The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862

Fearing an explosion, I at last stepped up to the Squire, and said to him in a low tone: 'Let me beg of you to leave the room—do—you may spoil all.' He made no reply, but did as I requested.

When he had gone, Larkin remarked, in an indifferent way, 'The Squire's got the devil in him. He's some when his blood's up—edged tools, dangerous ter handle—he is—I knows him.' I'd ruther have six like Tom on me, ony time, than one like him. But he karn't skeer me. The man doan't breathe thet kin turn Jake Larkin a hair.'

'I see he's excited,' I replied; 'but why is he so interested in this woman?'

'Why? She was fotched up 'long with him—children together. He owned har till he got in the nine-holes one day, and sold har ter the Gin'ral. I'd bet a pile the young 'uns ar his'n. He knows har as he do the psa'm book. Ha! ha!' and he laughed his brutal laugh, as, chucking Phyllis again under the chin, he asked, 'Doan't he, gal?'

She shrank away from him, but said nothing.

'Doan't be squeamy, gal; out with it; we'll think the more on ye fur't. Arn't the young 'uns his'n? Didn't ye b'long ter the Squire till he got so d–d pious five year ago?'

'Yes, master; I belonged to him; Master Robert wus allers pious.'

'Yes, I knows; he wus allers preachin' pious. But didn't ye b'long ter him—ye knows what I means—till he got so d–d camp-meetin' pious five year ago?'

'Master Robert was allers camp-meetin' pious,' replied the woman, looking down, and drawing her thin shawl more closely over her open bosom.

'Well,' said Larkin, 'ye karn't git nothin' out o' har, but it's so—sartin! Ev'ry 'un says so; and what ev'ry 'un says arn't more'n a mile from the truth. Jest look o' that little 'un. Doan't ye see the Squire's eyes and forrerd thar?' and he took the little girl roughly by the arm, and turned her face toward mine. The lower part of her features were like her mother's, but her eyes, hair, and forehead were Preston's!

'Yes, I see,' I said; 'but you spoke of two little girls; where is the other?'

'Well, you see, I bought 'em both, and the Gin'ral give me a bill o' sale on 'em; but when we come to look arter the young 'un in the mornin', she warn't thar. The Gin'ral's 'ooman—she's a 'ooman fur me—a hull team—she makes him stan' round, I reckon. Well, she'd a likin' for the little 'un, and she swoore she shouldn't be sold. She told me ter my face she'd packed har off whar I couldn't git har, nohow; and she said she'd raise the town, and hev me driv' out if I 'tempted it.'

'What did you do then?' I asked.

'Well, ye knows the Gin'ral's a honerubble man; so, when he seed his 'ooman was sot thet way, he throw'd in the yaller boy—and he's wuth a hun'red more'n the gal, ony day. His mother took on ter kill, 'cause the Gin'ral'd sort o' promised him ter har, and she'd been a savin' up ter buy him. But the Gin'ral's a honerubble man, and he didn't flinch a hair—not a hair. Thet's the sort ter deal with, I say. I stuck fur the little gal, though—'cause, ye see, I'd takin' a likin' ter har myself—she's the pootiest little thing ye ever seed, she is; but the Gin'ral he said 'twarn't no use, fur his 'ooman would have har way, and finally I guv in, and took another bill o' sale. And what d'ye think! I'd no more'n got it inter my pocket, 'fore the Gin'ral's 'ooman pulled out a gold watch, two or three diamond pins, a ring or two, and some wimmin's fixin's, and says she, 'See thar, Mister Larkin, them's what I got fur the little gal. I've sold har—sold har this mornin', and guv the bill o' sale; and if the Gin'ral doan't cartify it, he woan't git no peace, I reckon. I was bound ter see one on 'em done right by, I was.' Well, I told har she wus ahead o' my time, and I put out raather sudden, I did. A 'ooman's the devil; I'd ruther trade with twenty men than one 'ooman, I swar.'

When he spoke of her child, the slave woman burst into tears. Her emotion drowned the curiosity which had made me a patient listener to the trader's story, and recalled me to the business in hand. With some twinges of conscience for having kept the wretched girl so long on the rack, I said to him, 'Well, Larkin, let's get through with this. Name your lowest price for the lot.'

'P'raps you'd as lief throw out the boy. I'll take off three hundred fur him.'

