Lands of the Slave and the Free Part 26

[Footnote BJ: The reader is requested to remember that all the words printed in italics--while dealing with _English Items_--are so done to show that they are quotations from the eulogies of the American press.

They are as thoroughly repudiated by me as they must be by every American gentleman.]

[Footnote BK: Did Mr. Ward ever read any account in the gazettes of his own country, of the poor soldiers going to "Washington to procure land warrants, and after being detained there till they were reduced to beggary, receiving no attention? Let me commend the following letter, taken from the press of his own country, dated July 6, 1853, and addressed to the President:--

"DEAR SIR,--_In the humblest tone do I implore your charity for three cents, to enable me to procure something to eat._ Pray be so kind, and receive the grateful thanks of your humble supplicant of Shenandoah County, Va."]

[Footnote BL: The reader will be astonished to know that these remarks are from the pen of a Kentucky man; in which State there is a large hole in the ground, made by Providence, and called "The Mammoth Cave;" it is situated on private property, and for the privilege of lionizing it, you pay 10s. So carefully is it watched, that no one is even allowed to make a plan of it, lest some entrance should be found available on the adjoining property.]

[Footnote BM: I must beg the reader to remember this last sentence when he comes to the interview between the Kentucky author and his old friend, the schoolmaster.]

[Footnote BN: Kentucky is the State of his birth and family, Arkansas the State of his adoption, and "The Three Continents" the fruit of his pen.]

[Footnote BO: The reader will find that, in his interview with the schoolmaster, his brother was "completely himself" with a bowie-knife only.]

[Footnote BP: One other instance I must give of the coolness with which an American writer can pen the most glaring falsehood; _vide_ "English Traits," by R.W. Emerson. I might quote many fake impressions conveyed, but I shall confine myself to one of his observations upon a religious subject, where at least decency might have made him respect truth. At page 126 I find the following sentence:--"They put up no Socratic prayer, _much less any saintly prayer, for the Queen's mind_; ask neither for light nor right, but say bluntly, 'grant her in health and wealth long to live.'" Now, I will not ask whether the author of this pa.s.sage ever saw our Book of Common Prayer, because printing the words in inverted commas is proof sufficient; nor will I go out of my way to show the _many_ prayers put up for the bestowal of purely spiritual blessings; but, when I find the previous sentence to the one quoted by him to be as follows, "Endow her plenteously with heavenly gifts," what can I say of such a writer? Either that by heavenly gifts he understands dollars and cents, or that he has wilfully sacrificed religious truth at the shrine of democratic popularity. Having placed him on these two horns of a dilemma, I leave him to arrange his seat.]

[Footnote BQ: Of course the evidence of the brother is the _most favourable_ to Mr. M.F.W. that the trial produces.]

[Footnote BR: It appears in evidence that the scene described took place about half-past ten A.M.]

[Footnote BS: Mr. Sturgus is the master who was supposed to be unfriendly to Mr. Matthew F. Ward.]

CHAPTER XXV.

_The Inst.i.tution of Slavery._

There is one subject which no person who pretends to convey to the reader the honest thoughts and impressions which occupied his mind during his travels in this vast Republic, can pa.s.s over in silence; and that subject, I need scarcely observe, is Slavery. It is an inst.i.tution which deserves most serious consideration; for while a general unity of sentiment binds the various States together in a manner that justifies the national motto, "_E pluribus unum_," the question of slavery hangs fearfully over their Union; and the thread by which it is suspended is more uncertain than the fragile hair of the sword of Damocles, for it is dependent upon the angry pa.s.sions of angry man.

So true do I feel this to be, that were I a citizen of one of the Free States of America, I might hesitate before I committed my opinions to the Press. I trust, however, that I may so treat the subject that no cause for ill-blood may be given. Unquestionably, the origin of the evil is wholly with the mother country. We entered into the diabolical traffic of our fellow-creatures, and forced the wretched negro upon a land which had never before received the impress of a slave's foot; and this we did despite all the remonstrances of the outraged and indignant colonists; and with this revolting sin upon our shoulders, it is but natural we should feel deeply interested in the sable ivy-shoot we planted, and which now covers the whole southern front of the stately edifice of the Giant Republic. Time was when a Newcastle collier might have carried the sable shoot back to the soil whence it had been stolen; now, the keels of many nations combined would scarce suffice to move the rapid growth.

