Christian Fellowship—Candid Conversation with a Slaveholder—
Clay-eaters—A True Unionist—Secret Organizations in the
South—Washington and Randolph on Slavery—Aunt Katy—Religion and
Republicanism—Pro-slavery Inexcusable in the North—A Distinguished
Abolitionist.
As the words of inspiration came to my ears, I, too, sank on my knees,
and poured forth my soul at the mercy-seat. I must have spoken rather
loudly, for the next morning, this identical slave woman, while
dressing my wounded foot, asked me to what church I belonged. On my
telling her, she sprang away quickly, and ran and informed her mistress
that I was a minister of their church. The lady immediately came to me,
her face wreathed in sweet smiles, and inquired if such was really the
case. I told her it was, and had been so since my seventeenth year.
“Oh! sir,” she answered, “my husband is a member of that church.”
At this moment breakfast was announced, and after the conclusion of
the meal, I was requested by both the sheriff and his wife, to lead
in prayer. The Lord put words into my mouth, and we had, indeed, a
happy time. My host then invited me to take a walk with him, which I
did, though my foot gave me considerable pain. We fell immediately to
conversation, in the course of which I got a full insight into the real
condition of affairs in the Southern Confederacy.
To one of my questions, he answered:
“Yes, sir, the war is the cause of all our misery. You see, for
instance, this region of country is adapted only to raising cotton,
for the land is too light for sugar-cane or rice. The masses of the
people in this particular county are employed in cutting timber, which,
being floated down the Ocmulgee to Darien, is sold there, and with the
proceeds are obtained the necessaries of life, flour, corn-meal, salt,
&c.”
“Well,” suggested I, “you rich men, at least, will not suffer.”
“There, sir, you are much mistaken. We shall suffer heavily; for,
though we have farms and plantations, yet we have not hands to work
them. And another thing, perhaps, you are not aware of, is, that we
have thousands of poor men who live here and there, in their pole-huts,
rearing large families on the little crops of cotton and so forth,
which they raise on some other man’s farm, upon which they have
squatted. In the fall they hunt, and thus supply their families with
meat and salt; the skins of the animals they take to procure the latter
article. So they live, half human, half animal, letting their progeny
loose upon us. Of course, many of them must starve now. If they could
obtain salt, however, they might live on gophers, which abound in the
pine-forests.”
Presently, we came in sight of a wretched hut, about which I saw some
white children playing. My companion led me thither, with the remark:
“I will show you, sir, a family belonging to the class of which I
speak.”
Upon reaching the hut, my blood almost chilled at the sight of squalid
poverty which I beheld. There stood a family of ten persons; a
father—who on account of his age had escaped the conscription—a mother,
and eight ragged, filthy children. The ages of the latter, I should
judge, ranged from one year up to sixteen. The peculiar color of their
complexions struck me very forcibly; it was the same as that of the men
composing the first court by which I had been tried. My host gave us a
reason for it, that “they laid around so much in the dirt, and _ate so
much clay_.” I asked the man himself why he and his family ate clay.
“Cause it’s good, I golly!” was the prompt reply.
“Well, how are you getting along?”
“Bad enough,” said he, “fur we hain’t had a grain o’ salt in the house
fur more’n four months, only as the sheriff here gins it to us.”
“What do you live on, then?” I asked.
“Oh, on gophers and corn-meal, now-a-days. But, I golly! our meal’s
out, and I don’t know what we’ll do next.”
I got this miserable creature to make me a pair of slippers from old
boots, for which I paid him one dollar and fifty cents, in order that
he might get some corn-meal, which sold at two dollars and fifty cents
per bushel. This money was part of a sum that the sheriff had kindly
lent me. Before we took our departure, the lady (?) of the hut gave us
her opinion, in no measured terms, of the rascally Yankees.
