amily identity, and were happy, served
affectionately, and with willing alacrity, the master and his
household. In the midst of scenes and circumstances like these grew
women in all that constitutes nobility of soul and sentiment, delicacy,
intelligence, and refined purity, superior to any it has ever been my
fortune to meet on earth.

Here in these palatial homes was the hospitality of princes. It was not
the hospitality of pride or ostentation, but of the heart; the welcome
which the soul ungrudgingly gives, and which delights and refines the
receiver. It is the welcome of a refined humanity, untainted with
selfishness, and felt as a humane and duly bound tribute to
civilization and Christianity; such hospitality as can only belong to
the social organization which had obtained in the community from its
advent upon this great country.

The independence of the planter's pursuit, the institution of domestic
slavery, and the form and spirit of the Government, all conduce to
this. The mind is untrammelled and the soul is independent, because
subservient neither to the tyrannical exactions of unscrupulous
authority, or the more debasing servility of dependence upon the
capricious whims of petty officials, or a monied aristocracy.
Independently possessing the soil and the labor for its cultivation,
with only the care necessary to the comforts and necessities of this
labor, superadded to those of a family, they were without the necessity
of soliciting or courting favors from any one, or pandering to the
ignorant caprices of a labor beyond their control. Independence of
means is the surest guarantee for independence of character. Where this
is found, most private and most public virtues always accompany it.
Truth, sincerity, all the cardinal virtues are fostered most where
there is most independence. This takes away the source of all
corruption, all temptation. This seeks dependence, and victimizes its
creatures to every purpose of corruption and meanness.

Under the influences of the institutions of the South, as they were,
there was little of the servile meanness so predominant where they were
not, and the lofty and chivalrous character of the Southern people was
greatly owing to these institutions, and the habits of the people
growing out of them. The slave was a class below all others. His master
was his protector and friend; he supplied his wants and redressed his
wrongs, and it was a point of honor as well as duty to