of the age allow of vindictive punishment, even were that demoniac feeling the constitutional inheritance of so brave and proud a people.*[430]

With these facts, which are familiar to the intelligence of the South, ought the anti-slavery fanaticism of the North to be viewed in any other light than unpardonable ignorance or unwarrantable impudence? This remarkable fact is observable, that those who mostly concern themselves about this institution are those who know least about it; and when they have occasionally had a response from better intelligence, it has been unfortunate for their cause that such response is traceable to the demagogue, who hopes to gather from such a harvest stores which will serve his ambition. When a gifted and leading Northern politician has dignified it as a "great moral question which must and will be heard," it was unfortunate for that individual, with his great and comprehensive intellect, that he was so little acquainted with the real institution, or it is hardly probable that he would [431] have endorsed a popular fallacy - a sophism such as schoolboys may debate in their college walls, but such as practical experience does not justify.

In Mexico I saw a number of negroes who had absconded from Texas, and in no case did I see one whose condition was bettered, but, in most instances, vastly worse. I saw several anxious to return to their owners, and nearly all, by a few months' residence, were as degraded as the mass of Mexicans. They were extremely destitute; they who previously never had a care, and who knew it was their master's business to clothe, feed, and provide them with every necessary, now found liberty an unreal phantom; they found in it a licentious indulgence, which, instead of giving them food and raiment, brought in its train misery and wo.

After all, I am forced to the conclusion that slavery, as applied to this institution, is but an ugly name, and liberty, as applied to nineteen twentieths of the

* Since writing the above, both truth and candour require the author to state, that in his travels in Texas he has witnessed, upon the plantation of one of the citizens of the republic, treatment of his slaves which forms the only exception, in this community, of what is above asserted. I witnessed working at the cotton scaffold three Africans wearing what the overseer familiarly called "necklaces." This "necklace" consisted of a circular piece of iron, the ends of which were fastened upon the back of the head with a stout padlock. This circular iron band rested in front upon the mouth, attached to which was another iron inserted in the open mouth. A second iron band was welded at right angles to the first, immediately in front of the mouth, and passed over the top of the head, thence down in the direction of the padlock behind. Thus "necklaced," these slaves had neither power to eat, drink, nor speak, and at stated periods the "necklace" was taken off to afford them sustenance. They were working bareheaded, under a burning August sun, in the 29th degree of north latitude. The reader can best imagine to himself the power of the sun upon these irons, and they in contact with the naked flesh. I could imagine no crime so heinous as to justify the punishment of this damnable machine. Upon inquiry, I was informed that they were made to wear these machines to prevent them from "eating dirt," a desire occasioned by a morbid appetite which I have known both in white and black. I have since learned that these irons were to prevent them from absconding.

I am sensible that the abolitionist will triumph at this circumstance; yet they will have but a lean argument in condemning the humanity of a thousand good on account of the cruelty of one bad master. It would be as reasonable were the censorious to condemn the whole Protestant Church for the crimes of one pastor, or the amours of a bishop.