The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, June, 1862

'I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man, void of understanding;

'And lo! it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down.'

It is a memorable fact that Hiram was never in the habit of accompanying his father on these Sunday-excursions. Not that his mother positively interdicted him. She was too judicious a person to hold up to censure any habitual act of her husband, whatever might have been her own opinion, or however she might have remonstrated with him in private. She had no difficulty in keeping Hiram by her side on Sunday afternoons, and the little fellow seemed instinctively to appreciate why. Indeed, I doubt if the green fields and pleasant meadow, with the pretty brook running through it, had any charms for him even then. At any rate, he was satisfied with his mother's reason, that it was not good for him; he had better stay at home with her.

At fourteen, Hiram was to become 'pious.' So Mrs. Meeker fervently hoped, and to this end her prayers were specially directed. Her son once secure and safe within the pale of the church, she could be free to prosecute for him her earthly plans, which could not be sanctioned or blessed of Heaven, so long as he was still in the gall of sin and bonds of iniquity. So she labored to explain to him how impossible it was for an unconverted person to think an acceptable thought or do a single acceptable act in the sight of God. All his labor was sin, while he was in a state of sin, whether it was at the plow, or in the shop, or store, or office, or counting-room. She warned him of the wrath to come, and she explained to him with minute vividness the everlasting despair and tortures of the damned. Hiram was a good deal affected. He began to feel that his position personally was perilous. He wanted to get out of it, especially as his mother assured him if he should be taken away—and he was liable to die that very night—then alas! his soul would lie down in everlasting burnings. At last, the youth was thoroughly alarmed. His mother recollected she had continued just one week under conviction, before light dawned in on her, and she considered that a proper period for her son to go through. She contented herself, at first, by cautioning him against a relapse into his old condition, for then seven other spirits more wicked than the first would have possession of him, and his last state would be worse than the first. Besides, he would run great risk of sinning away his day of grace. It was soon understood in the church that Hiram was under concern of mind. Mrs. Meeker, on the fourth day, withdrew him from school, and sent for the minister to pray with him. He found him in great distress, I might say in great bodily terror; for he was very much afraid when he got into bed at night, he might awake in hell the next morning. The clergyman was a worthy and a sincere man. He was anxious that a true repentance should flow from Hiram's present distress, and the lively agony of the child awakened his strongest sympathy. He talked very kindly to him, explained in a genuine, truthful manner, what was necessary. He dwelt on the mercy of our heavenly Father, and on his love. He prayed with the lad earnestly, and with many affectionate counsels he went away. Hiram was comforted. Things began to look in a pleasanter light than ever before. He had only to repent and believe, and it was his duty to repent and believe, and all would be well. So it happened that when the week was out, Hiram felt that he had cast his burden on the Lord, and was accepted by him.

There were great rejoicings over this event. Mrs. Meeker exclaimed, while tears streamed from her eyes, that she was ready to depart in peace. Mr. Meeker, who had by no means been indifferent to his son's state of mind, and who had sought from time to time to encourage him, (rather, it must be confessed, to his wife's annoyance,) was thankful that he had obtained relief from the right source. The happy subject himself became an object of a good deal of interest in the congregation. There was not the usual attention, just then, to religious matters, and Hiram's conversion was seized on as a token that more fruits were to be gathered in from the same field, that is, among the young. In due course he was propounded and admitted into the church. It happened on that day that he was the only individual who joined, and he was the observed of all observers. Hiram Meeker was a handsome boy, well formed, with an interesting face, blight blue eyes, and a profusion of light hair shading a forehead indicative of much intelligence. All this was disclosed to the casual observer; indeed, who would stop to criticise the features of one so young—else you would have been struck by something disagreeable about the corners of his mouth, something repulsive in the curve of those thin lips, (he had his mother's lips,) something forbidding in a certain latent expression of the eye, while you would remark with pain the conscious, self-possessed air with which he took his place in the broad aisle before the pulpit, to give his assent to the church articles and confession of faith. The good minister preached from the text, 'Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth,' and in the course of his sermon held up Hiram as an example to all the unconverted youth of his flock. On Monday he returned to school, prosecuting his studies more diligently than ever. He felt that he had secured the true salvation, and was safe now in whatever he undertook. He was very careful in the observance of all his religious exercises, and so far as I can ascertain, never neglected any of them. Thus happily launched, Hiram continued at school till he was nearly seventeen. He had, for the last two years, been sent to Newton Institute, one of the best institutions in the State, where his advantages would be superior to those of the academy in his native town. There he learned the higher branches of mathematics, and studied with care mercantile and descriptive geography with reference to the different products of the earth. During this time his proficiency was excellent, and his conduct always most exemplary.

