morning, to make up for having missed the large one in the night. When I
went up on deck I found the sun shining on the full Ohio, which was now
as turbid as the Mississippi, from the recent storms. The stream stood
in among the trees on either bank to a great depth and extent, it was so
swollen. The most enormous willows I ever saw overhung our deck, and the
beechen shades beyond, where the turf and unencumbered stems were
dressed in translucent green, seemed like a palace of the Dryads. How
some of us fixed our eyes on the shores of free Illinois! After nearly
five months of sojourn in slaveland, we were now in sight of a free
state once more. I saw a settler in a wild spot, looking very lonely
among the tall trees; but I felt that I would rather be that man than
the wealthiest citizen of the opposite state, who was satisfied to dwell
there among his slaves.
At eleven o'clock on this the ninth and last day of our voyage we passed
Paducah, in Kentucky, a small neat settlement on the point of junction
of the Tennessee and Ohio. Preparations were going on before our eyes
for our leaving the boat; our luggage and that of the L.'s, who joined
company with us, was brought out; cold beef and negus were provided for
us in the ladies' cabin, the final sayings were being said, and we paid
our fare, fifty dollars each, for our voyage of twelve hundred miles.
Smithland, at the mouth of the Cumberland river, soon appeared; and, as
we wished to ascend to Nashville without delay, we were glad to see a
small steamboat in waiting. We stepped on shore, and stood there, in
spite of a shower, for some time, watching the "Henry Clay" ploughing up
the river, and waving our handkerchiefs in answer to signals of farewell
from several of the multitude who were clustered in every part of the
noble vessel.
If there be excess of mental luxury in this life, it is surely in a
voyage up the Mississippi, in the bright and leafy month of May.
COMPROMISE.
"For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind."
--_Hosea_ viii., 7.
The greatest advantage of long life, at least to those who know how and
wherefore to live, is the opportunity which it gives of seeing moral
experiments worked out, of being present at the fructification of social
causes, and of thus gaining a kind of wisdom which in ordinary cases
seems reserved for a future life. An equivalent for this advantage is
possessed by such as live in those critical periods of society when
retribution is hastened, or displayed in clear connexion with the origin
of its events. The present seems to be such an age. It is an age in
which the societies of the whole world are daily learning the
consequences of what their fathers did, the connexion of cause and
effect being too palpable to be disputed; it is an age when the active
men of the New World are beholding the results of their own early
counsels and deeds. It seems, indeed, as if the march of events were
everywhere accelerated for a time, so as to furnish some who are not
aged with a few complete pieces of experience. Some dispensation--like
the political condition of France, for instance--will still be centuries
in the working out; but in other cases--the influence of eminent men,
for example--results seem to follow more closely than in the slower and
quieter past ages of the world. It is known to all how in England, and
also in America, the men of the greatest intellectual force have sunk
from a higher to a far lower degree of influence from the want of high
morals. It seems as if no degree of talent and vigour can long avail to
keep a man eminent in either politics or literature, unless his morals
are also above the average. Selfish vanity, double-dealing, supreme
regard to expediency, are as fatal to the most gifted men in these days,
and almost as speedily fatal, as intellectual capacity to a pretender.
Men of far inferior knowledge and power rise over their heads in the
strength of honesty; and by dint of honesty (positive or comparitive)
retain the supremacy, even through a display of intellectual weakness
and error of which the fallen make their sport. This is a cheering sign
of the times, indicating that the days are past when men were possessed
by their leaders, and that the time is coming when power will be less
unfairly distributed, and held on a better tenure than it has been. It
indicates that traitors and oppressors will not, in future, be permitted
to work their will and compass their purposes at the expense of others,
till guilty will and purpose are prostrated on the threshold of
eternity. It indicates that that glorious and beautiful spectacle of
judgment may be beheld in this world which religious men have referred
to another, when the lowly shall be exalted; when, unconscious of their
dignity, they shall, with amazement, hear themselves greeted as the
blessed of the Father, and see themselves appointed to a moral
sovereignty in comparison with whose splendour
"Grows dim and dies
All that this world is proud of. From their spheres
The stars of human glory are cast down;
Perish the roses and the flowers of kings,
Princes, and emperors, and the crowns and palms
Of all the mighty, withered and consumed."
