THE FUTURE.
"It is heaven upon earth to have a man's mind rest in providence, move in
charity, and turn upon the poles of truth."
LORD BACON.
"Slavery, as human nature now is, cannot be otherwise than one of the
Almighty's curses upon any race which is subject to bondage.
"True, it may nevertheless, be an amelioration of their original state;
they may fall into the hands of a Christian people, and hundreds of
thousands of them be civilized, and be converted to Christianity;
redeemed from a barbarous condition they may contribute immensely to the
general good of the race both as producers and consumers. Wherever
commerce needs them, unquestionably they will do more good to the world
by being compelled to work than by wearing out their miserable and
useless existence in Africa.
"All this may be true; still, is it not a curse to be hewers of wood and
drawers of water? Does not God say to Israel that if they sin, they
'shall be the tail and not the head?' National degradation, exposing a
people to be the prey and the captives of a superior race, is, of
course, a curse, though, like death itself, and even sin, it may, by the
grace of God, turn to good. Still, it is a curse.
"But in governing a fallen world like ours, God now and then ordains
the subjection of one race to another; and he makes bondage one of his
ordinances as truly as war. The extermination of the Canaanites by the
sword, was an ordinance of Heaven. War is a part of God's method in
governing the world; as well as sickness and death.
"I never had any sympathy for that amiable but weak concern for the
character of God which represents him as finding slavery in existence
and merely legislating about it, and doing the best he can with an
inevitable evil. This view belongs to a system which makes God, as it
seems to me, the most unhappy Being, continually striving to destroy
that which sprung up contrary to his plan. To dwell on this, however,
would lead us too far into theological questions.
"I tremble to think of our responsibility as a nation in being put in
charge of a people with whom God has some terrible controversy for their
own sins and those of their ancestors.
"Through our abuse of power, God may say to us, 'I was a little angry,
and ye helped on the affliction.' God's purposes in having the chastised
nation afflicted, will be accomplished, but He will punish every one who
inflicts the chastisement with a selfish, unchristian spirit.
"Our people generally take it for granted that slavery is like one of
the self-limiting diseases of childhood, to be outgrown, and to cease
forever, in process of time, and before many years have passed away.
"The ground of this conclusion is a doctrinal error, namely, that
slave-holding, the relation of master and servant, ownership, property
in man, or by whatever name slavery may be designated, is in itself
wrong, and that as soon as practicable it will be abjured and no man
will stand to another in the relation of master, or owner. But whether
for good or for ill, slavery will be in existence at the last day. We
read that 'every bondman and every freeman' will see the sign of the Son
of Man.
"But should slavery be at any time, or in any country, or part of a
country, utterly extinguished, it will ever remain true that ownership,
or property in man is not in itself wrong, and that it may be benevolent
to all concerned. It is interesting to recollect that in proportion as
human relations are cardinal, or vital, they approach most nearly to
ownership, as in the case of parent and child. The highest relation of
all, that between man and God, finds its most perfect expression in
terms conveying the idea of ownership on the part of God. 'For ye are
not your own;--therefore glorify God in your body and spirit which are
God's.' If God should send one of us to a distant part of the universe,
under the charge of an angel, where superior intelligence and wisdom
were needful for our safety in temptation and amid the bewildering
excitements of new scenes, ownership for the time being, absolute
dominion over us, on the part of the angel, would be in the highest
measure benevolent. In those days when universal love reigns, it is just
as likely as not that there will be more 'ownership' in man than ever
before. By ownership I mean such relationships as we see in the
households of those who are represented in the letter of the Southern
lady to her father. There we see the weak, the unfortunate, the
dependent nature clinging to the stronger, and receiving support and
comfort, and even honor, from those who in rendering kindness and in
receiving service have their whole being refined and cultivated to the
highest degree. There are no rigors in those relationships; everything
which contributes to the welfare and happiness of a serving class is
enjoyed, and all its liabilities to care and sorrow are removed, to as
great a degree as ever happens in this world.
"Allowing that there are always to be inequalities of mind and
condition, and that what we call menial services will need to be
performed; that there must be those who will have a disposition and
taste to work over a fire all day and prepare food; and that men of
business or study will not all be able to groom their own horses and
wash their vehicles; and that possibly the Coleridges and Southeys, and
their friends the Joseph Cottles, may, from being absorbed in their
ideal pursuits, still be ignorant of the way to get off a collar from a
horse's neck, and must call upon a servant-girl to help them, we shall
need those who will be glad to be servants forever, and who will require
for their own security that their employers shall 'own' them, and thus
be made responsible for their support and protection. This may always be
necessary for the highest welfare of all concerned. But the history of
this relationship in connection with our human nature has been such, to
a great extent, that we associate with it only the idea of pillage,
oppression, cruelty. Already there are cases without number in which no
such idea would ever be suggested to a spectator, and they will increase
in proportion as Christianity prevails. There is more real 'freedom' in
thousands of these cases of nominal slavery than in thousands who are
nominally free. How did it happen that the Hebrew servant, who chose to
stay with his master rather than leave his wife and children, was not
made nominally free, and apprenticed or hired? Why was his ear bored,
and perpetual relations secured between him and his master?"
"For the master's security, I presume," said Mr. North.
"I should say," said I, "for the mutual benefit of both. The master then
became responsible for him; his support was a lien on his estate, the
children must always be responsible for his maintenance. The awl made its
record in the master's door-post, as well as in the servant's ear.
"Now, suppose," said I, "that God chooses to supply this nation with
menial servants to the end of time. Suppose that he has designed that
one race, the African, shall be the source from which he will draw this
supply, and that down through long generations he proposes to make this
black race our servants, seeking at the same time, by means of this,
their elevation, by connecting them with us, and keeping up the
relation; and that for the permanence of the relation, and for the
security of all concerned, there should be 'ownership,' such as he
himself ordained when he prescribed the boring of the ear? For my part,
I cannot see in this 'the sum of all villanies,' 'an enormous wrong,' 'a
stupendous injustice.' Yet this would be slavery. I am not arguing for
such a constitution of things. As was before observed, the whole black
race may, in a few years, be swept off from the country; but who will
undertake to say that, as the people of other nations have been employed
by Providence to make our railroads and canals, the black race may not
be employed for a much longer term to be our servants, both North and
South, both East and West? And who will say that the tenure of
'ownership' may not be the wisest and most benevolent arrangement for
all concerned? I repeat it, I am not arguing for this; I am only trying
to show you that the present abuses in slavery are no valid argument
against the relation itself; that this may remain when the abuses cease,
and therefore that at the present time we ought to discriminate in our
arguments against slavery, and direct our assaults, if we continue to be
assailers, against its abuses."
