xt7sf7664m6c https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7sf7664m6c/data/mets.xml Potts, Eugenia Dunlap. 1909 books b92-92-27694855 English Ashland Printing Co., : Lexington, Ky. : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. United States History Civil War, 1861-1865. Slavery United States. Confederate States of America. United States HIstory Civil War, 1861-1865. Historic papers on the causes of the civil war / by Mrs. Eugenia Dunlap Potts. text Historic papers on the causes of the civil war / by Mrs. Eugenia Dunlap Potts. 1909 2002 true xt7sf7664m6c section xt7sf7664m6c
Historic Papers
ON THE
Causes
OF TH EC:
Civil War
BY
Mrs. Eugenia Dunlap Potts
OF THF
Lexington, Ky., Chapter U. D. C.
LEZM.IYOW KCSTUCKY,
Cbc OId_5outb
Read Before the Lexington Chapter U. D. C., February 14, 1909,
By Eugenia Dunlap Potts, Historian
No pen or brush can picture life in the old Southern
States in the ante-bellum days. The period comprehends
two hundred and fifty years of history without a parallel.
A separate and distinct civilization was there represented,
the like of which can never be reproduced. Socially, intel-
lectually, politically and religiously, she stood pre-eminent,
among nations. It was the spirit of the cavalier that created
and sustained our greatness. Give the Puritan his due, and
still the fact remains. The impetus that led to freedom
from Great Britain, came from the South. A Southern
General led the ranged Continentals on to victory. South-
ern jurists and Southern statesmanship guided the councils
of wisdom. The genius of war pervaded her people. She
gave presidents, cabinet officers, commanders, tacticians and
strategists. Her legislation extended the country's territory
from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
A writer aptly says: "For more than fifty formative
years of our history the Old South was the dominating
power in the nation, as it had been in the foundation of the
colonies out of which came the Republic, and later in fight-
ing its battles of independence and in forming its policies
of government. Whatever Df strength or symmetry the
republic had acquired at home, or reputation it had achieved
abroad, in those earlier crucial days of its history, was
largely due to the patriotism and ability of Southern states-
manship. Why that scepter of leadership has passed from
its keeping, or why the New South is no longer at the front
of national leadership, is a question that might well give
pause to one who recalls the brave days when the Old South
sat at the head of the table and directed the affairs of the
nation."
There was the manor and there was the cabin. Each
head of the house was a potentate in his own domain-an ab-
solute ruler of a principality as marked as in feudal times,
without the despotism of the feudal system.
The plantation of the old regime was tastefully laid out
for beauty and productiveness. Flower gardens and kitchen
gardens stretched away into the magnificence of orange
trees, shady avenues and fruitful plants. Unbroken retreats
of myrtle and laurel and tropical foliage bantered the sun
to do his worst. Flowers perfumed the air; magnolia
bloom and other rich tree flora regaled the senses; exten-
sive orchards yielded fruit of all kinds adapted to the soil
and climate; vineyards were heavy with much bearing.
Fields were carefully cultivated, till such a thing as the
failure of crops was almost unknown. It was largely sup-
plied with sheep and their wool, with geese, ducks, turkeys,
guinea fowls. and every variety of poultry without stint.
Eggs were gathered by the bushel, myriads of birds clouded
the sun, and daily intoxicated their little brains with the
juice of the black cherry. Herds of cattle were luxuriously
pastured by Pompey and his sable mates.
There were quantities of rich cheese, fresh butter, inilik
and cream. Vast barns were gorged with corn, rice and
hay; hives were bursting with honey; vegetables were
luscious and exhaustless; melons sprinkled and dotted
many acres of patches; shrimp and fish filled the waters;
crawfish wriggled in the ditches; raccoons and opossums
formed the theme of many a negro ditty. Carriages and
horses filled the stables, and splendid mules were well-fed
and curried at the barns. High up on the cypress trees
hung the grey moss with which the upholsterer at yon market
place replenished his furniture vans. The farm produce
alone yielded six or seven thousands a year, while the plan-
tation crops of cotton, sugar, and rice were clear profit.
