’The condition of those blacks is assuredly better than that of the agricultural laborers in many parts of Europe.  Their morality is far superior to that of the free negroes of the North; the planters encourage marriage, and thus endeavor to develop among them a sense of the family relation, with a view of attaching them to the domestic hearth, consequently to the family of the master.  It will be then observed that in such a state of things the interests of the planter, in default of any other motive, promotes the advancement and well-being of the slave.  Certainly, we believe it possible still to ameliorate their condition.  It is with that view, even, that the South has labored for so long a time to prepare them for a higher civilization.

’In no part, perhaps, of the continent, regard being had to the population, do there exist men more eminent and gifted, with nobler or more generous sentiments, than in the Southern States.  No country possesses lovelier, kinder hearted, and more distinguished women.  To commence with the immortal Washington, the list of statesmen who have taken part in the government of the United States shows that all those who have shed a lustre on the country, and won the admiration of Europe, owed their being to that much abused South.

’Is it true that so much distinction, talent, and grandeur of soul could have sprung from all the vices, from the cruelty and corruption which one would fain attribute now to the Southern people?  The laws of inflexible logic refute these false imputations.  And—­strange coincidence—­while Southern men presided over the destinies of the Union, its gigantic prosperity was the astonishment of the world.  In the hands of Northern men, that edifice, raised with so much care and labor by their predecessors, comes crashing down, threatening to carry with it in its fall the industrial future of every other nation.  For long years the constant efforts of the North, and a certain foreign country, to spread among the blacks incendiary pamphlets and tracts have powerfully contributed to suspend every Southern movement towards emancipation.  Its people have been compelled to close their ears to ideas which threatened their very existence.’”

“But,” said Mr. North, “here we have been, for thirty years or more, living on an anti-slavery excitement.  Grant that it is all wrong; will you ask or expect that we shall change all at once? in a week? or in a month? or in a year?  We will not kneel to anybody; if we change, it must be upon conviction.”

“I strike hands with you there,” said I, “most heartily.  Our Southern friends must understand this; they must now approach us once more with reason and persuasion.  The people at large are in a frame to be reasoned with and persuaded; for if we can do anything within the bounds of reason to retain the South in the Union, it will be done.  We will say of concession as the antithesis of secession, as was said of two other things:  ‘Millions for defence, but not a cent for tribute.’  I think that both sections need forgiveness of God, and of each other.”