There seems to be no doubt among those who know both England and

America, that the mechanics of the New World work harder than those of

the Old. They have much to do besides their daily handicraft business.

They are up and at work early about this; and when it is done, they read

till late, or attend lectures; or perhaps have their houses to build or

repair, or other care to take of their property. They live in a state

and period of society where every man is answerable for his own

fortunes; and where there is therefore stimulus to the exercise of every

power.

What a state of society it is when a dozen artisans of one

town,--Salem,--are seen rearing each a comfortable one-story (or, as the

Americans would say, two-story) house, in the place with which they have

grown up! when a man who began with laying bricks criticises, and

sometimes corrects, his lawyer's composition; when a poor errand-boy

becomes the proprietor of a flourishing store, before he is thirty; pays

off the capital advanced by his friends at the rate of 2,000 dollars per

month; and bids fair to be one of the most substantial citizens of the

place!

Such are the outward fortunes of the mechanics of America. Of their

welfare in more important respects, to which these are but a part of the

means, I shall have to speak in another connexion.

There are troubles between employers and their workmen in the United

States, as elsewhere: but the case of the men is so much more in their

own hands there than where labour superabounds, that strikes are of a

very short duration. The only remedy the employers have, the only

safeguard against encroachments from their men, is their power of

obtaining the services of foreigners, for a short time. The difficulty

of stopping business there is very great; the injury of delay very

heavy: but the wages of labour are so good that there is less cause for

discontent on the part of the workmen than elsewhere. All the strikes I

heard of were on the question of hours, not of wages.

The employers are, of course, casting about to see how they can help

themselves; and, as all are not wise and experienced, it is natural that

some should talk of laws to prohibit Trades Unions. There is no harm in

their talking of such; for the matter will never get beyond

talk;--unless, indeed, the combinations of operatives should assume any

forms, or comprehend any principles inconsistent with the republican

spirit. The majority will not vote for any law which shall restrain any

number of artisans from agreeing for what price they will sell their

labour; though I heard several learned gentlemen agreeing, at dinner one

day, that there ought to be such laws. On my objecting that the interest

of the parties concerned would, especially in a free and rising country,

settle all questions between labour and capital with more precision,

fairness, and peace, than any law, it was pleaded that intimidation and

outrage were practised by those who combined against those who would not

join them. I found, on inquiry, that there is an ample provision of laws

against intimidation and outrage; but that it is difficult to get them

executed. If so, it would be also difficult to execute laws against

combinations of workmen, supposing them obtained: and the grievance does

not lie in the combination complained of, but somewhere else. The remedy

is, (if there be indeed intimidation and outrage,) not in passing more

laws, to be in like manner defied, while sufficient already exist; but

in enlightening the parties on the subjects of law and social

obligation.

One day, in going down Broadway, New York, the carriage in which I was,

stopped for some time, in consequence of an immense procession on the

side-walk having attracted the attention of all the drivers within

sight. The marching gentlemen proceeded on their way, with an easy air

of gentility. Banners were interposed at intervals; and, on examining

these, I could scarcely believe my eyes. They told me that this was a

procession of the journeymen mechanics of New York. Surely never were

such dandy mechanics seen; with sleek coats, glossy hats, gay

watch-guards, and doe-skin gloves!

I rejoice to have seen this sight. I had other opportunities of

witnessing the prosperity of their employers; so that I could be fairly

pleased at theirs. There need be no fear for the interests of either,

while the natural laws of demand and supply must protect each from any

serious encroachment by the other. If they will only respect the law,

their temporary disagreement, and apparent opposition of interests will

end in being mere readjustments of the terms on which they are to pursue

their common welfare.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] Hamilton's Report on Manufactures. 1790.

[6] The following sketch of the aspect of the south-eastern States is a

very faithful one. The error of the writer is in supposing that such a

condition could be brought about by the tariff, rather than by the

necessary operation of the slavery system, by which the children of the

third and fourth generations are always reduced to sigh for the

comparative prosperity of their fathers.

"These views of the degradation of the southern States receive a

melancholy and impressive confirmation from the general aspect and

condition of the country, viewed in contrast with its former prosperity.

If the ancestors of this generation could rise from the grave, and

revisit the scenes of their former usefulness, they would not hesitate

to pronounce that the hand of oppression had fallen heavily upon the

inheritance of their children. They would be utterly at a loss to

account for the change everywhere exhibited, upon any other supposition.

"With natural advantages more bountiful than were ever dispensed by a

kind Providence to any other people upon the face of the globe, they

would behold, from the mountains of the sea-coast, one unbroken scene of

cheerless stagnation and premature decay. With one of the most valuable

staples that ever blessed the labours of the husbandman, and swelled the

sails of a prosperous and enriching commerce, they would find that our

estates are, with a steady and fatal proclivity, depreciating in value,

our fields becoming waste, and our cities desolate. With habits of

industry and economy which have no example in our former history, they

would find the heirs of the largest inheritances generally involved in

embarrassments, and many of them irretrievably ruined. Wherever they

might cast their eyes, they would find melancholy evidences that the

withering blasts of an unsparing despotism had passed over the land,

blighting the choicest bounties of Providence, and leaving scarcely a

solitary memorial of our former prosperity. They would look in vain for

the animating scenes of successful industry, for the wealth and comforts

of a thriving population, and for those mansions of hospitality which

were once the seats of elegance, and the abodes of

cheerfulness."--_Southern Review, Nov. 1828._ p. 613.

[7] The deposits in the Lowell Savings' Bank for 1834, were upwards of

114,000 dollars.

CHAPTER IV.

COMMERCE.

"He hath an argosy bound to Tripolis, another to the Indies: I

understand moreover upon the Rialto, he hath a third at Mexico, a

fourth for England: and other ventures he hath."

_Merchant of Venice._

There is no need to say much about the extent of the Commerce of the

United States, since it is already the admiration of Europe, and its

history is before every one in the shape of figures. The returns of

exports and imports annually published are sufficiently eloquent.

Dollars.

The Imports, for the year 1825, were in value, 96,340,075

1830, 70,876,920

1835, 126,521,332

The Exports of domestic produce, for 1825 were, 66,944,745

of foreign produce 32,590,643

----------

Total 99,535,388

The Exports of domestic produce for 1830 were, 59,462,029

of foreign 14,387,479

----------

73,849,508

The Exports of domestic produce for 1835, were, 81,024,162

of foreign 23,312,811

-----------

104,336,973

It will be seen, from these returns, how great a reduction in the

commerce of the United States was occasioned by the tariff, which

attracted a large amount of capital from commerce, to be invested in

manufactures. The balance has been nearly restored by the prospect of

the expiration of the protective system; and both commerce and

manufactures are again rapidly on the increase. The foreign tonnage of

Massachusetts has increased fifty-three per cent. within the last five

years, though, owing to a new mode of ship-construction, twice the

quantity is stowed in the same nominal tonnage.

The commerce of the south-west was in high prosperity when I was there.

When I was at Mobile, in April 1835, I was informed that 183,000 bales

of cotton had been brought down into Mobile since the beginning of the

year.[8] A friend of mine, engaged in commerce there, told me of the

enormous interest on money then obtainable. Eight per cent. is the legal

interest; but double is easily to be had. Another, a wealthy gentleman

of New Orleans, speculates largely every season, for the sake of

something to do, and makes a fortune each time, by lending out at high

interest. He declares that he never loses, and never fails to gain

largely; the commerce is so flourishing, and the demand for capital so

intense. This is the region in which to witness the full absurdity of

usury laws. They are evaded, as often as convenient, and serve no other

purpose than to annex a kind of disgrace to a deed which must of

necessity be done,--loaning out money at higher than the legal interest.

The same evasion takes place in Massachusetts, where the legal interest

is six per cent. The interest there, as elsewhere, rises just as high as

the demand for money must naturally bring it.

I was acquainted with a gentleman who had lost seventy-five thousand

dollars in an unfortunate speculation, and who expected to retrieve the

whole the next season. The price of everything was rising. For my own

share, I had to pay twelve dollars for my passage from Mobile to New

Orleans: and twenty-five per cent. higher for my voyage up the

Mississippi than if I had gone the preceding year. The fare I paid was

fifty dollars. These two fares were the only exceptions to the

remarkable cheapness of travelling in the United States and these would

not be considered high anywhere else.

The Cumberland river, on which stands Nashville, the capital of

Tennessee, and which empties itself into the Ohio, has scarcely been

heard of in England; yet, of all the tobacco consumed in the world,

one-seventh goes down this river. I ascended it in a very small

steam-boat, one of twelve, six large and six small, then perpetually

navigating it, and carrying cotton, tobacco, and passengers. Of these

boats, one had carried, the preceding year, three hundred and sixty

bales of cotton, of the value of three hundred and sixty thousand

dollars.

When we look at the northern ports, and observe the variety, as well as

the extent of their commerce, there seems good ground for the

expectation expressed to me by many American merchants, that the English

language will finally become familiar, not only over all the east, but

over all the globe.

Salem, Massachusetts, is a remarkable place. This "city of peace" will

be better known hereafter for its commerce than for its witch-tragedy.

It has a population of 14,000; and more wealth in proportion to its

population than perhaps any town in the world. Its commerce is

speculative, but vast and successful. It is a frequent circumstance that

a ship goes out without a cargo, for a voyage round the world. In such a

case, the captain puts his elder children to school, takes his wife and

younger children, and starts for some semi-barbarous place, where he

procures some odd kind of cargo, which he exchanges with advantage for

another, somewhere else; and so goes trafficking round the world,

bringing home a freight of the highest value.

