The Memories of Fifty Years Part 16

William Lowndes, after Clay, exercised more influence in the House than any other man. He was a South Carolinian, and of distinguished family.

His health, at this time, was failing: it had always been delicate. Mr.

Lowndes was comparatively a young man. He was remarkably tall: perhaps six feet six inches. He stood a head and shoulders above any man in Congress. His hair was golden; his complexion, clear and pale, and his eyes were deep blue, and very expressive. He had been elaborately educated, and improved by foreign travel, extensive reading, and research. As a belles-lettres scholar, he was superior even to Mr.

Randolph. Very retiring and modest in his demeanor, he rarely obtruded himself upon the House. When he did, it seemed only to remind the House of something which had been forgotten by his predecessors in debate.

Sometimes he would make a set speech. When he did, it was always remarkable for profound reasoning, and profound thought. He was suffering with disease of the lungs, and his voice was weak: so much so that he never attempted to elevate it above a conversational tone. So honest was he in his views, so learned and so un.o.btrusive, that he had witched away the heart of the House. No man was so earnestly listened to as Mr. Lowndes. His mild and persuasive manner, his refined and delicate deportment in debate and social intercourse captivated every one; and at a time when acrimonious feelings filled almost every breast, there was no animosity for Mr. Lowndes. His impression upon the nation had made him the favored candidate of every section for the next President; and it is not, perhaps, saying too much, that had his life been spared, he, and not John Quincy Adams, would have been the President in 1824. He would have been to all an acceptable candidate.

His talents, his virtues, his learning, and his broad patriotism had very much endeared him to the intelligence of the country. At that time these attributes were expected in the President, and none were acceptable without them. Mr. Lowndes in very early life gave evidence of future usefulness and distinction. His thirst for knowledge, intense application, and great capacity to acquire, made him conspicuous at school, and in college. He entered manhood already distinguished by his writings. While yet very young he travelled in Europe, and for the purpose of mental improvement. Knowledge was the wife of his heart, and he courted her with affectionate a.s.siduity. An anecdote is related of him ill.u.s.trative of his character and attainments. While in London, he was left alone at his hotel, where none but men of rank and distinction visited, with a gentleman much his senior; neither knew the other. A social instinct, (though not very prominent in an Englishman,) induced conversation. After a time the gentleman left the apartment and was returning to the street, when he encountered the Duke of Argyle. This gentleman was William Roscoe, of Liverpool, and author of "The Life of Leo the Tenth."

"I have been spending a most agreeable hour," he said to the Duke, "with a young American gentleman, who is the tallest, wisest, and best bred young man I have ever met."

"It must have been Mr. Lowndes, of South Carolina," replied the Duke.

"He is such a man, I know him and I know no other like him. Return and let me make you his acquaintance." He did so, and the acquaintance then commenced, ripened into a friends.h.i.+p which endured so long as they both lived.

Blue eyes, of a peculiar languid expression; yellow hair, lank and without gloss; with a soft sunny sort of complexion, seems ever to indicate physical weakness. Indeed, pale colors in all nature point to brief existence, want of stamina and capacity to endure. All of these combined in the physical organization of Mr. Lowndes, and served to make more conspicuous the brilliancy of his intellect. It has been said, consumption sublimates the mind, stealing from the body, etherealizing and intensifying the intellect. This was peculiarly the case in the instance of Mr. Lowndes. As the disease progressed, attenuating and debilitating the physical man, his intellectual faculties grew brighter, and brighter, a.s.suming a lucidity almost supernatural. At length he pa.s.sed from time while yet young, leaving a vacuum which in South Carolina has never been filled. His death was at a time his services were most needed, and as with Clay, Jackson, and Webster; his death was a national calamity.

Conspicuous among the remarkable men of that era was Louis McLean, of Delaware. He belonged to the Republican school of politics, and was a very honest and able man. He combined very many most estimable traits in his character; open and frank, without concealment; cheerful and mild, without bitterness, and with as few prejudices as any public man.