At length his course was completed, and Mrs. Meeker felt that her cousin, the wholesale dry-goods jobber in New-York, would be proud of such an acquisition in his establishment. He had been duly apprised that the boy was named for him, and really appeared to manifest, by his inquiries, a good deal of interest in Hiram. Although they generally met once or twice a year, Mrs. Meeker did not apprise her cousin of her plans, preferring to wait till her son should have finished his academical course before making them known. Her first idea was to send him to New-York with a letter, in which she would fully explain her hopes and wishes. On second thought, she concluded to write first, and await her cousin's reply. It will be seen, from the perusal of it, she took the proper course.

Here it is:

'New-York, May 15th, 18—.

'DEAR COUSIN: Your letter of May 12th is before me. I am glad to hear you are all well at Hampton. We are much obliged for your kind invitation for the summer. I think you may count confidently on a visit from my wife and myself some time during the season, and I have no doubt one of the girls will come with us. I know I shall enjoy it for one, and I am sure we all shall.

'As to my namesake, I am glad to hear so good an account of him. Now, cousin, I really take an interest in the lad, and beg you will not make any wry faces over an honest expression of my opinion. If you want the boy to make a first-rate merchant, and SUCCEED, don't send him to me at present. Of course, I will receive him, if you insist upon it. But, in my opinion, it will only spoil him. I tell you frankly, I would not give a fig for a city-bred boy. But I will enter into this compact with you: I will undertake to make a first-class merchant of Hiram, if you will let me have my own way. If you do not, I can not answer for it. What I recommend is, that you put him into one of the stores in your own village. If I remember right, there are two there which do a regular country trade, and have a general stock of dry goods, groceries, crockery, clothing, stationery, etc., etc., etc. Here he will learn two things—detail and economy—without a practical knowledge of which, no man can succeed in mercantile business. I presume you will consider this a great falling off from your expectations. Perhaps you will think it petty business for your boy to be behind a counter in a small country store, selling a shilling's worth of calico, a cent's worth of snuff, or taking in a dozen eggs in exchange, but there is just where he ought to be, for the present. I repeat, he will learn detail. He will understand the value of all sorts of merchandise; he will get a real knowledge of barter and trade. When he learns out there, put him in another retail store of more magnitude. Keep him at this three or four years, and then I agree to make a merchant of him. I repeat, don't be disappointed at my letter. I tell you candidly, if I had a son, that's just what I would do with him, and it is just what I want you to do with Hiram. I hope you will write me that you approve of my plan. If you do, you may rely on my advice at all times, and I think I have some experience in these matters.

'We all desire to be remembered to your husband and family.

'Very truly, your cousin,'HIRAM BENNETT.'

He had added, from habit, '& Co.,' but this was erased.

The letter was a heavy blow to the fond mother; but she recovered from it quickly, like a sensible woman. In fact, she perceived her cousin was sincere, and she herself appreciated the good sense of his suggestions. Her husband, whom she thought best to consult, since matters were taking this turn, approved of what her cousin had written, and so it was decided that Hiram should become a clerk of Mr. Jessup, the most enterprising of the two 'store—keepers' in Hampton. How he got along with Mr. Jessup, and finally entered the service of Mr. Burns, at Burnsville, must be reserved for a separate chapter.