However long it may be before the last shred of tinsel may be cast into
the fire, and the last chaff of false pretence winnowed away, the
revolution is good and secure as far as it goes. Moral power has begun
its long series of conquests over physical force and selfish cunning,
and the diviner part of man is a guarantee that not one inch of the
ground gained shall ever be lost. For our encouragement, we are
presented with a more condensed evidence of retribution than has
hitherto been afforded to the world. Moral causes seem to be quickened
as well as strengthened in their operation by the new and more earnest
heed which is given to them.
In the New World, however long some moral causes may be in exhibiting
their results, there have been certain deeds done which have produced
their consequences with extraordinary rapidity and an indisputable
clearness. May all men open their eyes to see them, and their hearts to
understand them!
The people of the United States were never under a greater temptation to
follow temporary expediency in preference to everlasting principle than
in the case of the admission of Missouri, with slave institutions, into
the Union. To this temptation they yielded, by a small majority of their
representatives. The final decision rested, as it happened, in the hands
of one man, Mr. Clay; but it is to the shame of the North (which had
abolished slavery) that it did so happen. The decision was made to
prefer custom and expediency to principle; it was hoped that, if the
wind were once got under confinement, something would prevent its
bursting forth as the whirlwind.
The plea of slaveholders, and a plausible one up to the year 1820, was
that slavery was not an institution of their choice or for which they
were answerable: it was an inherited institution. Since the year 1820
this plea has become hypocrisy; for in that year a deliberate vote was
passed by Congress to perpetuate slavery in the Union by admitting a new
state whose institutions had this basis. The new states northwest of the
Ohio were prohibited from introducing slavery by the very act of cession
of the land; and nothing could have been easier than to procure the
exclusion of slavery from Missouri by simply refusing to admit any new
state whose distinguishing institution was one incompatible in principle
with the principles on which the American Constitution was founded.
Missouri would undoubtedly have surrendered slavery, been admitted, and
virtuously flourished, like her neighbour Illinois. But there was
division of opinion; and, because the political device of the Union
seemed in danger, the eternal principles of justice were set aside, and
protection was deliberately pledged to slavery, not only in Missouri,
but, as a consequence, in Arkansas and Florida. The Constitution and
Declaration of Rights of Missouri, therefore, exhibit the following
singular mixture of declarations and provisions. It will be seen
afterward how they are observed.
"The general assembly shall not have power to pass laws,
"1. For the emancipation of slaves without the consent of the owners; or
without paying them, before such emancipation, a full equivalent for
such slaves so emancipated; and,
"2. To prevent _bonâ fide_ emigrants to this state, or actual settlers
therein, from bringing from any of the United States, or from any of
their territories, such persons as may there be deemed to be slaves, so
long as any persons of the same description are allowed to be held as
slaves by the laws of this state.
"It shall be their duty, as soon as may be, to pass such laws as may be
necessary,
"1. To prevent free negroes and mulattoes from coming to and settling in
this state, under any pretext whatsoever."
"Schools and the means of education shall for ever be encouraged in this
state.
"That the right of trial by jury shall remain inviolate.
"That the accused cannot be deprived of life, liberty, or property, but
by the judgment of his peers or the law of the land.
"That cruel and unusual punishments shall not be inflicted.
"That the free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the
invaluable rights of man, and that every person may freely speak, write,
and print on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that
liberty."