But, while at England's door lies the original guilt, America has since put the solemn seal of her paternity upon it; every foot of land which, in the rapid career of her aggrandis.e.m.e.nt, has been sullied with the footsteps of the slave for the first time, mars the beauty of the cap of liberty, and plants a slave-trader's star in the banner of the nation. She is only doing a century later what we wickedly did a century before--viz., planting slavery on a soil hitherto free, and enlarging the market for the sale of flesh and blood. The futile excuse sometimes offered, that they were merely moved from one part to another of the same country, cannot be admitted; or, if it be, upon the same principle all the Free States might return again to slavery. If it be no sin to introduce slavery into a free Sovereign State, then was England not so guilty in the first instance, for she sent slaves from a land of ignorance, cruelty, and idolatry, to an enlightened and Christian colony. It is in vain for either England or the United States to shirk the guilty responsibility of introducing slaves on free soil. England has the additional guilt of having acted against the wishes of the colonists; the United States has the additional guilt of increasing slave territory a century later, and when the philanthropists of every country were busied in endeavours to solve the problem, "How can slavery be abolished?"

Without dwelling further upon respective guilt, I will at once proceed to review the crusades which have been made against the inst.i.tution, and the hopes of the slave under it; after which, I will offer for consideration such proposals as appear to me worthy the attention of all the true friends of the negro, whether owners or not. While thus treating the subject, I beg to observe that I fully recognise each individual State as possessing plenipotentiary powers within the limits of that const.i.tution by which they are all bound together: and I trust that, in any observations I may make, no one expression will be so misconstrued as to give offence; for I know full well the stupendous difficulties with which the whole question is surrounded, and I feel it is one which should be approached only in a true spirit of charity and kindness towards the much-maligned gentlemen of the South.

I open the question by asking--what is the meaning of the cry raised by the fanatics of the North--the abolition crusaders? In words, it is freedom to the slave; in fact, it is spoliation of their neighbours. Had the proposition come from wild Arabs who live in houses they carry on their backs, and feed on the milk of flocks that pasture at their side, I might have comprehended the modest proposal; but coming from those whose energy for business is proverbial, and whose acuteness in all matters of dollars and cents is unsurpa.s.sed, if equalled, by the shrewdest Hebrew of the Hebrews, I confess it is beyond my puny imagination to fathom. Were it accompanied with any pecuniary offer adequate to the sacrifice proposed, I might be able to comprehend it: but for those, or the descendants of those, who, as they found white labour more profitable, sold their sable brethren to their southern neighbours, and thus easily and profitably removed slavery from their borders,--for those, I say, to turn round and preach a crusade for the emanc.i.p.ation of the negro, in homilies of contumely, with the voice of self-righteousness, exhibits a degree of a.s.surance that cannot be surpa.s.sed. Had they known as much of human nature as of the laws of profit and loss, they might have foreseen that in every epithet heaped upon their southern countrymen, they were riveting a fresh bolt in the slave's fetters. On what plea did the American colony rebel? Was it not, as a broad principle, the right of self-government? Does not their const.i.tution allow independent action to each State, subject only to certain obligations, binding alike on all? If those are complied with, on what principle of patriotism or honour do individuals or societies hurl torches of discord among their southern co-citizens?