Yet he was consistent and firm in his political opinions and principles, as he was devoted and tenacious in his friends.h.i.+ps. He was extremely considerate of the feelings and prejudices of other people--had a large stock of charity for the foibles and follies of his friends and political antagonists. In social intercourse he was quite as familiar and intimate with these as with his political friends.

Difference of political principles did not close his eyes to the virtues and worth of any man, and his respect for talent and uprightness was always manifest in his public and private intercourse with those who differed with him in opinion. His was a happy const.i.tution, and one well fitted to win him friends. Personally, with the exception of Mr. Lowndes, he was perhaps the most popular man upon the floor of the House of Representatives. The influence of his character and talent was very great, and his geographical position added greatly to these in his efforts upon the Missouri question. His speech was widely read, and no one found fault with it. It was a masterly effort and added greatly to his extended fame.

In the character of Mr. McLean there was a very happy combination of gentleness with firmness. He carried this into his family, and its influence has made of his children a monument to his fame; they have distinguished, in their characters and conduct, the name and the virtues of their father. It may be said of him what cannot be said of many distinguished men, his children were equal to the father in talent, usefulness, and virtue.

The Administration of Mr. Monroe saw expire the Federal and Republican parties, as organized under the Administration of John Adams. It saw also the germ of the Democratic and Whig parties planted. It was a prosperous Administration, and under it the nation flourished like a green bay-tree. He was the last of the Presidents who had actively partic.i.p.ated in the war of the Revolution. To other virtues and different merits, those who now aspire to the high distinction of the Presidency must owe their success. There must always be a cause for distinction. However great the abilities of a man or exalted his virtues, he must in some manner make a display of them before the public eye, or he must of necessity remain in obscurity. War developes more rapidly and more conspicuously the abilities of men than any other public employment. Gallantry and successful conflict presents the commander and subalterns at once prominently before the country; besides military fame addresses itself to every capacity, and strange as it may seem, there is no quality so popular with man and woman, too, as the art of successfully killing our fellow-man, and devastating his country. It is ever a successful claim to public honors and political preferments. No fame is so lasting as a military fame. Caesar and Hannibal are names, though they lived two thousand years ago, familiar in the mouths of every one, and grow brighter as time progresses.

Philip and his more warlike son, Alexander, are names familiar to the learned and illiterate, alike; while those who adorned the walks of civil life with virtues, and G.o.dlike abilities, are only known to those who burrow in musty old books, and search out the root of civilization enjoyed by modern nations. They who fought at Cannae and Marathon, at Troy and at Carthage, are household names; while those who invented the plough and the spade, and first taught the cultivation of the earth, the very base of civilization, are unknown--never thought of. Such is human nature.

The war of 1812 had developed one or two men only of high military genius, and the furor for military men had not then become a mania.

Abilities for civil government were considered essential in him who was to be elevated to the Presidency. Indeed, it was not so much a warrior's fame which had controlled in the election of the previous Presidents, as their high intellectual reputations. Was.h.i.+ngton had rendered such services to the country, both as a military man and a civilian, that his name was the nation. He had been everywhere designated as the father of his country, and such was the public devotion, that he had only to ask it, and a despot's crown would have adorned his brow. John Adams, Jefferson, and Madison had no military record; but in the capacity of civilians had rendered essential service to the cause of the Revolution. Their Administrations had been successful, and the public mind attributed this success to their abilities as statesmen, and desired to find as their successors, men of like minds, and similar attainments. Crawford, Calhoun, Clay, John Quincy Adams, and Lowndes, had all of them given evidences of eminent statesmans.h.i.+p, and the public mind among these was divided. At the time of the death of Lowndes, this mind was rapidly concentrating upon him, as more eminently uniting the desired qualifications than any other.

