The gentlemanly darky went, and soon returned with the glassware; and meanwhile Larkin directed another well-clad negro man to 'bring the jugs.' They were strung across the back of a horse which was tied near, and, uncorking one of them, the trader said: 'I allers carry my own pizen. 'Taint right to give even nigs sech hell-fire as they sell round har; it git's a feller's stumac used ter tophet 'fore the rest on him is 'climated.'

'Well, it does,' I replied; 'it's the devil's own warming pan.'

Each negro received a fair quantity of the needed beverage, and seemed the better for it. A little brandy, 'for the stomach's sake,' is enjoyed by those dusky denizens of the low latitudes.

When they were all supplied, the trader said to me: 'Now, what d'ye say, Kirke? What'll ye give fur the boy?'

'Well, I reckon I doan't want no boys jest now; and I doan't know as I wants ary 'ooman nother; but if ye've got a right likely gal—one thet'll sew, and nuss good—I moight buy her fur a friend o' mine. His wife's hed twins, and he moight use her ter look arter the young 'uns.'

'Young or old?'

'Young and sprightly.'

'They is high, ye knows—but thar's a gal that'll suit. Git up gals;' and a row of five women rose: 'No; git up thar, whar we kin see ye.' They stepped up on the log. 'Now, thar's a gal fur ye,' he continued, pointing to a clean, tidy mulatto woman, not more than nineteen, with a handsome but meek, sorrow-marked face: 'Luk at thet!' and he threw up her dress to her knees, while the poor girl reached down her shackled hands in the vain effort to prevent the indignity. He was about to show off other good points, when I said: 'Never mind—I see what she is. Let 'em git down.'

They resumed their seats, and he continued: 'Thet's jest the gal ye wants, Kirke—good at nussin', wet or dry; good at breedin', too; hed two young 'uns, a'ready. Ye kin * * * * *' [The rest of this discourse will not bear repeating.]

'No, thank you.'

'Well, jest as ye say. She's sound, though; sold fur no fault. Har young massa's ben a-usin' on har—young 'uns are his'n. Old man got pious; couldn't stand sech doin's no how—ter home—so he says ter me, 'Jake, says he, take har ter Orleans—she's jest the sort—ye'll make money sellin' har ter some o' them young bloods. Ha! ha! thet's religion for ye! I doan't know, Kirke, mebbe ye b'long ter the church, and p'raps yer one o' the screamin' sort; but any how, I say, d—— sech religion as thet. Jake Larkin's a spec'lator, but he wouldn't do a thing like thet—ef he would, d—— him.'

[The dealer in negroes never applies the term 'trader' to himself; he prefers the softer word, 'speculator.' The phrase 'negro trader' is used only by the rest of the community, who are 'holier than he.']

'I doan't b'lieve ye would, Larkin; yer a good fellow, at bottom, I reckon.'

'Well, Kirke, yer a trump. Come, hev another drink.'

'No; excuse me; karn't stand more'n one horn a day: another'd lay me out flatter'n a stewpan. But ter business. How much fur thet gal—cash down? Come, talk it out.'

'Well, at a word—twelve hun'red.'

'Too much; bigger'n my pile; couldn't put so much inter one gal, nohow. Wouldn't give thet money fur ary nig in Car'lina.'

'Oh, buy me, good massa. Mister Larkin'll take less'n dat, I reckon; do buy me,' said the girl, who had been eying me very closely during the preceding dialogue.

'I would, my good girl, if I could; but you'll not exactly suit my friend.'

'Buy har fur yourself, then, Kirke. She'd suit you. She's sound, I tell ye—ye'd make money on har.'

'Not much, I reckon,' I replied, dryly.

'Why not? She'll breed like a rabbit.' * * * * *

'I wouldn't own her for the whole State: if I had her, I'd free her on the spot!' The cool bestiality of the trader disgusted me, and I forgot myself.

He started back surprised; then quietly remarked: 'Ye're a Nutherner, I swar; no corncracker ever held sech doctrines as them.'

'Yes,' I replied, dropping the accent, which my blunder had rendered useless; 'I am a Northerner; but I want a nurse, notwithstanding, for a friend.'

'Whar d'ye live?' asked the trader, in the same free, good-natured tone as before.

'In New York.'

'In York! What! Yer not Mr. Kirke, of Randall, Kirke & Co.? But, blamenation, ye ar! How them whiskers has altered ye! I thort I'd seed ye afore. Haint ye come it over me slick? Tuk in clean, swallered hull. But thar's my hand, Mr. Kirke; I'm right glad ter see ye.'

'Where have you met me, my good fellow? I don't remember you.'

'Down ter Orleans. Seed ye inter Roye, Struthers & Co.'s. The ole man thinks a heap o' you; ye give 'em a pile of business, doan't ye.'

'No, not much of our own. They buy cotton for our English correspondents, and negotiate through us, that is all. Roye is a fine old gentleman.'

'Yes, he ar; I'm in with him.'

'How in with him?'

'Why, in this business—we go snacks; I do the buyin', and he finds the rocks. We use a pile—sometimes a hun'red, sometimes two hun'red thousand.'

'Is it possible! Then you do a large business?'

'Yes, right smart; I handle 'bout a thousand—big and little—ev'ry year.'

'That is large. You do not buy and sell them all, yourself, do you?'

'Oh, no? I hardly ever sells; once in a while I run agin a buyer—like you—ha! ha!—and let one drap; but gin'rally I cage 'em, and when I git 'bout a hun'red together, I take 'em ter Orleans, and auction 'em off. Thar's no fuss and dicker 'bout thet, ye knows.'

'Yes, I know! But how do you manage so large a gang? I should think some would get away.'

'No, they doan't. I put the ribands on 'em; and, 'sides, ye see them boys, thar?' pointing to three splendid specimens of property, loitering near; 'I've hed them boys nigh on ter ten year, and I haint lost nary a nig sense I had 'em. They're cuter and smarter nor I am, any day.'

'Then you pick the negroes up round the country, and send them to a rendezvous, where you put them in jail till you make up your number?'

'Yes, the boys takes 'em down ter the pen. I'm pickin' sum up round har, now, ye see, and I send 'em ter Goldsboro'. When I've toted these down thar, the boys and I'll go up ter Virginny.'

'Why don't you send them on by stage? I should think it would hurt them to camp out at this season.'

'Hurt 'em! Lord bless ye, fresh air never hurt a nig; they're never so happy as sleepin' on the groun', with nothin' over 'em, and thar heels close ter a light-wood fire.'

'But the delicate house women and the children, can they bear it?'

'It do come a trifle hard on them, but it doan't last long. I allers takes ter the railroad when I gets a gang together.'

'Well, come; I want a woman. Show me all you have.'

'Do ye mean so, raally, Mr. Kirke? I thort ye wus a comin' it on me, and I swar ye does do the Suthern like a native. I'm blamed ef I didn't s'pose ye b'longed round har. Ha! ha! How the ole man would larf ter hear it!'

'But I am a native, Larkin; born within sight of Bunker Hill.'

'Yes, thet kind o' native; and them's the sort, too. They make all-fired smart spec'lators. I knows a dozen on 'em, thet hev made thar pile, and haint older'n I am, nother.'

'Is it possible! Yankees in this business?'

'Yes, lots on 'em. Some on yer big folks up ter York and Bostin are in it deep; but they go the 'portin' line, gin'rally, and thet—d—d if I'd do it, anyhow.'

'Well, about the woman. None of these will do; are they all you have?'

'No, I've got one more, but I've sort o' 'lotted har ter a young feller down ter Orleans. He told me ter git him jest sech a gal. She's 'most white, and brought up tender like, and them kind is high prized, ye knows.'

'Yes, I know; but where is she—let me see her?'

'She's in the store;' and rising, he led the way to the shanty.

When we arrived at the part of the ground where the marksmen were stationed, we found an altercation going on between Tom and a young planter. It appeared that the young man had paid for a shot, and insisted on his body servant taking his place in the lists. To that Tom, and the stout yeomen who had entered for the turkey, objected, on account of the yellow man's station and complexion.

The young gentleman was dressed in the highest style of fashion, and, though not more than nineteen, was evidently a 'blood' of 'the very first water.' The body servant was a good-looking quadroon, and sported an enormous diamond pin and a heavy gold watch chain. In his sleek beaver hat, and nicely-brushed suit of black broadcloth, he looked a much better-dressed gentleman than any one on the ground.

As we approached, Tom, every pimple on his red face swelling with virtuous indignation, was delivering himself of the following harangue:

'We doan't put ourselfs on a futtin' with niggers, Mr. Gaston. We doan't keer if they do b'long ter kid-gloved 'ristocrats like ye is; they karn't come in har, no how! Ye'd better go home. Ye orter be in better business then prowlin' round shootin' matches, with yer scented, bedevilled-up buck niggers. Go home, and wash the smell out o' yer cloes. Yer d——d muskmelon (Tom's word for musk) makes ye smell jest like hurt skunks; and ye ar skunks, clar through ter the innards. Whew! Clar eoeut, I tell ye!'

