Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1853-1862, 1858-11-16
william L. Yancey.


To the Editors Of the Enquirer:
GeHtlemeu 81 find ir Alabama paper letter
addressed to you and copied from your paper, signed
William L Yancey in which Ny name Is used IN
manner calculated and intended TO prejudice me In
the estimation Of your readers. l trust l do not
presume 90 much on your courtesy, Ia asking space
in your paper for few words in reply
This Introduction Of MY nsme in two letters ad
dressed 10 you by This gentleman is but following
up an attack made me by the Montgomery (Ala>
bama) AdUertiseT in June last, in relation 10 my let
ter TO the Tract Society.
Il is somewhat significant that these attacks ori-
ginaled and are kept up in locality where rival
Law school TO The st this place has been set on
foot the past summer, and which | am informed Mr.
Yaucey is interested in establishing.
Mr. Yancey says ct at in my letter to the Amer
lean Tract Society,"" said " slavery is moral, So
cial and political evil :" but he es not tel your
readers what else was said in hat letter, what quail
flying facts stated, modifying the meaning Of
this sentence His suppression Of these passages in
my letter Is most unfair and disi1geDious.
If be had told your readers as the fact is, that
the letter was an earnest vindcation Of the South,
reviewing ibelious tract by Chas. X WhiPPle, Of
Boston, that the true state Of our law in relation to
slavery was set FORTH and that whatever IN that law
might seem severe 1t is the result Of Abolition med
ding and agitati0n-driyiBg the South, in self de
fence to adopt q more strict discipline than would
otherwise have been necessary and hat if il were
Abolition tracts by tue Tract Society it would put
an end 10 the operations Of that society South, and
eventually lead to q dissolution of the Union.
The letter admitted that RIGHTEOUSNESS Of white
men aud negro women did exist to some extent,
though not to anything like the extent charged in
the tract that though this is evil, yet it is an
evil existing evCry where where there interiors
and superiors The females Of The inferior class
WILL more or less, be prostituted to the icentiOus
passions Of the males Of the superior class; so that
if the female slaves are licentious TO some extent, as
a result the female slaves Of the superior class are
comparatively free from this vice.
The letter get forth the manner in which slaves
are treated at the South-that they were well fed,
well clothed and not overtasked; that they are con
tented and happy, and are civilized and christian
led II warned Northern men TO let US alone; hat
their interference could only do harm, and that if
VIC had difficult problem in the institution of slave.
~ zoe Of the South alone could solve it.
If Mr. Yencey had stated these facts, IN connec-
ton with the sentence he has quoted, sheuld have
been content 10 permit your intelligent readers to
judge between us without word from me.
The admission, in my letter, that slavery Is an
evil-in the connection in which the admission
s,ands-NIr Yancey, and every intelligent gentle.
man South knows 10 be rue. But IN that con-
uection It is not unmi'igated evil Like many
other things that in circumstances, may be nee
essarv. it has its drawbacks and iis compensatons
When l say slavery is a ''morl and social evil" l
do not mean that the relation Of master and slave
is per Sc SIM nor can my language be SO understood,
when taken in connection with the context There
are moral and social incidents, connected with sla,
very which every good man lamen's. But these do
not effect the validity and moral purity Of the rela"
tjOu.
The idea is expressed by Rev. DR. Ross, in his
book on slavery, in these w5rds:-'SlaveTy, though
not a sin, is a degraded conditions; the evil-the
curse OF the South, yet having blessings in its time,
to the South and to the Union" Ross on Slavery,
p. ~
was bern aud brought up in Amelia county, Vlr
ginia sly legal studies coUduc'ed under the
direction Of Richard n. Venable, of Prince EdwarI.
like nv ureceptor, l was earnest supporter Of
NJ Nsdison's administration. and an ardent admir-
er If The President adopted most Of his opinions
,Don public questions, aud have rot been prone to
clonge. have lived more than forty years in Ten
nassee-twenty FIVE Of which l was on the bench.
Tyveniv-two volumes Of Tennessee Reports contain
numerous decisions made by me, on the subject of
sIavprv In 1884 dissented from he judgment Of
The majority in the case Of Harris US. CtarSsg 70
Yer r in which it was held, tbst where slave
was to be free at twenty-five, sDd before that time
She had several children, the children we're free.
held that the mother a slave until she was TWEEN
ty-fve wears old and that the children born before
[ haf time were slaves,