“Ah, sir,” said the sheriff, when we were out of hearing, “if I were
to speak the real sentiments of my mind, I should be hung before
twenty-four hours. I am a Union man, and when you get back to Ohio, I
want you to tell all the friends in our Church that I am so. I have
twenty-seven negroes, and a thousand acres of land, and I would let
the whole of it go, could I only see the Union restored to what it once
was. But this I never expect to behold, for while slavery exists, the
Union cannot be preserved. I am in reality an anti-slavery man, and
these are my reasons therefor: First, it is a sin in the sight of God;
secondly, it is an injury to the slave himself; and thirdly, it is an
injury to the white race.”
“How so?” asked I.
“Because land worked by slave labor is not worth half so much as when
worked by free labor. And, besides, if it were not for slavery, society
would be much improved, for the rich and poor, as things are now, are
very ignorant.”
“How do the rich obtain their wealth?” said I.
“In this way. A man comes here, perhaps, with one female slave, and,
in a comparatively short time, he has quite a number of young servants
about him. Some of these he sells, and with the proceeds purchases a
piece of timber-land. This he has cleared, sells the timber, gets more
slaves and another piece of land, and so goes on adding to his wealth
continually. He has no education himself, and, three times out of four,
gives his children none.”
My host further informed me that he himself had three hundred acres
of land in Illinois, and that he had intended to send his son to
that State to be educated, but he supposed he would be unable to do
so now. He said he had no doubt that this Illinois property would be
confiscated. “But,” added he, warmly, “I do not care if it is, provided
the Union is restored!”
The sentiments expressed by this man astonished me, and I could not
forbear asking him the reason why he opposed slavery so earnestly, and
yet held in bondage twenty-seven human beings.
“I never bought nor sold a slave in my life!” said he. “You saw that
old negress, Kate, this morning; well, she belonged to my wife, as
did also her two sisters. These other slaves are all their children.
I would have freed them long ago, but they refused to leave me; and
I, on the other hand, could not leave them to go North, for I would
have been obliged to give security that they would not become a pest
and burden to the community, and that I was unable to do. So, you see
how the case stands. But I am not alone in my sentiments, sir. There
are thirty-five of us within an area of ten miles, who have organized
themselves into a society, and hold regular meeting every two weeks, to
oppose the conscription. This is confidential, for I know I can trust
you.” He spoke of the notice which had been taken by Northern journals
of the existence of such societies in the South, and referred to the
_disunion_ associations in the North. I informed him that the latter,
thank God, were few and far between, and could do no harm to the cause.
This gentleman’s statement concerning the depreciation of Southern
land, brought to my mind the authority of the fathers of our Republic
on the subject. John Sinclair had written to Washington concerning
the difference of the land in Pennsylvania from that of Virginia and
Maryland. Washington’s answer was this:
“Because there are in Pennsylvania laws for the gradual _abolition of
slavery_, which neither Maryland nor Virginia has at present; but there
is nothing more certain than that they must have, and at a period not
remote.”
The sheriff’s statement regarding the liberation of his slaves, was the
same as that of John Randolph, Governor of Virginia. The latter said:
“The deplorable error of our ancestors in copying a civil institution
from savage Africa, has affixed to their posterity a depressing burden,
which nothing but the extraordinary benefits conferred by our happy
climate could have enabled us to support. We have been far outstripped
by States to whom nature has been far less bountiful. It is painful to
consider what might have been, under other circumstances, the amount of
general wealth in Virginia, or the whole sum of comfortable subsistence
and happiness possessed by all her inhabitants.”—_Addressed to the
Legislature of Virginia_, 1820.
In the course of a conversation I had with the old slave woman, Kate, I
said:
“Aunt Katy, if the slaves were to be freed, it would not do you much
good, for you are old, and will soon pass into eternity.”
“Thank de Lord, sah,” she replied, “I am ready to go! But, oh! I wish
I could only see my children and grandchildren in hope of freedom! And
dar’s my husband. You see his massa might sell him, and den I don’t
think I could live. Dar’s no danger of _my_ massa selling me, for
he’s a good man, and he’s let me and my children learn to read, and I
learned my husband.”
