The pre-emption laws, originally designed for the benefit of poor

settlers, have been the greatest provocatives to fraud. It seemed hard

that a squatter, who had settled himself on unoccupied land, and done

it nothing but good, should be turned off without remuneration, or

compelled to purchase his own improvements; and in 1830, a bill was

therefore passed, granting a pre-emption right to squatters who had

taken such possession of unsold lands. It provided that when two

individuals had cultivated a quarter section of land, (one hundred and

sixty acres,) each should have a pre-emption right with regard to half

the cultivated portion: and each also to a pre-emption of eighty acres

anywhere else in the same land district. Of course, abundance of persons

took advantage of this law to get the best land very cheap. Two men, by

merely cutting down, or blazing a few trees, or "camping out" for a

night or two, on a good quarter-section, have secured it at the minimum

price. A Report to Congress states that there is reason to believe that

"large companies have been founded, who procure affidavits of

improvements to be made, get the warrants issued upon them, and whenever

a good tract of land is ready for sale, cover it over with their

_floats_, (warrants of the required habitation,) and thus put down

competition. The frauds upon the public, within the past year, (1835,)

from this single source, have arisen to many millions of dollars." Such

errors in matters of detail are sure to be corrected soon after being

discovered. The means will speedily be found of showing a due regard to

the claims of squatters, without precipitating the settlement of land by

unfairly reducing its price in the market. Whatever methods may tend to

lessen rather than to increase the facilities for occupying new land,

must, on the whole, be an advantage, while the disproportion between

land and labour is so great as it now is in the western regions of the

United States.

SECTION II.

RURAL LABOUR.

English farmers settling in the United States used to be a joke to their

native neighbours. The Englishman began with laughing, or being shocked,

at the slovenly methods of cultivation employed by the American

settlers: he was next seen to look grave on his own account; and ended

by following the American plan.

The American ploughs round the stumps of the trees he has felled, and is

not very careful to measure the area he ploughs, and the seed he sows.

The Englishman clears half the quantity of land,--clears it very

thoroughly; ploughs deep, sows thick, raises twice the quantity of grain

on half the area of land, and points proudly to his crop. But the

American has, meantime, fenced, cleared, and sown more land, improved

his house and stock, and kept his money in his pocket. The Englishman

has paid for the labour bestowed on his beautiful fields more than his

fine crop repays him. When he has done thus for a few seasons, till his

money is gone, he learns that he has got to a place where it answers to

spend land to save labour; the reverse of his experience in England; and

he soon becomes as slovenly a farmer as the American, and begins

immediately to grow rich.

It would puzzle a philosopher to compute how long some prejudices will

subsist in defiance of, not only evidence, but personal experience.

These same Americans, who laugh (reasonably enough) at the prejudiced

English farmer, seem themselves incapable of being convinced on a point

quite as plain as that between him and themselves. The very ground of

their triumph over him is their knowledge of the much smaller value of

land, and greater value of labour, in America than in England: and yet

there is no one subject on which so many complaints are to be heard from

every class of American society as the immigration of foreigners. The

incapacity of men to recognise blessings in disguise has been the theme

of moralists in all ages: but it might be expected that the Americans,

in this case, would be an exception. It is wonderful, to a stranger, to

see how they fret and toil, and scheme and invent, to supply the

deficiency of help, and all the time quarrel with the one means by which

labour is brought to their door. The immigration of foreigners was the

one complaint by which I was met in every corner of the free States; and

I really believe I did not converse with a dozen persons who saw the

ultimate good through the present apparent evil.

It is not much to be wondered at that gentlemen and ladies, living in

Boston and New York, and seeing, for the first time in their lives,

half-naked and squalid persons in the street, should ask where they come

from, and fear lest they should infect others with their squalor, and

wish they would keep away. It is not much to be wondered at that the

managers of charitable institutions in the maritime cities should be

weary of the claims advanced by indigent foreigners: but it is

surprising that these gentlemen and ladies should not learn by

experience that all this ends well, and that matters are taking their

natural course. It would certainly be better that the emigrants should

be well clothed, educated, respectable people; (except that, in that

case, they would probably never arrive;) but the blame of their bad

condition rests elsewhere, while their arrival is, generally speaking,

almost a pure benefit. Some are intemperate and profligate; and such

are, no doubt, a great injury to the cities where they harbour; but the

greater number show themselves decent and hardworking enough, when put

into employment. Every American acknowledges that few or no canals or

railroads would be in existence now, in the United States, but for the

Irish labour by which they have been completed: and the best cultivation

that is to be seen in the land is owing to the Dutch and Germans it

contains. What would housekeepers do for domestic service without

foreigners? If the American ports had been barred against immigration,

and the sixty thousand foreigners per annum, with all their progeny, had

been excluded, where would now have been the public works of the United

States, the agriculture, the shipping?

The most emphatic complainers of the immigration of foreigners are those

who imagine that the morals of society suffer thereby. My own conviction

is that the morals of society are, on the whole, thereby much improved.

It is candidly allowed, on all hands, that the passion of the Irish for

the education of their children is a great set-off against the bad

qualities some of them exhibit in their own persons; and that the second

and third generations of Irish are among the most valuable citizens of

the republic. The immigrant Germans are more sober and respectable than

the Irish; but there is more difficulty in improving them and their

children. The Scotch are in high esteem. My own opinion is that most of

the evils charged upon the immigrants are chargeable upon the

mismanagement of them in the ports. The atrocious corruption of the New

York elections, where an Irishman, just landed, and employed upon the

drains, perjures himself, and votes nine times over, is chargeable, not

upon immigration, nor yet upon universal suffrage, but upon faults in

the machinery of registration. Again, if the great pauper-palace, over

the Schuylkill, near Philadelphia, be half full of foreigners; if it be

true that an Irish woman was seen to walk round it, and heard to observe

that she should immediately write over for all her relations; the evil

is chargeable upon there being a pauper-palace, with the best of food

and clothing, and no compulsion to work, in a country where there is far

more work and wages than there are hands to labour and earn. There is in

New York a benevolent gentleman who exercises a most useful and

effectual charity. He keeps a kind of registry office for the demand and

supply of emigrant labour; takes charge of the funds of such emigrants

as are fortunate enough to have any; and befriends them in every way. He

declares that he has an average of six situations on his list ready for

every sober, able-bodied man and woman that lands at New York.

The bad moral consequences of a dispersion of agricultural labour, and

the good moral effects of an adequate combination, are so serious as to

render it the duty of good citizens to inform themselves fully of the

bearings of this question before they attempt to influence other minds

upon it. Those who have seen what are the morals and manners of families

who live alone in the wilds, with no human opinion around them, no

neighbours with whom to exchange good offices, no stimulus to mental

activity, no social amusements, no church, _no life_, nothing but the

pursuit of the outward means of living,--any one who has witnessed this

will be ready to agree what a blessing it would be to such a family to

shake down a shower of even poor Irish labourers around them. To such a

family no tidings ought to be more welcome than of the arrival of

ship-load after ship-load of immigrants at the ports, some few of whom

may wander hitherwards, and by entering into a combination of labour to

obtain means of living, open a way to the attainment of the ends. Sixty

thousand immigrants a-year! What are these spread over so many thousand

square miles? If the country could be looked down upon from a balloon,

some large clusters of these would be seen detained in the cities,

because they could not be spared into the country; other clusters would

be seen about the canals and railroads; and a very slight sprinkling in

the back country, where their stations would be marked by the prosperity

growing up around them.

The expedients used in the country settlements to secure a combination

of labour when it is absolutely necessary, show how eminently deficient

it is. Every one has heard of the "frolic" or "bee," by means of which

the clearing of lots, the raising of houses, the harvesting of crops is

achieved. Roads are made, and kept by contributions of labour and teams,

by settlers. For the rest, what can be done by family labour alone is so

done, with great waste of time, material, and toil. The wonderful

effects of a "frolic," in every way, should serve, in contrast with the

toil and difficulty usually expended in producing small results, to

incline the hearts of settlers towards immigrants, and to plan how an

increase of them may be obtained.

Minds are, I hope, beginning to turn in this direction. In New England,

where there is the most combination of labour, and the poorest land, it

is amusing to see the beginning of discoveries on this head. I find, in

the United States' Almanack for 1835, an article on agricultural

improvements, (presupposing a supply of labour as the primary

requisite,) which bears all the marks of freshness and originality, of

having been a discovery of the writer's.

"If such improvements as are possible, or even easy," (where there is

labour at hand,) "were made in the husbandry of this country, many and

great advantages would be found to arise. As twice the number of people

might be supported on the same quantity of land, all our farming towns

would become twice as populous as they are likely to be in the present

state of husbandry. There would be, in general, but half the distance to

travel to visit one's friends and acquaintances. Friends might oftener

see and converse with each other. Half the labour would be saved in

carrying the corn to mill, and the produce to market; half the

journeying saved in attending our courts; and half the expense in

supporting government, and in making and repairing roads; half the

distance saved in going to the smith, weaver, clothier, &c.; half the

distance saved in going to public worship, and most other meetings; for

where steeples are four miles apart, they would be only two or three.

Much time, expense and labour would, on these accounts, be saved; and

civilisation, with all the social virtues, would, perhaps, be

proportionally promoted and increased."

Before this can be done, there must be hands to do it. Steeples must

remain four or fourteen miles apart, till there are beings enough in the

intervening space to draw them together. I saw, on the Mississippi, a

woman in a canoe, paddling up against the stream; probably, as I was

told, to visit a neighbour twenty or thirty miles off. The only comfort

was that the current would bring her back four times as quickly as she

went up. What a blessing would a party of emigrant neighbours be to a

woman who would row herself twenty miles against the stream of the

Mississippi for companionship!

Instead of complaining of the sixty thousand emigrants per annum, and

lowering the price of land, so as to induce dispersion, it would be

wise, if it were possible, in the people of the United States to bring

in sixty thousand more labourers per annum, and raise the price of land.

This last cannot, perhaps, be done: but why should not the other? With a

surplus revenue that they do not know what to do with, and a scarcity of

the labour which they do not know how to do without, why not use the

surplus funds accruing from the lands in carrying labour to the soil?

It is true, Europeans have the same passion for land as the Americans;

and such immigrants would leave their employers, and buy for themselves,

as soon as they had earned the requisite funds: but these, again, would

supply the means of bringing over more labour; and the intermediate

services of the labourers would be so much gained. If the arrangements

were so made as to bring over sober, respectable labourers, without

their being in any way bound to servitude, (as a host of poor Germans

once were made white slaves of,) if, the land and labour being once

brought together, and repayment from the benefited parties being

secured, (if desired,) things were then left to take their natural

course, a greater blessing could hardly befal the United States than

such an importation of labourers.

