"In the interior of Mississippi I was invited to the house of a planter, where I was received with great cordiality, and entertained with marked hospitality.

There I saw a master in the midst of his household slaves. The evening passed most pleasantly, as indeed it must, where assiduous hospitalities are exercised towards the guest.

"Late in the morning, when I had gained the tardy consent of my host to go on my way, as a final act of kindness, he called a slave to show me across the fields by a nearer route to the main road. David,' said he, 'go and show this gen. tleman as far as the post-office. Do you know the big bay tree? Yes, sir.' Do you know where the cotton mill is? Yes, sir.' 'Where Squire Malcolm's old field is ?" Y-e-s, sir,' said David, (beginning to be bewildered). "Do you know where Squire Malcolm's cotton field is?' No, sir.' No, sir,' said the enraged master, levelling his gun at him. What do you stand here, saying, Yes, yes, yes, for, when you don't know?' All this was accompanied with threats | and imprecations, and a manner that contrasted strangely with the religious conversation and gen. tle manners of the previous evening."

The Rev. JAMES H. DICKEY, formerly a slave. holder in South Carolina, now pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Hennepin, Ill. in his "Review of Nevins' Biblical Antiquities," after asserting that slaveholding tends to beget "a spirit of cruelty and tyranny, and to destroy every generous and noble feeling," (page 33,) he adds the following as a note:

as Cowper said of England, With all thy faults I love thee still, my country.' And nothing but the abominations of slavery could have induced him willingly to forsake a land endeared to him by all the associations of childhood and youth.

"Yet it is candid to admit that it is not all gold that glitters. There is a fictitious kindness and hospitality. The famous Robin Hood was kind and generous-no man more hospitable—he rob bed the rich to supply the necessities of the poor. Others rob the poor to bestow gifts and lavish kindness and hospitality on their rich friends and neighbors. It is an easy matter for a man to appear kind and generous, when he bestows that which others have earned.

"I said, there is a fictitious kindness and hos pitality. I once knew a man who left his wife and children three days, without fire.wood, without bread-stuff, and without shocs, while the ground was covered with snow-that he might indulge in his cups. And when I attempted to expostulate with him, he took the subject out of my hands, and expatiating on the evils of intem. perance more eloquently than I could, concluded by warning me, with tears, to avoid the snares of the latter. He had tender feelings, yet a hard heart. I once knew a young lady of polished manners and accomplished education, who would weep with sympathy over the fictitious woes exhibited in a novel. And waking from her reverie of grief, while her eye was yet wet with tears, would call her little waiter, and if she did not

appear at the first call, would rap her head with her thimble till my head ached.

"I knew a man who was famed for kindly sympathics. He once took off his shirt and gave it to a poor white man. The same man hired a black man, and gave him for his daily task, through the winter, to feed the beasts, keep fires, and make one hundred rails: and in case of fail. ure the lash was applied so freely, that, in the spring, his back was one continued sore, from his shoulders to his waist. Yet this man was a pro. fessor of religion, and famous for his tender sympathies to white men!"

OBJECTION IV. NORTHERN VISITORS AT THE SOUTH TESTIFY THAT THE SLAVES ARE NOT CRUELLY TREATED.'

543, illustrate the folly of arguing the good treatment of slaves from their own declarations, while in the power of their masters. In the case above cited, the Chief Justice, in refusing to permit a master to give in evidence, declarations made to him by his slave, says of masters and slaves generally—

ANSWER: Their knowledge on this point HENDERSON, a North Carolina slaveholder, in his must have been derived, either from the slave- decision (in 1830,) in the case of the State versus holders and overseers themselves, or from the | Charity, 2 Devereaux's North Carolina Reports, slaves, or from their own observation. If from the slaveholders, their testimony has already been weighed and found wanting; if they derived it from the slaves, they can hardly be so simple as to suppose that the guest, associate and friend of the master, would be likely to draw from his slaves any other testimony respecting his treat ment of them, than such as would please him. "The master has an almost absolute control The great shrewdness and tact exhibited by over the body and mind of his slave. The mas slaves in keeping themselves out of difficulty, when ter's will is the slave's will. All his acts, all his sayings, are made with a view to propitiate his close questioned by strangers as to their treatmaster. His confessions are made, not from a ment, cannot fail to strike every accurate ob- love of truth, not from a sense of duty, not to server. The following remarks of CHIEF JUSTICE speak a falsehood, but to please his master-and

ANSWER ACCORDINGLY.