The consequences of the compromise began to show themselves first in the
difference between the character of the population in Missouri and
Illinois, the latter of which is two years older than the former. They
lie opposite each other on the Mississippi, and both are rich in
advantages of soil, climate, and natural productions. They showed,
however, social differences from the very beginning of their independent
career, which are becoming more striking every day. Rapacious
adventurers, who know that the utmost profit of slaves is made by
working them hard on a virgin soil, began flocking to Missouri, while
settlers who preferred smaller gains to holding slaves sat down in
Illinois. When it was found, as it soon was, that slavery does not
answer so well in the farming parts of Missouri as on the new
plantations of the South, a farther difference took place. New settlers
perceived that, in point of immediate interest merely, the fine lands of
Missouri were less worth having, with the curse of slavery upon them,
than those of Illinois without it. In vain has the price of land been
lowered in Missouri as that in Illinois rose. Settlers go first and look
at the cheaper land; some remain upon it; but many recross the river and
settle in the rival state. This enrages the people of Missouri. Their
soreness and jealousy, combined with other influences of slavery, so
exasperate their prejudices against the people of colour as to give a
perfectly diabolical character to their hatred of negroes and the
friends of negroes. That such is the temper of those who conduct popular
action in the state is shown by some events which happened in the year
1836. In the very bottom of the souls of the American statesmen who
admitted Missouri on unrighteous terms, these events must kindle a
burning comparison between what the social condition of the frontier
states of their honourable Union is and what it might have been.
A man of colour in St. Louis was arrested for some offence, and rescued
by a free man of his own colour, a citizen of Pennsylvania, named
Mackintosh, who was steward on board a steamboat then at St. Louis.
Mackintosh was conveyed to jail for rescuing his comrade, whose side of
the question we have no means of knowing. Mackintosh appears to have
been a violent man, or, at least, to have been in a state of desperation
at the time that he was on his way to jail, guarded by two
peace-officers. He drew a knife from his side (almost every man on the
western frontier being accustomed to carry arms), killed one of the
officers, and wounded the other. He was immediately lodged in the
prison. The wife and children of the murdered officer bewailed him in
the street, and excited the rage of the people against Mackintosh. Some
of the citizens acknowledged to me that his colour was the provocation
which aggravated their rage so far beyond what it had ever been in
somewhat similar cases of personal violence, and that no one would have
dreamed of treating any white man as this mulatto was treated. The
citizens assembled round the jail in the afternoon, demanding the
prisoner, and the jailer delivered him up. He was led into the woods on
the outskirts of the city; and, when there, they did not know what to do
with him. While deliberating they tied him to a tree. This seemed to
suggest the act which followed. A voice cried out, "Burn him!" Many
tongues echoed the cry. Brushwood was rooted up, and a heap of green
wood piled about the man. Who furnished the fire does not seem to be
known. Between two and three thousand of the citizens of St. Louis were
present. Two gentlemen of the place assured me that the deed was done by
the hands of not more than six; but they could give no account of the
reasons why the two or three thousand stood by in silence to behold the
act of the six, further than that they were afraid to interfere!
The victim appears to have made no resistance nor entreaty. He was, some
say twenty minutes, some say half an hour, in dying; during the whole of
which time he was praying or singing hymns in a firm voice. This fact
was the ground of an accusation made by magistrates of his being
"connected with the abolitionists." When his legs were consumed so that
his body dropped into the fire, and he was no longer seen, a bystander
observed to another, "There! it is over with him: he does not feel any
more now." "Yes, I do," observed the man's quiet voice from out of the
flames.
I saw the first notice which was given of this in the St. Louis
newspapers. The paragraph briefly related that a ruffian of colour had
murdered a citizen, had been demanded by the indignant fellow-citizens
of the murdered man, and burned in the neighbourhood of the city; that
this unjustifiable act was to be regretted, but that it was hoped that
the veil of oblivion would be drawn over the deed. Some of the most
respectable of the citizens were in despair when they found that the
newspapers of the Union generally were disposed to grant the last
request; and it is plain that, on the spot, no one dared to speak out
about the act. The charge of Judge Lawless (his real name) to the grand
jury is a sufficient commentary upon the state of St. Louis society. He
told the jury that a bad and lamentable deed had been committed in
burning a man alive without trial, but that it was quite another
question whether they were to take any notice of it. If it should be
proved to be the act of the few, every one of those few ought
undoubtedly to be indicted and punished; but if it should be proved to
be the act of the many, incited by that electric and metaphysical
influence which occasionally carries on a multitude to do deeds above
and beyond the law, it was no affair for a jury to interfere in. He
spoke of Mackintosh as connected with the body of abolitionists. Of
course, the affair was found to be electric and metaphysical, and all
proceedings were dropped.
