The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1851-10-23

the strongest and he SAYS, and | think quite
sensibly, that the American planter is "only
doing in another form what the English arts
tocracy and capitalists are doing by the lower
classes; that is, | take it, dppropriaiiag them,
body and bone, soul and spirit to their use and
convenience. He defends bOth--and | think
at least consistently He says that there can
| be no high civilization without enslavement of
| the masses, either nominal or real There
| must he says, be lower class, given up to
physical toll and confined to an animal nature,
and higher one thereby acquires leisure and
wealth for more expanded intelligence and
improvement, and becomes the directing soul
| of the lower So he reasons, because, as | said
| he is born an aristocrat-so don't believe
becauseI was born democrat
How in the world can the two things be
| compared ?" said Miss Ophelia. THE English
| labOrer is not sold, traded, parted from his
family, whipped
ale is as much at the VIII 81 his employer
as if he were sold to him. The slave owner can
| whip his refractory slave to death-the capital
| list can starve him to death As to family Sc
| curity, it is hard to say which is the wOrst-tC
have ones children sold or zee them starye t.
death at home"
"But it's no kind of apology for slavery, t.
| prove that it isn't worse than some other baG
| thing"
IL didn't give it for one-nay, I'll say, besides
| that ours is the more bold and palpable in.
| fringement of human rights, actually buying a
| man up like bOrse-looking at his teeth
cracking his joints and trying his PAGES and
then paying down for him-having specuators
breeders, traders, and brokers in human bodies
and souls, sets the thing before the eyes of the
civilized world in more tangible form, though
the thing done be, after all, in its nature, the
same; that is, appropriating one set of human
beings to the use ana Improvement of another
without eny regard TO their own"
f''-f sasec tkazeet of the y0atteEa2 re sns, :
said Miss Ophelia
swell, I've travelled in England some and
Eve looked over good many documents as to
the state of their lower classes, and | really
think there is no denying Alfred, when he says
that his slaves are better off than large class
of the population of England You see you
must not infer from what have told you that
Alfred is what is called hard master, for he
isn't. He is despotic, and unmerciful to insub-
ordination; he would shoot fellow down with
as little remorse as he would shoot buck, if he
opposed him. But in general, he takes sort
and accommodated.
"When | was with him, insisted that he
should do something for their instruction and
to please me, he did get chaplain, and used to
have them catechised Sunday; tho believe in
his heart that he thought it would do about as
much good as to set chaplain over his dogs
and horses. And the fact is, that mind stu
pefed and animalized by every bad influence
no hnur of hirfb ,,,anI,ns. ,pbola az
every week day in unreflecting toll, cannot be
done much with by few hours on Sunday.
The teachers of Sunday schools among the
manufacturing population of England and
among plantation hands in our country. could
perhaps testify to the same result, there and
here. Yet some striking exceptions there are
among us, from the fact that the negro is natu-
rally more impressible to religious sentiment
than the white"
"Well," said Miss Ophelia, show came you
to give up your plantation life?D
"Well, we logged on together some time, till
Alfred saw plainly that was no planter He
thought it absurd, after he had reformed and
altered and improved everywhere to suit nv
notions that | still remained unsatisfied. The
fact was it was, after all, the THING that /
hated-the using these men and women, the
W.
vice, just to make money for mel
Besides was always interfering in the de-
tails. Being myself one of the LATEST of NOR
tails. had altogether too much fellow feeling
for the lazy; and when poor sEiftless dogs put
stones at the bottom of their cotton baskets to
make them weigh heavier, or filled their sacks
with dirt with cotton at the top it seemed 80
exactly like what should do if | were they,
L~s& Il III Al
Well of course there was an end of plantation
discipline, and ALT and came to about the
same point that | and my respected father did
years before So he told me that | was a
womanish sentimentalist and would never do for
business life and advised me to take the bank
stock and the New Orleans family mansion, and
60 to writing poetry, and let him manage the
plantation. SO we parted and came bereo
But why didn't you free your slaves! ~
"Well, ! wasn't up to that. To hold them
as tools for money making, | could not-have
them to help spend money, you know didn't
look quite so ugly to me. Some Of them were
old house servants to whom | was much at
tached-and the younger ones were children TO
the old. All were well satisfied to be as they
wereo He paused, and walked redectively up
and down the room
There was,n said st. Clare "a time in my
life when had plans and hopes of doing some
thing in this world, more than to float and drift
had vague, ndistnct warnings to he a sort of
emancpator-to free my native land from this
spot and stain. All young men have had such
fever fits, suppose, some time-but then"-
"Why didn't you!" said Miss Ophelia-
"you ought not to put your hand to the plough,
and look back
"Oh well, things didn't go with me as | ex-
pected, and got the despair Of living that Sol
ONION did ] suppose it was a necessary incl
dent to wisdom in MS both-but somehow or
other, instead of being actor aud Regeneration in
society, became piece of drift wood, and
have been floating and eddying about ever
since. Alfred scolds me every time we meet
really does something-his life is logical re-
suit of his opinions, and mine is contemplate
non se9uitur.
aMy dear cousin, can you be satisfied with
such way of spending your probaton?"
Satisfied! Was | not just telling you |
despised it! But, then TO come back TO this
point, we were on this liberation business
don't think my feelings about slavery are pc
culiar. ! find many men who, in their hearts
think of it just as do. The land groans under
1t; and bad rs it is for the slave it is worse If
anything, for the master. IL kes no spcctacles
to sec that great class Of vicious, improvident,
degraded people among us are an evil to us AZ
well as to themselves The capitalist and aris-
tocrat Of England cannot feel that as we do
because they do not mingle with the class they
degrade as we do, They are in our houses
they are the associates of our children, and they
form their minds faster than we can, for they
are race that children always will cling to
and assimiate with If Eva, now, was not
more angel than ordinary, she would be ruined.
We might as well allow the smallpox to run
among them, and think our children would not
take it, ~ to let them be uninstructed and