It was about this very time that General Jackson's name began to attract the public as a prominent candidate. Mr. Calhoun was ready to retire from the contest, and it is very probable his friends would have united in the support of Lowndes, but he being out of the way, they united upon Jackson. When Jackson was first spoken of as a candidate, most men of intelligence viewed it as a mere joke, but very soon the admiration for his military fame was apparent in the delight manifested by the ma.s.ses, when he was brought prominently forward. That thirst for military glory, and the equally ardent thirst to do homage to the successful military man, was discovered to be as innate and all-pervading with the American people, as with any other of the most warlike nations. Had the name of Jackson been brought before the people six months earlier than it was, he would, most a.s.suredly, have been triumphantly elected by the popular vote. It would be fruitless to speculate upon what might have been the consequences to the country had he been then chosen. Besides, such is foreign to my purpose. I mean merely to record memories of men and things which have come under my eye and to my knowledge, for the last fifty years, and which I may suppose will be interesting to the general reader, and particularly to the young, who are just now coming into position as men and women, and who will const.i.tute the controlling element in society and in the Government. To those of my own age, it may serve to awaken reminiscences of a by-gone age, and enable them to contrast the men and things of now and then.

CHAPTER XVIII.

FRENCH AND SPANISH TERRITORY.

SETTLERS ON THE TOMBIGBEE AND MISSISSIPPI RIVERS--LA SALLE--NATCHEZ-- FAMILY APPORTIONMENT--THE HILL COUNTRY--HOSPITALITY--BENEFIT OF AFRICAN SLAVERY--CAPACITY OF THE NEGRO--HIS FUTURE.

About the year 1777, many persons of the then colonies, fearful of the consequences of the war then commencing for the independence of the colonies, removed and sought a home beyond their limits. Some selected the Tombigbee, and others the Mississippi River, and, braving the horrors of the wilderness, made a home for themselves and posterity, amid the rude inhospitalies of uncultivated nature.

There were, at that time, small settlements of French and Spanish adventurers upon these streams, in different localities. La Salle descended upon Canada, and, taking possession of Louisiana in the name of the French king, had created among many of the chivalrous and adventurous spirits of France a desire to take possession of the entire country, from the mouth of the Saint Lawrence to that of the Mississippi. Nova Scotia, called Acadia by its first settlers, and the provinces of Canada, were his already, and France desired to restrict the further expansion of the English colonies, now growing into importance along the Atlantic coast.

The vast extent of the continent and its immense fertility, with its mighty rivers, its peculiar adaptation to settlement, and the yielding of all the necessaries and luxuries of human wants, had aroused the enterprise of Europe. Spain had possessed herself of South America, Mexico, and Cuba, the pride of the Antilles. The success of her scheme of colonization stimulated both England and France to push forward their settlements, and to foster and protect them with Governmental care. After some fruitless attempts, the mouth of the Mississippi had been discovered, and approached from the Gulf. The expedition under La Salle had failed to find it. The small colony brought by him for settlement upon the Mississippi, had been landed many leagues west of the river's mouth, and owing to disputes between that great and enterprising man and the officer commanding the two s.h.i.+ps which had transported them across the Atlantic, they were mercilessly left by this officer, without protection, and almost without provisions, upon the coast of what is now Texas. La Salle had started with a small escort, by land, to find the great river. These men became dissatisfied, and not sharing in the adventurous and energetic spirit of their leader, remonstrated with him and proposed to return to their companions; but, disregarding them, he pressed on in his new enterprise. In wading a small stream, one of the men was carried off by an alligator, and a day or so after, another was bitten and killed by a rattle-snake. Terror seized upon his men, and all their persuasions proving fruitless, they determined to a.s.sa.s.sinate him and return. They did so, only to find the colony dispersed and nowhere to be found.

After many hazardous adventures they reached the Arkansas River, and descended it to its mouth, where they proposed preparing some means of ascending the Mississippi, and thus return to Canada. Fortunately they had been there but a few hours, when a small boat or two, which had been dispatched from Canada to look after the colony so long expected, arrived, and, learning the unfortunate issue of the enterprise, took on board the party, and returned up the river. They reported the colony destroyed, and it was not until many years after, that it was discovered that those left on the sea-side had been found, and conveyed to the Jesuit Mission, at San Antonio, where they had been cared for and preserved by the pious and humane missionaries.

