284 



SOUTHERN STATES. 



or in-and-out zig-zag cedar rails, or wattled fences, if indeed any, on the main roads. Al the 

 South, a few houses, though not incorporated, are called a town. If you visit a plantation, you 

 strike off the main road, up or down the banks of the long rivers, that run from the western 

 mountains to the seacoast, or you mount into the ridge-forests. You feel a solitary emotion, 

 as you find a house and out-buildings, on a spot cleared in the middle of the woods, and sur- 

 rounded by broad wheat and corn fields ; not 15 or 20 acres of arable land, but from 100 to 500 ; 

 not tilled by 5 or 6 hired men, but by from 30 to 100 or 200 slaves ; and in harvest time are 

 in motion from 20 to 50 reapers, men, women, and children. 



" As to the manners of the Virginians, they are a sallow, mercurial, liberal race ; having 

 much of the suaviter in modo, as well as the fortiter in re ; abroad, extravagant in dress ; at home, 

 slouching in homespun ; the children of rich planters not disdaining to wear check not quite 

 tartan. They ride fine horses ; a wealthy landlord keeping his saddle, his racing, his carriage, 

 and his plough horses, distinct. They teach the riding horses to pace over their smooth sands, 

 and dislike trotters ; ride without cruppers, and, about home, with one spur ; thinking with Sir 

 Hudibras, that if they get one side along, the other will not hang ashank. Instead of a chaise, 

 they use a chair, which is very light, but unsocial, as they are usually single ; and which, more- 

 over, being without a top, exposes them to the weather. Wherever the Virginians go, a slave 

 or two moves behind as their shadow, to hold their horses, pull off their boots and pantaloons 

 at bed time, and, if cold, to blow up the fire in their bed-rooms with their mouths , bellows 

 being unknown in a slave State. All are fox-hunters and duck-shooters ; some keeping parks 

 of deer, and others a ducker for the season. As game is plenteous near their enclosures, on a 

 cloudy, drizzly day, or a clear, frosty night, when the hounds can scent the trail along the dew, 

 out start young lads and bring home the partridge, the groundhog, the rabbit, and the opossum, 

 with her offspring, not bigger than a bean, clinging to her teats in her false pouch. Formerly, 

 there was a small bounty given for each crow's scalp, and they were taken in part for county tax- 

 es. Accustomed from boyhood to athletic sports, in an infinite series, the Virginians are muscular 

 and elastic in limb ; and, leaving draughts, whist, backgammon, and chess, for the evening, 

 they are out at sling-fist and sling-foot ; or outjumping or outrunning each other. I saw a 

 young man betted upon, for 500 dollars, at a foot race. Indeed, every thing is decided by a 

 wager. The Virginians are fierce marksmen, and dueling is not discountenanced. They 

 sometimes meet, and shoot at target for a fish-fry. Fish-fries are held about once in a fortnight, 

 during the fish season ; when 20 or 30 men collect, to regale on whisky and fresh fish, and 

 soft crabs, just out of their sloughs, cooked under a spreading tree, near a running stream, by 

 the slaves." 



The best gifts that nature has bestowed upon the Southern States, are dashed with evils. 

 The sun that ripens the orange and pomegranate, draws pestilent vapors from the surface ; 

 and the scent of the rose and jessamine is mingled with the breath of pestilence. It is peril- 

 ous to breathe the fresh air of the morning, or to encounter the rays of the sun at noon, or to 

 enjoy the dews of night. The insects have powers of intolerable annoyance ; they must be kept 

 at bay, by nettings which obstruct the circulation of air, and the sleeper rises at morning, 

 weary and unrefreshed. The reptiles increase in venom, as the distance to the equator dimin- 

 ishes, and the natural agents are clothed with more formidable powers. The hurricanes sweep 

 away the harvests, and the lightning rends the forest. 



The citizen cannot but feel, that he is surrounded by a population, which any prospect of 

 success would excite to a war of extermination ; but he is not a master from choice, but 

 necessity ; not from his own seeking, but by inheritance.* In viewing the system of slavery 



* For the evils of domestic slavery, we are indebted to 

 Great Britain, though no vituperation has been too harsh 

 for British writers to visit us with. If they had fornrotten 

 our colonial history, it requires great effort to forget the 

 existence of a more barbarous system in the West Indies, 

 where the British slave population required a renewal in 

 less than 15 years, while in the United States it doubles it- 

 self in less than 28 years. The trade in slaves was a favo- 

 rite monopoly with Great Britain, and she supplied the 

 colonies. Under her fostering care, the institution of slave- 

 ry grew too great for remedy. The colonies resisted the 

 importation of slaves. Massachusetts passed in both hous- 

 es a bill to prevent it, but the royal governor, Hutchinson, 

 refused his sanction, saying, that it was contrary to his in- 

 structions ; and the same reply was made by his successor, 

 Gage. The courts went beyond the legislature, and gave 



judgment for the slaves, who sued for their wages and lib- 

 erty ; and this was two years before the much vaunted case 

 of Somerset in England. 



In Virginia, the royal assent, though sought for by all 

 manner of expedients, was refused to a bill imposing du- 

 ties which amounted to a prohibition on all new importa- 

 tions of slaves. The very first assembly, however, under 

 the constitution, finally prohibited the traffic, and one of 

 the reasons assigned in that constitution for separation 

 from England, was this " inhuman use of the royal nega- 

 tive." These are but a small part of the colonial efforts 

 to abolish the traffic, which were always resisted in favor 

 of the Royal African Company. Federal America inter- 

 dicted the trade from her ports, 13 years before Great Brit- 

 ain, and made it punishable as a crime 7 years before. 



The injury done in America was hardly less than that 