No person who has watched or inquired into the social state of the slaves during the present century, can fail to have observed that much has been done to improve their condition among the respectable holders thereof, both as regards common education and religious instruction; at the same time, they will perceive that the first law of nature--self-preservation--compelled them to make common education penal, as soon as fanatical abolitionists inundated the country with firebrand pamphlets. No American can deny, that when an oppressed people feel their chains galling to them, they have a right to follow the example of the colonists, and strike for freedom. This right doubtless belongs to the negro, and these inflammable publications were calculated to lead them on to make the effort. But what reflecting mind can fail to foresee the horrors consequent upon such a hopeless endeavour? More especially must it have presented itself to the mind of the slave-masters; and could they, with sure visions before their eyes of the fearful sacrifice of human life, the breaking-up of whatever good feeling now exists between master and slave, and the inauguration of a reign of terror and unmitigated severity--could they, I say, with such consequences staring them in the face, have taken a more mild, sensible, and merciful step than checking that education, through the instrumentality of which, the abolitionists were hastening forward so awful a catastrophe?

The following extract may suffice to prove the irritation produced by the abolitionists in Virginia, though, of course, I do not pretend to insinuate that the respectable portion of the community in that State would endorse its barbarous ravings:--

"SLAVERY IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM.--The (American) _Richmond Examiner_, in connexion with the recent trial of Ward of Kentucky, has the following theory on the extinction of schoolmasters in general:--'The South has for years been overrun with hordes of illiterate, unprincipled graduates of the Yankee free schools (those hot-beds of self-conceit and ignorance), who have, by dint of unblushing impudence, established themselves as schoolmasters in our midst. So odious are some of these "itinerant ignoramuses" to the people of the South; so full of abolitionism and concealed incendiarism are many of this cla.s.s; so full of guile, fraud, and deceit,--that the deliberate shooting one of them down, in the act of poisoning the minds of our slaves or our children, we think, if regarded as homicide at all, should always be deemed perfectly justifiable; and we imagine the propriety of shooting an abolition schoolmaster, when caught tampering with our slaves, has never been questioned by any intelligent Southern man. This we take to be the unwritten common law of the South, and we deem it advisable to promulgate the law, that it may be copied into all the abolition papers, thundered at by the three thousand New England preachers, and read with peculiar emphasis, and terrible upturning of eyes, by Garrison, at the next meeting of the anti-slavery party at Faneuil Hall. We repeat, that the shooting of itinerant abolition schoolmasters is frequently a creditable and laudable act, ent.i.tling a respectable Southern man to, at least, a seat in the Legislature or a place in the Common Council. Let all Yankee schoolmasters who propose invading the South, endowed with a strong nasal tw.a.n.g, a long scriptural name, and Webster's lexicographic book of abominations, seek some more congenial land, where their own lives will be more secure than in the "vile and homicidal Slave States."

We shall be glad if the ravings of the abolition press about the Ward acquittal shall have this effect.'"

We now see that the abolitionists have rendered the education of the negro, with a view to his ultimate fitness for freedom or self-government, utterly impracticable, however anxious the slave-owner might have otherwise been to instruct him. Thus, by their imprudent violence, they have effectually closed the educational pathway to emanc.i.p.ation. It should not either be forgotten that the Southerners may have seen good reason to doubt the Christian sincerity of those who clamoured so loudly for loosening the fetters of the slaves. The freed slaves in the Northern States must have frequently been seen by them, year after year, as they went for "the season" to the watering-places, and could they observe much in his position there to induce the belief that the Northerners are the friends of the negro? In some cities, he must not drive a coach or a car; in others, he must not enter a public conveyance; in places of amus.e.m.e.nt, he is separated from his white friend; even in the house of that G.o.d with whom "there is no respect of persons," he is part.i.tioned off as if he were an unclean animal; in some States he is not admitted at all.

With such evidences of friendship for the negro, might they not question the honesty of Northern champions of emanc.i.p.ation? Could they really place confidence in the philanthropic professions of those who treat the negro as an outcast, and force on him a life of wretchedness instead of striving to raise him in the social scale? If a negro had the intellect of a Newton--if he were clothed in purple and fine linen, and if he came fresh from an Oriental bath, and fragrant as "Araby's spices," a Northerner would prefer sitting down with a pole-cat--he would rather pluck a living coal from the fire than grasp the hand of the worthiest negro that ever stepped. Whoever sees a negro in the North smile at the approach of the white man? Who has not seen a worthy planter or slave-owner returning from a short absence, greeted with smiles in abundance, or perhaps receiving a broad grin of pride and pleasure as the worthy owner gave his hand to some old faithful slave?

