The Southern spy: or, Curiosities of negro slavery in the South. Letters from a Southerner to a Northern friend

OF TH-

INS HOPKINS U^iVERS^^'
'^^:j^^^r^ THE

SOUTHEEN SPY:

<3 : ■
OR, ^

CURIOSITIES

OP V.

NEGRO SLAVEE^

IN THE SOUTH.

LETTERS FROM A SOUTHERNER TO A NORTHERN

FRIEND.

WASHINGTON

HENRY POLKINnORN, PRINTER

1859.

PREFATORY.

The writer of these simple pages has prepared for publication

a collection of letters on the subject of Slave Life in the South,

which were originally addressed to David M. Clarkson, Esq.,

*' Glenbrook," Newburgh, N. Y. — a gentleman whose friendship

is one among those in the North that he has greatly prized, and

whose cultivated patriotism is of that broad and noble type that

he has ever fervently admired. He ventures to place a few of

these letters, in this bumble way, before the public. In case of

the press, and particularly that of the South, giving these few

pages a verdict of encouragement, he will venture further to

submit to the public the entire collection of the Letters of " The

Southern Spy."

EDWARD A. POLLARD.

Washington, February, 1859.

THE SOUTHERN SI^Y.

LETTER NO. 1.

Macon, Georgia, 1858.

My deae C : I engaged to write you from the

South, and I take the earliest opportunity to date my
correspondence from Middle Georgia. But I should
not fail to drop you a line or two, at start, of Macon,
where I write, as it is accounted one of the most beau-
tiful cities of the South, and has many objects of
interest. It is the seat of several public institutions,
but has but little trade. Near by the city, on a com-
manding position, stands Fort Hawkins, a rude wooden
building, which was constructed as a protection against
the Indians ; for you must know that Macon was about
the frontier of Georgia in 1818. An Indian mound
is in sight, on the top of which are standing a few
tall, melancholy pines. On the hills which surround
the city, and in the beautiful little ville of Vineville,
which adjoins it, may be seen the evidences of refine-
ment in the handsome residences adorned with shrub-
bery and evergreens ; among which the olive and the
holly, with its lucid green, are the most common.
Many of the residences of men of wealth are admira-
ble, especially for their tasteful grounds. But there
is the fondness for white paint, which may be observed

in all parts of the South, and for a nondescript archi-
1*

tecturc, in -wlilch all styles arc jumbled, or a plain
magnificence, studied in rows of pillars and flights of
steps, that frequently give to a Soathern villa the
singular appearance of an eleemosynary institution.
The chief object, however, to which the admiration of
the stranger is directed in Macon is the public ceme-
tery, which is compared (not extravagantly) in some
points of natural scene, to Mount xVuburn and Green-
wood. It is a lovely piece of ground, with natural
terraces overhanging the Ocmulgee, and the wild glen
that divides it. The picturesque effect, however, is
almost entirely destroyed by the thick brushwood,
wdiich prevents the eye from taking in the outlines of
the scene. The ground is covered with coppices of
oak and pine, and studiously kept in a state of nature.
It seems, however, a strange idea to keep the natural
scene concealed by the brushwood which everywhere
intercepts the view. May-be it is intended to be

" Unadorned, adorned the most ""-
an aesthetic fogyism, en passant, disproved and des-
pised, at least by the charming ladies of Macon.

In writing you, my dear C, of the South, and
its peculiar institution, (as I intend,) I am sure that
I have no prejudice to dispel from your mind on the
subject ; but as -I may hereafter publish some extracts
from the correspondence, I hope the sketches, which
may amuse you, may correct the false views of others,
derived, as they chiefly are, from the libels of North-
ern spies, who live or travel here in disguise. Thus
I observed lately a communication in some of the

Abolition papers, professing to have been written by
one who has been a resident of Macon for eleven
years, to the effect that the people here do not allow
Northern papers to circulate or be taken by subscri-
bers, or even Congressional documents to be among
them, which do not harmonize with their peculiar
views. Although this infamous libel is quite as absurd
and undeserving of contradiction as the famed Arrow-
smith hoax, or any of the Sanguinary Crowbar style
of negro-w^orship fictions, it deserves notice in one
respect. There are a number of Yankee doughfaces
in the South, who before us are the greatest admirers
of the peculiar institution^ and, to honey-fuggle us,
even chime in with the abuse of their own land. There
is danger in these men of disguised character, many
of whom are doing business in the South. They are
not to be trusted ; and while, not satisfied with being
tolerated among us, they impose on our confidence
and hospitality by their professions, they take secret
opportunities to gratify their real hatred of us, by
tam^pering '^ith the slaves, or by libelling the South
under the shelter of anonymous letters published in
the North. The man who would devise a safe oppor-
tunity to publish what he knew to be false and libel-
lous of those whose good-v,ill he had won by another
lie might, with the same hope of impunity, venture on
a grander revenge, and secretly conspire with the
slave in a rebellion.

But it is not my purpose to trouble you with a dis-
sertation on "the vexed question," or the social sys-

tern of the South, or any of tlic political aspects of
Slavery. I mci'ely design to employ a few leisure hours
in a series of unpretending sketches of the condi-
tion, hahits, and peculiarities of the negro slave. The
field, you know, has furnished a number of books ; and
I am sure, my dear C, that you are too sensible
of the large share of public attention niggers occupy
in this country to slight them. Besid<3S, I am thor-
oughly convinced that the negro portraits of the fiction
writers are, most of them, mere caricatures, taking
them all, from ^' Uncle Tom's Cabin," down to the
latest reply thereto — "a book" from a Virginia au-
thoress, in which the language put in the mouth of
her leading character is a mixture of Irish idioms with
the dialect of the Bowery. Whoever heard a South-
ern negro say, as the Virginia lady's sable hero does,
*' The tip-top of the morning to you, young ladies!"
or " AVhat's to pay now?" Nor will we find any of
Mrs. Stow's Uncle Toms in the South, at least as far
as the religious portraiture goes. The negro in his
religion is not a solemn old gentleman, reading his
Bible in corners and praying in his closet : his piety
is one of fits and starts, and lives on prayer-meetings,
with its rounds of \zortafions, shoutings, and stolen
sweets of baked pig.

You already know my opinion of the peculiarities
of the negro's condition in the South, in the provis-
ion made for his comfort, and in the attachment be-
tween him and his master. The fact is, that in wan-
dering from my native soil to other parts of the

world, I have seen slavery in many forms and aspects.
We have all heard enough of the colliers and factor}^
operatives of England, and the thirty thousand cos-
termongers starving in the streets of London ; as also
of the serfs and crown-peasants of Russia, who are
considered not even as chattels, but as part of the
land, and who have their wives selected for them by
their masters. I have seen the hideous slavery of Asia.
I have seen the coolies of China " housed on the wild
sea with wilder usages," or creeping with dejected
faces into the suicide houses of Canton. I have seen
the Siamese slave creeping in the presence of his
master on all-fours — a human quadruped. It was in-
deed refreshing after such sights to get back to the
Southern institution, which strikes one, after so many
years of absence, with a novelty that makes him
appreciate more than ever the evidences of comfort
and happiness on the plantations of the South.

The first unadulterated negro I had seen for a
number of years, (having been absent for the most of
that time on a foreign soil,) was on the railroad cars
in Virginia. He looked like liome. I could have em-
braced the old uncle but was afraid the passengers,
from such a demonstration, might mistake me for an
Abolitionist. I looked at him with my face aglow
and my eye-lids touched with tears. How he remind-
ed me of my home — of days gone by — that poetry of
of youth, "when I was a boy," and wandered with
my sable playmates over the warm, wide hills of my
sweet home, and along the branches, fishing in the

10

shallow waters with a crooked pin ! But no romancing
with the past ! So we continue our journey onward
to "the State of railways and revolvers."

Arrived in Georgia, I find plenty of the real genu-
ine woolly-heads, such as don't part their hair in the
middle, like Mass'r Fremont. My first acquaintance
is with Aunt Dcbby. I insist upon giving her a shake
of the hand, which she prepares for by deprecatingly
wiping her hand on her apron. Aunt Debby is an
aged colored female of the very highest respectabil-
ity, and, with her white apron and her head mysteri-
ously enveloped in the brightest of bandannas, she
looks (to use one of her own rather obscure similes)
"like a new pin." She is very fond of usurping the
authority of her mistress below stairs, and has the
habit of designating every one of her own color, not
admitted to equality, as " de nigger.'' Aunt Debby is
rather spoiled, if having things her own way means it.
If at times her mistress is roused to dispute her au-
thority, Aunt Debby is sure to resume the reins when
quiet ensues. "Debby," cries her mistress, "what's
all this noise in the kitchen — what are you whipping
Lucy for?" "La, missis, I'se jest makin' her 'have
herself. She too busy lualltng her eyes at me, and
spilt the water on the steps." Among the children,
Aunt Debby is a great character. She is, however,
very partial ; and her favorite is little Nina, whom she
calls (from what remote analogy we are at a loss to
conjecture) "her jellg-pot." I flatter myself that I
am in her good graces. Her attention to me has been

11

shown by a present of ground-peas, and accessions of
fat lightwood to my fire in tlie morning.

The religious element is very strong in Aunt Deb-
by's character, and her repertoire of pious minstrelsy
is quite extensive. Her favorite hymn is in the follow-
ing words, which are repeated over and over again :

Oh run, brother, run ! Judgment day is comin' !

Oh run, brother, run ! Why don't you come along?

The road so rugged, and the hill so high —

And my Lord call me home.

To walk the golden streets of m.y New Jerusalem.

Aunt Debby's religion is of that sort — always beg-
ging the Lord to take her up to glory, and professing
the greatest anxiety to go right noiv ! This religious
enthusiasm, however, is not to be taken at its word.

You have doubtless heard the anecdote of Caesar,
which is too good not to have been told more than
once ; though even if you have heard the story before,
it will bear repetition for its moral. Now, Caesar one
day had caught it, not from Brutus, but from Betty —
an allegorical coquette in the shape of a red cowhide.
On retiring to the silence of his cabin at night, C^sar
commenced to soliloquize, rubbing the part of his
body where the castigation had been chiefly adminis-
tered, and bewailing his fate, with tragic desperation,
in the third person. '* Caesar," said he, "most done
gone — don't want to live no longer ! Jist come, good
Lord, swing low de chariot, and take dis chile away !
Caesar ready to go — he wants to go ! " An irreverent
darkey outside, hearing these protestations, tapped at
the door. '' Who dar ? " replied C«)sar, in a low voice

V2

of suppressetl alarm. ^' De angel of cle Lord come
for Civisar, 'cor Jin to request." The dread summons
had indeed come, thought Caesar; but blowing out the
liglit ^vith a sudden whiff, he replied, in an uncon-
cerned tone, "i>6 nigger dont live here.''

There is one other trait wanting to complete Aunt
Debby's character. Though at an advanced age, she
is very coquettish, and keeps up a regular assault on
a biir lout of the name of Sam, whom she affects to
despise as "jist de meanest nigger de Lord ever put
breath in." I overheard some words between them
last holiday. "I'se a white man to-day," says Sam,
" and I'se not gwine to take any of your imperence,
old ooman;" at the sam.e time, taking the familiar
liberty of poking his finger into her side like a brad-
awl. "Get 'long. Sat — en!" replies Aunt Debby
with a shove, but a smile at the same time, to his in-
fernal majesty. And then thy both fell to laughing
for the space of half a minute, although I must con-
fess that I could not understand what they were
laughing at.