I was told, in every eastern city, that it was a common practice with

parish officers in England to ship off their paupers to the United

States. I took some pains to investigate the grounds of this charge, and

am convinced that it is a mistake; that the accusation has arisen out of

some insulated case. I was happy to be able to show my American friends

how the supposed surplus population of the English agricultural counties

has shrunk, and in most cases disappeared, under the operation of the

new Poor Law, so that, even if the charge had ever been true, it could

not long remain so. By the time that we shall be enabled to say the same

of the parishes of Ireland, the Americans will, doubtless, have

discovered that they would be glad of all the labourers we had ever been

able to spare; if only we could send them in the form of respectable men

and women, instead of squalid paupers, looking as if they were going

from shore to shore, to rouse the world to an outcry against the sins

and sorrows of our economy.

It will scarcely be credited by those who are not already informed on

the subject, that a proposition has been made to send out of the country

an equal number of persons to the amount brought into it; ship loads of

labourers going to and fro, like buckets in a well: that this

proposition has been introduced into Congress, and has been made the

basis of appropriations in some State legislatures: that itinerant

lecturers are employed to advocate the scheme: that it is preached from

the pulpit, and subscribed for in the churches, and that in its behalf

are enlisted members of the administration, a great number of the

leading politicians, clergy, merchants, and planters, and a large

proportion of the other citizens of the United States. It matters little

how many or how great are the men engaged in behalf of a bad scheme,

which is so unnatural that it cannot but fail:--it matters little, as

far as the scheme itself is concerned; but it is of incalculable

consequence as creating an obstruction. For itself, the miserable

abortion--the Colonisation scheme--might be passed over; for its active

results will be nothing; but it is necessary to refer to it in its

passive character of an obstruction. It is necessary to refer thus to

it, not only as a matter of fact, but because, absurd and impracticable

as the scheme clearly is, when viewed in relation to the whole state of

affairs in America, it is not so easy on the spot to discern its true

character. So many perplexing considerations are mixed up with it by its

advocates; so many of those advocates are men of earnest philanthropy,

and well versed in the details of the scheme, while blind to its general

bearing, that it is difficult to have general principles always in

readiness to meet opposing facts; to help adopting the partial views of

well-meaning and thoroughly persuaded persons; and to know where to

doubt, and what to disbelieve. I went to America extremely doubtful

about the character of this institution. I heard at Baltimore and

Washington all that could be said in its favour, by persons conversant

with slavery, which I had not then seen. Mr. Madison, the President of

the Colonisation Society, gave me his favourable views of it. Mr. Clay,

the Vice-President, gave me his. So did almost every clergyman and other

member of society whom I met for some months. Much time, observation,

and reflection were necessary to form a judgment for myself, after so

much prepossession, even in so clear a case as I now see this to be.

Others on the spot must have the same allowance as was necessary for me:

and, if any pecuniary interest be involved in the question, much more.

But, I am firmly persuaded that any clear-headed man, shutting himself

up in his closet for a day's study of the question, or taking a voyage,

so as to be able to look back upon the entire country he has

left,--being careful to take in the whole of its economical aspect, (to

say nothing, at present, of the moral,) can come to no other conclusion

than that the scheme of transporting the coloured population of the

United States to the coast of Africa is absolutely absurd; and, if it

were not so, would be absolutely pernicious. But, in matters of

economy, the pernicious and the absurd are usually identical.

No one is to be blamed for the origin of slavery. Because it is now,

under conviction, wicked, it does not follow that it was instituted in

wickedness. Those who began it, knew not what they did. It has been

elsewhere[17] ably shown how slavery has always, and, to all appearance,

unavoidably existed, in some form or other, wherever large new tracts of

land have been taken possession of by a few agricultural settlers. Let

it be granted that negro slavery was begun inadvertently in the West

India islands, and continued, by an economical necessity, in the

colonies of North America.

What is now the state of the case? Slavery, of a very mild kind, has

been abolished in the northern parts of the Union, where agricultural

labour can be carried on by whites, and where such employments bear a

very reduced proportion to manufacturing and commercial occupations. Its

introduction into the north-western portions of the country has been

prohibited by those who had had experience of its evils. Slavery,

generally of a very aggravated character, now subsists in thirteen

States out of twenty-six, and those thirteen are the States which grow

the tobacco, rice, cotton and sugar; it being generally alleged that

rice and sugar cannot be raised by white labour, while some maintain

that they may. I found few who doubted that tobacco and cotton may be

grown by white labour, with the assistance from brute labour and

machinery which would follow upon the disuse of human capital; The

amount of the slave population is now above two millions and a half. It

increases rapidly in the States which have been impoverished by slavery;

and is killed off; but not with equal rapidity, on the virgin soils to

which alone it is, in any degree, appropriate. It has become

unquestionably inappropriate in Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, and

Kentucky. To these I should be disposed to add Missouri, and North

Carolina, and part of Tennessee and South Carolina. The States which

have more slave labour than their deteriorated lands require, sell it to

those which have a deficiency of labour to their rich lands. Virginia,

now in a very depressed condition, derives her chief revenue from the

rearing of slaves, as stock, to be sent to Alabama, Mississippi, and

Louisiana. The march of circumstance has become too obvious to escape

the attention of the most short-sighted. No one can fail to perceive

that slavery, like an army of locusts, is compelled to shift its place,

by the desolation it has made. Its progress is southwards; and now,

having reached the sea there, south-westwards. If there were but an

impassable barrier there, its doom would be certain, and not very

remote. This doom was apparently sealed a while ago, by the abolition of

slavery in Mexico, and the fair chance there seemed of Missouri and

Arkansas being subjected to a restriction of the same purport with that

imposed on the new States, north-west of the Ohio. This doom has been,

for the present, cancelled by the admission of slavery into Missouri and

Arkansas, and by the seizure of Texas by American citizens. The open

question, however, only regards its final limits. Its speedy abolition

in many of the States may be, and is, regarded as certain.

The institution of slavery was a political anomaly at the time of the

Revolution. It has now become an economical one also. Nothing can

prevent the generality of persons from seeing this, however blind a few,

a very few persons on the spot may be to the truth.[18]

It has thus obviously become the interest of all to whom slavery still

is, or is believed to be, a gain; of those who hold the richest lands;

of those who rear slaves for such lands; of all who dread change; of all

who would go quietly through life, and leave it to a future generation

to cope with their difficulty,--it has become the interest of all such

to turn their own attention and that of others from the fact that the

time has come when the slaves ought to be made free labourers. They

cannot put down the fact into utter silence. Some sort of compromise

must be made with it. A tub must be thrown to the whale. A tub has been

found which will almost hold the whale.

It is proposed by the Colonisation Society that free persons of colour

shall be sent to establish and conduct a civilised community on the

shores of Africa. The variety of prospects held out by this proposition

to persons of different views is remarkable. To the imaginative, there

is the picture of the restoration of the coloured race to their paternal

soil: to the religious, the prospect of evangelising Africa. Those who

would serve God and Mammon are delighted at being able to work their

slaves during their own lives, and then leave them to the Colonisation

Society with a bequest of money, (when money must needs be left behind,)

to carry them over to Africa. Those who would be doing, in a small way,

immediately, let certain of their slaves work for wages which are to

carry them over to Africa. Those who have slaves too clever or

discontented to be safe neighbours, can ship them off to Africa. Those

who are afraid of the rising intelligence of their free coloured

neighbours, or suffer strongly under the prejudice of colour, can

exercise such social tyranny as shall drive such troublesome persons to

Africa. The clergy, public lecturers, members of legislatures, religious

societies, and charitable individuals, both in the north and south, are

believed to be, and believe themselves to be, labouring on behalf of

slaves, when they preach, lecture, obtain appropriations, and subscribe,

on behalf of the Colonisation Society. Minds and hearts are laid to

rest,--opiated into a false sleep.

Here are all manner of people associated for one object, which has the

primary advantage of being ostensibly benevolent. It has had Mr. Madison

for its chief officer: Mr. Clay for its second. It has had the aid, for

twenty years, of almost all the presses and pulpits of the United

States, and of most of their politicians, members of government, and

leading professional men and merchants, and almost all the planters of

twelve states, and all the missionary interest. Besides the

subscriptions arising from so many sources, there have been large

appropriations made by various legislatures. What is the

result?--Nothing. _Ex nihilo nihil fit._ Out of a chaos of elements no

orderly creation can arise but by the operation of a sound principle:

and sound principle here, there is none.

In twenty years, the Colonisation Society has removed to Africa between

two and three thousand persons;[19] while the annual increase of the

slave population is, by the lowest computation, sixty thousand; and the

number of free blacks is upwards of three hundred and sixty-two

thousand.

The chief officers of the Colonisation Society look forward to being

able, in a few years, to carry off the present annual increase, and a

few more; by which time the annual increase will amount to many times

more than the Society will have carried out from the beginning.

The leading Colonisation advocates in the south object to abolition,

invariably on the ground that they should be left without labourers:

whereas it is the Colonisation scheme which would carry away the

labourers, and the abolition scheme which would leave them where they

are. To say nothing of the wilfulness of this often-confuted objection,

it proves that those who urge it are not in earnest in advocating

Colonisation as ultimate emancipation.

As far as I could learn, no leading member of the Colonisation Society

has freed any of his slaves. Its president had sold twelve, the week

before I first saw him. Its vice-president is _obsédé_ by his slaves;

but retains them all. And so it is, through the whole hierarchy.

The avowal of a southern gentleman,--"We have our slaves, and we mean to

keep them,"--is echoed on _political_ occasions by the same gentlemen of

the Colonisation Society, who, on _politic_ or religious occasions,

treat of colonisation as ultimate emancipation.

While labourers are flocking into other parts of the country, at the

rate of sixty thousand per annum, and are found to be far too few for

the wants of society, the Colonisation scheme proposes to carry out more

than this number; and fails of all its ostensible objects till it does

so. A glance at the causes of slavery, and at the present economy of the

United States, shows such a scheme to be a bald fiction.

It alienates the attention and will of the people, (for the purposes of

the few,) from the principle of the abolition of slavery, which would

achieve any honest objects of the Colonisation Society, and many more.

Leaving, for the present, the moral consideration of the case, abolition

would not only leave the land as full of labourers as it is now, but

incalculably augment the supply of labour by substituting willing and

active service, and improved methods of husbandry, for the forced,

inferior labour, and wasteful arrangements which are always admitted to

be co-existent with slavery.

The greater number of eminent Abolitionists,--eminent for talents, zeal

and high principle,--are converted Colonisationists.

This is surely enough.