The enterprising merchants of Salem are hoping to appropriate a large

share of the whale fishery; and their ships are penetrating the northern

ice. They are favourite customers in the Russian ports, and are familiar

with the Swedish and Norwegian coasts. They have nearly as much commerce

with Bremen as with Liverpool. They speak of Fayal and the other Azores

as if they were close at hand. The fruits of the Mediterranean countries

are on every table. They have a large acquaintance at Cairo. They know

Napoleon's grave at St. Helena, and have wild tales to tell of

Mosambique and Madagasca, and store of ivory to show from thence. They

speak of the power of the king of Muscat, and are sensible of the riches

of the south-east coast of Arabia. It entered some wise person's head, a

few seasons ago, to export ice to India. The loss, by melting, of the

first cargo, was one fourth. The rest was sold at six cents per lb. When

the value of this new import became known, it was in great request; and

the latter sales have been almost instantaneous, at ten cents per pound:

so that it is now a good speculation to send ice 12,000 miles to

supersede salt-petre in cooling sherbet. The young ladies of America

have rare shells from Ceylon in their cabinets; and their drawing-rooms

are decked with Chinese copies of English prints. I was amused with two:

the scene of Hero swooning in the church, from 'Much Ado about Nothing;'

and Shakspeare between Tragedy and Comedy. The faces of Comedy and of

Beatrice from the hands of Chinese! I should not have found out the

place of their second birth but for a piece of unfortunate

foreshortening in each. I observed to a friend, one day, upon the beauty

of all the new cordage that met my eye, silky and bright. He told me

that it was made of Manilla hemp, of the value of which the British seem

to be unaware; though it has been introduced into England. He mentioned

that he had been the first importer of it. Eight years before, 600 bales

per annum were imported: now, 20,000. The merchants doubt whether

Australia will be able to surmount the disadvantage of a deficiency of

navigable rivers. They have hopes of Van Diemen's Land, think well of

Singapore, and acknowledge great expectations from New Zealand. Any body

will give you anecdotes from Canton, and descriptions of the Society

and Sandwich Islands. They often slip up the western coasts of their two

continents; bring furs from the back regions of their own wide land;

glance up at the Andes on their return; double Cape Horn; touch at the

ports of Brazil and Guiana; look about them in the West Indies, feeling

there almost at home; and land, some fair morning, at Salem, and walk

home as if they had done nothing very remarkable.

Such is the commerce of Salem, in its most meagre outline. Some

illustration of it may be seen in the famous Salem Museum. In regard to

this institution, a very harmless kind of monopoly exists. No one is

admitted of the museum proprietary body who has not doubled the Capes

Horn and Good Hope. Everybody is freely admitted to visit the

institution; and any one may contribute, either curiosities or the means

of procuring them; but the doubling of the Capes is an unalterable

condition of the honour of being a member. This has the effect of

preserving a salutary interest among the members of the society, and

respect among those who cannot be admitted. The society have laid by

20,000 dollars, after having built a handsome hall for the reception of

their curiosities; but a far more important benefit is that it has now

become discreditable to return from a long voyage without some novel

contribution to the Museum. This sets people inquiring what is already

there, and ensures a perpetual and valuable accretion. I am glad to have

seen there some Oriental curiosities, which might never otherwise have

blessed my sight: especially some wonderful figures, made of an unknown

mixed metal, dug up in Java, being caricatures of the old Dutch soldiers

sent to guard the first colonies. A reasonably grave person might stand

laughing before these for half a day. I had no idea there had been so

much humour in the Java people.

The stability of the commercial interest in the United States was put to

the test by the great fire at New York. All the circumstances regarding

this fire were remarkable; no one more so than that not a single failure

took place in consequence.

For many days preceding this fire, the weather had been intensely cold,

the thermometer standing at Boston 17 degrees below zero. On the Sunday

before, (13th of December 1835,) I went to hear the Seamen's friend,

Father Taylor, as he is called, preach at the Sailors' Chapel, in

Boston. His eloquence is of a peculiar kind, especially in his prayers,

which are absolutely importunate with regard to even external objects of

desire. Part of his prayer this day was, "Give us water, water! The

brooks refuse to murmur, and the streams are dead. Break up the

fountains: open the secret springs that thy hand knoweth, and give us

water, water! Let us not perish by a famine of water, or a deluge of

conflagration; for we dread the careless wandering spark." I was never

before aware of the fear of fire entertained during these intense

frosts. It is a reasonable fear. A gentleman, bent upon daily bathing,

was seen one morning disconsolately returning from the river side; he

had employed three men to break the ice, and they could not get at a

drop of water. What hope was there in case of fire?

The New York fire broke out at eight in the evening of Wednesday, the

16th of December. Every one knows the leading facts, that 52 or 54 acres

were laid waste; many public buildings destroyed, and property to the

amount of 18,000,000 of dollars.

Several particulars were given to me on the spot, three months

afterwards, by some observers and some sufferers. At a boarding-house

in Broadway, where some friends of mine were residing, there were

several merchants, some with their wives, who dined that day in good

spirits, and, as they afterwards believed, perfectly content with their

worldly condition and prospects. At eight o'clock there was an alarm of

fire. It was thought nothing of; alarms of fire being as frequent as day

and night in New York. After a while, a merchant of the company was sent

for, and some little anxiety was expressed. Two or three persons looked

out of the upper windows, but it was a night of such still, deep frost,

that the reflection in the atmosphere was much less glaring than might

have been expected. Another and then another gentleman was sent for.

News came of the absolute lack of water, and that there was no gunpowder

in the city--none nearer than Brooklyn. The gentlemen all rushed out;

the anxious ladies went from the windows to the fire-side; from the

fire-side to the windows. One gentleman and lady in the house, a young

German couple, just arrived, and knowing scarcely a word of English,

were unaware of all this. None of their chattels, not even the lady's

clothes, had been removed from their store in Pearl Street, where lay

her books, music, wardrobe, and property of every sort. Pretty early in

the morning the poor gentleman was roused from his slumbers, could not

comprehend the cause, went down to Pearl Street, and, amidst the

amazement and desolation, just contrived to save his account-books, and

nothing else. In the morning, the lady was destitute of even a change of

raiment, in a foreign country, of whose language she could not speak one

word. There were kind hearts all around her, however, and she was quite

cheerful when I saw her, a few weeks afterwards.

The lady of the house was so worn, weary, and cold, by three in the

morning, that she retired to her room; desiring her domestics to call

her if the fire should catch Broad Street; in which case, it would be

time to be packing up plate, and moving furniture. In a little while,

there was a tap at her door. Broad Street was not on fire, however; but

some of the gentlemen had come home, smoked and frost-bitten, and eager

for help and warm water. One gentleman, who had nothing more at stake

than three chests of Scotch linen, (valuable because home-woven,) of

which he saved one, losing a superb Spanish cloak in the process, was

desirous that his wife should see the spectacle of the conflagration.

She walked down to the scene of the fire with him, after midnight. They

took their stand in a square, in the centre of which an immense quantity

of costly goods was heaped up. It was strange and vexatious to see the

havoc that was made among beautiful things;--cachemere shawls strewing

the ground; horses' feet swathed in lace veils; French silks getting

entangled and torn in the wheels of the carts. The lady picked up shawls

and veils; and when her husband asked her where she proposed to put

them, could only throw them down again. After she had left the place,

the houses caught fire, all round the square, fell in, and burned the

costly goods in one grand bonfire.

There had been occasional quarrels between the merchants and the carmen.

The carmen conceived themselves injured by certain merchants. Whether

they had reason for this belief or not, I cannot pretend to say. They

thought this a time for revenge. Some crossed their arms, as they leaned

against their carts, and refused to stir a step, unless twenty dollars a

load were paid them on the spot. Some few refused to help at all. This

must have been a far more deadly sorrow to the sufferers than the ruin

the fire was working. One carman was very provoking when a French

gentleman had not a moment to lose in saving his stock. The gentleman

said coolly at last, taking out his money, "For what sum will you sell

your horse and cart?" The temptation was irresistible to the carman. He

named 500 dollars for his sorry hack and small vehicle, and was paid on

the instant. The French gentleman saved goods to the amount of 100,000

dollars. It was a good bargain for both.

At six in the morning, when the necessary explosions had checked the

fire, the gentlemen of the household I have mentioned, being completely

ruined, for anything they knew to the contrary, came home; and the

ladies went to bed. Some of the least interested consulted what should

be done at dinner-time; whether the company in general could bear the

subject; whether it was best to talk or be silent. It was a languid,

sorrowful meal: the gentlemen looking haggard; their ladies anxious. The

next day, they were able to talk,--to describe, to relate anecdotes, and

speculate on consequences. The third day, all were nearly as cheerful as

if nothing had happened: though some had lost all, and others, they knew

not how much.

The report of the fire spread as news through the upper part of the

city, the next morning. Some friends of mine had walked home from a

visit, upwards of a mile, at eleven o'clock, and neither heard nor seen

anything of the fire.

The larger proportion of the New York merchants were thus deprived at a

stroke of their buildings, stocks, in many cases of all books and

papers, and, lastly, of the benefit of insurance. The insurance

companies were plunged in almost a general insolvency. The only relief

proposed, or that could be offered, was an extension of time, without

interest, to the debtors of the government for payment of bonds given to

secure the duties upon goods recently imported: and this small relief

could not be obtained till too late to be of much use.

Happily, the fire occurred at one of the least busy seasons of the year.

The merchants could concert together for the saving of their credit: and

they did it to some purpose. Their credit sustained the shock of all

this confusion, uncertainty, and dismay. The conduct of the merchants

who had not directly suffered, and of the banks, was admirable. They

threw aside all their usual caution, and dispensed help and

accommodation with the last degree of liberality. The consequence was,

that not one house failed. It seems now as if the commercial credit of

New York could stand any shock short of an earthquake, like that of

Lisbon.

Some merchants had the unexpected pleasure of finding themselves richer

than they were before. One was travelling in Europe with his lady, when

the news overtook him that the hundred and fifty stores in which he had

property were all burned down. He wrote that he and his lady were

hastening to Havre, on their way home, where they must live in the most

economical and laborious manner, to repair their fortunes. With such

intentions they crossed the Atlantic; and on landing were met by the

intelligence that they had become very wealthy, from their ground lots

having sold for more than ground, stores, and stock, were worth before.

I saw the fifty-two acres of ruins in the following April. We traversed

what had been streets, and climbed the ruins of the Exchange. The

pedestal of Hamilton's statue was standing, strewed round with fragments

of burnt calicoes, which people were disinterring. There was a litter of

stone pannels, broken columns, and cornices. Bushels of coffee paved

our way. A boy presented me with a half-fused watch-key from the cellar

of what had been a jeweller's store. The blackened ruins of a church

frowned over all. The most singular spectacle was a store, standing

alone and unharmed, amidst the desolation. It belonged to a Jew, was

fire-proof, and contained hay, not a blade of which was singed. This

square-fronted, elongated, ugly building, standing obliquely, and as

clean as if smoke had never touched it, had a most saucy appearance: and

so it might, so many erections, equally called fire-proof, having

disappeared, while it alone remained.