MONROE TO FARRAGUT

By brutal force you've seized the town,And therefore the flag shall not come down.And having told you that it shan't,Just let me show you why it can't.The climate here is very queer,In the matter of flags at this time of year.If a Pelican touched the banner prized,He would be immediately paralyzed.I'm a gentleman born—though now on the shelf,And I think you are almost one yourself.For from my noble ancestry,I can tell the élite, by sympathy.Had you lived among us, sir, now and then,No one can say what you might have been.So refrain from any sneer or quiz,Which may wound our susceptibilities.For my people are all refined—like me,While yours are all low as low can be.As for shooting women or children either,Or any such birds of the Union feather,We shall in all things consult our ease,And act exactly as we please.For you've nothing to do with our laws, you know,Yours, merely 'respectfully,          JOHN MONROE.'

AMONG THE PINES

Alighting from the carriage, I entered, with the Colonel, the cabin of the negro-hunter. So far as external appearance went, the shanty was a slight improvement on the 'Mills House,' described in a previous chapter; but internally, it was hard to say whether it resembled more a pig-sty or a dog-kennel. The floor was of the bare earth, covered in patches with loose plank of various descriptions, and littered over with billets of 'lightwood,' unwashed cooking utensils, two or three cheap stools, a pine settee—made from the rough log and hewn smooth on the upper-side—a full-grown blood-hound, two younger canines, and nine dirt-encrusted juveniles, of the flax-head species. Over against the fire-place three low beds afforded sleeping accommodation to nearly a dozen human beings, (of assorted sizes, and dove-tailed together with heads and feet alternating,) and in the opposite corner a lower couch, whose finer furnishings told plainly it was the peculiar property of the 'wee-ones' of her family—a mother's tenderness for the youngest thus cropping out even in the midst of filth and degradation—furnished quarters for an unwashed, uncombed, unclothed, saffron-hued little fellow about fifteen months old, and—the dog 'Lady.'

The dog was of a dark hazel-color—a cross between a setter and a gray-hound—and one of the most beautiful creatures I ever saw. Her neck and breast were bound about with a coarse cotton cloth, saturated with blood, and emitting a strong odor of bad whisky; and her whole appearance showed the desperate nature of the encounter with the overseer.

The nine young democrats who were lolling about the room in various attitudes rose as we entered, and with a familiar but rather deferential 'Howdy'ge,' to the Colonel, huddled around and stared at me with open mouths and distended eyes, as if I were a strange being dropped from some other sphere. The two eldest were of the male gender, as was shown by their clothes—cast-off suits of the inevitable reddish-gray—much too large, and out at the elbows and the knees; but the sex of the others I was at a loss to determine, for they wore only a single robe, reaching, like their mother's, from the neck to the knees. Not one of the occupants of the cabin boasted a pair of stockings, but the father and mother did enjoy the luxury of shoes—coarse, stout brogans, untanned, and of the color of the legs which they encased.

'Well, Sandy, how is Lady?' asked the Colonel, as he stepped to the bed of the wounded dog.

'Reckon she's a goner, Cunnel; the d–d Yankee orter swing fur it.'

This intimation that the overseer was a 'countryman' of mine, took me by surprise, nothing I had observed in his speech or manners having indicated it, but I consoled myself with the reflection that Connecticut had reared him—as she makes wooden hams and nutmegs—expressly for the Southern market.'

'He shall swing for it, by –. But are you sure the dog will die?'

'Not shore, Cunnel, but she can't stand, and the blood will run. I reckon a hun'red and fifty ar done for thar, sartin.'

'D– the money—I'll make that right. Go to the house and get some ointment from Madam—she can save her—go at once,' said my host.

'I will, Cunnel,' replied the dirt-eater, taking his broad-brim from the wooden peg where it was reposing, and leisurely leaving the cabin. Making our way over the piles of rubbish and crowds of children that cumbered the apartment, the Colonel and I then returned to the carriage.