It appears to me that the Colonisation Society could never have gained

any ground at all, but for the common supposition that the blacks must

go somewhere. It was a long while before I could make anything of this.

The argument always ran thus.

"Unless they remain as they are, Africa is the only place for them.--It

will not do to give them a territory; we have seen enough of that with

the Indians. We are heart-sick of territories: the blacks would all

perish.--Then, the climate of Canada would not suit them: they would

perish there. The Haytians will not take them in: they have a horror of

freed slaves.--There is no rest for the soles of their feet, anywhere

but in Africa!"

"Why should they not stay where they are?"

"Impossible. The laws of the States forbid freed negroes to remain."

"At present,--on account of the slaves who remain. In case of abolition,

such laws would be repealed, of course: and then, why should not the

blacks remain where they are?"

"They could never live among the whites in a state of freedom."

"Why? You are begging the question."

"They would die of vice and misery."

"Why more than the German labourers?"

"They do in the free States. They are dying out there constantly."

"What makes them more vicious than other people?"

"The coloured people always are."

"You mean because their colour is the badge of slavery?"

"Yes."

"Then, when it is no longer so, the degradation, for aught you know,

will cease."

This is the circle, described by those who pity the slaves. There is

another, appropriate to those who pity the masters.

"What is to become of the planters, without any labourers? They must

shut up and go away; for they cannot stay in their houses, without any

labourers on the plantations."

"Are the slaves to be all buried? Or are they to evaporate? or what?"

"O, you know, they would all go away. Nothing would make them stay when

they were once free."

"They would change masters, no doubt. But as many would remain in the

area as before. Why not?"

"The masters could not possibly employ them. They could never manage

them, except as slaves."

"So you think that the masters could not have the labourers, because

they would go away: and the labourers must go away, because the masters

would not have them."

To prevent any escape by a nibble in this circle, the other is brought

up round it, to prove that there is no other place than Africa for the

blacks to go to: and thus, the alternative of slavery or colonisation is

supposed to be established.

All action, and all conversation, on behalf of this institution, bears

the same character,--of arguing in a circle. A magic ring seems drawn

round those who live amidst slavery; and it gives a circular character

to all they think and say and do upon the subject. There are but few who

sit within it who distinctly see anything beyond it. If there were but

any one moral giant within, who would heave a blow at it with all the

force of a mighty principle, it would be shattered to atoms in a moment;

and the white and black slaves it encloses would be free at once. This

will be done when more light is poured in under the darkness which

broods over it: and the time cannot now be far off.

Whenever I am particularly strongly convinced of anything, in opposition

to the opinion of any or many others, I entertain a suspicion that there

is more evidence on the other side than I see. I felt so, even on this

subject of slavery, which has been clear to English eyes for so long. I

went into the slave States with this suspicion in my mind; and I

preserved it there as long as possible. I believe that I have heard

every argument that can possibly be adduced in vindication or palliation

of slavery, under any circumstances now existing; and I declare that, of

all displays of intellectual perversion and weakness that I have

witnessed, I have met with none so humbling and so melancholy as the

advocacy of this institution. I declare that I know the whole of its

theory;--a declaration that I dare not make with regard to, I think, any

other subject whatever: the result is that I believe there is nothing

rational to be said in vindication or palliation of the protraction of

slavery in the United States.--Having made this avowal; it will not be

expected that I should fill my pages with a wide superficies of argument

which will no more bear a touch than pond-ice, on the last day of thaw.

As I disposed in my mind the opposite arguments of slave-holders, I

found that they ate one another up, like the two cats that Sheridan told

of; but without leaving so much as an inch of tail.

One mistake, perhaps, deserves notice. Restless slave-holders, whose

uneasiness has urged them to struggle in their toils, and find

themselves unable to get out but by the loss of everything, (but honour

and conscience,) pointed out to me the laws of their States, whereby the

manumission of slaves is rendered difficult or impossible to the master,

remaining on the spot, and prospectively fatal to the freed

slave;--pointed out to me these laws as rendering abolition impossible.

To say nothing of the feebleness of the barriers which human regulations

present to the changes urged on by the great natural laws of

society,--it is a sufficient answer that these State laws present no

obstacle to general, though they do to particular, emancipation. They

will be cancelled or neglected by the same will which created them, when

the occasion expires with which they sprang up, or which they were

designed to perpetuate. The institution of slavery was not formed in

accordance with them: they arose out of the institution. They are an

offset; and, to use the words of one of their advocates, spoken in

another connexion, "they will share the fate of offsets, and perish with

the parent."

It is obvious that all laws which encourage the departure of the blacks

must be repealed, when their slavery is abolished. The one thing

necessary, in the economical view of the case, is that efficient

measures should be taken to prevent an unwise dispersion of these

labourers: measures, I mean, which should in no way interfere with their

personal liberty, but which should secure to them generally greater

advantages on the spot than they could obtain by roaming. It has been

distinctly shown that slavery originated from the difficulty of

concentrating labour in the neighbourhood of capitalists. Where the

people are few in proportion to the land, they are apt to disperse

themselves over it; so that personal coercion has been supposed

necessary, in the first instance, to secure any efficient cultivation of

the land at all. Though the danger and the supposed necessity are past,

in all but the rawest of the slave States, the ancient fact should be so

borne in mind as that what legislation there is should tend to cause a

concentration, rather than a dispersion of the labourers. Any such

tendency will be much aided by the strong local attachments for which

negroes are remarkable. It is not only that slaves dread all change,

from the intellectual and moral dejection to which they are reduced;

fearing even the removal from one plantation to another, under the same

master, from the constant vague apprehension of something dreadful. It

is not only this, (which, however, it would take them some time to

outgrow,) but that all their race show a kind of feline attachment to

places to which they are accustomed, which will be of excellent service

to kind masters when the day of emancipation comes. For the rest,

efficient arrangements can and will doubtless be made to prevent their

wandering further than from one master to another. The abolition of

slavery must be complete and immediate: that is to say, as a man either

is or is not the property of another, as there can be no degrees of

ownership of a human being, there must be an immediate and complete

surrender of all claim to negro men, women, and children as property:

but there may and will doubtless be arrangements made to protect, guide,

and teach these degraded beings, till they have learned what liberty

is, and how to use it. Liberty to change their masters must, under

certain reasonable limitations, be allowed; the education of their

children must be enforced. The amount of wages will be determined by

natural laws, and cannot be foreseen, further than that they must

necessarily be very ample for a long time to come. It will probably be

found desirable to fix the price of the government lands, with a view to

the coloured people, at that amount which will best obviate squatting,

and secure the respectable settlement of some who may find their way to

the west.

Suggestions of this kind excite laughter among the masters of slaves,

who are in the habit of thinking that they know best what negroes are,

and what they are capable of. I have reasons for estimating their

knowledge differently, and for believing that none know so little of the

true character and capabilities of negroes as their owners. They might

know more, but for the pernicious and unnatural secrecy about some of

the most important facts connected with slave-holding, which is induced

partly by pride, partly by fear, partly by pecuniary interest. If they

would do themselves and their slaves the justice of inquiring with

precision what is the state of Hayti; what has taken place in the West

Indies; what the emancipation really was there; what its effects

actually are, they would obtain a clearer view of their own prospects.

So they would, if they would communicate freely about certain facts

nearer home: not only conversing as individuals, but removing the

restrictions upon the press by which they lose far more than they gain,

both in security and fortune,--to say nothing of intelligence. Of the

many families in which I enjoyed intercourse, there was, I believe, none

where I was not told of some one slave of unusual value, for talent or

goodness, either in the present or a former generation. A collection of

these alone, as they stand in my journal, would form no mean testimony

to the intellectual and moral capabilities of negroes: and if to these

were added the tales which I could tell, if I also were not bound under

the laws of mystery of which I have been complaining, many hearts would

beat with the desire to restore to their human rights those whose

fellow-sufferers have given ample proof of their worthiness to enjoy

them. The consideration which binds me to silence upon a rich collection

of facts, full of moral beauty and promise, is regard to the safety of

many whose heroic obedience to the laws of God has brought them into

jeopardy under the laws of slave-holders, and the allies of

slave-holders. Nor would I, by any careless revelations, throw the

slightest obstacle in the way of the escape of any one of the slaves who

may be about to shirk their masters, by methods with which I happen to

be acquainted.

It can, however, do nothing but good to proclaim the truth that slaves

do run away in much greater numbers than is supposed by any but those

who lose them, and those who help them. By which I mean many others

besides the abolitionists _par excellence_. Perhaps I might confine the

knowledge to these last; for I believe no means exist by which the

yearly amount of loss of this kind may be verified and published in the

south. Everybody who has been in America is familiar with the little

newspaper picture of a black man, hieing with his stick and bundle,

which is prefixed to the advertisements of runaways. Every traveller has

probably been struck with the number of these which meets his eye; but

unless he has more private means of information, he will remain unaware

of the streams of fugitives continually passing out of the States. There

is much reserve about this in the south, from pride; and among those

elsewhere who could tell, from far other considerations. The time will

come when the whole story, in its wonder and beauty, may be told by some

who, like myself, have seen more of the matter, from all sides, than it

is easy for a native to do. Suffice it, that the loss by runaways, and

the generally useless attempts to recover them, is a heavy item in the

accounts of the cotton and sugar-growers of the south; and one which is

sure to become heavier till there shall be no more bondage to escape

from. It is obvious that the slaves who run away are among the best: an

escape being usually the achievement of a project early formed;

concealed, pertinaciously adhered to, and endeared by much toil and

sacrifice undergone for its sake, for a long course of years. A weak

mind is incapable of such a series of acts, with a unity of purpose.

They are the choicest slaves who run away. Of the cases known to me, the

greater number of the men, and some of the women, have acted throughout

upon an idea; (called by their owners "a fancy,"--a very different

thing;) while some few of the men have started off upon some sudden

infliction of cruelty; and many women on account of intolerable outrage,

of the grossest kind. Several masters told me of leave given to their

slaves to go away, and of the slaves refusing to avail themselves of it.

If this was meant to tell in favour of slavery, it failed of its effect.

The argument was too shallow to impose upon a child. Of course, they

were the least valuable slaves to whom this permission was given: and

their declining to depart proved nothing so much as the utter

degradation of human beings who could prefer receiving food and shelter

from the hand of an owner to the possession of themselves.

Amidst the mass of materials which accumulated on my hands during the

process of learning from all parties their views on this question, I

hardly know where to turn, and what to select, that will most briefly

and strongly show that the times have outgrown slavery. This is the

point at which every fact and argument issue, whatever may be the

intention of those who adduce it. The most striking, perhaps, is the

treatment of the Abolitionists: a subject to be adverted to hereafter.

