Among the Pines Part 23

"Yes, I mean them, and the three millions of poor whites--the ignorant, half-starved, lazy vermin you have just seen. _They_ are the real basis of our Southern oligarchy, as you call it," continued my host, still laughing.

"I thought the negroes were the serfs in your feudal system?"

"Both the negroes and the poor whites are the serfs, but the white trash are its real support. Their votes give the small minority of slave-owners all their power. You say we control the Union. We do, and we do it by the votes of these people, who are as far below our n.i.g.g.e.rs as the n.i.g.g.e.rs are below decent white men. Who that reflects that this country has been governed for fifty years by such sc.u.m, would give a d---- for republican inst.i.tutions?"

"It does speak badly for _your_ inst.i.tutions. A system that reduces nearly half of a white population to the level of slaves cannot stand in this country. The late election shows that the power of your 'white trash' is broken."

"Well, it does, that's a fact. If the states should remain together, the West would in future control the Union. We see that, and are therefore determined on dissolution. It is our only way to keep our n.i.g.g.e.rs."

"The West will have to consent to that project. My opinion is, your present policy will, if carried out, free every one of your slaves."

"I don't see how. Even if we are put down--which we cannot be--and are held in the Union against our will, government cannot, by the const.i.tution, interfere with slavery in the states."

"I admit that, but it can confiscate the property of traitors. Every large slave-holder is to-day, at heart, a traitor. If this movement goes on, you will commit overt acts against the government, and in self-defence it will punish treason by taking from you the means of future mischief."

"The Republicans and Abolitionists might do that if they had the power, but nearly one-half of the North is on our side, and will not fight us."

"Perhaps so; but if _I_ had this thing to manage, I would put you down without fighting."

"How would you do it--by preaching abolition where even the n.i.g.g.e.rs would mob you? There's not a slave in all South Carolina but would shoot Garrison or Greeley on sight."

"That may be, but if so, it is because you keep them in ignorance. Build a free-school at every cross-road, and teach the poor whites, and what would become of slavery? If these people were on a par with the farmers of New England, would it last for an hour? Would they not see that it stands in the way of their advancement, and vote it out of existence as a nuisance?"

"Yes, perhaps they would; but the school-houses are not at the cross-roads, and, thank G.o.d, they will not be there in this generation."

"The greater the pity; but that which will not flourish alongside of a school-house, cannot, in the nature of things, outlast this century. Its time must soon come."

"Enough for the day is the evil thereof. I'll risk the future of slavery, if the South, in a body, goes out of the Union."

"In other words, you'll shut out schools and knowledge, in order to keep slavery in existence. The Abolitionists claim it to be a relic of barbarism, and you admit it could not exist with general education among the people."

"Of course it could not. If Sandy, for instance, knew he were as good a man as I am--and he would be if he were educated--do you suppose he would vote as I tell him, go and come at my bidding, and live on my charity? No, sir! give a man knowledge, and, however poor he may be, he'll act for himself."

"Then free-schools and general education would destroy slavery?"

"Of course they would. The few cannot rule when the many know their rights. If the poor whites realized that slavery kept them poor, would they not vote it down? But the South and the world are a long way off from general education. When it comes to that, we shall need no laws, and no slavery, for the millennium will have arrived."

"I'm glad you think slavery will not exist during the millennium," I replied, good-humoredly; "but how is it that you insist the negro is naturally inferior to the white, and still admit that the 'white trash,'

are far below the black slaves?"

"Education makes the difference. We educate the negro enough to make him useful to us; but the poor white man knows nothing. He can neither read nor write, and not only that, he is not trained to any useful employment. Sandy, here, who is a fair specimen of the tribe, obtains his living just like an Indian, by hunting, fishing, and stealing, interspersed with n.i.g.g.e.r-catching. His whole wealth consists of two hounds and pups; his house--even the wooden trough his miserable children eat from--belongs to me. If he didn't catch a runaway-n.i.g.g.e.r once in a while, he wouldn't see a dime from one year to another."

"Then you have to support this man and his family?"

"Yes, what I don't give him he steals. Half a dozen others poach on me in the same way."

"Why don't you set them at work?"

"They can't be made to work. I have hired them time and again, hoping to make something of them, but I never got one to work more than half a day at a time. It's their nature to lounge and to steal."

"Then why do you keep them about you?"

"Well, to be candid, their presence is of use in keeping the blacks in subordination, and they are worth all they cost me, because I control their votes."

"I thought the blacks were said to be entirely contented?"

"No, not contented. I do not claim that. I only say that they are unfit for freedom. I might cite a hundred instances in which it has been their ruin."

"I have not heard of one. It seems strange to me that a man who can support another cannot support himself."

"Oh! no, it's not at all strange. The slave has hands, and when the master gives him brains, he works well enough; but to support himself he needs both hands and brains, and he has only hands. I'll give you a case in point: At Wilmington, N. C., some years ago, there lived a negro by the name of Jack Campbell. He was a slave, and was employed, before the river was deepened so as to admit of the pa.s.sage of large vessels up to the town, in lightering cargoes to the wharves. He hired his time of his master, and carried on business on his own account. Every one knew him, and his character for honesty, sobriety, and punctuality stood so high that his word was considered among merchants as good as that of the first business-men of the place. Well, Jack's wife and children were free, and he finally took it into his head to be free himself. He arranged with his master to purchase himself within a specified time, at eight hundred dollars, and he was to deposit his earnings in the hands of a certain merchant till they reached the required sum. He went on, and in three years had acc.u.mulated nearly seven hundred dollars, when his owner failed in business. As the slave has no right of property, Jack's earnings belonged by law to his master, and they were attached by the Northern creditors (mark that, _by Northern creditors_), and taken to pay the master's debts. Jack, too, was sold. His new owner also consented to his buying himself, at about the price previously agreed on. Nothing discouraged, he went to work again. Night and day he toiled, and it surprised every one to see so much energy and firmness of purpose in a negro. At last, after four more years of labor, he accomplished his purpose, and received his free-papers. He had worked seven years--as long as Jacob toiled for Rachel--for his freedom, and like the old patriarch he found himself cheated at last. I was present when he received his papers from his owner--a Mr. William H. Lippitt, who still resides at Wilmington--and I shall never forget the ecstasy of joy which he showed on the occasion. He sung and danced, and laughed, and wept, till my conscience smote me for holding my own n.i.g.g.e.rs, when freedom might give them so much happiness. Well, he went off that day and treated some friends, and for three days afterward lay in the gutter, the entreaties of his wife and children having no effect on him.

