Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1849-11-24
Letter from Philadelphia.
pn1AprLrnIA, Nov. 10. 1919

as a lecturer, referred, in a late communication
to the Bugle, to the fact that the master of his
coadjutor, John Jackson, was a deacon in the
Disciple church, in Mayslick, KY, and a reader
Of tho Millennial Harbingor, published by A..
Campbcll-and that he was as thorough at
slave driving as at his Sabbath obscrvances-
having set the blood-hounds on the said John
Jackson whose limbs were deeply SCARED there
by. Now, l never see any reference to these
Campbelitcs (RefOrmcrs q they style them
sclves,) without having my indignation kindlcd
NEW at their impious folly in preaching a cru
SADIE in the free and slave States against all OBJ
legations save that of 'oater baptism.
When I was about leaving my friends for a
residence of some months in Missouri, various
respectable" acquaintance assured me that /
"shonld find my opinions of slavery materially
changed on my return that 1 was going to
the "Athens " of Missouri-(think Of that y
that the planters in that section were the best
specimens of their class, intelligent, educated
and refined, and that 1 should be quite charmed
with the society. But happened to be an abo-
litionist from principle as well as sentiment,
which you know makes all the difference in the
world; especially when you arc so circumstance
that the dust, not to speak of gold dust, blows
straight into your eye; so l felt no apprehen-
sion lest the first principles of morality should
melt and disappear under such genial auspices.
1 had seen men who had swan across the Mis-
sissipi with their clothes in q bundle OH their
hnadc had Ura1End thn ctrootc IN CT II o,;o
where men are burned in open day-whcrc mon
are taken up in the streets and dragged to any
convenient place and fogged till the muscles
separate from the ~bonc-wherc continually
may be seen gangs of men and women chained
together-men, and women, and children, on
board the steamboats, at the levcc, destined for
the southern market,-wherc that craven tool,
Judge Krumm, (who, by the way, looks like
Carker in Dombey & Son. dccrccd during his
mayorship, that each free colorcd person should
pay six dollars a year for the privilege of resi-
ding there, and failing that, should be sold to
pay the fine; and where, to my certain know
ledge, every means, Town to physical violence,
was used to drive out a colorcd man who was do
ing well in his store, because he was proving to his
fellows that they could improve their condition.
Such in~sinuations, therefore, were only very
stupid: and l need not assure you that on my
arrival at this "Athens," instead of staring my
eyes wide open in order to preserve my faith in
" Garrisonian abolitionism, 1 should gladly
have closed them to all save the magnificent
woods and p%rairics. Now, my friend, this place
had but lately taken part in that stupendous re-
form of which the Rev. Alexander Campbell is
the soul, Oh the pious zeal, the knowledge
of scripture, the hostility to unbclicving oppo-
ncnts, it was truly astonishing to a simple un-
Outstanding. And then the distance thoy would
travel to hear one of these slave-holding rotor
mers! why it would put to shame some loyal
abolitionists, I'm thinking. Superficial obser-
vers would be tempted to imagine that Their
was really some heart in the matter but then
they must have been rery superficial, or the
dust must have whirled in dense columns, fol
such a set of cold-blooded wrctches as these
educated and refined reformers" were, / had
never encountered before. TIL best educated
among them, both women and men, were the
most tyrannical with their slaves. All the wo-
men were scolds without an exception. II
made my blood boil to see the persistent effort
used to crush every spark of sclf-respcct in the
slave and the slaves universally declared to me
that the PERFORMERS were more "hard" thar
the sold Baptists." l had always heard that
house servants - Jared so comfortably. In the
houses of wealthy shareholders, house and farm
slaves were equally ~forlorn, slatternly, degraded
Indeed, 1 can truly say that I never saw a cheer
ful-looking slave during six months. The more
intelligent they were, the more mind there wa
in their sadness of exprcssion--that was ALL
In the inferior class, the total absence of all in
centive to ambition manifested itself in a dogged
forlorn indifference. This habit of seriousness
is. / am told, a characteristic of the Missouri
slaves-the result probably of their being dis
tributed in smaller companies in those compare
lively thinly settled regions, and where the,
arc under the Immediate surveillance of tn
owner, who is spurred on by the necessities O
his isolated position, to demand more labor G
his chattels personal. At any rate all my OK
pcctations of informal singing and even whist
ling were disappointed.
"Athens" lays on the edge of a "two mile
prairie. That is, the pidh of the prairie wa
two miles. and it wound its way for very man
miles until it opened into a grand prairie. I'll
scenery was beautiful. Many openings froi
the woods on to the level meadow, wore
finished and graceful an air as that of the be
English parks. / could have lived there m
lifetime, were not the old saying true, tn
"the PEOPLE make the place." Here on the OF
had were sectarian bigots, internally coarse, I
matter how polished the exterior, with no poss
bility of a spiritual lifc-seizing as it were
number of their fellows and compelling the
to labor from morning to night without Il
faintest shadow of renumeration-systema