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THE HOME OF A SLAVE.

sider them such. There was no tone of querulous complaint. The facts came out only in answer to my direct inquiries; and neither of the women seemed to consider herself especially to be pitied, Charlotte thought a little hard of it that her master did not send her medicine when she was sick. The hire of her children did not seem to have suggested itself to her as any injustice. Even the other said she would be willing to part with the children if she only knew they were well treated. Had she been suffered to retain them, her gratitude to her master for his generosity would, it was evident, have been unbounded. One could see that the four thousand dollars subtracted from her own and her husband's earnings never occurred to her except as a usual thing.

Both women expressed the greatest satisfaction that they were allowed to hire themselves. It was sufficiently apparent that nothing short of compulsion would cause either of them to return to what they still called "home." What sort of home could that be, compared to which the privilege of hard labor at the washtub, purchased by a weekly payment in money,-coupled in one case with a similar payment for the children and in the other with the loss of them,-was regarded as a favor and a blessing?

Let us not imagine that the masters, in these two cases, were sinners above all men that dwelt in Kentucky. They may have been indulgent in their own families, kind to their white neighbors, honorable in their business dealings, esteemed in society. The anomaly is presented of men whose characters in one phase entitle them to be called cultivated and civilized, yet in another to wit, in their dealings with a proscribed race-exhibiting such utter disregard of the mild graces of Christianity-mercy, charity. long-suffering, kindness,

THE WHITE PARIAHS OF THE SOUTH.

125

and good will to men-that it is not too harsh to say they live in a state of semi-barbarism. Such results are chargeable far less to the individuals who have thus gone astray than to the system which has formed their character. But a system has lamentably failed that results in the arrest of human civilization and Christian progress, in injury to the national character, and in disregard, under any circumstances, of the natural and inalienable rights of man.

Nor is the contempt engendered by this system towards those occupying subordinate social positions confined to the colored man. Under slavery there grows up a class of white, as well as black, Pariahs. A marked feature in Southern society is the temper and demeanor of the wealthy slaveholder towards an indigent portion of his own race, the "poor whites," as they are called, of the South. Slavery is to them the source of unmingled evil. Labor owned, competing with labor hired, deprives them of the opportunity to earn an honest livelihood. Labor degraded before their eyes destroys within them all respect for industry, extinguishes all desire by honorable exertion to improve their condition. Doomed by habitual indolence to abject poverty, complacently ignorant, vilely proud, it is doubtful whether there exists, in all civilized society, a class of men more deplorably situated. And yet how fiercely have they been brought to fight for the slave-masters who despise them, and for the system which consigns them to degradation !*

While visiting Nashville as commissioner, I encountered a notable specimen of the class I have been describing.

It was in the office of a gentleman charged with the duty of issuing transportation and rations to indigent persons,-black and white. There entered a rough, dirty, uncouth specimen of humanity,-tall, stout, and wiry-looking, rude and abrupt in speech and bearing, and clothed in

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SLAVERY AND DEMOCRACY IMCOMPATIBLE.

Such a system is fraught with mischief politically as well as morally. They who violate the rights of one race of men lose a portion of their reverence for the rights of all. It comes to this, that the peculiarities of character stamped, more or less, on every country in which slavery exists, are, in spirit and in practice, adverse not to religion and civilization alone, but to democracy also. No people exposed to the influences which produce such peculiarities will ever be found imbued with a universal sense of justice, with a respect for industry, with a disposition to grant to labor its just position among mankind. Nor can any people subjected to influences so deleterious ever be expected to remain, in perpetuity, contented and happy under republican rule.* threadbare homespun. In no civil tone, he demanded rations. While the agent went to consult the Governor, I discovered from the man's boastful manner that he was a rebel deserter, who had "seen as much of fighting as he wanted." When he was informed that all the rations applicable to such a purpose were exhausted, he broke forth :-"What am I to do, then? How am I to get home?"

"You can have no difficulty," replied the agent. "It is but fifteen or eighteen hours down the river [the Cumberland] by steamboat to where you live; I furnished you transportation; you can work your way."

"Work my way!" (with a scowl of angry contempt.) "I never did a stroke of work since I was born, and I never expect to, till my dying day."

The agent replied, quietly, "They will give you all you want to eat on board, if you only help them to wood."

Carry wood!" he retorted, with an oath. "Whenever they ask me to carry wood, I'll tell them they may set me on shore. I'd rather starve for a week than to work for an hour. I don't want to live in a world that I can't make a living out of without work."

The insolent swagger with which this was said ought to have been seen to be fully appreciated. All over the man-in his tone, manner, language, and degraded aspect-was stamped his class; the most ignorant, illiterate, and vulgar. He seemed fitted for no decent employment upon earth except manual labor; and all labor he spurned as a degradation.

*"After dinner the conversation again turned on the resources and power of the South, and on the determination of the people never to go

A PRINCE FOR THE SOUTH.

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In no sense, then, neither political, moral, or religious, can the experiment of slavery in these States be regarded any other light than as an utter failure.

in

CHAPTER XI.

THE GREAT LESSON.

ALL this might have been said four years ago, in reply to any argument that might then have been adduced in support of the assertion that slavery, though it failed in the West Indies and South America, had succeeded in the United States.

But how instructive, how invaluable, the experience of these eventful four years! New views of the subject present themselves to-day. Aspects of the slavery question, hidden until now, come conspicuously into the light. History had previously recorded the social and economical evils of the system. Now she has presented to us its political consequences.

And now, therefore, going back to our starting-point on the African coast, and following up, once more, the two diverging branches of the great stream of slaveimmigration, flowing West,-the one branch bearing half a million captives to this Northern continent, the

back into the Union. Then cropped out again the expression of regret for the rebellion of 1776, and the desire that, if it came to the worst, England would receive back her erring children, or give them a prince under whom they could secure a monarchical form of government. There is no doubt about the earnestness with which these things are said.”—My Diary, North and South, by William Howard Russell, 1862, chapter xvii.

This was in April, 1861, on a South Carolinian plantation. "The rebellion of 1776;" outspoken enough, certainly. Mr. Russell represents these sentiments as then common in the South.

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A GREAT LESSON DELAYED,

other conveying fifteen millions to islands and a continent farther South,—we are able, by the light of recent experience, to present, more fully and clearly than ever before, the comparative results in either case.

1

Increase or decrease, apparent success or undeniable failure, the ultimate results have been fatal alike.

The fifteen millions despatched to the West Indian colonies and to South America never, as a population, took healthy root in the lands to which they were banished. They had no growth. From the first, and ever after, century by century, they melted away under the influences of the system that degraded and destroyed them. Their fate, and the lesson it conveyed, were immediate and apparent. God stamped the policy which enslaved them, at every stage of its progress, with his reprobation.

the

But as to the half-million that came among us, mark of Divine condemnation, apparently suspended for a time, came in a different form at last. For a time that half-million increased and multiplied and replenished the earth. For a time their masters were wealthy and prosperous, as men usually rate prosperity. For a time these masters increased in political power. They held sway in the Republic. They controlled the National Legislature; they obtained a majority of the public offices. The end was delayed. And when it came at last, it was the direct result of the peculiarities of character impressed by slavery on its votaries. Imperious and insubordinate, they rebelled against lawful authority. Spurning wholesome control, they rejected the President who was the choice of the majority. Despising a working people, they sought to sever connection with the North, a race of unblushing laborers. Seduced by evil habit into the belief that man's noblest condition is to live by the exertions of others, they