Subsequently a colony was located at Boloxy, on the sh.o.r.e of the lake, and thence was transferred to New Orleans. Mobile, soon after, was made the nucleus of another colony, and from these two points had proceeded the pioneers of the different settlements along these rivers--the Tombigbee and the Mississippi. It was to these settlements or posts, or their neighborhoods, that these refugees from the Revolutionary war in the colonies had retired. Natchez and St. Francisville, on the Mississippi, and St. Stephen's and McIntosh's Bluff, on the Tombigbee, were the most populous and important.

About these, and under the auspicious protection of the Spanish Government, then dominant in Louisiana and Florida, commenced the growth of the Anglo-Norman population, which is now the almost entire population of the country. There proceeded from South Carolina, about the time mentioned above, a colony of persons which located near Natchez. They came down the Holston, Tennessee, and Mississippi Rivers, on flat-boats; and after many escapes from the perils incident to the streams they navigated, and the hostility of the savages who dwelt along their sh.o.r.es, they reached this Canaan of their hopes. They had intended to locate at New Madrid. The country around was well suited for cultivation, being alluvial and rich, and the climate was all they could desire; but they found a population mongrel and vicious, unrestrained by law or morals, and learning through a negro belonging to the place of an intended attack upon their party, for the purpose of robbery, they hastily re-embarked what of their property and stock they had debarked. Under pretense of dropping a few miles lower down the river for a more eligible site, they silently and secretly left in the night, and never attempted another stop until reaching the Walnut Hills, now Vicksburg. A few of the party concluded to remain here, while the larger number went on down; some to the mouth of Cole's Creek, some to Natchez, and others to the cliffs known by the name of one of the emigrants whose party concluded to settle there.

These cliffs, which are eighteen miles below Natchez, have always been known as Ellis' Cliffs. In their rear is a most beautiful, and eminently fertile country. Grants were obtained from the Spanish Government of these lands, in tracts suited to the means of each family. A portion was given to the husband, a portion to the wife, and a portion to each child of every family. These grants covered nearly all of that desirable region south of St. Catharine's Creek and west of Second Creek to the Mississippi River, and south to the h.o.m.ochitto River. Similar grants were obtained for lands about the mouth, and along the banks of Cole's Creek, at and around Fort Adams, ten miles above the mouth of Red River, and upon the Bayou Pierre. The same authority donated to the emigrants lands about McIntosh's Bluff, Fort St. Stephens, and along Ba.s.sett's Creek, in the region of the Tombigbee River. Here the lands were not so fertile, nor were they in such bodies as in the region of the Mississippi. The settlements did not increase and extend to the surrounding country with the same rapidity as in the latter country. Many of those first stopping on the Tombigbee, ultimately removed to the Mississippi. Here they encountered none of the perils or losses incident to the war of the Revolution. The privations of a new country they did, of necessity, endure, but not to the same extent that those suffer who are deprived of a market for the products of their labor. New Orleans afforded a remunerative market for all they could produce, and, in return, supplied them with every necessary beyond their means of producing at home. The soil and climate were not only auspicious to the production of cotton, tobacco, and indigo--then a valuable marketable commodity--but every facility for rearing without stint every variety of stock. These settlements were greatly increased by emigration from Pennsylvania, subsequently to the conclusion of the war, as well as from the Southern States.

Very many who, in that war, had sided with the mother country from conscientious, or mercenary views, were compelled by public opinion, or by the operation of the law confiscating their property and banis.h.i.+ng them from the country, to find new homes. Those, however, who came first had choice of locations, and most generally selected the best; and bringing most wealth, maintained the ascendency in this regard, and gave tone and direction to public matters as well as to the social organization of society. Most of them were men of education and high social position in the countries from which they came. Constant intercourse with New Orleans, and the education of the youth of both s.e.xes of this region in the schools of that city, carried the high polish of French society into the colony.

