SOUTHERN STATES 



283 



In Louisiana, the state of society is somewhat different from that of the other States. It 

 receiv^es its character from the French, and is perhaps more gay, if not more dissolute. There 

 is more gaming, more duehng, and less education. The planters are exceedingly hospitable, 

 generous, and fond of amusement, though somewhat haughty and passionate. The French and 

 American parties are so nearly balanced, that there are frequent struggles for ascendency. The 

 following extracts are descriptive of the state of society and manners in some of the Southern 

 States. The first is from the New England Magazine, and the last, from "Letters from the 

 South and West." 



" The Carolinean is widely different from the Yankee, but I know not that he is better. If 

 he have not our faults, he may not be the possessor of all our virtues. I did not remain in 

 his country long enough to see many of his faults ; and, to be just, he has very few that appear 

 in his conduct to his friends, though he is held to be rather intractable to his enemies. He 

 has, in his carriage and feelings, something of the Don ; yet he is republican, and would not 

 exact from another what he would be unwilling to render in return. Be generous and confid- 

 ing, and he will out-do you in generosity and confidence ; be passionate and pugnacious, and he 

 would have the less estimable victory there. He is not apt to give offence, for he is courte- 

 ous ; nor will he receive a provocation without stronger remonstrance than men are accustomed 

 to make in New England. He will peril life for a word, but will fight no longer for principle 

 than the northern race that I have mentioned. His faults are those of his institutions, his vir- 

 tues are his own, and they have my undivided admiration. In the city, he lives like a modern 

 and a gentleman, among his peers ; in the country, he lives like a gentleman, too, but after the 

 manner of a patriarch of old. He is intrusted with every thing relating to the happiness and 

 welfare of hundreds of his fellow-men, who are not indeed convicts, but are yet ' guilty of a 

 skin not colored like his own.' In administering justice he is prompt ; for he unites in his own 

 person the powers of judge, jury, attorney-general, and sheriff ; generally speaking, however, 

 he abuses no trust reposed in him by any of these incompatible relations. He has grown up 

 among his slaves ; many of them have that tenacious hold upon his heart, that comes from 

 early companionship as playmates, and some of them are his foster-brothers. 



' We twa hae paidlet in the burn, 

 Frae mornin' sun till dine.' 



" I have never seen elsewhere, and I fear I never shall, such an outgushing of affection as I 

 have seen on the arrival of ' young master ' or mistress. I have even had a share of it my- 

 self, in my relation of cousin to the young heir apparent. A hundred sable arms were extended 

 to hug him, and he was patted, petted, and thrice blessed. This is a feeling that you can hardly 

 conceive in New England, for it cannot subsist between a man and his cattle ; but in Carolina 

 it raised my estimation of the master, and sympathy for the slave. The slave has nearly all 

 the African good qualities, and his faults may be attributed to his circumstances, and the insti- 

 tutions that have ' reduced his soul to his condition.' The worst of his traits are deceit and 

 cunning ; but his is a life of unremitted and unrequited toil, and it is a natural impulse, to avoid 

 his task by deceiving his overseer. But he is kind and cheerful, and he is never better pleas- 

 ed than when he can contribute to the pleasure of a white man. In riding, I have often known 

 boys of 15 and upwards run by my side for miles, to open the gates ; and the happiness of any 

 negro is complete, when he is permitted 'to take his pleasure,' that is, when hunting or fish- 

 ing with his master or a white. The old women, who are left in charge of the huts, will ofler 

 you yams and groundnuts with as much pleasure as it gives a hungry traveler to receive them. 



" It is on his plantation that the planter is the best known. He is there independent of all modes 

 and circumstances, ' as free as Nature first made man,' and more powerful than it is safe for men 

 to be, — having little restraint upon his will but that of his prudence or his sense of justice. In 

 New England and other ' foreign parts,' he may sometimes have an air of constraint, for he is 



' Lofty and sour to those who love him not, 

 But to all such as seek him sweet as summer ' 



Yet in his own cotton-field he is himself, and what you see of him there you may consider (as 

 we say) genuine. If you are his guest, he tells you that his plantation is your own, and while 

 70U remain it is such, in all things but the title deeds. You cannot stay too long, or take too 

 much of the choice old wines. 



" Virginia appears like a new settled, not an old State. You pass no stone-walls ; but l:<5dgp, 