By the next July, the entire area was covered with new erections; and

long before this, doubtless, all is to the outward eye, as if no fire

had happened.

But for the testimony afforded by this event, of the substantial credit

in New York, the enormous prices given for land,--the above-mentioned

ground lots, for instance,--might cause a suspicion that there was much

wild speculation. I trust it is not so. The eagerness for land is,

however, extraordinary. A lady sold an estate in the neighbourhood of

New York, for what she and her friends considered a large sum; and a few

weeks after she had concluded the bargain, and soon after the

destruction of eighteen millions of the wealth of the city, she found

she might have obtained three times the amount for which she had sold

her estate. The whole south end of the city is being rapidly turned into

stores; and it is obvious that the mercantile princes of this emporium

have no idea of their conquests being bounded by any circumstance short

of the limits of the globe.

Is there anything to be learned here, as well as to admire? any

inference to be drawn for the benefit of other nations?

An English member of parliament wrote to a friend residing in one of the

American ports, inquiring whether this friend could suggest any course

of parliamentary action by which the commerce of England, or of both

countries, could be benefited. The American replied by urging his friend

to work incessantly at a repeal of the corn laws, and in any way which

may keep the United States continually before the eyes of the commercial

rulers of Great Britain. "You talk," said he, "of your commercial

arrangements with Portugal. Well and good! but what is Portugal? She has

two millions of priests and beggars; and at the end of the century she

will have two millions of priests and beggars still. What will the

wealth and productions of the United States be then?" If the United

States have now 18,000,000 of people, and their population is increasing

at an unexampled rate,--a free and an opulent population,--the interest

of Great Britain is plain;--to have a primary regard to the United

States in the arrangement of her commercial policy.

SECTION I.

THE CURRENCY.

The fundamental difficulty of this great question, now one of the most

prominent in the United States, is indicated by the fact that, while

the practice of banking is essential to a manufacturing and commercial

nation, a perfect system of banking remains to be discovered.

When it is remembered that the question of the Currency has never yet

been practically mastered in the countries of the Old World; that in

America it has fallen into the hands of a young and inexperienced

people; that it is implicated with constitutional questions, and has to

be reconciled with democratic principles, it will not be expected that a

passing stranger will be able to present a very clear view of its

present aspect, or any decided opinion upon difficulties which perplex

the wisest heads in the country. The mere history of banking in the

United States would fill more than a volume: and the speculations which

arise out of it, a library.

It is well known that there was an early split into parties on the

subject of the constitutionality of a national bank. Washington

requested the opinions of his cabinet upon it in writing; and Hamilton

gave his in favour of the constitutionality of a national bank: Edmund

Randolph and Jefferson against it. The question has been stirred from

time to time since; while Hamilton's opinions have been acted upon.

The ground of objection is a very strong one. It lies in the provision

that "all powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution,

nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the

people." No power to establish corporations is, in any case, delegated

by the constitution to the United States; nor does it appear to be

countenanced by any fair construction of the permissions under which its

transaction of the general business is carried on.

The answer to this is, that the supreme law of the country may give a

legal or artificial capacity, (distinct from the natural,) to one or

more persons, in relation to the objects committed to the management of

the government: in other words, that the government has sovereign power

with regard to the objects confided to it; all the limitations of the

constitution having relation to the number of those objects. This was

Hamilton's ground; and this is, I believe, the ground which has been

taken since by those who shared his opinions on the main question. To me

it appears as unsatisfactory as any other mode of begging the question.

If the power of making corporations is to be assumed by the general

government, on the ground of its being implied, the whole country might

be covered with corporations, to which should be entrusted the discharge

of any function exercised by the general government.

In countries differently governed from the United States, it appears as

if it would be most reasonable either to have the currency made a

national affair, transacted wholly by the government, on determined

principles, or to leave banking entirely free. In neither case,

probably, would the evils be so great as those which have happened under

the mixture of the two systems. But in the United States, the committing

the management of the currency to the general government is now wholly

out of the question. Free banking will be the method, some time or

other; but not yet. There is not yet knowledge enough; nor freedom

enough of production and commerce to render such a policy safe.

Meantime, various doctrines are afloat. Some persons are for no banking

whatsoever: but mere money-lending by individuals. Some are for the

abolition of paper-money, and the establishment of one public bank of

deposit and transfer in each State. Some are for private banking only,

with or without paper money. Some are for State incorporations, with no

central bank. Others are for restoring the United States Bank.

No objections against banking and paper-money altogether will avail

anything, while commerce is conducted on its present principles. It

answers no practical purpose to object to any useful thing on the ground

of its abuse: and while the commerce of the United States is daily on

the increase, and the only check on its prosperity is the want of

capital, there is no possibility of a return to the use of private

money-lending and rouleaus.

The use of small notes may well and easily be discontinued. The

experiment has been tried with success in Virginia, Maryland, and

Pennsylvania. The prohibition might, perhaps, be carried as high as to

notes of twenty dollars. There seems no adequate reason for the public

being, further than this, deprived of the convenience of a

representative of cash; a convenience so great that there is much more

probability that the ingenious Americans will devise some method of

practically insuring its convertibility, than that they will surrender

its use. It has often occurred to me that out of the currency troubles

of the United States, might arise such a discovery of the true principle

(which yet lies hidden) of insuring the convertibility, or other

limitation, of a paper currency, as may be a blessing to the whole

commercial world. This is an enterprise worthy of their ingenuity; and

one which seems of probable achievement, when we remember how the

American merchants are pressed for capital, and how all-important to

them is the soundness of their credit. The principle lies somewhere, if

it could but be found: and none are more likely to discover it than

they.

Private banking is, in the present state of affairs, necessary and

inevitable; so that there is little use in arguments for or against it.

Capital is grievously wanted, in all the commercial cities. There must

be some place of resort for small amounts, and for foreign capital,

whence money may issue to supply the need of commercial men. There must,

in other words, be money stores; and, in the absence of others, private

banks must serve the purpose. The amount of good or harm which, in the

present state of things, they are able to do, depends mainly on the

discretion or indiscretion of their customers; who, in common prudence,

must look well whom they trust.

As for State incorporations, it cannot be said that they are absolutely

necessary; though the arguments in favour of their expediency are very

strong. More and more money is perpetually required for the transaction

of commercial business; and in a different ratio from that required by

the affairs of farmers and planters; since the latter receive their

returns quickly; while the merchants of the sea-board have theirs

delayed for long periods, and consequently require a much larger amount

of capital. These larger amounts must come mainly from abroad, whence

money can be had at four and five per cent. interest; while at home,

from six to twelve per cent. is paid, even while foreign capital is

flowing in. It is obvious that this foreign capital will enter much more

abundantly through the credit of a State bank than through private

banks. Small amounts of capital, dispersed and comparatively

unproductive, will also be more readily brought together, to be applied

where most needed, in a State bank, than among many small firms. The

States of New York and Pennsylvania have carried on their improvements,

their canals and rail-roads, as well as much of their commerce, by means

of foreign capital; and the surpassing prosperity of those States may be

considered owing, in a great degree, to this practice. The

incorporation of a bank is not always to be considered in the light of a

monopoly; it may be the reverse. It may enable a number of individuals,

by no means the most wealthy in the community, to compete, by an union

of forces, with the most wealthy. Corporations may be multiplied, as

occasion arises, and, by competition, give the public the benefit of the

greatest possible amount of service done at the least cost.

Such are the leading arguments in favour of State Banks. The objections

to them are in part applicable to faulty methods of incorporation, and

not to the principle itself. The special exemption from liabilities to

which individuals are subject; the imposing of such inhibitions

elsewhere as render the affair a monopoly; the making responsibility a

mere abstraction, are great, but perhaps avoidable evils. So are the

methods by which charters have been obtained and renewed; the method of

"log-rolling" bills through the legislature; and other such

corruption.[9]

An objection less easily disposed of is, that by the creation of any

great moneyed power, means are afforded of controlling the fortunes of

individuals, and of influencing the press and the political

constituency. If these objections cannot be obviated, they are fatal to

banking corporations. If, however, any means can be devised, either by

causing a sufficient publicity of proceedings, or by granting charters

for a short term, renewable on strict conditions, or by any other plan

for establishing a true responsibility, of uniting the benefits of

incorporated banks with republican principles, it seems as if it would

be a great benefit to all parties in the community.

The difference of opinion which has made the most noise in the world, is

about a National Bank.

It appears to have been contemplated, in the first instance, to place

the currency of the United States under the control of the general

government; according to the spirit of the provisions of the

constitution, that Congress should have power "to coin money, regulate

the value thereof, and of foreign coin:" but without affording to

Congress any power to control the fortunes of individuals, as may be

done by certain banking operations. The state of the colonial currency

had been deplorable.[10] The object now was to substitute a uniform and

substantial currency, instead of the false representatives which had

been in use: and to put it out of the power of the States to alter the

terms of contracts by taking advantage of the faults of the currency.

Nobody would take the continental bills; and gold and silver were

deficient. A national bank was the resource; and the old United States

Bank was chartered in 1791; it being ascertained that its issues were

based on real capital, and a strict watch being kept over its

operations.

This bank was believed to be wanted for another purpose;--to watch over

and control the State Banks. It was not the first institution of the

kind in the United States. The Bank of North America had been chartered

in 1781, under the authority of the Continental Congress: but by soon

accepting a charter from the Legislature of Pennsylvania, it ceased to

be a national, and afforded the precedent of a State Bank. New York and

Massachusetts had soon State Banks also. They were prudently conducted;

and their notes presently banished the coin. The power of Congress over

the currency was gone. All that could be done now was for the National

Bank to control the State Banks, and keep their issues within bounds, as

well as it could.

Occasional disorders happened from the misconduct of country banks,

prior to 1811. The renewal of the charter of the United States Bank was

then refused. The government was pressed by the evils of war; and the

check of the superintendence of the Bank being withdrawn, the local

banks, out of New England, came to the agreement, (too senseless to be

ever repeated,) to suspend specie payments. All issued what kind and

quantity of paper pleased themselves, till above twice the amount of

money needed was abroad; and the notes were in some States five, in

others ten, in others twenty, below par. The New England people,

meantime, used convertible paper only; and under the law which provides

that all duties, imposts, and excises should be uniform throughout the

States, were thus compelled to pay one tenth more to the revenue

officers than the people of New York, who used the depreciated currency:

and one-fifth more than the Baltimore merchants.

