THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



305 



meant it to be otherwise. For what would have 

 been the state of the world if all its different 

 societies could have been made to assume each 

 various phase its rulers willed. 



Consider, in this connection, that the popula- 

 tion of the South is about half that of the 

 North ; and then say what chance there is for 

 a mere handful of Yankees to subvert our in- 

 stitutions by any moral power they can bring 

 to bear ; and how much more likely it is that 

 such a detachment of colonizers would be ab- 

 sorbed into one mass as a herring might be 

 swallowed by a whale. 



Nor need we apprehend danger from any 

 overt act of theirs. If they were to attempt 

 anything of that kind they would be immola- 

 ted at once, ground between the upper and 

 nether millstone of instant retribution. And 

 they know it. 



As little have we to fear from secretly insti- 

 gated rebellion. The alacrity of preparation 

 and the readiness of defence which the alarm 

 of last winter developed must have convinced 

 the negroes and their friends that their " deliv_ 

 erance" lay not in that direction, if anywhere. 

 Spartacus, at the head of white slaves, many 

 of them their masters' equals in intelligence 

 and education, and some of them trained sol- 

 diers captured in battle, failed to obtain suc- 

 cess over a race no braver than Southern men, 

 and, for their times and circumstances, not 

 more martial. 



The most we apprehend directly from this 

 particular movement is that a few negroes may 

 be seduced from their masters. But this may 

 be easily stopped if the Legislature will only 

 do its duty, and declare kidnapping a negro a 

 felony punishable by death, and provable, in 

 the case of a citizen of a free State, by the tes- 

 timony of the negro. This perhaps is unconsti- 

 tutional; but it is self-defence, and self-defence 

 is " the higher law" of the South. It may 

 be thought harsh, and condemned by that class 

 of humane people who have given a premium 

 to crime by the establishment of penitentaries, 

 and the abolition of the whipping post. But 

 we have tried grass so long on our rogues that 

 it has become necessary to throw stones. 



Such considerations as these cannot fail to be 

 entertained by our colonizers ; upon whom they 

 will exercise a wholesome restraint, and thereby 

 assure us against much of the anticipated an- 

 noyance. 



We presume that the real purpose of the 

 leaders of this immigration is to make money, 

 and to engage servitors by any means that it is 

 thought may attract them. They have learned 

 by the census that Virginia is far richer than 

 New England taking out Boston, and they have 

 probably heard that it is a pleasanter country 

 to live in ; and they have heard that the lands 

 are if dilapidated and abandoned," until they 

 believefit, as too many of our own unthinking 

 people do, though statistics prove the error. 

 They may have even heard, as we have — (from 

 a Maine lumber man, now a resident of Vir- 

 ginia), that here in this county of Chesterfield — 

 deemed, improperly by the way, one of the 

 poorest in the State, and where one cannot ride 

 five miles in any direction without hearing the 

 drumming of the cooper's hammer, that the lum- 

 ber, much of it the second growth, is better and 

 more abundant than it ever was in the deepest 

 woods of Maine. They certainly have received, 

 or pretend to have received, good accounts from 

 our neighbour Dinwiddie. They may have 

 seen the rich freights of all sorts with which 

 the Chesapeake pays Virginia's annual tribute 

 to the Union. These, we opine, and res angusta 

 domit have stimulated them to " colonize Vir- 

 ginia." But hardly would they venture to come 

 as the old crusader's philanthropist, 



Banditti saints disturbing distant lands. 



For one, therefore, we feel inclined to let 

 them come, be their intents wicked or charita- 

 ble, and to invite them to eat us up if they 

 can. 



But they will not find it as easy a matter as 

 they think. It has been tried by some of their 

 countrymen before; and they have failed. The 

 colonizers of Fairfax county, as we lately 

 showed, " have not done very well :" and in 

 Charles City and New Kent the timber getters 

 from New England have not found themselves 

 a match for the persons they have dealt with. 



Of Eli Thayer himself we know something. 

 He is a mixture of knavery and folly who has 

 not the least consideration in Boston, where he 

 is well known, and whence on one occasion he 

 was driven by a mob, because of his demonstra- 

 tions against the authority of the Court at the 

 head of a party of abolitionists from Worcester 

 during the time of the Anthony Burns — Fu- 

 gitive Slave question. If he is not treated to 

 a coat of tar and feathers on his arrival in 