The insane fury which vents itself upon the few who act upon the

principles which the many profess, is a sign of the times not to be

mistaken. It is always the precursor of beneficial change. Society in

America seems to be already passing out of this stage into one even more

advanced. The cause of abolition is spreading so rapidly through the

heart of the nation; the sound part of the body politic is embracing it

so actively, that no disinterested observer can fail to be persuaded

that even the question of time is brought within narrow limits. The

elections will, ere long, show the will of the people that slavery be

abolished in the District of Columbia. Then such truckling politicians,

mercenary traders, cowardly clergy, and profligate newspaper corps, as

are now too blind to see the coming change, will have to choose their

part; whether to shrink out of sight, or to boast patriotically of the

righteous revolution which they have striven to retard, even by the

application of the torture to both the bodies and the minds of their

more clear-eyed fellow-citizens.

After giving one or two testimonies to the necessity of a speedy change

of system, I will confine myself to relating a few signs of the times

which I encountered in my travels through the south.

In 1782, Virginia repealed the law against manumission; and in nine

years, there were ten thousand slaves freed in that State. Alarmed for

the institution, her legislature re-enacted the law. What has been the

consequence?--Let us take the testimony of the two leading newspapers

of the capital of Virginia, given at a time when the Virginian

legislature was debating the subject of slavery; and when there was, for

once, an exposure of the truth from those best qualified to reveal it.

In 1832, the following remarks appeared in the "Richmond Enquirer."

"It is probable, from what we hear, that the committee on the coloured

population will report some plan for getting rid of the free people of

colour. But is this all that can be done? Are we for ever to suffer the

greatest evil which can scourge our land not only to remain, but to

increase in its dimensions? 'We may shut our eyes and avert our faces,

if we please,' (writes an eloquent South Carolinian, on his return from

the north a few weeks ago,) 'but there it is, the dark and growing evil,

at our doors: and meet the question we must at no distant day. God only

knows what it is the part of wise men to do on that momentous and

appalling subject. Of _this_ I am very sure, that the

difference--nothing short of frightful--between all that exists on one

side of the Potomac, and all on the other, is owing to _that cause

alone_. The disease is deep seated; it is at the heart's core; it is

consuming, and has all along been consuming, our vitals; and I could

laugh, if I _could_ laugh on such a subject, at the ignorance and folly

of the politician who ascribes that to an act of the government, which

is the inevitable effect of the eternal laws of nature. What is to be

done? O my God, I don't know; but something must be done.'

"Yes, something must be done; and it is the part of no honest man to

deny it; of no free press to affect to conceal it. When this dark

population is growing upon us; when every new census is but gathering

its appalling numbers upon us; when within a period equal to that in

which this federal constitution has been in existence, those numbers

will increase to more than two millions within Virginia; when our sister

States are closing their doors upon our blacks for sale; _and when our

whites are moving westwardly in greater numbers than we like to hear

of_; when this, the fairest land on all this continent, for soil and

climate and situation combined, might become a sort of garden spot if it

were worked by the hands of white men alone, _can we, ought we_ to sit

quietly down, fold our arms, and say to each other, 'well, well, this

thing will not come to the worst in our day? We will leave it to our

children and our grand-children and great-grand-children to take care of

themselves, and to brave the storm. Is this to act like wise men? Heaven

knows we are no fanatics. We detest the madness which actuated the _Amis

des Noirs_. But something ought to be done. Means, sure but gradual,

systematic but discreet, ought to be adopted for reducing the mass of

evil which is pressing upon the south, and will still more press upon

her the longer it is put off. We ought not to shut our eyes, nor avert

our faces. And though we speak almost without a hope that the committee

or the legislature will do anything, at the present session, to meet

this question, yet we say now, in the utmost sincerity of our hearts,

that our wisest men cannot give too much of their attention to this

subject, nor can they give it too soon."

The other paper, the "Richmond Whig," had the same time, the following:

"We affirm that the great mass of Virginia herself triumphs that the

slavery question has been agitated, and reckons it glorious that the

spirit of her sons did not shrink from grappling with the monster. We

affirm that, in the heaviest slave districts of the State, thousands

have hailed the discussion with delight, and contemplate the distant,

but ardently desired result, as the supreme good which Providence could

vouchsafe to their country."

This is doubtless true. One of the signs of the times which struck me

was the clandestine encouragement received by the abolitionists of the

north from certain timid slave-holders of the south, who send money for

the support of abolition publications, and an earnest blessing. They

write, "For God's sake go on! We cannot take your publications; we dare

not countenance you; but we wish you God speed! You are our only hope."

There is nothing to be said for the moral courage of those who feel and

write thus, and dare not express their opinions in the elections. Much

excuse may be made for them by those who know the horrors which await

the expression of anti-slavery sentiments in many parts of the south.

But, on the other hand, the abolitionists are not to be blamed for

considering all slave-holders under the same point of view, as long as

no improved state of opinion is manifested in the representation; the

natural mirror of the minds of the represented.

Chief Justice Marshall, a Virginian, a slave-holder, and a member of the

Colonisation Society, (though regarding this society as being merely a

palliative, and slavery incurable but by convulsion,) observed to a

friend of mine, in the winter of 1834, that he was surprised at the

British for supposing that they could abolish slavery in their colonies

by act of parliament. His friend believed it would be done. The Chief

Justice could not think that such economical institutions could be done

away by legislative enactment. His friend pleaded the fact that the

members of the British House of Commons were pledged, in great numbers,

to their constituents on the question. When it was done, the Chief

Justice remarked on his having been mistaken; and that he rejoiced in

it. He now saw hope for his beloved Virginia, which he had seen sinking

lower and lower among the States. The cause, he said, was that work is

disreputable in a country where a degraded class is held to enforced

labour.[20] He had seen all the young, the flower of the State, who were

not rich enough to remain at home in idleness, betaking themselves to

other regions, where they might work without disgrace. Now there was

hope; for he considered that in this act of the British, the decree had

gone forth against American slavery, and its doom was sealed.

There was but one sign of the times which was amusing to me; and that

was the tumult of opinions and prophecies offered to me on the subject

of the duration of slavery, and the mode in which it would be at last

got rid of; for I never heard of any one but Governor M'Duffie who

supposed that it can last for ever. He declared last year, in his

message to the legislature of South Carolina, that he considers slavery

as the corner-stone of their republican liberties: and that, if he were

dying, his latest prayer should be that his children's children should

live nowhere but amidst the institutions of slavery. This message might

have been taken as a freak of eccentricity merely, if it had stood

alone. But a committee of the legislature, with Governor Hamilton in the

chair, thought proper to endorse every sentiment in it. This converts it

into an indication of the perversion of mind commonly prevalent in a

class when its distinctive pecuniary interest is in imminent peril. I

was told, a few months prior to the appearance of this singular

production, that though Governor M'Duffie was a great ornament to the

State of South Carolina, his opinions on the subject of slavery were

_ultra_, and that he was left pretty nearly alone in them. Within a

year, those who told me so went, _in public_, all lengths with Governor

M'Duffie.

I believe I might very safely and honourably give the names of those who

prophesied to me in the way I have mentioned; for they rather court

publicity for their opinions, as it is natural and right that they

should, as long as they are sure of them. But it may suffice to mention

that they are all eminent men, whose attention has been strongly fixed,

for a length of years, upon the institution in question.

A. believes that slavery is a necessary and desirable stage in

civilisation: not on the score of the difficulty of cultivating new

lands without it, but on the ground of the cultivation of the negro mind

and manners. He believes the Haytians to have deteriorated since they

became free. He believes the white population destined to absorb the

black, though holding that the two races will not unite after the third

mixture. His expectation is that the black and mulatto races will have

disappeared in a hundred and fifty years. He has no doubt that cotton

and tobacco may be well and easily grown by whites.

B. is confident that the condition of slaves is materially improved, yet

believes that they will die out, and that there will be no earlier

catastrophe. He looks to colonisation, however, as a means of lessening

the number. This same gentleman told me of a recent visit he had paid to

a connexion of his own, who had a large "force," consisting chiefly of

young men and women: not one child had been born on the estate for three

years. This looks very like dying out; but does it go to confirm the

materially improved condition of the slaves?

C. allows slavery to be a great evil; and, if it were now non-existent,

would not ordain it, if he could. But he thinks the slaves far happier

than they would have been at home in Africa, and considers that the

system works perfectly. He pronounces the slaves "the most contented,

happy, industrious peasantry in the world." He believes this virtue and

content would disappear if they were taught anything whatever; and that

if they were free, they would be, naturally and inevitably, the most

vicious and wretched population ever seen. His expectation is that they

will increase to such a degree as to make free labour, "_which always

supersedes slave labour_," necessary in its stead; that the coloured

race will wander off to new regions, and be ultimately "absorbed" by the

white. He contemplates no other than this natural change, which he

thinks cannot take place in less than a century and a half. A year

later, this gentleman told a friend of mine that slavery cannot last

above twenty years. They must be stringent reasons which have induced so

great a change of opinion in twelve months.

D. thinks slavery an enormous evil, but doubts whether something as bad

would not arise in its stead. He is a colonisationist, and desires that

the general government should purchase the slaves, by annual

appropriations, and ship them off to Africa, so as to clear the country

of the coloured people in forty or fifty years. If this is not done, a

servile war, the most horrible that the world has seen, is inevitable.

Yet he believes that the institution, though infinitely bad for the

masters, is better for the slaves than those of any country in Europe

for its working classes. He is convinced that the tillage of all the

crops could be better carried on by whites, with the assistance of

cattle and implements, than by negroes.

E. writes, (October 1835,) "Certain it is that if men of property and

intelligence in the north have that legitimate influence which that

class has here, nothing will come of this abolition excitement. All we

have to say to them is, 'Hands off!' Our _political_ rights[21] are

clear, and shall not be invaded. _We know too much about slavery to be

slaves ourselves._ But I repeat, nothing will come of the present, or

rather recent excitement, for already it is in a great degree passed.

And the time is coming when a struggle between pauperism and property,

or, if you choose, between labour and capital in the north, stimulated

by the spirit of Jacksonism, will occupy the people of that quarter to

the exclusion of our affairs. If any external influence is ever to

affect the institution of slavery in the south, it will not be the

vulgar and ignorant fanaticism of the northern States, intent upon a

cheap charity which is to be done at our expense; but that influence

will be found in English literature, and the gradual operation of public

opinion. Slavery, so to speak, may be evaporated;--it cannot be drawn

off. If it were, the whole land would be poisoned and desolated."