This state of things could not last. A national bank was again

established, in 1816, for the purpose of controlling the local banks.

Its charter was for twenty years, with a capital of 35,000,000 dollars,

to which the federal government subscribed one fifth. Its notes were

made receivable for any debt due to the United States.

Its purpose was presently answered. The local banks had, in three years,

resumed cash payments. The management of the United States Bank, during

the rest of its term, has been, upon the whole, prudent and moderate.

That a power has not been abused is not, however, a reason for its

continued exercise, if it be really unconstitutional. President Jackson

thinks, and the majority thinks with him, that it is contrary to the

spirit of the constitution, (as it is certainly unauthorised by its

letter,) that any institution should have the power, unchecked for a

long term of years, of affecting the affairs of individuals, from the

further corners of Maine or Missouri, down to the shores of the Gulf of

Mexico; of influencing elections; of biassing the press; and of acting

strongly either with or against the administration. The majority

considers, that if the United States Bank has great power for good, it

has also great power for harm; and that the general government cannot be

secure of working naturally in its limited functions, while this great

power subsists, to be either its enemy or its ally.

This seems to be proved by the charges brought against the late Bank by

President Jackson. Whether they are true or false, (and the gravest of

them do not appear to have been substantiated,) they indicate that power

is in the hands of a central institution, which no federal

establishment ought to have, otherwise than by the express permission of

the constitution.

As for President Jackson's mode of proceeding against the Bank,--it is

an affair of merely temporary interest, unless he should be found to

have exceeded the authority conferred on him by his office. He does seem

to have done so, in one particular, at least. His first declaration

against the renewal of the charter, was honest and manly. His

re-election, after having made this avowal, was a sufficient evidence of

the desire of the majority to extinguish the Bank. It was, no doubt, in

reliance on the will of the majority, thus indicated, that the President

removed the deposits in a peculiarly high-handed manner; and also

exercised the veto, when the two Houses had passed a bill to renew the

charter of the United States Bank.

With the last of these measures, no one has any right to quarrel. He

exercised a constitutional power, according to his long-declared

convictions. His sudden removal of the deposits is not to be so easily

justified.

The President has the power of removing his Secretaries from office, and

of appointing others, whose appointment must be sanctioned by the

Senate. The Secretaries of State are enjoined by law to execute such

orders as shall be imposed on them by the President of the United

States:--all the Secretaries but the Secretary of the Treasury. In his

case, no such specification is made; obviously because it would not be

wise to put the whole power of the Treasury into the hands of the

President. President Jackson, however, contrived to obtain this power by

using with adroitness his other power of removal from office. Mr. Duane

was appointed Secretary of the Treasury on the 29th of May, 1833; his

predecessor having been offered a higher office. It is known that the

predecessor had given his opinion in the cabinet against removing the

Treasury deposits from the Bank; and that Mr. Duane was an acknowledged

enemy of the Bank. On the 3rd of June, the President opened to the new

Secretary his scheme of removing the deposits. Mr. Duane was opposed to

the act, as being a violation of the government contract with the Bank.

He refused to sign the necessary order. While he was still in office, on

the 20th of September, the intended removal of the deposits was

announced in the government newspaper. On the 23rd, Mr. Duane was

dismissed from office; and Mr. Taney, who had previously promised to

sign the order, was installed in the office. On the 26th, the official

order for the removal of the deposits was given. No plea of impending

danger to the national funds, if such could have been substantiated,

could justify so high-handed a deed as this. No such plea has been

substantiated; and the act remains open to strong censure.

Just before the expiration of its charter, the United States Bank

accepted a charter from the Legislature of Pennsylvania. It remains to

be seen what effects will arise from the operation of the most powerful

State Bank which has yet existed.

The problem now is to keep a sound currency, in the absence of an

institution, believed to be unconstitutional, but hitherto found the

only means of establishing order and safety in this most important

branch of economy. Here is a deficiency, which cannot but be the cause

of much evil and perplexity. It must be supplied, either by increased

knowledge and improved philosophy and practice among the people, or by

an amendment of the Constitution. Meanwhile, it is only time and energy

lost to insist upon the return to a mere metallic currency. Society

cannot be set back to a condition which could dispense with so great an

improvement as paper-money, with all its abuses, undoubtedly is.

The singular order which last year emanated from the Treasury,

compelling the payments for the public lands to be made in specie, will

not have the effect of making the people in love with a metallic

currency. If this measure is intended to be an obstacle to the purchase

of large quantities of land, or virtually to raise the price,--these are

affairs with which the Treasury has nothing to do. If it is intended

merely to compel cash payments, as far as the administration has power

to do so, it seems a pity that those who undertake to meddle with the

currency should not know better what they are about. The scarcity of

money in the eastern States has been well nigh ruinous, while large

amounts of specie have been accumulated in the west, where they are not

wanted.

The mischief thus caused has been much increased by the injudicious

method in which the deposits have been distributed among the States,

according to the Deposit Bill of the session of 1836. The details of the

extraordinary state of the money-market in America, last year, are too

well known on both sides of the water, to need to be repeated here.

One principle stands out conspicuously from the history of the last few

years: that no President or Secretary should be allowed the opportunity

of "taking the responsibility" of meddling with the currency of the

country: in other words, the taxation should be reduced, as soon as in

equity and convenience it can be done, so as to bring down the revenue

to a proportion with the wants of the government. If the general

government is to have anything to do with the currency at all, it should

be by such business being made a separate constitutional function. To

let the Treasury overflow,--and leave its overflowings to be managed at

the discretion of one public servant, removable by one other, is a

policy as absurd as dangerous. The most obvious security lies, not in

multiplying checks upon the officers, but in reducing the overflowings

of the Treasury to the smallest possible amount. This is President

Jackson's last recorded opinion on the subject. It appears worthy to be

kept on record.

SECTION II.

REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE.

There is less to be said on this head than would be possible in any

other country. When it is known that the United States are troubled with

the large surplus revenue accruing from the sale of the public lands,

the whole story is told. The stranger will hear much lamentation in the

Senate about the increase of the public expenses, and will see Hon.

Members looking as solemn as if the nation were sinking into a gulf of

debt: but the fear and complaint are, not of the expenditure of money,

but of the increase of executive patronage.

The Customs are the chief source of the revenue of the general

government. They are in course of reduction, year by year. The next

great resource is the sale of the public lands. This may be called

inexhaustible; so large is the area yet unoccupied, and so increasing

the influx of settlers.

This happy country is free from the infliction of an excise system; an

exemption which goes far towards making it the most desirable of all

places of residence for manufacturers who value practical freedom in the

management of their private concerns, and honesty among their

work-people. The brewer and glass-manufacturer see the tax-gatherer's

face no oftener than other men. The Post-Office establishment in America

is for the advantage of the people, and not for purposes of taxation;

and every one is satisfied if it pays its own expenses. A small sum is

yielded by patent fees; and also by the mint. Lighthouse-tolls

constitute another item. But all these united are trifling in comparison

with the revenue yielded from the two great sources, the Customs and the

Public Lands.[11]

The expenditures of the general government are for salaries, pensions,

(three or four hundred pounds,) territorial governments, the mint,

surveys, and improvements, the census and other public documents, and

the military and naval establishments.

The largest item in the civil list is the payment to Members of

Congress, who receive eight dollars per day, for the session, and their

travelling expenses. The President's salary is 25,000 dollars. The

Vice-president's 5,000. Each of the Secretaries of State, and the

Postmaster-general's, 6,000. The Attorney-general's, 4,000.

The seven Judges of the Supreme Court are salaried with the same

moderation as other members of the federal government. The Chief Justice

has 5,000 dollars; the six Associate Judges 4,500 each.

The Commissioned Officers of the United States army were, in 1835, 674.

Non-commissioned Officers and Privates, 7,547. Total of the United

States army, 8,221.

In the navy, there were, in 1835, 37 Captains, and 40

Masters-commandant. The navy consisted of 12 ships of the line; 14

first-class frigates; 3 second-class; 15 sloops of war; 8 schooners and

other small vessels of war.

The revenue and expenditure of most of the States are so small as to

make the annual financial statement resemble the account-books of a

private family. The land tax, the proportion of which varies in every

State, is the chief source of revenue. Licenses, fines, and tolls, yield

other sums. In South Carolina, there is a tax on free people of colour!

The highest salary that I find paid to the government of a State is

4,000 dollars, (New York and Pennsylvania;) the lowest, 400 dollars,

(Rhode Island.) The other expenses, besides those of government, are for

the defence of the State, (in Pennsylvania, about forty pounds!) for

education, (two thousand pounds, in Pennsylvania, the same year,)

prisons, pensions, and state improvements.[12]

Such is the financial condition of a people of whom few are individually

very wealthy or very poor; who all work; and who govern themselves,

appointing one another to manage their common affairs. They have had

every advantage that nature and circumstances could give them; and

nothing to combat but their own necessary inexperience. As long as the

State expenditure for defence bears the proportion to education of 40l.

to 2,000l., and on to 80,000l., (the amount of the school-tax, now, in

Massachusetts,) all is safe and promising. There is great virtue in

figures, dull as they are to all but the few who love statistics for the

sake of what they indicate. Those which are cited above disclose a

condition and a prospect in the presence of which all fears for the

peace and virtue of the States are shamed. Men who govern themselves and

each other with such moderate means, and for such unimpeachable objects,

are no more likely to lapse into disorder than to submit to despotism.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] The value of the cargoes which arrived at Mobile in 1830, was,

Dollars.

By American vessels 69,700

British 74,435

-------

144,135

In 1834, by American vessels 314,072

British 74,739

-------

388,811

The value of the cargoes which departed from Mobile

in 1830, was, by American vessels 1,517,663

British 476,702

---------

1,994,365

In 1834, by American vessels 4,684,326

British 1,585,871

---------

6,270,197

[9] "Log-rolling" means co-operation for a point which must be carried:

on a new settlement in the wilds, by neighbours devoting a day to fell,

roll, and build logs, to make a house before night: in a legislature, by

a coterie of members urging on a bill in which they are interested, and

getting it passed in defiance of inquiry and delay.