The young man's face reddened. The blood of the chivalry was rising. He replied:

'Keep a civil tongue in your head, you thieving scoundrel; if you don't, the next time I catch you trading with my nigs, I'll see you get a hundred lashes; d——d if I don't.'

Tom bade him go to a very warm latitude, and denied trading with negroes.

'You lie, you sneaking whelp; you've got the marks on your back now, for dealing with Pritchett's.'

Tom returned the lie, when the young man's face grew a trifle redder, and his whip rising in the air, it fell across Tom's nose in a very uncomfortable manner—for Tom. The liquor vender reeled, but, recovering himself in a moment, he aimed a heavy blow at the young gentleman's frontispiece. That 'parlor ornament' would have been sadly disfigured, had not the darky caught the stroke on his left arm, and at the same moment planted what the 'profession' call a 'wiper,' just behind Tom's left ear. Tom's private dram shop went down—'caved in'—was 'laid out sprawling;' and two or three minutes elapsed before it got on its legs again. When it did, it frothed at the mouth like a mug of ale with too much head on it.

They were not more than six paces apart, when Tom rose, and drawing a double-barrelled pistol from his pocket, aimed it at the planter. The latter was in readiness for him. His six-shooter was level with Tom's breast, and his hand on the trigger, when, just as he seemed ready to fire, the negro trader coolly stepped before him, and twisted the weapon from his hand. Turning then to Tom, Larkin said, 'Now, you clar out. Make tracks, or I'll lamm ye like blamenation. Be off, I tell ye,' he added as Tom showed an unwillingness to move. 'A sensible man like ye arn't a gwine ter waste good powder on sech a muskrat sort of a thing as this is, is ye? Come, clar!' and he placed his hand on Tom's shoulder, and accelerated his rather slow movements toward the groggery. Returning then to the young man, he said:

'And now you, Mr. Gustavus Adolphus Pocahontas Powhatan Gaston, s'pose you clar out, too?'

'I shall go when I please—not before,' said Mr. Gaston.

'You'll please mighty sudden, then, I reckon. A young man of your edication should be 'bout better business than gittin' inter brawls with low groggery keepers, and 'sultin' decent white folks with your scented-up niggers. Yer a disgrace ter yer good ole father, and them as was afore him. With yer larnin' and money ye moight be doin' suthin' fur them as is below ye; but instead o' thet, yer doin' nothin' but hangin' round bar rooms, gittin' drunk, playin' cards, drivin' fast hosses, and keepin' nigger wimmin. I'm ashamed o' ye. Yer gwine straight ter hell, ye is; and the hull country's gwine thar, too, 'cause it's raisin' a crap of jest sech idle, no-account, blusterin', riproaring young fools as you is. Now, go home. Make tracks ter onst, or I'll hev thet d——d nigger's neck o' your'n stretched fur strikin' a white man, I will! Ye knows me, and I'll do it, as sure's my name's Jake Larkin.'

The young planter listened rather impatiently to this harangue, but said nothing. When it was concluded, he told his servant to bring up the horses; and then turning to the trader, said:

'Well, Right Reverend Mr. Larkin, you'll please to make yourself scarce around the plantation in future. If you come near it, just remember that we keep dogs, and that we use them for chasing—niggers.' The last word was emphasized in a way that showed he classed Larkin with the wares he dealt in.

'Yer father, young man, is a honest man, and a gentleman. He knows I'm one, if I do trade in niggers; and he'll want ter see me when I want ter come.'

The negro by this time had brought up the horses. 'Good evening, Mr. Larkin,' said young Hopeful, as he mounted and rode off.

'Good evenin', replied the trader, coolly, but respectfully.

'Good evenin', Mister Larkin,' said the gentleman's gentleman, as he also mounted to ride off. The emphasis on the 'Mister' was too much for the trader, and taking one spring toward the darky, he laid his stout whip across his face. The scented ebony roared, and just then his horse, a high-blooded animal, reared and threw him. When he had gathered himself up, Larkin made several warm applications of his thick boot to the inexpressible part of the darky's person, and, roaring with pain, that personage made off at a gait faster than that of his runaway horse.

During the affray the occupants of the ground gathered around the belligerents; but as soon as it was over, they went quietly back to 'old-sledge' 'seven-up,' 'pitch-and-toss,' 'chuck-a-luck,' and the 'turkey match.'

As we walked toward the shanty, the trader said: 'Thet feller's a fool. What a chance he's throwin' away! He arn't of no more use than a rotten coon skin or a dead herrin', he arn't. All on our young bucks is jest like him. The country's going to the devil, sure;' and with this choice bit of moralizing, he entered the cabin.

CHAPTER VI.

The Squire was pacing to and fro in the upper end of the room, and the woman and children were seated on the low bench near the counter. Phyllis lifted her eyes to my face as I entered, with a hopeful, inquiring expression, but they fell again when the trader said: 'Thet's the gal fur ye, Mr. Kirke; the most perfectest gal in seven States; good at onything, washin', ironin', nussin', breedin'; rig'larly fotched up; worth her weight in gold; d——d if she haint.' Turning then to Preston, he exclaimed: 'Why, Squire, how ar ye?'

'Very well,' replied my friend, coolly.

'How's times?' continued the trader.

'Very well,' said Preston, in a tone which showed a decided distaste for conversation.

'Well, glad on it. I heerd ye were hard put. Glad on it, Squire.'

The Squire took no further notice of him; and, turning to his property, the trader said: 'Stand up, gal, and let me show the gentleman what yer made of. Doan't look so down in the mouth, gal; this gentleman's got a friend thet'll keep ye in the style ye's fotched up ter.'

Phyllis rose and made a strong effort to appear composed.

'Now, Mr. Kirke, luk at thet rig,' said Larkin, seizing her rudely by the arm and turning her half around; 'straight's a rail. Luk at thet ankle and fut—nimble's a squirrel, and healthy!—why, ye couldn't sicken har if ye put har ter hosspetal work.'

'Well, never mind. I see what she is. What's your price?'

'But ye haint seed har, yit! She's puny like, I knows, but she's solid, I reckon; thar haint a pound of loose stuff on har—it's all muscle. See thar—jest look o' thet,' and he stripped the sleeve of her dress to the elbow; 'thar's a arm fur ye—whiter'n buttermilk, and harder'n cheese. Feel on't.'

The poor woman submitted meekly to this rough handling of her person, but I said impatiently:

'I tell you, Larkin, I'm satisfied. Name your price. I've no time to lose: the stage will be along in five minutes.'

'The stage! Lord bless ye, Mr. Kirke, it's broke down—'twon't be har fur an hour—I knows. Now look o' thet,' he continued, drawing the poor woman's thin dress tightly across her limbs, while he proceeded, despite my repeated attempts to interrupt him, with his disgusting exhibitions, which it would be disgraceful even to describe. 'Ye doan't mind, do ye, gal?' he added, chucking her under the chin in a rude, familiar way, and giving a brutal laugh. Phyllis shrank away from him, but made no reply. She had evidently braced her mind to the ordeal, and was prepared to bear anything rather than offend him. I determined to stop any further proceeding, and said to him:

'I tell you, Larkin, I'm satisfied. I cannot waste more time in this manner. Name your price at once.'

'Time! Mr. Kirke? why yer time arn't worth nothin' jest now. The stage won't be 'long till dark. Ye haint seed half on har, yit. I doan't want ter sell ye a damaged article. I want ter show ye she's sound's a nut—ye won't pay my price ef I doan't. Look a thar, now,' and with a quick, dexterous movement, he tore open the front of her dress. * * * * *

The poor girl, unable to use her hands, bent over nearly double, and strained the children to her breast to hide her shame. A movement at the other end of the room made me look at the Squire. With his jaws set, his hands clenched, and his face on fire, he bounded toward the trader. In a moment he would have been upon him. My own blood boiled, but, knowing that an outbreak would be fatal to our purpose, I planted myself firmly in his way, and said, as I took him by the arm and held him by main force:

'Stand back, Preston; this is my affair.'

'Yes, Squire,' added the trader, 'ye'd better be quiet. Ye'll turn trader, yerself, yit. If things is true, ye'll have ter begin on yer own nigs, mighty sudden.'

'If I am brought to that,' replied the Squire, with the calm dignity which was natural to him, 'I shall treat them like human beings—not like brutes.'

'Ye'll show 'em off the best how ye kin; let ye alone fur thet; I know yer hull parson tribe; thar haint nary a honest one among ye.'

Preston turned silently away, as if disdaining to waste words on such a subject; and I said to the trader:

'Mr. Larkin, I've told you I've no time to lose. Name your price at once, or I'll not buy the woman at all.'

'Well, jest as ye say, Mr. Kirke. But ye see she's a rare 'un; would bring two thousand in Orleans, sure's a gun.'

'Pshaw! you know better than that; but, name your price.'

'What, fur the hull, or the 'ooman alone?'

'Either way; I've no particular use for the children, but I'll buy them if cheap.'

'Oh! do buy us,' cried the little girl, taking hold of my coat; 'do buy us—please do, good massa.'