Aunt Debby may serve you, my dear C, as a pic-
ture of the happy, contented. Southern slave. Some
of your northern politicians would represent the slaves
of the South as sullen, gloomy, isolated from life — in
fact, pictures of a living death. Believe me, nothing
could be further from the truth. Like Aunt Debby,
they have their little prides and passions, their amuse-
ments, their pleasantries, which constitute the same
sum of liappincss as in the lives of their masters.

IB

The v\"liipping-post and the slave mart are con-
stantly paraded before the eyes of the poor, deluded
fanatics of jour section. Now, I can assure you that
the inhuman horrors of the slave auction-block exist
only in imagination. ^lany instances of humanity
may be observed there ; and but seldom docs the in-
fluence of the almighty dollar appear to sway other
and better considerations in the breast of the slave-
holder. The separation of families at the block has
come to be of very unfrequent occurrence, although
the temptation is obvious to do so, as they generally
sell much better when the families are separated, and
especially as the traders, who usually purchase for
immediate realization, do not wish small children.
Indeed, there is a statute in this State (Georgia) for-
bidding the sale of slave children of tender age away
from their parents.

I attended a slave auction here the other day. The
negroes were called up in succession on the steps of
the court-house, where the crier stood. Most of them
appeared naturally anxious as the bidding was going
on, turning their eyes from one bidder to the other ;
while the scene would be occasionally enlivened by
some jest in depreciation of the negro on the stand,
which would be received with especial merriment by
his felloY)^ negroes, who awaited their turn, and looked
on from a large wagon in which they were placed.
As I came up, a second-rate plantation hand of the
name of Noah, but whom the crier persisted in call-
ing '''• Noey," was being offered, it being an adminis-

14

trator's sale. Nocy, on mounting tlie steps, had as*
sumed a most drooping aspect, hanging his head and
affecting the feebleness of old age. He had probably
hoped to have avoided a sale by a dodge, which is
very common in such cases. But the first bid —
§1,000 — startled him, and lie looked eagerly to the
quarter ^Yllence it proceeded. " Never mind wlio he
is, he has got the money. Now, gentlemen, just go
on; who will say fifty." And so the crier proceeds
with his monotonous calling. " I aint worth all that,
mass'r ; I aint much 'count no how," cries Noey en-
ergetically to the first bidder. " Yes you are, Noey
— ah, $1,010, thank you, sir," replies the crier.
The gentleman who makes this bid is recognised by
Noey as "Mass'r John," one of the heirs. §1,011,
rejoins the first bidder, and Noey throws a glance of
infinite disdain at him for his presumption in bidding
against his master. But as the bidders call over each
other, Noey becomes more excited. " Drive on,
Mass'r John," he exclaims, laughing with excitement.
The bidding is very slow. Mass'r John evidently
hesitates at the last call, ^1,085, as too large a price
for the slave, though anxious to bid the poor fellow
in ; but Noey is shouting to him, amid the incitements
of the crowd, to "Drive on;" and, after a pause, he
says in a firm tone, eleven hundred dollars. The crier
calls out the round numbers with a decided emphasis.
He looks at the first bidder, who is evidently making
up his mind whether to go higher, while Noey is re-
garding him, too, with a look of the keenest suspense.

15

The man shakes his head at last, the hammer falls,
and Noey, with an exulting whoop, dashes down the
steps to his master.

Yours truly, E. A. P.

To D. M. C, Esq., N. Y.

letter no. 2.

Macon, Georgia, 1858.

My Dear C : The conclusion of my last letter

was, I believe, concerning that abolition bugbear, the
slave auction mart. Macon, you must know, is one
of the principal marts for slaves in the South. Some
time ago, I attended on the city's confines an extraor-
dinarily large auction of slaves, including a gang of
sixty-one from one plantation in southwestern Geor-
gia. The prices brought were comparatively low, as
there was no w^arranty of soundness, and owing very
much, also, to the fact that the slaves were all sold in
families; and they, too, extraordinarily large, as I
counted fifty-nine negroes in ten families. To give
you some idea of tl'c prices brought I quote the fol-
lowing : Clarinda's family — Clarinda, plantation cook,
Tveakly, 45 years; Betsey, field hand, prime, 22 years;
James, field hand, prime, 14 years; Edmond, Eetsey's
son, 4 years, brought total, ^2,620. Jourdon's family,
bright mulattoes — Jourdon, blacksmith, prime 33
years ; Lindy, field hand, prime, 30 years ; Mary,
prime, 13 years ; Winney, prime, 12 years ; Abbey,

16

prime, 9 years ; Elizabeth, prime, 6 years, brought
total, $3,050. Cliloe's family, consisting all of likely
negroes, the younger mulattocs — viz : Chloe, field
hand, prime, 33 years, classified as " the best of
negroes;" Clarissa, field hand, prime, 16 years ; Jun-
ius, prime, 9 years ; Francis, prime, 12 years ; Robert,
prime, 5 years; infant, 2 months, brought total,
?2,940.

During the sale referred to, a lot was put up con-
sisting of a ^voman and lier t'wo sons, one of whom
was epileptic, (classified by the crier as "fittified.")
It was stated that the owner would not sell them un-
less the epileptic boy was taken along at the nominal
price of one dollar, as he wished him provided for.
Some of the bidders expressed their dissatisfaction at
this, and a trader ofi"ered to give two hundred dollars
more on condition that the epileptic boy should be
thrown out. But the temptation was unheeded, and
the poor boy was sold with his mother. There are
frequent instances at the auction-block of such human-
ity as this on the part of masters.

Facts like these should teach us, my dear C, that
when that feature even, which we all confess to be
the worst in our system of negro slavery, is relieved
by so many instances of humane and generous con-
sideration on the part of slaveholders, our peculiar
institution is one the virtues of which qualify its de-
fects, and of peculiar merit.

But I will leave oft' sermonizing, and gi/e you what
I promised — a simple, home picture of slavery.

17

I must tell you, next to Aunt Debby, who figured
in my last letter, of " Uncle" George — " Old Bones,"
as we boys used to call him. In our young days we
were perpetuolly either teasing or trading with the
old fellow, who was tlie head gardener, and was kept
constantly on the look-out by our depredations on his
vines. Or when we got a few cents from ^'grandpa,"
or obtained leave to give away our " old clothes,"
how we used to buy from him, surreptitiously, little
noggins of mud<ly cider ! Years ago, when I left
home, he was then almost decrepit from old age, but
his avarice and keenness at a trade with his " young
mass'rs" were the same as ever. He was a queer-
looking old fellow; never would wear a hat ; and, with
his immense shock of hair as white as snow, and
standing off from his head, and his enormous leather
'' galluses," (suspenders) he made a singular picture
in our boyish recollections.

Ah ! how many times in years of exile from my
native land have I recalled the image of this old slave,
with the picture of the old brick garden, with its
grass walks and its cherry trees, and the gentle
mounds in the corner, that saddest, sweetest spot on
earth — the parental graves !

Boys are never very thoughtful. Notwithstanding
Uncle George's respectability and good nature, we
used to worry him very much, and were constantly on
the alert to cheat him in a trade. The latter, how-
ever, it was difficult to accomplish. Quicksilvered
cents, which we used to cunningly offer to him by

18

protesting that we had just '' found" them, would not
go. with him. I remember well, when we went
out hunting — four brothers, with an old flint gun —
how, after shooting a few ^' peckerwoods" in the or-
chard, we would go down to the garden and banter
Uncle George to shoot at a mark for " fourpence-
apenny." He was very proud of doing this, and en-
joyed the privilege of " shooting a gun" with the same
zest as a ten-year-old school boy. But he discovered
our trick at last — how the gun was loaded for him
without shot and with five "fingers" of powder,
" kicking" him most unmercifully, and never showing
the least sign on the target.

If you should ever visit " Oakridge," my dear C,
you must be prepared for a grand reception by Uncle
George, who is quite a Beau Hickman in his way.
He is a very genteel beggar. He makes it a point
to see all the visitors who come to our home ; and he
has the ugly habit of secretly waylaying them, and
begging them to "remember" him. You must have
half-a-dollar for him when you come. I think I can
promise that you will not be quite as heartless to his
appeal for a place in your memory as was a gentle-
man from the North, ("a friend of humanity") who
lately partook of our hospitality. On his leaving.
Uncle George, as usual, exercised his privilege of
bringing the horse to " the rack;" and, after assist-
ing the gentleman to mount, begged that " massa
would remember the old nigger." " Oh, yes," replied
the friend of humanity, as he rode off, " I will not

19

forget you, my good fellow ; I will think of you, and
hope you will be elevated into a better condition."
But he never gave him a dime to be elevated with.

On the morning following my return home, after
years of absence, I was told that Uncle George, who
was too decrepit from age to come up to the house,
wanted me to come to the negro "quarter" to see
him. He understood that I had been in " that gold
country," (he meant Culifornia) and he wanted to see
his young mass'r very particularly, intimating very
clearly that he expected a handsome present. I
found the old fellow very comfortably situated. He
had grown old gently ; he had never seen any hard
e rvice ; and not only now in his old age was he not
required to do any work, but, with that regard com-
monly exhibited toward the slave when stricken with
age, he had every attention paid him in the evening of
his life. His meals were sent out to him from our own
table. There was (me little considerate attention that
touched me. His passion for gardening, which had
been the whole occupation of his life, had been grati-
fied by giving him a little patch of ground in front of
his cabin, where he might amuse himself at his own
option.

I found Uncle George in his miniature garden The
old fellow staggered up to see me, and, suddenly
dropping, clasped me around the knees. I was quite
overcome. This poor old man was ''a slave," and
yet he had a place in my heart, and I was not ashamed
to meet him with tears in my eyes. Miserable aboli-

20

tionists ! you prate of brother] j love and liuinanity.
If you or any man had dared to hurt a hair of this
slave, I could have trampled you into the dust.

'^ Uncle George," said I, " I am sorry to see you
look so old." *' Ah, mass'r, I'se monstrous old. But
missis mighty good to me. She kno'.v I set store by
all her children. ''Belinda" (his wife) " missed" (he
means "nursed") all of you." "Well, Uncle George,"
I said, " I am glad to see you made so comfortable.
The family should never forget you. I have often
heard hoAV you saved grandpa's life "when he was
drowning." "Yes, yes, mass'r," replied the old fel-
low, "and I saved him many a dollar, too."

Aunt Belinda, Uncle George's wife, I find in the
cabin, as blithe as ever, though stricken with age.
She is also on the retired list, and her only care is to
" mind" the children in the quarter. The religious
element is quite as marked in her character as in that
of Aunt Debby, of whom I spoke in my last epistle.
But it is more tender and of more universal love.
She parts from every one with the wish of " meeting
them at the right hand of God." She sings some
very simple and touching hymns, which I am sorry
I did not commit to paper. One she sings very
sweetly, in which the lines constantly recur —

Oh, Heaven, sweet Heaven, when shall I see?
"Wiicn shall 1 ever get there?

