e them, as whatever
approaches it prepossesses them, far more than is reasonable. The
Southerners are infinitely better bred men, according to English
notions, than the men of the Northern States. The habit of command gives
them a certain self-possession, the enjoyment of leisure a certain ease.
Their temperament is impulsive and enthusiastic, and their manners have
the grace and spirit which seldom belong to the deportment of a Northern
people; but upon more familiar acquaintance, the vices of the social
system to which they belong will be found to have infected them with
their own peculiar taint; and haughty overbearing irritability,
effeminate indolence, reckless extravagance, and a union of profligacy
and cruelty, which is the immediate result of their irresponsible power
over their dependents, are some of the less pleasing traits which
acquaintance developes in a Southern character. In spite of all this,
there is no manner of doubt that the 'candid English observer' will, for
the season of his sojourning among them, greatly prefer their
intercourse to that of their Northern brethren. Moreover, without in the
least suspecting it, he will be bribed insidiously and incessantly by
the extreme desire and endeavour to please and prepossess him which the
whole white population of the slave States will exhibit--as long as he
goes only as a 'candid observer,' with a mind not _yet_ made up upon the
subject of slavery, and open to conviction as to its virtues. Every
conciliating demonstration of courtesy and hospitable kindness will be
extended to him, and, as I said before, if his observation is permitted
(and it may even appear to be courted), it will be to a fairly bound
purified edition of the black book of slavery, in which, though the
inherent viciousness of the whole story cannot be suppressed, the
coarser and more offensive passages will be carefully expunged. And now,
permit me to observe, that the remarks of your traveller must derive
much of their value from the scene of his enquiry. In Maryland,
Kentucky, and Virginia, the outward aspect of slavery has ceased to wear
its most deplorable features. The remaining vitality of the system no
longer resides in the interests, but in the pride and prejudices of the
planters. Their soil and climate are alike favourable to the labours of
a white peasantry: the slave cultivation has had time to prove itself
there the destructive pest which, in time, it will prove itself whereve