Louisiana, and especially New Orleans, was first settled by the n.o.bility and gentry of France. They were men in position among the first of that great and glorious people. Animated with the ambition for high enterprise, they came in sufficient numbers to create a society, and to plant French manners and customs, and the elegance of French learning and French society, upon the banks of the Mississippi.

The commercial and social intermingling of these people resulted in intermarriages, which very soon a.s.similated them in most things as one people, at least in feeling, sentiment and interest. From such a stock grew the people inhabiting the banks of the Mississippi, from Vicksburg to New Orleans. In 1826, young men of talent and enterprise had come from Europe, and every section of the United States, and, giving their talents to the development of the country, had created a wealth, greater and more generally diffused than was, at that time, to be found in any other planting or farming community in the United States. Living almost exclusively among themselves, their manners and feelings were h.o.m.ogeneous; and living, too, almost entirely upon the products of their plantations, independent of their market-crops, they grew rich so rapidly as to mock the fable of Jonah's gourd. This wealth afforded the means of education and travel; these, cultivation and high mental attainments, and, with these, the elegances of refined life. The country was vast and fertile; the Mississippi, flowing by their homes, was sublimely grand, and seemed to inspire ideas and aspirations commensurate with its own majesty in the people upon its borders.

In no country are to be found women of more refined character, more beauty, or more elegance of manners, than among the planters' wives and daughters of the Mississippi coast. Reared in the country, and accustomed to exercise in the open air, in walking through the shady avenues of the extensive and beautifully ornamented grounds about the home or plantation-house; riding on horseback along the river's margin, elevated upon the levee, covered with the green Bermuda gra.s.s, smoothly spreading over all the ground, save the pretty open road, stretching through this gra.s.s, like a thread of silver in a a cloth of green; with the great drab river, moving in silent majesty, on one side, and the extended fields of the plantation, teeming with the crop of cane or cotton, upon the other. Their exercise, thus surrounded, becomes a school, and their ideas expand and grow with the sublimity of their surroundings. The health-giving exercise and the wonderful scene yields vigor both to mind and body. Nor is this scene, or its effects, greater in the development of mind and body than that of the hill-country of the river-counties of Mississippi.

These hills are peculiar. They are drift, thrown upon the primitive formation by some natural convulsion, and usually extend some twelve or fifteen miles into the interior. They consist of a rich, marly loam, and, when in a state of nature were clothed to their summits with the wild cane, dense and unusually large, a forest of magnolia, black walnut, immense oaks, and tulip or poplar-trees, with gigantic vines of the wild grape climbing and overtopping the tallest of these forest monarchs. Here among these picturesque hills and glorious woods, the emigrants fixed their homes, and here grew their posterity surrounding themselves with wealth, comforts, and all the luxuries and elegances of an elevated civilization. Surrounded in these homes with domestic slaves reared in them, and about them, who came at their bidding, and went when told, but who were carefully regarded, sustained, and protected, and who felt their family ident.i.ty, and were happy, served affectionately, and with willing alacrity, the master and his household. In the midst of scenes and circ.u.mstances like these grew women in all that const.i.tutes n.o.bility of soul and sentiment, delicacy, intelligence, and refined purity, superior to any it has ever been my fortune to meet on earth.

Here in these palatial homes was the hospitality of princes. It was not the hospitality of pride or ostentation, but of the heart; the welcome which the soul ungrudgingly gives, and which delights and refines the receiver. It is the welcome of a refined humanity, untainted with selfishness, and felt as a humane and duly bound tribute to civilization and Christianity; such hospitality as can only belong to the social organization which had obtained in the community from its advent upon this great country.

The independence of the planter's pursuit, the inst.i.tution of domestic slavery, and the form and spirit of the Government, all conduce to this. The mind is untrammelled and the soul is independent, because subservient neither to the tyrannical exactions of unscrupulous authority, or the more debasing servility of dependence upon the capricious whims of petty officials, or a monied aristocracy.