"On one disagreeable subject," I said to him aside, "I will make this
general remark: The Southern slaves are, as a whole, a religious people;
their religion, indeed, is of a type corresponding to their condition.
But still, if the South were one festering pool of iniquity, as many at
the North fancy, would the colored people show such evidences as they do
of moral and spiritual improvement? Look at Hayti. A very large majority
of the children are not born in wedlock. Slavery is a moral restraint
upon the Southern colored people. Evil as slavery is, it is, in many
things, taking the slaves as they are, a comparative blessing."
"But," said Mr. North, "our people generally insist that abuses,
oppression, cruelty, are so inherent in slavery that they cannot be
removed without destroying the relation itself."
"Here," said I, "is the mistake under which Southerners perceive that we
labor, and which prevents us from having the least influence with them.
"This, however, is unquestionably true: as human nature is, we would not
choose to give men unlimited power over their fellow-men who are slaves.
If, in the course of events, it is found by good men that the abuses
flowing from such power are inevitable, that legislative enactments and
public opinion cannot control the relation, their consciences will not
be quiet till it is abolished. I am willing to confide this to men as
good as we, acting as they will on their responsibility to God. It may
be, that the system, stripped of everything which can be taken away,
will be perpetuated, for the best good of the slave and his master.
"But," said I, "while this perpetual relation of the black race to us is
possible, and may be the design of a benevolent God for our happiness
and that of the Africans, and while I love to use it in replying to
those who, with short-sighted and somewhat passionate reasoning, as I
think, contend that slavery must utterly be rooted out of the land, I
confess that my own thoughts turn to the Continent of Africa as the
great object for which an all-wise God has permitted slavery to exist on
our shores.
"I love to look at American slavery in connection with the future
history of that great African continent, containing one hundred and
fifty millions of people. History and discovered relics make the
Ethiopian race to be older even than Egypt. The once powerful nations of
Northern Africa, Numidia, Mauratania, as well as the Egyptian builders
of pyramids, have disappeared, or they exist only in a few Coptic
tribes; and even they are of doubtful origin. But the Ethiopian people,
notwithstanding the slave-trade which has extended its degrading
influence far and wide among them, and though civilization long since
departed from their tribes, have continued to increase till now they are
the most numerous of the human families except the Chinese. The
slave-holding nations which have pillaged them forages, have not been
able to destroy them. Ethiopia may well say, stretching out her hands to
God, 'Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all
thy waves.' It is sublime to think what triumphs of redemption there are
yet to be on that African continent. But how little, apparently, from
all that they ever say, do some of our abolitionist friends seem to
think about Africa as a future jewel in Immanuel's diadem! Utterly
foreign from all their thoughts appears to be the great plan of
Providence which by means even of slavery in this land, has done so much
to extend the work of human salvation among the African race. And there
are some ministers of the Gospel and professed Christians, I regret to
observe, who reply to all that you say about the vast proportion, to
white converts, of converts among the colored people, in a manner which
would awaken great fears in the most charitable breast with regard to
their own personal interest in the salvation by Christ, did we not all
know how far we may be blinded by passion. If you visit in the South,
you will find that African missions take the deepest hold on the hearts
of Southern Christians. The time will come, God hasten it! when they and
we will be united in plans and efforts for the good of the African race.
"But I am not in favor of stealing Africans from their native land to
bring them here, even though it were certain that the majority of them
would be converted to God. We are not to do evil that good may come. If
Providence makes it plain that tribes of them shall be removed to new
districts of our country, suitable measures can and will be devised for
that purpose. That they are better off here, even in slavery, than in
their own land, under present circumstances, I do not see how any one
can question; but that does not justify man-stealing. I remember to have
seen a letter from a Missionary in Africa, in which he says, speaking of
the slaves and of the South, 'Would that all Africa were there; would
that tribes of this unhappy people could be transferred to the
privileges which the slaves at the South enjoy. I would rather take my
chance of a good or bad master, and be a slave at the South, than be as
one of these heathen people. In saying this, I refer both to this world
and the next'. I need not say, he is an enemy to the slave-trade.
"A missionary who had spent much time among the Zulu people, was
appealed to by a zealous anti-slavery person to commiserate our slaves
as being so much worse off than the Zulus. 'Madam,' said he, 'if our
Zulus were in the condition of your slaves, eternity would not be long
enough to give thanks.'
"Mrs. North," said I, "you will not impute it to mere gallantry when I
appeal to you if we may not generally measure the refinement and
elevation of society by the position of woman, and by the sentiments and
manners of the other sex with regard to yours. The deference, the
delicate attentions, the gentleness, the refinement of behavior, in word
and act, which you inspire, are both the means and the evidence of the
highest cultivation. In public and in private life, in assemblies,
public conveyances, at table, around the evening lamp, in all the
intercourse of the family, the susceptibility of impression, the
restraints and the chastised utterances, in word and action, of
husbands, fathers, brothers and friends, which are due to the presence
of woman, are a correct gauge of civilization and refinement."
"All right," said Mr. North, bowing very politely to his wife.
"Nowhere," said I, "do we see this more conspicuously than in Southern
society. Chivalry there seems to blend with the genial influences of
Christianity, and together they give a tone and manner to Southern life
which is peculiar.
"I am often struck with a Southern gentleman's reverence, here at the
North, for the female sex. He is displeased at seeing daughters serving
at table in boarding-houses kept by their worthy parents or widowed
mothers. We, indeed, respect a young woman who serves us in this manner,
(if we reflect at all,) and we resent rudeness or an unfeeling mode of
addressing those who are in such situations. But the Southern gentleman
goes further. He has, perhaps, not been accustomed to see the daughter
of a white family serve. When a respectable young woman, therefore, at a
boarding-house, brings him his tea, he feels impelled to rise and ask
her to be seated, and to wait upon her. I have been an eye-witness to
scenes of this kind, and have been much pleased and not a little amused
at some exhibitions of the feeling. If our sentiments toward the sex,
and their position in social life, mark the degree of civilization and
cultivation in a community, I am compelled to accord a high degree of it
to Southern society, in its best estate.