I think I have shown, in the foregoing remarks, that the Southern has three solid and distinct grounds of objection to the Free States abolitionist. First,--The natural spirit of man, which rebels against wholesale vituperation and calumny. Secondly,--The obstacle they have placed in the way of giving the slave simple education, by introducing most inflammable pamphlets. Thirdly,--The questionable sincerity of their professed sympathy for the slave, as evidenced by the antipathy they exhibit towards the free negro, and by the palpable fact that he is far worse off in a free than in a slave State.

The same objection cannot justly be taken against English abolitionists, because they act and think chiefly upon the evidence furnished by American hands; besides which, slavery in the West Indian colonies was felt by the majority of the nation to be so dark a stain upon our national character, that, although burdened with a debt such as the world never before dreamt of, the sum of 20,000,000l. was readily voted for the purposes of emanc.i.p.ation. Whether the method in which the provisions of the act were carried out was very wise or painfully faulty, we need not stop to inquire: the object was a n.o.ble one, and the sacrifice was worthy of the object.

With all the feelings of that discussion fresh in the public mind, it is no wonder that philanthropists, reading the accounts published by American authors of the horrors of slavery, should band themselves together for the purpose of urging America in a friendly tone to follow Great Britain's n.o.ble example, and to profit by any errors she had committed as to the method of carrying emanc.i.p.ation into effect. I am quite aware a slaveholder may reply, "This is all very good; but I must have a word with you, good gentlemen of England, as to sincerity. If you hold slavery so d.a.m.nable a sin, why do you so greedily covet the fruits of the wages of that sin? The demand of your markets for slave produce enhances the value of the slave, and in so doing clenches another nail in the coffin, of his hopes." I confess I can give no reply, except the humiliating confession which, if the feeling of the nation is to be read in its Parliamentary acts, amounts to this--"We have removed slavery from our own soil, and we don't care a farthing if all the rest of the world are slaves, provided only we can get cheap cotton and sugar, &c.

Mammon! Mammon! Mammon! is ever the presiding deity of the Anglo-Saxon race, whether in the Old or the New World.

There can be no doubt that the reception of Mrs. Beecher Stowe's work and person in England was very galling to many a Southerner, and naturally so; because it conveyed a tacit endors.e.m.e.nt of all her a.s.sertions as to the horrors of the slavery system. When I first read _Uncle Tom_, I said, "This will rather tend to rivet than to loosen the fetters of the slave, rousing the indignation of all the South against her and her a.s.sociates." Everything I have since seen, heard, and read, only tends to confirm my original impression. While I would readily give Mrs. Stowe a chaplet of laurel as a clever auth.o.r.ess, I could never award her a faded leaf as the negro's friend. There can be no doubt that Mrs. Beecher Stowe has had no small share in the abolition excitement which has been raging in the States, and which has made Kansas the battle-field of civil war; but the effect of this agitation has gone farther: owing to husting speeches and other occurrences, the negro's mind has been filled with visionary hopes of liberty; insurrections have been planned, and, worse still, insurrections have been imagined. In fear for life and property, torture worthy of the worst days of the Inquisition has been resorted to, to extort confession from those who had nothing to confess. Some died silent martyrs; others, in their agony, accused falsely the first negro whose name came to their memory; thus, injustice bred injustice, and it is estimated that not less than a thousand wretched victims have closed their lives in agony. One white man, who was found encouraging revolt, and therefore merited punishment of the severest kind, was sentenced, in that land of equality, to 900 lashes, and died under the infliction--a sight that would have gladdened the eyes of b.l.o.o.d.y Jeffreys. And why all these horrors? I distinctly say,--thanks to the rabid Abolitionists.

Let me now for a moment touch upon the treatment of slaves. The farms of the wealthy planters, and the chapels with negro minister and negro congregation, bear bright evidence to the fact that negroes have their bodily and spiritual wants attended to, not forgetting also the oral teaching they often receive from the wife of the planter. But is that system universal? Those who would answer that question truthfully need not travel to the Southern States for doc.u.mentary evidence. Is any human being fit to be trusted with absolute power over one of his fellow-creatures, however deeply his public reputation and his balance at the banker's may be benefited by the most moderate kindness to them?