The best reply to this letter will be found in the memorable speech of

Mr. Preston, one of the South Carolina senators, delivered in Congress,

last spring. It may be mentioned, by the way, that the writer of the

above is mistaken in supposing that there is at present, or impending,

any unhappy struggle in the north between pauperism and property, or

labour and capital. It is all property there, and no pauperism, (except

the very little that is superinduced;) and labour and capital were,

perhaps, never before seen to jog on so lovingly together. The "cheap

charity" he speaks of is the cheap charity of the first Christians, with

the addition of an equal ability and will to pay down _money_ for the

abolition of the slaves, for whose sake the abolitionists have already

shown themselves able to bear,--some, hanging;--some, scourging, and

tarring and feathering; some, privation of the means of living; and all,

the being incessantly and deeply wounded in their social relations and

tenderest affections. Martyrdom is ever accounted a "cheap devotion," or

"cheap charity," to God or man, by those who exact it of either

religious or philanthropic principle.

Mr. Preston's speech describes the spread of abolition opinions as being

rapid and inevitable. He proves the rapidity by citing the number of

recently-formed abolition societies in the north; and the

inevitableness, by exhibiting the course which such convictions had run

in England and France. He represents the case as desperate. He

advises,--not yielding, but the absolute exclusion of opinion on the

subject,--exclusion from Congress, and exclusion from the slave States.

This is well. The matter may be considered to be given up, unless this

is merely the opinion of an individual. The proposal is about as hopeful

as it would be to draw a cordon round the Capitol to keep out the four

winds; or to build a wall up to the pole-star to exclude the sunshine.

One more sample of opinions. A gentleman who edits a highly-esteemed

southern newspaper, expresses himself thus. "There is a wild fanaticism

at work to effect the overthrow of the system, although in its fall

would go down the fortunes of the south, and to a great extent those of

the north and east;--in a word, the whole fabric of our Union, in one

awful ruin. What then ought to be done? What measures ought to be taken

to secure the safety of our property and our lives? We answer, let us be

vigilant and watchful to the last degree over all the movements of our

enemies both at _home_ and abroad. Let us declare through the public

journals of our country, that the question of slavery is not, and shall

not be open to discussion;--that the system is deep-rooted amongst us,

and must remain for ever;--that the very moment any private individual

attempts to lecture us upon its evils and immorality, and the necessity

of putting measures into operation to secure us from them, in the same

moment his tongue shall be cut out and cast upon the dung-hill. We are

freemen, sprung from a noble stock of freemen, able to boast as noble a

line of ancestry as ever graced this earth;--we have burning in our

bosoms the spirit of freemen--live in an age of enlightened freedom, and

in a country blessed with its privileges--under a government that has

pledged itself to protect us in the enjoyment of our peculiar domestic

institutions in peace, and undisturbed. We hope for a long continuance

of these high privileges, and have now to love, cherish, and defend,

property, liberty, wives and children, the right to manage our own

matters in our own way, and, what is equally dear with all the rest, the

inestimable right of dying upon our own soil, around our own firesides,

in struggling to put down all those who may attempt to infringe, attack,

or violate any of these sacred and inestimable privileges."

If these opinions of well-prepared persons, dispersed through the slave

States, and entrusted with the public advocacy of their interests, do

not betoken that slavery is tottering to its fall, there are no such

things as signs of the times.

The prohibition of books containing anything against slavery, has

proceeded to a great length. Last year, Mrs. Barbauld's works were sent

back into the north by the southern booksellers, because the "Evenings

at Home" contain a "Dialogue between Master and Slave." Miss Sedgwick's

last novel, "The Linwoods," was treated in the same way, on account of a

single sentence about slavery. The "Tales of the Woods and Fields," and

other English books, have shared the same fate. I had a letter from a

Southern lady, containing some regrets upon the necessity of such an

exclusion of literature, but urging that it was a matter of _principle_

to guard from attacks "an institution ordained by the favour of God for

the happiness of man:" and assuring me that the literary resources of

South Carolina were rapidly improving.--So they had need; for almost all

the books already in existence will have to be prohibited, if nothing

condemnatory of slavery is to be circulated. This attempt to nullify

literature was followed up by a threat to refuse permission to the mails

to pass through South Carolina: an arrangement which would afflict its

inhabitants more than it could injure any one else.

The object of all this is to keep the children in the dark about how

the institution is regarded abroad. This was evident to me at every

step: and I received an express caution not to communicate my

disapprobation of slavery to the children of one family, who could not,

their parents declare, even feel the force of my objections. One of them

was "employed, the whole afternoon, in dressing out little Nancy for an

evening party; and she sees the slaves much freer than herself." Of

course, the blindness of this policy will be its speedy destruction. It

is found that the effect of public opinion on the subject upon young men

who visit the northern States, is tremendous, when they become aware of

it: as every student in the colleges of the north can bear witness. I

know of one, an heir of slaves, who declared, on reading Dr. Channing's

"Slavery," that if it could be proved that negroes are more than a link

between man and brute, the rest follows of course, and he must liberate

all his. Happily, he is in the way of evidence that negroes are actually

and altogether human.

The students of Lane Seminary, near Cincinnati, of which Dr. Beecher is

the president, became interested in the subject, three or four years

ago, and formed themselves into an Abolition Society, debating the

question, and taking in newspapers. This was prohibited by the tutors,

but persevered in by the young men, who conceived that this was a matter

with which the professors had no right to meddle. Banishment was

decreed; and all submitted to expulsion but fourteen. Of course, each of

the dispersed young men became the nucleus of an Abolition Society, and

gained influence by persecution. It was necessary for them to provide

means to finish their education. One of them, Amos Dresser, itinerated,

(as is usual in the sparsely-peopled west,) travelling in a gig, and

selling Scott's Bible, to raise money for his educational purposes. He

reached Nashville, in Tennessee; and there fell under suspicion of

abolition treason; his baggage being searched, and a whole abolition

newspaper, and a part of another being found among the packing-stuff of

his stock of bibles. There was also an unsubstantiated rumour of his

having been seen conversing with slaves. He was brought to trial by the

Committee of Vigilance; seven elders of the presbyterian church at

Nashville being among his judges. After much debate as to whether he

should be hanged, or flogged with more or fewer lashes, he was condemned

to receive twenty lashes, with a cow-hide, in the market-place of

Nashville. He was immediately conducted there, made to kneel down on the

flint pavement, and punished according to his sentence; the mayor of

Nashville presiding, and the public executioner being the agent. He was

warned to leave the city within twenty-four hours: but was told, by some

charitable person who had the bravery to take him in, wash his stripes,

and furnish him with a disguise, that it would not be safe to remain so

long. He stole away immediately, in his dreadful condition, on foot; and

when his story was authenticated, had heard nothing of his horse, gig,

and bibles, which he values at three hundred dollars. Let no one, on

this, tremble for republican freedom. Outrages upon it, like the above,

are but extremely transient signs of the times. They no more betoken the

permanent condition of the republic, than the shivering of one hour of

ague exhibits the usual state of the human body.

The other young men found educational and other assistance immediately;

and a set of noble institutions has grown out of their persecution.

There were professors ready to help them; and a gentleman gave them a

farm in Ohio, on which to begin a manual labour college, called the

Oberlin Institute. It is on a most liberal plan young women who wish to

become qualified for "Christian teaching" being admitted; and there

being no prejudice of colour. They have a sprinkling both of Indians and

of negroes. They do all the farm and house work, and as much study

besides as is good for them. Some of the young women are already fair

Hebrew and Greek scholars. In a little while, the estate was so crowded,

and the new applications were so overpowering, that they were glad to

accept the gift of another farm. When I left the country, within three

years from their commencement, they had either four or five flourishing

institutions in Ohio and Michigan, while the Lane Seminary drags on

feebly with its array of tutors, and dearth of pupils. A fact so full of

vitality as this will overbear a hundred less cheering signs of the

times. A very safe repose may be found in the will of the majority,

wherever it acts amidst light and freedom.

Just before I reached Mobile, two men were burned alive there, in a slow

fire, in the open air, in the presence of the gentlemen of the city

generally. No word was breathed of the transaction in the newspapers:

and this is the special reason why I cite it as a sign of the times; of

the suppression of fact and repression of opinion which, from the

impossibility of their being long maintained, are found immediately to

precede the changes they are meant to obviate. Some months afterwards,

an obscure intimation of something of the kind having happened appeared

in a northern newspaper; but a dead silence was at the time preserved

upon what was, in fact, the deed of a multitude. The way that I came to

know it was this. A lady of Mobile was opening her noble and true heart

to me on the horrors and vices of the system under which she and her

family were suffering in mind, body, and estate. In speaking of her

duties as head of a family, she had occasion to mention the trouble

caused by the licentiousness of the whites, among the negro women. It

was dreadful to hear the facts which had occurred in her own household;

and the bare imagination of what is inflicted on the negro husbands and

fathers was almost too much to be borne. I asked the question, "Does it

never enter the heads of negro husbands and fathers to retaliate?" "Yes,

it does." "What follows?" "They are murdered,--burned alive." And then

followed the story of what had lately happened. A little girl, and her

still younger brother, one day failed to return from school, and never

were seen again. It was not till after all search had been relinquished,

that the severed head of the little girl was found in a brook, on the

borders of a plantation. Circumstances were discovered that left no

doubt that the murders were committed to conceal violence which had been

offered to the girl. Soon after, two young ladies of the city rode in

that direction, and got off their horses to amuse themselves. They were

seized upon by two slaves of the neighbouring plantation; but effected

their escape in safety, though with great difficulty. Their agitation

prevented their concealing the fact; and the conclusion was immediately

drawn that these men were the murderers of the children. The gentlemen

of Mobile turned out; seized the men; heaped up faggots on the margin of

the brook, and slowly burned them to death. No prudish excuses for the

suppression of this story will serve any purpose with those who have

been on the spot, any more than the outcry about "amalgamation," raised

against the abolitionists by those who live in the deepest sinks of a

licentiousness of which the foes of slavery do not dream. No

deprecatory plea regarding propriety or decency will pass for anything

but hypocrisy with those who know what the laws against the press are in

the south-west, and what are the morals of slavery in its palmy state. I

charge the silence of Mobile about this murder on its _fears_; as

confidently as I charge the brutality of the victims upon its crimes.

Notwithstanding the many symptoms of an unmanly and anti-republican fear

which met my observation in these regions, it was long before I could

comprehend the extent of it; especially as I heard daily that the true

enthusiastic love of freedom could exist in a republic, only in the

presence of a servile class. I am persuaded that the southerners verily

believe this; that they actually imagine their northern brethren living

in an exceedingly humdrum way, for fear of losing their equality. It is

true that there is far too much subservience to opinion in the northern

States: particularly in New England. There is there a self-imposed

bondage which must be outgrown. But this is no more like the fear which

prevails in the south than the apprehensiveness of a court-physician is

like the terrors of Tiberius Cæsar.