Of another favorite hymn of hers I took down the
following words :

21

Go back, angels ! Go back angels ?

Go back into Heaven, little children?

Go back little angels !

And 1 don't want to stay behind —

Behold the Lamb of God !

Behold the Lamb of God !

And I don't want to stay behind.

You will find, my dear C, one of the most striking
characteristics of the negro in the Sonth in the reli-
gious bent of his mind. Whether a member of the
church or no, he is essentially at war with the devil.
With him religion is entirely a matter of sentiment,
and his imagination often takes unwarrantable liber-
ties with the Scriptues. This is particulai ly so in
the images he conjures up of the place where the bad
niggers go, and the things appertaining thereto. The
negro who has " got de 'ligion," and has never been
favored in the process with a peep at '' Ole Sa-ten,"
and is not able to give a full description of his person,
is considered by his brethren a doubtful case — a mere
irifler, if not a hvpocrite.

Sam Vy-as relating to me the other day his religious
experience, in the course of which the " Old Scratch"
seems to have given him a great deal of trouble, ap-
pearing at his elbow whenever he prayed, and walk-
ing unceremoniously into his room, cracking a long
whip, of which instrument of persuasion Sam seems to
have a peculiar horror. " De last time he come,"
says Sam, '• he knock at de door and call 'Sam;'
my courage sorter fail me den, and I blows out de
light and tell him de nigger done dead two weeks
'go; and den he says, 'if you don't open de door.

22

you (lam nigger, I ^vill straighten you out ;' and den I
jis go riglit clean out of der winder ; and as I turn de
corner, here come ole mass'r riglit agin me ; and when
I tell him as how I jis seed de debble wid my own
eyes, lie tell me I gwine to catch him, too, and dat
he was gwine to get do 'ligion out me by hooping'' —
a new use you miglit imagine, my dear C, to put
"hoops" to; but I discovered that Sam's pronuncia-
tion was bad, and that he meant nothing more than
a dressing to his hide.

But the idea we get of the negro's religion is not
always ludicrous. Some of their superstitions are
really beautiful, and illustrate their poetic cast of
mind. Their hymns, or religious chants, might fur-
nish a curious book. The words are generally very
few, and repeated over and over again ; and the lines,
though very unequal, are sung with a natural cadence
that impresses the ear very agreeably. Most of them
relate to the moment of death, and in some of them
are simple and poetic images which are often touch-
ing. The following occur to me without any pains at
Sflection :

Oh, carry me away, carry me away, my Lord !

Carry me to tlie berryin' ground,

The green trees a-bou'h\g. Sinner, fare you well !

I thank the Lord I want to go,

To leave them all behind.

Oh, carry me away, carry me away, my Lord !

Carry me to the berryin' ground.

The following is an image of touching simplicity —
a thought of poetry : i

23

I am gwine home, children ; I am gwine homC) children,
De angel bid me to come.

I am (ru'ine down to dc water side —

o

Tis de harvest time, children,
And de angel bid me come.

The negroes here have three or four churches of
different denominations — Baptist, Methodist, and
Presbyterian — in which there is regular service every
Sunday. The sermons and exhortations of the colored
preachers, as we see them reported, are mostly mere
caricatures. They are often sensible, and if the im-
ages are those of an untutored imagination, they are
often anything in the world but ludicrous. I attended
the services of one of the negro churches last Sun-
day, and heard really a very sensible exhortation
from one of their colored preachers, wdio, although he
com.menced by telling his congregation that ^' death
was knocking at their heels," went on to draw a pic-
ture of the judgment with a wild, native sublimity
that astonished me.

A feature in the services struck me rather ludi-
crously. The congregation sang a duet, which ran
somewhat as follows:

First Voices, Oh, hallelujah ! Glory in my soul !

Second Voices. Humph ! Whar?

F. V. When the moon go down the mountain,
hide your face from God.

jS. V Humph! Whar?

F. V. To talk with Jesus. Glory hallelujah !

The colored Methodist church here is a handsome
building, which the negroes have paid for, themselves,

*24

besides maintaining a white preacher. You must
know that our colored gentry (many of \Yhora, as the
custom is here, make considerable money by " hiring
their own time," and p^^ving their masters a stated
sum for the privilege) not only maintain parsons and
build churches, but hire carriages on Sundays to at-
tend them. The fact is, we have too many of these
colored codush in some parts of the South, especially
in the towns.

While I was in Macon, quite a spectacle was ex-
hibited on the street in the obsequies of one of our
slave irentrv. The deceased had been attached as a
drummer to one of our volunteer companies, the band
of which accompanied the body to the grave. The
funeral cortege was truly striking. The bod}^ was
borne through the principal streets in a handsome
hearse, fringed with sable, and preceded by the band
of the company, phiying funeral marches, while fol-
lowing after came a long procession of negroes, in
decent attire, and a portion riding in carriages. Yes 1
negroes actually riding in carriages, hired each at
eight dollars a day ! What, my dear C, will Mrs.
Stowe and the nigger- worshippers say now of all this
"/wss about a dead nigger T' — a deprecation, you will
recollect, of mass'r Legreel

Let them say what they please, say I, as long as
they cannot get our negroes away from us, and kill
them off in their own unfeeling land with cold, naked-
ness, and hunger. I am not ashamed, my dear C,
to confess to be attached by affection to some of the

S5

faithful slaves of our family, to liave sent them re-
membrances in absence, and, in my younger days, to
have made little monuments over the grave of my
poor ''mammy." Do you think I could ever have
borne to see her consigned to the demon abolitionist,
man or woman, and her lean, starved corpse rudely
laid in a pauper's grave? No! At this moment
my eyes are tenderly filled with tears when I look
back through the mists of long years upon the image
of that dear old slave, and recollect how she loved me
in her simple manner ; how, when chided even by my
mother, ske would protect and humor me ; and how,
in the long days of summer, I have wept out my boy-
ish passion on her grave.

Yours truly, E. A. P,

To D. .M .C, Esq., N. Y.

letter no. 3.

Briarcliff, Yirginia, 1858.
My dear C : I have been reflecting how illu-
sory and fallacious are our poor human doctrines of
ha23piness. What is happiness ? — a question often
proposed and often answered by enumerations of
pleasures and gifts of fortune. But we cannot
analyze happiness; we cannot name its elements;
we cannot say what constitute it ; all that can be
determined, is the fact whether or no we possess hap-
piness, and that fact is one of individual conscious-

26

ncss. Happiness is a fact of consciousness : it is
subjective ; it is independent of all external con-
ditions ; and it is individual. The body may be sur-
rounded by every comfort ; tlie mind may be intoxi-
cated by pleasures; the whole life may be illumined
"with fortune ; no affliction may ever cast its cold
shadow on the path ; riches may dazzle ; soft loves
may breathe their incense ; the conscience even may
never accuse, and the wild palse of pleasure may beat
on and on ; but the man of all this store and of all
this fortune, when he explores his consciousness, may
find the sentiment of unliappiness mysteriously and
unalterably there. How wonderful is this !

Yet, dear C, there be many who would accuse me
of pressing a trite and very simple observation in thus
speaking of the independence of happiness of all
external conditions. I think this one of the great
mysteries of life ; and those who have felt its truth
stealing into their hearts will think so too. Some
days ago I was walking in the fields; the sunset and
the balmy air tranquilized me ; I had nothing at that
time to complain of, or to accuse myself of, and yet
at that moment when I saw a poor man walking to
his home along the cool shadow of the road, I sud-
denly, mysteriously, and terribly wished that I was
he, and night rest, rest from the weary world.

Yes, my beloved friend, God gives happiness to
men, without reference to the circumstances that sur-
round them ; he gives it to the beggar as well as the
lord; to the slave as well as the master. The doc-

27

trine of the inequality in the distribution of happiness
is impious and is infidel, and shoukl be rejected as a
vile and corrupting dogma of the atheists and free-
thinkers. The distribution is, in fact, where men do
not convert the designs of Providence, as nearly
equal as is possible to imagine; for "even in the distri-
bution of that portion of happiness derived from
external condition, there is introduced a singular law
of compensation, which adjusts our natural and
original appreciation of the gifts of fortune, precisely
in inverse proportion to what we have of them.

There was a time when I thought, too, how une-
qually happiness — heaven's gift — was shared in by
men. Often and acutely, when a tender and inexpe-
rienced boy, did I suffer from that thought. It dis-
eased my sensibilities ; it introduced into my life a
dark and gloomy melancholy ; it made me sorrowful,
soiSetimes sullen, sometimes fierce. Well do I recall
these feelings. In the midst of my own boyish en-
joyments, when having a pleasant ride in the old
swinging carriage, or feasting on delicacies, I have
suddenly thought of my poor little slave companions,
how they had to work in the fields, how they were
made to tote burdens under the summer's sun, what
poor food they had, and with what raptures they
would devour "the cake" with which I was pamper-
ing myself. Then would I become, gloomy, embit-
tered, and strangely anxious to inflict pain and
privation on myself; and with vague enthusiasms
would accuse the law that had made the lots of men

28

so different. I was fast becoming the victim of tlie
same fanaticism, the fruits of which we see developed
in a senseless self-martyrdom, or in a fierce infidelity,
or in modern socialism, or in the reckless spirit of
*' abolitionism ;" or in any of the insane efforts to
make all men equally free and equally happy.

But the bitter experiences of life have cured these
feelings. In its sad and painful struggles has expired
my juvenile and false philosophy, and I have awoke
to the calm, serious, profound conviction, that every
human lot has its sorrow and its agony, and that, as
an Italian proverb beautifully signifies — '* A skeleton
misery is shut up in the closet of every heart." I
am profoundly convined that the negro slave has
naturally as much of happiness as I. What I disap-
preciate is to him an almost priceless source of enjoy-
ment ; the pain I derive from a thousand delicate
griefs he never feels ; all that I suffer from struggles,
from disappointments, from agonies in a superior
career, he is a happy stranger to. It is a very
simple truth, my dear C, that happiness is in the
mind — but when will the world learn the plain lesson,
wipe away the tears of all sentimental sympathy,
and adopt as the great rule of life, that every man
should bear his own burdens; that the object of sym-
pathy is individual ; and that it is equally senseless
and sinful to sorrow over lots inferior to our own, as
to repine for and envy those which are superior.

I have no tears for the lot of the negro slave ; he
can make it as happy as, and perhaps happier than,

29

my own. I look into my own heart and write what
I find there. Years ago, I lefc my home to adventure
into the worhl, to seek my fortune tens of thousands
of miles away ; but my heart was swelling, defiant,
joyous ; I had glowing prospects, and I was depart-
ing with a flush of exultation, which even the last
tears that I dropped on my mother's bosom clouded
but for a moment. But when I stood waiting for the
boat along the little muddy canal, where began my
journey, that was by progressive stages at last to
enter upon the great ocean, and when poor old grey-
headed Uncle Jim came dov/n to the bank, tottering
under my fine trunk, and stood watching my depar-
ture with loud, fervent blessings, my heart was struck
with a peculiar grief. I thought that while I was
going out to the world, to taste its innumerable joys,
to see its fine sights, to revel in its fine linens, its
wines and its dissipations, here was poor, good, old
uncle Jim to go back along the old wagon rut through
the woods to his log cabin, to return to the drudgery
of the stupid old fields, condemned never to see the
fine world, never to taste its pleasures, never to feel
the glow of its passionate joys, but to die like the
clod, which alone was to mark his grave. So I
thought when I left uncle Jim on the canal bank,
bewailing his "little young massr's" departure; (but
considerately provided by me with two whole dollars
to console him with a modicum of Avhiskey, molasses-
and striped calicoes at the grocery that stood

hard by.)