"This is one effect of slavery. It takes mothers, wives, daughters, away
from occupations which, though honorable, do not always elevate them in
the eyes of the other sex. Perhaps there is no value (and some will say
it) in all this; that every labor and service is right and good for
woman; and that we are to prefer a state of society where woman does
these things with her own hands, instead of having them done for her,
and that this is our only safeguard against luxury and degeneracy. I
will not debate it. I am only showing that, tried by an ordinary
test,--the position of woman,--Southerners are really not barbarians."
"I verily believe," said Mrs. North, "that if you take the Southern
constitution and give it a Northern training, the result is as perfect a
specimen of man or woman as is to be found on earth."
"People at the North," said I, "may, in their zeal against slavery, make
light of the abounding sustenance which the slaves enjoy, and call it a
low and gross thing in comparison with 'freedom;' but, in the view of
all political economists and publicists, how to feed the lower classes
is a great problem. It is solved in slavery.
"There is another topic," I added, "which is interesting and important.
"Here," said I, taking a newspaper-slip from my wallet, "is something
which fairly made me weep. It is a picture of one of our poor, virtuous,
honest New England homes, in which I would rather dwell and suffer, than
be an 'oppressor' with my hundreds of slaves, and wealth counted by
hundreds of thousands. A slave-holder, blessed be God, is not a synonyme
of 'oppressor;' nor are the slaves as a matter of course 'oppressed.'
Our people to a great extent think otherwise, and it is useful to see
how we appear to others when this error leads us into folly. This little
picture in the newspaper-slip gives us a transient look into an abode
whose honest poverty and want are made more painful by evil-doing under
the influence of fanaticism."
I then read to my friends the following from a Southern paper;--I here
omit the names which are given in full:--
"The touching letter which was found on the body of ---- ----, one of
the insurgents, from his sister in ----, ----, has been published. The
following paragraph in that letter is a suggestive one:
"'Would you come home if you had the money to come with? Tell me what
it would cost. Oh! I would be unspeakably happy if it were in my power
to send you money, but we have been very poor this winter. I have not
earned a half-dollar this winter. Mattie has had a very good place,
where she has had seventy-five cents a week; she has not spent any of it
in the family, only a very little for mother. Father has had very small
pay, but I think he has more now; he is a watchman on the ---- ----,
that runs from here to ----.'
"Here, says the Southern editor, is a family, one of thousands of
families in New England in similar circumstances, where one daughter
thinks it a 'very good place' where she can get seventy-five cents a
week; another has not earned a half-dollar during the winter, and all
are 'very poor;' yet the son and brother goes off and deserts a mother
and sisters thus situated,--a mother and sisters who, though poor, have
evidently the most affectionate feelings and tender sensibilities,--for
the purpose of liberating a class of people, not one of whom knows
anything of the want or privation from which his own family is
suffering, or who would not look without contempt upon such remuneration
as seemed the height of good fortune to the destitute sisters and mother
of this abolitionist. When we bear in mind the intelligence and
sensibilities which characterize the wives and daughters of the poorest
classes equally with the richest in New England, it is most amazing that
men should overlook such misery at their own doors--nay, should forsake
their own kith and kin who are suffering under it--the mother who bore
them, the sisters who love them with all a sister's tender and
solicitous love, and run off to emancipate the fattest, sleekest, most
contented and unambitious race under heaven."
"This shows," said I, "how God has set one thing over against another,
in this world. You and Mrs. Worth and myself would rather be the poor
honest 'watchman,' or earn our 'seventy-five cents a week,' with
'Mattie,' or even, with the loving sister who writes this letter, 'not'
have 'earned a half-dollar this winter,' than be the 'sleekest' of
well-fed slaves.
"Yet, when we are summing up the evils of slavery in the form of
indictments, we must honestly confess that it is no small thing to feed
a whole laboring class in one half of a great country with bread enough
and to spare."
Mrs. North asked if I had ever seen a slave-mart, or if I knew much by
observation of the domestic slave-trade.
"Yes," said I, "and it is in connection with this feature of slavery
that we at the North are most easily and most painfully affected. Some
of the most agonizing scenes are enacted at these auctions. They are a
part of slavery; so is the domestic slave-trade, which is the necessary
removal of the slaves from places where they cannot have employment, to
regions where their labor is in demand. In no other way can they be
disposed of, unless they are at once freed; and with many the evils of
the domestic slave-trade are the most powerful argument in favor of
emancipation. That there are grievous trials and sorrows, as well as
wrongs and violence, in the disposal of slaves, is known to all. As to
those who are to remain within the State, we are told to go, if we will,
and inquire into the history of slaves who are to be publicly sold, and
take the number of cases in which a wanton disregard of a slave's
feelings can be detected. An owner is compelled to part with his
property in his slave; or, the slave is taken for debt; estates are to
be divided; an owner dies intestate; titles are to be settled,
mortgages foreclosed, the number of the household is to be reduced; and
for these and numerous other reasons new owners are to be sought for the
slaves. Here is a man and his wife and children to be sold. There is a
general interest felt in arranging the sale so that the family may be in
the same neighborhood. This is for the interest of the owners; it
promotes contentment and cheerfulness in the servants. Cases of hardship
are the exceptions to the general rule in disposing of servants.
Admitting all that can properly be said of such cases, and of the
various other evils connected with it, the question recurs, What is to
be done but increasingly to mitigate the sorrows of the bondmen, to
cultivate a kind and generous disposition toward them, and to prepare
them, as far and as fast as the good of all concerned will warrant, for
any other condition which Providence may in time point out? My belief
is, that if you take four millions of laboring people anywhere under the
sun, and put down in separate columns the good and the evil in their
conditions, the balance of welfare and happiness, from the supply of
their wants, will be found to be greater among our Southern slaves than
elsewhere. But, still, this leaves them slaves. My reply to myself, when
I say this, is, They were so in their own land; or, they were in a
condition of fearful degradation and misery. Their God is their judge;
we have not increased their degradation; woe to us if we add needless
sorrows to their lot. But as for thrusting them up to an ideal state of
elevation, before their time and ours has come, I am not disposed to aid
in it. Moreover, Southern Christians are doing all that we would do if
in their place; I will not affect to be more humane or just than they;
this is our great error.
