THE TENURE.
"One part, one little part, we dimly scan
Through the dark medium of life's fevering dream;
Yet dare arraign the whole stupendous plan
If but that little part incongruous seem;
Nor is that part, perhaps, what mortals deem;
Oft from apparent ill our blessings rise."--BEATTIE, _Minstrel_.
Mr. North then said, "Let us change the subject a little. Please to tell
us why, in your view, any slave who is so disposed may not run away.
Would you not do so, if you were a slave, and were oppressed, or thought
that you could mend your condition? Where did my master get his right
and title to me? God did not institute American slavery as he did
slavery among the Hebrews. If I were a slave to certain masters, South
or North, I should probably run away at all hazards. I should not stop
to debate the morality of the act. No human being would, in his heart
blame me. It would be human nature, resisting under the infliction of
pain. We catch hold of a dentist's hand when he is drawing a tooth.
Perhaps there may be found some moral law against doing so!"
"But we are apt," said I, "to take these exceptional cases, and make a
rule that includes them and all others. I have been present when
intelligent gentlemen, Northerners and Southerners, have discussed this
subject in the most friendly manner, though with great earnestness. Once
I remember we spent an evening discussing the subject. I will, if you
please, tell you about the conversation.
"I must take you, then, to an old mansion at the South, around which,
and at such a distance from each other as to reveal a fine prospect,
stood a growth of noble elms, a lawn spreading itself out before the
house, and the large hall, or entry, serving for a tea-room, where seven
or eight gentlemen, and as many ladies were assembled.
"A Southern physician, who had no slaves, took the ground that all the
slaves had a right to walk off whenever they pleased. He did not see why
we should hold them in bondage rather than they us, so far as right and
justice were concerned. Some of the slave-holders were evidently much
troubled in their thoughts, and did not speak strongly. My own feelings
at first went with the physician and with his arguments; but I saw that
he was not very clear, nor deep, and his friends who partly yielded to
him, seemed to do so rather under the influence of conscientious
feelings, than from any very well defined principles. This is the case
with not a few at the South, and it was very common in Thomas
Jefferson's days. But the large majority, who were of the contrary
opinion, got the advantage in the argument, and it seemed to me went far
toward convincing the physician, as they did me, that he was wrong.
"The company all seemed to look toward a judge who was present, to open
the discussion with a statement of his views. He did so by saying, for
substance, as follows:--
"'I will take it for granted,' said he, 'that we are agreed as to the
unlawfulness of the slave-trade, past and present. We find the blacks
here, as we come upon the stage. We are born into this relationship. It
is an existing form of government in the Slave States.
"'Ownership in man is not contrary to the will of God. I also find it
written that "Canaan shall be a servant." Hear these words of
inspiration: "Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto
his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan
shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in
the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant." As the Japhetic
race is to dwell in the tents of Shem, for example, England occupying
India, so I believe the black race is under the divine sentence of
servitude. Moreover, being perfectly convinced of the wrongfulness and
the infinite mischief to all concerned of the forcible liberation of our
slaves, I am assisted in settling, in my own mind, the question as to me
right of individual slaves to escape from service, and our right to
continue in this relationship, conforming ourselves in it always to the
golden rule.
"'If it be the right of one, under ordinary circumstances, to depart, it
is the right of all. But the government under which they live, in this
commonwealth, recognizes slavery. The constitution and the general
government protect us in maintaining it. The right of our servants to
leave us at pleasure, which could not of course be done without
violence, on both sides, implies the right of insurrection. It is
impossible to define the cases in which insurrection is justifiable, but
the general rule is that it is wrong. Government is a divine ordinance;
men cannot capriciously overthrow or change it, at every turn of affairs
which proves burdensome or even oppressive. God is jealous to maintain
human government as an important element in his own administration. Men
justly in authority, or established in it by time, or by consent, or by
necessity, or by expediency, may properly feel that they are God's
vicegerents. He is on their side; a parent, a teacher, a commander,--in
short, he who rules, is, as it were, dispensing a law of the divine
government, as truly as though he directed a force in nature. Hence, to
disturb existing government is, in the sight of God, a heinous offence,
unless circumstances plainly justify a revolution; otherwise, one might
as well think to interfere with impunity and change the equinoxes, or
the laws of refraction. It is well to consider what forms of government,
and what forms of oppression under them, existed, when that divine word
was written: "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For
there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.
Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God;
and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation." This was
written in view of the throne of the Caesars.