The following extract of a letter from the Hon.

6

it is in vain that his master tells him to speak the | learn the every-day habits and caprices of his truth, and conceals from him how he wishes the host? Oh, these northern visitors tell us they question answered. The slave will ascertain, or, have visited scores of families at the south, and which is the same thing, think that he has ascertained the wishes of his master, and MOULD HIS never saw a master or mistress whip their slaves. We therefore more often Indeed! They have, doubtless, visited hundreds get the wishes of the master, or the slave's belief of families at the north-did they ever see, on of his wishes, than the truth." such occasions, the father or mother whip their children? If so, they must associate with very ill-bred persons. Because well-bred parents do not whip their children in the presence, or within the hearing of their guests, are we to infer that they never do it out of their sight and hearing? But perhaps the fact that these visitors do not remember seeing slaveholders strike their slaves, merely proves, that they had so little feeling for them, that though they might be struck every day in their presence, yet as they were only slaves and niggers,' it produced no effect upon them; conscquently they have no impressions to recall. These visitors have also doubtless rode with scores of slaveholders. Are they quite certain they ever saw them whip their horses? and can they recall the persons, times, places, and circumstances? But even if these visitors regarded the slaves with some kind feelings, when they first went to the south, yet being constantly with their oppressors, seeing them used as articles of property, accustomed to hear them charged with all kinds of misdemeanors, their cars filled with complaints of their laziness, carelessness, insolence, obstinacy, stupidity, thefts, elopements, &c. and at the same time, receiving themselves the most gratifying attentions and caresses from the same persons, who, while they make to them these representations of their slaves, are giving them airings in their coaches, making parties for them, taking them on excursions of pleasure, lavishing upon them their choicest hospitalities, and urging them to protract indefinitely their stay-what more natural than for the flattered guest to admire such hospitable people, catch their spirit, and fully sympathize with their feelings toward their slaves, regarding with increased disgust and aversion those who can habitually tease and worry such loveliness and generosity. After

SETH M. GATES, member elect of the next Con-
gress, furnishes a clue by which to interpret the
looks, actions, and protestations of slaves, when
in the presence of their masters' guests, and the
pains sometimes taken by slaveholders, in teach-
ing their slaves the art of pretending that they
are treated well, love their masters, are happy,
&c. The letter is dated Leroy, Jan. 4, 1839.
"I have sent your letter to Rev. Joseph M.
Sadd, Castile, Genesee county, who resided five
years in a slave state, and left, disgusted with
slavery. I trust he will give you some facts. I
remember one fact, which his wife witnessed. A
relative, where she boarded, returning to his
plantation after a temporary absence, was not
met by his servants with such demonstrations of
joy as was their wont. He ordered his horse
put out, took down his whip, ordered his servants
to the barn, and gave them a most cruel beating,
because they did not run out to meet him, and
pretend great attachment to him. Mrs. Sadd
had overheard the servants agreeing not to go
out, before his return, as they said they did not
love him-and this led her to watch his conduct
to them. This man was a professor of religion!"
If these northern visitors derived their informa-
tion that the slaves arc not cruelly treated from
their own observation, it amounts to this, they did
not see cruelties inflicted on the slaves. To
which we reply, that the preceding pages con-
tain testimony from hundreds of witnesses, who
testify that they did see the cruelties whereof
they affirm. Besides this, they contain the sol-
emn declarations of scores of slaveholders them-
selves, in all parts of the slave states, that the
slaves are cruelly treated. These declarations
arc moreover fully corroborated, by the laws of
slave states, by a multitude of advertisements in
their newspapers, describing runaway slaves, by
their scars, brands, gashes, maimings, cropped
ears, iron collars, chains, &c. &c.