3*

no

Well, dear C, I went out Into the world. I went
first to Califoniiu, and for four years there I think I
learnt some lessons that vf'iW last me through life. I
had lost none of my buoyancy ^vlien I first stepped
on old " Long Wharf," and took my first drink of
genuine strychnine "whiskey at an old shanty that
stood curiously at the head of the ^vharf, surmounted
by an immense "svooden figure of ''the wandering
Jew." I went boldly and buoyantly to work the
moment I landed. Well, it is needless to repeat to
you here the story of my trials, my successes and my
dread reverses. When the world treated me most
roughly, when I writhed in all the agony of the de-
feat, self-distrust and self-contempt of a sensitive
ambition, when poverty-stricken I worked along one
of the little streams that ran through a pine glade of
the Sierra, and when I buried my only friend Mac
there, high up on the hill side, that the gold diggers
might never disturb his dust, and laid down at night
in despair, waking up with the demoniac joys of a
reckless life burning in my heart, burning out my
life — friendless, moneyless, agonized— with such ex-
periences of my own of the life of this world, I had
very little sympathy left, I assure you, for buck
negroes "pining in their chains," or any other sort
of sentimental barbarians. I just felt that every man
has his own burden to bear in this life ; that, while (I
hope to God) I would always be found ready to
sympathize with and assist any individual tangible

31

case of suffering, I ^ould never he such a fool there-
after as to make the abstract lots of men in this
"world an object of sympathy. I venture to say that
I have suffered more of unhappiness in a short
worldly career, than ever did my "Uncle Jim," or
any other -vyell conditioned negro slave in a whole
lifetime. How many of us, who are blessed with so
many external gifts of fortune, can lay our hands on
aching, unsatisfied hearts, and say the same !

I am persuaded, my dear C, that the sympathy of
the abolitionists with the negro slave is entirely sen-
timental in its source. They associate with the idea
inspired by that terrible word "slavery" the poetic
and fiendish horrors of chains, scourges, and endless
despair. They never pause to reflect how much bet-
ter is the lot of the sable son of Ham, as a slave on
a Southern plantation, well cared for, and even reli-
giously educated, than his condition in Africa, where
he is at the mercy of both men and beasts, in danger
of being eaten up bodily by his enemy, or of being
sacrificed to the Fetish, or in the human hecatombs,
by which all State occasions are said to be celebrated
in the kingdom of Dahomey. Indeed, these foolish
abolitionists, under a sentimental delusion, are brouo'ht
to resrard the condition of the neo;ro in Africa as one
of simple, poetic happiness, while associating with
the idea of his " slavery" a thousand horrors of im-
agination. If you will hunt up a poem by James
Montgomery entitled " The West Indies,'' viluch was

/

written during the early days of the British " aboli-
tionists," and used as a most powerful appeal in their
cause, being published ^vith the most profuse and
costly illustrations, you will find the same poetic and
delusive pictures of the condition of the negro in
Africa on one hand, and his lot as a slave on the
other, which exorcise so great an influence on the
weak imaginations of the present day. I copy some
characteristic passages. Here is the picture of the
negro at home :

" Beneath the beams of l)righter skies,
His home amidst his father's country lies ;
There with the partner of his soul he shares
Love-mingled pleasures, love-divided cares ;
There, as with nature's warmest filial fire,
He soothes his blind and feeds his helpless sire ;
His children, sporting round his hut, behold
How they shall cherish him when he is old.
Trained by example, from their tenderest youth,
To deeds of charity and words of truth,
Is he not blest? Behold, at close of day,
The negro village swarms abroad to play ;
He treads the dance, through all its rapturous rounds,
To the wild music ofbarbarian sounds."

But the negro, (according to our poet,) is rudely
snatched away from this poetic home of peace, love-
liness, virtue, rapture, &c., &c., and is condemned to
''"slavery,'" condemned to endure

" The slow pangs of solitary care —
The earth-devouring anguish of despair.
When toiling, fainting, in the land of canes,
His spirit wanders to his native plains.
His little lovely dwelling there he sees,
Beneath the shade of his paternal trees —
The home of comfort."

Is not all this very absurd ? But it is just such
stuff on which are fed the weak, fanatical imagina-

S3

tions of our modern abolitionists and shrickers. Here
again is a picture by our poet of a slave proprietor,
which will suit to a nicety the modern New. England
conception of a Southern " nigger driver."

" See the dull Creole at his pompous board,
Attendant vassals cringing round their lord ; /

Satiate with food, his heavy eyelids close,
Voluptious minions fan him to repose.
Prone on the noonday couch he lolls in vain,
Delirious slumbers rack his maudlin brain ;
He starts in horror from bewildering dreams,
His blood-shot eye with fire and phrensy gleams.
He stalks abroad ; through all his wonted rounds,
The negro trembles and the lash resounds ;
And cries of anguish, shrilling through the air.
To distant fields his dread approach declare."

Now, my dear C, it is needless to say to you that
we have no such ogres in the South, or to delay you
with criticisms of these hyper-poetical and nonsensical
pictures of slavery. I wish to recur to the more logi-
cal style with which I started out in the commence-
ment of this letter. I wish to say that the happiness
of the Southern slave is not to be estimated by his
paucity of fortune, or any such vulgar standard ; but
that we are to consider, as peculiar elements of hap-
piness in his lot, his peaceful frame of mind, his great
appreciation of the little of fortune he has, (by a rule
of inverse proportion,) and his remission from all the
ordinary cares of life. I will here add, too, in con-
tradiction and in contempt of the poet's picture supra
of the dreadful slave owner, that a great and peculiar
source of happiness to the Southern slave is the free-
dom of intercourse and of attachment between him,-
self and his master.

34

Instead of a slave-owner stalking around " with
fire and phrensy," amid the " shrilling" cries of
slaves, we will find the intercourse between the South-
ern planter and slave, even in the fields, to be gene-
rally of the most intimate and genial kind. Your
own observation in the South, dear C, will doubtless
attest this circumstance. You have doubtless seen,
as well as I have, a master kindly saluting his slaves
in the field, and listening patiently to their little re-
quests about new clothes, new shoes, &c. And you
have, no doubt, also seen slaves, in their intercourse
with the families of their masters, playing with the
children, indul<j;in^ their rude but sin^-ularlv innocent
humor with them, and joining their young masters in
all sorts of recreation. It is these social privileges
which constitute so large and so peculiar a source of
enjoyment in the life of the slave, and which distin-
guish his lot so happily from that of the free laborer,
who lias nothing but a menial intercourse with his
employer.

I might, dear C, give you a number of anecdotes
from my own experience, of the intimacy which is fre-
quently indulged between the Southern slave and the
members of his master's family. I was trained in an
afi'ectionate respect for the old slaves on the planta-
tion ; I was permitted to visit their cabins, and to carry
them kind words and presents ; and often have I been
soundly and unceremoniously whipped by the old
black women for my annoyances. All my recrea-
tions were shared in by slave companions. I have

85

hunted and fished with Cuffy ; I have wrestled on the
banks of the creek with him ; and with him, as my
trust}^ lieutenant, I have " fillibustcred" all over my
old aunt's dominions from " Rucker's R-un" to cousin
"Bobity Bee's."

And then there was ^'brother Bromus," who had
many a fight with Wilson and Cook Levris, and who,
besides being generally whipped, always paid the
penalty for the fun of fighting by a sound thrashing
at the hands of Pleasants, the colored carriage driver,
and the father of the aforesaid black youngsters.
Would you believe it, poor Bromus stood in such terror
of this black man. that even after he had a'one to col-
lege, and used to spout Latin, and interlard his con-
versations to us boys with pompous allusions to col-
lege life, and with the perpetual phrase of " when I
was at the U-ni-ver-si-ty," it was only necessary to
threaten him with Pleasants' wrath to subdue and
frighten him into anything. But Pleasants was an
amiable-enough negro gentleman, and although he
used Bromus pretty badly at times, he showed him a
good deal of rough kindness, which B., to this day,
gratefully acknowledges, and which Pleasants avers,
with great pride in his manly master, was the "ma-
king of him."

Many a time, with my sable playmates as compan-
ions and conspirators in the deed, have I perpetrated
rever)o;e for such " roucrh kindness" on the old ill-
natured blacks. AVhat fun we used to have ; and
then there was no cruelty to mar the sport. We limi-

36

ted ourselves to simple practical jokes, and all sorts of
harmless annoyances — would propel apples at Uncle
Peyton when he got drunk in the orchard ; and would
send the negroes out of the fields on all sorts of fools'
errands, and lie in wait to witness their reception at the
grand stone steps of the house by ''ole mass'r," with
his inevitable square-toed boots. No one enjoyed the
sport more heartily than our sable companions, wha,
in all the affairs of fun and recreation, associated
with us on terms of perfect equality.

But let me dismiss these desultory allusions to
young days, to which my memory reverts with more
of sadness than of laughter. I ask, seriously, who
shall say that the black companions of our rambles
and sports, who cheated us, quizzed us, fought us as
freely as we did them, were not as happy as our-
selves ? Now we, their young masters, and they
have grown up to be men. From being companions
in youth, they have grown up into slaves, we into
masters. We two are pursuing journeys far apart
across the fickle desert of life. But may it not be
that they are still as happy as we ? It is true that
they have an humble and inglorious career before
them, and must ever bear the painful thought of
dying without leaving a mark behind them ; but un-
like many a poor white man, who has to tread the
same career not only without a hope of glory, but along
the thorns of want, and through great agony, they
see a constant care to provide for their support, to
lead them along peaceful and thornless paths, and

37

n

to sustain them even to the final close of life's jour-
ney in the grave. Is there no happiness in this ? Is
it possible that the negro, who has his human and ra-
tional wants supplied constantly and certainly, and
who is indulged with so considerable a degree of so-
cial intercourse with his master, can be made, by
the sinorle abstract reflection that he lacks ^' liberty,"
[abolition liberty^ mark you,) more unhappy than his
master, who may see nothinoj in his own career but a
struggle with the great necessities of life, closing in a
grave as readily forgotten as that of his slave ? Who
shall judge of other men's happiness in this world ?
Let the slave speak for himself; let the master speak
for himself; and let the record be made when justice,
the only equal thing — but that equalizes all things —
shall be brought down from the heavens to be done
upon earth.

Yours truly,

E. A. P.

D. M. C, Esq.

LETTER NO 4.

Charlestox, South Carolina, 1858.

My dear C : You will permit me to say that

the expressions in your letter, of repugnance at the
proposition to re-open th^ Slave trade, and of horror
at what you esteem will be its consequences to the
country, as well as to the abstract cause of morality,
are in my humble opinion unjust to the facts of ths
case, and uncalled for.