'Oh! doan't ye leab Ally, massa; buy Ally too, massa; oh do, good massa!' he cried, with an expression of keen agony such as I had never till then seen in a child. He was a 'likely' little fellow, with a round, good-natured face, and a bright, intelligent eye; and though I presumed Preston felt no particular interest in him, I thought of his mother, depriving herself of sleep and rest to save up the price of her boy, and I said: 'No, I have taken a liking to him; I'll take the whole or none.'

'Well, then, seventeen fifty, not a dime less. Thet's only a hun'red profit.'

'Will a hundred profit satisfy you?'

'Yes, bein' as you's a friend of the ole man, and I hain't had 'em only four days.'

I quietly sat down on the bench, beside the little girl, and taking her hand in mine, and playing with her small fingers in a careless way, said: 'Well, I will give you a hundred profit; but, Larkin,' and I looked him directly in the eye and smiled, 'you cannot intend to come the Yankee over me! I am one of them myself, you know, and understand such things. These people cost you twelve hundred—not a mill more.'

'The h–ll they did! P'raps ye mean ter say I lie?' he replied, in an excited tone, his face reddening with anger.

'No, I don't. I merely state a fact, and you know it. So keep cool.'

'It's a d–d lie, sir. I doan't keer who says it,' he exclaimed, now really excited.

'Come, come, my fine fellow,' I said, rising and facing him; 'skip the hard words, and don't get up too much steam—it might hurt you, or your friends.'

'What d'ye mean? Speak out, Mr. Kirke. If ye doan't want ter buy 'em, say so, and hev done with it.' This was said in a more moderate tone. He had evidently taken my meaning, and feared he had gone too far.

'I mean simply this. This woman and the children cost you twelve hundred dollars four days ago. Preston wants them—must have them—and he will give thirteen hundred for them, and pay you in a year, with interest; that's all.'

'Well, come now, Mr. Kirke, thet's liberal, arn't it! S'pose I doan't take it, what then?'

'Then Roye, Struthers & Co. will stop your supplies, or I'll stop their's—that's 'SARTIN',' and I laughed good-humoredly as I said it.

'Well, yer one on 'em, Mr. Kirke, thet's a fact;' and then he added, seriously, 'but ye karn't mean to saddle my doin's onter them.'

'Yes, I will; and tell them they have you to thank for it.'

'What,' and he struck his forehead with his hand; 'what a dangnation fool I wus ter tell ye 'bout them!'

'Of course, you were; and a greater one to say you paid sixteen fifty for the property. I'd have given fifteen hundred for them if you had told the truth. But come, what do you say; are they Preston's or not?'

'No, I karn't do it; karn't take Preston's note—'tain't wuth a hill o' beans. Give me the money, and it's a trade.'

'Preston is cramped, and cannot pay the money just now. I'll give you my note, if you prefer it.'

'Payable in York, interest and exchange?'

'Yes.'

'Well, it's done. And now, d–n the nigs. I'll never buy ary 'nother good-lookin' 'un as long's I live.'

'I hope you won't,' I replied, laughing.

He then produced a blank note and a bill of sale, and drawing from his pocket a pen and a small ink bottle, said to me: 'Thar, Mr. Kirke, ye fill up the note, and I'll make out the bill o' sale. I'm handy at such doin's.'

'Give me the key of these bracelets first. Make out the bill to Preston—Robert Preston, of Jones County.'

He handed me the key, and I unlocked the shackles. 'Now, Phyllis,' I said, 'it is over. Go and tell Master Robert.'

She rose, threw her arms wildly above her head, and staggering weakly forward, without saying a word, left the cabin. Yelping and leaping with joy, the yellow boy followed her; but the little girl came to me, and looking up timidly in my face, said: 'O massa! Rosey so glad 'ou got mammy—Rosey so glad. Rosey lub 'ou, massa—Rosey lub 'ou a heap.' I thought of the little girl I had left at home, and with a sudden impulse lifted the child from the floor and kissed her. She put her little arms about my neck, laid her soft cheek against mine, and burst into tears. She was not accustomed to much kindness.

I filled out the note and gave it to the trader; and, with the bill of sale in my hand, was about to go in search of Preston, when he and Phyllis entered the cabin. I handed him the document, and glancing it over, he placed it in his pocket book.