If every man were a Howard or a Wilberforce, and every woman a Fry or a Nightingale, the truth would be ever the same, and they would be the first to acknowledge it.--Man is unfit for irresponsible power.

Now the only bar before which the proprietor of slaves is likely to be arraigned, is the bar of public opinion; and the influence which that knowledge will have upon his conduct is exactly in the inverse ratio to its need; for the hardened brute, upon whom its influence is most wanted, is the very person who, if he can escape lynching, is indifferent to public opinion. No Southerner can be affronted, if I say that he is not more Christian, kind-hearted, and mild-tempered than his fellow-man in the Northern States, in France, or in England; and yet how constantly do we find citizens of those communities evincing unrestrained pa.s.sions in the most brutal acts, and that with the knowledge that the law is hanging over their heads, and that their victims can give evidence against them; whereas, in the Slave States, provided the eye of a white man is excluded, there is scarce a limit to the torture which a savage monster may inflict upon the helpless slave, whose word cannot be received in evidence. It is as absurd to judge of the condition of the slave by visiting an amiable planter and his lady, as it would be to judge of the clothing, feeding, and comfort of our labouring population by calling at the town-house of the Duke of Well-to-do and carefully noting the worthy who fills an arm-chair like a sentry-box, and is yclept the porter. Look at him, with his hair powdered and fattened down to the head; behold him as the bell rings, using his arms as levers to force his rotundity out of its case; then observe the pedestals on which he endeavours to walk; one might imagine he had been tapped for the dropsy half-a-dozen times, and that all the water had run into the calves of his legs. Is that a type of the poorer cla.s.ses?

Where, then, are we to look for true data on which to form an opinion of the treatment of the slave?--Simply by studying human nature and weighing human pa.s.sions, and then inquiring by what laws they are held in check. Now, as to the laws, they amount to nothing, inasmuch as slave evidence is not admissible, and the possibility of any oppression, even to death itself, must frequently be, without any fear of punishment, in the hands of the owner. If law, then, affords the negro no efficient protection from human pa.s.sions, where are we to look for it in human nature, except it be in the influences of Christianity, self-interest, or public opinion? The last of these, we have seen, is upon a sliding-scale of an inefficiency which increases in proportion to the necessity for its influence, and is therefore all but impotent for good.

Let us now consider self-interest. Will any one a.s.sert that self-interest is sufficient to restrain anger? How many a hasty word does man utter, or how many a hasty act does man commit, under the influence of pa.s.sion he cannot or will not restrain--and that among his equals, who may be able to resent it, or in the face of law ready to avenge it! How p.r.o.ne are we all, if things go wrong from some fault of our own, to lose our temper and try to throw the blame on others, rather than admit the failure to be our own fault! Without dwelling upon the serious injury people often do to themselves by unrestrained pa.s.sion, think for a moment of the treatment frequently inflicted upon the poor animals over whom they rule absolute. Is not kindness to a horse the interest as well as the duty of the owner? and yet how often is he the unfortunate victim of the owner's rage or cruel disposition, while faithfully and willingly expending all his powers in the service of his tyrant master! If these things be so among equals, or comparative equals, and also in man's dealings with the lower orders of the creation, what chance has the poor slave, with the arm of legislative justice paralysed, and an arm nerved with human pa.s.sion his only hope of mercy?--for self-defence, that first law of nature, is the highest crime he can be guilty of: and, while considering the mercenary view of self-interest, let it not be forgotten that an awful amount of human suffering is quite compatible with unimpaired health, and that a slave may be frequently under the lash and yet fully able to do his day's work.

