t my bidding, and live on my
charity? No, sir! give a man knowledge, and, however poor he may be,
he'll act for himself."

"Then free-schools and general education would destroy slavery?"

"Of course they would. The few cannot rule when the many know their
rights. If the poor whites realized that slavery kept them poor, would
they not vote it down? But the South and the world are a long way off
from general education. When it comes to that, we shall need no laws,
and no slavery, for the millennium will have arrived."

"I'm glad you think slavery will not exist during the millennium," I
replied, good-humoredly; "but how is it that you insist the negro is
naturally inferior to the white, and still admit that the 'white trash,'
are far below the black slaves?"

"Education makes the difference. We educate the negro enough to make him
useful to us; but the poor white man knows nothing. He can neither read
nor write, and not only that, he is not trained to any useful
employment. Sandy, here, who is a fair specimen of the tribe, obtains
his living just like an Indian, by hunting, fishing, and stealing,
interspersed with nigger-catching. His whole wealth consists of two
hounds and pups; his house--even the wooden trough his miserable
children eat from--belongs to me. If he didn't catch a runaway-nigger
once in a while, he wouldn't see a dime from one year to another."

"Then you have to support this man and his family?"

"Yes, what I don't give him he steals. Half a dozen others poach on me
in the same way."

"Why don't you set them at work?"

"They can't be made to work. I have hired them time and again, hoping to
make something of them, but I never got one to work more than half a day
at a time. It's their nature to lounge and to steal."

"Then why do you keep them about you?"

"Well, to be candid, their presence is of use in keeping the blacks in
subordination, and they are worth all they cost me, because I control
their votes."

"I thought the blacks were said to be entirely contented?"

"No, not contented. I do not claim that. I only say that they are unfit
for freedom. I might cite a hundred instances in which it has been their
ruin."

"I have not heard of one. It seems strange to me that a man who can
support another cannot support himself."

"Oh! no, it's not at all strange. The slave has hands, and when the
master gives him brains, he works well enough; but to support himself he
needs both hands and b