"'But it is very clear that when a people are in a condition to
establish and maintain another form of government, there is no sin in
their turning themselves into a new condition. In doing so, government,
God's ordinance, evolves itself under a new form, and provided it is,
really, government, and not anarchy, no sin may have been committed by
the insurrection, or revolution, as an act. The result proved that
government still existed, potentially, and was only changing its shape
and adapting itself to the circumstances of the people. If a man or body
of men assert that things among them are ready for such new evolutions,
and so undertake to bring them about, they do it at their peril, and
failing, they are indictable for treason; they may be true patriots,
they may be conscientious men; the sympathies of many good people may be
with them, but they have sinned against the great law which protects
mankind from anarchy.
"'To apply this,' said the Judge, 'to our subject,--When the time comes
that the blacks can truly say, "We are now your equals in all that is
necessary to constitute a civil state, and we propose to take the
government of this part of the country into our hands," we should still
make several objections, which would be valid. The Constitutions of the
States and of the United States must be changed before that can be done,
and we will presume that this would involve a revolution. Moreover, this
country belongs to the Anglo-Saxon race, with which foreigners of
kindred stocks have intermingled, and they and we object to the presence
of a black race as possessors of some of the states of the Union, even
if it were constitutional. We do not propose to abandon our right and
title to the soil, without a civil war, which would probably result in
the extermination of one or the other party. If you are able to leave us
at pleasure, the proper way will be to do it peaceably, and on just
principles, to be agreed upon between us.
"'No such exigency as this,' said the Judge, 'is possible. It would be
prevented or anticipated, and relief would be obtained while the
necessity was on the increase and before it reached a solemn crisis.
"'One of three ways will, in my opinion,' said he, 'bring a solution to
this problem of slavery.
"'One is, the insurrection of the slaves, the massacre of the whites,
and the forcible seizure and possession of power by the blacks
throughout the South. This would be a scene such as the earth has never
witnessed. I have no fear that it can ever happen. But,' said he,
addressing me, 'I presume that I know, Sir, how your people in the Free
States, to a very considerable extent, think on this point. I will
speak, by-and-by, of the other two ways in which slavery may find its
great result. One, I say, is, by insurrection and then the extermination
of the black race; for that would surely follow their temporary success
if I can trust my apprehensions of the subject.'
"'Please, sir,' said I, 'let me hear what you think is 'very
considerably' the sentiment at the North on this subject of
insurrection.'
"'I presume sir,' said he, 'if the slaves should, some night, take
possession of us, and demand a universal manumission, and we should
refuse, and fire and sword and pillage and all manner of violence should
ensue, and our persons and property should be at their will, vast
multitudes of your people, including clergymen, would exclaim that the
day of God's righteous vengeance had come, and they would say, Amen.'
"'So we interpret Thomas Jefferson's idea,' said I.
"'I think, Sir,' said he, 'that very many reasonable people of the North
are of opinion that all the attributes of God are against any such
procedure.
"'In the large sense in which nations speak to each other when they are
asserting their rights, there is no objection to the first clause in the
Declaration of Independence; but when you come to the people of a state,
and one portion of that people rise and assert their right to break up
the constitution of things under which they live, there is no more
pertinency in that clause in the Declaration than there would be in
giving us the reason for a revolution that all men are not far from five
or six feet high. What they say may be true in the abstract, but it
does not prove that men, having come into a state of society,
involuntarily, if you please, have all the freedom and equality which
they would have, if they were each an independent savage in the
wilderness. Society is God's ordinance, not a compact. We have, all of
us, lost some of our freedom and equality in the social state; now how
far is it right that the blacks, being here, no matter how or why,
should lose some of theirs? and how far is it right that we should take
and keep some of it from them, whether for the good of all concerned, or
for the good of ourselves, their civil superiors?--whose welfare, it may
be observed, will continually affect theirs.'
"The Judge said that he believed that God had, in his mysterious
providence, and of his sovereign pleasure, making use of the cupidity of
white men, placed these blacks here in connection with us for their good
as a race, and for the welfare of the world. He said that his mind could
feel no peace on the subject of slavery, unless he viewed it in this
light. In connection with the great industrial and commercial interests
of our globe, and as an indispensable element in the supply of human
wants, this abject race had been transported from their savage life in
Africa, and had been made immensely useful to the whole civilized world.
'We agree, as I have said,' he continued, 'as to the immorality of those
who brought them here; but he is not fit to reason on this subject,
being destitute of all proper notions with regard to divine providence,
who does not see in the results of slavery, both as to the civilized
world and to negroes themselves, a wise, benevolent, and an Almighty
Hand. Here my mind gets relief in contemplating this subject, not in
abstract reasoning, not in logical premises and deductions, but by
resting in Providence. There are mysteries in it,--as truly so as in the
human apostasy, origin of evil, permission of sin, which confound my
reasonings as to the benevolence of God; in which, however, I,
nevertheless, maintain my firm belief. Here was the great defect in Mr.
