Chapter X: “poor White Trash.”

When the public sentiment of Europe speaks in tones of indignation of the system of American slavery, the common reply has been, “_Look at your own lower classes_.” The apologists of slavery have pointed England to _her own poor_. They have spoken of the heathenish ignorance, the vice, the darkness, of her crowded cities,—nay, even of her agricultural districts.

Now, in the first place, a country where the population is not crowded, where the resources of the soil are more than sufficient for the inhabitants,—a country of recent origin, not burdened with the worn-out institutions and clumsy lumber of past ages,—ought not to be satisfied to do _only_ as well as countries which have to struggle against all these evils.

It is a poor defence for America to say to older countries, “We are no worse than you are.” She ought to be infinitely better.

But it will appear that the institution of slavery has produced not only heathenish, degraded, miserable slaves, but it produces a class of white people who are, by universal admission, more heathenish, degraded, and miserable. The institution of slavery has accomplished the double feat, in America, not only of degrading and brutalizing her black working classes, but of producing, notwithstanding a fertile soil and abundant room, a poor white population as degraded and brutal as ever existed in any of the most crowded districts of Europe.

The way that it is done can be made apparent in a few words. 1. The distribution of the land into large plantations, and the consequent sparseness of settlement, make any system of common-school education impracticable. 2. The same cause operates with regard to the preaching of the gospel. 3. The degradation of the idea of labor, which results inevitably from enslaving the working class, operates to a great extent in preventing respectable working men of the middling classes from settling or remaining in slave states. Where carpenters, blacksmiths and masons, are advertised every week with their own tools, or in company with horses, hogs and other cattle, there is necessarily such an estimate of the laboring class that intelligent, self-respecting mechanics, such as abound in the free states, must find much that is annoying and disagreeable. They may endure it for a time, but with much uneasiness; and they are glad of the first opportunity of emigration.

Then, again, the filling up of all branches of mechanics and agriculture with slave labor necessarily depresses free labor. Suppose, now, a family of poor whites in Carolina or Virginia, and the same family in Vermont or Maine; how different the influences that come over them! In Vermont or Maine, the children have the means of education at hand in public schools, and they have all around them in society avenues of success that require only industry to make them available. The boys have their choice among all the different trades, for which the organization of free society makes a steady demand. The girls, animated by the spirit of the land in which they are born, think useful labor no disgrace, and find, with true female ingenuity, a hundred ways of adding to the family stock. If there be one member of a family in whom diviner gifts and higher longings seem a call for a more finished course of education, then cheerfully the whole family unites its productive industry to give that one the wider education which his wider genius demands; and thus have been given to the world such men as Roger Sherman and Daniel Webster.

But take this same family and plant them in South Carolina or Virginia—how different the result! No common school opens its doors to their children; the only church, perhaps, is fifteen miles off, over a bad road. The whole atmosphere of the country in which they are born associates degradation and slavery with useful labor; and the only standard of gentility is ability to live without work. What branch of useful labor opens a way to its sons? Would he be a blacksmith?—The planters around him prefer to _buy_ their blacksmiths in Virginia. Would he be a carpenter?—Each planter in his neighborhood owns one or two now. And so coopers and masons. Would he be a shoe-maker?—The plantation shoes are made in Lynn and Natick, towns of New England. In fact, between the free labor of the North and the slave labor of the South, there is nothing for a poor white to do. Without schools or churches, these miserable families grow up heathen on a Christian soil, in idleness, vice, dirt and discomfort of all sorts. They are the pest of the neighborhood, the scoff and contempt or pity even of the slaves. The expressive phrase, so common in the mouths of the negroes, of “poor white trash,” says all for this luckless race of beings that can be said. From this class spring a tribe of keepers of small groggeries, and dealers, by a kind of contraband trade, with the negroes, in the stolen produce of plantations. Thriving and promising sons may perhaps hope to grow up into negro-traders, and thence be exalted into overseers of plantations. The utmost stretch of ambition is to compass money enough, by any of a variety of nondescript measures, to “buy a _nigger_ or two,” and begin to appear like other folks. Woe betide the unfortunate negro man or woman, carefully raised in some good religious family, when an execution or the death of their proprietors throws them into the market, and they are bought by a master and mistress of this class! Oftentimes the slave is infinitely the superior, in every respect,—in person, manners, education and morals; but, for all that, the law guards the despotic authority of the owner quite as jealously.

From all that would appear, in the case of Souther, which we have recorded, he must have been one of this class. We have certain indications, in the evidence, that the two white witnesses, who spent the whole day in gaping, unresisting survey of his diabolical proceedings, were men of this order. It appears that the crime alleged against the poor victim was that of getting drunk and trading with these two very men, and that they were sent for probably by way of showing them “what a nigger would get by trading with them.” This circumstance at once marks them out as belonging to that band of half-contraband traders who spring up among the mean whites, and occasion owners of slaves so much inconvenience by dealing with their hands. Can any words so forcibly show what sort of white men these are, as the idea of their standing in stupid, brutal curiosity, a whole day, as _witnesses_ in such a hellish scene?