All proceedings in favour of law and order; others of an opposite
character were vigorously instituted by magistrates, in defiance of some
of those clauses of the constitution which I have quoted above. The
magistrates of St. Louis prosecuted a domiciliary inquisition into the
periodical publications of the city, visiting the newspaper offices,
prying and threatening, and offering rewards for the discovery of any
probability that the institution of slavery would be spoken against in
print. In the face of the law, the press was rigidly controlled.
Information was given, while the city was in this excited state, of
every indication of favour to the coloured people, and of disapprobation
of slavery; and the savages of St. Louis were on the alert to inflict
vengeance. In Marion College, Palmyra (Missouri), two students were
undoubtedly guilty of teaching two coloured boys to read. These boys
were carried by them to the college for service, the one being employed
on the farm, and the other in the college, to clean shoes and wait on
the young men. One afternoon a large number of citizens from St. Louis,
well mounted, appeared on the Palmyra road, and they made no secret of
their intention to Lynch the two students who taught their servants to
read. The venerable Dr. Nelson, who was, I believe, at the head of the
institution, came out of his house to implore the mob with tears not to
proceed, and the ladies of his family threw themselves down in the road
in the way of the horses. The way was forcibly cleared, and the
persecutors proceeded. The young men came forth as soon as summoned.
They were conducted to the edge of the forest where it opens upon a
prairie. There a circle was formed, and they were told that they stood
in a Lynch court.
The younger one was first set in the midst. He acknowledged the act with
which he was charged. He was offered the alternative of receiving twenty
lashes with the horrid cowhide (which was shown him), or of immediately
leaving the state for ever. He engaged to leave the state for ever, and
was set across the river into Illinois.
The elder student made his trial a longer one. He acknowledged the act
of teaching his servant to read, and made himself heard while he
defended it. He pleaded that he was a citizen of Missouri, being of age,
and having exercised the suffrage at the last election. He demanded a
fair trial in a court of law, and pledged himself to meet any accusation
there. At last it came to their binding him to a tree, and offering him
the choice of two hundred lashes with the cowhide, or of promising to
leave the state, and never to return to it. He knew that a sentence of
two hundred lashes meant death by torture (it is so understood in Lynch
courts), and he knew that a promise thus extorted was not binding; so he
promised. He was also set across the river, where he immediately
published a narrative of the whole transaction, and declared his
intention of returning to his state, to resume the duties and privileges
of citizenship, as soon as he could be personally safe.
The St. Louis Lynchers next ordered the heads of Marion College to hold
a public meeting, and declare their convictions and feelings on the
subject of slavery. They were obeyed, and they put pretty close
questions to the professors, especially to Dr. Ely, who was a suspected
man.
Dr. Ely came from one of the Eastern states, and was considered by the
abolitionists of his own religious persuasion to be one of their body.
Some time after he went into Missouri, it appeared incidentally in some
newspaper communications that he had bought a slave. His friends at the
East resented the imputation, and were earnest in his vindication; but
were presently stopped and thrown into amazement by his coming out with
an acknowledgment and defence of the act. He thought that the way in
which he could do most good was by purchasing negroes for purposes of
enlightenment. So he bought his man Abraham, designing to enlighten him
for nine years, and then set him free, employing the proceeds of his
nine years' labour in purchasing two other slaves, to be enlightened and
robbed in the same manner, for the purpose of purchasing four more at
the expiration of another series of years, and so on. It seems
astonishing that a clergyman should thus deliberately propose to confer
his charities through the medium of the grossest injustice: but so it
was. When, at the enforced meeting, he was questioned by the Lynchers as
to his principles, he declared himself opposed to the unchristian
fanaticism of abolitionism; spurned the imputation of being one of the
body, and, in proof of his sincerity, declared himself to be the master
of one slave, and to be already contracting for more.