Jefferson's views of slavery. In the highest Christian sense, he was not
qualified to understand this subject; he reasoned like one who did not
take into view the providence and the purposes of God, even while he was
saying what he did of there being "no attribute in the Almighty that
would take part with us" in favor of slavery. Standing as I do by this
providential view of the great subject, the assailants of slavery at the
North seem to me, some of them, almost insane, and others, even
ministers of the Gospel, shall I say it? more than unchristian;--there
is a sort of blind, wild, French Jacobinical atheism in their feeling
and behavior; while as to the rest, good people, they are misled by what
Mr. Webster, in one of his speeches in the Senate, called "the constant
rub-a-dub of the press,"--"no drum-head," he says, "in the longest day's
march, having been more incessantly beaten than the feeling of the
public in certain parts of the North." I cannot reason with these men,'
continued the Judge, 'for I confess, at once, that I cannot demonstrate,
either by logic or by mathematics, a modern quitclaim or warranty in
holding slaves. In combating their illogical and unscriptural positions,
I seem to them to be an advocate of the divine right of
oppression,--which I am not. That it is best, however, and that it is
right, for this relation to continue until God shall manifest some
purpose to terminate it consistently with the good of all concerned, I
am perfectly convinced and satisfied. I believe that it has reference
to the great plan of mercy toward our world, and that when the object is
accomplished, the providence of God will, in some way, make it known. It
may be the case, no candid man and believer in revelation and divine
providence will deny it to be possible, that this dispensation with
regard to this colored race will continue for long ages to come, in the
form of bondage. That they are now under a curse, and have been so for
centuries, is apparent. When the curse is to be repealed, God only
knows. I like to cherish the idea that some development is to be made of
immense sources of wealth in Africa, that we have an embryo nation in
the midst of us, whom God has been educating for a great enterprise on
that continent, and when, like California and Australia, the voice of
the Lord shall shake the wilderness of Africa, and open its doors, it
may appear that American slavery has been the school in which God has
been preparing a people to take it into their possession.
"'EMIGRATION, then,' said he, 'is the second of the three ways in which
this problem of slavery may have its solution.
"'In preparation for this, I say, God may keep these Africans here much
longer. He may need more territory on which to educate still larger
numbers; and we may see Him extending slavery still further in our land
and on our continent. So that there may be one other way in which the
purposes of God will manifest themselves with regard to the colored race
here, and that is by EXTENSION.
"'It may be that still greater portions of this land and continent are
to be used, for ages to come, in the multiplication of the black race. I
feel entirely calm with regard to the subject, believing that God has a
plan in all this, and that it is wise and benevolent toward all who fear
Him. While our relation to this people remains, the law of love, the
golden rule, must preside over it. That does not require us to place the
blacks on a level with us in our parlors, nor in our halls of
legislation; and there may be disabilities properly attaching to them
which, though they seem hard, are the inevitable consequence of a
dependent, inferior condition. All this, however, has a benign effect
upon us, if we will but act in a Christian manner, to make us gentle,
kind, generous; and when this is the case, no state of society is
happier than ours. Let Jacobinical principles, such as some of our
Northern brethren inculcate, prevail here, and they at once destroy this
benevolent relation. This relation will improve under the influence of
the Gospel; it has wonderfully improved since Jefferson's day; and
though the time may be long deferred, we shall no doubt see this colored
race fulfilling some great purpose in the earth. I trust that our
Northern friends will not precipitate things and destroy both whites and
blacks; for a servile war would be one of extermination. Many of the
Northern people I fear would acquiesce in it, provided especially, that
we should be the exterminated party. This is clear, if words and actions
are to be fairly interpreted.'
"'The colored people here, as a race,' said a planter, 'are under
obligations to us as partakers in our civilization. No matter, for the
present, how their ancestors came here;--that does not at all affect
their present obligations to us for benefits received. Now it is not a
matter of course that, having been thus benefited by us, they are at
liberty to go away when they please. This we assert respecting them as a
whole. Are not the blacks, as a race, so indebted to us that we ought
to be consulted as to the time and manner of their departure? We say
that they are. They do not morally possess the right, we think, to sever
the relation when they please.'
"Said an elderly, venerable man, 'A white woman in the cars, in
Pennsylvania, begged me to hold her infant child for her, while she
fetched something for it. She ran off, leaving the child to me. My wife
and I took the child home, and have been at pains and expense with it. I
question the child's right to say, whenever it pleases, Sir, I propose
to leave you. I have invested a good deal in him, have increased his
value by his being with me, and he has no right to run off with it.'
"'But,' said the physician, 'how long should you feel that you have a
right to his services?'
