have been here to write this tale. I made my escape from the room, and left him with his dead victim.

I have a confused recollection of being surrounded with pale and eager faces, and of telling them my wonderful story, and showing them the ring. And then I remember nothing more for many hours, for I fell into a heavy sleep.

That night, so full of horrors, did not turn my hair white, or make me ill, or cause me to lose my reason. I was subject to a nervous irritability for some time afterward, but that passed away, and the only feeling I have left to remind me of that terrible night is my aversion to sit up with a dead body. I have never done it since.

The route that Miriam and I had followed was carefully traced. Our tracks were not discernible until the graveyard was nearly reached. There they found the print of our shoes in the wet gravel; and in the loose soil around the newly dug grave. On Annie was found a note from Ackermann appointing a meeting with her on that evening when she had so mysteriously disappeared.

Ackermann was arrested and brought to trial. When he learned the nature of the evidence against him it seemed to fill him with a superstitious horror, which drew from him a full confession of his guilt, although, at first, he protested his innocence. He gave in his confession, and met his ignominious death with the same bold front and reckless daring he had manifested during all his life.

It only remains to tell how Ackermann was led to murder a woman he loved--for he certainly loved Annie. It seems that Annie, in her light, trifling way, had seriously wounded him by flirting with one of her former suitors. He remonstrated, but his evident distress only urged the giddy girl to further trials of her power. And she had an object in arousing his jealousy, for she too was jealous of Miriam's ring. He persisted in wearing it, notwithstanding her entreaties, and she feared some lingering affection for the giver gave rise to the reluctance to part with the gift. On the night of the murder, high words had passed between them in regard to it. In the heat of the discussion, Annie had managed dexterously to slip the ring off his finger. He struggled to regain it. She threw it away. The quarrel now grew more violent, until at last, in his rage, and as unconscious of what he was doing as an intoxicated man, he struck the fatal blow, and Annie fell dead at his feet. In the midst of his horror and remorse--for even he was filled with horror at such a deed--he thought of himself, and provided for his safety by hiding the body among the thorny and poisonous bushes, knowing it would be more unlikely to be found there than if he threw it into the river, or dug a grave for it. Creeping carefully in and out among the thick, thorny bushes, so as to disarrange them as little as possible, he first deposited his dead burden, and then returned to the place of the last fatal struggle, that he might look for the lost ring.

The moon had risen, and he could see every object with great distinctness. He looked carefully along the ground, pushing aside the weeds, and removing every stone under which it might have rolled. After a few minutes' search he became conscious that some one else was looking for the ring! He was angry with himself for entertaining such a delusion; but still, in spite of his efforts to get rid of it, the feeling continued. He had a dim and vague idea that something impalpable was near him, now by his side, now before him, _never behind him_, looking as eagerly and as anxiously as himself for the lost diamonds. He inwardly cursed his own cowardice, for he thought this apparition was born from his guilty conscience, and he determined to pay no heed to it.

At last he approached a cluster of alder bushes, which he now remembered to have been the place where Annie threw away the ring. He was about to commence a search among these, when suddenly Miriam stood between him and the bushes. He saw her distinctly for a moment, and then she vanished from his gaze. He pursued her in the direction she had taken, but no trace of her could he find. Then, recollecting how very ill she was, he became convinced that he had become subject to an optical illusion. But he had now become fearful and nervous, and dared not return to the spot to renew the search. And thus it was that the ring was left upon the twig of alder to bear witness against him.

NAPOLEON'S TOMB.

_Written by_ HON. ROBERT J. WALKER (_then a student_) _in 1821, on hearing of the death of Napoleon_.

See where amid the Ocean's surging tide
A little island lifts its desert side,
Where storms on storms in ceaseless torrents pour,
And howling billows lash its rocky shore--
There lies Napoleon in his island tomb:
Nations combined to antedate his doom.
Mars nursed the infant in a thundercloud,
France gave him empire, Britain wrought his shroud.
Danger and glory claimed him as their own,
And Fortune marked him as her favorite son;
Science seemed dozing in eternal sleep,
And superstition brooded o'er the deep;
Black was the midnight of the human soul,
Such Gothic darkness shrouds the icy pole:
Napoleon bade his conquering legions pour
The blaze of battle on from shore to shore:
Though blood and havoc marked the victor's way,
Blest Science shed her genial ray.
Betrayed, not conquered, round the hero's sleep
The Arts shall mourn, and Genius vigil keep.