Conceive the misery of the slave who falls into the hands of such masters! A clergyman, now dead, communicated to the writer the following anecdote: In travelling in one of the Southern States, he put up for the night in a miserable log shanty, kept by a man of this class. All was dirt, discomfort and utter barbarism. The man, his wife, and their stock of wild, neglected children, drank whiskey, loafed and predominated over the miserable man and woman who did all the work and bore all the caprices of the whole establishment. He—the gentleman—was not long in discovering that these slaves were in person, language, and in every respect, superior to their owners; and all that he could get of comfort in this miserable abode was owing to their ministrations. Before he went away, they contrived to have a private interview, and begged him to buy them. They told him that they had been decently brought up in a respectable and refined family, and that their bondage was therefore the more inexpressibly galling. The poor creatures had waited on him with most assiduous care, tending his horse, brushing his boots, and anticipating all his wants, in the hope of inducing him to buy them. The clergyman said that he never so wished for money as when he saw the dejected visages with which they listened to his assurances that he was too poor to comply with their desires.

This miserable class of whites form, in all the Southern States, a material for the most horrible and ferocious of mobs. Utterly ignorant, and inconceivably brutal, they are like some blind, savage monster, which, when aroused, tramples heedlessly over everything in its way.

Singular as it may appear, though slavery is the cause of the misery and degradation of this class, yet they are the most vehement and ferocious advocates of slavery.

The reason is this. They feel the scorn of the upper classes, and their only means of consolation is in having a class below them, whom they may scorn in turn. To set the negro at liberty would deprive them of this last comfort; and accordingly no class of men advocate slavery with such frantic and unreasoning violence, or hate abolitionists with such demoniac hatred. Let the reader conceive of a mob of men as brutal and callous as the two white witnesses of the Souther tragedy, led on by men like Souther himself, and he will have some idea of the materials which occur in the worst kind of Southern mobs.

The leaders of the community, those men who play on other men with as little care for them as a harper plays on a harp, keep this blind, furious monster of the MOB, very much as an overseer keeps plantation-dogs, as creatures to be set on to any man or thing whom they may choose to have put down.

These leading men have used the cry of “_abolitionism_” over the mob, much as a huntsman uses the “set on” to his dogs. Whenever they have a purpose to carry, a man to put down, they have only to raise this cry, and the monster is wide awake, ready to spring wherever they shall send him.

Does a minister raise his voice in favor of the slave?—Immediately, with a whoop and hurra, some editor starts the mob on him, as an abolitionist. Is there a man teaching his negroes to read?—The mob is started upon him—he must promise to give it up, or leave the state. Does a man at a public hotel-table express his approbation of some anti-slavery work?—Up come the police, and arrest him for seditious language;[23] and on the heels of the police, thronging round the justice’s office, come the ever-ready mob,—men with clubs and bowie-knives, swearing that they will have his heart’s blood. The more respectable citizens in vain try to compose them; it is quite as hopeful to reason with a pack of hounds, and the only way is to smuggle the suspected person out of the state as quickly as possible. All these are scenes of common occurrence at the South. Every Southern man knows them to be so, and they know, too, the reason _why_ they are so; but, so much do they fear the monster, that they dare not say what they know.

This brute monster sometimes gets beyond the power of his masters, and then results ensue most mortifying to the patriotism of honorable Southern men, but which they are powerless to prevent. Such was the case when the Honorable Senator Hoar, of Massachusetts, with his daughter, visited the city of Charleston. The senator was appointed by the sovereign State of Massachusetts to inquire into the condition of her free colored citizens detained in South Carolina prisons. We cannot suppose that men of honor and education, in South Carolina, can contemplate without chagrin the fact that this honorable gentleman, the representative of a sister state, and accompanied by his daughter, was obliged to flee from South Carolina, because they were told that the constituted authorities would not be powerful enough to protect them from the ferocities of a mob. This is not the only case in which this mob power has escaped from the hands of its guiders and produced mortifying results. The scenes of Vicksburg, and the succession of popular whirlwinds which at that time flew over the south-western states, have been forcibly painted by the author of “The White Slave.”

They who find these popular outbreaks useful when they serve their own turns are sometimes forcibly reminded of the consequences

“Of letting rapine loose, and murder,
To go _just so far_, and no further;
And setting all the land on fire,
To burn _just so high_, and no higher.”

The statements made above can be substantiated by various documents,—mostly by the testimony of residents in slave states and by extracts from their newspapers.

Concerning the class of poor whites, Mr. William Gregg, of Charleston, South Carolina, in a pamphlet, called “Essays On Domestic Industry, or an Inquiry into the expediency of establishing Cotton Manufactories in South Carolina, 1845,” says, p. 22:

“Shall we pass unnoticed the thousands of poor, ignorant, degraded
white people among us, who, in this land of plenty, live in
comparative nakedness and starvation? Many a one is reared in
_proud_ South Carolina, from birth to manhood, who has never passed
a month in which he has not, some part of the time, been stinted for
meat. Many a mother is there who will tell you that her children are
but scantily provided with bread, and much more scantily with meat;
and, if they be clad with comfortable raiment, it is at the expense
of these scanty allowances of food. These may be startling
statements, but they are nevertheless true; and if not believed in
Charleston, the members of our legislature who have traversed the
state in electioneering campaigns can attest their truth.”

The Rev. Henry Duffner, D.D., President of Lexington College, Va., himself a slave-holder, published in 1847 an address to the people of Virginia, showing that slavery is injurious to public welfare, in which he shows the influence of slavery in producing a decrease of the white population. He says:

It appears that, in the ten years from 1830 to 1840, Virginia lost
by emigration no fewer than three hundred and seventy-five thousand
of her people; of whom East Virginia lost three hundred and four
thousand, and West Virginia seventy-one thousand. At this rate,
Virginia supplies the West, every ten years, with a population equal
in number to the population of the State of Mississippi in 1840.
* * * * * She has sent—or, we should rather say, she has driven—from
her soil at least one-third of all the emigrants who have gone from
the old states to the new. More than another third have gone from
the other old slave states. Many of these multitudes, who have left
the slave states, have shunned the regions of slavery, and settled
in the free countries of the West. These were generally industrious
and enterprising white men, who found, by sad experience, that a
country of slaves was not the country for them. It is a truth, a
certain truth, _that slavery drives free laborers—farmers, mechanics
and all, and some of the best of them, too—out of the country, and
fills their places with negroes_. * * * * * Even the common
mechanical trades do not flourish in a slave state. Some mechanical
operations must, indeed, be performed in every civilised country;
but the general rule in the South is, to import from abroad every
fabricated thing that can be carried in ships, such as household
furniture, boats, boards, laths, carts, ploughs, axes, and
axe-helves; besides innumerable other things, which free communities
are accustomed to make for themselves. What is most wonderful is,
that the forests and iron mines of the South supply, in great part,
the materials out of which these things are made. The Northern
freemen come with their ships, carry home the timber and pig-iron,
work them up, supply their own wants with a part, and then sell the
rest at a good profit in the Southern markets. Now, although
mechanics, by setting, up their shops in the South, could save all
these freights and profits, yet so it is that Northern mechanics
will not settle in the South, and the Southern mechanics are
undersold by their Northern competitors.

In regard to education, Rev. Theodore Parker gives the following statistics, in his “Letters on Slavery,” p. 65:

In 1671, Sir William Berkely, Governor of Virginia, said, “I thank
God that there are no free schools nor printing-presses (in
Virginia), and I hope we shall not have them these hundred years.”
In 1840, in the fifteen slave states and territories, there were at
the various primary schools 201,085 scholars; at the various primary
schools of the free states, 1,626,028. The State of Ohio alone had,
at her primary schools, 17,524 more scholars than all the fifteen
slave states. New York alone had 301,282 more.

In the slave states there are 1,368,325 free white children between
the ages of five and twenty; in the free states, 3,536,689 such
children. In the slave states, at schools and colleges, there are
301,172 pupils; in the free states, 2,212,444 pupils at schools or
colleges. Thus, in the slave states, out of twenty-five free white
children between five and twenty, there are not quite five at any
school or college; while out of twenty-five such children in the
free states, there are more than fifteen at school or college.

In the slave states, of the free white population that is over
twenty years of age, there is almost one-tenth part that are unable
to read and write; while in the free states there is not quite one
in one hundred and fifty-six who is deficient to that degree.

In New England there are but few born therein, and more than twenty
years of age, who are unable to read and write; but many foreigners
arrive there with no education, and thus swell the number of the
illiterate, and diminish the apparent effect of her free
institutions. The South has few such emigrants; the ignorance of the
Southern States, therefore, is to be ascribed to other causes. The
Northern men who settle in the slave-holding states have perhaps
about the average culture of the North, and more than that of the
South. The South, therefore, gains educationally from immigration,
as the North loses.

Among the Northern States Connecticut, and among the Southern States
South Carolina, are to a great degree free from disturbing
influences of this character. A comparison between the two will show
the relative effects of the respective institutions of the North and
South. In Connecticut there are 163,843 free persons over twenty
years of age; in South Carolina, but 111,663. In Connecticut there
are but 526 persons over twenty who are unable to read and write,
while in South Carolina there are 20,615 free white persons over
twenty years of age unable to read and write. In South Carolina, out
of each 626 free whites more than twenty years of age there are more
than 58 wholly unable to read or write; out of that number of such
persons in Connecticut, not quite two! More than the sixth part of
the adult freemen of South Carolina are unable to read the vote
which will be deposited at the next election. It is but fair to
infer that at least one-third of the adults of South Carolina, if
not of much of the South are unable to read and understand even a
newspaper. Indeed, in one of the slave states this is not a matter
of mere inference; for in 1837 Gov. Clarke, of Kentucky, declared in
his message to the legislature that “one-third of the adult
population were unable to write their names;” yet Kentucky has a
“school-fund,” valued at $1,221,819, while South Carolina has none.

One sign of this want of ability even to read, in the slave states,
is too striking to be passed by. The staple reading of the
least-cultivated Americans is the newspapers, one of the lowest
forms of literature, though one of the most powerful, read even by
men who read nothing else. In the slave states there are published
but 377 newspapers, and in the free 1135. These numbers do not
express the entire difference in the case; for, as a general rule,
the circulation of the Southern newspapers is 50 to 75 per cent.
less than that of the North. Suppose, however, that each Southern
newspaper has two-thirds the circulation of a Northern journal, we
have then but 225 newspapers for the slave states! The more valuable
journals—the monthlies and quarterlies—are published almost entirely
in the free States.

The number of churches, the number and character of the clergy who
labor for these churches, are other measures of the intellectual and
moral condition of the people. The scientific character of the
Southern clergy has been already touched on. Let us compare the more
external facts.

In 1830, South Carolina had a population of 581,185 souls;
Connecticut, 297,675. In 1836, South Carolina had 364 ministers;
Connecticut, 498.

In 1834, there were in the slave states but 82,532 scholars in the
Sunday-schools; in the free states, 504,835; in the single State of
New York, 161,768.

The fact of constant emigration from slave states is also shown by such extracts from papers as the following, from the _Raleigh_ (N. C.) _Register_, quoted in the columns of the _National Era_:

THEY WILL LEAVE NORTH CAROLINA.

Our attention was arrested, on Saturday last, by quite a long train
of wagons, winding through our streets, which, upon inquiry, we
found to belong to a party emigrating from Wayne county, in this
state, to the “far West.” This is but a repetition of many similar
scenes that we and others have witnessed during the past few years;
and such spectacles will be still more frequently witnessed, unless
something is done to retrieve our fallen fortunes at home.

If there be any one “consummation devoutly to be wished” in our
policy, it is that our young men should remain at home, and not
abandon their native state. From the early settlement of North
Carolina, the great drain upon her prosperity has been the spirit of
emigration, which has so prejudicially affected all the states of
the South. Her sons, hitherto neglected (if we must say it) by an
un-parental government, have wended their way, by hundreds upon
hundreds, from the land of their fathers,—that land, too, to make it
a paradise, wanting nothing but a market,—to bury their bones in the
land of strangers. We firmly believe that this emigration is caused
by the laggard policy of our people on the subject of internal
improvement, for man is not prone by nature to desert the home of
his affections.

The editor of the _Era_ also quotes the following from the _Greensboro_ (Ala.) _Beacon_:

“An unusually large number of movers have passed through this
village, within the past two or three weeks. On one day of last
week, upwards of thirty wagons and other vehicles belonging to
emigrants, mostly from Georgia and South Carolina, passed through on
their way, most of them bound to Texas and Arkansas.”

This tide of emigration does not emanate from an overflowing
population. Very far from it. Rather it marks an abandonment of a
soil which, exhausted by injudicious culture, will no longer repay
the labor of tillage. The emigrant, turning his back upon the homes
of his childhood, leaves a desolate region, it may be, and finds
that he can indulge in his feelings of local attachment only at the
risk of starvation.

How are the older states of the South to keep their population? We
say nothing of an increase, but how are they to hold their own? It
is useless to talk about strict construction, state rights, or
Wilmot Provisos. Of what avail can such things be to a sterile
desert, upon which people cannot subsist?

In the columns of the _National Era_, Oct. 2, 1851, also is the following article, by its editor:

STAND YOUR GROUND.

A citizen of Guilford county, N. C., in a letter to the _True
Wesleyan_, dated August 20th, 1851, writes:

“You may discontinue my paper for the present, as I am inclined to
go Westward, where I can enjoy religious liberty, and have my family
in a free country. Mobocracy has the ascendency here, and there is
no law. Brother Wilson had an appointment on Liberty Hill, on
Sabbath, 24th inst. The mob came armed, according to mob law, and
commenced operations on the meeting-house. They knocked all the
weather-boarding off, destroying doors, windows, pulpit, and
benches; and I have no idea that, if the mob was to kill a Wesleyan,
or one of their friends, that they would be hung.

“There is more moving this fall to the far West than was ever known
in one year. People do not like to be made slaves, and they are
determined to go where it is no crime to plead the cause of the poor
and oppressed. They have become alarmed at seeing the laws of God
trampled under foot with impunity, and that, too, by legislators,
sworn officers of the peace, and professors of religion. And even
ministers (so called) are justifying mobocracy. They think that such
a course of conduct will lead to a dissolution of the Union, and
then every man will have to fight in defence of slavery, or be
killed. This is an awful state of things, and, if the people were
destitute of the Bible, and the various means of information which
they possess, there might be some hope of reform. But there is but
little hope, under existing circumstances.”

We hope the writer will reconsider his purpose. In his section of
North Carolina there are very many anti-slavery men, and the
majority of the people have no interest in what is called slave
property. Let them stand their ground, and maintain the right of
free discussion. How is the despotism of Slavery to be put down, if
those opposed to it abandon their rights, and flee their country?
Let them do as the indomitable Clay does in Kentucky, and they will
make themselves respected.

The following is quoted, without comment, in the _National Era_, in 1851, from the columns of the _Augusta Republic_ (Georgia).

FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN GEORGIA.

{ _Warrenton (Ga.),_
{ _Thursday, July 10, 1851._

This day the citizens of the town and county met in the court-house
at eight o’clock, A. M. On motion, Thomas F. Parsons, Esq., was
called to the chair, and Mr. Wm. H. Pilcher requested to act as
secretary.

The object of the meeting was stated by the chairman, as follows:

_Whereas_, our community has been thrown into confusion by the
presence among us of one Nathan Bird Watson, who hails from New
Haven (Conn.), and who has been promulgating abolition sentiments,
publicly and privately, among our people,—sentiments at war with our
institutions, and intolerable in a slave community,—and also been
detected in visiting suspicious negro houses, as we suppose for the
purpose of inciting our slaves and free negro population to
insurrection and insubordination.

The meeting having been organized, Wm. Gibson, Esq., offered the
following resolution, which, after various expressions of opinion,
was unanimously adopted, to wit:

_Resolved_, That a committee of ten be appointed by the chairman for
the purpose of making arrangements to expel Nathan Bird Watson, an
avowed abolitionist, who has been in our village for three or four
weeks, by twelve o’clock this day, by the Georgia Railroad cars; and
that it shall be the duty of said committee to escort the said
Watson to Camak, for the purpose of shipment to his native land.

The following gentlemen were named as that committee:

William Gibson, E. Cody, J. M. Roberts, J. B. Huff, E. H. Pottle, E.
A. Brinkley, John C. Jennings, George W. Dickson, A. B. Rogers, and
Dr. R. W. Hubert.

On motion, the chairman was added to that committee.

It was, on motion,

_Resolved_, That the proceedings of this meeting, with a minute
description of the said Watson, be forwarded to the publishers of
the Augusta papers, with the request that they, and all other
publishers of papers in the slave-holding states, publish the same
for a sufficient length of time.

DESCRIPTION.—The said Nathan Bird Watson is a man of dark
complexion, hazel eyes, black hair, and wears a heavy beard;
measures five feet eleven and three-quarter inches; has a quick
step, and walks with his toes inclined inward, and a little
stooped-shouldered; now wears a checked coat and white pants; says
he is twenty-three years of age, but will pass for twenty-five or
thirty.

On motion, the meeting was adjourned.

THOMAS F. PARSONS, _Chairman_.

WILLIAM H. PILCHER, _Secretary_.

This may be regarded as a specimen of that kind of editorial halloo which is designed to rouse and start in pursuit of a man the bloodhounds of the mob.

The following is copied by the _National Era_ from the _Richmond Times_:

LYNCH LAW.

On the 13th inst. the vigilance committee of the county of Grayson,
in this state, arrested a man named John Cornutt [a friend and
follower of Bacon, the Ohio abolitionist], and, after examining the
evidence against him, required him to renounce his abolition
sentiments. This Cornutt refused to do; thereupon, he was stripped,
tied to a tree, and whipped. After receiving a dozen stripes, he
caved in, and promised, not only to recant, but to sell his property
in the county [consisting of land and negroes], and leave the state.
Great excitement prevailed throughout the country, and the
_Wytheville Republican_ of the 20th instant states that the
vigilance committee of Grayson were in hot pursuit of other
obnoxious persons.

On this outrage the _Wytheville Republican_ makes the following comments:

Laying aside the white man, humanity to the negro, the slave,
demands that these abolitionists be dealt with summarily, and above
the law.

On Saturday, the 13th, we learn that the committee of vigilance of
that county, to the number of near two hundred, had before them one
John Cornutt, a citizen, a friend and backer of Bacon, and
promulgator of his abolition doctrines. They required him to
renounce abolitionism, and promise obedience to the laws. He
refused. They stripped him, tied him to a tree, and appealed to him
again to renounce, and promise obedience to the laws. He refused.
The rod was brought; one, two, three, and on to twelve, on the bare
back, and he cried out; he promised—and, more, he said he would sell
and leave.

This Mr. Cornutt owns land, negroes and money, say fifteen to twenty
thousand dollars. He has a wife, but no _white_ children. He has
among his negroes some born on his farm, of mixed blood. He is
believed to be a friend of the negro, even to amalgamation. He
intends to set his negroes free, and make them his heirs. It is
hoped he will retire to Ohio, and there finish his operations of
amalgamation and emancipation.

The vigilance committees were after another of Bacon’s men on
Thursday; we have not heard whether they caught him, nor what
followed. There are not more than six of his followers that adhere;
the rest have renounced him, and are much outraged at his
imposition.

Mr. Cornutt appealed for redress to the law. The result of his appeal is thus stated in the _Richmond_ (Va.) _Times_, quoted by the _National Era_:

MORE TROUBLE IN GRAYSON.

The clerk of Grayson County Court having, on the 1st inst. (the
first day of Judge Brown’s term) tendered his resignation, and there
being no applicant for the office, and it being publicly stated at
the bar that no one would accept said appointment, Judge Brown found
himself unable to proceed with business, and accordingly adjourned
the court until the first day of the next term.

Immediately upon the adjournment of the court, a public meeting of
the citizens of the county was held, when resolutions were adopted
expressive of the determination of the people to maintain the stand
recently taken; exhorting the committees of vigilance to increased
activity in ferreting out all persons tinctured with abolitionism in
the county, and offering a reward of one hundred dollars for the
apprehension and delivery of one Jonathan Roberts to any one of the
committees of vigilance.

We have a letter from a credible correspondent in Carroll county,
which gives to the affair a still more serious aspect. Trusting that
there may be some error about it, we have no comments to make until
the facts are known with certainty. Our correspondent, whose letter
bears date the 13th inst., says:

“I learn, from an authentic source, that the Circuit Court that was
to sit in Grayson county during last week was dissolved by violence.
The circumstances were these. After the execution of the negroes in
that county, some time ago, who had been excited to rebellion by a
certain Methodist preacher, by the name of Bacon, of which you have
heard, the citizens held a meeting, and instituted a sort of
inquisition, to find out, if possible, who were the accomplices of
said Bacon. Suspicion soon rested on a man by the name of Cornutt,
and, on being charged with being an accomplice, he acknowledged the
fact, and declared his intention of persevering in the cause; upon
which he was severely lynched. Cornutt then instituted suit against
the parties, who afterwards _held a meeting and passed resolutions,
notifying the court and lawyers not to undertake the case, upon pain
of a coat of tar and feathers_. The court, however, convened at the
appointed time; and, true to their promise, _a band of armed men
marched around the court-house, fired their guns by platoons, and
dispersed the court in confusion_. _There was no blood shed._ This
county and the county of Wythe have held meetings and passed
resolutions sustaining the movement of the citizens of Grayson.”

Is it any wonder that people emigrate from states where such things go on?

The following accounts will show what ministers of the gospel will have to encounter who undertake faithfully to express their sentiments in slave states. The first is an article by Dr. Bailey, of the _Era_ of April 3, 1852:

LYNCHING IN KENTUCKY.

The _American Baptist_, of Utica, New York, publishes letters from
the Rev. Edward Matthews, giving an account of his barbarous
treatment in Kentucky.

Mr. Matthews, it seems, is an agent of the American Free Mission
Society, and, in the exercise of his agency, visited that state, and
took occasion to advocate from the pulpit anti-slavery sentiments.
Not long since, in the village of Richmond, Madison county, he
applied to several churches for permission to lecture on the moral
and religious condition of the slaves, but was unsuccessful.
February 1st, in the evening, he preached to the colored
congregation of that place, after which he was assailed by a mob,
and driven from the town. Returning in a short time, he left a
communication respecting the transaction at the office of the
_Richmond Chronicle_, and again departed; but had not gone far
before he was overtaken by four men, who seized him, and led him to
an out-of-the-way place, where they consulted as to what they should
do with him. They resolved to duck him, ascertaining first that he
could swim. Two of them took him and threw him into a pond, as far
as they could, and, on his rising to the surface, bade him come out.
He did so, and, on his refusing to promise never to come to
Richmond, they flung him in again. This operation was repeated four
times, when he yielded. They next demanded of him a promise that he
would leave Kentucky, and never return again. He refused to give it,
and they threw him in the water six times more, when, his strength
failing, and they threatening to whip him, he gave the pledge
required, and left the state.

We do not know anything about Mr. Matthews, or his mode of
promulgating his views. The laws in Kentucky for the protection of
what is called “slave property” are stringent enough, and nobody can
doubt the readiness of public sentiment to enforce their heaviest
penalties against offenders. If Mr. Matthews violated the law, he
should have been tried by the law; and he would have been, had he
committed an illegal act. No charge of the kind is made against him.

He was, then, the victim of Lynch law, administered in a ruffianly
manner, and without provocation; and the parties concerned in the
transaction, whatever their position in society, were guilty of
conduct as cowardly as it was brutal.

As to the manner in which Mr. Matthews has conducted himself in
Kentucky we know nothing. We transfer to our columns the following
extract from an editorial in the _Journal and Messenger_ of
Cincinnati, a Baptist paper, and which, it may be presumed, speaks
intelligently on the subject:

“Mr. Matthews is likewise a Baptist minister, whose _ostensible_
mission is one of love. If he has violated that mission, or _any
law_, he is amenable to God and _law_, and not to LAWLESS VIOLENCE.
His going to Kentucky is a matter of conscience to him, in which he
has a right to indulge. Many good anti-slavery men would question
the wisdom of such a step. None would doubt his RIGHT. Many, as a
matter of taste and propriety, cannot admire the way in which he is
reputed to do his work. But they believe he is conscientious, and
they know that ‘oppression maketh even a wise man mad.’ We do not
think, in obedience to Christ’s commands, he sufficiently counted
the cost. For no one in his position should go to Kentucky to
agitate the question of slavery, unless he EXPECTS TO DIE. No man in
this position, which Mr. Matthews occupies, can do it, without
falling a martyr. Liberty of speech and thought is not, _cannot_ be,
enjoyed in slave states. Slavery could not exist for a moment, if it
did. It is, doubtless, the duty of the Christian not to surrender
his life cheaply, for the sake of being a martyr. This would be an
unholy motive. It is his duty to preserve it until the last moment.
So Christ enjoins. It is no mark of cowardice to flee. ‘When they
persecute you in one city, flee into another,’ said the Saviour. But
he did not say, Give a _pledge_ that you will not exercise your
_rights_. Hence, he nor his disciples never did it. But it _is a
question_, after one has deliberated, and conscientiously entered a
community in the exercise of his constitutional and religious
rights, whether he should give a _pledge_, under the influence of a
_love of life, never to return_. If he does, he has not counted the
cost. A Christian should be as conscientious in pledging solemnly
not to do what he has an undoubted _right_ to do, as he is in
laboring for the emancipation of the slave.”