Truly, after the foregoing array of facts and testimony, and after the objectors' forces have one after another filed off before them, now to march up a phalanx of northern visitors, is to beat a retreat. Visitors!" What insight do casual visitors get into the tempers and daily practices of those whom they visit, or of the treatment that their slaves receive at their hands, especially if these visitors are strangers, and from a region where there are no slaves, and which claims to be opposed to slavery? What opportunity has a stranger, and a temporary guest, to

Well saith the Scripture, "A gift blindeth the cyes." The slaves understand this, though the guest may not; they

know very well that they have no sympathy to expect from their master's guests; that the good cheer of the "big house," and the attentions shown them, will generally commit them in their master's favor, and against themselves. Messrs. Thome and Kimball, in their late work, state the following fact, in illustration of this feeling among negro apprentices in Jamaica.

the

"The governor of one of the islands, shortly after his arrival, dined with one of the wealthiest proprietors. The "De new gubner been poison'd." "What dat you say?" next day one of the negroes of the estate said to another, inquired the other in astonishment, "De gubner been poison'd! Dab, now-How him poisoned?" "Him eat massa's turtle soup last night," said the shrewd negro. The other took his meaning at once; and his sympathy for the

governor was turned into concern for himself. when he perceived that the poison was one from which he was likely

the visitor had been in contact with the slave-gle glance behind it, and at the paint and varnish

But all northern visitors at the south are not thus easily gulled. Many of them, as the preceding pages show, have too much sense to be caught with chaff.

We may add here, that those classes of visitors whose representations of the treatment of slaves are most influential in moulding the opinions of the free states, are ministers of the gospel, agents of benevolent societies, and teachers who have traveled and temporarily resided in the slave states-classes of persons less likely than any others to witness cruelties, because slaveholders generally take more pains to keep such visitors in ignorance than others, because their vocations would furnish them fewer opportunities for wit. nessing them, and because they come in contact with a class of society in which fewer atrocities are committed than in any other, and that too, under circumstances which make it almost impossible for them to witness those which are actually committed.

holding spirit long enough to have imbibed it, that cover up dead men's bones, and while those (no very tedious process,) a cuff, or even a kick who have hoaxed them with their smooth stories, administered to a slave, would not be likely to and white-washed specimens of slavery, are tit. give him such a shock that his memory would tering at their gullibility, they return in the spring long retain the traces of it. But lest we do these on the same fool's-errand with their predecessors, visitors injustice, we will suppose that they car- retailing their lesson, and mouthing the praises ried with them to the south humane feelings for of the masters, and the comforts of the slaves. the slave, and that those feelings remained un- They now become village umpires in all disputes blunted; still, what opportunity could they have about the condition of the slaves, and each thence. to witness the actual condition of the slaves? forward ends all controversies with his oracular, They come in contact with the house-servants"I've seen, and sure I ought to know." only, and as a general thing, with none but the select ones of these, the parlor-servants; who generally differ as widely in their appearance and treatment from the cooks and scullions in the kitchen, as parlor furniture does from the kitchen utensils. Certain servants are assigned to the parlor, just as certain articles of furniture are selected for it, to be seen-and it is no less ridiculous to infer that the kitchen scullions are clothed and treated like those servants who wait at the table, and are in the presence of guests, than to infer that the kitchen is set out with sofas, ottomans, piano-fortes, and full-length mirrors, because the parlor is. But the house-slaves are only a fraction of the whole number. The field-hands constitute the great mass of the slaves, and these the visitors rarely get a glimpse at. They are away at their work by day-break, and do not return to their huts till dark. Their huts are commonly at some distance from the mas. ter's mansion, and the fields in which they labor, generally much farther, and out of sight. If the visitor traverses the plantation, care is taken that he does not go alone; if he expresses a wish to see it, the horses are saddled, and the master or his son gallops the rounds with him; if he expresses a desire to see the slaves at work, his conductor will know where to take him, and when, and which of them to show; the overseer, too, knows quite too well the part he has to act on such occasions, to shock the uninitiated ears of the visitors with the shrieks of his victims. It is manifest that visitors can see only the least repulsive parts of slavery, inasmuch as it is wholly at the option of the master, what parts to show them; as a matter of necessity, he can see only the outside-and that, like the outside of doorknobs and andirons, is furbished up to be looked at. So long as it is human nature to wear the best side out, so long the northern guests of southern slaveholders will see next to nothing of the reality of slavery. Those visitors may still keep up their autumnal migrations to the slave states, and, after a hasty survey of the tinsel hung before the curtain of slavery, without a sin

