to read and understand even a newspaper. Indeed, in one of the slave States, this
is not a matter of mere inference; for in 1837 Governor Clarke, of Kentucky, de-
clared in his message to the legislature, that “one-third of the adult population
were unable to write their names;” yet Kentucky has a “school-fund,” valued at
1,221,819 dollars, while South Carolina has none.
One sign of this want of ability, even to read, in the slave States, is too striking
to be passed by. The staple reading of the least cultivated Americans is the
newspapers, one of the lowest forms of literature, though one of the most power-
ful, read even by men who read nothing else. In the slave States there are pub-
lished but 377 newspapers, and in the free, 1,135. These numbers do not express
the entire difference in the case; for, as a general rule, the circulation of the
Southern newspapers is 50 to 75 per cent. less than that of the north. Suppose,
however, that each Southern newspaper has two-thirds the circulation of the
Northern journal, we have then but 225 newspapers for the slave States! The
more valuable journals--the monthlies and quarterlies--are published almost
entirely in the free States.
The number of churches, the number and character of the clergy who labour
for these churches, are other measures of the intellectual and moral condition of
the people. The scientific character of the Southern clergy has been already
touched on. Let us compare the more external facts.
In 1830, South Carolina had a population of 581,185 souls; Connecticut,
297,675. In 1836, South Carolina had 364 ministers; Connecticut, 498.
In 1834, there were in the slave States but 82,532 scholars in the Sunday-
schools; in the free States, 504,835; in the single State of New York, 161,768.
The fact of constant emigration from slave States is also
shown by such extracts from papers as the following, from the
Raleigh (N. C.) Register, quoted in the columns of the National
Era.
Our attention was arrested, on Saturday last, by quite a long train of waggons,
winding through our streets, which, upon inquiry, we found to belong to a party
emigrating from Wayne County, in this State, to the “far West.” This is but a
repetition of many similar scenes that we and others have witnessed during the
past few years; and such spectacles will be still more frequently witnessed, unless
something is done to retrieve our fallen fortunes at home.
If there be any one “consummation devoutly to be wished” in our policy, it
is that our young men should remain at home, and not abandon their native State.
From the early settlement of North Carolina, the great drain upon her prosperity
has been the spirit of emigration, which has so prejudicially affected all the States
of the South. Her sons, hitherto neglected (if we must say it) by an unparental
government, have wended their way, by hundreds upon hundreds, from the land of
their fathers--that land, too, to make it a paradise, wanting nothing but a mar-
ket--to bury their bones in the land of strangers. We firmly believe that this
emigration is caused by the laggard policy of our people on the subject of internal
improvement, for man is not prone by nature to desert the home of his affections.
The editor of the Era also quotes the following from the
Greensboro' (Ala.) Beacon.
“An unusually large number of movers have passed through this village
within the past two or three weeks. On one day of last week, upwards of thirty
Waggons and other vehicles belonging to emigrants, mostly from Georgia and
South Carolina, passed through on their way, most of them bound to Texas and
Arkansas.”
This tide of emigration does not emanate from an overflowing population. Very
far from it. Rather, it marks an abandonment of a soil which, exhausted by
injudicious culture, will no longer repay the labour of tillage. The emigrant,
turning his back upon the homes of his childhood, leaves a desolate region, it may
be, and finds that he can indulge his feelings of local attachment only at the risk
of starvation.
How are the older States of the South to keep their population? We say
nothing of an increase, but how are they to hold their own? It is useless to talk
about strict construction, State rights, or Wilmot provisos. Of what avail can
such things be to a sterile desert, upon which people cannot subsist?
In the columns of the National Era, Oct. 2, 1851, also is the
following article, by its editor.
A citizen of Guildford County, North Carolina, in a letter to the True Wesleyan, dated August 20th, 1851, writes:--
“You may discontinue my paper for the present, as I am inclined to go Westward,
where I can enjoy religious liberty, and have my family in a free country. Mob-
ocracy has the ascendancy here, and there is no law. Brother Wilson had an
appointment on Liberty Hill, on Sabbath, 24th inst. The mob came armed,
according to mob law, and commenced operations on the meeting-house. They
knocked all the weather-boarding off, destroying doors, windows, pulpit, and
benches; and I have no idea that, if the mob was to kill a Wesleyan, or one of their
friends, that they would be hung.
