that "chains Legree" in Louisiana! It is a poor rule, Mrs. Stowe, that won't work both ways. . The truth is, Legree is chained as really in the slave States as in the free, only his chain is a little longer,—a disadvantage that is more than made up for by the comparative rarity of the animal in these States and by the operation. of self-interest which protects the slave from the bad master ten times as often, in proportion, as parental affection protects the child from the bad father. In proof of the comparative rarity of the animal at the South, I myself could name at least half a dozen in my native village in Massachusetts, (a village of less than a thousand inhabitants,) now living, or that have been living within the last twenty years, that never ought to have been parents, and if I were to take my cue from Mrs. Stowe, I should seek to procure the enactment of a law prohibiting men like them from becoming such, or else, I should seek to take away from all parents that power which at least one in twenty of them (a far greater proportion than among masters) use to so bad purpose; but in doing this, I should be acting very foolishly, for the restriction of the parent's power would work mischief, and only mischief to children as a class, however it might protect now and then an individual; and what is true in this respect of the power of the parent over the child is equally true of the power of the master over the slave, if Mrs. Stowe could only be brought to see it. I have gone thus far in these remarks upon the hypothesis of the possibility of such a character as Legree; but, as the reader is aware, I have already denied that possibility. "But," says Mrs. Stowe, "the reader will have too much reason to know of the possibility of the existence of such men as Legree, when he comes to read the records of the trials and judicial decisions in Part II." I have read those records, and I find no instance of a Legree, or anything approaching to one. Instances of cruelty, I find,-ay, p* outrageous cruelty, though they are but few, notwithstanding she has raked and scraped "all over" the South. It is wonderful, the small number of the instances she has succeeded in finding. * Could any free State, at the North, or in Europe, stand the sweep of such a drag-net, and come out as free from scath? No one doubts that there are instances of cruelty,horrible cruelty,-at the South, as well as elsewhere. It was not the cruelty that I had in mind when I denied the possibility of such a character as Legree; I had in mind, amongst other things, the conversation on board the steamboat (vol. ii. pp. 172, 173.) and especially this portion of it: "I used to, when I fust begun, have considerable trouble fussin' with 'em, and trying to make 'em hold out,-doctorin' on 'em up when they's sick, and givin' on 'em.clothes, and blankets, and what not, trying to keep 'em all sorts o' decent and comfortable. Law, 't want no sort o' use; I lost money on 'em, and 't was heaps o' trouble. Now, you see, I just put 'em straight through, sick or well. When one nigger's dead, I buy another; and I find it comes cheaper and easier, every way." Now none but a madman ever uttered such superlative nonsense, and from the madman the law takes away the control of his slaves as well as his other property, and also, of his children. Mrs. Stowe tries to justify her putting such language into the mouth of Legree, but she fails utterly. She quotes the Report of the Agricultural Society of Baton Rouge, La., for 1829, as stating that the annual waste of life on wellconducted sugar estates was two and a half per cent., over * And among them all, is there one like that from the London Guardian, of February 2., (Appendix K. 3, (7.),) and was there ever such a verdict returned in such a case at the South? and above the natural increase. And she adds, And she adds, "The late Hon. Josiah S. Johnson, member of Congress from Louisiana, addressed a letter to the Secretary of the United States' Treasury, in 1830, containing a similar estimate, apparently made with great care, and going into minute details. Many items in this estimate differ from the preceding; but the estimate of the annual decrease of the slaves on a plantation was the same,-TWO AND A HALF PER CENT. !" This is, no doubt, a correct estimate, but how does it tally with the hearsay testimony of Mr. Blackwell, and Dr. Demming, that the annual waste of life was 12 to 14 per cent.,-in other words, that the master "could afford to sacrifice a set of hands once in seven or eight years," instead of once in forty? And how does this latter tally with the statement of Simon Legree, that the waste was from 15 to 50 per cent.? Mrs. Stowe