to suffer more than his excellency."-Emancipation in the West Indies, p. 334.

Of the numerous classes of persons from the north who temporarily reside in the slave states, the mechanics who find employment on the plan. tations, are the only persons who are in circumstances to look "behind the scenes." Merchants, pedlars, venders of patents, drovers, speculators, and almost all descriptions of persons who go from the free states to the south to make money, see little of slavery, except upon the road, at pub. lic inns, and in villages and cities.

Let not the reader infer from what has been said, that the parlor-slaves, chamber-maids, &c. in the slave states are not treated with crueltyfar from it. They often experience terrible in. flictions; not generally so terrible or so frequent as the field-hands, and very rarely in the presence of guests.* House-slaves are for the most part treated far better than plantation-slaves, and

*Rev. JOSEPH M. SADD, a Presbyterian clergyman, in Castile, Genesee county, N. Y. recently from Missouri, where he has preached five years, in the midst of slaveholders, says, in a letter just received, speaking of the pains taken by slaveholders to conceal from the eyes of strangers and visitors, the cruelties which they inflict upon their slaves

"It is difficult to be an eye-witness of these things; the only in the presence of other slaves, or before other mem master and mistress almost invariably punish their slaves, bers of their own family, and often at the dead of night."

་

Nothing,' he What did the 'Nothing, sir,'

those under the immediate direction of the mas-road. Our driver, as we passed the fellow, ter and mistress, than those under overseers and fetched him a smart crack with his whip across drivers. It is quite worthy of remark, that of the chops. He did not make any noise, though the thousands of northern men who have visited these fellows exaggerate. The niggers, as a genI guess it hurt him some-he grinned.-Oh, no! the south, and are always lauding the kindness eral thing, are kindly treated. There may be exof slaveholders and the comfort of the slaves, ceptions, but I saw nothing of it.' (By the way, protesting that they have never seen cruelties the Judge did not know there were any abolitioninflicted on them, &c. each perhaps, without ists present.) What did you do to the driver, exception, has some story to tell which reveals, said he, I did nothing to him, to be sure.' 'What Judge,' said I, for striking that man? Do better perhaps than the most barbarous butchery did you say to him, sir? said I. could do, a public sentiment toward slaves, replied: I said nothing to him.' showing that the most cruel inflictions must of other passengers do?" said I. necessity be the constant portion of the slaves. said the Judge. The fellow turned out the Though facts of this kind lie thick in everyDid the driver say any thing, Judge, when he white of his eye, but he did not make any noise.' corner, the reader will, we are sure, tolerate even struck the man? Nothing,' said the Judge, a needless illustration, if told that it is from the only he damned him, and told him he'd learn pen of N. P. Rogers, Esq. of Concord, N. H. him to keep out of the reach of his whip' 'Sir,' who, whatever he writes, though it be, as in this said I, 'if George Thompson had told this story, case, a mere hasty letter, always finds readers to in the warmth of an anti-slavery speech, I should scarcely have credited it. I have attended many stance of such cold-blooded, wanton, insolent, anti-slavery meetings, and I never heard an inDIABOLICAL cruelty as this; and, sir, if I live to attend another meeting, I shall relate this, and give Judge Durell's name as the witness of it.' An infliction of the most insolent character, entirely unprovoked, on a perfect stranger, who had showed the utmost civility, in giving all the road, and only could not get beyond the long reach of the driver's whip—and he a stage driver, a class generous next to the sailor, in the sober hour of morning-and borne in silence-and told to show that the colored man of the south was kindly treated-all evincing, to an unutterable extent, that the temper of the south toward the slave is merciless, even to diabolism-and that the north regards him with, if possible, a more fiendish indifference still!"