Independently possessing the soil and the labor for its cultivation, with only the care necessary to the comforts and necessities of this labor, superadded to those of a family, they were without the necessity of soliciting or courting favors from any one, or pandering to the ignorant caprices of a labor beyond their control. Independence of means is the surest guarantee for independence of character. Where this is found, most private and most public virtues always accompany it.

Truth, sincerity, all the cardinal virtues are fostered most where there is most independence. This takes away the source of all corruption, all temptation. This seeks dependence, and victimizes its creatures to every purpose of corruption and meanness.

Under the influences of the inst.i.tutions of the South, as they were, there was little of the servile meanness so predominant where they were not, and the lofty and chivalrous character of the Southern people was greatly owing to these inst.i.tutions, and the habits of the people growing out of them. The slave was a cla.s.s below all others. His master was his protector and friend; he supplied his wants and redressed his wrongs, and it was a point of honor as well as duty to do so; he was a.s.sured of his care and protection, and felt no humility at his condition. The white man, without means, was reminded that, though poor, he was above the slave, and was stimulated with the pride of position as contrasted with that of the slave; his political, legal, and social rights were unrestrained and equal with those of the wealthiest. This was the only distinction between him and the wealthiest in the land, and this wealth conferred no exclusive privilege, and its acquisition was open to his energy and enterprise, and he gloried in his independence. He could acquire and enjoy without dependence, and his pride and ambition were alike stimulated to the emulation of those who shared most fortune's favors.

The beneficial influences of the inst.i.tution of African slavery were not only apparent in the independent and honorable bearing and conduct of the Southern people, growing from the habit of command, and involuntary contrast of condition, but upon the material advancement and progress of the country. The product of slave labor, when directed by a higher intelligence than his own, is enormous, and was the basis of the extended and wealth-creating commerce of the entire country.

These products could be obtained in no other manner, and without this labor, are lost to the world. The African negro, in osseous and muscular developments, and in all the essentials for labor, is quite equal to those of the white race; in his cerebral, greatly inferior.

The capacities of his brain are limited and incapable of cultivation beyond a certain point. His moral man is as feeble and unteachable as his mental. He cannot be educated to the capacity of self-government, nor to the formation and conducting of civil government to the extent of humanizing and controlling by salutary laws a people aggregated into communities. He learns by example which he imitates, so long as the exampler is present before him; but this imitation never hardens to fixed views or habits, indicating the design of Providence, that these physical capacities should be directed and appropriated for good, by an intelligence beyond the mental reach of the negro.

Why is this so? In the wisdom and economy of creation every created thing represents a design for a use. The soil and climate of the tropical and semi-tropical regions of the earth produce and mature all, or very nearly all of the necessaries and luxuries of human life. But human beings of different races and different capacities fill up the whole earth. The capacity to build a fire and fabricate clothing is given only to man. Was the element of fire and the material for clothing given for any but man's use? This enables him to inhabit every clime. But the capacity to produce all the necessaries and luxuries of life is given only to a certain portion of the earth's surface; and its peculiar motions give the fructifying influences of the sun only to the middle belt of the planet. The use of this organization is evidenced in the production of this belt, and these productions must be the result of intelligently directed labor.

The peculiarity of the physical organization of the white man makes it impossible for him to labor healthfully and efficiently for the greatest development of this favored region. Yet his wants demand the yield and tribute of this region. His inventive capacity evolved sugar from the wild canes of the tropics, than which nothing is more essential to his necessities, save the cereals and clothing. He fabricated clothing from the tropical gra.s.s and tropical cotton, found the uses of ca.s.sia, pimento, the dye woods, and the thousand other tropical products which contribute to comfort, necessity, and luxury; advancing human happiness, human progress, and human civilization.

The black man's organization is radically different. He was formed especially to live and labor in these tropical and semi-tropical regions of the earth; but he is naturally indolent, his wants are few, and nature unaided supplies them. He is uninventive, and has always, from creation down, lived amid these plants without the genius to discover, or the skill and industry to develope their uses. That they are used, and contribute to human health and human necessities, is abundant evidence of Divine design in their creation.