"Here," said I, "is another view of the subject":
"In the sale of slaves (in America) nothing but labor is
transferred. It passes from master to master, as it passes, in
countries of hired labor, from employer to employer. The mode in
which the transfer is made differs in the two systems of labor. The
slave-laborer is never compelled to hunt for work and starve till he
finds it. Is this an evil to the laborer? Would it be thought an
evil, by the hired man in Europe, that his employer should be
obliged, by-law, to find him another employer before dismissing him
from service?
"But, it is said, the slave is too much exposed to the master's
abuse of power; he is liable to wrongs without a remedy; and, so
far, his condition is below that of the hired laborer.
"If this be true at all, it is true as regards the able-bodied hired
man only. But take into the account children and women, those, for
example, that work naked in coal-mines, or wives whose sufferings
from the brutal treatment of husbands daily fill the reports of
police courts; take these into the reckoning, and the difference in
the consequences of abused power will be very small. The negro-slave
is as thoroughly protected as any laborer in Europe. He is protected
from every other man's wrong-doing by the ready interference of his
master; he is guarded from the master's abuse by the laws of the
land, and a vigilant, earnest public opinion. Let all cruelty be
punished; let all abuse of power be restrained; but to abolish the
relation of master and slave, because there are bad masters and
ill-treated slaves, would not be a whit wiser than to abolish
marriage, because there are brutal husbands and murdered wives.
"Yet, surely, it will be said, it must be admitted, after all, that
slavery is an evil. Yes, certainly, it is an evil; but in the same
sense only in which servitude or hired labor is an evil. To gain
one's bread by the sweat of one's brow, is a curse. But it is a
curse attended with a blessing. It is an evil that shuts out a
greater evil. Labor for wages, labor for subsistence, and
subjection to the authority of employer or master, are the
conditions on which alone the laboring masses, white or black, can
live with advantage to themselves and to society."--_De Bow's
Review_, _Jan_. 1860, pp. 56, 57.
Mr. North asked if I did not think that the colored people should be
assisted in their efforts to get an education.
"There are collegiate institutions," I told him, "for colored people, in
Oxford, Pa., and in Xenia, O. With great sorrow have I observed, that
applications to aid these institutions and to endow others for similar
purposes have been received with coldness and distrust by many who could
have made liberal contributions, for no other reason than the suspicion
that they were designed by Abolitionists to thrust forward the colored
man in an offensive manner. I have known the name of a leading
Abolitionist to be the death of a subscription-paper for such an
institution. This was a bitter prejudice. When philanthropy with regard
to the colored race among us falls into its natural channel, we shall
see the South and the North opening wide the doors of usefulness in
every department for which the colored people shall, any of them,
manifest an aptitude. The idea that this race is to be debarred from any
and every development of which it is capable, is not entertained by any
respectable people at the South. The negro at the South is not doomed,
by the Christian people, to an inexorable fate. They will help him rise
as fast and as far as God, in his providence, shows it to be his will to
employ any or all of that race in other ways than those of servitude.
"'If American slavery,' says one, 'be the horrid system of cruelty,
ignorance, and wickedness represented by some writers of fiction and
paid defamers of our institutions, how happens it that those who have
been reared in the midst of it, when freed and planted in Africa at
once exhibit such capacity for self-government and self-education, and
set such examples of good morals?
"'Have the negroes under British care at Sierra Leone made similar
progress in improvement? Do the free colored subjects of Britain in the
West Indies show the capacity, industry, and intelligence manifested by
the Liberians, whose training was in the school of American servitude?
Nor have the best specimens of this tutelage been sent out. Thousands
and tens of thousands of colored servants in the Southern States are
church-members, instructed in their duties by faithful Christian
teachers, and the children are trained in the fear and love of God.'--I
then observed,
"I have come to this conclusion: if Southern Christians say to us, as
they do, Auction-blocks, separation of families, and similar features of
slavery, in the limited and decreasing extent to which they prevail, are
as odious to us as to you;--we tolerate these things as parts of a
system which we all feel to be an evil, and which we are constantly
striving to ameliorate;--I will leave the whole subject in their hands;
I will trust them in this as I would in anything and everything; I feel
absolved from all responsibility to God or to them with regard to the
matter."
"Pray tell me," said Mrs. North, "what is all this discussion about 'the
territories,' and keeping slavery out of them?"
"I told her that slavery, which fifteen States of the Union maintain as
a part of their domestic life, is, by many of the people in the Free
States, regarded as they regard the plague and death; they prescribe
certain degrees of latitude as barriers to it, as though they enacted
thus: 'North of 36° 30' whooping-cough is prohibited, measles are
forbidden, cholera-morbus is forever interdicted.' They regard
slave-holders as living in a moral pestilence, and seeking to carry it
with them into new districts.
"But, practically," I said, "the thing will now regulate itself, and
both sides are contending very much for an abstract right. It is a war
of feeling, and no one knows where it will end. If the North would say,
'Free labor, which cannot thrive where slavery exists, requires an
amicable division and allotment of the territorial regions; let us agree
where our respective systems shall prevail,'--there would be no
difficulty. But the effort has been to shut out slavery, as men use
sanitary legislation and quarantine to keep out a pestilence. This is
treating fifteen States of the Union as polluted and polluting. Hence
they say, We cannot live together as one people, and we will not."
* * * * *
"What do you honestly think," said Mr. North, "is the true cause of our
present national calamities?"
"They are owing," said I, "originally, to the peculiar state of feeling
on the part of the North toward the South. This was not in consequence
of injury experienced; for slavery had not inflicted injury upon the
North; but, right or wrong, Northern disapprobation of slavery, and the
ways of manifesting it, are the fountain-head of our present national
trouble. Let great numbers in one section of such a nation as this
conscientiously disapprove of their brethren in another section, and not
only so, but hold them guilty of an immoral and an inhuman system, and
deal with them in such ways as Conscience, that most merciless of
inquisitors and persecutors, alone employs, and if the indicted section
be not exasperated, it will be because the accusation is true,--that
their system has destroyed their manhood."