"'I will answer that,' said the gentleman, 'if you will say whether my
general principle be correct. Have I, or have I not acquired just what
all intelligent slave-holders call "property" in that youth, that is, a
right to his services,--not dominion over his soul, nor a right to abuse
him, nor in any way to injure him, but to use his services. Have I not
acquired that right?'
"'I think you have,' said the physician, 'but with certain limitations.'
"'The limitations,' said Mr. W., 'certainly are not the wishes, nor
caprices, nor the inclinations, of the boy;--do you think so?'
"'I agree with you,' said he.
"'That is all I contend for,' said Mr. W.
"'But,' said the physician, 'where is your title-deed from your Maker to
own these fellow-creatures? Trace their history back, and they are here
by fraud and violence.'
"'Thank you, Sir,' said Mr. W., 'that is just the case with my Penn. I
came into possession of him through fraud and violence! I did not sin
when he was thrown upon my hands; though I confess I said, he was--what
we call slavery--an incubus. My right and title to the boy I have never
been able to discover in any handwriting; the mother, surely, had no
right to impose the child upon me; Providence, however, placed it in my
hand. I might have given it immediate emancipation through the window,
or at the next stopping place; or, I might have left the child on its
mother's vacant seat, declining the trust; but I felt disposed to do as
I have done.'
"'Now,' said the physician, 'will you please tell me, Sir, how long you
feel at liberty to possess this boy as a satisfaction to you for your
pains and expense?'
"'In the first place,' said Mr. W., 'I have a right to transfer my
guardianship over him to another, if circumstances make it necessary. In
doing so, I must be governed not by selfish motives, but by a benevolent
regard to his welfare, allowing that he is not unreasonable and wicked.
If when he comes of lawful age, he is judged to be still in need of
guardianship, or it is expedient for the good of all concerned that he
should be my ward indefinitely, the law makes me, if I choose, his
guardian, with certain rights and obligations. Even if he could legally
claim his freedom at his majority, circumstances might be such that all
would say he was under moral obligations to remain with me. If I abuse
him, he must consider before God how far it is his duty to bear
affliction, and submit to oppression. There are cases in which none
would condemn him, should he escape. But the rule is to "abide." He has
not, under all the circumstances of our relation to each other, a right
to walk off at pleasure.'
"The company agreed in this, though the physician made no remark. We
conversed further on the antipathy of the Free States to a large
increase among them of the colored population, ungrateful and perfidious
Kansas, even, withholding civil and political equality from them; their
condition in Canada; their relation to the whites in every state where
they have gone to reside; and we concluded that the South was the best
home for the black man,--that home to become better and better in
proportion as the law of Christian benevolence prevailed. We agreed that
if the South could be relieved of Northern interference, the condition
of the colored people would be greatly improved, in many respects;
especially, we regretted that now we did not have an enlightened public
sentiment at the North to help the best part of the Southern people in
effecting reformations and improving the laws and regulations. Now, the
Northern influence is wholly nugatory, or positively adverse. The
opinions and feelings of calm and candid neighbors and friends have
great influence. This the South does not enjoy. The North is her
passionate reprover; she is held to be, by many, her avowed enemy. In
resistance, and in retaliation, compromises are broken, and every
political advantage is grasped at in self-defence, by the South.
Recrimination ensues, and civil war is threatened. The only remedy is
the entire abandonment by the North of interference with this subject;
but this cannot take place so long as the Northern people labor under
their doctrinal error that it is a sin to hold property in man. Here is
the root of the difficulty. We agreed that if reflecting people at the
North would adopt Scriptural views on that point, peace would soon
ensue; for all the discussions of the supposed or real evils in
slavery, which would then be the sole objects of animadversion, would
elicit truth, and tend to good. If the South felt that the North were
truly her friend, they would both be found cooperating for the
improvement and elevation of the colored race. Every form of oppression
and selfishness would feel the withering rebuke of a just and
enlightened universal public sentiment. But now that the quarrel runs
high as to the sinfulness and wrongfulness of the relation itself, there
is nothing for the South to do but to stand by their arms.
"One gentleman made some remarks which interested and instructed me more
than anything that was said. He confessed that the whole subject of the
relation of master and servant,--in a word, slavery, was, for a long
time, a sore trouble to him, because he constantly found himself
searching for his right, his warrant to hold his slaves. At last he
resolved to study the Bible on the subject. He naturally turned to the
last instructions of the Word of God with regard to it, and in Paul's
injunctions to masters and servants, he found relief. There he perceived
that God recognized the relationships of slavery, that the golden rule
was enjoined, not to dissolve the relation, but to make it benevolent to
all concerned. He found the Almighty establishing the relation of master
and servant among his own chosen people, and decreeing that certain
persons might be servants forever, being, as he himself terms them 'an
inheritance forever.'