'Shet up, ye young whelp,' said the trader, raising his whip. The little thing slunk back affrighted, and commenced sobbing, but said no more.

'Well, Mr. Kirke, the lot cost me sixteen fifty, hard rocks, and 'twas dirt cheap, 'cause the 'ooman alone'll bring more'n thet. I couldn't hev bought har fur thet, but har owner wus hard up. Ye see he's Gin'ral——, down ter Newbern, one of yer rig'lar 'ristocrats, the raal ole-fashioned sort—keeps a big plantation, house in town; fine wines; fine wimmin; fast hosses; and goes it mighty strong. Well, he's allers a trifle under—ev'ry year 'bout two thousand short; and ev'ry year I buy a couple or so of nigs on him ter make it up. He's a pertickerler friend o' mine, ye see; he thinks a heap o' me—he does. Well, when I gets 'long thar t'other day, he says ter me, says he: 'Lark,' (he allers calls me Lark; thet's the name I goes by 'mong my intimate 'quaintance), well, says he; 'Lark, thar's Phylly. I want ye ter take har. She's the likeliest gal in the world—good old Virginny blood, father one of the raal old stock. Ye knows she's right, good ev'ry way, prays like a camp meetin', and virtuous ter kill; thar ain't none round har thet's up to har at thet—tried ter cum round har myself, but couldn't git nigher'n a rod—won't hev but one man, and'll stick ter him like death; jest the gal fur one o' them New Orleans bloods as wants one thet'll be true ter 'em. Do ye take, Lark?' says he. 'Well, I do, says I, and I knows just the feller fur har; one of yer raal high-flyers—rich's a Jew—twenty thousand a year—lives like a prince—got one or two on 'em now; but he says to me when I comes off, 'Lark,' says he, 'find me a gal, raather pale, tidy, hard's a nut, and not bigger'n a cotton bale.' Wall, says I, 'I will,' and, Gin'ral, Phylly's the gal! She'll hev good times, live like a queen, hev wines, dresses, hosses, operas, and all them sort o' things—ye knows them ar fellers doan't stand fur trifles.' 'Yes, I knows, Lark,' says the Gin'ral, 'and bein' it's so, ye kin take har, Lark; but I wouldn't sell har ter ary nother man livin'—if I would, d——n me. Ye kin hev har, Lark, but ye must take the young 'uns; she's got two, ye knows, and it hain't Christian-like ter sell 'em apart.' 'D——n the young 'uns, Gin'ral,' says I,' I karn't do nary a thing with them. What'll one o' them young bloods want o' them? They goes in fur home manufactures.' 'Yes, I knows, Lark,' says he, 'but ye kin sell 'em off thar—ony planter'll buy 'em—they'll pay ter raise. They're two likely little gals, ye knows; honest born, white father, and'll make han'some wimmin—han'somer'n thar mother, and sell higher when they's grow'd; ye'd better take 'em, Lark. If ye doan't, I'm d——d if I'll sell ye the mother; fur, ye see, I must have the hull vally, now, that's honest.' 'Wall, Gin'ral,' says I, 'ye allers talks right out, that's what I likes in ye. What's the price?' 'Wall,' says he, 'bein' it's ye, and ye've a good master in yer eye for Phylly, I'll say two thousand fur the lot—the gal alone'll fetch twenty-five hun'red down ter Orleans.' 'Whew!' says I, 'Gin'ral, ye've been a takin' suthin'. (But he hadn't; he war soberer than a church clock; 'twarn't more'n 'lev'n, and he's never drunk 'fore evenin'.) Wall,' says I, 'karn't think of it, nohow, Gin'ral.' Then he come down ter eighteen, but I counted out sixteen fifty—good rags of the old State Bank—and I'm blamed if he didn't take it. I'd no idee he wud; but debt, Mr. Kirke, debt's the devil—but it helps us, 'cause, I s'pose (and he laughed his hardened, brutal laugh), we do the devil's own work. But be thet how it may, if these high flyin' planters didn't run inter it, and hev ter pay up, nigger spec'latin' wouldn't be worth follerin'. Well, I took the nig's, and thar they is; and bein' it's you, Mr. Kirke, and yer a friend of the ole man, you shill hev the lot fur a hun'red and fifty more, or the 'ooman alone fur fifteen hun'red; but ary nother white man couldn't toch 'em fur less'n two thousand—if they could, d——n me.'

The stage had not arrived, and I had submitted to this lengthy harangue, because I saw I could more certainly accomplish the purchase by indulging the humor of the trader. The suspense was, no doubt, agony to Phyllis, and the Squire manifested decided impatience, but the delay seemed unavoidable. It was difficult for Preston to control himself. He chafed like a chained tiger. At first he paced up and down the farther side of the apartment, then sat down, then rose and paced the room again, and then again sat down, every now and then glaring upon Larkin with a look of savage ferocity that showed the wild beast was rising in him. The trader once in a while looked toward him with a cool unconcern that indicated two things: nerves of iron, and perfect familiarity with such demonstrations.

Fearing an explosion, I at last stepped up to the Squire, and said to him in a low tone: 'Let me beg of you to leave the room—do—you may spoil all.' He made no reply, but did as I requested.

When he had gone, Larkin remarked, in an indifferent way, 'The Squire's got the devil in him. He's some when his blood's up—edged tools, dangerous ter handle—he is—I knows him.' I'd ruther have six like Tom on me, ony time, than one like him. But he karn't skeer me. The man doan't breathe thet kin turn Jake Larkin a hair.'

'I see he's excited,' I replied; 'but why is he so interested in this woman?'

'Why? She was fotched up 'long with him—children together. He owned har till he got in the nine-holes one day, and sold har ter the Gin'ral. I'd bet a pile the young 'uns ar his'n. He knows har as he do the psa'm book. Ha! ha!' and he laughed his brutal laugh, as, chucking Phyllis again under the chin, he asked, 'Doan't he, gal?'

She shrank away from him, but said nothing.

'Doan't be squeamy, gal; out with it; we'll think the more on ye fur't. Arn't the young 'uns his'n? Didn't ye b'long ter the Squire till he got so d——d pious five year ago?'

'Yes, master; I belonged to him; Master Robert wus allers pious.'

'Yes, I knows; he wus allers preachin' pious. But didn't ye b'long ter him—ye knows what I means—till he got so d——d camp-meetin' pious five year ago?'

'Master Robert was allers camp-meetin' pious,' replied the woman, looking down, and drawing her thin shawl more closely over her open bosom.

'Well,' said Larkin, 'ye karn't git nothin' out o' har, but it's so—sartin! Ev'ry 'un says so; and what ev'ry 'un says arn't more'n a mile from the truth. Jest look o' that little 'un. Doan't ye see the Squire's eyes and forrerd thar?' and he took the little girl roughly by the arm, and turned her face toward mine. The lower part of her features were like her mother's, but her eyes, hair, and forehead were Preston's!

'Yes, I see,' I said; 'but you spoke of two little girls; where is the other?'

'Well, you see, I bought 'em both, and the Gin'ral give me a bill o' sale on 'em; but when we come to look arter the young 'un in the mornin', she warn't thar. The Gin'ral's 'ooman—she's a 'ooman fur me—a hull team—she makes him stan' round, I reckon. Well, she'd a likin' for the little 'un, and she swoore she shouldn't be sold. She told me ter my face she'd packed har off whar I couldn't git har, nohow; and she said she'd raise the town, and hev me driv' out if I 'tempted it.'

'What did you do then?' I asked.

'Well, ye knows the Gin'ral's a honerubble man; so, when he seed his 'ooman was sot thet way, he throw'd in the yaller boy—and he's wuth a hun'red more'n the gal, ony day. His mother took on ter kill, 'cause the Gin'ral'd sort o' promised him ter har, and she'd been a savin' up ter buy him. But the Gin'ral's a honerubble man, and he didn't flinch a hair—not a hair. Thet's the sort ter deal with, I say. I stuck fur the little gal, though—'cause, ye see, I'd takin' a likin' ter har myself—she's the pootiest little thing ye ever seed, she is; but the Gin'ral he said 'twarn't no use, fur his 'ooman would have har way, and finally I guv in, and took another bill o' sale. And what d'ye think! I'd no more'n got it inter my pocket, 'fore the Gin'ral's 'ooman pulled out a gold watch, two or three diamond pins, a ring or two, and some wimmin's fixin's, and says she, 'See thar, Mister Larkin, them's what I got fur the little gal. I've sold har—sold har this mornin', and guv the bill o' sale; and if the Gin'ral doan't cartify it, he woan't git no peace, I reckon. I was bound ter see one on 'em done right by, I was.' Well, I told har she wus ahead o' my time, and I put out raather sudden, I did. A 'ooman's the devil; I'd ruther trade with twenty men than one 'ooman, I swar.'

When he spoke of her child, the slave woman burst into tears. Her emotion drowned the curiosity which had made me a patient listener to the trader's story, and recalled me to the business in hand. With some twinges of conscience for having kept the wretched girl so long on the rack, I said to him, 'Well, Larkin, let's get through with this. Name your lowest price for the lot.'