Rows of white cabins were the homes of the colored citizens
of the community. An infirmary stood apart for the sick.
The old grandams cared for the children. Up yonder at
the mansion house Black Mammy held sway in the nursery;
Aunt Dinah was the cook; Aunt Rachel carried the house-
keeper's keys; while Jane and Ann, the mulatto ladies'
maids, flitted about on duty, and Jim and Jack "'tended on
young marster and de gemman." Such hospitality as was
made possible by that style of living can never repeat itself
in changed conditions. Grant that these conditions are
improved. Grant that the lifted incubus of slavery has
opened the doors for the march of intellectual and industrial
progress; the fact remains that the highest order of social
enjoyment, and of the exercise of the charming amenities
of life, was blotted out when the old plantation of Dixie
land was divided up by the spoils of war.
It is interesting to read of the first attempt at a sugar
crop in Louisiana by a Frenchman named Bore in 1794.
His indigo plant, once so profitable, had been attacked and
destroyed by a worm, and dire poverty threatened. He
conceived the project of planting sugar cane. The great
question was would the syrup granulate; and hundreds
gathered to watch the experiment. It did granulate, and
the first product sold for twelve thousand dollars-a large
sum at that time.
The maker of the cotton gin worked another revolution
in cominerce, and rice proved to be an unfailing staple.
Armies of negroes tilled the soil, and were happy in their
circumscribed sphere, humanely cared for by the whites.
Enter the home and lo! a palace greets you. Massive
mahogany furniture, now, alas! in scattered remnants, meets
the eye at every turn. Treasures and elegant trifles of
many lands attest the artistic taste-of the owners. Gorgeous
china, plate and glass are there in everyday use. Fruits of
the loom in rarest silk and linen, embellish the chambers
and luxury sits enthroned. The chatelaine, gracious and
cultured, is to the manner born: and from season to season
she fills her house with congenial people who ate invited to
come, but not, as with present house parties, told when to
go. As long as they found it comfortable and convenient
the latchstring was out. A guest was never permitted to
pay for anything; expressage, laundry and all incidentals
were as free as air. The question of money, nowadays im-
pertinently thrust forth, was never hinted at in the olden
time. It was considered bad form, and the luckless boaster
of "how poor he was" would have been properly stared at
as a boor as well as a bore.
For pastimes men had fishing and hunting, and for
women there were lawn games and indoor diversions.
Speaking of the women of the South a writer aptly said:
"They dwell in a land goodly and pleasant to the eye; a
land of fine resources, both agricultural and mineral; where
may be found fertile cotton fields, vast rice tracts, large
sugar plantations, bright skies and balmy breezes. The
whole land is plowed by mighty rivers, is ribbed by long
mountain chains, and washed by the sea."
Fitting environment, we add, for the gorgeous resi-
dences, notably in Georgia and South Carolina, built by the
nobility and gentry of the republic, and inherited by the
descendants of the old colonial aristocracy. What wonder,
that they held themselves aloof from the manual laborer,
black or white, and that they were uncontaminated by the
attrition of commercial competition. In the summer the
family sought the cooler climate of old Kentucky or Vir-
ginia, or farther north to Saratoga, Long Branch, or some
one of the then attractive resorts. They travelled in state,
frequently bringing the family coach, and never without a
retinue of servants. What a sensation they made! And
money flowed like water. The young men, rich and idle,
paid court to pretty girls, sure of a welcome from both
parents and daughters, for to marry a Southern planter was
to achieve a social victory for all time to come. The me-
chanical and athletic age had not yet dawned. The
accepted escort must be a professional man, or else lord of a
domain such as I have described. Pride and prejudice
blinded judgment, and the aristocracy of merit alone was
unappreciated.