38

In preceding letters I think I promised 3^ou some-
thing about not discussing slavery as a political ques-
tion in any respect. I believe that so far I have
adhered generally to that engagement ; and you will
now indulge me for a moment, dear C, simply to say
that there are many minds among us firmly con-
vinced that the slave trade is almost the only possible
measure, the last resource to arrest the decline of
the South in the Union. They see that it would
develop resources which have slept for the great want
of labor ; that it would increase the total area of
cultivation in the South, six times what it now is ;
that it would create a demand for land, and raise its
prices, so as to compensate the planter for the depre-
ciation of the slave ; that it would admit the poor
white man to the advantages of our social system ;
that it would give him dearer interests in the country
he loves now only from simple patriotism ; that it
would strengthen the peculiar institution ; that it
would increase our representation in Congress ; and
that it would revive and engender public spirit in the
South, suppressed and limited as it now is by the
monopolies of land and labor.

But I recognize especially in the proposition to re-
open the slave trade, the interests of the working
classes and yeomanry of the South. The cause of
the poor white population of the South cries to
heaven for justice. We see a people who are devoted
to their country, who must be entrusted witli the
.defence of the institution of slavery, if ever assailed

39

by violence, who would die for the South and her in-
stitutions, who in the defence of these objects of their
patriotism, would give probably to the world the most
splendid examples of courage, who would lay down
their simple and hardy lives at the command of
Southern authorities, and who would rally around
the standard of Southern honor in the reddest
crashes of the battle storm — we see, I say, such a
people treated with the most ungrateful and insulting
consideration by their country, debarred from its
social system, deprived of all share in the benefits of
the institution of slavery, condemned to poverty, and
even forced to bear the airs of superiority in black
and beastly slaves ! Is not this a spectacle to fire the
heart ! As sure as God is judge of my own heart, it
throbs with ceaseless sympathy for these poor,
wronged, noble people ; and if there is a cause in the
world, I would be proud to champion, it is theirs — so
help me God ! — it is theirs.

But you doubtless ask, dear C, to know more
clearly how their condition is to be reformed and
elevated by the slave trade. Now I calculate, that
with the re-opening of this trade, imported negroes
might be sold in our Southern seaports at a profit, for
§100 to S150 ahead.. The poor man might then
hope to own a negro ; the prices of labor would be
brought within his reach ; he would be a small farmer
(revolutionizing the character of agriculture in the
South) ; he would at once step up to a respectable
station in the social system of the South ; and with

40

this he would acciulre a practical and dear interest in
the general institution of slavery, that would consti-
tute its best protection both at home and abroad. He
would no longer be a miserable, nondescript cumberer
of the soil, scratching the land here and there for a
subsistence, living from hand to mouth, or trespassing
along the borders of the possessions of the large pro-
prietors. He would be a proprietor himself; and in
the great w^ork of developing the riches of the soil of
the South, from which he had been heretofore ex-
cluded, vistas of enterprise and of wealth would open
to him that Avould enliven his heart, and transform
him into another man. He would no longer be the
scorn and the sport of "gentlemen of color," who
paraded their superiority, rubbed their well-stuffed
black skins, and thanked God that they were not
as he.

And here, dear C, let me meet an objection which
iias been eloquently urged against the proposition to
import into this country slaves from Africa. It is
said that our slave population has attained a wonder-
ful stage of civilization ; that they have greatly pro-
gressed in refinement and knowledge, and that it
would be a great pity to introduce from the wulds of
Africa, a barbarous element among them that would
have the effect of throwing back our Southern negroes
into a more uncivilized and abject condition.

What is plead here as an objection, I adopt as an
argument on my side of the question — that is in
favor of the African commerce. AVhat we want espe-

41

clallj in the South, is that the negro shall be brought
down from those false steps which he has been al-
lowed to take in civilization, and reduced to his pro-
per condition as a slave. I have said to you, dear
C, vrhat an outrage upon the feelings of poor white
men, and what a nuisance generally, the slave gentry
of the South is. It is time that all these gentlemen
of color should be reduced to the uniform level of the
slave ; and doubtless they would soon disappear in the
contact and admixture of the rude African stock.

Most seriously do I say, dear C, that many of the
negro slaves of the South display a refinement and
an ease which do not suit their condition, and which
contrast most repulsively with the hard necessities of
many of the whites. I have often wished that the
abolitionists, instead of hunting out among the
swamps and in the raggedest parts of the South,
sonie poor occasional victim to the brutality of a
master, and parading such a case as an example of
slavery, would occasionally show, as a picture of the
institution, some of the slave gentry, who are to be
found anywhere in the cities, towns, and on the large
farms of the South, leading careless, lazy and impu-
dent lives, treating white freemen with supercilious-
ness if they happen to be poor, and disporting them-
selves with airs of superiority or indifference before
everybody who does not happen to be their particular
master. Pictures drawn as equally from this large
class in our slave population, as from the more abject^
4*

42

would, I am sure, soon convert some of your Nortliern
notions of the institution of slavery.

I must admit to you that I have the most repulsive
feelings towards negro gentlemen. When I see a
slave above his condition, or hear him talk insultingly
of even the lowest white man in the land, I am
strongly tempted to knock him down. Whenever
Mrs. Lively tells her very gentlemanly dining-room
servant that he carries his head too high, I make it a
point to agree with her ; and whenever she threatens
to have him " taken down a button-hole lower," I
secretly wish that I had that somewhat mysteriously
expressed task to perform myself. Of all things I
cannot bear to see negro slaves affect superiority over
the poor, needy, and unsophisticated whites, who form
a terribly too large proportion of the population of
the South. My blood boils when I recall how often
I have seen some poor "cracker" dressed in striped
cotton, and going through the streets of some of our
Southern towns, gazing at the shop windows with
scared curiosity, made sport of by the sleek, dandified
negroes who lounge on the streets, never unmindful,
however, to touch their hats to the " gem'men" who
are "stiff in their heels;" {i. e. have money;) or to
the counter hoppers and fast young gents with red
vests and illimitable jewelry, for whom they pimp.
And consider that this poor, uncouth fellow, thus
'aughcd at, scorned and degraded in the estimate of
the slave, is a freeman, beneath whose humble garb is
a heart richer than ixold — the heart of a mute hero.

4S

of one wlio wears the proud, thougli pauper, title of
the patriot defender of the South.

I love the simple and unadulterated slave, with his
geniality, his mirth, his swagger and his nonsense ; I
love to look upon his countenance, shining with con-
tent and grease ; I love to study his affectionate heart ;
I love to mark that peculiarity in him, which beneath
all his buffoonery exhibits him as a creature of the
tenderest sensibilities, mingling his joys and his sor-
rows w^ith those of his master's home. It is of such
slaves that I have endeavored, in the preceding let-
ters, to drav/ some feeble pictures. But the "genteel"
slave, who is inoculated with white notions, affects
superiority, and exchanges his simple and humble
ignorance for insolent airs, is altogether another crea-
ture, and is my special abomination.

I have no horror, dear C, of imported savage slaves
from Africa. I have no doubt but that thev would
prove tractable, and that we would find in them, or
that we would soon develop the same traits of courage,
humor and tenderness, which distinguish the charac-
ter of the pure negro everywhere*

AVhen I was last through the country here, I made
the acquaintance of a very old " Guinea negro,"
Pompey by name, who had been imported at an early
age from the African coast ; and a livelier, better-dis-
positioned and happier old boy I have never met with.
The only marks of African extraction which Pompey
retained in his age, were that he would talk Guinea
"gibberish" when he got greatly excited, and that

4^

he used occasionally some curious spells and super-
stitious appliances, on account of which most of the
negroes esteemed him as a great " conjurer." Pom-
pey is a very queer old fellow, and his appearance
and his wonderful stories inspire the young with awe.
He looks like a little -withered old hoy ; and the long
fantastic naps of his wool give him a mysterious air.
According to his story, he once traveled to Chili
through a subterranean passage of thouands of miles,
He also is occasionally bribed to exhibit to his young
mass'rs, the impression of a ring around his body,
apparently produced by the hug of a good strong
rope, but which he solemnly avers was occasioned by
his having stuck midway in a keyhole, when the evil
witches w^ere desperately attempting to draw him
through that aperture.

Pompey had married a " genteel '* slavewoman, a
maid to an old lady of one of the first families of
Carolina, and lived very unhappily with his fine mate,
because she could not understand " black folks' ways,"
It appears that Pompey frequently had recourse to
the black art to inspire his wife with more affection
for him ; and having in his hearing dropped the re-
mark, jokingly, one day, that a good whipping made
a mistress love her lord the more, I was surprised to
hear Pompey speak up suddenly, and with solemn
emphasis, " Mass'r Ed'rd, I bleve dar is sumthin in
dat. When de 'ooman get ambitious'' — he means
high-notioned and passionate — " de debble is sot up
against you, and no use to honey dat chile ; you jes

45

got to beat him out, and he bound to eome out Tore
the breath come out, anyhow." I am inclined to re-
commend Pompey's treatment for all " ambitious "
negroes, male or female.

By way of parenthesis, I must tell you how
Pompey's mistress scolds him. He is so much of a
boy that she has imperceptibly adopted a style of
quizzing him and holding him up to ridicule, to 'which
he is very sensitive. I will just note the following
passage between the two. In the absence of the
butler, Pompey is sometimes called to the solemn
office of waiting on the table, at which elevation he is
greatly pleased. Imagine the scene of a staid and
orderly breakfast, attending on which is Pompey, with
a waiter tucked with great precision under his arm,
and presenting the appearance of a most complacent
self consequence. Unluckily, however, making some
arrangement in the pantry, he produces a nervous
jostle of china. "Pompey, Pompey," cries his mis-
tress, " what are you doing ? Ah, Pompey, you are
playing with the little mice, aint you?" Pompey, in
a fluster of mortification at this accusation,, denies
playing with the little mice. " Ah, yes, Pompey, I
know you want to have a little play — here, Martha,
Sally, take Pompey out into the yard and let him
play." The two maid servants approach poor old
uncle Pompey in a most serious manner, to take him
out to play, but he shoves them aside, and crestfallen
' and with bashful haste, he retreats from the room ;
while the two women solemnly keep alongside of himj

46

as if really intent upon the fulfillment of tlie orders
of their mistress, to put the old fellow through a
course of gambolling on the green.

Pompey is greatly cut up by such scoldings ; and
to be made a jest of before the genteeler and more
precise servants, is his especial punishment and pain
jn this world,

I must confess for myself a strong participation in
Pompey's contempt for ''town niggers." Whenever
he espies a sable aristocrat, he uses the strongest ex-
pression of disgust " dam jumpy fish," etc. ; and then
he will discourse of how a good nigger should do his
work soberly and faithfully, illustrating the lesson al-
ways by indicating what he does, while Henry, a
more favored slave, has nothing, according to Pom-
pey's account, to do but to recline in an easy chair
and eat "cake." I agree with Pompey as to what
constitutes a useful and respectable negro, and tell
him that we shall soon have some such from the
country from which he came, at which prospect he is
greatly pleased. "Ah, Mass'r," says he, " dat is
de nigger dat can do your work ; he de chile dat can
follow arter the beast, like dis here," tugging away
and gee-hawing while he speaks, at the hard mouth
of a stupid mule, with which he is plowing in the
garden. " But I tells you what,'Mass'r Ed'rd," con-
tinues Pompey, impressively, " no matter how de dam
proud black folks hold der head up, and don't love
do mule, and don't love de work, and don't love
nothing but de ownselves, I tells you what, I aint

4?

but nigger noliow; and I tells you, and I tells ein all,
de nigger and da mule am de axle-tree of de world.''