The following is from the _National Era_, July 10, 1851.

Mr. McBride wished to form a church of non-slaveholders.

CASE OF REV. JESSE M’BRIDE.

This missionary, it will be remembered, was expelled lately from the
State of North Carolina.

We give below his letter detailing the conduct of the mob. His
letter is dated Guilford, May 6. After writing that he is suffering
from temporary illness, he proceeds:

“I would have kept within doors this day, but for the fact that I
mistrusted a mob would be out to disturb my congregation, though
such a hint had not been given me by a human being. About six
o’clock this morning I crawled into my carriage and drove eighteen
miles, which brought me to my meeting place, eight miles east of
Greensboro’,—the place I gave an account of a few weeks since,—where
some seven or eight persons gave their names to go into the
organization of a Wesleyan Methodist church. Well, sure enough, just
before meeting time (twelve o’clock) I was informed that a pack of
rioters were on hand, and that they had sworn I should not fulfil my
appointment this day. As they had heard nothing of this before, the
news came upon some of my friends like a clap of thunder from a
clear sky; they scarcely knew what to do. I told them I should go to
meeting or die in the attempt, and, like ‘good soldiers,’ they
followed. Just before I got to the arbor, I saw a man leave the
crowd and approach me at the left of my path. As I was about to
pass, he said:

“‘Mr. McBride, here’s a letter for you.’

“I took the letter, put it into my pocket, and said, ‘I have not
time to read it until after meeting.’

“‘No, you must read it _now_.’

“Seeing that I did not stop, he said, ‘I want to speak to you,’
beckoning with his hand, and turning, expecting me to follow.

“‘I will talk to you after meeting,’ said I, pulling out my watch;
‘you see I have no time to spare—it is just twelve.’

“As I went to go in at the door of the stand, a man who had taken
his seat on the step rose up, placed his hand on me, and said, in a
very excited tone,

“‘Mr. McBride, you can’t go in here!’

“Without offering any resistance, or saying a word, I knelt down
outside the stand, on the ground, and prayed to my ‘Father;’ plead
His promises, such as, ‘When the enemy comes in like a flood, I
_will_ rear up a standard against him’; ‘I am a present help in
trouble;’ ‘I will fight all your battles for you;’ prayed for grace,
victory, my enemies, &c. Rose perfectly calm. Meantime my enemies
cursed and swore some, but most of the time they were rather quiet.
Mr. Hiatt, a slave-holder and merchant from Greensboro’, said,

“‘You can’t preach here to-day; we have come to prevent you. We
think you are doing harm—violating our laws,’ &c.

“‘From what authority do you thus command and prevent me from
preaching? Are you authorized by the civil authority to prevent me?’

“‘No, sir.’

“‘Has God sent you, and does he enjoin it on you as a duty to stop
me?’

“‘I am unacquainted with _Him_.’

“‘Well, acquaint now thyself with Him, and be at peace,’ and he will
give you a more honorable business than stopping men from preaching
his gospel. The judgment-day is coming on, and I summon you there,
to give an account of this day’s conduct. And now, gentlemen, if I
have violated the laws of North Carolina, by them I am willing to be
judged, condemned, and punished; to go to the whipping-post, pillory
or jail, or even to hug the stake. But, gentlemen, you are not
_generally_ a pack of ignoramuses; your good sense teaches you the
impropriety of your course; you _know_ that you are doing wrong; you
know that it is not right to trample all law, both human and divine,
in the dust, out of professed love for it. You must see that your
course will lead to perfect anarchy and confusion. The time may come
when Jacob Hiatt may be in the minority, when _his_ principles may
be as unpopular as Jesse McBride’s are _now_. What then? Why, if
_your_ course prevails, he must be lynched—whipped, stoned, tarred
and feathered, dragged from his own house, or his house burned over
his head, and he perish in the ruins. The persons became food for
the beasts they threw Daniel to; the same fire that was kindled for
the ‘Hebrew children’ consumed those who kindled it; Haman stretched
the same rope he prepared for Mordecai. Yours is a dangerous course,
and you must reap a retribution, either here or hereafter. We will
sing a hymn,’ said I.

“‘O yes,’ said H., ‘you may sing.’