[10] I have before me a collection of specimens of the colonial, and

early west continental paper currency; such as brought ruin to all who

trusted it. The colonial notes are such as any common printer might

forge. For instance, here is one, on common paper, with a border of

stars, and within it,

"Georgia, 1776.

"These are to certify, That the sum of SIXPENCE sterling, is due

from this Province to the bearer hereof, the same being part of

Twelve Thousand Five Hundred and Seventy-two Pounds Nineteen

Shillings Sterling, voted by Provincial Congress, for taking up and

sinking that Sum already issued.

6d."

Those of the early days of the war have on the back emblems, varying

with the promissory amount, exhibiting bows, arrows, leaves of the oak,

orange, &c.

It would be absurd to argue against all use of a paper currency from

such specimens as these.

[11] See Appendix B.

[12] See Appendix B.

CHAPTER V.

MORALS OF ECONOMY.

"And yet of your strength there is and can be no clear feeling,

save by what you have prospered in, by what you have done. Between

vague, wavering capability, and fixed, indubitable performance,

what a difference! A certain inarticulate self-consciousness dwells

dimly in us; which only our works can render articulate, and

decisively discernible. Our works are the mirror wherein the spirit

first sees its natural lineaments. Hence, too, the folly of that

impossible precept 'know thyself,' till it be translated into this

partially possible one, 'know what thou canst work at.'"

_Sartor Resartus_, p. 166. _Boston Edition._

The glory of the world passeth away. One kind of worldly glory passes

away, and another comes. Like a series of clouds sailing by the moon,

and growing dim and dimmer as they go down the sky, are the transitory

glories which are only brightened for an age by man's smile: dark

vapours, which carry no light within themselves. How many such have

floated across the expanse of history, and melted away! It was once a

glory to have a power of life and death over a patriarchal family: and

how mean does this now appear, in comparison with the power of life and

death which every man has over his own intellect! It was once a glory

to be feared: how much better is it now esteemed to be loved! It was

once a glory to lay down life to escape from one's personal woes: how

far higher is it now seen to be to accept those woes as a boon, and to

lay down life only for truth;--for God and not for self! The heroes of

mankind were once its kings and warriors: we look again now, and find

its truest heroes its martyrs, its poets, its artisans; men not buried

under pyramids or in cathedrals, but whose sepulchre no man knoweth unto

this day. To them the Lord showed the land of promise, and then buried

them on the confines. There are two aspects under which every individual

man may be regarded: as a solitary being, with inherent powers, and an

omnipotent will; a creator, a king, an inscrutable mystery: and again,

as a being infinitely connected with all other beings, with none but

derived powers, with a heavenly-directed will; a creature, a subject, a

transparent medium through which the workings of principles are to be

eternally revealed. Both these aspects are true, and therefore

reconcilable. The Old World dwelt almost exclusively on the first and

meaner aspect: as men rise to inhabit the new heavens and the new earth,

they will more and more contemplate the other and sublimer. The old

glory of a self-originating power and will is passing away: and it is

becoming more and more plain that a man's highest honour lies in

becoming as clear a medium as possible for the revelations which are to

be made through him: in wiping out every stain, in correcting every flaw

by which the light that is in him may be made dimness or deception. It

was once a glory to defy or evade the laws of man's physical and moral

being; and, in so doing, to encroach upon the rights of others: it is

now beginning to be shown that there is a higher honour in recognising

and obeying the laws of outward and inward life, and in reverencing

instead of appropriating the privileges of other wards of Providence.

In other words, it was once a glory to be idle, and a shame to work,--at

least with any member or organ but one,--the brain. Yet it is a law of

every man's physical nature that he should work with the limbs: of every

man's moral nature, that he should know: and knowledge is to be had only

by one method; by bringing the ideal and the actual world into contact,

and proving each by the other, with one's own brain and hands for

instruments, and not another's. There is no actual knowledge even of

one's own life, to be had in any other way. Yet this is the way which

men have perversely refused to acknowledge, while every one is more or

less compelled to practise it. Those who have been able to get through

life with the least possible work have been treated as the happiest:

those who have had the largest share imposed upon them have been

passively pitied as the most miserable. If the experience of the two

could have been visibly or tangibly brought into comparison, the false

estimate would have been long ago banished for ever from human

calculations. If princes and nobles, who have not worked either in war

or in council, men sunk in satiety; if women, shut out of the world of

reality, and compelled by usage to endure the corrosion of unoccupied

thought, and the decay of unemployed powers, were able to speak fully

and truly as they sink into their unearned graves, it would be found

that their lives had been one hollow misery, redeemed solely by that

degree of action that had been permitted to them, in order that they

might, in any wise, live. If the half-starved artisan, if the negro

slave, could, when lying down at length to rest, see and exhibit the

full vision of their own lives, they would complain far less of too much

work than of too little freedom, too little knowledge, too many wounds

through their affections to their children, their brethren, their race.

They would complain that their work had been of too exclusive a kind;

too much in the actual, while it had been attempted to close the ideal

from them. Nor are their cases alike. The artisan works too much in one

way, while too little in another. The negro slave suffers too much by

infliction, and yet more by privation; but he rarely or never works too

much, even with the limbs. He knows the evil of toil, the reluctance,

the lassitude; but with it he knows also the evil of idleness; the

vacuity, the hopelessness. He has neither the privilege of the brute, to

exercise himself vigorously upon instinct, for an immediate object, to

be gained and forgotten; nor the privilege of the man, to toil, by moral

necessity, with some pain, for results which yield an evergrowing

pleasure. It is not work which is the curse of the slave: he is rarely

so blessed as to know what it is.

If, again, the happiest man who has ever lived on earth, (excepting the

Man of Sorrows, whose depth of peace no one will attempt to fathom,)

could, in passing into the busier life to come, (to which the present is

only the nursery mimicking of human affairs,) communicate to us what has

been the true blessedness of his brief passage, it would be found to lie

in what he had been enabled to do: not so much blessed in regard to

others as to himself; not so much because he had made inventions, (even

such a one as printing:) not so much because through him countries will

be better governed, men better educated, and some light from the upper

world let down into the lower; (for great things as these are, they are

sure to be done, if not by him, by another;) but because his actual

doing, his joint head and hand-work have revealed to him the truth which

lies about him; and so far, and by the only appointed method, invested

him with heaven while he was upon earth. Such a one might not be

conscious of this as the chief blessedness of his life, (as men are ever

least conscious of what is highest and best in themselves:) he might put

it in another form, saying that mankind were growing wiser and happier,

or that goodness and mercy had followed him all the days of his life, or

that he had found that all evil is only an aspect of ultimate good: in

some such words of faith or hope he would communicate his inward peace:

but the real meaning of the true workman, if spoken for him by a divine

voice, (as spoken by the divine voice of his life,) is, as has been

said, that his complete toil has enriched him with truth which can be no

otherwise obtained, and which neither the world, nor any one in it,

except himself, could give, nor any power in heaven or earth could take

away.

Mankind becomes more clear-sighted to this fact about honour and

blessedness, as time unfolds the sequence of his hieroglyphic scroll;

and a transition in the morals and manners of nations is an inevitable

consequence, slow as men are in deciphering the picture-writing of the

old teacher; unapt as men are in connecting picture with picture, so as

to draw thence a truth, and in the truth, a prophecy. We must look to

new or renovated communities to see how much has been really learned.

The savage chief, who has never heard the saying "he that would be chief

among you, let him be your servant," feels himself covered with glory

when he paces along in his saddle, gorgeous with wampum and feathers,

while his squaw follows in the dust, bending under the weight of his

shelter, his food, and his children. Wise men look upon him with all

pity and no envy. Higher and higher in society, the right of the

strongest is supposed to involve honour: and physical is placed above

moral strength. The work of the limbs, wholly repulsive when separated

from that of the head, is devolved upon the weaker, who cannot resist;

and hence arises the disgrace of work, and the honour of being able to

keep soul and body together, more or less luxuriously, without it. The

barbaric conqueror makes his captives work for him. His descendants, who

have no prisoners of war to make slaves of, carry off captives of a

helpless nation, inferior even to themselves in civilisation. The

servile class rises, by almost imperceptible degrees, as the dawn of

reason brightens towards day. The classes by whom the hand-work of

society is done, arrive at being cared for by those who do the

head-work, or no work at all: then they are legislated for, but still as

a common or inferior class, favoured, out of pure bounty, with laws, as

with soup, which are pronounced "excellent for the poor:" then they

begin to open their minds upon legislation for themselves; and a certain

lip-honour is paid them, which would be rejected as insult if offered to

those who nevertheless think themselves highly meritorious in

vouchsafing it.

This is the critical period out of which must arise a new organisation

of society. When it comes to this, a new promise blossoms under the feet

of the lovers of truth. There are many of the hand-workers now who are

on the very borders of the domain of head-work: and, as the

encroachments of those who work not at all have, by this time, become

seriously injurious to the rights of others, there are many thinkers and

persons of learning who are driven over the line, and become

hand-workers; for which they, as they usually afterwards declare, can

never be sufficiently thankful. There is no drowning the epithalamium

with which these two classes celebrate the union of thought and

handicraft. Multitudes press in, or are carried in to the marriage

feast, and a new era of society has begun. The temporary glory of ease

and disgrace of labour pass away like mountain mists, and the clear

sublimity of toil grows upon men's sight.

If, in such an era, a new nation begins its career, what should be

expected from it?

If the organisation of its society were a matter of will; if it had a

disposable moral force, applicable to controllable circumstances, it is

probable that the new nation would take after all old nations, and not

dare to make, perhaps not dream of making, the explicit avowal, that

that which had ever hitherto been a disgrace, except in the eyes of a

very few prophets, had now come out to be a clear honour. This would be

more, perhaps, than even a company of ten or fifteen millions of men and

women would venture to declare, while such words as Quixotic,

Revolutionary, Utopian, remain on the tongues which wag the most

industriously in the old world. But, it so happens it is never in the

power of a whole nation to meet in convention, and agree what their

moral condition shall be. They may agree upon laws for the furtherance

of what is settled to be honourable, and for the exclusion of some of

the law-bred disgraces of the old world: but it is not in their power to

dispense at will the subtle radiance of moral glory, any more than to

dye their scenery with rainbow hues because they have got hold of a

prism. Moral persuasions grow out of preceding circumstances, as

institutions do; and conviction is not communicable where the evidence

is not of a communicable kind. The advantage of the new nation over the

old will be no more than that its individual members are more open to

conviction, from being more accessible to evidence, less burdened with

antique forms and institutions, and partial privileges, so called. The

result will probably be that some members of the new society will follow

the ancient fashion of considering work a humiliation; while, upon the

whole, labour will be more honoured than it has ever been before.