I was at the French theatre at New Orleans. The party with whom I went

determined to stay for the after-piece. The first scene of the

after-piece was dumb-show; so much noise was made by one single whistle

in the pit. The curtain was dropped, and the piece re-commenced. The

whistling continued; and, at one movement, the whole audience rose and

went home. I was certain that there was something more in this than was

apparent to the observation of a stranger. I resolved to find it out,

and succeeded. The band was wanted from the orchestra, to serenade a

United States senator who was then in the city; and one or two young men

were resolved to break up our amusement for the purpose of releasing

the band. But why were they allowed to do this? Why was the whole

audience to submit to the pleasure of one whistler? Why, in New Orleans

it is thought best to run no risk of any disturbance. People there

always hie home directly when things do not go off quite quietly.

It is the same, wherever the blacks outnumber the whites, or their

bondage is particularly severe. At Charleston, when a fire breaks out,

the gentlemen all go home on the ringing of the alarm-bell; the ladies

rise and dress themselves and their children. It may be the signal of

insurrection: and the fire burns on, for any help the citizens give,

till a battalion of soldiers marches down to put it out.

When we were going to church, at Augusta, Georgia, one Sunday afternoon,

there was smoke in the street, and a cry of fire. When we came out of

church, we were told that it had been very trifling, and easily

extinguished. The next day, I heard the whole. A negro girl of sixteen,

the property of a lady from New England, had set her mistress's house on

fire in two places, by very in-artificially lighting heaps of

combustible stuff piled against the partitions. There were no witnesses,

and all that was known came from her own lips. She was desperately

ignorant; laws having been fully enforced to prevent the negroes of

Georgia being instructed in any way whatever. The girl's account was,

that she was "tired of living there," and had therefore intended to burn

the house in the morning, but was prevented by her mistress having

locked her up for some offence: so she did it in the afternoon. She was

totally ignorant of the gravity of the deed, and was in a state of great

horror when told that she was to be hanged for it. I asked whether it

was possible that, after her being prevented by law from being taught,

she was to be hanged for her ignorance, and merely on her own

confession? The clergyman with whom I was conversing sighed, and said it

was a hard case; but what else could be done, considering that _Augusta

was built of wood_? He told me that there was great excitement among the

negroes in Augusta; and that many had been saying that "a mean white

person" (a white labourer) would not have been hanged; and that the girl

could not help it, as it must have been severity which drove her to it.

In both these sayings, the slaves were partly wrong. A white would have

been hanged; but a white would have known that she was committing crime.

It did not appear that the girl's mistress was harsh. But what does not

the observation convey? I have never learned, nor ever shall, whether

the hanging took place or not. The newspapers do not insert such things.

This burning would be a fearful art for the blacks to learn. There were

four tremendous fires in Charleston, during the summer of 1835; and

divers residents reported to the north that these were supposed to be

the work of slaves.

Wherever I went, in the south, in whatever town or other settlement I

made any stay, some startling circumstance connected with slavery

occurred, which I was assured was unprecedented. No such thing had ever

occurred before, or was likely to happen again. The repetition of this

assurance became, at last, quite ludicrous.

The fear of which I have spoken as prevalent, does not extend to the

discussion of the question of slavery with strangers. My opinions of

slavery were known, through the press, before I went abroad: the

hospitality which was freely extended to me was offered under a full

knowledge of my detestation of the system. This was a great advantage,

in as much as it divested me entirely of the character of a spy, and

promoted the freest discussion, wherever I went. There was a warm

sympathy between myself and very many, whose sufferings under the system

caused me continual and deep sorrow, though no surprise. Neither was I

surprised at their differing from me as widely as they do about the

necessity of immediate action, either by resistance or flight, while

often agreeing, nearly to the full, in my estimate of the evils of the

present state of things. They have been brought up in the system. To

them, the moral deformity of the whole is much obscured by its nearness;

while the small advantages, and slight prettinesses which it is very

easy to attach to it, are prominent, and always in view. These

circumstances prevented my being surprised at the candour with which

they not only discussed the question, but showed me all that was to be

seen of the economical management of plantations; the worst as well as

the best. Whatever I learned of the system, by express showing, it must

be remembered, was from the hands of the slave-holders themselves.

Whatever I learned, that lies deepest down in my heart, of the moral

evils, the unspeakable vices and woes of slavery, was from the lips of

those who are suffering under them on the spot.

It was there that I heard of the massacre in Southampton county, which

has been little spoken of abroad. It happened a few years ago; before

the abolition movement began; for it is remarkable that no insurrections

have taken place since the friends of the slave have been busy afar off.

This is one of the most eloquent signs of the times,--that, whereas

rebellions broke out as often as once a month before, there have been

none since. Of this hereafter. In the Southampton massacre, upwards of

seventy whites, chiefly women and children, were butchered by slaves who

fancied themselves called, like the Jews of old, to "slay and spare

not."

While they were in full career, a Virginian gentleman, who had a friend

from the north staying with him, observed upon its being a mistaken

opinion that planters were afraid of their slaves; and offered the

example of his own household as a refutation. He summoned his

confidential negro, the head of the house establishment of slaves, and

bade him shut the door.

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

"Yes, massa."

"You hear that they have killed several families, and that they are

coming this way."

"Yes, massa."

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

to protect my family."

The slave was silent.

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

"No, massa."

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

join them?"

"Yes, massa."

When he went out of the room, his master wept without restraint. He

owned that all his hope, all his confidence was gone. Yet, who ever

deserved confidence more than the man who spoke that last "No" and

"Yes?" The more confidence in the man, the less in the system. This is

the philosophy of the story.

I have mentioned the fact that no insurrections have for a long time

taken place. In some parts of the slave regions, the effect has been to

relax the laws relating to slaves; and such relaxation was always

pointed out to me as an indication that slavery would go out of itself,

if it were let alone. In other parts, new and very severe laws were

being passed against the slaves; and this was pointed out to me as a

sign that the condition of the negro was aggravated by the interference

of his friends; and that his best chance lay in slavery being let alone.

Thus the opposite facts were made to yield the same conclusion. A friend

of mine, a slave-holder, observed to me, that both the relaxation and

the aggravation of restrictions upon slaves were an indication of the

tendency of public opinion: the first being done in sympathy with it,

the other in fear of it.

There was an outcry, very vehement, and very general among the friends

of slavery, in both north and south, against the cruelty of

abolitionists in becoming the occasion of the laws against slaves being

made more severe. In my opinion, this affords no argument against

abolition, even if the condition of the slaves of to-day were aggravated

by the stir of opinion. The negroes of the next generation are not to be

doomed to slavery for fear of somewhat more being inflicted on their

parents: and, severe as the laws already are, the consequence of

straining them tighter still would be that they would burst. But the

fact is, that so far from the condition of the slave being made worse by

the efforts of his distant friends, it has been substantially improved.

I could speak confidently of this as a necessary consequence of the

value set upon opinion by the masters; but I know it also from what I

myself saw; and from the lips of many slave-holders. The slaves of South

Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana, have less liberty of

communication with each other; they are deprived of the few means of

instruction that they had; they are shut in earlier in the evening, and

precluded from supping and dancing for half the night, as they used to

do; but they are substantially better treated; they are less worked by

hard masters; less flogged; better fed and clothed. The eyes of the

world are now upon the American slave and his master: the kind master

goes on as he did before: the hard master dares not be so unkind as

formerly. He hates his slave more than ever, for slavery is more

troublesome than ever; but he is kept in order, by the opinion of the

world abroad and the neighbours around; and he dares not vent his hatred

on his human property, as he once could. A slave-holder declared in

Congress, that the slaves of the south knew that Dr. Channing had

written a book on their behalf. No doubt. The tidings of the far-off

movement in their favour come to them on every wind that blows, calming

their desperation, breathing hope into their souls; making the best of

their masters thoughtful and sad, and the worst, desperate and cruel,

though kept within bounds by fear.

The word 'hatred' is not too strong for the feeling of a large

proportion of slave-holders towards particular slaves; or, as they would

call them, (the word 'slave' never being heard in the south,) their

'force,' their 'hands,' their 'negroes,' their 'people.' I was

frequently told of the 'endearing relation' subsisting between master

and slaves; but, at the best, it appeared to me the same 'endearing

relation' which subsists between a man and his horse, between a lady and

her dog. As long as the slave remains ignorant, docile, and contented,

he is taken good care of, humoured, and spoken of with a contemptuous,

compassionate kindness. But, from the moment he exhibits the attributes

of a rational being,--from the moment his intellect seems likely to come

into the most distant competition with that of whites, the most, deadly

hatred springs up;--not in the black, but in his oppressors. It is a

very old truth that we hate those whom we have injured. Never was it

more clear than in this case. I had, from time to time in my life,

witnessed something of human malice; I had seen some of the worst

aspects of domestic service in England; of village scandal; of political

rivalship; and other circumstances provocative of the worst passions;

but pure, unmitigated hatred, the expression of which in eye and voice

makes one's blood run cold, I never witnessed till I became acquainted

with the blacks of America, their friends and oppressors: the blacks and

their friends the objects; their oppressors the far more unhappy

subjects. It so happens that the most remarkable instances of this that

I met with were clergymen and ladies. The cold livid hatred which

deformed, like a mask, the faces of a few, while deliberately

slandering, now the coloured race, and now the abolitionists, could

never be forgotten by me, as a fearful revelation, if the whole country

were to be absolutely christianized to-morrow. Mr. Madison told me, that

if he could work a miracle, he knew what it should be. He would make all

the blacks white; and then he could do away with slavery in twenty-four

hours. So true it is that all the torturing associations of injury have

become so connected with colour, that an institution which hurts

everybody and benefits none, which all rational people who understand it

dislike, despise, and suffer under, can with difficulty be abolished,

because of the hatred which is borne to an irremovable badge.

This hatred is a sign of the times; and so are the alleged causes of it;

both are from their nature so manifestly temporary. The principal cause

alleged is the impossibility of giving people of colour any idea of

duty, from their want of natural affection. I was told in the same

breath of their attachment to their masters, and devotion to them in

sickness; and of their utter want of all affection to their parents and

children, husbands and wives. For "people of colour," read "slaves," and

the account is often correct. It is true that slaves will often leave

their infants to perish, rather than take any trouble about them; that

they will utterly neglect a sick parent or husband; while they will

nurse a white mistress with much ostentation. The reason is obvious.

Such beings are degraded so far below humanity that they will take

trouble, for the sake of praise or more solid reward, after they have

become dead to all but grossly selfish inducements. Circumstances will

fully account for a great number of cases of this sort: but to set

against these, there are perhaps yet more instances of domestic

devotion, not to be surpassed in the annals of humanity. Of these I know

more than I can here set down; partly from their number, and partly from

the fear of exposing to injury the individuals alluded to.

