I have lived a great deal at the North—­long enough to see acts of oppression and injustice there, which, were any one so inclined, might be wrought into a “living dramatic reality.”

I knew a wealthy family.  All the labor of the house was performed by a “poor relation,” a young and delicate girl.  I have known servants struck by their employers.  At the South I have never seen a servant struck, though I know perfectly well such things are done here and everywhere.  Can we judge of society by a few isolated incidents?  If so, the learned professors of New England borrow money, and when they do not choose to pay, they murder their creditors, and cut them in pieces! or men kill their sleeping wives and children!

Infidelity has been called a magnificent lie!  Mrs. Stowe’s “living dramatic reality” is nothing more than an interesting falsehood; nor ought to be offered, as an equivalent for truth, the genius that pervades her pages; rather it is to be lamented that the rich gifts of God should be so misapplied.

Were the exertions of the Abolitionists successful, what would be the result?  The soul sickens at the thought.  Scenes of blood and horror—­the desolation of our fair Southern States—­the final destruction of the negroes in them.  This would be the result of immediate emancipation here.  What has it been elsewhere?  Look at St. Domingo.  A recent visitor there says, “Though opposed to slavery, I must acknowledge that in this instance the experiment has failed.”  He compares the negroes to “a wretched gibbering set, from their appearance and condition more nearly allied to beasts than to men.”  Look at the free colored people of the North and in Canada.

I have lived among them at the North, and can judge for myself.  Their “friends” do not always obtain their affection or gratitude.  A colored woman said to me, “I would rather work for any people than the Abolitionists.  They expect us to do so much, and they say we ought to work cheaper for them because they are ‘our friends.’” Look at them in Canada.  An English gentleman who has for many years resided there, and who has recently visited Washington, told me that they were the most miserable, helpless human beings he had ever seen.  In fact he said, “They were nuisances, and the people of Canada would be truly thankful to see them out of their country.”  He had never heard of “a good missionary” mentioned by Mrs. Stowe, “whom Christian charity has placed there as a shepherd to the outcast and wandering.”  He had seen no good results of emancipation.  On one occasion he hired a colored man to drive him across the country.

“How did you get here?” he said to the man.  “Are you not a runaway?”

“Yes, sir,” the man replied.  “I came from Virginny.”

“Well, of course you are a great deal happier now than when you were a slave?”

“No, sir; if I could get back to Virginny, I would be glad to go.”  He looked, too, as if he had never been worse off than at that time.