'Now, Larkin,' I said, 'this is a wretched business; give it up; there's too much of the man in you for this sort of thing.'

'Well, p'raps yer right, Mr. Kirke; but I'm in it, and I karn't git out; but it seems ter me it tain't no wuss dealin' in 'em then ownin' 'em.'

'I don't know. Is it not a little worse on the man himself? Does it not sort of harden you—blunt your better feelings, to be always buying and selling people that do not want to be bought and sold?'

'Well, p'raps it do; it's a cussed business ony how. But thar's my hand, Mr. Kirke. Yer a gentleman, I swar, if ye hev come it over me, ha! ha! How slick you done it! I likes ye the better fur it; and if Jake Larkin kin ever do ye a good turn, he'll do it. I allers takes ter a man thet's smarter nor I am, I do,' and he gave my hand another of his powerful shakes.

'I thank you, Larkin; and if I can ever serve you, it will give me great pleasure to do so.'

'I doan't doubt it, Mr. Kirke, I doan't; and I'll call on ye, sure, if ye ever kin do me ony good. Good-by; ye want ter be with the Squire; good-by;' and giving my hand another shake, he left the cabin.

Which was the worse—that coarse, hardened man, or the institution which had made him what he was?

It was many years before the trader and I met again. When we did, he kept his word!

THE UNION

II

Having stated the course of England on the slavery question and the rebellion, gladly would I rest here; but, as a Northern man, by parentage, birth, and education, always devoted to the Union, twice elected by Mississippi to the Senate of the United States, as the ardent opponent of nullification and secession, and, upon that very question, having announced in my first address, of January, 1833, the right and duty of the Government, by "coercion," if necessary, to suppress rebellion or secession by any State, truth and justice compel me to say, that we of the North, next to England, are responsible for the introduction of slavery into the South. Upon a much smaller scale than England, but, under her flag, which was then ours, and the force of colonial tradition, we followed the wretched example of England, and Northern vessels, sailing from Northern ports, and owned by Northern merchants, brought back to our shores from Africa their living cargoes.

Small numbers only of these slaves were brought from their tropical African homes to the colder North, where their labor was unprofitable, but, were taken to the South, and against their earnest protest, forced upon them. It was not the South that engaged in the African slave trade. It was not the South that brought slavery into America. No, it was forced upon the South, against their protest, mainly by England, but partly, also, by the North. Believing, as I do, that this war was produced by slavery, we should still remember by whom the slaves were imported here.

Nor should we forget how zealously, from first to last, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware, in framing the Federal Constitution, sustained by Washington, Franklin, and Hamilton, and by New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, opposed the continuance, even for a day, of the African slave trade, and how they were overborne by the unfortunate coalition of the Eastern States with Georgia and the Carolinas, legalizing the execrable traffic for twenty years, and how fearfully the predictions of those great prophet statesmen, George Mason, of Virginia, and Luther Martin, of Maryland, have been fulfilled, that this fatal measure, by the force of its moral influence in favor of slavery, and by the rapid importation of negroes here, would menace the peace and safety of the Union.

Indeed, when the Constitution was framed, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware, not only opposed the African slave trade, but interdicted the interstate slave trade. All these States then regarded slavery as a great evil, destined soon to disappear, and the failure to adopt gradual emancipation arose, mainly, from the fact, that the majority could not agree as to the practical details of the measure. In Virginia, Washington, Jefferson, George Mason, Madison and Monroe, Marshall and St. George Tucker, were all gradual emancipationists. Even as late as 1830, the measure failed, only by a single vote in the Virginia State Convention; and this year, Western Virginia has voted for manumission with great unanimity. Let us then, as a nation, do our full duty on this question to all loyal citizens; and the border States, acting by compact with the Federal Government, will surely adopt the system of gradual emancipation and colonization. The failure of any State to adopt the measure immediately, although greatly to be deplored, is no indication as to what their course will be when the rebellion shall have been suppressed, and Congress acted definitely on the subject.

As the North, next to England, was mainly responsible for forcing slavery upon the South, honor demands that the whole nation, as an act of justice, and as a measure that would greatly exalt the character of the country, should bear any loss that may arise to loyal citizens from a change of system in any State. Indeed, under all the circumstances, the nation cannot afford to leave all the sacrifice, and all the glory of such an achievement, to the South only. It will be a grand historical fact in the progress of humanity, and must adorn the annals of the nation.