"Hereupon, he said, his troubles ceased. He gave up his speculations and
casuistry, and concluded to take things as he found them and to make
them better. He became more than ever the friend and patron of his
servants, rendered to them, to the best of his ability that which was
just and equal, felt in buying servants and in having them born in his
household, somewhat as pastors of churches, he supposed, feel in
receiving new members to be trained up for usefulness, here, and for
heaven. He said that he had a hundred and seventy-five servants, and
that he doubted whether there was a happier, or more virtuous, or more
religious community anywhere.
"'But,' said the young Northern lady, who had recently come to be a
teacher in the family where we visited, 'what will become of them when
you die?'
"'Why, Miss,' said he, 'what will become of any household when the
parents die? The truth is,' said he, 'I believe in a covenant-keeping
God. I make a practice of praying for my servants, by name. I keep a
list of them, and I read it, sometimes, when I read my Bible, and on the
Sabbath, and on days set apart for religious services. I have asked God
to be the God of my servants forever. I shall meet them at the bar of
God, and I trust with a good conscience. Many of them have become
Christians.'
"'Do you ever sell them?' said she.
"'I have parted with some of my servants to families,' he replied,
'where I knew that they would fare as well as with me. This was always
with their consent, except in two or three cases of inveterate
wickedness, when, instead of sending the fellows to the state-prison for
life, as you would do at the North, I sold them to go to Red River, and
was as willing to see them marched off, handcuffed, as you ever were to
see villains in the custody of the officers. But had any of your good
people from the North met them, an article would have appeared, perhaps,
in all your papers, telling of the heart-rending spectacle,--three human
beings, in a slave-coffle! going, they knew not where, into hopeless
bondage! And had they escaped and fled to Boston, the tide of
philanthropy there, in many benevolent bosoms, would have received new
strength in the grateful accession of these worshipful fugitives from
Southern cruelty. Whereas, all which love and kindness, and every form
of indulgence, instruction, and discipline, tempered with mercy, could
do, had been used with them in vain. One was a thief, the pest of the
county, and had earned long years in a penitentiary; but slavery, you
see, kept him at liberty! Another was brutally cruel to animals; another
was the impersonation of laziness. Two of them would have helped John
Brown, no doubt, had he come here, and they might have gained a Bunker
Hill name, at the North, in an insurrection here, as champions of
liberty.'
"This led to some remarks about the great economy which there is in the
Southern mode of administering discipline and correction on the spot,
and at once, instead of filling jails and houses of correction with
felons. But to dwell on this would lead me too far into a new branch of
our subject.
"This planter asked the young lady, the school-teacher, if tare and tret
were in her arithmetic? Upon her saying 'yes, in the older books,' he
told her that there was, seemingly, a good deal of tare and tret in
God's providence, when accomplishing his great purposes; and that to fix
the mind inordinately on evils and miseries incident to a great system
and forgetting the main design, was like a man of business being so
absorbed by the deductions and waste in a great staple as to forego the
trade. He said that he thought the Northern mind ciphered too much in
that part of moral arithmetic as to slavery.
"A very excellent gentleman from the District of Columbia who had held
an important office under government, gave us some valuable information.
He said that the extinction of slavery in New England was not because
the institution was deemed to be immoral or sinful, but from other
considerations and circumstances. It was abolished in Massachusetts,
without doubt, by a clause, in the bill of rights, copied from the
Declaration of Independence. In Berkshire, one township, he believed,
sued another for the support and maintenance of a pauper slave, and the
Supreme Court decided that the bill of rights abolished slavery. The
question was as incidental, he said, as was the question in the Dred
Scott case which the United States Supreme Court decided. This
Massachusetts case was previous to any reports of decisions, and he had
some doubt as to the form in which the suit was brought, but was sure as
to the decision. The question as to abolishing slavery was not submitted
to the people, nor to a Convention, nor to the Legislature.
"I was specially interested in his account of the way in which the
slave-trade was prohibited by our excellent sister, Connecticut. It was
done by a section prohibiting the importation of slaves by sea or land,
preceded by the following preamble:--'And whereas the increase of slaves
in this state is injurious to the poor, and inconvenient, Be it
therefore enacted.' Another section of the same statute, he said, was
preceded by the following words:--'And whereas sound policy requires
that the abolition of slavery should be effected, as soon as may be
consistent with the rights of individuals, and the public safety and
welfare, Be it enacted,' etc. Then follows the provision that all black
and mulatto children, born in slavery, in that state, after the first of
March, 1784, shall be free at twenty-five years of age. Selling slaves,
to be carried out of the state, was not prohibited before May, 1792;
thus allowing more than eight years to the owners of slaves in
Connecticut to sell their slaves to Southern purchasers! 'There seems to
me,' he said, 'no evidence of superior humanity in this; nor was it
repentance for slavery as a sin.' He thought that if we feel compelled,
by our superior conscientiousness, to require any duty of the South, all
that decency will allow us to demand is, that she tread in our steps.
