"Bishop Polk, of Louisiana, was one of the guests. He assured me
that he had been all over the country on Red River, the scene of
the fictitious sufferings of 'Uncle Tom,' and that he had found
the temporal and spiritual welfare of the negroes well cared for.
He had confirmed thirty black persons near the situation assigned
to Legree's estate. He is himself the owner of four hundred
slaves, whom he endeavours to bring up in a religious manner. He
tolerates no religion on his estate but that of the Church. He
baptizes all the children, and teaches them the Catechism. All,
without exception, attend the Church service, and the chanting is
creditably performed by them, in the opinion of their owner.
Ninety of them are communicants, marriages are celebrated
according to the Church ritual, and the state of morals is
satisfactory. Twenty infants had been baptized by the bishop just
before his departure from home, and he had left his whole estate,
his keys, &c., in the sole charge of one of his slaves, without
the slightest apprehension of loss or damage. In judging of the
position of this Christian prelate as a slave-owner, the English
reader must bear in mind that, by the laws of Louisiana,
emancipation has been rendered all but impracticable, and, that
if practicable, it would not necessarily be, in all cases, an act
of mercy or of justice."--_The Western World Revisited_, by the
Rev. Henry Caswall, M.A., author of _America and the American
Church_, etc. Oxford, John Henry Parker, 1854. See _Journeys and
Explorations in the Cotton Kingdom_, by Frederick Law Olmsted,
Vol. II, pp. 212-213.