And yet the Southern woman, even of great wealth, could
nor afford to be idle. She was not, save in exceptional
cases, the useless, half-educated, irresponsible creature she
has been represented. Some there are always and every-
where whose lives are given over to fads, fancies and frivol-
ities. But the true mothers were priestesses at the home
altar, and kept the sacred fires bright and burning. Their
duty was to keep others busy, and to direct and oversee the
vast domestic machinery of the home.
Their views were somewhat narrow. for as yet the bright
sun of woman's emancipation was baxely peeping over the
horizon. Their minds did not grasp the vexed questions of
theology, politics, or economics. They accepted the faith
of their fathers, and shifted all burdens to stronger shoulders.
They were eminently religious and charitable. Ways and
means were at hand, and they did not bother their brains
with isms and ologies. Regular attendance upon the near-
est church, and reverence for the clergy, were prominent
in their creed.
Education for the masses was not provided, as it is
now; but the majority of the better class were finely edu-
cated, either at Northern schools, or by the governess, and
tutor at home. In many cases where the wife was widow-
ed, she nobly and intelligently arose to the management of
business affairs. If misfortune came, and the woman felt
obliged to earn a livelihood, it did not occur to her to seek
it behind a counter or in a workshop as we do in this gen-
eration. She was inclined to walk in the old paths, and
follow old customs. They believed their own skies were
bluest, their own cornfields greenest, their tobacco finest,
their cotton the whitest on earth. They were devoted to
old friends, to old manners and customs, and gloried in
their birthright.
In the line of literary productions the South was back-
ward. Atuguista Evans Wilson's remarkable novels, Beulah,
St, Elmo, and others, were read and re-read, not for any
lasting good, but for passing interest, and largely for the
glamnour that invested a Southern writer. Madame Le Vert
produced "Sovenirs of Travel," among the very earliest
of books on European scenes. Marion Harland's works
were read, and possessed the selling quality notwithstanding
the bitter taste left by her humiliated heroines. Caroline
Lee Hentz, Mrs. Holmes, Mrs. Southworth, and a small
army of essayists in the field, clamored for recognition; but
time was when to see the Southern woman in print was
an innovation displeasing to the household gods. Time camne
when the slumbering faculties were stirred into splendid
and successful activity. The depth of the natures hitherto
unsounded arose to the new demands right valiantly. We
behold its fruits in the rearing of splendid monuments, the
erection of noble charity institutions, the endowing of col-
leges, the equipment of missionaries, the awakening of wide
philanthropies, and in the higher lines of Christian endeavor.
The men who shouldered arms, from father to son, to de-
fend their States rights, were the same who, in times of
peace, knew no burdens of life save those they voluntarily
assumed. The women who sewed night and day upon gar-
ments for field and hospital, were the same who were wont
to employ their white hands with fragile china and heirloom
plate, or dally with needlework in the morning room. These
were the mothers who, stauding by the slaughtered first-
born, gave his sword to the next son, and bade him go at
his country's call. There was the spirit of heroism not
surpassed by the heroes of the sterner sex. They suffered
privations and terrors without a murmur.
To visit one of these ante-bellum homes was a privilege
indeed. And something of the spirit of the canaille of the
French revolution must have animated the foreign hordes,
who, not content with confiscating these captured palaces,
ruthlessly cut and destroyed the richness and elegance they
were beholding for the first time in their commonplace lives.
It was not the spirit of conquest, but of vandalism, that
animated them. Wanton destruction and not spoliation,
common in war tactics, was their watchword. A domain
fairer than Elysium opened to 'their astonished gaze, when-
ever they penetrated some sylvan grove where stood the
plantation manor house.
Alas! for the old plantation days! Alas! for the easy-
going spirit that marked the times! The long, pitiless, hot
sun-days were not inspirers of extraordinary energy. Yan-
kee thrift was as pigmy play to these owners of bursting
coffers. The hurry and bustle of our Northern neighbors
was an unknown quantity in their economy. It is to the
forcible wresting from the South of their inherited institu-
tions, of the machinery which made their social order possi-
ble, that the land of Dixie owes the prosperity and thrift of
to-day. Evil was done and good came therefrom. Years
of wasted substance and enforced poverty were groped
through, till at last the day-star rose upon new industries.