America is in the singular position of being nearly equally divided

between a low degree of the ancient barbarism in relation to labour, and

a high degree of the modern enlightenment. Wherever there is a servile

class, work is considered a disgrace, unless it bears some other name,

and is of an exclusive character. In the free States, labour is more

really and heartily honoured than, perhaps, in any other part of the

civilised world. The most extraordinary, and least pleasant circumstance

in the case is that, while the south ridicules and despises the north

for what is its very highest honour, the north feels somewhat uneasy and

sore under the contempt. It is true that it is from necessity that every

man there works; but, whatever be the cause, the fact is a noble one,

worthy of all rejoicing: and it were to be wished that the north could

readily and serenely, at all times, and in disregard of all jibes, admit

the fact, as matter for thankfulness, that there every man works for his

bread with his own head and hands.

How do the two parties in reality spend their days?

In the north, the children all go to school, and work there, more or

less. As they grow up, they part off into the greatest variety of

employments. The youths must, without exception, work hard; or they had

better drown themselves. Whether they are to be lawyers, or otherwise

professional; or merchants, manufacturers, farmers, or citizens, they

have everything to do for themselves. A very large proportion of them

have, while learning their future business, to earn the means of

learning. There is much manual labour in the country colleges; much

teaching in the vacations done by students. Many a great man in Congress

was seen in his boyhood leading his father's horses to water; and, in

his youth, guiding the plough in his father's field. There is probably

hardly a man in New England who cannot ride, drive, and tend his own

horse; scarcely a clergyman, lawyer, or physician, who, if deprived of

his profession, could not support himself by manual labour. Nor, on the

other hand, is there any farmer or citizen who is not, more or less, a

student and thinker. Not only are all capable of discharging their

political duty of self-government; but all have somewhat idealised their

life. All have looked abroad, at least so far as to understand the

foreign relations of their own country: most, I believe, have gone

further, and can contemplate the foreign relations of their own being.

Some one great mind, at least, has almost every individual entered into

sympathy with; some divine, or politician, or poet, who has carried the

spirit out beyond the circle of home, State, and country, into the ideal

world. It is even possible to trace, in the conversation of some who

have the least leisure for reading, the influence of some one of the

rich sayings, the diamonds and pearls which have dropped from the lips

of genius, to shine in the hearts of all humanity. Some one such saying

may be perceived to have moulded the thoughts, and shaped the aims, and

become the under-current of the whole life of a thinking and labouring

man. Such sayings being hackneyed signifies nothing, while the

individuals blessed by them do not know it, and hold them in their

inmost hearts, unvexed by hearing them echoed by careless tongues. "Am

I not a man and a brother?" "Happy the man whose wish and care," &c.

"The breaking waves dashed high," &c. (Mrs. Hemans's Landing of the

Pilgrims,) "What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue,"

(Burke)--these are some of the words which, sinking deep into the hearts

of busy men, spring up in a harvest of thoughts and acts.

There are a few young men, esteemed the least happy members of the

community, who inherit wealth. The time will come, when the society is

somewhat older, when it will be understood that wealth need not preclude

work: but at present, there are no individuals so forlorn, in the

northern States, as young men of fortune. Men who have shown energy and

skill in working their way in society are preferred for political

representatives: there is no scientific or literary class, for such

individuals to fall into: all the world is busy around them, and they

are reduced to the predicament, unhappily the most dreaded of all in the

United States, of standing alone. Their method, therefore, is to spend

their money as fast as possible, and begin the world like other men. I

am stating this as matter of fact; not as being reasonable and right.

As for the women of the northern States, most have the blessing of work,

though not of the extent and variety which will hereafter be seen to be

necessary for the happiness of their lives. All married women, except

the ladies of rich merchants and others, are liable to have their hands

full of household occupation, from the uncertainty of domestic service;

a topic to be referred to hereafter. Women who do not marry have, in

many instances, to work for their support; and, as will be shown in

another connexion, under peculiar disadvantages. Work, on the whole,

may be considered the rule, and vacuity the exception.[13]

What is life in the slave States, in respect of work?

There are two classes, the servile and the imperious, between whom there

is a great gulf fixed. The servile class has not even the benefit of

hearty toil. No solemn truths sink down into them, to cheer their

hearts, stimulate their minds, and nerve their hands. Their wretched

lives are passed between an utter debasement of the will, and a conflict

of the will with external force.

The other class is in circumstances as unfavourable as the least happy

order of persons in the old world. The means of educating children are

so meagre[14] that young people begin life under great disadvantages.

The vicious fundamental principle of morals in a slave country, that

labour is disgraceful, taints the infant mind with a stain which is as

fatal in the world of spirits as the negro tinge is at present in the

world of society. It made my heart ache to hear the little children

unconsciously uttering thoughts with which no true religion, no true

philosophy can coexist. "Do you think _I_ shall work?" "O, you must not

touch the poker here." "You must not do this or that for yourself: the

negroes will be offended, and it won't do for a lady to do so." "Poor

thing! she has to teach: if she had come here, she might have married a

rich man, perhaps." "Mamma has so much a-year now, so we have not to do

our work at home, or any trouble. 'Tis such a comfort!"--When children

at school call everything that pleases them "gentlemanly," and pity all

(but slaves) who have to work, and talk of marrying early for an

establishment, it is all over with them. A more hopeless state of

degradation can hardly be conceived of, however they may ride, and play

the harp, and sing Italian, and teach their slaves what they call

religion.

"Poor things!" may be said of such, in return. They know little, with

their horror of work, of what awaits them. Theirs is destined to be, if

their wish of an establishment is fulfilled, a life of toil, irksome and

unhonoured. They escape the name; but they are doomed to undergo the

worst of the reality. Their husbands are not to be envied, though they

do ride on white horses, (the slave's highest conception of bliss,) lie

down to repose in hot weather, and spend their hours between the

discharge of hospitality and the superintendence of their estates; and

the highly honourable and laborious charge of public affairs. But the

wives of slave-holders are, as they and their husbands declare, as much

slaves as their negroes. If they will not have everything go to rack and

ruin around them, they must superintend every household operation, from

the cellar to the garrets: for there is nothing that slaves can do well.

While the slaves are perpetually at one's heels, lolling against the

bed-posts before one rises in the morning, standing behind the chairs,

leaning on the sofa, officiously undertaking, and invariably spoiling

everything that one had rather do for one's-self, the smallest possible

amount of real service is performed. The lady of the house carries her

huge bunch of keys, (for every consumable thing must be locked up,) and

has to give out, on incessant requests, whatever is wanted for the

household. She is for ever superintending, and trying to keep things

straight, without the slightest hope of attaining anything like leisure

and comfort. What is there in retinue, in the reputation of ease and

luxury, which can compensate for toils and cares of this nature? How

much happier must be the lot of a village milliner, or of the artisan's

wife who sweeps her own floors, and cooks her husband's dinner, than

that of the planter's lady with twenty slaves to wait upon her; her sons

migrating because work is out of the question, and they have not the

means to buy estates; and her daughters with no better prospect than

marrying, as she has done, to toil as she does!

Some few of these ladies are among the strongest-minded and most

remarkable women I have ever known. There are great draw-backs, (as will

be seen hereafter,) but their mental vigour is occasionally proportioned

to their responsibility. Women who have to rule over a barbarous

society, (small though it be,) to make and enforce laws, provide for

all the physical wants, and regulate the entire habits of a number of

persons who can in no respect take care of themselves, must be strong

and strongly disciplined, if they in any degree discharge this duty.

Those who shrink from it become perhaps the weakest women I have

anywhere seen: selfishly timid, humblingly dependent, languid in body,

and with minds of no reach at all. These two extremes are found in the

slave States, in the most striking opposition. It is worthy of note,

that I never found there a woman strong enough voluntarily to brave the

woes of life in the presence of slavery; nor any woman weak enough to

extenuate the vices of the system; each knowing, prior to experience,

what those woes and vices are.

There are a few unhappy persons in the slave States, too few, I believe,

to be called a class, who strongly exemplify the consequences of such a

principle of morals as that work is a disgrace. There are a few, called

by the slaves "mean whites;" signifying whites who work with the hands.

Where there is a coloured servile class, whose colour has become a

disgrace through their servitude, two results are inevitable: that those

who have the colour without the servitude are disgraced among the

whites; and those who have the servitude without the colour are as

deeply disgraced among the coloured. More intensely than white

work-people are looked down upon at Port-au-Prince, are the "mean

whites" despised by the slaves of the Carolinas. They make the most, of

course, of the only opportunity they can ever have of doing what they

see their superiors do,--despising their fellow-creatures. No inducement

would be sufficient to bring honest, independent men into the constant

presence of double-distilled hatred and contempt like this; and the

general character of the "mean whites" may therefore be anticipated.

They are usually men who have no prospect, no chance elsewhere; the

lowest of the low.

When I say that no inducement would be sufficient, I mean no politic

inducement. There are inducements of the same force as those which drew

martyrs of old into the presence of savage beasts in the amphitheatre,

which guided Howard through the gloom of prisons, and strengthened Guyon

of Marseilles to offer himself a certain victim to the plague,--there

are inducements of such force as this which carry down families to dwell

in the midst of contempt and danger, where everything is lost but,--the

one object which carries them there. "Mean whites" these friends of the

oppressed fugitive may be in the eyes of all around them; but how they

stand in the eye of One whose thoughts are not as our thoughts, may some

day be revealed. To themselves it is enough that their object is gained.

They do not want praise; they are above it: and they have shown that

they can do without sympathy. It is enough to commend them to their own

peace of heart.

SECTION I.

MORALS OF SLAVERY.