'P'raps you'd as lief throw out the boy. I'll take off three hundred fur him.'

'Oh! doan't ye leab Ally, massa; buy Ally too, massa; oh do, good massa!' he cried, with an expression of keen agony such as I had never till then seen in a child. He was a 'likely' little fellow, with a round, good-natured face, and a bright, intelligent eye; and though I presumed Preston felt no particular interest in him, I thought of his mother, depriving herself of sleep and rest to save up the price of her boy, and I said: 'No, I have taken a liking to him; I'll take the whole or none.'

'Well, then, seventeen fifty, not a dime less. Thet's only a hun'red profit.'

'Will a hundred profit satisfy you?'

'Yes, bein' as you's a friend of the ole man, and I hain't had 'em only four days.'

I quietly sat down on the bench, beside the little girl, and taking her hand in mine, and playing with her small fingers in a careless way, said: 'Well, I will give you a hundred profit; but, Larkin,' and I looked him directly in the eye and smiled, 'you cannot intend to come the Yankee over me! I am one of them myself, you know, and understand such things. These people cost you twelve hundred—not a mill more.'

'The h——ll they did! P'raps ye mean ter say I lie?' he replied, in an excited tone, his face reddening with anger.

'No, I don't. I merely state a fact, and you know it. So keep cool.'

'It's a d——d lie, sir. I doan't keer who says it,' he exclaimed, now really excited.

'Come, come, my fine fellow,' I said, rising and facing him; 'skip the hard words, and don't get up too much steam—it might hurt you, or your friends.'

'What d'ye mean? Speak out, Mr. Kirke. If ye doan't want ter buy 'em, say so, and hev done with it.' This was said in a more moderate tone. He had evidently taken my meaning, and feared he had gone too far.

'I mean simply this. This woman and the children cost you twelve hundred dollars four days ago. Preston wants them—must have them—and he will give thirteen hundred for them, and pay you in a year, with interest; that's all.'

'Well, come now, Mr. Kirke, thet's liberal, arn't it! S'pose I doan't take it, what then?'

'Then Roye, Struthers & Co. will stop your supplies, or I'll stop their's—that's 'SARTIN',' and I laughed good-humoredly as I said it.

'Well, yer one on 'em, Mr. Kirke, thet's a fact;' and then he added, seriously, 'but ye karn't mean to saddle my doin's onter them.'

'Yes, I will; and tell them they have you to thank for it.'

'What,' and he struck his forehead with his hand; 'what a dangnation fool I wus ter tell ye 'bout them!'

'Of course, you were; and a greater one to say you paid sixteen fifty for the property. I'd have given fifteen hundred for them if you had told the truth. But come, what do you say; are they Preston's or not?'

'No, I karn't do it; karn't take Preston's note—'tain't wuth a hill o' beans. Give me the money, and it's a trade.'

'Preston is cramped, and cannot pay the money just now. I'll give you my note, if you prefer it.'

'Payable in York, interest and exchange?'

'Yes.'

'Well, it's done. And now, d——n the nigs. I'll never buy ary 'nother good-lookin' 'un as long's I live.'

'I hope you won't,' I replied, laughing.

He then produced a blank note and a bill of sale, and drawing from his pocket a pen and a small ink bottle, said to me: 'Thar, Mr. Kirke, ye fill up the note, and I'll make out the bill o' sale. I'm handy at such doin's.'

'Give me the key of these bracelets first. Make out the bill to Preston—Robert Preston, of Jones County.'

He handed me the key, and I unlocked the shackles. 'Now, Phyllis,' I said, 'it is over. Go and tell Master Robert.'

She rose, threw her arms wildly above her head, and staggering weakly forward, without saying a word, left the cabin. Yelping and leaping with joy, the yellow boy followed her; but the little girl came to me, and looking up timidly in my face, said: 'O massa! Rosey so glad 'ou got mammy—Rosey so glad. Rosey lub 'ou, massa—Rosey lub 'ou a heap.' I thought of the little girl I had left at home, and with a sudden impulse lifted the child from the floor and kissed her. She put her little arms about my neck, laid her soft cheek against mine, and burst into tears. She was not accustomed to much kindness.

I filled out the note and gave it to the trader; and, with the bill of sale in my hand, was about to go in search of Preston, when he and Phyllis entered the cabin. I handed him the document, and glancing it over, he placed it in his pocket book.

'Now, Larkin,' I said, 'this is a wretched business; give it up; there's too much of the man in you for this sort of thing.'

'Well, p'raps yer right, Mr. Kirke; but I'm in it, and I karn't git out; but it seems ter me it tain't no wuss dealin' in 'em then ownin' 'em.'

'I don't know. Is it not a little worse on the man himself? Does it not sort of harden you—blunt your better feelings, to be always buying and selling people that do not want to be bought and sold?'

'Well, p'raps it do; it's a cussed business ony how. But thar's my hand, Mr. Kirke. Yer a gentleman, I swar, if ye hev come it over me, ha! ha! How slick you done it! I likes ye the better fur it; and if Jake Larkin kin ever do ye a good turn, he'll do it. I allers takes ter a man thet's smarter nor I am, I do,' and he gave my hand another of his powerful shakes.

'I thank you, Larkin; and if I can ever serve you, it will give me great pleasure to do so.'

'I doan't doubt it, Mr. Kirke, I doan't; and I'll call on ye, sure, if ye ever kin do me ony good. Good-by; ye want ter be with the Squire; good-by;' and giving my hand another shake, he left the cabin.

Which was the worse—that coarse, hardened man, or the institution which had made him what he was?

It was many years before the trader and I met again. When we did, he kept his word!



THE UNION.

II.

Having stated the course of England on the slavery question and the rebellion, gladly would I rest here; but, as a Northern man, by parentage, birth, and education, always devoted to the Union, twice elected by Mississippi to the Senate of the United States, as the ardent opponent of nullification and secession, and, upon that very question, having announced in my first address, of January, 1833, the right and duty of the Government, by "coercion," if necessary, to suppress rebellion or secession by any State, truth and justice compel me to say, that we of the North, next to England, are responsible for the introduction of slavery into the South. Upon a much smaller scale than England, but, under her flag, which was then ours, and the force of colonial tradition, we followed the wretched example of England, and Northern vessels, sailing from Northern ports, and owned by Northern merchants, brought back to our shores from Africa their living cargoes.

Small numbers only of these slaves were brought from their tropical African homes to the colder North, where their labor was unprofitable, but, were taken to the South, and against their earnest protest, forced upon them. It was not the South that engaged in the African slave trade. It was not the South that brought slavery into America. No, it was forced upon the South, against their protest, mainly by England, but partly, also, by the North. Believing, as I do, that this war was produced by slavery, we should still remember by whom the slaves were imported here.

Nor should we forget how zealously, from first to last, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware, in framing the Federal Constitution, sustained by Washington, Franklin, and Hamilton, and by New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, opposed the continuance, even for a day, of the African slave trade, and how they were overborne by the unfortunate coalition of the Eastern States with Georgia and the Carolinas, legalizing the execrable traffic for twenty years, and how fearfully the predictions of those great prophet statesmen, George Mason, of Virginia, and Luther Martin, of Maryland, have been fulfilled, that this fatal measure, by the force of its moral influence in favor of slavery, and by the rapid importation of negroes here, would menace the peace and safety of the Union.

Indeed, when the Constitution was framed, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware, not only opposed the African slave trade, but interdicted the interstate slave trade. All these States then regarded slavery as a great evil, destined soon to disappear, and the failure to adopt gradual emancipation arose, mainly, from the fact, that the majority could not agree as to the practical details of the measure. In Virginia, Washington, Jefferson, George Mason, Madison and Monroe, Marshall and St. George Tucker, were all gradual emancipationists. Even as late as 1830, the measure failed, only by a single vote in the Virginia State Convention; and this year, Western Virginia has voted for manumission with great unanimity. Let us then, as a nation, do our full duty on this question to all loyal citizens; and the border States, acting by compact with the Federal Government, will surely adopt the system of gradual emancipation and colonization. The failure of any State to adopt the measure immediately, although greatly to be deplored, is no indication as to what their course will be when the rebellion shall have been suppressed, and Congress acted definitely on the subject.

As the North, next to England, was mainly responsible for forcing slavery upon the South, honor demands that the whole nation, as an act of justice, and as a measure that would greatly exalt the character of the country, should bear any loss that may arise to loyal citizens from a change of system in any State. Indeed, under all the circumstances, the nation cannot afford to leave all the sacrifice, and all the glory of such an achievement, to the South only. It will be a grand historical fact in the progress of humanity, and must adorn the annals of the nation.