“What is the law in Georgia on that point?” I asked.
“God bless you, sah! they’d penitentiary a man for learning a slave to
read.”
This I had heard before, but never until now did I give it credence.
Aunt Katy told me she was sorry we had not struck that town before in
our flight, as her son was an operator on the Underground Railroad, and
would have insured our escape.
Evening came, and once more did I lead in prayer at family worship. I
did so with more assurance and faith than the evening before, for I now
thoroughly knew the sheriff’s sentiments. Had I not known them, I must
confess that my faith in his religion would have been greatly weakened.
Do not tell me of republican or mutual rights, or Christianity, when
the soul is full of tyranny.
“Are you republicans? away!
’Tis blasphemy the word to say.
You talk of freedom? Out, for shame!
Your lips contaminate the name.
How dare _you_ prate of public good,
Your hands besmeared with human blood?
How dare you lift those hands to Heaven,
And ask a hope to be forgiven?
How dare you breathe the wounded air
That wafts to Heaven the negro’s prayer?
How dare you tread the conscious earth
That gave mankind an equal birth?
And, while you thus inflict the rod,
How dare you say there is a God,
Who will in justice from the skies,
Hear and avenge his creatures’ cries?
‘Slaves to be sold!’ hark, what a sound!
You give America a wound,
A scar, a stigma of disgrace,
Which you, nor time, can e’er efface;
And prove of nations yet unborn
The curse, the hatred, and the scorn.”
_The Horrors of Slavery._
There are a few weak-kneed politicians in the North, who think to
curry favor with the South at this time, by exclaiming, that “we love
slavery, and that the negroes were made for slaves.” Did they but know
the opinion of Union men in the South, their hopes for popularity would
be for ever blighted.
After our devotions were ended, conversation on the current topics of
the day was resumed. The sheriff expressed the hope that he would soon
hear of the arrests of all in the North who were opposed to a vigorous
prosecution of the war. This converse we continued until bedtime, when,
again joining in a supplication to the Throne of Grace, we retired for
the night. But sleep was a stranger to my eyes, for my foot and hand,
although Aunt Katy had dressed them skilfully, gave me excessive pain.
As I lay writhing on my couch, I was unable to banish the thoughts that
came flashing into my mind concerning the bondmen of the South; and
I pondered deeply whether I could not do something toward benefitting
them. Yet when such men as Washington and Jefferson failed, how should
I succeed?
“But,” exclaims the tender-footed Union man, “you would not intimate
that Washington was an abolitionist?”
To such an one I would say, “Hear the words of that great and good man.”
“The benevolence of your heart, my dear Marquis, is so conspicuous on
all occasions, that I never wonder at fresh proofs of it. But your
late purchase of an estate in the colony of Cayenne, with a view of
emancipating the slave, is a generous and noble proof of your humanity.
Would to God a like spirit might diffuse itself generally among the
minds of the people of this country! But I despair of seeing it. Some
petitions were presented to the Assembly, at its last session, for the
abolition of slavery, but they scarcely obtained a hearing.”—_Letter to
Lafayette._
Rising early the next morning, I walked abroad to view the works of
God; and as I limped along, I thanked him exceedingly for his goodness
and kindness to me, his unworthy servant. As I passed the cabins of
the sheriff’s slaves, they were preparing to go up to his house for
prayers.
After breakfast, our host, taking us aside, informed us that as we
had been committed to his charge, he would be obliged to return us to
Macon, where he would get the commandant to parole us, limiting us
at the same time to the boundaries of the State. Had he himself come
across us accidentally, he assured us that, instead of holding us, he
would have had us conveyed secretly to our lines. But this, under the
circumstances, he was now unable to do, as he would thereby incur the
death-penalty himself. We, of course, assented to this, as it would
have been extremely ungrateful to our host, who had protected us from
violence, to refuse.