Hands and feet and awakened faculties spring to the keynote
of progress, and "Our days are marching on."
(Here were inserted in the manuscript twenty pages
from the diary of the Historian, written when, as a school
girl. she visited with her parents some of the sugar plant-
tions of Louisiana. They give the picture by an eye-witness
of the social and commercial life in the South; but while,
perhaps, interesting in the reading of a paper, are not neces-
sary, in print, to the theme.)
Future generations may hug to themselves the consola-
tion that we were pulled down only to be built up again in
grdater prosperity, under a different order of things. The
tears and woes of the old South may change into smiles and
good cheer, forgetting the glory that once encircled us like
a radiant halo. But many there are who feel that "Such
things were, and were most dear to us! " These look back
with brimming eyes, and force down the rising sob, as they
sorrowfully murmur.
"My native land, good night."
Slavery
Read March 14, 1909.
In my first paper I endeavored to present a picture of
the sunny Southland in the ante-bellum days, when wealth
and culture and hospitality were the watchwords of the
hour-before the invasion of hostile hordes had vandalized
the sacred old traditions, and crumbled the household gods
in the dust.
But long before the tocsin of civil war had sounded
there were mutterings of thunder in the halls of Congress,
and the cloud, at first no bigger than a man's hand, was
yearly gathering force, till it finally buist in a cyclone of
passion and prejudice and tyranny, and swept all before it
in one besom of destruction. That the question of slavery
lay at the root of the dissension cannot be doubted by any
who are conversant with the political history of the United
States. The tariff rulings had their weight, as did the
unfair division of new territory: but the main issue was
negro slavery, which, always a stumbling-block to the North,
had most violently agitated the whole country for eleven
years before the appeal to arms.
Negro laborers were brought to Virginia and sold as
slaves, fifty years after the first cargo landed at Jamestown.
In the year 1619, a Dutch vessel brought over twenty negroes
to be thus held in bondage. To the men who watched the
landing of this handful of Africans it was doubtless an un-
important matter, yet it was the beginning of a system that
had an immense influence upon our country. In those days
few persons in the world opposed slavery. Even kings and
queens made money out of the traffic. But for tobacco
slavery would not have taken such a hold on America.
When it was found that the negro made the cheapest laborer
for cultivating the plantation many more were imported.
They were also employed in the New England and
Middle States, largely as household servants, the soil not
being favorable to the production of rice, indigo, cotton and
sugar, which were the staples of Southern agriculture.
Moreover, the African is not physically adapted to the
northern climate. He was especially liable to tubercular
disease-hence he was sold to the Southern planters, except
in a few cases where the Puritan spirit caused his emanci-
pation.
In the year that Harvard College was erected, 1636, the
first slave ship built in America was launched at Marble-
head, Mass. It brought a large cargo of slaves to be sold to
the settlers. During the one hundred years preceding 1776,
millions of slaves had been imported to the States. King
George III favored the institution, and forbade any inter-
ference with the colonies in this matter. The horrors of
slavery in Massachusetts, as recorded by reliable documents
of the period, far exceed all that has been charged against
the South, by Uncle Tom's Cabin, or any other records of
fact or romance. The Enc- clopedia of Political Economy
and United States History, Vol. 3, page 733, has the follow-
ing taken from the New York Evening Post:
"During the eighteen mouths of the years 1859-(fO eighty-five slave
ships (giving their names) belonging to New York merchants, brought
in cargoes annually of between 30,000 and 60,000 African slaves, who
were sold in Brazil, there being great demand for them in that coun-
try, owing to new industries. Old Peter Faneuil built Faneuil Hallwith
slave money, and many other fortunes were thus made."