I speak now of the slaves of the loyal. What course should be pursued with the slaves of rebels, is a very different question. As regards the seceded States, it is clear, as our army advances, that the slaves of the disloyal, seized or coming voluntarily within our lines, with or without previous proclamation, necessarily will be, and ought to be emancipated, under that clause of the Constitution authorizing Congress to 'make rules concerning captures on land and water,' and the law carrying that provision into effect. There never has been a war, foreign or intestine, in which slaves coming within the lines of an army have not been emancipated. In the case of Rose vs. Himly, 2d Curtis, 87, the Supreme Court of the United States declared that, in case of rebellion, 'belligerent rights may be superadded to those of sovereignty,' and that we may punish the rebels as traitors, or, treating them, by land and sea, as we now do, as belligerents, under the war power, which is also a constitutional power, we may enforce the same military contributions, or make the same captures, as in case of a foreign war. Indeed, if this were otherwise, our Constitution, as claimed by secessionists and anti-coercionists, at home and abroad, would have been a miserable failure, and would have invited rebellion, by depriving us of the power to suppress it by all war measures recognized by the law of nations. Such is the law, ancient and modern, and the uniform practice of nations in suppressing rebellion. Such acts are not bills of attainder, operating as judgments without war or capture, but the exercise by Congress of the power expressly granted by the Constitution, applicable, as the Supreme Court has declared, in case of rebellion, to 'make rules concerning captures on land and water.' But this provision implies capture or conquest, and the act of Congress proposes no mere paper edicts, which, without capture or conquest, can only operate as offers of conditional amnesty to rebels, or freedom to slaves. This great constitutional war power, as our army advances, should be clearly proclaimed and exercised, and the slaves of the disloyal, used, as they are, to supply the means of support to the rebel armies, should be emancipated, as required by Congress, and employed, at reasonable wages, in some useful labor in aid of the Union cause. In this way, the rebel whites and masters must soon, to a vast extent, leave the army, to raise the provisions now supplied by their slaves, and the war thus much more speedily be brought to a successful conclusion. By paper edicts I mean those designed to operate as judgments or sentences, without capture or conquest, and not those announced under the acts of Congress, in advance, but only to become operative and consummated in the contingency of capture or conquest. The unconditional friends of the Union should not only adhere to the Constitution as the bulwark of our cause, but will find in that great instrument the most ample power to suppress the rebellion. It is the rebels who are striving to overthrow the Constitution, and we who are resolved to maintain and enforce it, in war and in peace, as 'the supreme law of the land,' in every State, from the lakes to the gulf, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

It is vain to deny the prejudice in the North against the negro race, constantly increasing as the numbers multiply, accompanied by the stern refusal of social or political equality with the negro, and the serious apprehension among their working classes of the degradation of labor by negro association, and the reduction of wages to a few cents a day by negro competition—all demonstrating, as a question of interest, as well as of humanity, that it is best for them, as for us, that the separation, though necessarily gradual and voluntary, must be complete and eternal.

Wherever the vote of the people of any State of the North has been taken on this question, it has been uniformly for the exclusion of the free negro race. In the midst of the excitement of the slavery question in Kansas, when the republicans acted alone upon the question of the adoption of their celebrated Topeka constitution, they submitted the free negro question to a distinct vote of the people, which was almost unanimous for their exclusion. The recent similar overwhelming vote, to the same effect, of the people of Illinois, is another clear test of the present sentiment of the nation. That sentiment is this: that the negro, although to be regarded as a man, and treated with humanity, belongs, as they believe, to an inferior race, communion or association with whom is not desired by the whites. Those who regard the slavery question as the only, or the principal difficulty, are greatly mistaken. The negro question is far deeper. It is not slavery, as a mere political institution, that is sustained in the South, but the greater question of the intermingling and equality of races. In this aspect, it is far more a question of race than of slavery. If, as among the Greeks and Romans, the white race were enslaved here, the institution would instantly disappear. Among the many millions of the population of the South, less than a tenth are slaveholders. Why, then, is it, that the non-slaveholding masses there support the institution? It is the instinct, the sentiment, the prejudice, if you please, of race, almost universal and unalterable. It is the fear that if the slaves of the South were emancipated, the non-slaveholding whites would be sunk down to their level. But let the non-slaveholders of the South know that colonization abroad would certainly accompany gradual emancipation, and they would support the measure. They do not wish the Africans among them; but if that must be the case, then they desire them to remain as slaves, and not to be raised to their own condition as freemen, to degrade labor and reduce its wages, as they believe. Abolition alone, touches then merely the surface of this question. It lies far deeper, in the antagonism of race, and the laws of nature. In this respect there is a union of sentiment between the masses, North and South, both opposing the introduction of free blacks.

Should the slaves be gradually manumitted and colonized abroad with their consent, and the North be thereafter reproached with aiding to force slavery upon the South, we could then truly say, that we had finally freely united with the South in expending our treasure to remove the evil. The offence of our forefathers would then be gloriously redeemed by the justice and generosity of their children, and made instrumental in carrying commerce, civilization, and Christianity to the benighted regions of Africa. Nor should the colonization be confined to Africa, but extended to 'Mexico, Central and Southern America' (as proposed in my Texas letter of the 8th January, 1844), and to the West Indies, or such other homes as might be preferred by the negro race.

From my youth upward, at all times and under all circumstances, whether residing North or South, whether in public or in private life, I have ever supported gradual emancipation, accompanied by colonization, as the only remedy for the evil of slavery. In my Texas letter, just referred to, published at its date over my signature, being then a senator from Mississippi, I expressed the following opinions on this great question:

'Again the question is asked, is slavery never to disappear from the Union? This is a startling and momentous question, but the answer is easy and the proof is clear—it will certainly disappear if Texas is reannexed to the Union, not by abolition, but in spite of all its frenzy, slowly and gradually, by diffusion, as it has thus nearly receded from several of the more Northern of the slaveholding States, and as it will certainly continue more rapidly to recede by the reannexation of Texas, into Mexico and Central and Southern America. Providence * * * thus will open Texas as a safety-valve, into and through which slavery will slowly and gradually recede, and finally disappear into the boundless regions of Mexico, and Central and Southern America. Beyond the Del Norte slavery will not pass; not only because it is forbidden by law, but because the colored races there preponderate in the ratio of ten to one over the whites, and holding, as they do, the government and most of the offices in their own possession, they will never permit the enslavement of any portion of the colored race, which makes and executes the laws of the country. In Bradford's Atlas the facts are given as follows:

'Mexico, area 1,690,000 square miles; population eight millions, one sixth white, and all the rest Indians, Africans, Mulattoes, Zambos, and other colored races. Central America, area 186,000 square miles; population nearly two millions, one sixth white, and the rest Negroes, Zambos, and other colored races. South America, area 6,500,000 square miles; population fourteen millions, one million white, four millions Indians, and the remainder, being nine millions, blacks and other colored races. The outlet for our negro race through this vast region can never be opened but by the reannexation of Texas; but, in that event, there, in that extensive country, bordering on our negro population, and four times greater in area than the whole Union, with a sparse population of but three to the square mile, where nine tenths of the people are of the colored races—there, upon that fertile soil, and in that delicious climate, so admirably adapted to the negro race, as all experience has now clearly shown, the free black would find a home. There, also, as the slaves, in the lapse of time, from the density of population and other causes, are emancipated, they will disappear, from time to time, west of the Del Norte, and beyond the limits of the Union, and among a race of their own color will be diffused through this vast region, where they will not be a degraded caste, and where, as to climate and social and moral condition, and all the hopes and comforts of life, they can occupy, amid equals, a position they can never attain in any part of this Union.'

This, it is true, was a slow process, but it was peaceful, progressive, and certain, especially when Texas should have been checkered by railroads, and her system connected with that of the South and of Mexico. I desired then, however, to accelerate this action, by making it a part of the compact of Texas with the Federal Government, that the proceeds of the sales of her public lands, exceeding two hundred millions of acres, should be devoted in aid of the colonization described in this extract. The principle, however, was adopted of State action by irrevocable compact with the Federal Government, by which, provision therein was made for abolishing slavery in all such States north of a certain parallel of latitude (embracing a territory larger than New England), as might be thereafter admitted by subdivision of the State of Texas. The power of action on this subject, by compact of a State with the General Government, was then clearly established, in perfect accordance with repeated previous acts of Congress, then cited by me. The doctrine rests upon the elemental principle of the combined authority of the nation, and a State, acting by compact within its limits.

It being clearly our interest and duty to adopt this system of gradual emancipation in the loyal States, with colonization abroad, aided by Congress, the constitutional power being unquestionable, and the expense comparatively small (less than a few months' cost of the war,) it is a signal mark of that special Providence, which has so often shielded our beloved country from imminent peril, that the President of the United States should have recommended, and Congress should have adopted, by so large a majority, this very system, by which slavery might soon disappear, at least from the border States. In making an appropriation for gradual emancipation and colonization, so much of the overture as embraced colonization might and should be extended to the North, as well as the South, so as, with their consent, to colonize beyond our limits the free blacks of every State.