"'I think,' said a planter, 'that if pity is due from one to the other,
the South owes the larger debt to the North. There needs to be a great
reformation, namely, The Gradual Emancipation of the Northern Mind from
"Anti-slavery" Error.'
"'Our English friends, in their zeal against American slavery,' said a
young lawyer, 'seem to forget that the English government, at the Peace
of Utrecht, agreed to furnish Spain with four thousand negroes annually
for thirty years.'
"'Poor human nature!' said the Judge. 'What should we all do, if we had
not the sins of others to repent of and bewail?'
"There was a strong friend of temperance in the company from a
north-western state. Travelling in the South for pleasure, some time
ago, he was immediately struck with the comparative absence of
intemperance among the slaves. On learning that the laws forbid the sale
of intoxicating drink to them, and thinking of four millions of people
in this land as delivered, in a great degree, from the curse of
drunkenness, he says that he exclaimed: 'Pretty well for the "sum of all
villanies." The class of people in the United States best defended
against drunkenness are the slaves!' Some admonished him that the
slaves did get liquor, and that white men ventured to tempt them. 'I
don't care for that,' said he; 'of course, there are exceptions; the
"sum of all villanies" is a Temperance Society!'
"A Northern gentleman, travelling through the South, said, 'As to the
feelings of the North respecting a possible insurrection, I am
satisfied, since visiting in different parts of the South, that a very
common apprehension with us, respecting your liability to trouble from
this source, is exaggerated by fancy.
"'We have a theoretical idea that you must be dwelling, as we commonly
hear it said, with a volcano under your feet. Very many regard your
slaves as a race of noble spirits, conscious of wrong, and burning with
suppressed indignation, which is ready to break out at every chance.
They think of you at the North as having guns and pistols and spears all
about you, ready for use at any moment. But when I spend a night at your
plantations, the owner and I the only white males, the wife and seven or
eight young children having us for their only defenders against the
seventy or hundred blacks, who are all about us in the quarters, the
idea of danger has really never occurred to me; because my knowledge of
the people has previously disarmed me of fear.'
"'Emissaries, white and black,' said a planter, 'can, make us trouble;
but my belief is that we could live here to the end of time with these
colored people, and be subject to fewer cases of insubordination by far
than your corporations at the North suffer from in strikes. Your people,
generally, have no proper idea of the black man's nature. God seems to
have given him docility and gentleness, that he may be a slave till the
time comes for him to be something else. So He has given the Jews their
peculiarities, fitting them for His purposes with regard to them; and to
the Irish laborer He has given his willingness and strength to dig,
making him the builder of your railways. If we fulfil our trust, with
regard to the blacks, according to the spirit and rules of the New
Testament, I believe God will be our defender, and that all his
attributes will be employed to maintain our authority over this people
for his own great purposes. We have nothing to fear except from white
fanatics, North and South.'
"'I have no idea,' said the Judge, 'of dooming every individual of this
colored race to unalterable servitude. I am in favor of putting them in
the way of developing any talent which any of them, from time to time,
may exhibit. More of this, I am sure, would be done by us, if we were
freed from the necessity of defending ourselves against Northern
assaults upon our social system, involving, as these assaults do, peril
to life, and to things dearer than life. But I see tenfold greater evils
in all the plans of emancipation which have ever been proposed than in
the present state of things.'
"The pastor of the place, who was present, had not taken much part in
the discussion, though he had not purposely kept aloof from it. He was
Southern born, inherited slaves, had given them their liberty one by
one, and had recently returned from the North, where he had been to see
two of them--the last of his household--embark as hired servants with
families who were to travel in Europe.
"Some of us asked him about his visit to the North. Said he, 'I went to
church one day, and was enjoying the devotional services, when all at
once the minister broke out in prayer for the abolition of slavery. He
presented the South before God as "oppressors," and prayed that they
might at once repent, and "break every yoke," and "let the oppressed go
free." I took him to be an immediate emancipationist, perhaps peculiar
in his views. But in the afternoon I went into another church, and in
prayer the minister began to pray "for all classes and conditions of men
among us." I was glad to see, as I thought, charity beginning at home.
But the next sentence took in our whole land; and the next was a
downright swoop upon slavery; so that I regarded his previous petitions
merely as spiral movements toward the South. If the good man's petitions
had been heard, woe to him and to the North, and to the slaves, to say
nothing of ourselves.