A friend of mine was well acquainted at Washington with a woman who had

been a slave; and who, after gaining her liberty, worked incessantly for

many years, denying herself all but absolute necessaries, in order to

redeem her husband and children. She was a sick-nurse, when my friend

knew her; and, by her merits, obtained good pay. She had first bought

herself; having earned, by extra toil, three or four hundred dollars.

She then earned the same sum, and redeemed her husband; and had bought

three, out of her five, children when my friend last saw her. She made

no boast of her industry and self-denial. Her story was extracted from

her by questions; and she obviously felt that she was doing what was

merely unavoidable. It is impossible to help instituting a comparison

between this woman and the gentlemen who, by their own licentiousness,

increase the number of slave children whom they sell in the market. My

friend formerly carried an annual present from a distant part of the

country to this poor woman: but it is not known what has become of her,

and whether she died before she had completed her object, of freeing all

her family.

There is a woman now living with a lady in Boston, requiring high wages,

which her superior services, as well as her story, enable her to

command. This woman was a slave, and was married to a slave, by whom she

had two children. The husband and wife were much attached. One day, her

husband was suddenly sold away to a distance; and her master, whose

object was to increase his stock as fast as possible, immediately

required her to take another husband. She stoutly refused. Her master

thought her so far worthy of being humoured, that he gave her his

son,--forced him upon her, as her present feelings show. She had two

more children, of much lighter complexion than the former. When the son

left the estate, her master tried again to force a negro husband upon

her. In desperation, she fled, carrying one of her first children with

her. She is now working to redeem the other, a girl; and she has not

given up all hope of recovering her husband. She was asked whether she

thought of doing anything for her two mulatto children. She replied

that, to be sure, they _were_ her children; but that she did not think

she ever _could_ tell her husband that she had had those two children.

If this be not chastity, what is? Where are all the fairest natural

affections, if not in these women?

At a very disorderly hotel in South Carolina, we were waited upon by a

beautiful mulatto woman and her child, a pretty girl of about eight. The

woman entreated that we would buy her child. On her being questioned,

it appeared that it was "a bad place" in which she was: that she had got

her two older children sold away, to a better place; and now, her only

wish was for this child to be saved. On being asked whether she really

desired to be parted from her only remaining child, so as never to see

her again, she replied that "it would be hard to part," but for the

child's sake she did wish that we would buy her.

A kind-hearted gentleman in the south, finding that the laws of his

State precluded his teaching his legacy of slaves according to the usual

methods of education, bethought himself, at length, of the moral

training of task-work. It succeeded admirably. His negroes soon began to

work as slaves are never, under any other arrangement, seen to work.

Their day's task was finished by eleven o'clock. Next, they began to

care for one another: the strong began to help the weak:--first,

husbands helped their wives; then parents helped their children; and, at

length, the young began to help the old. Here was seen the awakening of

natural affections which had lain in a dark sleep.

Of the few methods of education which have been tried, none have

succeeded so well as this task-work. As its general adoption might have

the effect of enabling slavery to subsist longer than it otherwise

could, perhaps it is well that it can be employed only to a very small

extent. Much of the work on the plantations cannot be divided into

tasks. Where it can, it is wise in the masters to avail themselves of

this means of enlisting the will of the slave in behalf of his work.

No other mode of teaching serves this purpose in any degree. The

shutting up of the schools, when I was in the south, struck me as a sign

of the times,--a favourable sign, in as far as it showed the crisis to

be near; and it gave me little regret on account of the slave children.

Reading and writing even (which are never allowed) would be of no use to

beings without minds,--as slaves are prior to experience of life; and

religious teaching is worse than useless to beings who, having no

rights, can have no duties. Their whole notion of religion is of power

and show, as regards God; of subjection to a new sort of reward and

punishment, as regards themselves; and invisible reward and punishment

have no effect on them. A negro, conducting worship, was heard to pray

thus; and broad as the expressions are, they are better than an abject,

unintelligent adoption of the devotional language of whites. "Come down,

O Lord, come down,--on your great white horse, a kickin' and snortin'."

An ordinary negro's highest idea of majesty is of riding a prancing

white horse. As for their own concern in religion, I know of a "force"

where a preacher had just made a strong impression. The slaves had given

up dancing, and sang nothing but psalms: they exhibited the most

ludicrous spiritual pride, and discharged their business more lazily

than ever, taunting their mistress with, "You no holy. We be holy. You

no in state o' salvation." Such was the effect upon the majority. Here

is the effect upon a stronger head.

"Harry," said his master, "you do as badly as ever. You steal and tell

lies. Don't you know you will be punished in hell?"

"Ah, massa, I been thinking 'bout that. I been thinking when Harry's

head is in the ground, there'll be no more Harry,--no more Harry."

"But the clergyman, and other people who know better than you, tell you

that if you steal you will go to hell, and be punished there."

"Been thinking 'bout that too. Gentlemen _be_ wise, and so they tell us

'bout being punished, that we may not steal their things here: and then

we go and find out afterwards how it is." Such is the effect of

religion upon those who have no rights, and therefore no duties. Great

efforts are being now made by the clergy of four denominations[22] to

obtain converts in the south. The fact, pointed out to me by Mr.

Madison, that the "chivalrous" south is growing strict, while the

puritanic north is growing genial, is a very remarkable sign of the

times, as it regards slavery. All sanctions of the institution being now

wanted, religious sanctions are invoked among others. The scene has been

acted before, often enough to make the catastrophe clearly discernible.

There are no true religious sanctions of slavery. There will be no lack

of Harrys to detect the forgeries put forth as such: and, under the most

corrupt presentments of religion, there lives something of its genuine

spirit,--enough to expand, sooner or later, and explode the institution

with which it can never combine. Though I found that the divines of the

four denominations were teaching a compromising Christianity, to

propitiate the masters, and gross superstitions to beguile the

slaves,--vying with each other in the latter respect, that they might

outstrip one another in the number of their converts,--I rejoiced in

their work. Anything is better for the slaves than apathetic subjection;

and, under all this falsification, enough Christian truth has already

come in to blow slavery to atoms.

The testimony of slave-holders was most explicit as to no moral

improvement having taken place, in consequence of the introduction of

religion. There was less singing and dancing; but as much lying,

drinking, and stealing as ever: less docility, and a vanity even

transcending the common vanity of slaves,--to whom the opinion of others

is all which they have to gain or lose. The houses are as dirty as ever,

(and I never saw a clean room or bed but once, within the boundaries of

the slave States;) the family are still contented with their "clean

linen, as long as it does not smell badly." A new set of images has been

presented to the slaves; but there still remains but one idea, by and

for which any of them live; the idea of freedom.

Not for this, however, is the present zeal for religion a less

remarkable sign of the times.

Another is, a proposition lately made in Charleston to remove the

slave-market further from public observation. This acknowledgment, in

such a place, that there is something distasteful, or otherwise

uncomfortable, in the sale of human beings, is portentous. I was in that

Charleston slave-market; and saw the sale of a woman with her children.

A person present voluntarily assured me that there was nothing whatever

painful in the sight. It appears, however, that the rest of Charleston

thinks differently.

I was witness to the occasional discussion of the question whether

Congress has power to prohibit the internal slave trade; and found that

some very eminent men had no doubt whatever of such power being

possessed by Congress, through the clause which authorises it to

"regulate commerce among the several States." Among those who held this

opinion were Mr. Madison and Mr. Webster.

The rapid increase of the suffrage in the north, compared with the

south, affords an indication of some speedy change of circumstances.

Three fifths of the slave population is represented; but this basis of

representation is so narrow in contrast with that of the populous States

where every man has the suffrage, that the south must decrease and the

north increase, in a way which cannot long be borne by the former. The

south has no remedy but in abolishing the institution by which her

prosperity is injured, and her population comparatively confined. She

sees how it is in the two contiguous States of Missouri and Illinois:

that new settlers examine Illinois, pass on into Missouri, where land is

much cheaper, and return to Illinois to settle, because there is no

slavery there: so that the population is advancing incalculably faster

in Illinois than in Missouri. Missouri will soon and easily find her

remedy, in abolishing slavery; when the whites will rush in, as they now

do into the neighbouring States. In the south, the case is more

difficult. It will be long before white labour becomes so reputable

there as elsewhere; and the present white residents cannot endure the

idea of the suffrage being freely given, within any assignable time, to

those who are now their slaves, or to their dusky descendants. Yet this

is what must be done, sooner or later, with more or fewer precautions,

if the south means to hold an important rank in Congress. It is in

contemplation of this difficulty that the loudest threats are heard of

secession from the Union; a movement which, as I have before said, would

be immediately prevented, or signally punished. The abolition of slavery

is the only resource.

Upon the most remarkable of all the signs of the times relating to

slavery, it is not necessary to say much. Those which I have mentioned

are surely enough to show, as plainly as if a ghost had come from the

grave to tell us, that the time is at hand for the destruction of this

monstrous anomaly. What the issue of the coming change will be is, to my

mind, decided by a consideration on which almost every man is

vociferating his opinion,--the character of the abolitionists.

It is obvious enough why this point is discussed so widely and so

constantly, that I think I may say I heard more upon it, while I was in

America, than upon all other American matters together. It is clearly

convenient to throw so weighty a question as that of abolition back upon

the aggregate characters of those who propose it; convenient to

slave-holders, convenient to those in the north whose sympathies are

with slave-holders, or who dread change, or who want an excuse to

themselves for not acting upon the principles which all profess. The

character of the abolitionists of the United States has been the object

of attack for some years,--of daily and hourly attack; and, as far as I

know, there has been no defence; for the plain reason that this is a

question on which there can be no middle party. All who are not with the

abolitionists are against them; for silence and inaction are public

acquiescence in things as they are. The case is, then, that everybody is

against them but their own body, whose testimony would, of course, go

for nothing, if it were offered; which it never is.--I know many of them

well; as every stranger in the country ought to take pains to do. I

first heard everything that could be said against them: and afterwards

became well acquainted with a great number of them.