In a former letter, published over my signature, of the 30th September, 1856, called 'AN APPEAL FOR THE UNION,' I said: 'I have never believed in a peaceable dissolution of the Union. * * No; it will be war, CIVIL WAR, of all others the most sanguinary and ferocious. * * It will be marked * * by frowning fortresses, by opposing batteries, by gleaming sabres, by bristling bayonets, by the tramp of contending armies, by towns and cities sacked and pillaged, by dwellings given to the flames, and fields laid waste and desolate. It will be a second fall of mankind; and while we shall be performing here the bloody drama of a nations suicide, from THE THRONES OF EUROPE will arise the exulting shouts of despots, and upon their gloomy banners shall be inscribed, as, they believe, never to be effaced, their motto, MAN IS INCAPABLE OF SELF-GOVERNMENT.' Alluding to the subject of the present discussion, I then also said: 'I see, too, what, in this probable crisis of my country's destiny, it is my duty again to repeat from my Texas letter: * * THE AFRICAN RACE, gradually disappearing from our borders, passing, in part, out of our limits to Mexico, and Central and Southern America, and in part returning to the shores of their ancestors, there, it is hoped, to carry Christianity, civilization, and freedom throughout the benighted regions of the sons of Ham.' My views, then, of 1844, were thus distinctly reiterated in 1856, in favor of the gradual extinction of slavery, accompanied by colonization.

The President of the United States, in view of the limited appropriation by Congress, and the economy of short voyages, has recommended one of the great interoceanic routes through the American isthmus for a new negro colony. It is a great object to secure the control of this isthmus by a friendly race, born on our soil, and the selection corresponds with the views expressed in my Texas letter of 1844. As, however, the negroes can only be colonized by their own consent, we should therefore, and as an act of humanity and justice, open all suitable homes abroad for their free choice. After much reflection, I think it is their interest and ours (when the nation shall make large and adequate appropriations), mainly to seek Liberia as a permanent home, establishing there, among their own race, and in the land of their ancestors, a great republic. Liberia has already largely contributed to the decline of the African slave trade. She has reclaimed from barbarism, for civilization, Christianity, liberty, and the English language, 700 miles of the coast, running far into the interior, reaching a high, healthy, well watered, rich, and beautiful country. She has already civilized and Christianized 300,000 native Africans, and brought them into willing obedience to her government. As her power extends along the coast and into the interior, she may soon extinguish the slave trade. This would relieve our squadron, stationed by treaty on the African coast to suppress that traffic, and leave the large sums, annually expended by Congress for that purpose, to be applied in further aid of the cause of colonization.

Providence, for several centuries, has mysteriously connected our destiny with that of the African race. This rebellion developes that purpose; the civilization of that race here, and their transfer to the land of their fathers, carrying with them our language, laws, religion, and free institutions, redeemed from the curse of slavery. Now, indeed, we see the approaching fulfilment of prophecy, when 'Ethiopia shall stretch forth her hands unto God.' We have just established commercial and diplomatic relations with Liberia, and, in separating from the race here, let us do them ample justice. Let us purchase for Liberia (which can be done for a small sum), the great adjacent coast and interior of Africa, and thus eventually evangelize and civilize that whole region. Liberia would thus expand and become the great Afric-American republic, and the dominant nation of that immense continent. Commerce, the first great missionary—like St. John in the wilderness, preceding the advent of the Redeemer—would penetrate that dark region, and the execrable trade in human beings, give way to the interchange of products and manufactures.

The Westminster Review has said, 'The Americans are planting free negroes on the coast of Africa; a greater event, probably, in its consequences, than any that has occurred since Columbus set sail for the New World.' Let us now adopt gradual emancipation, and the colonization of Africa, and the voyage of the great discoverer will have given civilization and Christianity to two continents, and eventually, we trust, the blessings of liberty to all mankind.

The divers products and fabrics of Africa and of our Union invite reciprocal commerce. We want her gold, coffee, ivory, dyestuffs, and numerous raw materials of manufactures; and she wishes our fabrics, engines, agricultural implements, breadstuffs, and provisions. The trade will give immense and profitable employment to our shipping. From the Cape of Good Hope to the Mediterranean, from the Atlantic to the Red sea and the Indian ocean, Africa is tropical or semi-tropical. She has most of the products of the East and West Indies. She can produce cheaper and better cotton than any other region, except our Southern States, to which, from their fertile soil, and climate favored by the Gulf Stream, free white labor will eventually give us, substantially, a monopoly of that great staple. She equals any country in the production of sugar, coffee, and cocoa. In palm oil and ivory she has almost a monopoly. Of spices, she has the clove, nutmeg, pepper, and cinnamon. Of dyes and dyewoods, she has indigo, camwood, harwood, and the materials for the best blue, brown, red, and yellow colors. In nuts, she has the palm, the ground, the cocoa, and the castor. In gums, she has the copal, senegal, mastic, India rubber, and gutta percha. In fruits, she has the orange, lime, lemon, citron, tamarind, papaw, banana, fig, grape, date, pineapple, guava, and plantain. In vegetables, she has the yam, cassado, tan yan, and sweet potato. She has beeswax and honey, and most valuable skins and furs. In woods, she has the ebony, mangrove, silver tree, teak, unevah, lignumvitae, rosewood, and mahogany. She has birds with the sweetest notes and brightest plumage, and fish and animals in the greatest variety. There are the giant elephant, rhinoceros, and hippopotamus. There the lordly lion roams, the monarch of his native forest, as if conscious of furnishing robes for royalty and symbolizing the flag of a great nation. Where animals of such sagacity, courage, power, and majesty are found, why should not man be great also? Our ancestors, the Britons, were once savages; so were our Celtic and Saxon forefathers, and most of them were slaves. What are their descendants now? Let Shakespeare, Newton, Fox, Burke, Pitt, Peel, Washington, Wellington, Franklin and Hamilton, Madison and Jefferson, the Adamses, Webster, Clay, and Jackson answer the question. I am hopeful of complete success; but whatever the result may be, we owe to ourselves, to our moral and material progress, but, above all, to the down-trodden race so long enslaved among us, to make the great experiment. If we succeed, it will be a monument to our glory, that will endure when time shall have crumbled the pyramids. If we fail, it will have been a noble effort in the cause of justice and humanity. Here, with the sentiment almost universal against the negro race, indicated by the votes and acts of all sections, and their exclusion everywhere, North and South, practically, from all social or political equality with the whites, they can never have among us any of those hopes, aspirations, energy, or opportunities, enabling them to test their capacity for great improvement. It is only where they shall be equals among equals, that they can ever attain high elevation. I take the facts as they are, and know that this prejudice of race here is ineradicable. In making the vain and hopeless effort to change it, we sacrifice to an impracticable idea our own good, and that of the race whose welfare we seek to promote. Colonization has heretofore been opposed by many, because they believed it hostile to manumission; but now, when emancipation is proposed, with appropriations to enable the manumitted to choose freely between remaining here and homes elsewhere, why should such a system encounter any hostility? Especially, when millions will vote for emancipation, if connected with voluntary colonization, why continue to oppose it? What objection is there to furnishing the means to enable the free or freed blacks to remain or to emigrate, and why should any of their friends wish to deprive them of such a privilege? Opposition springs also from confounding the border with the seceded States—the slaves of the loyal with those of the disloyal, and the conduct of the war; but the questions are different and independent.

On this subject of what is called abroad the prejudice of color, the North has been censured, even by many of our best friends. But it is impossible for Europe, where the African race are not, and never have been, either as slaves or freemen, to solve for us this most difficult problem of the social equality of the white and black races. Where marriage between them is unknown, such social equality cannot exist. Europe has an idea and a theory, but no practical knowledge of the subject. We have the facts and experience. Efforts have been made here for a century to establish this social equality, but the failure is complete. New England has devoted years of toil and thousands of dollars to accomplish this object, and the Quakers, and Franklin's Pennsylvania society, spared neither time nor money. Statesmen, philanthropists, and Christians have labored for years in the cause, but the case grows worse with each succeeding census. State after State, including now a large majority, forbid their introduction. The repugnance is invincible, and the census of 1840 (as shown by the tables annexed to my Texas letter of January, 1844) proved that one sixth of the negroes of the North are supported by taxation of the whites—a sum which would soon colonize them all. The free negroes, regarded here as an inferior caste, have no adequate motive for industry or exertion. Each year, as their numbers augment, intensifies the prejudice, invites collision in various pursuits, with competition for wages, and renders colonization more necessary. We must not any longer keep the free negro here in an exhausted receiver, or mix the races, as chemical ingredients in a laboratory, for the edification of experimental philosophers. Such empiricism as regards the negro race, after our repeated failures, is cruel and unjust. We have made the trial here for nearly a century, and the race continues to retrograde. Compare their progress and condition in America and Liberia, and what friend of the race or of humanity can desire to retain them among us? The voice of nature and of experience proclaims, that America is our home and Africa is theirs; and let us, in a spirit of true kindness and sympathy for them, obey the mandate.

There will soon be a great change among the free blacks on this subject. When Liberia shall expand and become a considerable power—when she shall have great marts of commerce, and her flag shall float in our harbors—when the Messages of her President, the reports of her Cabinet, the debates in her Congress shall be read here, her ministers and consuls be found among us, and the ambition of her race shall thus be aroused, we shall probably have as great a negro exodus from our country to Africa, as there ever was from Europe to America.