The Lynchers returned to St. Louis without having committed murder. They
had triumphantly broken the laws, and trodden under foot their
constitution of sixteen years old. If it could be made known at what
expense they were saved from bloodshed; if it could be revealed what
violence they offered to conscience, what feelings they lacerated, what
convictions they stifled, what passions they kindled, what an undying
worm they fixed at the core of many a heart, at the root of many a life,
it might have been clear to all eyes that the halter and the cowhide
would have been mercy in comparison with the tortures with which they
strewed their way.
I have told enough to show what comes of compromise. There is no need to
lengthen out my story of persecutions. I will just mention that the last
news from Missouri that I saw was in the form of an account of the
proceedings of its legislature, but which yet seems to me incredible. It
is stated to have been enacted that any person of any complexion, coming
into or found in the State of Missouri, who shall be proved to have
spoken, written, or printed a word in disapprobation of slavery or in
favour of abolition, shall be sold into slavery for the benefit of the
state. If, in the fury of the moment, such a law should really have been
passed, it must speedily be repealed. The general expectation is that
slavery itself will soon be abolished in Missouri, as it is found to be
unprofitable and perilous, and a serious drawback to the prosperity of
the region.
What a lesson is meantime afforded as to the results of compromise!
Missouri might now have been a peaceful and orderly region, inhabited by
settlers as creditable to their country as those of the neighbouring
free states, instead of being a nest of vagabond slavedealers, rapacious
slavedrivers, and ferocious rioters. If the inhabitants think it hard
that all should be included in a censure which only some have deserved,
they must bestir themselves to show in their legislature, and by their
improved social order, that the majority are more respectable than they
have yet shown themselves to be. At present it seems as if one who might
have been a prophet preaching in the wilderness had preferred the
profession of a bandit of the desert. But it should never be forgotten
whence came the power to inflict injury, by a permission being given
where there should have been a prohibition. Whatever danger there ever
was to the Union from difference of opinion on the subject of the
compromise is now increased. The battle has still to be fought at a
greater disadvantage than when a bad deed was done to avert it.
CINCINNATI.
"'Sir,' said the custom-house officer at Leghorn, 'your papers are
forged! there is no such place in the world! your vessel must be
confiscated!' The trembling captain laid before the officer a map
of the United States; directed him to the Gulf of Mexico, pointing
out the mouth of the Mississippi; led him 1000 miles up it to the
mouth of the Ohio, and thence another 1000 to Pittsburg. 'There,
sir, is the port whence my vessel cleared out.' The astonished
officer, before he saw the map, would as soon have believed that
this ship had been navigated from the moon."
--CLAY'S _Speeches_.
We reached Cincinnati by descending the Ohio from Maysville, Kentucky,
whence we took passage in the first boat going down to the great City of
the West. It happened to be an inferior boat; but, as we were not to
spend a night on board, this was of little consequence. We were summoned
by the bell of the steamer at 9 A.M., but did not set off till past
noon. The cause of the delay forbade all complaint, though we found our
station in the sun, and out of any breeze that might be stirring,
oppressively hot, in the hottest part of a midsummer day. The captain
had sent nine miles into the country for his mother, whom he was going
to convey to a place down the river, where her other son was lying sick
of the cholera. At noon the wagon with the old lady and her packages
appeared. We were prepared to view her situation with the kindest
feelings, but our pity scarcely survived the attempts she made to ensure
it. I suppose the emotions of different minds must always have different
modes of expression, but I could comprehend nothing of such a case as
this. While there were apartments on board where the afflicted mother
might have indulged her feelings in privacy, it was disagreeable to see
the parade of hartshorn and water, and exclamations and sensibilities,
in the presence of a company of entire strangers. Her son and a
kind-hearted stewardess were very attentive to her, and it was much to
be wished that she had been satisfied with their assiduities.