"But my hope and belief," said he, "are, that all these changes are to
result in the overthrow of slavery."
"I can only say," said I, in answer to such a remark, "that he who
expects relief from our trouble through the eradication of slavery, and
urges on secession and division as the means to effect it, is in danger
of having his enthusiasm counted as fanaticism, if not madness."
"How I wish," said he, "that we could join and buy up these slaves and
set them free."
"Kind and well meant as this proposal is," said I, "nothing is really
more offensive to the South. It implies that her conscience is debauched
by self-interest, and that by offering to remunerate her if she will
part with what we call her ill-gotten booty we shall assist her to
become virtuous. Such a proposal makes her feel that fanaticism has
assumed the calmness which is its most hopeless symptom."
"Then," said he, "is the North to change all its opinions?"
I said, "If this implies the abandonment of moral or religious principle
in the least degree, Never. Our only hope lies in our possibly being in
the wrong, and in magnanimously changing our views and feelings, and our
behavior. This, upon conviction, it will be most noble to do for its own
sake, leaving the effect of it to Him by whom actions are weighed, and
to those who, we shall have concluded, are naturally as magnanimous and
just as we, and who, if guilty of oppression, were liable to the very
same accusation when we first confederated with them, and when Northern
slave-importers put their hands with Southern slave-holders to the
Declaration of Independence, both averring that all men are created free
and equal.
"We seem now to have concluded that we have put ourselves entirely
right, and that our Southern brethren are entirely wrong."
"I cannot feel," said Mr. North, "that we are to blame for having our
opinions, and for expressing them honestly and fearlessly. What more
have we done?"
I replied, "They say that we have held them up to universal execration;
that we have quoted, with readiness, the testimony of foreign nations
against them,--of nations who know nothing of domestic slavery like
ours, mixed up with the qualifying influences of our own civilization;
that our imaginative literature has made them odious, associating
cruelty and vulgarity with the relation of slave-holding; that we have
labored to cripple their Institution, hoping to destroy it; that we have
striven to save the District of Columbia from their system as from
corruption; that a thousand millions of dollars of their property we
have treated as contraband, and have made it perilous for them to
recover it; that we have lain in wait and molested them in their transit
through our borders, with their servants, to embark for sea. We dispute
their right to go with their servants into territories jointly acquired,
and belonging by constitutional right equally to them as to ourselves.
This, they say, has not been a just and sincere demand for an equitable
division of territory in view of the naturally conflicting interests of
slave labor and free, but rather a vindictive determination to hem in
the slave-holder, to force the scorpion into fires where he shall die of
his own sting, or,--to borrow the metaphor, with the language, of a
present Senator from Massachusetts,--where the 'poisoned rat shall die
in his own hole.'
"Two confederacies or one, our prospect is fearful if we continue to
feel and act toward each other after this temper, and to cherish our
respective grievances."
"There is another side to all this," said Mr. North. "I ascribe the
excitement at the South to the loss on their part of political power, or
to a grasping spirit which breaks compromises, and which requires that
the national legislation be always shaped in its favor."
"But," said I, "if we can trust the convictions of just men, in private
life, at the South,--men removed from all suspicion as to the purity of
their motives,--it is certain that our Northern feelings toward
slave-holders, and the expressions of those feelings in ways which have
been applauded among us for many years, are the real causes of the
irritation and exasperation which have brought us to the present brink.
"Now, as these two sections must continue to exist, side by side, they
will go on to repel each other until either slavery ceases, or a change
of feeling takes place in the non-slaveholding section. Secession and
permanent division will not cure the trouble, but will increase it.
Moreover, the contrariety of feeling between people in the
non-slaveholding States, made intense by the departure of the Southern
section, may inaugurate hostilities among ourselves more fearful than
those which drive away the Southern people.
"Perhaps we are to be two nations. I cannot but regard this as the
greatest calamity which will have happened to the cause of human
improvement. Nor do I see how it will help Northern philanthropy, nor
the negro; but it may be greatly for his injury. The truth is, we must
live together for self-defence against each other, if from no other
consideration. Israel began its downfall in secession, which was
compelled by Rehoboam.
"But," said I, "let us contemplate a different issue. Let us think what
a result it will be if such a government as ours, whose speedy ruin has
been so often predicted and is still confidently looked for, shall pass
through these trials and dangers without bloodshed, and we become again
a united people. Self-government will then have vindicated itself;
constitutional liberty will have triumphed; arms and coercion will lose
their old authority and power; for there will be an example of a
republican people recovering from convulsions which would have
demolished any throne or power which trusted in the sword. The
serf-boats in ports of the Bay of Bengal, which ride the swift, enormous
surges, are not nailed, but their parts are lashed one to another, and
thus the boats yield easily to the force of the water. Our government
has been likened to them; and now, by yielding, one part to another,
where a theoretically stronger government would have used coercion, we
shall, if it please God, pass safely through these fearful hazards,
furnishing a demonstration, which God may have been preparing by us for
the instruction of mankind, that fraternal blood is not the best
nourishment of the tree of liberty, and that 'wisdom,' resulting in the
victories of peace, 'is better than weapons of war.'
"I look, therefore, toward some change in Northern feelings with regard
to the South. A change in this respect will end our troubles. Opinions
may not be wholly reversed; people born and bred under totally different
institutions may not, for they cannot wholly, yield their convictions on
controverted sectional topics, even when they cherish mutual respect and
deference; but, the belief that the North will change its feelings
toward the South and its institutions, under a modification of views
entirely consistent with independence of judgment and self-respect, and
that the South will not be wanting in a corresponding temper, rests on
the same conviction as that God does not intend to destroy us by each
other's hands, nor to make the life of the two sections weary with
perpetual hatred and strife."
* * * * *
"Our form of government, Mr. North," said I, "is the very best on earth
if it goes well, and the worst if it goes ill. We have no standing army
to fight for an administration as for a throne or dynasty; so that if a
State secedes, the question is how to coerce that people, if it be best
to attempt it. Citizens do not like to march against their brethren.
Think of our taking up arms against our correspondents; against people
that have gone from our churches and settled in that State; against
cousins, and brothers-in-law, and people who lived or did business under
the same roofs with us."
"It is awkward, indeed," said Mr. North, "especially if they simply
withdraw and hold the fortifications of the general government, in their
own territory, to keep the government from destroying their lives."