THE DESTINY OF THE AFRICAN RACE IN THE UNITED STATES.

Many persons may be disposed to receive with a large share of scepticism the affirmation that there is an aspect of the 'negro question,' which has not, within the last thirty years of ceaseless agitation, undergone a thorough discussion. Yet such an assertion would be perfectly true. There is one side of that question, at which, during all the fierce excitements of the time, we have scarcely looked; and which many, even those who have taken an active and leading part in the controversy, have not carefully studied.

The morality of our system of slavery has been fully and thoroughly discussed, and may be considered as finally and forever settled, in the judgment of all right-minded and impartial men throughout Christendom. It may henceforth be taken as the _consensus omnium gentium_, that men and women, with their children and their children's children forever, cannot rightfully be made, by human laws, chattels personal and articles of merchandise.

The economy of slavery has been discussed. Its relations to wealth, to industry, to commerce, manufactures, and the arts, as well as to education, public intelligence, and public morals, are so well understood, that it is not probable that the efforts even of Jefferson Davis, or the whole 'Southern confederacy,' with the aid of such transatlantic allies as the London _Times_, will be able, in respect to such matters as these, to change or even to unsettle the judgment of mankind.

But there is another class of questions on which the public mind is as unthoughtful and unenlightened, as in respect to these it is thoughtful and intelligent. We have pretty well considered what consequences may be expected from the continuance of slavery; but we have neglected to inquire, on the supposition of the emancipation of the negro, what will be his condition, what his future, and what his influence on our national destiny. Upon such questions as these, we have, during the controversy, dogmatized much, and thought little. They have called forth many outbursts of passion, but very little calm, thoughtful discussion.

There is no lack of earnest and confident opinions in the public mind in relation to this class of questions. It is in respect to this very side of the negro question, that prejudices the most intense and inveterate are widely prevalent; prejudices, too, which have exerted the most decisive influence on the controversy, through every stage of its progress. The masses of the American people believe in those principles of political equality upon which all our constitutions are founded. They not only believe in them, but they cherish and love them. They perceive, too, by a kind of instinct, what many a would-be philosopher has failed to see, that the application and carrying out of those principles necessarily involve the fusion of the entire mass to which they are applied, into one homogeneous whole; that we cannot have a government founded on political equality, consistently with our having an inferior and proscribed class of citizens; a class from whose daughters our sons may not take their wives, and to whose sons we are not willing, either in this or in any future generation, to give our daughters in marriage. Political equality implies that the son of any parents may be raised to the highest offices in the government, and wear the most brilliant honors which a free people can confer. And the masses of the people instinctively see, or rather feel, that it is impossible to admit to such equality a class to whom we deny, and always intend to deny all equality in the social state; and with whom we are shocked at the very thought of ever uniting our race and our blood.

I am not now saying where the moral right of this matter lies; or whether, in this inveterate hostility to a social equality with the negro, the masses of the people are right or wrong. I am only affirming, what certainly cannot be successfully denied, that while they retain and cherish it, they will never be willing to apply to him this doctrine of political equality. They will always resist it, as carrying with it, by inevitable consequence, that social equality to which they are determined never to submit. If the doctrine of political equality, so fundamental, to our system of government, is ever to be extended so as to embrace the colored man, it can only be done by overcoming and utterly obliterating this social aversion.

If it were proved to be ever so desirable to effect such a change in the tastes and prejudices of the American people, history does not lend any countenance to the belief that it is possible. Wherever one people has conquered another, the conquerors and their descendants have always asserted for themselves a political superiority for ages; and that political superiority has extended itself into all the relations of social life. This has taken place with such uniformity, as to impress upon the mind the belief that it occurs in obedience to some great law of human nature, which may be expected to baffle all attempts at resistance in the future, as it has done in the past. The testimony of history is, that equality can be the law of national life only when the nation was originally formed from equal elements. But two peoples never met on the same soil, and under the same government, under conditions so widely unequal as the European and the African populations of this country. The Europeans are, to a great extent, the descendants of the most enlightened men of the world, heirs by birth to the highest civilization of the nineteenth century. The Africans, on the contrary, are the known descendants of parents who were taken by force from their own country, and brought hither as merchandise, sold as chattels and beasts of burden to the highest bidder; and have even now no civilization except what they have acquired in this condition of abject slavery; separated, too, from the dominant class, not only by this stigma of slavery, but by complexion and features so marked and peculiar, that a small taint of the blood of the servile class can be detected with unerring certainty. If history decides anything, it is that a system of political equality cannot be formed out of such elements. The experience of the world is against it.