When the gold so profusely scattered through Africa shall reach our shores, as also her rich and varied products, when our reciprocal commerce shall be counted by millions of dollars, the home of their ancestors will present irresistible attractions to the negro race. Ceasing to be menials and inferiors, they will then go where they will be welcomed as citizens and rulers of a great republic. They will go where they govern themselves, and not where they are governed or enslaved by others. They will go where they give all the votes, and hold all the offices, and not where their exclusion is complete. They will go where the flag, the army, and navy, and government are theirs—and theirs also the social position—equals among equals, peers among peers. This they can never attain here: indeed, they will continue to retrograde, and become a mere element of social and political agitation. The complete success of Liberia must extinguish African slavery, here, and throughout the world. Emigration there, is the true interest and destiny of the negro race. Let us aid them to fulfil it. This is alike our interest and our duty. If they have been wronged here, let us pave their way with kindness and with gold on their return to the land of their forefathers. Let us aid them in building up there a great nation, which will call us blessed. Let the curse of slavery be forgotten, in the prosperous career of a great and free Afric-American republic. Born on our soil, let them transfer our language and institutions to Africa. Our material progress has been marvellous; but such an act, on our part, would indicate a moral advance, that would greatly exalt us among nations. Every dollar thus expended, would come back to us with compound interest, giving us also that which money cannot purchase, the consolation of good deeds, the favor of Heaven, and the blessing of mankind.

I have stated that so much of the overture made by Congress to the States, as regards appropriations for colonizing abroad their free blacks, should be extended to the free, as well as the slave States. Among the alleged evils of emancipation apprehended at the North, is the belief that this policy would fill the free States with manumitted slaves. But, by extending the proposed compacts, so far as regards colonization, to the free as well as the slave States, this result would not only be arrested, but the number of free blacks in the North, as well as the South, would soon be greatly diminished. The brutal assaults lately made by mobs on unoffending blacks in some of the free States is truly disgraceful. It is, however, a warning of the fatal consequences of retaining the free blacks in the North, especially when, from increasing density of population, or other causes, the struggle for subsistence, and competition for work and wages, between whites and negroes, should become general. In view of these facts, surely no friend of the negro race would persuade them to remain here.

NOTE.—This was printed before the President's emancipation proclamation, but is not hostile to it, when accompanied by capture or conquest.



THE WOLF HUNT.

AIR—'Una nina bonita y hermosa.'

We will ride to the wolf hunt together, Where thousands must yield up their breath, By the night, by the light—in all weather! Then hurrah, for the wild hunt of death! Where the deep cannon bays for our beagle, Over mountain and valley we come, While the death-fife now screams like an eagle To the roll and the roll and the roll and the roll of the drum.

Fatherland!—how the wild beasts are yelling! Blood drips from each ravenous mouth; Blood of brothers, each torn from his dwelling By the wild, hungry wolves of the South.

CHORUS—Where the deep cannon bays for our beagle, &c.

Let them rave! for our rifles are ready; Let them howl! for our sabres are keen; And the nerve of the hunter is steady When the track of the were-wolf is seen.

CHORUS—Where the deep cannon bays for our beagle, &c.

Yes, the foul wolves have been o'er the border, But the fields were piled high with their slain, Till we drove them, in frantic disorder, To their dark home of hunger again.

CHORUS—Where the deep cannon bays for our beagle, &c.

So we'll ride to the wolf hunt together, Where the bullet stops many a breath, By the night, by the light—in all weather, To the wild Northern wolf hunt of death. Where the deep cannon bays for our beagle, Over mountain and valley we come; While the death-fife now screams like an eagle To the roll and the roll and the roll and the roll of the drum.



THE POETRY OF NATURE.

Among the many marvellous myths of antiquity, I know of none more directly applicable to Man and Art than that of the great struggle between Antaeus the Earth-born and Hercules.

Lifted on high by brute force, Antaeus is stifled; but falling and touching Earth, he revives. Man, borne by the irresistible force of circumstance, may become false, frivolous, and weak: his Art may dwindle to mere imitation, his Poetry turn to wailing and convulsions: but let him once fall back to Nature—to the all-cherishing Earth, the Mother of Beauty—and all his Works and Songs become as seas, rivers, green leaves, and the music of birds.

We have too long needed the touch of fresh and holy Earth. Too long has our love of picture and poem, and of all that the glorious impulse to create in beauty achieves, been fickle as the wind; based on discordant fancies and distorted tradition. Symbolism in art, at present means only an arbitrary and puerile substitution of one object or caprice for another. The most successful poetic simile is often as thoroughly conventional, and consequently as perishable, as possible. In short, we are not in an age when there is one poetry alike for all men; when the artist and bard are truly great and honored, and their works regarded as the Best that man can do. The few who comprehend this in all its sad significance look from their towers tearfully forth into the dark night, and wail, 'Great PAN is dead!'

But he is not dead, nor sleepeth. He will yet return in that awful dawn of the day which will know no end. Already faint gleams of its glory gild the steep hills, the high places, and the groves sacred of old to the Starry Queen, and a reviving breath sweeps from the blue sea, calling up in ruined fane, and on the green turf where once stood temples in the olden time, fresh ideals of those forms of ineffable beauty, faun and fay, born of the primeval myth. There is already a quivering in the ancient graves, and strange lights flicker over the mighty stones consecrated by tradition to incantations, not of morbid fears, but of the strong and beautiful in nature. For in the Utilitarianism, in the steam and machinery of 'this age without faith,' I see the first necessary step of a return to real needs, solid facts, and natural laws. It is the first part of the doing away with rococo sentimentalisms, mediaeval tatters, and all wretched and ragged remainders and reminders of states of society which have nothing in common with our present needs. And it will be a revival, not of the ancient adoration of Nature as a mythology and a superstition, but as a heartfelt love of all that is beautiful, and joyous, and healthy in itself. Then the gods will indeed return and live again among us; not as literal beings, however, but as blessings in all that is best for man. Nor will 'Romance' be wanting—that influence which the age, without defining, still declares is essential to poetry. In Science, in Humanity, and in perfecting human ties and interests by the influence of love, there exists a romance which is exquisitely fascinating, and which lends itself to tenderer and more graceful dreams than Trouveur or Minnesinger of any age ever knew—dreams the more delightful because they will not fade away with the mists of morning, but be fulfilled in clear sunlight, line by line, before man.

It is not difficult to prove what I have here asserted of this tendency toward the Real in modern literature and art. Within twenty, nay, within ten years, men of genius have abandoned the Supernatural and the Gothic as affording fit themes for creative efforts. That unfortunate creature the Ghost—especially the Ghost in Armor—as well as the Historical or Sensational personages who live only in the superlative—are at present in general demand only by that harmless class who read 'for entertainment,' and even they are beginning to ungratefully mock their old friends. It is not difficult to foresee that the Romance so dear to the last generation will soon become the exclusive heritage of the vulgar. Meanwhile, genial sketches of fresh, unaffected Nature, draughts from real life, are beginning to be loved with keen zest. What novels are so successful as those in which the writer has truthfully mirrored the heart or the home? What pictures are so loved as those which set before us the Real, or, rather, the Ideal in its true meaning—that of the perfected essence of the Real?

When this tendency shall have fairly placed man on the right road—when we shall have learned to follow and set forth Nature as she is, in spirit and in truth, the great cherishing mother, ever young, ever joyous, of all beauty and all pleasure, then we may anticipate the last and greatest era of human culture. Then we may hope for a more than Greek art—an art freed from every strain of oppression and injustice. To effect this we must, however, do what the earliest founders of poetry find mythology did: search Nature closely, bear constantly in mind her one great principle of potent Being, continually displaying itself in all things as life and death, mutually creating each other, and acting in all organic life by the mystery of Love, Then, while establishing those affinities and correspondences between natural objects which constitute Poetry, let it be ever present to the mind that each is, so to speak, always polarized with its positive end of activity, creation or birth, and its negative of cessation, decay and death. It is by the constant realization of this solemn and beautiful truth in all things that Nature eventually appears so strengthening and cheerful. The flower and the fruit, the delight of anticipation and the luxury of realization, are the delightful culmination of every natural existence; and it is to perfect these that all action tends. Decay, disease, pain, and death, are only kindly agencies acting more effectually and rapidly, to sweep away that which is fading, and hasten it into new forms of beauty and pleasure.

'Nature within her placid breast receives All her creation; and the body pays Itself the due of nature, and its end Is self-consummated.'[A]

[Footnote A: LUCAN, Pharsalia.]

