Kindly feelings of the South.

Still I would by no means impugn the motives of any class of the true friends of Africa. Aspersions are often cast, no doubt most unjustly, on the motives of a portion of the ad vocates of universal emancipation. Incendiaries and evil disposed men there may be among them; but indiscriminate censure is generally wrong.'

Why, Pa, do not the slaveholding States unite, and rid themselves of the evil at once? I am sure they might do better than continue to cherish an evil so fraught with danger and solicitude.'

'My daughter, they feel, (and I have no doubt that under existing circumstances, the conviction is honest,) that they cannot rid themselves of the evil so easily, as some imagine. There is, the southron will tell you, a relation between the owner of slaves, and the unhappy beings who are thrown upon him, which is far more complicated, and far less easily dissolved, than a mind, unacquainted with the whole subject in all its bearings, is apt to suppose-a relation growing out of the very structure of society. Go, for instance, to the slave-holder, and propose to him to emancipate his slaves. He feels the evils of slavery as strongly, and probably more so than you can feel them-and who will say that he has not as much benevolence in his heart as we in ours? The laws of his State, framed according to the dictates of the best judgment of legislators, forbid emancipation, except under certain restrictions, which are deemed absolutely necessary to prevent pauperism, and wretchedness, and crime, and utter ruin and here are human beings dependant on him for protection, and government, and support. The relation he did not voluntarily assume. He was born the legal proprietor of his slaves, just as much as he was born the subject of civil government. This fact is often sneered at; but it is fact notwithstanding. And it is his duty, and a duty which he cannot well avoid, to make the best provision for them in his

Difficulties of emancipation.

power. Too frequently, it would be just as humane to throw them overboard at sea, as to set them free in this country. Moreover, if he turn them out to shift for themselves, he turns out upon the community those who in all probability will become, most of them, vagabonds, paupers, felons, a pest to society. He will tell you that as a Christian, as a patriot, as a philanthropist, as an honest man, and humane friend of the blacks, he finds insuperable obstacles to the accomplishment of what you propose. He will tell you, perhaps, that it is "a consummation devoutly to be wished." Many, I believe, are precisely of this state of mind.

I acknowledge that I have had my northern prejudices; and those prejudices were strong-they stirred within me indignation and almost revenge. But I would now indulge in no sweeping anathema against the South. I have been, for years, in a situation to see the tremendous evil of slavery as it is. I can therefore sympathize with the slave-holder who regrets the necessity which, in a measure, compels him to hold his fellow-men in bondage, whilst at the same time I abhor slavery with my whole heart. I can bear witness also to the humanity of slave-holders in the southern states, so far as my acquaintance and observation has extended. It has far exceeded the feeling which I have usually found indulged towards blacks, in my native New England, or in the Middle States. The specimens of ill-treatment of slaves with which the world is served up, now and then, by the issuing of a new edition of the old stereotype form, and which seem to be but too well suited to the taste of a large portion of the community, are a wretched caricature, and as unfair specimens of the general treatment which slaves receive, as would be the assassination and murder of an individual in this State, held up as a sample of Philadelphia morals. A much kindlier feeling, I am satisfied, is indulged towards blacks at the South, than at the North.'

No plea for slavery in the abstract.

CONVERSATION IX.

"Frown indignantly on the first dawnings of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts."-Washington.

'THERE is a way, Pa,' said Caroline, the conversation being resumed, which some people have, of talking of slaves as "property," which is exceeding grating to my ears, and at which my mind always revolts.'

'As to that, my daughter,' said Mr. L., 'if any man talks of this species of property as if it were his unqualified right to hold his fellow-men in bondage without any regard to the circumstances and necessity of the case, the whole civilized world, and the laws of Christian nations, which have pronounced the slave trade to be piracy, are against him. It is not often that we hear any man attempt to justify slavery in the abstract, or that we find one who looks upon his slaves in precisely the same light in which most people regarded them when the slave-trade was legitimate.

There are, I know, exceptions to the generally correct and Christian sentiments and declarations of distinguished men at the South on this subject. I have read with painful sensations remarks that have fallen from the lips of some. A Governor of South Carolina, in a message to the Legislature of that State, a few years since, says, "Slavery is not a national evil; on the contrary it is a national benefit. * * Slavery exists in some form every where, and it is not-of much consequence, in a philosophical point of view, whether it be voluntary, or involuntary.” A Governor of the same

*

Sentiments of Southern men.

State has recently used still stronger language in vindication of slavery. But such sentiments, I am inclined to consider as an anomaly, on the whole, and not a fair representation of the views of the South; much less can they receive the approbation of the American people. The man who can utter them is far behind the age in which we live. I recollect also an address delivered in South Carolina, a few years since, by one of her distinguished sons, in which the speaker maintained that slavery, as it exists in the southern states, is “no greater, or more unusual evil, than befalls the poor in general; that its extinction would be attended with calamity to the country, and to the people connected with it, in every character and relation; that no necessity exists for such extinction; that slavery is sanctioned by the Mosaic dispensation; that it is fulfilment of the denunciation pronounced against the second son of Noah; that it is not inconsistent with the genius and spirit of Christianity; nor considered by St. Paul as a moral evil." I have also noticed the recent remarks upon the floors of Congress, of certain southern gentlemen; and read several addresses lately delivered in various slaveholding states, some of which take the ground that slavery "is sanctioned by the religion of the Bible," as well as justified in law; and one declares "solemnly and emphatically," that "if any man at the South makes but a movement towards emancipation-equal or partial-immediate or remote, he is faithless to the duty which he owes to his state-faithless to the duty which he owes to his God."

Another specimen of southern views on the subject, may be found in a debate which I have before me, that occurred not long since in a synod of the Presbyterian Church in Virginia. A proposition was before the Synod that "all the domestic relations, (meaning to include slavery,) stand upon precisely the same ground in Scripture." The REV. DR. H. expressed his astonishment at the views presented. He

Sentiments of Southern men.

"could not agree by any means, that the relation of master and slave is precisely the same as that of husband and wife. No, nor at all the same. The one is a natural relation, ordained of God, and sanctioned by Him for the happiness of man; but the other had its origin in injustice and wrong and is never sanctioned in the Bible; unless allusions to it as an existing relation and a tolerated evil are so misinterpreted. But because it is an existing relation, does it follow that it has a basis like that of the relation of husband and wife? God forbid! The relations differ widely and essentially, not only in their nature, but also in the fact that one is permanent, and the other continues only by the strong necessity of the case. It is absurd to maintain that there is a precise similarity in the relations, either in their natural basis, or their perpetuity. I, for one, cannot consent to any phraseology which looks that way. It is unscriptural and false. I maintain that slavery continues only by necessity; and that it OUGHT TO BE ABOLISHED AS SOON AS IT CAN BE, CONSISTENTLY WITH THE GOOD OF ALL CONCERNED."

The REV. DR. B., who is a distinguished Professor in the Union Theological Seminary, was somewhat opposed to the views of his distinguished friend. He "denied that the relation is unlawful; it is recognized by Scripture. The apostles treated it as a relation morally right, considering all the circumstances. Nor can any thing be done to counteract the incendiary efforts of fanaticism, until we take scriptural views of this subject, and maintain them from Scripture. It is also impossible to do much for the extensive religious instruction of the slaves themselves, unless they are made to understand that their masters have a scriptural right to maintain their authority. The public mind seems to be much shaken upon this subject, even in our own section of country. But it is a fact established by Scripture, that the master has a moral right to retain his relation to his slaves.