"Why, yes," said Mrs. North, "it would be simple in them, after
seceding, to suffer themselves to be bombarded. But have they any right
to secede?"
"As to that," said Mr. North, "my mind has been much exercised of late
with this thought: I have always advocated the right of the negroes to
make insurrection, or to flee from oppression. But now their masters
complain of being oppressed by the North. Why have not the masters the
same right to secede from their government as the negro from his?"
"Well, husband," said his wife, "I think that you are getting on fast."
"Why," said I, "Mr. North, is not slavery 'the sum of all villanies?'
Did the negro ever consent to his form of government?"
"Well," said he, "I never consented to be born; I find myself in
existence; I have no more consented to the government of the United
States than I suppose the negroes, generally, have submitted to their
civil condition. My question is, Who shall decide when the Southern
masters say, We are intolerably oppressed; we are under a yoke; 'break
every yoke!' 'let the oppressed go free!' If I interpose and say, 'You
are not oppressed; you are better off as you now are,' is not this the
reply of the masters when we seek to free their slaves? Do we not say
that the oppressed must be the judges of their necessity? And why may I
coerce the master, if it be wrong for him to coerce the negro?"
"I must let you, work out that question at your leisure, and on your own
principles," said I.--"We were speaking of seizing and holding the forts
and arsenals. The French proverb says, 'It is the first step that
costs.' Seceding involves the necessity of seizing the forts. If they
who do this embarrass other persons in their lawful rights, they must
risk the consequences; but if they secede from the government, the
question is, Do circumstances justify a revolution? for secession is
revolution. Is revolution justifiable in the present case?
"But not to discuss that question," said I, "all that I wished to say
was this, that our government seems admirably suited for a people who
will behave well under it. We can take care of isolated cases of
rebellion. But if any important part of the country rises up and
departs, it is exceedingly difficult to know what to do. Prevention is
excellent; but cure is next to impossible. So long as there is a general
acquiescence in the exercise of executive power against
insurrectionists, one or more, we have a general government; but when
States depart, we are a house divided against itself. We find that we
have been living, as it were, not so much under paternal authority, as
under fraternal rule. If broken irretrievably, the alternative is to be
divided, or for one part of the country to coerce its neighbors and
brethren. This we find to be extremely inconvenient and really
impracticable without civil war; and after the war,--whose horrors, in
our case, can never be pictured,--we would either find ourselves in the
same divided state as before, or if politically united, it will have
been effected at a cost which it is fearful to contemplate.
"So that we are illustrating the question, whether such a government as
ours is really practicable,--whether a people can govern themselves.
Already we hear it said, 'We have no government.' The explanation is, We
are not disposed to destroy each other's lives to preserve the
confederation. We can have a monarchy, with its 'divine right,' and with
its standing army, if we choose; or, if we remain as a republic, we must
be liable to just our present exigency. Our only defence, then,
consists in mutual conciliation and agreement.
"What a land this is," said I, "with its diversified interests and its
unparalleled variety of products,--its agriculture, mechanic arts,
science, and literature. Separation will embarrass every form of
intercourse, and make us hostile."
"Jews and Samaritans," said Mrs. North. "And all for an idea!"
"Yes," said I, "and for an idea which to one whole section, and to a
very large part of the people in the other section, is false.--Four
millions of negroes are destroying us. As a foreign writer said, 'In
trying to give liberty to the negro, we are losing our own.'"
Said Mrs. North, "Can nothing be done to save us?"
"Bishop Butler tells us, Mrs. North," said I, "that a nation may be
insane as well as an individual. But reason seems to be returning in
some quarters. Secession and its consequences are having a wonderful
effect to open the eyes of people. John Brown's foray and its end were a
providential demonstration of certain errors, which we may conclude will
not soon be revived. Secession is now leading the world to look more
narrowly into the subject of negro slavery. Let me read to you these
extracts from a recent number of 'Le Pays,' Paris. The writer is arguing
that Europe must recognize the Southern confederacy:
'But in awaiting these results which would flow from the cordial
welcome given by Europe to the new confederation, let true
philanthropists be assured that they are wonderfully mistaken in
regard to the real condition of the blacks of the South. We
willingly admit that their error is pardonable, for they have
learned the relations of master and slave only from "Uncle Tom's
Cabin." Shall we look for that condition in the lucubrations of that
romance, raised to the importance of a philosophic dissertation, but
leading public opinion astray, provoking revolution, and
necessitating incendiarism and revolution? A romance is a work of
fancy, which one cannot refute, and which cannot serve as a basis to
any argument. In our discussion, we must seek elsewhere for
authorities and material. Facts are eloquent, and statistics teach
us that, under the superintendence of those masters,--so cruel and
so terrible, if we are to believe "Uncle Tom,"--the black population
of the South increases regularly in a greater proportion than the
white; while in the Antilles, in Africa, and especially in the so
very philanthropic States of the North, the black race decreases in
a deplorable proportion.
'The condition of those blacks is assuredly better than that of the
agricultural laborers in many parts of Europe. Their morality is far
superior to that of the free negroes of the North; the planters
encourage marriage, and thus endeavor to develop among them a sense
of the family relation, with a view of attaching them to the
domestic hearth, consequently to the family of the master. It will
be then observed that in such a state of things the interests of the
planter, in default of any other motive, promotes the advancement
and well-being of the slave. Certainly, we believe it possible still
to ameliorate their condition. It is with that view, even, that the
South has labored for so long a time to prepare them for a higher
civilization.
'In no part, perhaps, of the continent, regard being had to the
population, do there exist men more eminent and gifted, with nobler
or more generous sentiments, than in the Southern States. No country
possesses lovelier, kinder hearted, and more distinguished women. To
commence with the immortal Washington, the list of statesmen who
have taken part in the government of the United States shows that
all those who have shed a lustre on the country, and won the
admiration of Europe, owed their being to that much abused South.
'Is it true that so much distinction, talent, and grandeur of soul
could have sprung from all the vices, from the cruelty and
corruption which one would fain attribute now to the Southern
people? The laws of inflexible logic refute these false imputations.