"'I stopped after service, and, without at first introducing myself, I
asked him if he was in the habit of praying, as he had done to-day, for
slave-holders. He said yes. I asked him if it was a general practice at
the North. He thought it was. I inquired if he would have every slave
liberated to-morrow, if he could effect it. "By all means," said
he.--"Would they be better off?" said I.--"Undoubtedly they would," said
he. "But that is not the question. Do right, if the heavens
fall."--"What would become of them?" said I.--"Hire them," said he; "pay
them wages; let husbands and wives live together; abolish
auction-blocks, and"--"But," said I, "some of the very best of men in
the world, at the South, are decidedly of the opinion that such
emancipation would be the most barbarous thing that could be devised for
the slaves."--"Are you a slave-holder?" said he.--"I was," said I; "but
I have liberated my slaves, and I am in your city to see the last two of
my servants sail with your fellow-citizens ---- and ----" (naming
them).--"You don't say so!" said he. "What did you liberate them
for?"--"I could not take proper care of them," said I, "situated as I
am."--"But," said he, "did you do right in letting them go to sea as you
did? One of them will get no good with that man for a master. I would
rather be your dog than his child."--"Then," said I, "you have
'oppressors' at the North, it seems."--"Well," said he, "some of our
people are not as good as they ought to be."--"It is so with us at the
South," said I.--"Preach for me next Sabbath, Sir," said he.--"Are you
going to stay over?"--"Why," said I, "my dear Sir, would you and your
people like to hear a man preach for you whom you, if you made the
prayer, would first pray for as an 'oppressor?'"--"But you are not an
oppressor," said he.--"But I am in favor of what you call 'oppression,'"
said I.--"One thing I could pray for with you," said I.--"What is that?"
said he.--"Break every yoke," said I. "This I pray for always. But how
many 'yokes,'" said I, "do you suppose there are at the South?"--"I
forget the exact number of the slaves," said he, in the most artless
manner.'
"Hereupon the company broke out into great merriment. After they had
enjoyed their laughter awhile, my Northern lady-friend said, 'Did you
preach for him?'
"'Yes,' said the pastor; 'and prayed for him too.
"'Walking through the streets of that place in the evening, I saw
evidence that no minister nor citizen there was justified in casting the
first stone at the South for immorality. I lifted up my heart in thanks
to God that my sons were not exposed to the temptations of a Northern
city. Being in the United States District Court there, several times, I
had some revelations also with regard to the treatment and the condition
of seamen in some Northern ships, which led me to the conclusion which
I have often drawn,--that poor human nature is about the same, North and
South.
"'So, when I conducted the services of public worship, I prayed for that
city and for the young people, and alluded to the temptations which I
had witnessed; and I referred also to mariners, and prayed for masters
and officers of vessels who had such authority over the welfare and the
lives of seamen; and I prayed that Christians in both sections of our
land might pray for each other, considering each themselves, lest they
also be tempted, and that they might not be self-righteous and
accusatory; and that our eye might not be so filled with the evils of
other sections of the land as not to see those which were at home.
"'After service the good brother said, "I suppose you referred in your
prayer to my praying against the South, as you call it. Well," said he,
confidentially, "the truth is, some of our people make this thing their
religion, and they will not abide a man who does not pray against
slavery." Some gentlemen, with their ladies, stopped to speak with me.
One shook me by the hand most cordially. "We are glad to see our good
Southern brethren," said he; "thankful to hear you preach so, and pray
so, too," said he, with an additional shake and a significant look,
while the rest were equally cordial with their assent. One of the
gentlemen took me home with him. "This is most of it politics," said he,
"and newspaper trade, this anti-slavery feeling. The people generally
are not fanatics; they are kind and humane, and their sensibilities are
touched by tales of distress."--"Especially Southern," said I. "Last eve
I read in your papers four outrages which happened within fifteen miles
of this city, and two in your city, which equalled, to say the least,
in barbarity anything that ever comes to my knowledge among our people."
"'The next Sabbath, as I have since learned, my good brother was very
comprehensive, discriminating, and impartial in his supplications. He
really distinguished between those at the South who "oppress" their
fellow-men, and those who "remember them that are in bonds as bound with
them." But,' said the pastor, 'the most of those who use that latter
expression at the North really think the Apostle had slaves, as a class,
in mind. I have no such belief. I suppose that he referred to persecuted
Christians, suffering imprisonment for their religion, and to all
afflicted persons.
"'My landlord said to me,' he continued, '"They tell us you are afraid
of free discussion at the South, that you are afraid to have your slaves
hear some things, lest it should excite them to insurrection. How is
this?"