This title is not written down in a spirit of mockery; though there

appears to be a mockery somewhere, when we contrast slavery with the

principles and the rule which are the test of all American

institutions:--the principles that all men are born free and equal;

that rulers derive their just powers from the consent of the governed;

and the rule of reciprocal justice. This discrepancy between principles

and practice needs no more words. But the institution of slavery exists;

and what we have to see is what the morals are of the society which is

subject to it.

What social virtues are possible in a society of which injustice is the

primary characteristic? in a society which is divided into two classes,

the servile and the imperious?

The most obvious is Mercy. Nowhere, perhaps, can more touching exercises

of mercy be seen than here. It must be remembered that the greater

number of slave-holders have no other idea than of holding slaves. Their

fathers did it: they themselves have never known the coloured race

treated otherwise than as inferior beings, born to work for and to teaze

the whites; helpless, improvident, open to no higher inducements than

indulgence and praise; capable of nothing but entire dependence. The

good affections of slave-holders like these show themselves in the form

of mercy; which is as beautiful to witness as mercy, made a substitute

for justice, can ever be. I saw endless manifestations of mercy, as well

as of its opposite. The thoughtfulness of masters, mistresses, and their

children about, not only the comforts, but the indulgences of their

slaves, was a frequent subject of admiration with me. Kind masters are

liberal in the expenditure of money, and (what is better) of thought, in

gratifying the whims and fancies of their negroes. They make large

sacrifices occasionally for the social or domestic advantage of their

people; and use great forbearance in the exercise of the power conferred

upon them by law and custom.

At the time when the cholera was ravaging South Carolina, a wealthy

slave-holder there refused to leave the State, as most of his neighbours

were doing. He would not consent to take any further care of himself

than riding to a distance from his plantation (then overrun by the

disease) to sleep. All day he was among his slaves: nursing them with

his own hands; putting them into the bath, giving them medicine himself,

and cheering their spirits by his presence and his care. He saved them

almost all. No one will suppose this one of the ordinary cases where a

master has his slaves taken care of as property, not as men. Sordid

considerations of that kind must have given way before the terrors of

the plague. A far higher strength than that of self-interest was

necessary to carry this gentleman through such a work as this; and it

was no other than mercy.

Again:--a young man, full of the southern pride, one of whose aims is to

have as great a display of negroes as possible, married a young lady

who, soon after her marriage, showed an imperious and cruel temper

towards her slaves. Her husband gently remonstrated. She did not mend.

He warned her, that he would not allow beings, for whose comfort he was

responsible, to be oppressed; and that, if she compelled him to it, he

would deprive her of the power she misused. Still she did not mend. He

one day came and told her that he had sold all his domestic slaves, for

their own sakes. He told her that he would always give her money enough

to hire free service, when it was to be had; and that when it was not,

he would cheerfully bear, and help her to bear, the domestic

inconveniences which must arise from their having no servants. He kept

his word. It rarely happens that free service can be hired; and this

proud gentleman assists his wife's labours with his own hands; and

(what is more) endures with all cheerfulness the ignominy of having no

slaves.

Nothing struck me more than the patience of slave-owners. In this virtue

they probably surpass the whole Christian world;--I mean in their

patience with their slaves; for one cannot much praise their patience

with the abolitionists, or with the tariff; or in some other cases of

political vexation. When I considered how they love to be called "fiery

southerners," I could not but marvel at their mild forbearance under the

hourly provocations to which they are liable in their homes.[15] It is

found that such a degree of this virtue can be obtained only by long

habit. Persons from New England, France, or England, becoming

slave-holders, are found to be the most severe masters and mistresses,

however good their tempers may always have appeared previously. They

cannot, like the native proprietor, sit waiting half an hour for the

second course, or see everything done in the worst possible manner;

their rooms dirty, their property wasted, their plans frustrated, their

infants slighted, themselves deluded by artifices,--they cannot, like

the native proprietor, endure all this unruffled. It seems to me that

every slave-holder's temper is subjected to a discipline which must

either ruin or perfect it. While we know that many tempers are thus

ruined, and must mourn for the unhappy creatures who cannot escape from

their tyranny, it is evident, on the other hand, that many tempers are

to be met with which should shame down and silence for ever the

irritability of some whose daily life is passed under circumstances of

comparative ease.

This mercy, indulgence, patience, was often pleaded to me in defence of

the system, or in aggravation of the faults of intractable slaves. The

fallacy of this is so gross as not to need exposure anywhere but on the

spot. I was heart-sick of being told of the ingratitude of slaves, and

weary of explaining that indulgence can never atone for injury: that the

extremest pampering, for a life-time, is no equivalent for rights

withheld, no reparation for irreparable injustice. What are the greatest

possible amounts of finery, sweetmeats, dances, gratuities, and kind

words and looks, in exchange for political, social, and domestic

existence? for body and spirit? Is it not true that the life is more

than meat, and the body than raiment?

This fallacious plea was urged upon me by three different persons,

esteemed enlightened and religious, in relation to one case. The case

was this. A lady of fortune carried into her husband's establishment,

when she married, several slaves, and among them a girl two years

younger than herself, who had been brought up under her, and who was

employed as her own maid. The little slaves are accustomed to play

freely with the children of the family--a practice which was lauded to

me, but which never had any beauty in my eyes, seeing, as I did, the

injury to the white children from unrestricted intercourse with the

degraded race, and looking forward as I did to the time when they must

separate into the servile and imperious. Mrs. ---- had been unusually

indulgent to this girl, having allowed her time and opportunity for

religious and other instruction, and favoured her in every way. One

night, when the girl was undressing her, the lady expressed her fondness

for her, and said, among other things: "When I die you shall be

free;"--a dangerous thing to say to a slave only two years younger than

herself. In a short time the lady was taken ill,--with a strange,

mysterious illness, which no doctor could alleviate. One of her friends,

who suspected foul play, took the sufferer entirely under her own

charge, when she seemed to be dying. She revived; and as soon as she was

well enough to have a will of her own again, would be waited on by no

one but her favourite slave. She grew worse. She alternated thus, for

some time, according as she was under the care of this slave or of her

friend. At last, the friend excluded from her chamber every one but the

physicians: took in the medicines at the room door from the hands of the

slave, and locked them up. They were all analysed by a physician, and

arsenic found in every one of them. The lady partially recovered; but I

was shocked at the traces of suffering in her whole appearance. The

girl's guilt was brought clearly home to her. There never was a case of

more cruel, deliberate intention to murder. If ever slave deserved the

gallows, (which ought to be questionable to the most decided minds,)

this girl did. What was done? The lady was tenderhearted, and could not

bear to have her hanged. This was natural enough; but what did she

therefore do? keep her under her own eye, that she might at least poison

nobody else, and perhaps be touched and reclaimed by the clemency of the

person she would have murdered? No. The lady sold her.

I was actually called upon to admire the lady's conduct; and was asked

whether the ingratitude of the girl was not inconceivable, and her

hypocrisy too; for she used to lecture her mistress and her mistress's

friends for being so irreligious as to go to parties on Saturday nights,

when they should have been preparing their minds for Sunday. Was not the

hypocrisy of the girl inconceivable? and her ingratitude for her

mistress's favours? No. The girl had no other idea of religion,--could

have no other than that it consists in observances, and, wicked as she

was, her wickedness could not be called ingratitude, for she was more

injured than favoured, after all. All indulgences that could be heaped

upon her were still less than her due, and her mistress remained

infinitely her debtor.

Little can be said of the purity of manners of the whites of the south;

but there is purity. Some few examples of domestic fidelity may be

found: few enough, by the confession of residents on the spot; but those

individuals who have resisted the contagion of the vice amidst which

they dwell are pure. Every man who resides on his plantation may have

his harem, and has every inducement of custom, and of pecuniary

gain,[16] to tempt him to the common practice. Those who,

notwithstanding, keep their homes undefiled may be considered as of

incorruptible purity.

Here, alas! ends my catalogue of the virtues which are of possible

exercise by slave-holders towards their labourers. The inherent

injustice of the system extinguishes all others, and nourishes a whole

harvest of false morals towards the rest of society.

The personal oppression of the negroes is the grossest vice which

strikes a stranger in the country. It can never be otherwise when human

beings are wholly subjected to the will of other human beings, who are

under no other external control than the law which forbids killing and

maiming;--a law which it is difficult to enforce in individual cases. A

fine slave was walking about in Columbia, South Carolina, when I was

there, nearly helpless and useless from the following causes. His master

was fond of him, and the slave enjoyed the rare distinction of never

having been flogged. One day, his master's child, supposed to be under

his care at the time, fell down and hurt itself. The master flew into a

passion, ordered the slave to be instantly flogged, and would not hear a

single word the man had to say. As soon as the flogging was over, the

slave went into the back yard, where there was an axe and a block, and

struck off the upper half of his right hand. He went and held up the

bleeding hand before his master, saying, "You have mortified me, so I

have made myself useless. Now you must maintain me as long as I live."

It came out that the child had been under the charge of another person.

There are, as is well known throughout the country, houses in the free

States which are open to fugitive slaves, and where they are concealed

till the search for them is over. I know some of the secrets of such

places; and can mention two cases, among many, of runaways, which show

how horrible is the tyranny which the slave system authorises men to

inflict on each other. A negro had found his way to one of these

friendly houses; and had been so skilfully concealed, that repeated

searches by his master, (who had followed for the purpose of recovering

him,) and by constables, had been in vain. After three weeks of this

seclusion, the negro became weary, and entreated of his host to be

permitted to look out of the window. His host strongly advised him to

keep quiet, as it was pretty certain that his master had not given him

up. When the host had left him, however, the negro came out of his

hiding-place, and went to the window. He met the eye of his master, who

was looking up from the street. The poor slave was obliged to return to

his bondage.

A young negress had escaped in like manner; was in like manner

concealed; and was alarmed by constables, under the direction of her

master, entering the house in pursuit of her, when she had had reason to

believe that the search was over. She flew up stairs to her chamber in

the third story, and drove a heavy article of furniture against the

door. The constables pushed in, notwithstanding, and the girl leaped

from the window into the paved street. Her master looked at her as she

lay, declared she would never be good for anything again, and went back

into the south. The poor creature, her body bruised, and her limbs

fractured, was taken up, and kindly nursed; and she is now maintained in

Boston, in her maimed condition, by the charity of some ladies there.

