I Was Credibly Informed That
Property Of The Same Real Value Was Worth 300 Dollars In Kentucky And 3000
In Ohio!
Free emigrants and workmen will not settle in Kentucky, where
they would be brought into contact with compulsory slave-labour; thus the
development of industry is retarded, and the difference will become more
apparent every year, till possibly some great changes will be forced upon
the legislature.
Few English people will forget the impression made upon
them by the first sight of a slave - a being created in the image of God,
yet the boná fide property of his fellow-man. The first I saw was an
African female, the slave of a lady from Florida, with a complexion black
as the law which held her in captivity. The subject of slavery is one
which has lately been brought so prominently before the British people by
Mrs. Beecher Stowe, that I shall be pardoned for making a few remarks upon
it. Powerfully written as the book is, and much as I admire the benevolent
intentions of the writer, I am told that the effect of the volume has been
prejudical, and this assertion is borne out by persons well acquainted
with the subject in the free states. A gentleman very eminent in his
country, as having devoted himself from his youth to the cause of
abolition, as a steadfast pursuer of one grand principle, together with
other persons, say that "'Uncle Tom's Cabin' had thrown the cause back for
many years!" [Footnote: It must be observed that I do not offer any
opinion of my own upon 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' or upon the estimation in
which it is held in the United States; but in order to answer questions
which have frequently been put to me upon the subject, I have just given
the substance of the remarks which have been made upon it by abolitionists
in the Northern States.] The excitement on the subject still continues in
England, though it found a safety-valve in the Stafford House manifesto,
and the received impression, which no force of fact can alter, is, that
slave-owners are divided into but two classes - brutalised depraved
"Legrees," or enthusiastic, visionary "St. Clairs" - the former, of
course, predominating.
Slavery, though under modifications which rendered it little more than the
apprenticeship of our day, was permitted under the Mosaic dispensation;
but it is contrary to the whole tenor of Christianity; and a system which
lowers man as an intellectual and responsible being is no less morally
than politically wrong. That it is a political mistake is plainly
evidenced by the retarded development and apparent decay of the Southern
States, as compared with the ceaseless material progress of the North and
West. It cannot be doubted that in Alabama, Florida, and Louisiana,
"Legrees" are to be found, for cruelty is inherent in base natures; we
have "Legrees" in our factories and coal-pits; but in England their most
terrible excesses are restrained by the strong arm of law, which, when
appealed to, extends its protection to the feeblest and most helpless.
What then must such men become in the isolated cotton or sugar plantations
of the South, distant from the restraints which public opinion exercises,
and where the evidence of a slave is inadmissible in a court of justice?
The full extent of the cruelties practised will never be known, until
revealed at the solemn tribunal of the last day.
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