"'I told him that the slaves, being the lower order of society with us,
were not capable of so discriminating in that which promiscuous
strangers should see fit to say to them as to make it safe to have them
listen to every harangue or to every one who should set himself up to
teach. "Of course," said I, "there are liabilities and dangers in our
state of society. We must use prudence and caution. We have some loose
powder in our magazine. No one denies this. What if one who was rebuked
for carrying an open lamp into the magazine of a ship, should reproach
the captain with being 'an enemy to the light,' and as 'loving darkness
rather than light'?"
"'While at the North,' said he, 'I read Mr. Buckle on civilization, and
I reflected upon the subject. Being in a great assembly, once or twice,
listening to abolitionist orators, lay and clerical, and hearing their
vile assaults on personal character, their vulgar and reckless ridicule
of fifteen States of our Union, their affected, oracular way of saying
the most trite things as though they were aphorisms, but reminding me of
the piles of short stuff which you see round a saw-mill, and hearing the
great throng applaud and shout, I asked myself whether we have really
made any decided advances in civilization since the Hebrew Commonwealth.
I really doubted whether those orators could have collected an audience
of Hebrews even in the wilderness. Under the "Judges," the people were,
at times, low enough to enjoy such drivelling. The willingness at the
North to hear these men, and to applaud them, gave me a low idea of the
state of society.'
"'But,' said I, 'confess now that you found specimens of cultivated life
there such as you never saw surpassed.'
"'I did,' said he, 'many times. And I must tell you,' he added, 'of my
enjoyment in looking on your pastures in autumn,--the sun shining aslant
upon them of an afternoon,--and in noticing what shades of scarlet and
crimson were given to the picture by the whortleberry leaves, which, I
found, contributed most to the coloring of the landscape. I also saw a
peculiarity of the whortleberry's flower, which, when stung by an insect
sometimes swells to twenty-five times its natural size, and becomes a
fungus.'
"'Now,' said I, 'why not apply this,--perhaps you were intending to do
so,--and say that society at the North is generally like our
whortleberry pastures in autumn, which pleased you so much, with here
and there a fungus, made by the sting of radicalism.'
"A planter's Northern wife said, 'I should like to move the adoption of
that simile.'
"'We will have it so,' said the Judge to me, 'if the lady and you tell
us that we must.'
"'A fungus,' said I, 'gets more attention from one half of the people
who go into the woods, than all the pure and beautiful garniture of the
pastures.'
"The ladies of our company having been rallied for not having done their
part in the conversation, and also, of course, having been complimented
for keeping silence so long, the wife of one of the planters, a Northern
lady, made this remark that considering how God, in his providence, had
made such provision for the welfare of the human family through slavery
in our land, and, in doing it, had shown mercy and salvation to so many
hundreds of thousands of Africans, she thought it both ungrateful and
narrow-minded in people anywhere to confine all their thoughts to the
incidental evils of the slaves. She said that in the North she was not
an abolitionist, but on coming to the South and finding things so
different from that which her fancy had pictured, she had concluded to
be very charitable toward the most of her Northern friends who she said
were no more in the dark than she herself had been all her days, from
reading newspapers and tales which had concealed one whole side of
slavery from the view of Northern people. She added that she preferred
life at the North without the blacks, but had found more disinterested
benevolence toward them in one year at the South than she had charity to
believe existed in the hearts of all the good people at the North toward
them, counting in even the professional benevolence of the 'friends of
the slave.'
"After refreshments, the pastor was called upon to read the Scriptures,
and to offer prayer. He read the fifteenth chapter of Revelation. Never
can I forget the impression which one of the verses in that chapter made
upon me, in connection with some of the thoughts awakened by our
conversation about the sovereignty of God as displayed in his dark and
awful dispensations towards races, nations, and men: 'And the seven
angels came out of the temple, having the seven plagues, clothed in pure
and white linen, and having their breasts girded with golden girdles.'
'Those who are in any way associated with the administration of God's
great judgments towards their fellow-men,' said he, 'have need of
special purity; and their honor should be like the untarnished gold.'
"This pastor told me, during the repast, that one day, returning
suddenly from his study in the church just after breakfast, to the house
of one of the gentlemen present, with whom he lived, and who was one of
the wealthiest men in the South, and passing through the parlor to get a
book, he found the room darkened, and the lady of the house kneeling in
prayer with her servants. He of course withdrew at once, but he learned
afterward from one of the 'slaves,' that it was the lady's daily custom.
He often thought of that incident when reading Northern religious
newspapers and noticing their lamentations over 'slave-holding
professors.'"
* * * * *
So much for my Southern visit.
Mrs. North said that in our next conversation she would suggest that we
consider the relation of Christianity to Slavery. I told her that I had
some night thoughts on that subject, which I would with pleasure
submit, at another time.
As the rain continued, Mr. North and I resorted to the wood-pile in the
shed for exercise, till dinner-time, Mrs. North following us to the
door, and charging us not to converse upon this subject till she should
be present.