The last influence we have to consider is indeed the brightest and best of all--Christianity: high on the brotherly arch of man's duty to his fellow-man, and forming its enduring keystone, we read, traced by Jehovah in imperishable letters, radiant with love, "Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you;" "Love thy neighbour as thyself." Surely it needs no words of mine to show, that a faithful history of the most Christian country in the most Christian times the world ever witnessed, would contain, fearful evidence of the cruelty of man setting at nought the above blessed precept. Nay, more--I question if, viewed in its entire fulness, there is any one single command in Scripture more habitually disregarded. Proverbs are generally supposed to be a condensation of facts or experiences. Whence comes "Every one for himself, and G.o.d for us all"? or, the more vulgar one, "Go ahead, and the d----l take the hindmost?" What are they but concentrations of the fact that selfishness is man's ruling pa.s.sion? What are most laws made for, but to restrain men by human penalties from a broach of the law of love? and, if these laws be needful in communities, all the members of which are equal in the eyes of the law, and even then be found inefficient for their purpose, as may be daily witnessed in every country, who will say that the influence of Christianity is sufficient protection to the poor slave?

There is only one other influence that I shall mention--that is habit; it acts for and against the slave. Thus, the kind and good, brought up among slaves, very often nursed by them, and grown up in the continual presence of their gentleness and faithfulness, repay them with unmeasured kindness, and a sympathy in all their sickness and their sorrows, to a degree which I feel quite certain the most tender-hearted Christian breathing could never equal, if landed among slaves, for the first time, at years of maturity. The Christian planter's wife or daughter may be seen sitting up at night, cooking, nursing, tending an old sick and helpless slave, with nearly, if not quite, the same affectionate care she would bestow upon a sick relation, the very friendlessness of the negro stimulating the benevolent heart. This is, indeed, the bright side of the influence of habit.--But the other side is not less true; and there the effect is, that a coa.r.s.e, brutal mind, trained up among those it can bully with impunity, acquires a heartlessness and indifference to the negro's wants and sufferings, that grow with the wretched possessor's growth. This is the dark side of the influence of habit.

Let two examples suffice, both of which I have upon the very best authority. A faithful slave, having grown up with his master's rising family, obtained his freedom as a reward for his fidelity, and was entrusted with the management of the property; realizing some money, he became the owner of slaves himself, from among whom he selected his wife, and to all of whom he showed the greatest consideration. Some time after, lying upon his deathbed, he made his will, in which he bequeathed his wife and all his other negroes to his old master, giving as his reason, that, from his own lively recollections of his master's unvarying kindness to himself and the other slaves, he felt certain that in so doing he was taking the best means in his power of securing their future happiness. What stronger evidence of the growth of kindness in the master's heart could possibly be desired? Here, then, is the effect of habit in a benevolent owner.--Now, turn to the opposite picture. A lady of New Orleans was accustomed to strip and flog a slave for the pleasure of witnessing sufferings which she endeavoured to render more acute by rubbing soft soap into the broken skin. Here you have the effect of habit upon a brutal mind.

To the credit of New Orleans be it recorded, that the knowledge of this atrocity having come to white ears, her house was broken open, every article it contained pulled out in the street and burnt, and, had she not succeeded in eluding search, the she-devil would have been most a.s.suredly reduced to ashes with her own goods. America became too hot for her, and Providence alone knows the demon's cave of concealment.

Having thus pa.s.sed in review the various influences bearing upon the treatment of the slave, and seen how utterly inadequate they are to protect him from ill-treatment, who can wonder that the tales of real or supposed cruelty inflicted upon slaves by the Southerners are received with indignation by both parties in the States?--the virtuous and kind master, indignant at the thought of being included in the category of monsters, and the real savage, if possible, still more indignant, because his conscience brings home to his seared heart the truthfulness of the picture, even if it be overdrawn almost to caricature. And here it is curious to observe the different action of these two parties: the former, in the consciousness of a kind heart and a real desire for the negro's good, calmly states what has been done and is doing for the negro, and throws a natural veil of doubt over horrors so utterly repulsive to the feelings that their existence is discredited; the latter, with a shallowness which Providence sometimes attaches to guilt, aware that some such accusations come too painfully and truthfully home, p.r.o.nounce their own condemnation by their line of defence--recrimination.