The truth is, my dear friend, we want more such
slaves in the South as Pompey, "who while they can
speak such honest and brilliant sentiments, will also
be as humble in their hearts and as faithful to their
work as he, and who will sustain the car of progress
over all obstacles in the path of Southern destiny.

Yours truly,

E. A. P.

To D. M. C, Esq., New York.

letter no. 5.

Charleston, South Carolina, 1858.

My Drar C : In your rejoinder to my letter

on the subject of the slave trade, which was touched
but lightly and incidentally, you charge me with
preaching "disunion doctrine," and say that "I have
overlooked the political consequences to this country
of re-opening the African trade," and that "the first
consideration should be that this commerce could not
be opened without risking the Union." I cannot, dear
C, rest in silence under the charge of paying no re-
gard in my recommendations for the legalization of
the slave trade to the peril in which it may place the
pern\anence of the Union, especially when I am con-
fident, if my memory does not greatly deceive me, of
having suggested in my former letter (which you read
cursorily, I suppose) that this commerce, by strength-

48

ieinin^ and satisfying tlic South, would confirm the
bonds by -which the two sections are united. I shall
therefore vary somewhat from the original design of
the correspondencOj not indeed to go into a political
discussion, but to call your attention to the relation
which the proposition to re-open the slave trade, or
the general proposition to strengthen and develop the
South by new systems of labor, bears to the always
interestintj question of the perpetuation of " the glo-
rious Union."

But in the first place, my dear friend, I must say
that I do not agree with your judgment that the slav^e
trade cannot be re-opened by us except by infraction
of our statute and treaty law. I contend, on the
contrary, that the commerce in African labor can be
carried on under the permission of existing laws. Ob-
serve that the African may be imported of his own
will, as an apprentice, for any number of years ; and
when he arrives in the South, what is there to prevent
him (although you say he cannot alien his liberty)
from accepting inducements to live in bondage? This,
I grant you, would be practically the re-opening of
the African slave trade; but where exists the law
that can suppress a trade which buys labor, not lib-<
erty, and which is really, in a legal point of view,
conducted on the basis of enfranchisement. You may
cry out that this is an evasion of the law ; and I will
simply answer tliat you will find that it very often
becomes necessary to evade the letter of the law in
some of the greatest measures of social happiness and
of patriotism.

40

I sincerely believe, dear C, tliat with the shave
trade movement rests in a measure the great political
problem of the day, viz : the just elevation of the
general condition of the South, as an integral part
of the Federal Union.

It is evident that the great want of the South is a
sufficiency of labor. Certainly no equal part of the
globe can vie in sources of wealth with the belt of
cotton territory in America, which, it is estimated, is
capable of producing twenty million bales of the
snowy fleece of modern commerce. Add to this the
consideration that within the borders of the South,
owing to the singular advantages of a climate that
partakes of an inter- tropical temperature, and enjoys
in its change of seasons the peculiarities of the tem-
perate zone, is a country capable of a greater variety
of crop and agricultural products than any other
territory of equal size on the face of the globe. To
develop this occult wealth ; to introduce on the soil
the many varieties of tropical vegetation of which it
is capable — the olive, the camphor, and the cork tree ;
to bring into cultivation the thirty thousand square
miles of cotton-producing land, which is now^ lying
unproductive ; to multiply by almost infinite pro-
cesses the product of our great staple, which now,
under all disadvantages, is said to increase, according
to a general average calculation, three per cent., or
eighty thousand bales annually ; to expand our agri-
culture and infuse it with new spirit ; and to make
the golden age of the most splendid fables of history

50

our own, there are but wanting labor and the energy
to employ and direct it. To attain this desideratum
we have no other hope except by the importation of
labor from Africa.

The proposition to re-open the slave trade may be
most truly characterized as a measure to strengthen
and elevate the South in the Union ; and this being
the condition of the perpetuation of the Union to us,
as emphatically a conservative policy. In brief, dear
C, the slave trade proposition means Union and con-
servatism.

The policy which I avow is that the South shall
secure to herself the utmost amount of prosperity
and strengthen herself in the Union, which, as sure
as the gentle hastenings-on of time, can only be pre-
served on this condition. This policy, then — the only
one to save the Union — even if adopting extremest
measures, is ever the truly " conservative" one.

I must confess to you that I have the greatest con-
tempt for that time-serving and shallow policy of
many false politicians in our section, who decry a
measure of Southern patriotism in order to conserve
our party interest in the North. I refer to the coun- *
sels of a certain class of politicians, who tell us that
our party alliance at the North will be hazarded by
free discussion at the South, and that it is to be ce-
mented by our abandonment of the proposition to
re-open the slave trade. Now I truly honor our
Democratic allies in the North ; but, as a Southerner,
I am not disposed (and I am sure, dear C, for one

51

you would not demand of me) to sacrifice to their
prejudices any measure of domestic policy ^Yhicll it is
at once our right and our paramount duty to decide
on for ourselves. Was the South, too, to yield up
Kansas "for the sake of the party?" Is this the
beginning of the end ? As God is my judge, I for-
swear, forever, this false policy in the South to sacri-
fice any interest of her's to the consolidation or pres-
tige of a party.

To the policy to strengthen a party, I would place
in antithesis the policy to strengthen the South.

The South, my dear C, is approaching a critical-
stage in her political history, when she must act, if
ever, for herself. The tendency to her enslavement,
ruin and dishonor, must be avoided by constitutional
measures, or changes of domestic policy. The ques-
tion is, how can the Union be preserved in the sanc-
tities of the Constitution, and on terms of equal rights
and equal advantages — how can the decline of the
South be arrested — how can she be saved ? She has
now no means to develop her resources pari passic
with the rapid progress, in this respect, of the North ;
she is unable, from want of labor, to expand her ag-
riculture, or to follow where enterprise beckons ; her
public spirit wanes under her disabilities, and her con-
stant sense of dependence on the markets and manu-
factures of the North ; she is being constantly weak-
ened by party identifications ; her political prestige is
even gone ; her peculiar institution has to bear a bur-
den of censure, under which even the best men of the

52

South think it must sink, unless strengthened by new
measures; the common territories of the Republic are
being steadily closed to it; the black lines of fiecsoil-
ism, in which it must languish and die, are being drawn
around it, and the dregs of the poison cup are at our
lips. In all plainness, what is to become of the South,
if she is to remain in the Union without a chancre of
policy ? IIow is she to fulfill the necessities of pro-
gress and self-development, unless means to do so are
provided by herself ? IIow is she to be rescued from
the fate which she has brought upon herself, and
which now impends ? The Democratic party cannot
save her. The President cannot save her. She must
save herself.

"Will she do it ? Let every patriot of the South
answer for himself. Let him resolve that she shall
not be argued into repose. Let him resolve that the
inventions of policy to restore her strength, and at
once raise and confirm her in the Union, shall not be
hooted out by party cries of "peace !" Let him re-
solve that she shall not rest in the supine embrace of
party alliances. Let him resolve that she shall be
called to the necessity of strengthening herself by
independent measures of prosperity and power, with-
in the terms, as such a policy must be, of honorable
rivalry and of the Constitution.

Nor shall we, patriots of the South, despair of the
result ! Rather would we turn from the panic fears
of disunion to the hopes of a victory in new measures
of Southern independence. For myself, I respect

53

disunion only for its sincerity of motive ; commended
as it is too by many minds, and actuated as it may
be by a generous spirit ; but alas ! one

*' Turned aside
From its bright course by woes and wrongs and pride."

And yet, dear C., I regard disunion as unconsciously
involving a moral cowardice, which puts to blush the
courage of our land. Let the South, say I, stand or
fall by the Constitution ! True courage would dic-
tate this course, even if the hope of ultimate victory
in the South's holding the balance of political power
did not commend it. The hard-fought field of con-
stitutional contest should not be forsaken by the
South for shelter beneath a divided flag; but the
battle should be continued with the same weapons,
while new exertions should be put forth to conquer
by the power of the Constitution. We see, indeed,
the necessity of following up each victory, and of de-
vising new measures of Southern advantage and
development ; and to this necessity, and its demand
of a new policy, let us, ye true men of the South,
God helping us, be true ! But disunion is not a ne-
cessity. No ! not a necessity as long as patriots still
keep the field under the banner of the Constitution,
and the prize of valor there is the victory of peace.

Yours truly,

E. A. P.

To D. M. C, Esq., New York.

5*

64

letter no. g.

Oakridqe, Virginia, 1858.

My Dear C : The last lines I sent you from

dear old Virginia, from the retirement of Briarcliff,
\;cYO written in one of my fits of meditation, and I
fear conveyed you but little of interest concerning my
visit to the old familiar haunts of earlier days.

I have since then been making a round of visits to
''the kin," and I have been travelling most of the
way on a canal-boat, at the rate of four miles an hour.
Rather slow progress, surely ; but I have not lacked
for pastime. In the first place, I had to wait for "the
packet," as the codgers call it, at a solitary " lock-
house," where a bed could not be had for love or
money, from night-fall until 3 o'clock next morning.
But then I had some charming companions in my
vigils. A sweet, gentle lady, with her little boy, was
there, and with beautiful and modest conversation be-
guiled the hours ; and this lady, who kept her uncom-
plaining watch in the rude cabin, and who was dressed
so plainly, and who even deigned to enter into the
fun of a company of boisterous humbly-born girls,
who also occupied the room, was, as I learned the
next morning, really one of the F. F. A^s, for she was
met at the lock where she landed by her father, whom
I at once recognized as one of the most distinguished
politicians and gentlemen of the Old Dominion. She
did not even forget to say farewell to the boisterous
" Bet" and her tom-boy companions, who had so vexed
the drowsy ear of the night before.

65

The boat-horn wailed out as the locks opened, and
as I glided down the big, dirty ditch along the James,
I turned for consolation to Bet, who in all the charms
of rural beauty, was watching from the deck the
scenery of the canal.

Bet was a rural curiosity, indeed — a pretty, coarse,
and very ungrammatical girl, whose chief amusement
the night before had been surreptitiously emptying
gourds of water over the heads of her drowsy com-
panions. Bet had been quite sociable with me through
the night ; but now that she was aboard the packet^
she treated me with a disdainful coolness. Approach-
ing her, I hazarded the old hackneyed remark of
canal traveling that "I hoped Miss Bet was not suffer-
ing from sea-sickness." "No, she warnt sick a bit."
A pause, and then I ventured to ask "if Miss Bet pro-
ceeded as far as Richmond." " No, it was too fiirrer,'^
The cause of her reticence and disdain was soon dis-
covered. I found, to my discomfiture, that Bet had
recognised an old beau in the steersman, whose city
manners and glass and copper jewelry had quite ex-
tinguished me in her eyes, A dog-eared album told
the story plainly. The following tribute I managed
to transcribe literally, as with slow and jealous de-
liberation, I turned over the leaves of the record of
Miss Bet's charms and conquests :

" When I from thee, dear maid, sh^ll part,
Shall leave a stin^ in each other's hearts,
I to some grove shall make my moan.
Lie down, and die, as some has done.'"