“There is more moving this fall to the far West than was ever known in one
year. People do not like to be made slaves, and they are determined to go where
it is no crime to plead the cause of the poor and oppressed. They have become
alarmed at seeing the laws of God trampled under foot with impunity, and that,
too, by legislators, sworn officers of the peace, and professors of religion. And
even ministers (so called) are justifying mobocracy. They think that such a
course of conduct will lead to a dissolution of the Union, and then every man will
have to fight in defence of slavery, or be killed. This is an awful state of things;
and if the people were destitute of the Bible, and the various means of informa-
tion which they possess, there might be some hope of reform. But there is but
little hope, under existing circumstances.”
We hope the writer will re-consider his purpose. In his section of North
Carolina there are very many anti-slavery men, and the majority of the people
have no interest in what is called slave property. Let them stand their ground,
and maintain the right of free discussion. How is the depotism of slavery to be
put down, if those opposed to it abandon their rights, and flee their country?
Let them do as the indomitable Clay does in Kentucky, and they will make them-
selves respected.
The following is quoted, without comment, in the National
Era, in 1851, from the columns of the Augusta Republic (Georgia).
Warrenton (Ga.),
Thursday, July 10, 1851.
This day the citizens of the town and county met in the court-house at eight
o'clock, a.m. On motion, Thomas F. Parsons, Esq., was called to the chair, and
Mr. Wm. H. Pilcher requested to act as secretary.
The object of the meeting was stated by the chairman as follows:
Whereas, our community has been thrown into confusion by the presence among
us of one Nathan Bird Watson, who hails from New Haven (Connecticut), and
who has been promulgati
ng abolition sentiments, publicly and privately, among our
people--sentiments at war with our institutions, and intolerable in a slave com-
munity--and also been detected in visiting suspicious negro houses, as we suppose
for the purpose of inciting our slaves and free negro population to insurrection and
insubordination.
The meeting having been organised, Wm. Gibson, Esq., offered the following
resolution, which, after various expressions of opinion, was unanimously adopted,
to wit:
Resolved, That a committee of ten be appointed by the chairman for the pur-
pose of making arrangements to expel Nathan Bird Watson, an avowed abolitionist,
who has been in our village for three or four weeks, by twelve o'clock this day, by
the Georgia Railroad cars; and that it shall be the duty of said committee to
escort the said Watson to Camak, for the purpose of shipment to his native land.
The following gentlemen were named as that committee:
William Gibson, E. Cody, J. M. Roberts, J. B. Huff, E. H. Pottle, E. A.
Brinkley, John C. Jennings, George W. Dickson, A. B. Rogers, and Dr. R. W.
Hubert.
On motion, the chairman was added to that committee.
It was, on motion,
Resolved, That the proceedings of this meeting, with a minute description of the
said Watson, be forwarded to the publishers of the Augusta papers, with the request
that they, and all other publishers of papers in the slaveholding States, publish the
same for a sufficient length of time.
Description.--The said Nathan Bird Watson is a man of dark complexion,
hazel eyes, black hair, and wears a heavy beard; measures five feet eleven and
three-quarter inches; has a quick step, and walks with his toes inclined inward,
and a little stoop-shouldered; now wears a checked coat and white pants; says he
is twenty-three years of age, but will pass for twenty-five or thirty.
On motion, the meeting was adjourned.
Thomas F. Parsons, Chairman.
William H. Pilcher, Secretary.
This may be regarded as a specimen of that kind of editorial
halloo which is designed to rouse and start in pursuit of a man
the bloodhounds of the mob.
The following is copied by the National Era from the Rich-
mond Times.
On the 13th inst. the Vigilance Committee of the county of Grayston, in this
State, arrested a man named John Cornutt (a friend and follower of Bacon, the
Ohio abolitionist), and, after examining the evidence against him, required him
to renounce his abolition sentiments. This Cornutt refused to do; thereupon, he
was stripped, tied to a tree, and whipped. After receiving a dozen stripes, he
caved in, and promised not only to recant, but to sell his property in the county
(consisting of land and negroes), and leave the State. Great excitement pre-
vailed throughout the country, and the Wytheville Republican of the 20th
inst. states that the Vigilance Committee of Grayston were in hot pursuit of other
obnoxious persons.
On this outrage, the Wytheville Republican makes the fol-
lowing comments:
Laying aside the white man, humanity to the negro, the slave, demands that
these abolitionists be dealt summarily, and above the law.
On Saturday, the 13th, we learn that the Committee of Vigilance of that
county, to the number of near two hundred, had before them one John Cornutt,
a citizen, a friend and backer of Bacon, and promulgator of his abolition doc-
trines. They required him to renounce abolitionism, and promise obedience to the
laws. He refused. They stripped him, tied him to a tree, and appealed to him
again to renounce, and promise obedience to the laws. He refused. The rod was
brought; one, two, three, and on to twelve, on the bare back, and he cried out;
he promised--and, more, he said he would sell and leave.