I speak now of the slaves of the loyal. What course should be pursued with the slaves of rebels, is a very different question. As regards the seceded States, it is clear, as our army advances, that the slaves of the disloyal, seized or coming voluntarily within our lines, with or without previous proclamation, necessarily will be, and ought to be emancipated, under that clause of the Constitution authorizing Congress to 'make rules concerning captures on land and water,' and the law carrying that provision into effect. There never has been a war, foreign or intestine, in which slaves coming within the lines of an army have not been emancipated. In the case of Rose vs. Himly, 2d Curtis, 87, the Supreme Court of the United States declared that, in case of rebellion, 'belligerent rights may be superadded to those of sovereignty,' and that we may punish the rebels as traitors, or, treating them, by land and sea, as we now do, as belligerents, under the war power, which is also a constitutional power, we may enforce the same military contributions, or make the same captures, as in case of a foreign war. Indeed, if this were otherwise, our Constitution, as claimed by secessionists and anti-coercionists, at home and abroad, would have been a miserable failure, and would have invited rebellion, by depriving us of the power to suppress it by all war measures recognized by the law of nations. Such is the law, ancient and modern, and the uniform practice of nations in suppressing rebellion. Such acts are not bills of attainder, operating as judgments without war or capture, but the exercise by Congress of the power expressly granted by the Constitution, applicable, as the Supreme Court has declared, in case of rebellion, to 'make rules concerning captures on land and water.' But this provision implies capture or conquest, and the act of Congress proposes no mere paper edicts, which, without capture or conquest, can only operate as offers of conditional amnesty to rebels, or freedom to slaves. This great constitutional war power, as our army advances, should be clearly proclaimed and exercised, and the slaves of the disloyal, used, as they are, to supply the means of support to the rebel armies, should be emancipated, as required by Congress, and employed, at reasonable wages, in some useful labor in aid of the Union cause. In this way, the rebel whites and masters must soon, to a vast extent, leave the army, to raise the provisions now supplied by their slaves, and the war thus much more speedily be brought to a successful conclusion. By paper edicts I mean those designed to operate as judgments or sentences, without capture or conquest, and not those announced under the acts of Congress, in advance, but only to become operative and consummated in the contingency of capture or conquest. The unconditional friends of the Union should not only adhere to the Constitution as the bulwark of our cause, but will find in that great instrument the most ample power to suppress the rebellion. It is the rebels who are striving to overthrow the Constitution, and we who are resolved to maintain and enforce it, in war and in peace, as 'the supreme law of the land,' in every State, from the lakes to the gulf, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

It is vain to deny the prejudice in the North against the negro race, constantly increasing as the numbers multiply, accompanied by the stern refusal of social or political equality with the negro, and the serious apprehension among their working classes of the degradation of labor by negro association, and the reduction of wages to a few cents a day by negro competition—all demonstrating, as a question of interest, as well as of humanity, that it is best for them, as for us, that the separation, though necessarily gradual and voluntary, must be complete and eternal.

Wherever the vote of the people of any State of the North has been taken on this question, it has been uniformly for the exclusion of the free negro race. In the midst of the excitement of the slavery question in Kansas, when the republicans acted alone upon the question of the adoption of their celebrated Topeka constitution, they submitted the free negro question to a distinct vote of the people, which was almost unanimous for their exclusion. The recent similar overwhelming vote, to the same effect, of the people of Illinois, is another clear test of the present sentiment of the nation. That sentiment is this: that the negro, although to be regarded as a man, and treated with humanity, belongs, as they believe, to an inferior race, communion or association with whom is not desired by the whites. Those who regard the slavery question as the only, or the principal difficulty, are greatly mistaken. The negro question is far deeper. It is not slavery, as a mere political institution, that is sustained in the South, but the greater question of the intermingling and equality of races. In this aspect, it is far more a question of race than of slavery. If, as among the Greeks and Romans, the white race were enslaved here, the institution would instantly disappear. Among the many millions of the population of the South, less than a tenth are slaveholders. Why, then, is it, that the non-slaveholding masses there support the institution? It is the instinct, the sentiment, the prejudice, if you please, of race, almost universal and unalterable. It is the fear that if the slaves of the South were emancipated, the non-slaveholding whites would be sunk down to their level. But let the non-slaveholders of the South know that colonization abroad would certainly accompany gradual emancipation, and they would support the measure. They do not wish the Africans among them; but if that must be the case, then they desire them to remain as slaves, and not to be raised to their own condition as freemen, to degrade labor and reduce its wages, as they believe. Abolition alone, touches then merely the surface of this question. It lies far deeper, in the antagonism of race, and the laws of nature. In this respect there is a union of sentiment between the masses, North and South, both opposing the introduction of free blacks.