the end.

"At a court session at Guilford, Stafford county, N. H. in August, 1837, the Hon. Daniel M. Durell, of Dover, formerly Chief Justice of the Common Pleas for that state, and a member of Congress, was charging the abolitionists, in presence of several gentlemen of the bar, at their boarding house, with exaggerations and misrepresentations of slave treatment at the south. One instance in particular,' he witnessed, he said, where he knew they misrepresented. It was in the Congregational meeting house at Dover. He was passing by, and saw a crowd entering and about the door; and on inquiry, found that abolition was going on in there. He stood in the entry for a moment, and found the Englishman, Thompson, was holding forth. The fellow was speaking of the treatment of slaves; and he said it was no uncommon thing for masters, when exasperated with the slave, to hang him up by the two thumbs, and flog him. I knew the fellow lied there,' said the judge, for I had traveled through the south, from Georgia north, and I never saw a single

instance of the kind. The fellow said it was a common thing. Did you see any exasperated masters, Judge,' said I, in your journey? No sir,' said he, not an individual instance.' 'You hardly are able to convict Mr. Thompson of falsehood, then, Judge,' said I, if I understood you right. He spoke, as I understood you, of exasperated masters and you say you did not see any. Mr. Thompson did not say it was com. mon for masters in good humor to hang up their slaves.' The Judge did not perceive the materiality of the distinction. Oh, they misrepresent and lie about this treatment of the niggers,' he continued. In going through all the states I visited, I do not now remember a single instance of cruel treatment. Indeed, I remember of see. ing but one nigger struck, during my whole journey. There was one instance. We were riding in the stage, pretty early one morning, and we met a black fellow, driving a span of horses, and a load (I think he said) of hay. The fellow turned out before we got to him, clean down into the ditch, as far as he could get. He knew, you see, what to depend on, if he did not give the

It seems but an act of simple justice to say, in conclusion, that many of the slaveholders from whom our northern visitors derive their information of the "good treatment" of the slave, may not design to deceive them. Such visitors are often, perhaps, generally brought in contact with the better class of slaveholders, whose slaves are really better fed, clothed, lodged, and housed; more moderately worked; more seldom whipped, and with less severity, than the slaves generally. Those masters in speaking of the good condition of their slaves, and asserting that they are treated well, use terms that are not absolute but comparatire: and it may be, and doubtless often is true that their slaves are treated well as slaves, in com. parison with the treatment received by slaves generally. So the overseers of such slaves, and the slaves themselves, may, without lying or designing to mislead, honestly give the same testimony. As the great body of slaves within their knowledge fare worse, it is not strange that, when speaking of the treatment on their own plantation, they should call it good.

OBJECTION V. IT IS FOR THE INTEREST OF THE MASTERS TO TREAT THEIR SLAVES WELL.'

So it is for the interest of the drunkard to quit his cups; for the glutton to curb his appetite; for the debauchee to bridle his lust; for the sluggard to be up betimes; for the spendthrift to be eco-tection does the slave find in his master's interest, nomical, and for all sinners to stop sinning. Even if it were for the interest of masters to treat their slaves well, he must be a novice who thinks that a proof that the slaves are well treated. The whole history of man is a record of real interests sacrificed to present gratification. If all men's actions were consistent with their best interests, folly and sin would be words without meaning.