Thomas Jefferson says in his autobiography that though
the Northern people owned very few slaves themselves, at
the time of the writing of the Declaration of Independence,
yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of slaves to
others. In 1761 Virginia and South Carolina, alarmed at
the rapid increase of slaves, passed an act restricting their
importation, but as many persons in England were growing
rich from the trade the act was negatived, or vetoed. While
providing in the Constitution of the United States for the
Southern planters to hold slaves, the North thought that
the laws that were in the course of events to be passed for
prohibiting their foreign importation, would so work out so
that the institution would die a natural death. They little
dreamed that economical and political conditions were des-
tined to fasten it upon the South. At the framing of the
Constitution slaves were held in all tbe States except Massa-
chusetts, and she had only very lately abolished the institu-
tion. The South owned twice as many, by reason of her
special agricultural products, and even at this early
day the slavery question became sectional. Mason's and
Dixon's line, which was an imaginary boundary between
Pennsylvania and Maryland, was recognized as the division
line between the free and slave states.
(Here are omitted several pages illustrating the utter absence of
affinity between the two sections of the country, introduced in the
manuscript as social, not historical, matter. )
During the Revolutionary war it was deemed expedient
to enlist the colored race as soldiers. In Rhode Island they
were made free by law, on condition that they enlisted in
the army, and this measure met with Gen'l Washington's
approval. After the Declaration of Independence, in 1777,
Vermont, Peunsylvauia and Massachusetts freed their slaves
and permitted them to vote, "provided they had the requisite
age, property and residence." The 15th Amendment of a
later day was an outrageous document, framed regardless
of any such qualifications, but giving the ignorant Ilack
man rights even above the white citizens.
In order to induce the Southern States to accept the
Federal constitution in the beginning and have the country
become a Union of States, thie opposers of slavery had to
compromise the use of terms, and take measures that seem-
ed expedient. They fondly hoped as time rolled on, to
legislate the freedom of slaves. But the invention of the
cotton gin by Eli Whitney, in 1793, immensely increased
the value of slave labor, and forever fastened the institution
upon the southern planters, so far as future legislation was
concerned. It had been s.o difficult to separate the cotton
fiber by hand, requiring a whole day to one pound. that it
was only a minor product; but now the wonderful source of
revenue made possible by the new invention, caused the
importation of many more slaves, and cotton growing in a
million acres became king of the marts. The planter would
not willingly give up his property honestly acquired, and
plainly permitted by the constitution.
Slavery was a constant obstacle to the perfect Union of
States. In 1790 during the second session of the first con-
gress, the Quakers and the Pennsylvania Abolition Society,
through Benjamin Franklin, its President, prayed Congress
to restore to liberty those held in bondage. The question
was debated in the House in a warm, excited manner.
Members from South Carolina and Georgia argued that
slavery, being commended by t h e Bible, could not be
wrong; that the Southern States would not have entered
into the Confederacy unless their property had been guar-
anteed them, and any action of the general government
looking to the emancipation of slavery would not be sub-
mitted to. They said that South Carolina and Georgia
could only be cultivated by negro slaves, for the climate,
the nature of the soil, and ancient habits, precluded the
whites from performing the labor. If the negro were freed
he would not remain in those States; hence all the fertile
rice and indigo swamps must be deserted and would become
a wilderness. Purtherniiore the prohibiting of the slave
trade was at that time unconstitutional. James Madison
poured oil on the troubled waters by stating that Congress
could not interfere according to constitutional restrictions.
"Yet," he said, "there are a variety of ways by which it
could countenance the abolition; and regulations might be
made to introduce the freed slaves into the new states to be
formed out of the Western territory. (In parenthesis I re.
mark that if Madison could have looked down the years, lie
wvould have found that even though emancipated, the negro
will not leave the white settlements. Take our own little
city of L,-xington where some 17,000 of them are congregat-
ed, living in discomfort and poverty in most cases; yet
their nature is to depend in some fashion upon their white
neighbors and employers.)
