housand
dollars for harboring and assisting fugitive slaves; but he now harbors
and assists them at a much cheaper rate. Though belonging to a society
which is the advocate of peace, his tone is quite as warlike as that of
the world's people. In this store alone--and there are others on the
island, carried on by private enterprise--two thousand dollars' worth of
goods are sold monthly. To be sure, a rather large proportion of these
consists of molasses and sugar, "sweetening," as the negroes call it,
being in great demand, and four barrels of molasses having been sold the
day of my visit. But there is also a great demand for plates, knives,
forks, tin ware, and better clothing, including even hoop-skirts.
Negro-cloth, as it is called, osnaburgs, russet-colored shoes,--in
short, the distinctive apparel formerly dealt out to them, as a uniform
allowance,--are very generally rejected. But there is no article of
household-furniture or wearing apparel, used by persons of moderate
means among us, which they will not purchase, when they are allowed the
opportunity of labor and earning wages. What a market the South would
open under the new system! It would set all the mills and workshops
astir. Four millions of people would become purchasers of all the
various articles of manufacture and commerce, in place of the few
coarse, simple necessaries, laid in for them in gross by the planters.
Here is the solution of the vexed industrial question. The indisposition
to labor is overcome in a healthy nature by instincts and motives of
superior force, such as the love of life, the desire to be well clothed
and fed, the sense of security derived from provision for the future,
the feeling of self-respect, the love of family and children, and the
convictions of duty. These all exist in the negro, in a state of greater
or less development. To give one or two examples. One man brought
Captain Hooper seventy dollars in silver, to keep for him, which he had
obtained from selling pigs and chickens,--thus providing for the future.
Soldiers of Colonel Higginson's regiment, having confidence in the same
officer, intrusted him, when they were paid off, with seven hundred
dollars, to be transmitted by him to their wives, and this besides what
they had sent home in other ways,--showing the family-feeling to be
active and strong in them. They have also the social and religious
inspirations to labor. Thus, early in our occupation of Hilton Head,
they to