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Page 18
Transportation of slaves from Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and
Kentucky, to the extreme Southern States, as a punishment for crime,
is not an unfrequent occurrence. I believe that in most cases, where
families have been separated, it has been in consequence of vile
conduct on the part of slaves. Much of the selling of negroes to
traders--the parting of wives and husbands, parents and children,
which we hear and read of in Northern publications, had its origin in
crime on the part of the slaves. They are frequently transported for
crimes which would hang a white man; or otherwise confine him in the
penitentiary for a series of years, or for life time. Negroes are
frequently whipped and then transported to the extreme Southern States
for murder; and that too, under circumstances, where the crime is one
of a very aggravated character; for premeditated murder--murder
committed with malice prepense. But in the eyes of abolitionists, it
is dreadful to whip a slave for so small an offense; and yet they
would stand by, and with exquisite pleasure see a white man hanged for
the same crime. Kind souls! what a pity that white men could not come
in for a share of their sympathies; but they have none for them; it is
all for the woolly heads. But really, I should like to know what
becomes of their sympathies, when some poor free negro is taken sick
in their midst, and starves, and dies, and rots in his filth! Ah!
don't touch my purse. No, by no means! We all know that it won't do to
touch your purses. Your sympathies never leak out in that way. You are
too shrewd for that. Fie! Fie! it is all wind, and it costs you but
little to blow it out.
Slaveholders are called murderers, because in a few rare instances, a
slave may have been worked to death; and they denounced as cruel and
oppressive task-masters, because probably one in five hundred, under
peculiar circumstances, may have been guilty of cruelty to his slaves.
The same thing occurs everywhere, the world over. And it occurs as
frequently in Yankeedom, the hot-bed of abolitionism, infidelity, and
wooden nutmegs, as anywhere else, There are more white men and white
women worked to death in the North, than there are slaves worked to
death in the South. Oh! but, says an objector, those white people are
free. Nobody forces them to work beyond their capabilities of
endurance. The objection is without foundation, for indigence and
liberty, never resided together in the same hovel or hut. Hunger and
cold are hard masters, far worse than Southern slaveholders; and the
penurious Yankee who inadequately pays the laborer, and thus suffers
him to starve or freeze to death, is morally as bad as the man who
whips his slave to death. If the latter is a murderer, so is the
former. The generality of slaves are better paid for their labor, than
the poorer classes of people North or South. They at least receive
more in return for their labor. They are better fed, better clothed,
and better housed. Most of them are happy and well provided for. Their
appearance, their health, cheerfulness and fondness for music, give
the lie to Northern representations. Masters are responsible for the
maintenance of their slaves under all circumstances; in infancy and
old age, in sickness as well as in health. But as soon, as Northern
white slaves become incapacitated for labor, they are suffered to lie
down in their filth and starve and die. Where then, are their lords
and masters, who have grown wealthy from the proceeds of their labor?
Mrs. Stowe may write about slavery to her heart's content; but has
she, or any one else, pointed out to us, any fair, open, practicable
system of emancipation? No, they have not, and until that is done,
they should be a little more modest in their denunciations of
slaveholders. Suppose the South should manumit their slaves, will the
North receive and educate them? No, by no means; and however ignorant
Mrs. Stowe may be in relation to Southern slavery, she must be well
aware of the universal prejudice in the North against free negroes. A
very large majority of the blacks in the North, are in an impoverished
and degraded condition; and there is no sympathy with them, or for
them, among Northern men. Northern prejudice is much stronger than
Southern prejudice, against these unfortunate creatures.
The whites cannot, and will not make equals of them any where. They
are at the bottom of the social ladder, and there they must and will
remain, so long as they are among the whites. They can never enjoy the
blessings of freedom in the United States. The liberty of the free
blacks is but nominal; they have no more rights and fewer comforts, as
free men, (so called), than they have as slaves in the South. White
freedom is one thing, and colored freedom is another. Most of the
Northern states treat the African worse now, than they did a half
century ago! They are in the North virtually slaves, without masters.
The half starved, ill-clad free negro will soon have no foot hold in
the North; for Irish and German laborers will supersede them; or
otherwise Northern men will legislate them out of the free states.
Pennsylvania has already taken from them the privilege of voting, and
Indiana and Illinois will not suffer them to enter their borders; and
I judge from present indications, that Ohio will soon follow the
example of her younger sisters; and moreover, I venture to predict,
that in less than twenty years from the present time; a free negro
will not be suffered to enter a free state in this Union. This
prejudice never can be removed. "Can the Ethiopian change his skin?"
If he could, then might we have hope; till then, there is none for the
poor African while he remains in the midst of the Anglo-Saxon race.
Behold the negro quarters about the larger cities in the North; think
of the riots and burning of African churches, &c., that have occurred
within the last dozen years, and tell me, where is the hope of the
African! Not in the United States. The African race in the United
States, are not yet prepared for emancipation; they must first be
educated; otherwise there is danger that they will sink into their
original barbarism. England emancipated the West India slaves, and
Lord Brougham tells us, that they are rapidly declining into
barbarism.
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