“Besides, Abel,” continued Arthur, “what right have you to interfere?  Your Northern States abolished slavery when it was their interest to do so:  let us do the same.  In the meantime, consider the condition of these dirty vagabonds, these free blacks, who are begging from me every time I go into the street.  I met one the other day, who had a most lamentable state of things to report.  He had rheumatism, and a cough, and he spit blood, and he had no tobacco, and he was hungry, and he had the toothache.  I gave him twenty-five cents as a sort of panacea, and advised him to travel South and get a good master.  He took the money, but not the advice.”

“But, Arthur, the danger of insurrection; I should think it would interfere greatly with your comfort.”

“We do not fear it,” said Arthur.  “Mobs of any kind are rare in the Southern country.  We are not (in spite of the bad qualities ascribed to us by the Abolitionists) a fussy people.  Sometimes, when an Abolitionist comes along, we have a little fun with him, the negroes enjoying it exceedingly.  Slaveholders, as a general thing, desire to live a peaceful, quiet life; yet they are not willing to have their rights wrested from them.”

“One great disadvantage in a slaveholding community is, that you are apt to be surrounded by uneducated people,” said Abel.

“We do not educate our slaves,” said Arthur; “but you do not presume to say that we do not cultivate our minds as assiduously as you do yours.  Our statesmen are not inferior to yours in natural ability, nor in the improvement of it.  We have far more time to improve ourselves than you, as a general thing.  When you have an opportunity of judging, you will not hesitate to say, that our women can bear to be compared with yours in every respect, in their intellect, and refinement of manners and conversation.  Our slaves are not left ignorant, like brutes, as has been charged upon us.  Where a master feels a religious responsibility, he must and does cause to be given, all necessary knowledge to those who are dependent upon him.  I must say, that though we have fewer sects at the South, we have more genuine religion.  You will think I am prejudiced.  Joining the church here is, in a great measure, a form.  I have formed this opinion from my own observation.  With us there must be a proper disregard of the customs of the world; a profession of religion implying a good deal more than a mere profession.  Look at the thousand new and absurd opinions that have agitated New England, while they never have been advanced with us.  There is Unitarianism, that faith that would undermine the perfect structure of the Christian religion; that says Christ is a man, when the Scriptures style him ’Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.’  Why, it is hardly tolerated at the South.  Have you any right to claim for yourself superior holiness?  None whatever.