It was finally decided in the House that Congress could
not prohibit the slave trade until the year 1808-that Con-
gress had no authority to interfere in the emancipation of
slaves, or in the treatment of them within any of the States.
This last resolution which is of great historic importance,
may be found on page 1523 of the II Vol. of Annals of
Congress,
Washington wrote to David Stuart in June 1790: "The
introduction of the Quaker memorial respecting slavery
was, to be sure, not only ill-timed, but occasioned a great
waste of time."
In 1793 the Fugitive Slave law was passed, whereby a
runaway slave captured in a free State" must be returned to
his owner. As the new States were admitted into the Union
they came in for the most part alternately free and slave
States. This was done to preserve the balance of power in
Congress.
The great aggressive Abolition movement that led
eventually to the Civil War, had its birth in 1831. Fanatics
like John Brown, and Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, fanned
into flame the sparks that had so long smouldered, till the
helpless negro was dragged from his havens of peace and
comfort. If he felt bitterness towards the whites, what was
to prevent his rising in insurrection and slaying them all
There were plantations where 600 or 700 slaves were govern-
ed by two or three white owners. They occupied little vil-
lages and had no care upon earth. They had their pastimes
and religious worships. "The courtly old planter, high-
bred and gentle, the plantation "uncle" who copied the
master's manners; and the broad-bosomed black maminy,
with vari-colored turban, spotless apron, and beaming face,
the friend and helper of every living thing in cabin or man-
sion, formed a trio we love to remember," The black
woman cared more for her white nursling than her own
child. This seems unnatural, but it was true; and many of
us recall the times that the mistress of the house had to
interfere to prevent the kitchen mother from cruelly whip-
ping her naughty offspring. Some relic of ancient African
barbarism still lingered in their untutored minds. We loved
our colored playmates, and their sable mothers and fathers.
Many a winning story of "way down upon de ole plantation"
has been truthfully told. Will S. Hays has immortalized it
in song.
A Southern writer has thus portrayed the Xmas time:
"For weeks beforehand everything was full of stir and prep-
aration. Holly and mistletoe and cedar were being put
about the rooms of the big house to welcome home the boys
and girls from school. Secret cnuncils were held as to the
Xmas gifts to be given to everyone, white and black. The
woodpile was loaded with oak and hickory logs to make
bright and warm the Christmas nights. The negro seam-
stresses were busy making new suits for all the servants."
The King was in the parlor counting out his money-to
pay out for gifts of the season-and the queen was in the
kitchen dealing bread and honey-to paraphrase Mother
Goose. Into the stately plantation home, with its lofty
white columns, its big rooms, and its great fireplaces, poured
the sons and daughters, grandchildren, uncles and aunts,
nephews and nieces. Assembled around the groaning
board, the patriarch asked the divine blessing and the twin
spirits of Christianity were rife in the land. There was only
a fitful sleep for the small boys and girls, who were up at
peep of day, stealing from room to room crying "Christmas
Gift!" Out on the back porches waited the negroes in
grinning rows to follow the example. All week the cabin
fires burned brightly and constant was the rejoicing over
their treasures, not forgetting the grand eatables and the
big bowl of egg-nogg.
Negroes are a religious as well as a superstitious race.
At midnight Saturday it was their custom to ring the great
plantation bell, and spend the next several hours in exhort-
in-, praying and singing their curious, doleful hymns. The
whites gave them instruction and training along these lines.
Heart and conscious were alike cultivated-not alone the
sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. Statistics show that
there were 466,000 slaves belonging to churches in the
South: Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, and
other sects. So the owners of these Christianized people
thought that they were doing missionary work in saving
them from the cannibalism of heathen Africa. Both men
and women were taught trades and useful occupations.
There were tanners, shoemakers, blacksmiths, farmers,
gardeners, horticulturists and carpenters among the men.
The women could sew, cook, card, spin, weave, knit, wash,
iron, in fact what they produced in this way would put to
shame the acquirements and accomplishments of free labor.