He swore he was free, and would do as he 'd---- pleased.' He had previously been a cla.s.s-leader in the church, but after getting his freedom he forsook his previous a.s.sociates, and spent his Sundays and evenings in a bar-room. He neglected his business; people lost confidence in him, and step by step he went down, till in five years he sunk into a wretched grave. That was the effect of freedom on _him_, and it would be the same on all of his race."

"It is clear," I replied, "_he_ could not bear freedom, but that does not prove he might not have 'endured' it if he had never been a slave.

His overjoy at obtaining liberty, after so long a struggle for it, led to his excesses and his ruin. According to your view, neither the black nor the poor white is competent to take care of himself. The Almighty, therefore, has laid upon _you_ a triple burden; you not only have to provide for yourself and your children, but for two races beneath you, the black and the clay-eater. The poor n.i.g.g.e.r has a hard time, but it seems to me you have a harder one."

"Well, it's a fact, we do. I often think that if it wasn't for the color and the odor, I'd willingly exchange places with my man Jim."

The Colonel made this last remark in a half-serious, half-comic way, that excited my risibilities, but before I could reply, the carriage stopped, and Jim, opening the door, announced:

"We's har, ma.s.sa, and de prayin' am gwine on."

[Footnote I: The foregoing statistics are correct. That small number of slave-holders sustains the system of slavery, and has caused this terrible rebellion. They are, almost to a man, rebels and secessionists, and we may cover the South with armies, and keep a file of soldiers upon every plantation, and not smother this insurrection, unless we break down the power of that cla.s.s. Their wealth gives them their power, and their wealth is in their slaves. Free their negroes by an act of emanc.i.p.ation, or confiscation, and the rebellion will crumble to pieces in a day. Omit to do it, and it will last till doomsday.

The power of this dominant cla.s.s once broken, with landed property at the South more equally divided, a new order of things will arise there.

Where now, with their large plantations, not one acre in ten is tilled, a system of small farms will spring into existence, and the whole country be covered with cultivation. The six hundred thousand men who have gone there to fight our battles, will see the amazing fertility of the Southern soil--into which the seed is thrown and springs up without labor into a bountiful harvest--and many of them, if slavery is crushed out, will remain there. Thus a new element will be introduced into the South, an element that will speedily make it a loyal, prosperous, and _intelligent_ section of the Union.

I would interfere with no one's rights, but a rebel in arms against his country has no rights; all that he has "is confiscate." Will the loyal people of the North submit to be ground to the earth with taxes to pay the expenditures of a war, brought upon them by these Southern oligarchists, while the traitors are left in undisturbed possession of every thing, and even their slaves are exempted from taxation? It were well that our legislators should ask this question now, and not wait till it's asked of them by THE PEOPLE.]

CHAPTER IX.

THE COUNTRY CHURCH.

Had we not been absorbed in conversation, we might have discovered, some time previous to our arrival at the church door, that the services had commenced, for the preacher was shouting at the top of his lungs. He evidently thought the Lord either a long way off, or very hard of hearing. Not wishing to disturb the congregation while at their devotions, we loitered near the doorway until the prayer was over, and in the mean time I glanced around the vicinity.

The "meeting-house," of large unhewn logs, was a story and a half in height, and about large enough to seat comfortably a congregation of two hundred persons. It was covered with shingles, with a roof projecting some four feet over the walls, and was surmounted at the front gable by a tower, about twelve feet square. This also was built of logs, and contained a bell "to call the erring to the house of prayer," though, unfortunately, all of that character thereabouts dwelt beyond the sound of its voice. The building was located at a cross-roads, about equally distant from two little hamlets (the nearer nine miles off), neither of which was populous enough to singly support a church and a preacher. The trees in the vicinity had been thinned out, so that carriages could drive into the woods, and find under the branches shelter from the rain and the sun; and at the time of my visit, about twenty vehicles of all sorts and descriptions, from the Colonel's magnificent barouche to the rude cart drawn by a single two-horned quadruped, filled the openings.

There was a rustic simplicity about the whole scene that charmed me. The low, rude church, the grand old pines that towered in leafy magnificence around it, and the soft, low wind, that sung a morning hymn in the green, wavy woods, seemed to lift the soul up to Him who inhabiteth eternity, but who deigns to visit the erring children of men.

The preacher was about to "line out" one of Watts' psalms when we entered the church, but he stopped short on perceiving us, and, bowing low, waited till we had taken our seats. This action, and the sycophantic air which accompanied it, disgusted me, and turning to the Colonel, I asked, jocosely:

"Do the chivalry exact so much obsequiousness from the country clergy?

Do you require to be bowed up to heaven?"

In a low voice, but high enough, I thought, for the preacher to hear, for we sat very near, the Colonel replied: