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pervading sanction of moral obligation, she may do so until her mediatorial reign shall cease.
In closing this lecture, I would address a few words to abolitionists, not so much for the purpose of admonition, for fanaticism of every kind, is invulnerable to argument, and insensible to entreaty, as it is reckless of consequences; but in order to vindicate the character of the slave-holders of the south.
The abolitionists, as a body, are most grossly ignorant of the condition of the slaves. Nine-tenths of them have never been in a slave state—and those of them who have been there, have gone for the purpose of “collecting facts” to report at the next annual convention; or, if not for this purpose, they have passed through the slave states with the velocity of modern travelling, with as little opportunity for correct observation as the Trollopes, the Hulls, the Hamiltons and the Maryatts, who have given us the slang of Mississippi boatmen—the profanity of low bar-rooms, and the vulgarity of grooms and ostlers, as specimens of American manners and republican gentility.
Such hasty and inconsiderate generalizations, is proof of an uneducated mind; a want of discrimination, or, a most disingenuous and unmanly heart. And because some monsters in the south, though they are few and far between, treat their slaves with inhumanity, just as some husbands, parents and masters in the north, and everywhere else, treat their wives, children and apprentices, with cruelty, these sage abolitionists generalize the conclusions from those insulated cases that such are the universal treatment of the slaves, and, in their meetings, they report accordingly. In this they are equal to those voracious tourists—those pinks of English chivalry, of whom we have spoken.
Now, it would be nothing more than what the “Lex talianis,” the law of retaliation, would authorize, if a committee were appointed in the south to send their agents to the north, “to collect facts”—of husbands abusing their wives, parents their children, and masters their apprentices—and the whole reported in convention, published in the newspapers, and the scenes stamped on pocket handkerchiefs, and extensively circulated. These are the beauties and delicacies of fanaticism.
Now, I can truly say, that, during several years’ residence in the south, I have lived in families owning hundreds of negroes; and never saw any unnecessary severity, or wanton cruelty: but, on