This deeply seated aversion to the recognition of the equality of the white man and the black man is a potent force, which has been incessantly active in all our history, and furnishes the only satisfactory explanation of the fact that slavery did not perish, at least from all the Northern slave-holding States, long ago. There is, especially in the Border Slave States, a large non-slave-holding class, who know that the existence of slavery is utterly prejudicial to their interests and destructive of their prosperity as free laborers. They are so keenly sensible of this, that they regard with almost equal hatred the system of slavery, the negro, and the slave owner. But one consideration, which is never absent from their minds, always prevails, even over their regard for their own interests, and receives their steady and invariable coöperation with the slave owner in perpetuating the enslavement of the colored man. That consideration is the dread of negro equality. If, say they, the colored man becomes a freeman, then why not entitled to all the privileges and franchises which other freemen enjoy? And if admitted to political, then surely to social equality also.

And to many it seems perfectly clear that the universal emancipation of the negro carries with it by inevitable necessity his admission to the full enjoyment of all equality, political and social, and his becoming homogeneous with the mass of the American people; and the fact that they think so is the only adequate explanation of the inflexible energy of will with which they resist all measures which are supposed to tend in the smallest degree toward emancipation. And they think themselves able to give unanswerable reasons for the bitterness with which they note everything which is expressed by the word 'abolitionism.' They assume it for a fact, which admits no contradiction, that the natural increase of the negro race in this country is more rapid than that of the white man. So far as my observation extends, the great majority of the people believe this with an undoubting faith. It is constantly asserted in conversation, and in the most exaggerated form in newspaper paragraphs; although (as I shall presently show) a mere glance at our census tables disproves it. It is also assumed, with a faith equally undoubting, that if the slaves were all emancipated, the negro race would still increase as rapidly in freedom as in slavery. Emancipation, it is said, would at once cast upon the country four millions and a half of free negroes; and by the rapidity of their increase, they would, at no distant day, become a majority of the whole population.

If then, it is further argued, you emancipate them, and yet withhold from them a full participation in all our political privileges, they will be hostile to our government, a great nation of aliens in the midst of us, who would be the natural enemies of our institutions. An internecine war of races, it is said, must follow. Even here it would be well for persons who entertain such gloomy apprehensions, to remember that if these assumptions were all true (though I will show in the sequel that they are not), even then, emancipation could not make of the negroes more dangerous enemies to our institutions than slavery has made of the masters. It is also said that the only possible mode of escaping all these horrible results, would be to admit the negro, if he must be freed, to all the privileges and franchises of the Constitution, and amalgamate him entirely with the mass of American society. Thus it is taken for proved that emancipation would carry with it the equality of the negro and the white man in all their relations.

I believe it to be true beyond reasonable doubt, that the great majority of the American people do at this time accept this substantially as their creed on the question of emancipation. They do not mean to justify slavery; they abhor and hate it; they regard it as economically, socially, politically, and morally wrong. But they regard emancipation as tending directly and inevitably to incorporate the negro into the mass of American society, and compel us to treat him as homogeneous with it. To such a solution of the question they feel an unconquerable aversion. It shocks their taste; it violates their notions of propriety and fitness; they resist it by a sort of instinct, rather than from set conviction and purpose.

Nor is there one man in a thousand of us, who is not conscious in himself of a certain degree of sympathy with this view of the subject, however much we may think that we morally disapprove it. With enslaving the negro, and reducing him to an article of merchandise, or depriving him of one of those moral rights which God has given him as a man, we have no sympathy. But if, in full view of a proposition to break down all the social barriers which now divide the races, so that our descendants and those of the colored man shall form one homogeneous people, we interrogate our own consciousness, we shall discover that we, even those of us who have most eloquently and indignantly denounced 'prejudice against color,' are compelled to own ourselves in sympathy with the great mass of the American people, in utter and unconquerable aversion to such an arrangement.