And--strange coincidence--while Southern men presided over the
destinies of the Union, its gigantic prosperity was the astonishment
of the world. In the hands of Northern men, that edifice, raised
with so much care and labor by their predecessors, comes crashing
down, threatening to carry with it in its fall the industrial future
of every other nation. For long years the constant efforts of the
North, and a certain foreign country, to spread among the blacks
incendiary pamphlets and tracts have powerfully contributed to
suspend every Southern movement towards emancipation. Its people
have been compelled to close their ears to ideas which threatened
their very existence.'"
"But," said Mr. North, "here we have been, for thirty years or more,
living on an anti-slavery excitement. Grant that it is all wrong; will
you ask or expect that we shall change all at once? in a week? or in a
month? or in a year? We will not kneel to anybody; if we change, it must
be upon conviction."
"I strike hands with you there," said I, "most heartily. Our Southern
friends must understand this; they must now approach us once more with
reason and persuasion. The people at large are in a frame to be reasoned
with and persuaded; for if we can do anything within the bounds of
reason to retain the South in the Union, it will be done. We will say of
concession as the antithesis of secession, as was said of two other
things: 'Millions for defence, but not a cent for tribute.' I think that
both sections need forgiveness of God, and of each other."
"Well," said Mr. North, "after all we shall get along and get through,
even if there should be a separation."
"Mr. Worth," said I, "when you were studying Cicero, could you
understand--for I could not--how he and other patriots could feel so
strongly about the fortunes of their country as to declare--which they
frequently do--that they would rather die than survive their country's
honor? It has come to me vividly of late. I see it and feel it. The
sunshine will seem to have gone out of our life when we become two
unfriendly nations.
"It is easy," said I, "for it gratifies some of the lower passions, to
ridicule a whole section of the country for their act of secession or a
disposition towards it; to boast that the South cannot do without us; to
prophesy that they will get sick of it, and wish to return; to express
wonder that they should feel so much hurt; to remind them that, if they
will do as we have always counselled them, there would be no trouble;
and there is a temptation to say, as friends in a quarrel will hastily
say, Let them go. But when they are irrecoverably gone, justifiably or
not, I tell you, Mr. North, there will be mourning in our streets. I
know, indeed, that there are some among us to whom it will be a
carnival; but--"
"They will have a long Lent after it," said Mrs. North; "pray excuse
me."
"Ties of kindred," said I, "patriotism, Christian friendships, will not
go down to hopeless graves without leaving behind them sorrows ending
only with life.
"It appears to me," said I, "that our ship is where nothing but an
immediate calm and then a change of the wind, can save us. If we become
two nations, it may be for judgment and destruction; and it may be for
some great, ultimate good. But it will be hard parting. To think of
having no South! and of their having no North! We shall each become
provincial. We are wonderfully fitted to qualify and improve each the
other. How strange it would be to have these two sections love each
other! No one among us under twenty-five years of age, has probably ever
thought of us but as in controversy."
"Speaking of Southern life," said Mrs. North, "I have not seen our
friend Grant since he came back from the South."
"I have seen him," said I, "and have heard his story. He made his home
with an old friend, a clergyman. It was known that he was a stranger,
and at once he was made to feel at home by many of the citizens. The
morning after he arrived, Jack, a servant of a neighboring family, came
into the breakfast-room, with a waiter filled with dishes, which he
deposited on the side-board. 'Master and Missis send their compliments,
and want to know how the family is, and how Mr. Grant is this morning.'
Now they had never seen Mr. Grant; but they knew that he had arrived the
night before. 'Well, Jack,' says Mrs. ----, 'I see you have got some
good things for us.' 'O, not much, Missis; but they thought you and Mr.
Grant would excuse 'em for sending it.' So there were deposited on the
breakfast-table, 'big hominy' in one or two shapes, rare fish,
puff-muffins, and several dishes which called for Jack's
interpretations. 'And Master says, shall he send the carriage round for
you this forenoon? and he will call himself.' The evening talk was
interrupted by a black woman, all smiles, bearing a waiter of ice-cream
and other refreshments, from another house; and so the visit was a
succession of surprises from families who, at the South, count each
other's guests their own. Mr. Grant was a strong anti-secessionist, and
he spent much breath in arguing with the people in private. On his
return to his room, one day, he found a glass dish on the table, filled
with japonicas, camellias, roses, and other early flowers, with the card
of a married lady,--with whom he had had a debate,--inscribed, 'From the
hottest of the Secessionists.' He seems modified in his views a little
about 'the sum of all villanies,' since his return."
"Yes," said Mrs. North, "and the people here explain it by saying, 'O,
he was fêted, and flattered.'
"Yes," she continued, "some of our people will sacrifice their
confidence in man or angel, rather than believe anything good about
slavery."
I said to her, "Add the Bible to those witnesses, Mrs. North."
"Husband," said she, "please reach me that long, thin, brown-covered
book on the what-not." She then read an extract from the sixty-third
page; it was a book by one now deceased, called, "Experience as a
Minister":
"I had not been long a minister, before I found this worship of the
Bible as a fetish hindering me at every step. If I declared the
Constancy of Nature's Laws, and sought therein great argument for the
Constancy of God, all the miracles came and held their mythologic finger
up. Even Slavery was 'of God,' for the divine statutes in the Old
Testament admitted the principle that man might own a man, as well as a
garden or an ox, and provided for the measure. Moses and the Prophets
were on its side; and neither Paul of Tarsus, nor Jesus of Nazareth,
uttered a direct word against it."
* * * * *
"But here is the sun!" said I.
"We are all more cheerful," said Mrs. North, "than we were when he left
us; for we have been able to converse on a trying and perplexing
subject with good feelings."
"Now," said I, "here is the Southern lady's letter, which has given
occasion to all our conversation."
"It has also introduced us," said Mr. North, "to that goose, Gustavus,
and to his good aunt."
"What shall I say to the Southern lady," said I, "if I write to her
father?"
"Tell her," said Mrs. North, "that if she comes to the North she must
come directly to our house and make it her home. If you will allow me, I
will put a note into your envelope to that effect. I shall beg her to
bring Kate with her. Wouldn't I love to see Kate!"
"My dear," said Mr. North, "do you know what a time there would be if
the lady should bring Kate with her?"
"The good time coming! I think it would be," said his wife, "to see the
Southern lady and her Kate under our roof."
"Why," Paid he, "we should all have to go to court?"