The black man's labor, then, and the white man's intelligence are necessary to the production and fabrication, for human use, of these provisions of Providence. This labor the black man will not yield without compulsion. He is eminently useful under this compulsion, and eminently useless, even to himself, without it. That he was designed to obey this authority, and to be most happy when and where he was most useful, is apparent in his mental and moral organization. By moral I mean those functions of the nervous system which bring us in relation with the external world. He aspires to nothing but the gratification of his pa.s.sions, and the indulgence of his indolence. He only feels the oppression of slavery in being compelled to work, and none of the moral degradation incident to servility in the higher or superior races. He is, consequently, more happy, and better contented in this, than in any other condition of life. His morals, his bodily comforts, and his status as a man, attain to an elevation in this condition known to his race in no other.

All the results of his condition react upon the superior race, holding him in the condition designed for him by his Creator, producing results to human progress all over the world, known to result in an equal ratio from no other cause. The inst.i.tution has pa.s.sed away, and very soon all its consequences will cease to be visible in the character of the Southern people. The plantation will dwindle to the truck-patch, the planter will sink into the grave, and his offspring will degenerate into hucksters and petty traders, and become as mean and contemptible as the Puritan Yankee.

In the two hundred years of African slavery the world's progress was greater in the arts and sciences, and in all the appliances promotive of intelligence and human happiness, than in any period of historical time, of five centuries. Why? Because the labor was performed by the man formed for labor and incapable of thinking, and releasing the man formed to think, direct, and invent, from labor, other than labor of thought. This influence was felt over the civilized world. The productions of the tropics were demanded by the higher civilization.

Men forgot to clothe themselves in skins when they could do so in cloth. As commerce extended her flight, bearing these rich creations of labor, elaborated by intelligence, civilization went with her, expanding the mind, enlarging the wants, and prompting progress in all with whom she communicated. Its influence was first felt from the Antilles, extending to the United States. In proportion to the increase of these products was the increase of commerce, wealth, intelligence, and power. Compare the statistics of production by slave-labor with the increase of commerce, and they go hand in hand. As the slave came down from the grain-growing region to the cotton and sugar region, the amount of his labor's product entering into commerce increased four-fold. The inventions of Whitney and Arkwright cheapened the fabric of cotton so much as to bring it within the reach of the poorest, and availed the world in all the uses of cloth.

The s.h.i.+pping and manufacturing interests of England grew; those of the United States, from nothing, in a few years were great rivals of the mother country, and very soon surpa.s.sed her in commercial tonnage.

Every interest prospered with the prosperity of the planter of the Southern States. His cla.s.s has pa.s.sed away; the weeds blacken where the chaste, white cotton beautified his fields; his slave is a freedman--a const.i.tution-maker--a ruler set up by a beastly fanaticism to control his master, and to degrade and destroy his country.

This must bear its legitimate fruit. It is the beginning of the end of the negro upon this continent. Two races with the same civil, political and social privileges cannot long exist in harmony together. The struggle for supremacy will come, and with it a war of races--then G.o.d have mercy on the weaker! The mild compulsion which stimulated his labor is withdrawn, and with it the care and protection which alone preserved him. He works no more; his day of Jubilee has come; he must be a power in the land. Infatuated creature! I pity you from my heart.

You cannot see or calculate the inevitable destiny now fixed for your race. You cannot see the vile uses you are made to subserve for a time, or deem that those who now appear your conservators, are but preparing your funeral pyre.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE NATCHEZ TRADITIONS.

NATCHEZ--MIZEZIBBEE; OR, THE PARENT OF MANY WATERS--INDIAN MOUNDS--THE CHILD OF THE SUN--TREATMENT OF THE FEMALES--POETIC MARRIAGES--UNCHASTE MAIDS AND PURE WIVES--WALKING ARCHIVES--THE PROFANE FIRE--ALAHOPLECHIA --OYELAPE--THE CHIEF WITH A BEARD.