Birth is thus an essential part of death, and death of birth—both forming, by their inseparable action, the highest and first intelligible stage of the inscrutable mystery of the active power of Nature. 'This,' the reader may say, 'is, however, only the old theme, worn threadbare by poet and moralist.' Let him look more earnestly into it—let him master it, and he will find it the germ of a deeper, a bolder, and a more genial Art than the world has known for ages. It is no slander on the intellect or sensibility of this day to say that its admiration for Nature is really at a low ebb, and that, with thousands even of the educated, nothing gives so little solid satisfaction as lovely scenery or other inartificially beautiful phenomena. The reason is that Poetry—the hymn which should elevate the soul in Nature-worship—instead of reflecting in every simile, every image, directly or indirectly, the deep mystery of life which intuitively associates with itself that of love and all loveliness, is satisfied with mere comparisons based on casual and petty resemblance. The reader or critic of modern times, when the poet speaks of 'rosy-fingered dawn,' or of 'cheeks like damask roses,' is quite satisfied with the accuracy of the simile as to delicate color, and with the refined, vague association of perfume and of individual memories attached to the flower. But if we could realize by even the dimmest hint that the mind of the poet was penetrated and filled by the knowledge that the rose was a flower-favorite of man in all lands in primeval ages, and, as Geology asserts, literally coeval with him; that its points of resemblance to woman properly gave it place in the oldest mythology as the floral type of the female godhead; that it was the earth-born reflection of the morning star, and rose from the foam with it when the Aphrodite-Astarte-Venus-Anadyomeno came to life; that, as the nearest symbol of beautiful virginity expanding into womanhood and maternity, it was appropriately allied to dawning life and light, and consequently to the rosy Aurora and to blushing youth; and that finally, in withered age, set around by sharp thorns, it is a striking likeness of wounding death, yet from which new roses may spring—we should find that in a knowledge of all these interchangable symbolisms lies a music and a color, a perfume and a feeling, as of a perfectly satisfactory Thought. Let it be observed that each of these rose-correspondences is directly based on Nature, and that, to a mind familiar with the antithetic identity of life and death, all are promptly soluble and mutually convertible, as by mental-magic alchemy. There is a truth and earnestness in them which, while stimulating the joyous sentiment, gives to every allusion to the rose the value of genius, and not of accident or the chic of a 'happy idea.'

But with the rose there are a thousand beautiful objects all consecrated by myth and legend, based on deeply-seated affinities, all reflecting the solemn mystery of birth and death in unity, all expressing love and pleasure, and all mutually convertible one into the other. All the differently-named Venuses, yes, all the goddesses of ancient mythology, are but one Venus and one goddess—all gods blend in one Arch-Bel, or 'Belerus old,' of myriad names—he, the inscrutable Abyss, self-developing into male and female—who is reflected again in every object which springs from them. All mountains meet in 'the solemn mystery of the guarded mount'—the lily teaches the same lessons as the rose and the sea shell—each and all are seen in the light ark which skims the waves, or floats high in heaven as the pearly-horned moon; and then the dew of the morning and the foaming sea become the wine of life and the honey of the flower, and they are found again in the CUP. So on through all beautiful forms, whether of nature or of the simpler creations of man—wherever we meet one, there, to the eye of him who has studied the purely natural science of symbolism, is a full garden of flowers of thought. Once master the primary solution of the great problem, once learn the method of its application, and every flower and simple attribute of life becomes invested with deep significance and earnest, passionate beauty. But this can be no half-way study, to be modified or qualified by prejudices. Do you seek, thirst for Truth, O reader? Dare you grasp it without blanching, without blushing? Then cast away all the loathsome littleness which has rusted and fouled around you, and look at Nature as she literally is, in her naked beauty, conceiving and forming, quickening and warming into infinitely varied and lovely life, and then forming once again with the strong and harsh influences of death, pain and decay. It avails nothing to be squeamish and timid in the tremendous laboratory of Truth. There is but little account taken of your parlor-propriety in the depths of ocean, where wild sea-monsters engender, where the million-tonned coral-rock rises to be crowned with palms, amid swaying tides and currents which cast up in a night leagues of sandy peninsulas. Little heed is taken of your prudish scruples or foul follies, where the screaming eagle chases his mate on the road of the mad North-wind; little care for your pitiful perversions of health and truth into scurvy jests or still scurvier blushes, wherever life takes new form as life, ever begetting through the endless chain of being. There is no learning a little and leaving the rest, for him who would explore the fountain-springs of Poetry and of Nature. The true poet, like the true man of science, cannot limit vision and thought to a handful of twigs or a cluster of leaves. In the minutest detail he recalls the roots, trunk, and branches—the smallest part is to him a reflection of the whole, and formed by the same laws.

The great minds of the early mythologic and hitherto Unknown Age had this advantage in shaping that stupendous Lehre or lore which embraced under the same laws, mythology, language, science, poetry, and art—they modified nothing and avoided nothing for fear of shocking conventional and artificial feelings. Nature was to them what she was to herself—literal. The great law of reproduction, around whose primary stage gathers all that is attractive or beautiful in organic life; the 'moment' toward which everything blossoms, and from which everything fades, was not by them ignored as non-existent, or treated in paltry equivoque, as though it were a secondary consequence and a vile corruption, instead of a healthy cause. Their science was, it is true, only founded on observation (and therefore easily warped to error by apparent analogies) instead of induction, while their aesthetics had the same illusive basis; and yet, by fearlessly following the great manifest laws of organic life, they were enabled to lay the foundations of all which in later ages came to perfection in the Hindu Mahabarata, and Sacrintala—in Greek statues, and, it may be, in Greek humanity—in Norse Eddas, and Druidic mysteries. All of these, and, with them, all that Phoenician, Etruscan, and Egyptian gave to beauty, owe their origin to the fearless incarnation in early times of the manifest laws of Nature in myth, song, and legend. He who would feel Nature as they felt it—a real, quickening presence, a thrilling, wildly beautiful life, inspiring the Moerad to madness by the intensity of rushing mountain torrent and passionately rustling leaves, a spirit breathing a god into every gray old rock and an exquisite love into every flower—should take up the clue which these old myths afford, and follow it to the end. Then the Hidden in forgotten lore will be revealed to him, the Orgie and Mystery will yield to him all, and more than all, they gave to Pythagoras of old. He will hold the key to every faith—nay more, he will form and feel new faiths for himself in studying mountains and seas. To him the cliff, high-rising above the foaming tide, the serpent gliding through the summer grass, the cool dark woodland path winding into arching leafy shadows, the brook and the narrow rocky pass, the red sunset and the crimson flower, gnarled roots and caverns, lakes, promontories, and headlands, will all have a strange meaning—not vague and mystical, but literal and expressive—a mutual and self-reflecting meaning, embodying all of the Beautiful that man loves best in life, and consecrated by the exquisite fables of a joyous mythology.

I have long thought that a work devoted to the natural poetry and antique mystery of such objects as occur most prominently in Nature would be acceptable to all lovers of the Beautiful. It would be worth the while, I should think, to all such, to know that every object, by land or sea, was once the subject of a myth, that this myth had a meaning founded in the deepest laws of life, and that all were curiously connected and mutually reflected in one vast system. It would be worth while to know, not only that dove and goblet, flower and ring were each the 'motive' of a graceful fable, but also that this fable was something more than merely fanciful or graceful—that it had a deep meaning, and that each and all were essential parts of one vast whole. And it would be pleasant, I presume, to see these myths and meanings somewhat illustrated by poem or proverb, or other literary ornament. What is here offered is, indeed, little more than a beginning—for the actual completion of such a work would involve the learning and labor, not of a man, but of an age. I trust, however, that these chapters may induce some curiosity and research into the marvels and mysteries of antique symbolism, and perhaps invest with a new interest many objects hitherto valued more for their external attractions than for their associations.

The reading world has for many years received with favor works purporting to teach with poetic illustration the Language of Flowers. But we learn from ancient lore that there is a secret language and a symbolism, not only of flowers, but of all natural objects. These objects, on one side, or from one point of view, all stand for each other, and are, in fact, synonymes—the whole representing singly the Venus-mystery of love and generation, or life. That is to say, this is what they do positively—for negatively, at the same time, and under the same forms, they also typify death, repulsion, darkness—even as the same word in Hebrew often means unity or harmony when read backward, and the reverse when taken forward. Why they represent opposites (the great opposites of existence, life and death, lust and loathing, darkness and light) is evident enough to any one who will reflect that each was intended to represent in itself all Nature, and that in Nature the great mystery of mysteries is the springing of death from life and of life from death by means of the agency of sexual action through vitality and light.

I would beg the reader to constantly bear in mind this fact when studying the symbolism and mythology of Nature—that among the ancients every object, beginning with the serpent, typified all that is, or all Nature, and consequently the opposites of Death and Life, united in one, as also the male and female principle, darkness and light, sleep and waking, and, in fact, all antagonisms. Even when, as in the case of the goat, the wild boar, or the Typhon serpent of the waters, destruction is more peculiarly implied, the fact that destruction is simply a preparation for fresh life was never forgotten. The destroying, undulating, wavy serpent of the waters was also the type of life, and wound around the staff of Escalapius as a healing emblem, recalling the brazen serpent of Moses. In like manner the Tree of Life or of Knowledge was the tree also of Death, or of Good and of Evil, arbor cogniti boni et mali, and, according to the Rabbis, of sexual generation, from eating of which the first parents became self-conscious. Beans, which were symbols of impurity and peculiarly identified with evil (MENKE, De Leguminibus Veterum, Gottingen, 1814), were also typical of supporting life and of reviving spring and light. To see all reflected in each, and each in all, is, in fact, the key to all the mysteries of symbolism and the clue to the whole poetry of Nature.