Should the slaves be gradually manumitted and colonized abroad with their consent, and the North be thereafter reproached with aiding to force slavery upon the South, we could then truly say, that we had finally freely united with the South in expending our treasure to remove the evil. The offence of our forefathers would then be gloriously redeemed by the justice and generosity of their children, and made instrumental in carrying commerce, civilization, and Christianity to the benighted regions of Africa. Nor should the colonization be confined to Africa, but extended to 'Mexico, Central and Southern America' (as proposed in my Texas letter of the 8th January, 1844), and to the West Indies, or such other homes as might be preferred by the negro race.

From my youth upward, at all times and under all circumstances, whether residing North or South, whether in public or in private life, I have ever supported gradual emancipation, accompanied by colonization, as the only remedy for the evil of slavery. In my Texas letter, just referred to, published at its date over my signature, being then a senator from Mississippi, I expressed the following opinions on this great question:

'Again the question is asked, is slavery never to disappear from the Union? This is a startling and momentous question, but the answer is easy and the proof is clear—it will certainly disappear if Texas is reannexed to the Union, not by abolition, but in spite of all its frenzy, slowly and gradually, by diffusion, as it has thus nearly receded from several of the more Northern of the slaveholding States, and as it will certainly continue more rapidly to recede by the reannexation of Texas, into Mexico and Central and Southern America. Providence * * * thus will open Texas as a safety-valve, into and through which slavery will slowly and gradually recede, and finally disappear into the boundless regions of Mexico, and Central and Southern America. Beyond the Del Norte slavery will not pass; not only because it is forbidden by law, but because the colored races there preponderate in the ratio of ten to one over the whites, and holding, as they do, the government and most of the offices in their own possession, they will never permit the enslavement of any portion of the colored race, which makes and executes the laws of the country. In Bradford's Atlas the facts are given as follows:

'Mexico, area 1,690,000 square miles; population eight millions, one sixth white, and all the rest Indians, Africans, Mulattoes, Zambos, and other colored races. Central America, area 186,000 square miles; population nearly two millions, one sixth white, and the rest Negroes, Zambos, and other colored races. South America, area 6,500,000 square miles; population fourteen millions, one million white, four millions Indians, and the remainder, being nine millions, blacks and other colored races. The outlet for our negro race through this vast region can never be opened but by the reannexation of Texas; but, in that event, there, in that extensive country, bordering on our negro population, and four times greater in area than the whole Union, with a sparse population of but three to the square mile, where nine tenths of the people are of the colored races—there, upon that fertile soil, and in that delicious climate, so admirably adapted to the negro race, as all experience has now clearly shown, the free black would find a home. There, also, as the slaves, in the lapse of time, from the density of population and other causes, are emancipated, they will disappear, from time to time, west of the Del Norte, and beyond the limits of the Union, and among a race of their own color will be diffused through this vast region, where they will not be a degraded caste, and where, as to climate and social and moral condition, and all the hopes and comforts of life, they can occupy, amid equals, a position they can never attain in any part of this Union.'

This, it is true, was a slow process, but it was peaceful, progressive, and certain, especially when Texas should have been checkered by railroads, and her system connected with that of the South and of Mexico. I desired then, however, to accelerate this action, by making it a part of the compact of Texas with the Federal Government, that the proceeds of the sales of her public lands, exceeding two hundred millions of acres, should be devoted in aid of the colonization described in this extract. The principle, however, was adopted of State action by irrevocable compact with the Federal Government, by which, provision therein was made for abolishing slavery in all such States north of a certain parallel of latitude (embracing a territory larger than New England), as might be thereafter admitted by subdivision of the State of Texas. The power of action on this subject, by compact of a State with the General Government, was then clearly established, in perfect accordance with repeated previous acts of Congress, then cited by me. The doctrine rests upon the elemental principle of the combined authority of the nation, and a State, acting by compact within its limits.