196 NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SHALER 



help sent to the executives of our commonwealths. As I was 

 not in control of the movement I cannot be sure that the offer 

 was formally made, but I believe that it was so made. The 

 rumor of it made a certain sensation at the time, and seemed 

 to add to the sense of the iniquity of the group to which I be- 

 longed. My position in respect to slaveholding was not regarded 

 as reasonable by my Northern schoolmates, except by Emerson. 

 I was opposed to I may say that I exceedingly disliked the 

 system ; but I did not deem it iniquitous, but mainly an ancient 

 unhappiness, which had been imposed upon my people, and 

 that, so far as ancestors could be held responsible, the Northern 

 folk were as much to blame for it as the Southern. I was ready 

 to consider any natural project that could be contrived for get- 

 ting rid of it. I spent a good deal of debating time in figuring 

 that the Liberian or other colonization scheme might bring a 

 solution ; but when there was any talk of servile war as a remedy, 

 I was ready for battle. 



In my perplexities, I talked much with Mr. Ticknor. Though 

 by nature guarded in his speech, I found that he was rather 

 more of a Southern sympathizer than I was myself. He was 

 not in favor of slavery as an institution, but accepted it as an 

 existing and inevitable fact, with the belief that any project 

 for getting rid of it was impracticable and certain to bring even 

 worse than its presence on the country. He put aside all colo- 

 nization schemes as impracticable, for the reason that they 

 would leave the South without a laboring class; and that fur- 

 ther we had no right to drive the negroes back to Africa, any 

 more than they would, if in the ascendant, have a right to expel 

 us to Europe. Moreover, he liked, as I did not altogether, the 

 tone of the Southerners. It may have been that his studies of 

 Spanish history and literature had developed in him a fancy 

 for the mediaeval type of man and society: he himself was 

 clearly of that fashion. It was natural, therefore, that I went 

 to him for comfort, when, as often in those days, I sorely 

 needed it. 



