6 Letters from the United States of North America. [Jan. 



shade of the negro race in their complexions, or a vestige of the negro 

 shape in their bodily structure, even though such individuals may be, 

 not only native-born Americans, but free native-born Americans — the 

 free children of other children, whose fathers were free — as if by 

 reason of that particular drop, or shade, or shape, they were accursed 

 for ever, and set apart and sealed for bondage, they and theirs — for 

 perfect real bondage too ; stamped in their foreheads with a mark 

 of inextinguishable inferiority, a mark which nothing would ever wash 

 away, nothing ever conceal — overshadowed with a sort of indestruc- 

 tible shadow — the everlasting hereditary shadow of subjection. 



Every syllable of this, my dear P., whatever you may now think of 

 the matter, is true. The very name of master is done with here ; the 

 very word servant is rejected, or discarded rather, from the every 

 day language of this people. You never hear the multitude make 

 use of the words, except in the way of reproach, or derision, or sport ; 

 nor even a lawyer, if he can possibly avoid it before the sovereign people. 

 The children, to be sure, through a large part of New England, where 

 they are all educated, or may be, at the public charge, are in the 

 habit of calling their teachers Masters and Mistresses, not only while 

 speaking of them, but while speaking to them ; and I have heard a 

 country school-master, and a village attorney introduced here to each 

 other by their respective titles, much in the following way : " Master A. B. 

 here's lawyer C. D. ; lawyer C. D., that'ere's our new representa/ire 

 (longi) master A. B. ; youv'e heard o' him afore, I guess ?" llecollect, my 

 dear P. that every man here has a title of some sort, either corporal, 

 or squire, se-lect man, major, general, or deacon ; but, whatever it is, 

 the party is never spoken to without being called by it ; and here I 

 may as well mention a fact, which appears to have led many trau'ellers 

 into a mistake — a very natural one I admit. Go where they will, 

 throughout these United States, they find all the tavern-keepers, 

 whatever else they may be, either colonels or majors. Having observed 

 this, they take it for granted, either that colonels and majors are very 

 common — that " they grow on every bush," or that, in some way or 

 other, some sort of connexion or other is kept afoot between the mili- 

 tary office and that of the publican ; or perhaps they look upon these 

 people who " keep taverns" as the better sort of people in this country. 

 All this would be natural enough, and yet neither would be a correct 

 conclusion : for, although it is no very rare thing to see a real major 

 keeping a public-house, or a true colonel waiting at the door of his 

 own stable, with a pipe in his mouth, to see that your horse and 

 " baggage," or " pluiido;" as they call it in the west, are well taken 

 care of, while two or three of his handsome daughters arc laying the 

 cloth for you, very much as if you were a part of his family, or at 

 least of their neighbour's, whom they were able to see any day of the 

 week : it is altogether more common to fall in with, or, as the case 

 inay be, to fall out with colonels and majors, who have obtained a 

 title, nobody knows how — not in the militia, not in the regular army, 

 of that you may be very sure, but, forty-nine times out of fifty 

 in the way of trade ; either by dealing in horses, or keeping a shop, or 

 keeping a tavern, or keeping a store, and being surrounded by people 

 who caimot or will not remember the real name of a party, and for 

 that reason adopt a familiar way of speaking to them — a sort of cheek- 

 by-jowl method of expressing their ideas of good fellowship. " Here, 