'Dogs must be rare in this region,' I remarked, as we resumed our seats.

'Yes, well-trained bloodhounds are scarce every where. That dog is well worth a hundred and fifty dollars.'

'The business of nigger-catching, then, is brisk, just now?'

'No, not more brisk than usual. We always have more or less runaways.'

'Do most of them take to the swamps?'

'Yes, nine out of ten do, though now and then one gets off on a trading-vessel. It is almost impossible for a strange nigger to make his way by land from here to the free States.'

'Then why do you Carolinians make such an outcry about the violation of the Fugitive Slave Law?'

'For the same reason that dogs quarrel over a naked bone. We should be unhappy if we couldn't growl at the Yankees,' replied the Colonel, laughing heartily.

'We, you say; you mean by that, the hundred and eighty thousand nabobs who own five sixths of your slaves?'4

'Yes, I mean them, and the three or four millions of poor whites—the ignorant, half-starved, lazy vermin you have just seen. They are the real basis of our Southern oligarchy, as you call it,' continued the Colonel, still laughing.

'I thought the negro was the serf, in your feudal system?'

'Both the negro and the poor whites are the serfs, but the white trash are its real support. Their votes give the small minority of slave-owners all their power. You say we control the Union. We do, and we do it by the votes of these people, who are as far below our niggers as the niggers are below decent white men. Who that reflects that this country has been controlled for fifty years by such scum, would give a d– for republican institutions?'

'It does speak very badly for your institutions. A system that reduces one half of a white population to the level of slaves can not stand in this country. The late election shows that the power of your 'white trash' is broken.'

'Well, it does, that's a fact. If the States should remain together, the West would in future control the Union. We see that, and are therefore determined on dissolution. It is our only way to keep our niggers.'

'You will have to get the consent of that same West to that project. My opinion is, your present policy will, if carried out, free every one of your slaves.'

'I don't see how. Even if we are put down—which we can not be—and are held in the Union against our will, Government can not, by the Constitution, interfere with slavery in the States.'

'I admit that, but it can confiscate the property of traitors. Every large slaveholder is to-day, at heart, a traitor. If this movement goes on, you will commit overt acts against the Government, and in self-defense it will punish treason by taking from you the means of future mischief.'

'The Republicans and Abolitionists might do that if they had the power, but nearly one half of the North is on our side, and will not fight us.'

'Perhaps so; but if I had this thing to manage, I'd put you down without fighting.'

'How would you do it—by preaching Abolition where even the niggers would mob you? There's not a slave in South-Carolina but would shoot Garrison or Greeley on sight.'

'That may be, but if so, it is because you keep them in ignorance. Build a free-school at every cross-road, and teach the poor whites, and what would become of slavery? If these people were on a par with the farmers of New-England, would it last for an hour? Would they not see that it stands in the way of their advancement, and vote it out of existence as a nuisance?'

'Yes, perhaps they would; but the school-houses are not at the cross-roads, and, thank God, they will not be there in this generation.'

'The greater the pity; but that which will not nourish alongside of a school-house, can not, in the nature of things, outlast this century. Its time must soon come.'

'Enough for the day is the evil thereof, I'll risk the future of slavery, if the South, in a body, goes out of the Union.'

'In other words, you'll shut out schools and knowledge, in order to keep slavery in existence. The Abolitionists claim it to be a relic of barbarism, and you admit it could not exist with general education among the people.'

'Of course it could not. If Sandy, for instance, knew he were as good a man as I am—and he would be if he were educated—do you suppose he would vote as I tell him, go and come at my bidding, and live on my charity? No sir! give a man knowledge, and, however poor he may be, he'll act for himself.'

'Then free-schools and general education would destroy slavery?'

'Of course they would. The few can not rule when the many know their rights. But the South, and the world, are a long, way off from general education. When it conies to that, we shall need no laws, and no slavery, for the millennium will have arrived.'

'I'm glad you think slavery will not exist during the millennium,' I replied, laughing; 'but how is it that you insist the negro is naturally inferior to the white, and still admit that the 'white trash' are far below the black slaves?'

