Part 26 (1/2)
[Footnote BJ: The reader is requested to remember that all the words printed in italics--while dealing with _English Items_--are so done to show that they are quotations from the eulogies of the American press.
They are as thoroughly repudiated by me as they must be by every American gentleman.]
[Footnote BK: Did Mr. Ward ever read any account in the gazettes of his own country, of the poor soldiers going to ”Was.h.i.+ngton to procure land warrants, and after being detained there till they were reduced to beggary, receiving no attention? Let me commend the following letter, taken from the press of his own country, dated July 6, 1853, and addressed to the President:--
”DEAR SIR,--_In the humblest tone do I implore your charity for three cents, to enable me to procure something to eat._ Pray be so kind, and receive the grateful thanks of your humble supplicant of Shenandoah County, Va.”]
[Footnote BL: The reader will be astonished to know that these remarks are from the pen of a Kentucky man; in which State there is a large hole in the ground, made by Providence, and called ”The Mammoth Cave;” it is situated on private property, and for the privilege of lionizing it, you pay 10s. So carefully is it watched, that no one is even allowed to make a plan of it, lest some entrance should be found available on the adjoining property.]
[Footnote BM: I must beg the reader to remember this last sentence when he comes to the interview between the Kentucky author and his old friend, the schoolmaster.]
[Footnote BN: Kentucky is the State of his birth and family, Arkansas the State of his adoption, and ”The Three Continents” the fruit of his pen.]
[Footnote BO: The reader will find that, in his interview with the schoolmaster, his brother was ”completely himself” with a bowie-knife only.]
[Footnote BP: One other instance I must give of the coolness with which an American writer can pen the most glaring falsehood; _vide_ ”English Traits,” by R.W. Emerson. I might quote many fake impressions conveyed, but I shall confine myself to one of his observations upon a religious subject, where at least decency might have made him respect truth. At page 126 I find the following sentence:--”They put up no Socratic prayer, _much less any saintly prayer, for the Queen's mind_; ask neither for light nor right, but say bluntly, 'grant her in health and wealth long to live.'” Now, I will not ask whether the author of this pa.s.sage ever saw our Book of Common Prayer, because printing the words in inverted commas is proof sufficient; nor will I go out of my way to show the _many_ prayers put up for the bestowal of purely spiritual blessings; but, when I find the previous sentence to the one quoted by him to be as follows, ”Endow her plenteously with heavenly gifts,” what can I say of such a writer? Either that by heavenly gifts he understands dollars and cents, or that he has wilfully sacrificed religious truth at the shrine of democratic popularity. Having placed him on these two horns of a dilemma, I leave him to arrange his seat.]
[Footnote BQ: Of course the evidence of the brother is the _most favourable_ to Mr. M.F.W. that the trial produces.]
[Footnote BR: It appears in evidence that the scene described took place about half-past ten A.M.]
[Footnote BS: Mr. Sturgus is the master who was supposed to be unfriendly to Mr. Matthew F. Ward.]
CHAPTER XXV.
_The Inst.i.tution of Slavery._
There is one subject which no person who pretends to convey to the reader the honest thoughts and impressions which occupied his mind during his travels in this vast Republic, can pa.s.s over in silence; and that subject, I need scarcely observe, is Slavery. It is an inst.i.tution which deserves most serious consideration; for while a general unity of sentiment binds the various States together in a manner that justifies the national motto, ”_E pluribus unum_,” the question of slavery hangs fearfully over their Union; and the thread by which it is suspended is more uncertain than the fragile hair of the sword of Damocles, for it is dependent upon the angry pa.s.sions of angry man.
So true do I feel this to be, that were I a citizen of one of the Free States of America, I might hesitate before I committed my opinions to the Press. I trust, however, that I may so treat the subject that no cause for ill-blood may be given. Unquestionably, the origin of the evil is wholly with the mother country. We entered into the diabolical traffic of our fellow-creatures, and forced the wretched negro upon a land which had never before received the impress of a slave's foot; and this we did despite all the remonstrances of the outraged and indignant colonists; and with this revolting sin upon our shoulders, it is but natural we should feel deeply interested in the sable ivy-shoot we planted, and which now covers the whole southern front of the stately edifice of the Giant Republic. Time was when a Newcastle collier might have carried the sable shoot back to the soil whence it had been stolen; now, the keels of many nations combined would scarce suffice to move the rapid growth.