“‘The congregation will please assist me, as I am quite unwell;’ and
I lined off the hymn, ‘Father, I stretch my hands to thee,’ &c.,
rioters and all helping to sing. All seemed in good humor, and I
almost forgot their errand. When we closed, I said, ‘Let us pray.’

“‘G—d d——n it, that’s not singing!’ said one of the company, who
stood back pretty well.

“While we invoked the divine blessing, I think many could say, ‘It
is good for us to be here.’ Before I rose from my knees, after the
friends rose, I delivered an exhortation of some ten or fifteen
minutes, in which I urged the brethren to steadfastness, prayer,
&c., some of the mob crying, ‘Lay hold of him!’ ‘Drag him out!’
‘Stop him!’ &c.

“My voice being nearly drowned by the tumult, I left off. I was then
called to have some conversation with H., who repeated some of the
charges he preferred at first,—said I was bringing on insurrection,
causing disturbance, &c.; wishing me to leave the state; said he had
some slaves, and he himself was the most of a slave of any of them,
had harder times than they had, and he would like to be shut of
them, and that he was my true friend.

“‘As to your friendship, Mr. H., you have acted quite friendly,
remarkably so—fully as much so as Judas when he kissed the Saviour.
As to your having to be so much of a slave, I am sorry for you; you
_ought to be freed_. As to insurrection, I am decidedly opposed to
it, have no sympathy with it whatever. As to raising disturbance and
leaving the state, I left a little motherless daughter in Ohio, over
whom I wished to have an oversight and care. When I left, I only
expected to remain in North Carolina one year; but the people
dragged me up before the court under the charge of felony, put me in
bonds, and kept me; and now would you have me leave my securities to
suffer, have me lie and deceive the court?’

“‘O! if you will leave, your bail will not have to suffer; that can,
I think, be settled without much trouble,’ said Mr H.

“‘They _shall not_ have trouble on my account,’ said I.

“After talking with Mr. H. and one or two more on personal piety,
&c., I went to the arbor, took my seat in the door of the stand for
a minute; then rose, and, after referring to a few texts of
Scripture, to show that all those who will live godly shall suffer
persecution, I inquired, 1st, What is persecution? 2ndly, noticed
the fact, ‘shall suffer;’ gave a synoptical history of persecution,
by showing that Abel was the first martyr for the right—the
Israelites’ sufferings. The prophets were stoned, were sawn asunder,
were tempted, were slain with the sword, had to wander in deserts,
mountains, dens and caves of the earth, were driven from their
houses, given to ferocious beasts, lashed to the stake, and
destroyed in different ways. Spoke of John the Baptist; showed how
he was persecuted, and what the charge. Christ was persecuted for
doing what John was persecuted for not doing. Spoke of the
sufferings of the apostles, and their final death; of Luther and his
coadjutors; of the Wesleys and early Methodists; of Fox and the
early Quakers; of the early settlers in the colonies of the United
States. Noticed why the righteous were persecuted, the advantages
thereof to the righteous themselves, and how they should treat their
persecutors—with kindness, &c. Spoke, I suppose, some half an hour,
and dismissed. Towards the close, some of the rioters got quite
angry, and yelled, ‘Stop him!’ ‘Pull him out!’ ‘The righteous were
never persecuted for d——d abolitionism,’ &c. Some of them paid good
attention to what I said. And thus we spent the time from twelve to
three o’clock, and thus the meeting passed by.

“Brother dear, I am more and more confirmed in the righteousness of
our cause. I would rather, much rather, die for good principles,
than to have applause and honor for propagating false theories and
abominations. You perhaps would like to know how I feel. Happy, most
of the time; a religion that will not stand persecution will not
take us to heaven. Blessed be God, that I have not, thus far, been
suffered to deny Him. Sometimes I have thought that I was nearly
home. I generally feel a calmness of soul, but sometimes my
enjoyments are rapturous. I have had a great burden of prayer for
the dear flock; help me pray for them. Thank God, I have not heard
of one of them giving up or turning; and I believe some, if not most
of them, would go to the stake rather than give back. I forgot to
say I read a part of the fifth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles
to the rioters, commencing at the 17th verse. I told them, if their
institutions were of God, I could not harm them; that if our cause
was of God, _they could not stop it_—that they could kill me, but
they could _not kill_ the truth. Though I talked plainly, I talked
and felt kindly to them.

“I have had to write in such haste, and being fatigued and unwell,
my letter is disconnected. I meant to give you a copy of the letter
of the mob. Here it is:

“‘Mr. MCBRIDE:

“‘We, the subscribers, very and most respectfully request you not to
attempt to fulfil your appointment at this place. If you do, you
will surely be interrupted.

[Signed by 32 persons.]

“‘_May 6, 1851._’

“Some were professors of religion—Presbyterians, Episcopal
Methodists, and Methodist Protestants. One of the latter was an
‘exhorter.’ I understand some of the crowd were negro-traders

“Farewell, J. MCBRIDE.”

-----

Footnote 23:

The writer is describing here a scene of recent occurrence in a slave
state, of whose particulars she has the best means of knowledge. The
work in question was “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

PART IV.