Take, for example, the following extract from an article in a Slave State paper, ent.i.tled "A Sequel to Uncle Tom's Cabin," and in which Queen Victoria, under the guidance of a "genius," has the condition of her subjects laid bare before her. After various other paragraphs of a similar nature comes the following:--

"The sky was obscured by the smoke of hundreds of small chimneys and vast edifices, stretching in lines for miles and miles. The latter were crowded with women and children, young in years, but withered in form and feature. The countenances of the men were as colourless as the white fabric in their looms; their eyes sparkled with intelligence, but it was chiefly the intelligence of suffering, of privation, of keen sense of wrong, of inability to be better, of rankling hatred against existing inst.i.tutions, and a furtive wish that some hideous calamity would bury them all in one common, undistinguishable ruin.

"'Are these the people? groaned the Queen, as the cold damp of more than mortal agony moistened her marble forehead.

"'Not all of them!" sounded the voice in her ear, so sharply that her Majesty looked up eagerly, and saw written, in letters of fire, on the palace wall:--

"'1. Every twelfth person in your dominions is a pauper, daily receiving parochial relief.

"'2. Every twentieth person in your dominions is a dest.i.tute wanderer, with no roof but the sky--no home but a prison. They are the Ishmaelites of modern society; every one's hand is against them, and their hands are against every one.

"'3. There are in Freeland 10,743,747 females; divide that number by 500,000, and you will find that every twentieth woman in your dominions is--Oh! horror piled on horror!--a harlot!'"

Then follows the scene of a disconsolate female throwing herself over a bridge, the whole winding up with this charming piece of information, addressed by the genius to her Majesty:--

"In your own land, liberty, the absence of which in another is deplored, is, in its most G.o.d-like development, but a name--unless that may be termed liberty which practically is but vulgar license--license to work from rosy morn to dark midnight for the most scanty pittances--license to store up wealth in the hands and for the benefit of the few--license to bellow l.u.s.tily for rival politicians--license to send children to ragged schools--license to sot in the ale-house--license to grow lumpish and brutal--license to neglect the offices of religion, to swear, to lie, to blaspheme--license to steal, to pander unchecked to the coa.r.s.est appet.i.tes, to fawn and slaver over the little great ones of the earth--license to creep like a worm through life, or bound through it like a wild beast; and, last and most precious of all--for it is untaxed--license to starve, to rot, to die, and be buried in a foetid pauper's grave, on which the sweet-smelling flowers, sent to strew the pathway of man and woman with beauty, love, and hope, will refuse to grow, much less bloom."

Setting aside all exaggerations, who does not recognise in the foregoing quotations "the galled jade wincing"? Were the writer a kind owner of slaves, he might have replied to _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ by facts of habitual kindness to them, sufficient to prove that the auth.o.r.ess had entered into the region of romance; but in his recrimination he unconsciously displays the cloven hoof, and leaves no doubt on the mind that he writes under the impulse of a bitterly-accusing monitor within.

It would be wasting time to point out the difference between a system which binds millions of its people in bondage to their fellow-man, a master's sovereign will their only practical protection, and a system which not only makes all its subjects equal in the eye of the law, and free to seek their fortunes wherever they list, but which is for ever striving to mitigate the distress that is invariably attendant upon an overcrowded population. Even granting that his a.s.sertions were not only true, but that they were entirely produced by tyrannical enactments, what justification would England's sins be for America's crimes? Suppose the House of Commons and the Lords Temporal and Spiritual obtained the royal sanction to an act for kidnapping boys and grilling them daily for a table-d'hote in their respective legislative a.s.semblies, would such an atrocity--or any worse atrocity, if such be possible--in any respect alter the question of right and wrong between master and slave? Let any charge of cruelty or injustice in England be advanced on its own simple grounds, and, wherever it comes from, it will find plenty of people, I am proud and happy to say, ready to inquire into it and to work hard for its removal; but when it comes in the shape of recrimination, who can fail to recognise an accusing conscience striving to throw the cloak of other people's sins over the abominations which that conscience is ever ringing in the writer's ears at home.