But, while at England's door lies the original guilt, America has since put the solemn seal of her paternity upon it; every foot of land which, in the rapid career of her aggrandis.e.m.e.nt, has been sullied with the footsteps of the slave for the first time, mars the beauty of the cap of liberty, and plants a slave-trader's star in the banner of the nation. She is only doing a century later what we wickedly did a century before--viz., planting slavery on a soil hitherto free, and enlarging the market for the sale of flesh and blood. The futile excuse sometimes offered, that they were merely moved from one part to another of the same country, cannot be admitted; or, if it be, upon the same principle all the Free States might return again to slavery. If it be no sin to introduce slavery into a free Sovereign State, then was England not so guilty in the first instance, for she sent slaves from a land of ignorance, cruelty, and idolatry, to an enlightened and Christian colony. It is in vain for either England or the United States to s.h.i.+rk the guilty responsibility of introducing slaves on free soil. England has the additional guilt of having acted against the wishes of the colonists; the United States has the additional guilt of increasing slave territory a century later, and when the philanthropists of every country were busied in endeavours to solve the problem, ”How can slavery be abolished?”
Without dwelling further upon respective guilt, I will at once proceed to review the crusades which have been made against the inst.i.tution, and the hopes of the slave under it; after which, I will offer for consideration such proposals as appear to me worthy the attention of all the true friends of the negro, whether owners or not. While thus treating the subject, I beg to observe that I fully recognise each individual State as possessing plenipotentiary powers within the limits of that const.i.tution by which they are all bound together: and I trust that, in any observations I may make, no one expression will be so misconstrued as to give offence; for I know full well the stupendous difficulties with which the whole question is surrounded, and I feel it is one which should be approached only in a true spirit of charity and kindness towards the much-maligned gentlemen of the South.
I open the question by asking--what is the meaning of the cry raised by the fanatics of the North--the abolition crusaders? In words, it is freedom to the slave; in fact, it is spoliation of their neighbours. Had the proposition come from wild Arabs who live in houses they carry on their backs, and feed on the milk of flocks that pasture at their side, I might have comprehended the modest proposal; but coming from those whose energy for business is proverbial, and whose acuteness in all matters of dollars and cents is unsurpa.s.sed, if equalled, by the shrewdest Hebrew of the Hebrews, I confess it is beyond my puny imagination to fathom. Were it accompanied with any pecuniary offer adequate to the sacrifice proposed, I might be able to comprehend it: but for those, or the descendants of those, who, as they found white labour more profitable, sold their sable brethren to their southern neighbours, and thus easily and profitably removed slavery from their borders,--for those, I say, to turn round and preach a crusade for the emanc.i.p.ation of the negro, in homilies of contumely, with the voice of self-righteousness, exhibits a degree of a.s.surance that cannot be surpa.s.sed. Had they known as much of human nature as of the laws of profit and loss, they might have foreseen that in every epithet heaped upon their southern countrymen, they were riveting a fresh bolt in the slave's fetters. On what plea did the American colony rebel? Was it not, as a broad principle, the right of self-government? Does not their const.i.tution allow independent action to each State, subject only to certain obligations, binding alike on all? If those are complied with, on what principle of patriotism or honour do individuals or societies hurl torches of discord among their southern co-citizens?
No person who has watched or inquired into the social state of the slaves during the present century, can fail to have observed that much has been done to improve their condition among the respectable holders thereof, both as regards common education and religious instruction; at the same time, they will perceive that the first law of nature--self-preservation--compelled them to make common education penal, as soon as fanatical abolitionists inundated the country with firebrand pamphlets. No American can deny, that when an oppressed people feel their chains galling to them, they have a right to follow the example of the colonists, and strike for freedom. This right doubtless belongs to the negro, and these inflammable publications were calculated to lead them on to make the effort. But what reflecting mind can fail to foresee the horrors consequent upon such a hopeless endeavour? More especially must it have presented itself to the mind of the slave-masters; and could they, with sure visions before their eyes of the fearful sacrifice of human life, the breaking-up of whatever good feeling now exists between master and slave, and the inauguration of a reign of terror and unmitigated severity--could they, I say, with such consequences staring them in the face, have taken a more mild, sensible, and merciful step than checking that education, through the instrumentality of which, the abolitionists were hastening forward so awful a catastrophe?