I think the abolitionists of the United States the most reasonable set

of people that I ever knew to be united together for one object. Among

them may be enjoyed the high and rare luxury of having a reason rendered

for every act performed, and every opinion maintained. The treatment

they have met with compels them to be more thoroughly informed, and more

completely assured on every point on which they commit themselves, than

is commonly considered necessary on the right side of a question, where

there is the strength of a mighty principle to repose upon. The

commonest charge against them is that they are fanatical. I think them,

generally speaking, the most clear-headed, right-minded class I ever

had intercourse with. Their accuracy about dates, numbers, and all such

matters of fact, is as remarkable as their clear perception of the

principles on which they proceed. They are, however, remarkably

deficient in policy,--in party address. They are artless to a fault; and

probably, no party, religious, political, or benevolent, in their

country, ever was formed and conducted with so little dexterity,

shrewdness, and concert. Noble and imperishable as their object is, it

would probably, from this cause, have slipped through their fingers for

the present, if it had not been for some other qualities common among

them. It is needless to say much of their heroism; of the strength of

soul with which they await and endure the inflictions with which they

are visited, day by day. Their position indicates all this. Animating as

it is to witness, it is less touching than the qualities to which they

owe the success which would otherwise have been forfeited through their

want of address and party organisation. A spirit of meekness, of mutual

forbearance, of mutual reverence, runs through the whole body; and by

this are selfish considerations put aside, differences composed, and

distrusts obviated, to a degree which I never hoped to witness among a

society as various as the sects, parties and opinions which are the

elements of the whole community. With the gaiety of heart belonging to

those who have cast aside every weight; with the strength of soul proper

to those who walk by faith; with the child-like unconsciousness of the

innocent; living from hour to hour in the light of that greatest of all

purposes,--to achieve a distant object by the fulfilment of the nearest

duty,--and therefore rooting out from among themselves all aristocratic

tendencies and usages, rarely speaking of their own sufferings and

sacrifices, but in honour preferring one another, how can they fail to

win over the heart of society,--that great heart, sympathising with all

that is lofty and true?[23]

As was said to me, "the Searcher of hearts is passing through the land,

and every one must come forth to the ordeal." This Searcher of hearts

comes now in the form of the mighty principle of human freedom. If a

glance is cast over the assemblage called to the ordeal, how mean and

trivial are the vociferations in defence of property, the threats of

revenge for light, the boast of physical force, the appeal to the

compromises which constitute the defects of human law! How low and how

sad appear the mercenary interests, the social fears, the clerical

blindness or cowardice, the morbid fastidiousness of those who,

professing the same principles with the abolitionists, are bent upon

keeping those principles for ever an abstraction! How inspiring is it to

see that the community is, notwithstanding all this, sound at the core,

and that the soundness is spreading so fast that the health of the whole

community may be ultimately looked for! When a glance shows us all this,

and that the abolitionists are no more elated by their present success

than they were depressed by their almost hopeless degradation, we may

fairly consider the character of the abolitionists a decisive sign of

the times,--a peculiarly distinct prophecy that the coloured race will

soon pass from under the yoke. The Searcher of hearts brings prophecies

in his hand, which those who will may read.[24]

I cannot give much space to the theories which are current as to what

the issue will be if the abolition of slavery should not take place. To

me it seems pretty clear, when the great amount of the mulatto

population is considered. Within an almost calculable time, the

population would be wholly mulatto; and the southern States would be in

a condition so far inferior to the northern, that they would probably

separate, and live under a different form of government. A military

despotism might probably be established when the mixture of colours had

become inconvenient, without being universal: slavery would afterwards

die out, through the general degradation of society; and then the

community would begin again to rise, from a very low point. But it will

be seen that I do not anticipate that there will be room or time for

this set of circumstances to take place. I say this in the knowledge of

the fact that a very perceptible tinge of negro blood is visible in some

of the first families of Louisiana; a fact learned from residents of

high quality on the spot.

How stands the case, finally?--A large proportion of the labour of the

United States is held on principles wholly irreconcilable with the

principles of the constitution: whatever may be true about its origin,

it is now inefficient, wasteful, destructive, to a degree which must

soon cause a change of plan: some who see the necessity of such a

change, are in favour of reversing the original policy;--slavery having

once been begun in order to till the land, they are now for usurping a

new territory in order to employ their slaves: others are for banishing

the labour which is the one thing most needful to their country, in

every way. While all this confusion and mismanagement exist, here is the

labour, actually on the land, ready to be employed to better purpose;

and in the treasury are the funds by which the transmutation of slave

into free labour might be effected,--at once in the District of

Columbia; and by subsequent arrangements in the slave States. Many

matters of detail would have to be settled: the distribution would be

difficult; but it is not impossible. Virginia, whose revenue is derived

from the rearing of slaves for the south, whose property is the beings

themselves, and not their labour, must, in justice, receive a larger

compensation than such States as Alabama and Louisiana, where the labour

is the wealth, and which would be therefore immediately enriched by the

improvement in the quality of the labour which would follow upon

emancipation. Such arrangements may be difficult to make; but "when

there's a will there's a way;" and when it is generally perceived that

the abolition of slavery must take place, the great principle will not

long be allowed to lie in fetters of detail. The Americans have done

more difficult things than this; though assuredly none greater. The

restoration of two millions and a half of people to their human rights

will be as great a deed as the history of the world will probably ever

have to exhibit. In none of its pages are there names more lustrous than

those of the clear-eyed and fiery-hearted few who began and are

achieving the virtuous revolution.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] I might add their matter-of-fact credulity, strongly resembling

romance. As a specimen of the _quizzing_ common with regard to the

Germans, I give an anecdote. At the time when the struggle between Adams

and Jackson was very close, a supporter of Adams complained to Mr. W.

that it was provoking that somebody had persuaded the Germans in

Pennsylvania that Mr. Adams had married a daughter of George III.; a

report which would cost him all their votes. Mr. W. said, "Why do not

you contradict it?" "O," replied his friend, "you know nothing of those

people. They will believe everything, and unbelieve nothing. No: instead

of contradicting the report, we must allow that Adams married a daughter

of George III.; but add that Jackson married two."

[13] I heard some interesting facts about the Germans in Pennsylvania

from Mr. Gallatin, who lived among them for some time. A fact regarding

this gentleman shows what the obscurity of country life in the United

States may be. His estate was originally in Virginia. By a new division,

it was thrown into the back of Pennsylvania. He ceased to be heard of,

for some years, in the interval of his engaging in public affairs.

During this time, an advertisement appeared in a newspaper, asking for

tidings of "one Albert Gallatin" and adding that if he were still

living, he might, on making a certain application, hear of something to

his advantage.

[14] I need hardly mention that I read "England and America" before I

set out on my travels. It will appear that I am under obligations to

that valuable work for much guidance.

[15] See Appendix A.

[16] The Texans pretend to deny that the slave-trade will receive, or is

receiving, an impulse from them. The case is this. In the Texan

constitution, the importation of slaves, _except from the United

States_, is declared piracy. A most wealthy slave-owner of Louisiana

told me, in 1835, that the annual importation of native Africans (by

smuggling) was from thirteen thousand to fifteen thousand. This has much

increased since. As long as there is a market for slaves, there will be

the slave-trade, though there were a preventive cruiser to every mile of

the ocean.

An official gentleman, from the British West Indies, informed me that

much mischief has ensued from the withdrawing of two or three small

British schooners, which used to cruise about the islands, and were

broken up on the plea of economy;--it being supposed that vessels so

small could do no good which would compensate for their expense. This is

a mistake. If a slave ship surrenders on summons, the ship and cargo are

forfeited, and that is all. If a gun is fired, in defence, the captain

and crew become thereby liable to be hanged as pirates. Of course, those

who man a slave ship are ready to surrender to a cock-boat, with two men

in it, rather than become liable to hanging for property in which they

can have, at most, but a very small interest. Thus a schooner renders as

good aid, and is as much an object of dread, in this kind of service, as

a larger vessel.

[17] England and America.

[18] It may surprise some that I speak of those who are blind to slavery

being an anomaly in economy as 'few.' Among the many hundreds of persons

in the slave States, with whom I conversed on the subject of slavery, I

met with only one, a lady, who defended the institution altogether: and

with perhaps four or five who defended it as necessary to a purpose

which must be fulfilled, and could not be fulfilled otherwise. All the

rest who vindicated its present existence did so on the ground of the

impossibility of doing it away. A very large number avowed that it was

indefensible in every point of view.

[19] With the condition of the African colony, we have here nothing to

do. We are now considering the Colonisation Society in its professed

relation to American slavery.

[20] Governor M'Duffie's message to the legislature of South Carolina

contains the proposition that freedom can be preserved only in societies

where either work is disreputable, or there is an hereditary

aristocracy, or a military despotism. He prefers the first, as being the

most republican.

[21] The dispute between the abolitionists and their adversaries is

always made to turn on the point of distinction between freedom of

discussion and political interference. With the views now entertained by

the south, she can never be satisfied on this head. She requires nothing

short of a dead silence upon the subject of human rights. This demand is

made by her state governors of the state governors of the north. It

will, of course, never be granted. The course of the abolitionists seems

to themselves clear enough; and they act accordingly. They labour

_politically_ only with regard to the District of Columbia, over which

Congress holds exclusive jurisdiction. Their other endeavour is to

promote the discussion of the moral question throughout the free States.

They use no direct means to this end in the slave States;--in the first

place, because they have no power to do so; and in the next, because the

requisite movement there is sure to follow upon that in the north. It is

wholly untrue that they insinuate their publications into the south.

Their only political transgression (and who will call it a moral one?)

is, helping fugitive slaves. The line between free discussion and

political interference has never yet been drawn to the satisfaction of

both parties, and never will be.

[22] Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Methodists and Baptists.

[23] It may, at the first glance, appear improbable that such a

character as this should belong to any collection of individuals. But

let it be remembered what the object is; an object which selects for its

first supporters the choicest spirits of society. These choice spirits,

again, are disciplined by what they have to undergo for their object,

till they come out such as I have described them. Their's is not a

common charitable institution, whose committees meet, and do creditable

business, and depart homewards in peace. They are the confessors of the

martyr-age of America. As a matter of course, their character will be

less distinctive as their numbers increase. Many are coming in, and more

will come in, who had not strength, or light, or warmth enough to join

them in the days of their insignificance.

[24] While I write, confirmation comes in the shape of Governor

M'Duffie's message to the legislature of South Carolina, in which he

speaks of the vast and accelerated spread of abolition principles; of

the probability that slavery in the District of Columbia will be soon

abolished; and of the pressing occasion that thence arises for South

Carolina to resolve what she shall do, rather than part with her

domestic institutions. He recommends her to declare her intention of

peaceably withdrawing from the Union, in such a case. Time will show

whether the majority of her citizens will prefer sacrificing their

connexion with the Union, or their slavery; whether the separation will

be allowed by the other States to take place; or, if it be, whether

South Carolina will not speedily desire a readmission.

END OF VOL. I.

LONDON:

IBOTSON AND PALMER, PRINTERS, SAVOY STREET, STRAND.

End of Project Gutenberg's Society in America, v. 1 (of 2), by Harriet Martineau