It is probable that this article may fall into the hands of some friends of mine whose judgment I greatly respect, and whose feelings I should be most reluctant to wound, to whom these sentiments will at first view be far from agreeable. But for many years I have entertained them with undoubting confidence of their truth; and at this solemn crisis of our nation's destiny it becomes us to lay aside all our prejudices, and to endeavor to reach the truth on this momentous question. I repeat it: this side of the subject has not been fairly met and considered in this discussion. The time has come when we must meet it. Emancipation is an indispensable condition of the restoration and perpetuity of the Union, perhaps even of our continued national existence. The one great objection to emancipation, in the minds of the people, North and South, is the belief, so confidently and even obstinately entertained, that it carries with it as an inevitable consequence, either an internecine war of races, which would destroy us, or the amalgamation of our race and blood with that of the negro. If we mean, as practical men and statesmen, to seek our country's salvation by means of emancipation, we must, in some way, relieve the national mind from the pressure of this objection. Till we do so, the masses of the people will say to us: 'We do not approve of slavery; we abhor it; but if we are to have the negro among us, we believe in keeping him in slavery.' All of us, who are in the habit of talking with the people on this subject, know that almost in these very words we are met at every street corner. We must answer it, or in some form slavery will still continue to be the curse of our country, and to hurry it on to an untimely and ignominious end.

Let it be distinctly borne in mind that it is not the _moral_ equality of the negro to the white man, which is under consideration. That indeed is only indirectly assailed by the inveterate national prejudice of which I speak. Those masses of the people who have no pecuniary interest in slavery, trample on the moral rights of the colored man only because they are made to believe themselves placed under the hard necessity of doing so, in order to resist any approach toward that political and social equality with him to which they are determined never to submit. Show them how they can concede to him the former without conceding the latter, and they will gladly do it. For myself, nothing can be added to the intensity of my conviction not only that the colored man must be protected in the full enjoyment of all the moral rights of humanity, as a condition of our prolonged national existence; but that the masses of the people never will consent to a political and social equality with the negro race.

How then can the public mind be assured that to emancipate the enslaved race, to confer on them all the moral rights of humanity, does not involve by any necessity or even remote probability, either an internecine war of races on our own soil, or the fusion of the two races into one homogeneous people? One answer, which satisfies many, is, the freedmen must be colonized in some unoccupied region of the earth, where they may be separated from the white man, and build up for themselves an independent and homogeneous nationality. I have no controversy with this proposed solution of the difficulty, or with the excellent men who are advocating and promoting it, with an earnest patriotism worthy of all honor. But I have grave doubts of the adequacy of this solution to meet the momentous exigencies of the present crisis. At least, I feel no necessity of resting the whole cause upon it, when there is another solution at hand, which certainly is adequate, furnished by the very laws of nature which the Creator has established, and so certain in its operation, that we have only to strike the fetters from the limbs of the poor slave, and recognize his manhood, and God will take care of the rest, and protect our country from the evils we have so much dreaded.

That solution is found in a great law of population. It is necessary, therefore, that I should state this law, and prove its reality, and its adequacy to meet all the necessities of the case in hand.

Whenever two peoples, one of which is little removed from barbarism, and the other having the full strength of a mature civilization, are placed in juxtaposition with each other, on terms of free labor and free competition, the stronger will always either amalgamate itself with the weaker, or extinguish it. In the former case, civilization undergoes an eclipse, almost an extinction. The homogeneous people resulting from such a union, occupies a position in the scale of civilization much nearer to that of their barbarous than that of their civilized parents. Numerous and conclusive examples of this have occurred in the progress of the French, Spanish, and Portuguese colonies in proximity to the various native tribes of this continent. They have generally amalgamated freely with their savage neighbors; and a deep eclipse of civilization has in every instance resulted. When that eclipse is to end, we have not the foresight to determine.