This Mr. Cornutt owns lands, negroes, and money, say fifteen to twenty
thousand dollars. He has a wife, but no white children. He has among his
negroes some born on his farm, of mixed blood. He is believed to be a friend of
the negro, even to amalgamation. He intends to set his negroes free, and make
them his heirs. It is hoped he will retire to Ohio, and there finish his operations,
of amalgamation and emancipation.
The Vigilance Committees were after another of Bacon's men on Thursday;
we have not heard whether they caught him, nor what followed. There are not
more than six of his followers that adhere; the rest have renounced him, and are
much outraged at his imposition.
Mr. Cornutt appealed for redress to the law. The result of
his appeal is thus stated in the Richmond (Va.) Times, quoted
by the National Era.
The clerk of the Grayson County Court having, on the 1st inst. (the first day
of Judge Brown's term), tendered his resignation, and there being no applicant for
the office, and it being publicly stated at the bar that no one would accept
said appointment, Judge Brown found himself unable to proceed with business,
and accordingly adjourned the Court until the first day of the next term.
Immediately upon the adjournment of the Court, a public meeting of the
citizens of the country was held, when resolutions were adopted expressive of the
determination of the people to maintain the stand recently taken; exhorting the
Committees of Vigilance to increased activity in ferreting out all persons
tinctured with abolitionism in the county, and offering a reward of one hundred
dollars for the apprehension and delivery of one Jonathan Roberts to any one of
the Committees of Vigilance.
We have a letter from a credible correspondent in Carroll County, which gives
to the affair a still more serious aspect. Trusting that there may be some error
about it, we have no comments to make until the facts are known with certainty.
Our correspondent, whose letter bears date the 13th inst., says:--
“I learn, from an authentic source, that the Circuit Court that was to sit in
Grayson County during last week was dissolved by violence. The circum-
stances were these. After the execution of the negroes in that county, some
time ago, who had been excited to rebellion by a certain Methodist preacher,
by the name of Bacon, of which you have heard, the citizens held a meeting,
and instituted a sort of inquisition, to find out, if possible, who were the
accomplices of said Bacon. Suspicion soon rested on a man by the name of
Cornutt, and, on being charged with being an accomplice, he acknowledged the
fact, and declared his intention of persevering in the cause; upon which he was
severely lynched. Cornutt then instituted suit against the parties, who after-
wards held a meeting and passed resolutions, notifying the Court and lawyers not
to undertake the case, upon pain of a coat of tar and feathers. The Court,
however, convened at the appointed time; and, true to their promise, a band of
armed men marched round the court-house, fired their guns by platoons, and
dispersed the Court in confusion. There was no blood shed. This county and
the county of Wythe have held meetings and passed resolutions sustaining the
movement of the citizens of Grayson.
Is it any wonder that people emigrate fr
om States where such
things go on?
The following accounts will show what ministers of the gospel
will have to encounter who undertake faithfully to express their
sentiments in slave States. The first is an article by Dr. Bailey,
of the Era, of April 3, 1852.
The American Baptist, of Utica, New York, publishes letters from the Rev.
Edward Matthews, giving an account of his barbarous treatment in Kentucky.
Mr. Matthews, it seems, is an agent of the American Free Mission Society,
and, in the exercise of his agency, visited that State, and took occasion to advocate
from the pulpit anti-slavery sentiments. Not long since, in the village of Rich-
mond, Madison County, he applied to several churches for permission to lecture
on the moral and religious condition of the slaves, but was unsuccessful. February
1st, in the evening, he preached to the coloured congregation of that place, after
which he was assailed by a mob, and driven from the town. Returning in a
short time, he left a communication respecting the transaction at the office of the
Richmond Chronicle, and again departed; but had not gone far before he was
overtaken by four men, who seized him, and led him to an out-of-the-way place,
where they consulted as to what they should do with him. They resolved to duck
him, ascertaining first that he could swim. Two of them took him and threw him
into a pond, as far as they could, and, on his rising to the surface, bade him come
out. He did so, and, on his refusing to promise never to come to Richmond, they
flung him in again. This operation was repeated four times, when he yielded.
They next demanded of him a promise that he would leave Kentucky, and never
return again. He refused to give it, and they threw him in the water six times
more, when, his strength failing, and they threatening to whip him, he gave the
pledge required, and left the State.
We do not know anything about Mr. Matthews, or his mode of promulgating his
views. The laws in Kentucky for the protection of what is called “slave pro-
perty” are stringent enough, and nobody can doubt the readiness of public senti-
Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin Page 62