'Education makes the difference. We educate the negro enough to make him useful to us, but the poor white man knows nothing. He can neither read nor write, and not only that, he is not trained to any useful employment. Sandy, here, who is a fair specimen of the tribe, obtains his living just like an Indian, by hunting, fishing, and stealing, interspersed with nigger-catching. His whole wealth consists of two hounds and their pups; his house—even the wooden trough his miserable children eat from—belongs to me. If he didn't catch a runaway nigger once in a while, he wouldn't see a dime from one year to another.'

'Then you have to support this man and his family?'

'Yes, what I don't give him, he steals. Half-a-dozen others poach on me in the same way.'

'Why don't you set them at work?'

'They can't be made to work. I have hired them time and again, hoping to make something of them, but I never got one to work more than half-a-day at a time. It's their nature to lounge and to steal.'

'Then why do you keep them about you?'

'Well, to be candid, their presence is of use in keeping the blacks in subordination, and they are worth all they cost me, because I control their votes.'

'I thought the blacks were said to be entirely contented?'

'No, not contented. I do not claim that. I only say that they are unfit for freedom. I might cite a hundred instances in which it has been their ruin.'

'I have never heard of one. It seems strange to me that a man who can support another can not support himself.'

'Oh! no, it's not at all strange. The slave has hands, and when the master gives him brains, he works well enough; but to support himself he needs both hands and brains, and he has only hands. I'll give you a case in point: At Wilmington, N.C., some years ago lived a negro by the name of Jack Campbell. He was a slave, and he was employed, before the river below the town was deepened so as to admit of the passage of large vessels, in lightering cargoes up to the city. He hired his time of his master, and carried on business on his own account. Every one knew him, and his character for honesty, sobriety, and punctuality stood so high that his word was considered among merchants as good as that of the first business-men of the place. Well, Jack's wife and children were free, and he finally took it into his head to be free himself. He arranged with his master to purchase himself within a specified time, at eight hundred dollars, and was to deposit his earnings, till they reached the required sum, in the hands of a certain merchant. He went on, and in three years had accumulated nearly seven hundred dollars, when his master failed. As the slave has no right to property, Jack's earnings belonged by law to his master, and they were attached by the creditors, and taken to pay the master's debts. Jack then 'changed hands,' received a new owner, who also consented to his buying himself, at about the price previously agreed on. Nothing discouraged, he went to work again. Night and day, he toiled, and it surprised every one to see so much energy and fixedness of purpose in a negro. At last, after four more years of labor, he accomplished his purpose, and received his free-papers. He had worked seven years—as long as Jacob toiled for Rachel—for his freedom, and like the old patriarch found himself cheated at last. I was present when he received his papers from his owner, a Mr. William H. Lippitt—who still resides at Wilmington—and I shall never forget the ecstasy of joy which he showed on the occasion; he sung and danced and laughed and wept, till my conscience smote me for holding my own niggers, when freedom might give them so much happiness. Well, he went off that day and treated some friends, and then, for three days afterward, lay in the gutter, the entreaties of his wife and children having no effect on him. He swore he was free, and would do as he 'd–d pleased.' He had previously been a class-leader in his church, but after getting free-papers, he forsook his previous associates, and spent his Sundays and evenings in a bar-room. He neglected his business; people lost confidence in him, and step by step he went down, till in five years he stink into a wretched grave. That was the effect of freedom on him, and it would be so on all his race.'

'It is clear,' I replied, 'he could not bear freedom, but that does not prove he might not have 'endured' it if he had never been a slave. His overjoy at obtaining liberty, after so long a struggle for it, led to his excesses and his ruin. According to your view, neither the black nor the poor white is competent to take care of himself. The Almighty, therefore, has laid upon you a triple burden; you not only have to provide for yourself and your children, but for two races beneath you, the black and the clay-eating white man. The poor nigger has a hard time, but it seems to me you have a harder one.'