Many of the older negroes refused to be freed, when the
mighty proclamation came. They would not withdraw
from the protection of "Old Marster." Look at the pro-
duct of these two generations of freedom. What is he
Well we know the painful answer.
But while the buying of slaves for domestic, or field
service, was legitimate, the man who pursued the traffic as
a business, and purchased merely to sell again, was despis-
ed. He was termed a "nigger-buyer," and was a pariah in
the lowest sense of ostracism. It was claimed that there
was a distinction with a very great difference. Three or
four servants for ordinary household duties were deemed
sufficient. On a farm more bands were needed, and the
plantations further south required several hundred. The
refractory slave of Kentucky and the border states, was sold
"down the river" in commercial parlance, where the disci-
pline of the rice, sugar, and cotton plantations kept in check
his evil inclinations. rhere might have been cases of cruel
punishment, but the rple was kindness-if for no other
reason, the master would not injure that which stood for
money, for property. The expense of keeping slaves was
enormous. Where is the laborer of to-day who is furiiished
his house, clothing, doctors, medicine, and not a little
pocket money on occasions
The South employed her laborers to produce the great
staple of cotton, which was to clothe mankind. They were
properly clothed, fed and made comfortable. In addition,
they were cared for when sick, and there existed the warm-
est affection for the majority of them. The world can
nowhere show human beings as care-free in bondage as were
the negroes of the ante-bellum days. Judge the Southern
owner by the rule and not the exception. As well judge
a town by its halt. maimed, blind, diseased and lawless
citizens, as the slave owners by occasional acts of oppression
to be found on the plantations. But it was the 'Down- east"
Yankee overseer who was cruel-not the master. It was
the African in New England who was denied religious teach.
ing, and even baptism. There was no sympathy there, to
quote from a writer, for the poor creatures transplanted
from their native suny clime, dying by hundreds from dis-
ease on the bleak Northern shores. It was merely a question
of profit and loss, They weresold to the South as fast as
they could be shipped. Even when the great hue and cry
for freedom led the Northern Senators to legislate for the
cessation of foreign slavery in 1808, these great philanthrop-
ists rushed over some 5,000 slaves to sell to the South before
the limited date could come around. Many prominent rich
men of New England made their money by this traffic, then
pulled a long face of condemnation for the Southern planter,
whose money had been paid over to swell the Northern
coffers.
IT IS WORTHY OF NOTE THAT THE SOUTH
NEVER OWNED OR SAILED A SLAVE SHIP.
In 1861 Mr. C. C. Glay, of Alabama, made a bitter
speech in the United States Senate. Part of his arraign-
ment was that not a decade had passed that the North had
not persecuted the South on account of her slaves.
"You denied us Christian communion because you could not endure
slave-holding. You refused us permission to sojourn, or even pass
through the North with our property You refused us any share of
the lands acquired mainly by our diplomacy and blood and treasure.
You robbed us of our property and refused to restore it."
The speaker went minutely into the outrages perpe-
trated by the Abolition party. The list of oppressions had
reach a crisis. Meanwhile the cotton and the cane went on
in Dixie land, to the wierd ditties and the quaint folk-lore
of the happy-go-lucky race. So the outbreak of the war
found the American slave in the height of his prosperity,
unmindful of so-called wrongs, and utterly unfit for the
boasted freedom that was thrust upon him. The cruel
decree was carried out, and millions of helpless beings were
turned adrift without rudder or compass, to bemoan the
loss of the good old times when they were provided with
the comforts of life they were nevermore to know. With
the moral question of slavery this paper has nothing to do.
Facts, and facts alone, dictate the record. But who has
been, and who is now, the friend of the erstwhile slave
The Northerner or the Southerner Says one: "We have
freed you, but we don't want you." Says the other: "We
did not free you, but we will take you and make you com-
fortable. We love your people-you, who have rocked us
on your faithful breasts-who have interl