The English colonies, on the other hand, in all parts of the world, have steadily refused to enter into any marriage relations with their barbarous neighbors, or to recognize as belonging to their community any half-breeds springing from licentious and illicit connection with them. Here, too, the results are almost entirely uniform. The extinction of such barbarous tribes brought within the sphere of their competition has been rapid and almost if not absolutely invariable; while the English colonies themselves have preserved the civilization of the parent stock in almost undiminished vigor.

A mere general view of the history of European colonization in barbarous regions of the earth, does therefore afford a very striking proof of the truth of my proposition. And it is much to our purpose here to remark, that the very aversion to incorporating the negro into our nationality, which is so firmly fixed in the minds of the masses of the people, is no new thing in our history, and no outgrowth of slavery. It is the same national characteristic which, in all parts of the world, has prevented the English colonist from intermarrying with his barbarous neighbor. Call it by what hard name you please, call it 'prejudice against color,' and denounce it as eloquently and indignantly as you may, it is one of the most remarkable and one of the most respectable features of the English colonies wherever found, and one of the chief causes of their preëminence over those of other European nations, in civilization, wealth, and power. But what it is chiefly to our purpose to remark is, that while it is to the colonies themselves the cause of unequalled prosperity and rapidity of growth in all the elements of national greatness, to their savage neighbors it is the cause of rapid and certain extinction.

Precisely in such relations to each other will the white and colored populations of the United States be placed by an act of universal emancipation, the substitution of free labor and free competition for the compulsory power of the master. And while on the one hand the history of the colonial off-shoots of England shows that the amalgamation of the races will not follow, it shows with equal clearness and certainty that the rapid extinction of the colored race will follow. Here I might rest the whole argument, with a high degree of assurance of the soundness and certainty of my conclusion, that the result of emancipation must be, not the amalgamation of the races, not an internecine war between them, but the inevitable extinction of the weaker race by the competition of the stronger. I say the _competition_ of the stronger, because, to avoid extending this article to a very unreasonable length, I must assume that the reader is sufficiently versed in American history to know that even the Indian perishes, for the most part, not by the sword or the rifle of the white man, but by the simple competition of civilization with the Indian's means of subsistence.

I might, I say, leave my argument here; but to do so would be great injustice to the subject. There are abundant and unquestionable facts, which show to a demonstration, that the case of the negro in his relations to the European population of this country is embraced in the law just stated.

In the first place, the two races are not amalgamated. Intermarriages between them are so rare, that few of the readers of this article can remember ever to have known one. Such marriages are regarded as monstrous and disgraceful, though the law should, as in some of the States, recognize them. One sentiment in respect to them pervades the whole community, and that a sentiment of aversion. Those half-breeds which spring from licentiousness, or even from the very few lawful marriages which have occurred, are not accepted as standing in any nearer relations to the white man than the pure-blooded African. In those States where slavery has been longest extinct, and the colored man has been relieved from all legal disabilities, the line between the two races is as sharply drawn to-day as it was two hundred years ago. On such a question two hundred years and more is long enough for an experiment. The experiment already tried does prove that the Anglo-American and African populations of this country cannot be amalgamated, either by freedom or slavery; and those who pretend to fear it, are either trying to deceive others for selfish and criminal purposes, or else they are wofully deceived themselves.

Nor are the apprehensions of those who dread the rapid increase of the negro, at all sustained by facts. That fear of a coming internecine war of races, in case the colored man is emancipated, which haunts some minds, has no foundation except in ignorance of the real facts. In no portion of our history has our colored population ever increased with a rapidity nearly so great as the white population. From 1790 to 1860 the colored population increased in the ratio of 1 to 5.86; and the white population in the ratio of 1 to 8.50. If we compare them for any shorter period, we shall always find that the white population increased the more rapidly of the two. From 1790 to 1808, we might perhaps expect to find it otherwise; for during that period the slave trade was in full activity, and tens of thousands of Africans were imported as articles of merchandise. But from 1790 to 1810, while the colored population increased in the ratio of 1 to 1.81, the white population increased in the ratio of 1 to 1.84, although during that period the white population of the country was very little increased by immigration. How it has happened that this point, which our tables of population make so entirely plain, has been so much misapprehended, and why the prevailing notions respecting it are so erroneous, is not easy to explain. The above estimate also reckons all half breeds as belonging to the colored population. (See De Bow's 'Compendium of the United States Census of 1850,' Tables 18, 42, and 71.)