must excuse me if I prefer the authentic official statement to the hearsay testimony; especially as I can demonstrate, from her own data, the truth of the one, and the falsehood of the other; that is to say, that the planter can afford to sacrifice a set of hands once in forty years, and that he cannot afford to sacrifice a set of hands once in seven years: the former, she will of course admit; the latter, I proceed to demonstrate. Mrs. Stowe states, from Professor Ingraham, that the negroes work during the season from eighteen to twenty hours, the gang being divided, at night, "into two watches, * Perhaps Mrs. Stowe will think it very awful to use up human life even at the rate of two and a half per cent.: if so, then she must think stone-cutting, glass-grinding, house-painting, and a good many other trades that might be mentioned, very awful ones, for they use up human life at a much more rapid rate. As to the sugar culture, more lives are lost in the transportation (by sea) than in the cultivation. Query: Did any Yankee abolitionist while eating his salt fish, ever reflect how many lives were lost by the eod-fishery, annually? one taking the first and the other the last part of the night." Let us take the longest period,-twenty hours, and let us suppose a planter starting an estate with a gang "of seven hundred blacks," a number just sufficient to work the estate, working twenty hours a day during the season, and at the ordinary rate the rest of the year; let us further suppose the negroes to be fresh hands, just purchased from a Virginia trader, of the average age of twenty-five years, which is a high average, judging from Mrs. Stowe's advertisements and comments, (pp. 133–150,) and at the average cost of one thousand dollars, which is a low average in Louisiana, as they are now bringing nearly that in Virginia. If the planter were to purchase three hundred more negroes and work the estate with a gang of one thousand at the rate of fourteen hours a day during the season, and seven-tenths of the ordinary rate the rest of the year, he would accomplish the same amount of labor as with the seven hundred on the other supposition, and Mrs. Stowe herself must admit that they would not in that case be overworked nor their lives. shortened. According to the Baton Rouge Agricultural Society Report, and the Hon. Mr. Johnson's letter, the estate could be worked with the seven hundred, working twenty hours a day during the season, and a set be worked up only once in forty years; and this would be more profitable than to work it with one thousand. According to Mr. Blackwell and Dr. Demming, the estate being worked with seven hundred, a set would be worked up in seven years; and this would be less profitable-far less profitable than to work it with one thousand, as I am now to show. In the following demonstration, the several examples have been worked out to the nearest cent, and the results are here set down to the nearest dollar. According to Mrs. Stowe, the expense of keeping a negro in Lousiana," two pairs of pantaloons and a pair of shoes a year, with enough food and shelter to keep him in working order," (vol. ii. p. 20,)-cannot be more than twenty dollars, at the outside, as thus: Two pairs of (thin) pantaloons and a pair of shoes, $5,00; a peck of corn a week, or thirteen bushels a year, at fifty cents a bushel, (Key, p. 45,) $6,50; rent of shanties, such as are described in the Key, (p. 44,) per head, $6,00; (a shanty containing ten, would thus rent for $60,00; high enough, in all conscience!) doctor's bill, $2,50;--in all, $20,00. We will put it, however, at double that amount, viz. $40,00, which is $3,60 more than it costs to "board, nurse, clothe and doctor" a pauper in the cold climate of Massachusetts, (see Appendix, F., LEOMINSTER,) and more than three times the sum ($12,00) which the American missionaries in Ceylon required, thirty years ago, for boarding, clothing and educating a Tamul youth; (see Missionary Herald, of that period, passim.) This item is to be charged against both systems,-the using up, and the saving. To this latter is to be charged another item, that of life-insurance, as on this system the capital is not to be sunk at all. The charge for this, at the age of twenty-five, is $1,90 on the hundred; or, $19,00 per head. The debtor side of the account, then, will stand as follows: 1. On the saving system: Compound interest on capital-1,000 negroes, at $1,000 each-$1,000,000, at 6 per cent., for 7 years, $507,630 Cost of keeping, at $40,00 each, per annum, for 7 years, 7 years' comp'd interest on 1st year's keeping, $20,305 280,000 Life Insurance--7 years' premium, at $19,000, 133,000 36,128 Total, $1,032,817 |