(Signed) Phil. Tooleit.

66

At last I reached mj point of disembarkation, and
I summarily dismiss Bet from my mind. I see again
the beautiful mountains of the Blue llidge in the dis-
tance, and the woods stretching far away across level
plains to their base. How lovely it all looked, es-
pecially when with the whole scene were associated a
thousand human memories. In my childhood, I had
looked upon these distant peaks, and wondered about
them. How much nearer and smaller they appeared
now than when I saw them through the eyes of
youth ! — yet still beautiful, ever pointing through
sunlight and through cloud to heaven, ever unchang-
ing in their robes of blue, ever putting on at the same
hours the purple and gilt of evening.

Having landed at W village, I prepare to pur-
sue my journey on horseback. I disembark with an
old gent, who, in the course of the voyage, had
managed to convey to me the information that he was
a Judge from Alabama, and had travelled a thousand
miles on the ''steam cars," and who had delighted
the whole boat's crew and company with his learning
and sententiousness, having advanced in a learned
geological discussion in the cabin of the canal boat
that "the vein of water was like the human vein,"
wliich illustration summarily closed all argument as
to the distribution of subterranean waters. The old
fellow was sound on the liquor question though, and
proved himself "a judge" of good whisky before re-
tiring to his virtuous couch in the old "Rock Tavern."
The sun was high when the the black boy " Washing-

57

ton" roused me from my slumbers. Having bestowed
"a quarter" on "Washington, in abundant gratitude
for wliich be wished to know " if mass'r didn't want
bis footses washed" — an ablution which the slaves of
Virginia constantly perform for their masters with
little noggins of warm water — I took up my journey
along the old red clayey road to the local habitation
of my dear, respected old uncle. Here I spent a few
days of delightful happiness, especially in company
with my pretty cousin with the Roman name. But hav-
iufy found out that kissinoj cousins'was no lon<^er fashion-
able in Virginia, and that it excited my dear aunt's
nerves, with one last lingering kiss of the syreet lips,
I had my little leather Chinese trunk packed on the
head of a diminutive darlrey, and again embarked
upon the James ^'iver and Kanawha canal.

After a round of visits to other of " the kin," I at
last find myself the guest of that most excellent and
beloved old lady, Miss R., and strolling about over
the beautiful lawns and green affluent fields of Oak-
ridge farm.

In the bright day with the light and shade chasing
each other over the fields where I wandered in youth,
I recall many a laughing and many a sorrowing
memory. I cannot write of all these. I must pur-^
sue the sketch of the slave, which is, indeed, the
prominent figure in the early associations of all home-
bred sons of the South.

I find the old familiar black faces about the
house. Uncle Jeames, the dining-room servant, is an

58

old decayetl family negro, wearing a roundabout, and
remarkable for an unctuous bald head, unadorned by
hat or cap. Miss R, who lias known him since he
was a boy, still addresses him by the name of
'' Jimboo." Uncle Jimboo has a good deal of slave-
pride, and is anxious to appear to visitors as one
of great dignity and consequence in household affairs.
He is especially proud of his position as general con-
servator of the order and security of the household,
and any interruption of his stilted dignity is very
painful to him. Devoted to his mistress, he assumes
the office of her protector. Having in one of his
winter patrols, according to his account, been chased
by some forgotten number of ^' black bars," and hav-
ing valiaatly whipped " the king bar," and put the
others to flight, it remains that he is afraid of nothing
in the world " but a gun."

Peace to Uncle Jimboo ! May his days never be
shortened by the accidents of his valiant service ! I
can never expect to see the old man again ; he is
passing away; but, thanks to God, he, the slave, has
not to go down to the grave in a gloomy old age, pov-
erty-stricken and forgotten ; he has a beloved mistress
by to provide for him in the evening of his life — a
rare mistress, who, distinguished in her neighborhood
for hospitality and munificence, has delighted also to
adorn herself with simple and unblazoned charities to
the humblest of all humanity — the poor, dependent,
oft-forgotten slave.

And there is Tom, too, the hopeful son of Uncle

59

Jlmboo, a number one boy of about thirty, splendidly
made, and of that remarkable type of comeliness and
gentility in the negro — an honest, jet-black, with
prominent and sharp-cut features. When I was a
boy I esteemed Tom to be the best friend I had in
the world. He was generally employed as a field
hand, occasionally, however, at jobs about the yard,
waited upon the table when there was '^company,"
and on Sundays he rode in the capacity of footman
on the little seat behind the old, high-swung, terra-
pin-backed carriage to church. I had a great boyish
fondness for him, gave him coppers, stole biscuits for
him from the table, bought him a primer and taught
him to read.

There appears to have grown up a terrible rivalry
for supremacy in the kitchen between Tom and his
daddy. As time progresses, Uncle Jimboo is impressed
with the prospect of being supplanted by his smart
son, and, in consequence, he is very jealous and de-
preciatory of Tom. According to the former's ac*
count, Tom is a stupid boy, and is '' good for nothing
'cept meat and bread." On the other -hand, it is
quite shocking to witness Tom's disrespect to his an-
cient daddy, whom he calls by no other name than
"de nigger," and whom he artfully represents as
" mighty shackling," and as making the last stage of
life. The parental relation is completely ignored.

Here, too, lives Aunt Judy, who is associated with
my earliest recollections of the days of boyhood. Es-
pecially do I remember the intensity of her religious

GO

sentiment, and liow, for the faith of every assertion
that any one ventured to dispute, she would appeal to
the ^'judgment seat of G-o-d." Iler hymns, her fairy
tales, her traditions of old Sa-tan, her " shoutings,"
at meeting, her loud and ostentatious prayers among
the alder bushes and briars of the brook — which latter
used to be to us boys a great exhibition — are yet
fresh in memory. How well do I remember the won-
derful stories, with which she used to fill our youthful
minds with awe, superstition, and an especial dread
of being alone in dark rooms. We were told by her
of every variety of ghosts, of witches that would enter
through the key-hole and give us somnambulic rides
through the thickets and bogs, and worse than all, of
awful and terrible visions that had been afforded her
of the country of the dead. She had a superstitious
interpretation for everything in nature. In our child-
hood we were even induced by her to believe that the
little bird that sung plaintively to our ears was the
transmigrated soul of a little child that had been the
victim of the cannibalism of its parents, and that it
was perpetually singing the following touching words :

^* My mammy kill me,
My daddy eat me,

All my brudders and sisters pick my bones,
And throw them under the marble stones."

Unfortunately, however, for the credit of Aunt
Judy's Christianity, she was always very passionate,
and our boyish plaguing of her was sometimes replied
to in great bitterness. Dick, who was always ahead

61

in plaguing, had no other name for the old woman,
who was a great exhorter in colored congregations,
but "the Preacher," or sometimes "Old Nat Tur-
ner." It was especially on religious subjects, which
we found to be tender ones with Aunt Judy, that we
thoughtlessly — but ah, how wrongly — delighted to
tease and annoy her. Under pretence of delivering
some message from headquarters, Dick would call to
her with an ordinary countenance, and have her come
very near him, when he would bawl out, taking to his
heels at the same instant, " I say. Preacher, what
text are you going to preach from to-day." " Go
way, boy," would scream out Aunt Judy, "I aint
gwine preach from nothing ; if you want to hear
preaching, go and hear your o\vn color."

All the warning about the tragic fate of Nat Tur-
ner which Dick would give. Aunt Judy greatly de-
spised, and would retaliate by asking that young
moralist what, when he was " put on the leP hand,"
which she assumed as a fixed fact, he was " gwine to
say to black folks preacher den."

From Aunt Judy's sentence of poor Dick, it might
be inferred that he was a bad boy. And so he was.
after a fashion ; and I fear that in this respect my
humble self was only behind him in years.
|r When I was an eleven year old "white-headed" iras-
cible little boy, Dick, the elder brother, and myself,
were perpetually at fisticuffs, and the negroes would
often egg us on to fight each other, which we would do
in the most passionate manner. We used to have some

62

downriglit terrible fights. Whenever we were cap-
tured by some vigihxnt house servant in the midst of
hostilities, or "were informed upon, -we Averc ]jKide to
smart under the rod, and what was more painful to
the proud and angry spirit of each, wo were made to
kiss each other, while our beloved mother in vain spoke
to us lessons of brotherly love. We hated each other
thoroughly, I believe. How curious, indeed, are these
boyish animosities between brothers, which in pro-
gressing manhood are so often converted into the
most passionate loves !

How distinctly, how sadly, do I recollect one dark
cloudy morning in the years of our boyhood, when I
ran away from home to escape well deserved punish-
ment for a fight I had had with Dick. Ah, how
painfully revert the memories of youth — the memo-
ries of our reckless wounding of the hearts that loved
ns best !

My dear mother was at first not disquieted on ac-
count of my absence ; she naturally thought that I
had hid myself somewhere about the yard, and
that I would soon return, sullen and slouching,
as usual, to submit myself to the punishment
I so well deserved. But as the morning wore
away, and I came not, she became uneasy. Inquiry
for me was set afoot among the negroes. Uncle
Lewis, the cook, testified that *' do last he see of
mass'r Ed'rd, he was running straight down towards
the crik." My poor mother was instantly thrown
into the most violent and heart-rending anxiety. The

63

creek, wliich was fed by a number of mountain
streams, and ofcen overflowed its banks, had risen,
and was still rising from the recent rains ; and it was
certain that if I had attempted to cross the stream,
which was not improbable, as I had often waded
across its shallows at ordinary times, I would have
been drowned in its swollen T\'aters. The painful
fears of my mother could not be quieted ; they com-
municated themselves to those around her, and in an
a^^^ony of tears she ordered instant search to be com-
menced for me along the creek and over all parts of
the farm. Many of the negroes were mounted on
horses to scour the fields, and the tutor and the whole
school, including brother Dick, who trotted along in
tears, joined in the search.

I was eventually discovered, but not until near
nightfall, by Smith, the head slave, who carried me
home on the back of the cart horse, ^' Old Windy
Tom," in spite of my remonstrances and kicking.
He was very short to all I had to say, which was
little, as \Yindy Tom, who for my particular punish-
ment, I believe, was kept in a high trot through the
whole distance, jolted all argument out of me. I
could only understand from Smith that my mother
was in a dangerous state from the excitement of her
grief; that I ought to be "hooped all to pieces ;" and
whenever I remonstrated at his restraint of my liber-
ty, the answer was that he warn't '"fraid of my fuss,"
and that my '-mar' knew that he was doing for her
and hern."

64

Approaching the house I heard cries of anguish. My
poor mother imagining me to be dead was bewailing
me with all the tears and agony of a devoted parent.
Alas, how my conscience smote me ! With my own
cheeks wet with penitent tears, I presented myself to
my dear mother, who covered me with embraces and
kisses, and wept over me with happy forgiving tears.