"Well, that would be interesting," said she; "but for what?"
"Why," said he, "you know that this is free soil: Kate is a slave; she
can have her freedom for nothing if she comes here. Some of our
Massachusetts gentlemen are as chivalrous and attentive to Southern
colored people, as our good friend tells us Southern gentlemen are to a
white woman: a committee would wait on Kate, with an officer of the
peace, and invite her to visit the court-house with them, to be
presented with 'freedom'; and Kate's mistress must go with her, to show
that she is not restraining Kate of her liberty."
"Why," said Mrs. North, "if I could not be allowed, in visiting Sharon
Springs, to take Judith with me to give me my baths, because she is
free, I should call it barbarism. Who was that gentleman that broke his
collar-bone and seat to you, husband, to get him a nurse?"
Mr. North said it was a student in a medical school, from the South.
"Did you find him a nurse?" said she.
"Yes," he replied; "but he groaned and said, 'Mother wanted to send on
my mammy that nursed me, but your laws will not allow her to come. Now,'
said he, 'mammy will not tamper with your servants here, and entice them
away, as free colored men might do to our slaves if they landed at the
South from your vessels. O, mammy,' said he, 'if I had your 'arbs and
your nursing, what a pleasure it would be to be sick.'"
"Poor fellow!" said Mrs. North. "What did you say to him?"
"O," said he, "I told him that we lived under different institutions;
and that when we are among the Romans we must do as the Romans do."
"Well," said Mrs. North, "if all such prohibitions are not downright
impertinence, then I will give up."
"It's the law of the land, here," said her husband.
"Is there no 'Higher Law' in such a case?" said she. "'Higher Law,' I
believe, is sometimes the rule in Massachusetts."
"Some of our most estimable colored fellow-citizens would attend her,"
said I, "and tempt her by their own prosperity and happiness in freedom,
at the North, to cast in her lot with them and abandon her Southern
home, her mistress, and her little charge, Susan; and her own little
Cygnet's grave. They would send her, if she wished, free of charge, to
Canada, and leave her there. She could be perfectly free."
"Now, what is all this for?" said Mrs. North. "Do the people here really
believe that Kate is 'oppressed?' that her mistress is a tyrant? that
Kate is a victim to the 'sum of all villanies?' that she buffers an
'enormous wrong?' that her mistress does her a 'stupendous injustice?'
If they wish for objects of charity, and will go with me, I will engage
to supply them with 'the oppressed' in any quantity, with some of 'the
down-trodden' also."
"But, my dear Mrs. North," said I, "''tis distance lends enchantment to
the view.' Besides, to get a slave away from a Southerner is worth
unspeakably more to the cause of human happiness than to help scores of
Northern people."
"But to be serious," said Mr. North, "we are afraid that slave-holding
may get a foothold in Massachusetts; so we have to challenge every one
who comes here with a slave, to show proof that he or she is not holding
the servant to involuntary servitude among us."
"But," said Mrs. North, "are the people so conscientiously fearful lest
bondage should get established here in Massachusetts? Is that the true
reason for hurrying every colored servant, who travels here with his or
her invalid master or mistress, before a court to know if he or she
would not prefer to quit the family and the South? It seems to me we are
sadly wanting in good manners."
"Now, please do not smile at your good wife for her simplicity, Mr.
North," said I, "for I suppose that you are thinking, What have 'good
manners' to do with the 'cause of freedom'? She is right in her
impressions; a lady's sense of propriety against all the world."
"Do publish the Southern lady's letter by all means," said Mrs. North.
"How surprised she would be," said I, "to see it in print, or to know
that it had wandered here, and was taking part in the discussions about
slavery."
"The letter," said Mrs. North, "would, just now, seem like Noah's poor
little dove, wandering over wrecks and desolations."
"True," said I, "and to finish the illusion, it might come back to her
after many days, and lo! in its mouth an olive-leaf plucked off!"
"Give my love to her," said Mrs. North; "her letter has made me a better
and happier woman. Now I love my whole country. I do justice in my
feelings to hundreds of thousands whom I have hitherto regarded as
perverse. I now see God's wonder-working providence in connection with
the slave. It seems plain to me in what way the Union can be saved, and
that is, by the general prevalence at the North of such views about
slavery as the very best people at the South declare to be just and
right."
"You would be deemed simple for saying that, Mrs. North," said I. "But
you are right."
"Three things," she continued, after a moment's pause, "are more
strongly impressed on my mind; please see if I am right:--That the
relation of master and slave is not in itself sinful; That good people
at the South feel toward injustice and cruelty precisely like us; and,
That Southern Christians can correct all the evils in slavery, or
abolish it, if necessary, better without our aid than with it."
"Mrs. North," said I, "unless we accept those propositions, the North
and South never can live together in peace; and if we separate, the
Northern conscience will be in a worse condition than ever, and we shall
have long wars."
"It is a marvellous thing to me," said she, "as I now view it, that our
good Christian people here are not willing to confide in that which good
Southern Christian people say about slavery. We should trust their
judgments, their moral sentiments, their consciences, on any other
subject. How is it that when men and women, who are the excellent of the
earth, tell us the results of their observation, experience, and
reflections, with regard to slavery, we treat them as we do? When
ill-mannered people, who must be vituperative and saucy to every body
and in every thing, behave thus, it is not surprising; but I cannot
explain why truly good men should not either adopt the deliberate
sentiments of good people at the South, or at least consent to leave the
subject, if beyond their faith or discernment, to the responsibility of
Southern Christians. I condemn myself in saying this. But having myself
been converted, I have hope for everybody."
During this talk, Mr. North was affected somewhat as he said his wife
was when he first read the Southern lady's letter to her. He was a
little incoherent by reason of his emotions; but he made out to say
something about the sweetness and the strength of reconciled affections,
and of the happiness which there would be when it should be proclaimed
that the North and the South are once more friends.
"What is your whole name, Mrs. North?" said I; "for I shall wish to
speak of you to the Southern lady, if I write to her father."
"My Christian name," said she, "is Patience."
"PATIENCE NORTH!" I said to myself, once or twice, as I stood at the
parlor door. I was musing upon the name perhaps ten or fifteen seconds,
and when I looked up, they were each both smiling at me and crying.
We shook hands, and I went my way.
THE END.