The following extract may suffice to prove the irritation produced by the abolitionists in Virginia, though, of course, I do not pretend to insinuate that the respectable portion of the community in that State would endorse its barbarous ravings:--
”SLAVERY IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM.--The (American) _Richmond Examiner_, in connexion with the recent trial of Ward of Kentucky, has the following theory on the extinction of schoolmasters in general:--'The South has for years been overrun with hordes of illiterate, unprincipled graduates of the Yankee free schools (those hot-beds of self-conceit and ignorance), who have, by dint of unblus.h.i.+ng impudence, established themselves as schoolmasters in our midst. So odious are some of these ”itinerant ignoramuses” to the people of the South; so full of abolitionism and concealed incendiarism are many of this cla.s.s; so full of guile, fraud, and deceit,--that the deliberate shooting one of them down, in the act of poisoning the minds of our slaves or our children, we think, if regarded as homicide at all, should always be deemed perfectly justifiable; and we imagine the propriety of shooting an abolition schoolmaster, when caught tampering with our slaves, has never been questioned by any intelligent Southern man. This we take to be the unwritten common law of the South, and we deem it advisable to promulgate the law, that it may be copied into all the abolition papers, thundered at by the three thousand New England preachers, and read with peculiar emphasis, and terrible upturning of eyes, by Garrison, at the next meeting of the anti-slavery party at Faneuil Hall. We repeat, that the shooting of itinerant abolition schoolmasters is frequently a creditable and laudable act, ent.i.tling a respectable Southern man to, at least, a seat in the Legislature or a place in the Common Council. Let all Yankee schoolmasters who propose invading the South, endowed with a strong nasal tw.a.n.g, a long scriptural name, and Webster's lexicographic book of abominations, seek some more congenial land, where their own lives will be more secure than in the ”vile and homicidal Slave States.”
We shall be glad if the ravings of the abolition press about the Ward acquittal shall have this effect.'”
We now see that the abolitionists have rendered the education of the negro, with a view to his ultimate fitness for freedom or self-government, utterly impracticable, however anxious the slave-owner might have otherwise been to instruct him. Thus, by their imprudent violence, they have effectually closed the educational pathway to emanc.i.p.ation. It should not either be forgotten that the Southerners may have seen good reason to doubt the Christian sincerity of those who clamoured so loudly for loosening the fetters of the slaves. The freed slaves in the Northern States must have frequently been seen by them, year after year, as they went for ”the season” to the watering-places, and could they observe much in his position there to induce the belief that the Northerners are the friends of the negro? In some cities, he must not drive a coach or a car; in others, he must not enter a public conveyance; in places of amus.e.m.e.nt, he is separated from his white friend; even in the house of that G.o.d with whom ”there is no respect of persons,” he is part.i.tioned off as if he were an unclean animal; in some States he is not admitted at all.
With such evidences of friends.h.i.+p for the negro, might they not question the honesty of Northern champions of emanc.i.p.ation? Could they really place confidence in the philanthropic professions of those who treat the negro as an outcast, and force on him a life of wretchedness instead of striving to raise him in the social scale? If a negro had the intellect of a Newton--if he were clothed in purple and fine linen, and if he came fresh from an Oriental bath, and fragrant as ”Araby's spices,” a Northerner would prefer sitting down with a pole-cat--he would rather pluck a living coal from the fire than grasp the hand of the worthiest negro that ever stepped. Whoever sees a negro in the North smile at the approach of the white man? Who has not seen a worthy planter or slave-owner returning from a short absence, greeted with smiles in abundance, or perhaps receiving a broad grin of pride and pleasure as the worthy owner gave his hand to some old faithful slave?
I think I have shown, in the foregoing remarks, that the Southern has three solid and distinct grounds of objection to the Free States abolitionist. First,--The natural spirit of man, which rebels against wholesale vituperation and calumny. Secondly,--The obstacle they have placed in the way of giving the slave simple education, by introducing most inflammable pamphlets. Thirdly,--The questionable sincerity of their professed sympathy for the slave, as evidenced by the antipathy they exhibit towards the free negro, and by the palpable fact that he is far worse off in a free than in a slave State.