Would to God that I had been made to suffer pain
equivalent to what I had inflicted upon the heart that
loved me best in all this world ! Going astray in
maturer life, wandering away among its shadows,
selfish, unreflecting, careless of that watchful and
searching love that never forsakes, never forgets, and
never ceases to watch and pray for the return of
''the son that was lost," I have found that same easy
weeping forgiveness that took me into its arms the
dreary night that I came home from the woods. I
could offend and offend, ever in the hope of seeking
that forgivenesss at the last, and ever with the cheat-
ing comfort of amendment soon. One being on earth
I had to fly to — one from whom to obtain forgiveness
again and again as life wore on. Now — oli, my God,
now I can only in tears look up to the skies, look to
the beautiful imaging clouds of heaven, and beseech
the forgiveness of the angel-spirit that I see there rest-
ing and returning never more.

Yours truly,

E. A. P.

To D. M. C, Esq., N. Y.

65

letter no. 7.
Briarcliff, Virginia, 1858.

My Dear C : In reflecting on the subject of

negro slavery in this country, I have been greatly
impressed by a characteristic, which, I think, has
never been sufficiently recognised and dwelt upon,
and which most honorably distinguishes it from other
systems of slavery known to the world. Consider,
dear C, that the American institution of slavery does
not depress the African, but elevates him in the
scale of social and religious being. It does not drag
him dowD from the condition of free-citizenship and
from membership in organized society to slavery ; but
it elevates him from the condition of a nomad, a hea-
then, a brute, to that of a civilized and comfortable
creature, and gives to him the priceless treasure of
a saving religion. Other institutions of slavery are
found, generally speaking, to rest on systems of dis-
enfranchisement and debasement. Look, for instance,
at the Roman slavery. Its victims were obtained in
war ; they came generally from the ranks of enemies
as civilized as the Romans themselves ; or — more
horrible still — they came from the ranks of their own
free and co-equal citizens, who might be sold for terms
of years by their parents in their non-age, or by their
creditors for debt, Thus their institution of slavery
was founded on the natural debasement of man ; it
was anti-progressive, depressing, barbarous. How
free is the American institution of negro slavery of

such ideas ! It rests on the solid basis of human im-
6*

66

procement. And in this respect does its elevated
spirit concur with the progress of civilization and of
the religion of Christ, that, like the winds of Heaven,
moves in its mysterious ways, gathers on its wings to
and fro, and never is at rest.

Surely, God proceeds mysteriously to us in His
works of love and redemption. While missionary
efforts have proved generally so unavailing in the
conversion of the heathen, we find great institutions
and events in the common history of humanity used
as instruments in the enlarging work of the redemp-
tion of man. We discover this in all of human pro-
gress. The translation of African savages from their
country as slaves — a great improving and progressive
work of human civilization — we also discover to be
one of the largest works of Christianity endowing a
people with a knowledge of the Christian God, and
they, in turn, enlightening us as to His Grace and
the solemn and precious mystery of the conversion of
the soul to Christ, The work of gathering to Christ
goes on, on, through all the tumults of the world, and
its contempt of God's means and its own vainglory.
Many developments in history, however unmerciful
to our eyes, may be seen to be turned to the glory of
God : and all our prosperity and progress is taxed
for the completion of the work of the redemption of
the world. On, on speeds and gathers the w^ork in
the changes of dynasties, in the founding of human
institutions, in the intercommunications between na-
tions, and in all the consummations of man's power

6T

on earth. Already it is said that the problems of
the world — the political and social problems, and with
them the great problem of Christ's religion are to be
aided to their solution by the swiftest and sovereignest
ao^ent that science has discovered in the world's
domain. Already may we declare glory to the
Most High — and prophesy — oh, with what beautiful
strangeness — that the lightnings, the home of which
verse and the unwritten poetry of our natures have
placed fast by the Throne of God, shall be sent on the
missions of His love to all the nations of the earth.

But to return. I think the remarkable characteristic
of our ^'-peculiar institution," in improving the iVf-
rican race humanely, socially, and religiously, is alone
sufficient to juBtify it. It would insult it to plead it
in extenuation. Indeed, dear C, I venture to say
that if nothing else was accomplished in taking the
African from the gloom and tangles of his forests,
and from savage suffering and savage despair, than
bringinrr him to the unutterable riches of Christ, this
alone should justify and even adorn our institution of
slavery in the eyes of the Christian world.

We are accustomed, dear C, to hear of the para-
mount value of the religion of our Saviour — how far
it exceeds all that this world can give or can take
away. But we scarcely appreciate in the practical
intercourse of life the comprehension and force of the
truism. The best of us do not properly esteem it in
our comparative judgment of the condition and hap-
piness of God's creatures. What, indeed, is the vain-

68

glory of the worlil, the names of free and great, com-
pared to the riches of Christ and the ecstacy of a
hope in Heaven, which the poorest and, to our
earthly eyes, the most suffering portion of humanity,
may enjoy equally with — nay, in excess over — the
elevated and sumptuous ones of the world.

You have read the story of Rienzi, the last and the
most august of the Roman tribunes. He made a vow
by the dying body of a young sinless brother. In
the death of those we love, there is a beautiful
prompting of Providence to order our lives anevr.
AYe feci, in the depths of our nature {and it is there-
fore true) that the angel spirits of those who were
beloved on earth and who worship in Heaven, still
watch over us in tender sorrow at our worldliness or
in exceeding joy at our leaving the fleeting things of
earth and coming home to them in Christ. But Ri-
enzi, desolated by the death of his childish brother
and the snapping of the last loved tie on earth, did
not make the vow that nature prompted. He did not
resolve to leave his proud manhood, to give up the
vanities of his great learning, and to go back to
childhood, searching in tears for the innocence he
had lost there. He made a vow of bitterness — a vow
to drown grief in enmity to man, in selfish studies,
and in the pursuit of glory. And he succeeded in
the accomplishment of his vow. He mounted the
throne of the Cixjsars ; and all that treasure, luxury,
or art could yield were made to contribute to the pa-
geantry and magnificence of his power. He was hailed
by the extravagant populace as the deliverer of Rome

69

and the arbiter of the world. Standing before the
Roman people, he unsheathed his sword, brandished
it to the three parts of the world, and thrice repeated
the declaration, "And this too is mine!" He ex-
hausted in this speech all the extravagance of self-
glorification. But, alas ! he could not do what the
humblest Christian slave that waited on his pageant
might do — point to heaven, and say, in the compre-
hension of all joy and glory, "But this, this is
mine !

Go, false servitors of Christ, ye who on the ground
of religion itself, and in the garb of God's ministers,
assail the institution of negro slavery, that has
brought the knowledge of Christ to the heathen, and
who recommend its excision by the sword of civil
war, go and speak to the slave in our own country.
Tell him he is assigned to an inferior lot, to life-long
labor, in which he can never be great or rich, and
can never taste of the applause of this world. And
yet, how would you feel rebuked, if, pointing to heav-
en, he should declare, "But this is mine."

He has been plucked from the wilds of Africa, and
saved to Christ. He is never an infidel, for he does
not require, to establish his belief in the reality of
the Saviour, expenditures of learning and processes
of reasoning, and arguments about the prophecies and
the miracles. He is not reasoned into religion, (as
no man ever truly was ;) but he teaches us, even us,
an unlettered lesson of religion beyond all price — to
cast down the pride of reason, and to listen to the
voice of the intuitive divine spirit, telling us without

70

argument, "witliout learning, without price, of the
eternal, irresistible truths of the religion of our Lord
Jesus Christ.

Not for all your saintliness, ye red-nosed shep-
herds of God's people, who preach licentiousness and
discord, and the contentions and parting of brethren,
would I exchange the simple faith in the Saviour of
the poor, ignorant negro slave, whom you aifect to
pity. He has none of your learned assurance in ma-
ters of s:!lvation ; his ideas of religion may be fan-
tastic and may excite the laughter of your superior
wisdom, that scorns the tender aud beautiful igno-
rance that throws the charm of superstition around
the lessons and emblems of religion ; his notions of
his state and calling here may never have been edified
by your learned jargon about the Christian duty of
socialism, of rebellion, and of the baptism of blood ;
but the great preacher Jesus Christ has spoken to
him — not in lessons of discontent, not holding out
freedom, or riches, or licenses, not addressing the lust
of the flesh, or the lust of the eye, or the pride of
life, but in precious consolations, in assurances sweet-
er than learning and research, ever found in their
Bibles, and in lessons of perfect peace — the peace of
the stricken, the weary, and the desolate, in the life
everlasting.

It is true that the slaves' religion is greatly mixed
up with superstitions, that it is ostentatious and loud,
and that it has some comical aspects. But in his
simple, earnest, affectionate and believing heart, in
his ecstasies of love for ^'Mass'r Jesus," and in his

71

tenderness to "whatever appeals to him in nature, are
principles of religion as saving, I venture to say, as
the precise creeds and the solemn and exact manners
of the churchmen. Many a death-scene have I wit-
nessed among the slaves on the old plantations, and
many a time have I seen those whose untutored and
awkward religious professions amused me when a
thoughtless youth, yet dying with the sustainment of
that religion, joyfully, and with exclamations of
triumph over the grave. No Christian philosopher,
no preacher of politics or preacher of creeds could
add to that triumph and joy eternal, or could dim-
inish the ecstasy of that inner assurance of Heaven
by weighing the hopes of the poor slave's salvation
in doubting scales.

Precious is the memory of the dead ! And precious
to me, my beloved friend, is the memory of the black
loved ones who left me in the thoughtless, unremem-
bering, laughing hours of boyhood, for that peaceful
shore, where, now recollecting and sighing, I would
give all of earth to meet them. Pressing upon me,
and drawing the sweet tear from a nature that has
long lain in the decaying embraces of the world,
come the memories of youth.

I have often spoken to you of the old black patri-
arch, uncle Nash, who led me by the hand to the
preaching at the negro quarter every Sunday fort-
night. This good old christian man fell in harness,
and died with no master but Jesus to relieve the last
mysterious agonies of his death. Ho died out in the
woods, where the angel had suddenly come to him.

72

How vividly do I recall the excitement of the search
for uncle Nash, and the shock to my heart of the
discovery in the bright morning of the corpse lying
among the thick undergrowth and in the whortleberry
bushes of the wood. But why lament the old slave,
and wail at the terrible si^rht ! The body in its
coarse garments, dank with dew, lay there in the
bushes, in the loathsomeness"of death, but the immor-
tal soul had been clothed for the service above in its
raiment of glory, and was singing the everlasting
song in heaven.

He was buried in the grave, which my eye from
the point where I am now writing, can catch on the
warm hill, covered now with the blue blossoms of the
thistle. Unusual marks of afiection and respect were
shown in his burial. The funeral services were read
before all the negroes at the grave, and the younger
members of our family attended as mourners ; and,
according to the negro custom, each one of us threw a
handful of dirt on the coffin lid, as the last farewell.
Many years have gone by since then, but I can never
forget that scene of the deep, red grave, in which the
old christian slave was laid; and when the day expires,
I revisit the spot and' read on the white head-board
that marks it, the words — " The testimony of the
Lord is sure, making wise the simple.''

Yours truly,

E. A. P.

To D. M. C, Esq., New York.