The following story has found its way into the northern States (as few

such stories do) from the circumstance that a New Hampshire family are

concerned in it. It has excited due horror wherever it is known; and it

is to be hoped that it will lead to the exposure of more facts of the

same kind, since it is but too certain that they are common.

A New Hampshire gentleman went down into Louisiana, many years ago, to

take a plantation. He pursued the usual method; borrowing money largely

to begin with, paying high interest, and clearing off his debt, year by

year, as his crops were sold. He followed another custom there; taking a

Quadroon wife: a mistress, in the eye of the law, since there can be no

legal marriage between whites and persons of any degree of colour: but,

in nature and in reason, the woman he took home was his wife. She was a

well-principled, amiable, well-educated woman; and they lived happily

together for twenty years. She had only the slightest possible tinge of

colour. Knowing the law that the children of slaves are to follow the

fortunes of the mother, she warned her husband that she was not free, an

ancestress having been a slave, and the legal act of manumission having

never been performed. The husband promised to look to it: but neglected

it. At the end of twenty years, one died, and the other shortly

followed, leaving daughters; whether two or three, I have not been able

to ascertain with positive certainty; but I have reason to believe

three, of the ages of fifteen, seventeen, and eighteen: beautiful girls,

with no perceptible mulatto tinge. The brother of their father came down

from New Hampshire to settle the affairs; and he supposed, as every one

else did, that the deceased had been wealthy. He was pleased with his

nieces, and promised to carry them back with him into New Hampshire, and

(as they were to all appearance perfectly white) to introduce them into

the society which by education they were fitted for. It appeared,

however, that their father had died insolvent. The deficiency was very

small: but it was necessary to make an inventory of the effects, to

deliver to the creditors. This was done by the brother,--the executor.

Some of the creditors called on him, and complained that he had not

delivered in a faithful inventory. He declared he had. No: the number of

slaves was not accurately set down: he had omitted the daughters. The

executor was overwhelmed with horror, and asked time for thought. He

went round among the creditors, appealing to their mercy: but they

answered that these young ladies were "a first-rate article," too

valuable to be relinquished. He next offered, (though he had himself

six children, and very little money,) all he had for the redemption of

his nieces; alleging that it was more than they would bring in the

market for house or field labour. This was refused with scorn. It was

said that there were other purposes for which the girls would bring more

than for field or house labour. The uncle was in despair, and felt

strongly tempted to wish their death rather than their surrender to such

a fate as was before them. He told them, abruptly, what was their

prospect. He declares that he never before beheld human grief; never

before heard the voice of anguish. They never ate, nor slept, nor

separated from each other, till the day when they were taken into the

New Orleans slave-market. There they were sold, separately, at high

prices, for the vilest of purposes: and where each is gone, no one

knows. They are, for the present, lost. But they will arise to the light

in the day of retribution.

It is a common boast in the south that there is less vice in their

cities than in those of the north. This can never, as a matter of fact,

have been ascertained; as the proceedings of slave households are, or

may be, a secret: and in the north, what licentiousness there is may be

detected. But such comparisons are bad. Let any one look at the positive

licentiousness of the south, and declare if, in such a state of society,

there can be any security for domestic purity and peace. The Quadroon

connexions in New Orleans are all but universal, as I was assured on the

spot by ladies who cannot be mistaken. The history of such connexions is

a melancholy one: but it ought to be made known while there are any who

boast of the superior morals of New Orleans, on account of the decent

quietness of the streets and theatres.

The Quadroon girls of New Orleans are brought up by their mothers to be

what they have been; the mistresses of white gentlemen. The boys are

some of them sent to France; some placed on land in the back of the

State; and some are sold in the slave-market. They marry women of a

somewhat darker colour than their own; the women of their own colour

objecting to them, "ils sont si dégoutants!" The girls are highly

educated, externally, and are, probably, as beautiful and accomplished a

set of women as can be found. Every young man early selects one, and

establishes her in one of those pretty and peculiar houses, whole rows

of which may be seen in the Remparts. The connexion now and then lasts

for life: usually for several years. In the latter case, when the time

comes for the gentleman to take a white wife, the dreadful news reaches

his Quadroon partner, either by a letter entitling her to call the house

and furniture her own, or by the newspaper which announces his marriage.

The Quadroon ladies are rarely or never known to form a second

connexion. Many commit suicide: more die brokenhearted. Some men

continue the connexion after marriage. Every Quadroon woman believes

that her partner will prove an exception to the rule of desertion. Every

white lady believes that her husband has been an exception to the rule

of seduction.

What security for domestic purity and peace there can be where every man

has had two connexions, one of which must be concealed; and two

families, whose existence must not be known to each other; where the

conjugal relation begins in treachery, and must be carried on with a

heavy secret in the husband's breast, no words are needed to explain. If

this is the system which is boasted of as a purer than ordinary state of

morals, what is to be thought of the ordinary state? It can only be

hoped that the boast is an empty one.

There is no occasion to explain the management of the female slaves on

estates where the object is to rear as many as possible, like stock, for

the southern market: nor to point out the boundless licentiousness

caused by the practice: a practice which wrung from the wife of a

planter, in the bitterness of her heart, the declaration that a

planter's wife was only "the chief slave of the harem." Mr. Madison

avowed that the licentiousness of Virginian plantations stopped just

short of destruction; and that it was understood that the female slaves

were to become mothers at fifteen.

A gentleman of the highest character, a southern planter, observed, in

conversation with a friend, that little was known, out of bounds, of the

reasons of the new laws by which emancipation was made so difficult as

it is. He said that the very general connexion of white gentlemen with

their female slaves introduced a mulatto race whose numbers would become

dangerous, if the affections of their white parents were permitted to

render them free. The liberty of emancipating them was therefore

abolished, while that of selling them remained. There are persons who

weakly trust to the force of the parental affection for putting an end

to slavery, when the amalgamation of the races shall have gone so far as

to involve a sufficient number! I actually heard this from the lips of a

clergyman in the south. Yet these planters, who sell their own offspring

to fill their purses, who have such offspring for the sake of filling

their purses, dare to raise the cry of "amalgamation" against the

abolitionists of the north, not one of whom has, as far as evidence can

show, conceived the idea of a mixture of the races. It is from the

south, where this mixture is hourly encouraged, that the canting and

groundless reproach has come. I met with no candid southerner who was

not full of shame at the monstrous hypocrisy.

It is well known that the most savage violences that are now heard of

in the world take place in the southern and western States of America.

Burning alive, cutting the heart out, and sticking it on the point of a

knife, and other such diabolical deeds, the result of the deepest hatred

of which the human heart is capable, are heard of only there. The

frequency of such deeds is a matter of dispute, which time will

settle.[17] The existence of such deeds is a matter of no dispute.

Whether two or twenty such deeds take place in a year, their

perpetration testifies to the existence of such hatred as alone could

prompt them. There is no doubt in my mind as to the immediate causes of

such outrages. They arise out of the licentiousness of manners. The

negro is exasperated by being deprived of his wife,--by being sent out

of the way that his master may take possession of his home. He stabs his

master; or, if he cannot fulfil his desire of vengeance, he is a

dangerous person, an object of vengeance in return, and destined to some

cruel fate. If the negro attempts to retaliate, and defile the master's

home, the faggots are set alight about him. Much that is dreadful ensues

from the negro being subject to toil and the lash: but I am confident

that the licentiousness of the masters is the proximate cause of society

in the south and south-west being in such a state that nothing else is

to be looked for than its being dissolved into its elements, if man does

not soon cease to be called the property of man. This dissolution will

never take place through the insurrection of the negroes; but by the

natural operation of vice. But the process of demoralisation will be

stopped, I have no doubt, before it reaches that point. There is no

reason to apprehend serious insurrection; for the negroes are too

degraded to act in concert, or to stand firm before the terrible face of

the white man. Like all deeply-injured classes of persons, they are

desperate and cruel, on occasion, kindly as their nature is; but as a

class, they have no courage. The voice of a white, even of a lady, if it

were authoritative, would make a whole regiment of rebellious slaves

throw down their arms and flee. Poison is the weapon that suits them

best: then the knife, in moments of exasperation. They will never take

the field, unless led on by free blacks. Desperate as the state of

society is, it will be rectified, probably, without bloodshed.

It may be said that it is doing an injustice to cite extreme cases of

vice as indications of the state of society. I do not think so, as long

as such cases are so common as to strike the observation of a mere

passing stranger; to say nothing of their incompatibility with a decent

and orderly fulfilment of the social relations. Let us, however, see

what is the very best state of things. Let us take the words and deeds

of some of the most religious, refined, and amiable members of society.

It was this aspect of affairs which grieved me more, if possible, than

the stormier one which I have presented. The coarsening and hardening of

mind and manners among the best; the blunting of the moral sense among

the most conscientious, gave me more pain than the stabbing, poisoning,

and burning. A few examples which will need no comment, will suffice.

Two ladies, the distinguishing ornaments of a very superior society in

the south, are truly unhappy about slavery, and opened their hearts

freely to me upon the grief which it caused them,--the perfect curse

which they found it. They need no enlightening on this, nor any stimulus

to acquit themselves as well as their unhappy circumstances allow. They

one day pressed me for a declaration of what I should do in their

situation. I replied that I would give up everything, go away with my

slaves, settle them, and stay by them in some free place. I had said,

among other things, that I dare not stay there,--on my own

account,--from moral considerations. "What, not if you had no slaves?"

"No." "Why?" "I could not trust myself to live where I must constantly

witness the exercise of irresponsible power." They made no reply at the

moment: but each found occasion to tell me, some days afterwards, that

she had been struck to the heart by these words: the consideration I

mentioned having never occurred to her before!

Madame Lalaurie, the person who was mobbed at New Orleans, on account of

her fiendish cruelty to her slaves,--a cruelty so excessive as to compel

the belief that she was mentally deranged, though her derangement could

have taken such a direction nowhere but in a slave country;--this person

was described to me as having been "very pleasant to whites."

A common question put to me by amiable ladies was, "Do not you find the

slaves generally very happy?" They never seemed to have been asked, or

to have asked themselves, the question with which I replied:--"Would you

be happy with their means?"