The boat, on its second trip, brought down Mr. Walker, the man of whom I have spoken in a previous chapter, as hiring my time.  He had between one and two hundred slaves, chained and manacled.  Among them was a man that formerly belonged to my old master’s brother, Aaron Young.  His name was Solomon.  He was a preacher, and belonged to the same church with his master.  I was glad to see the old man.  He wept like a child when he told me how he had been sold from his wife and children.

The boat carried down, while I remained on board, four or five gangs of slaves.  Missouri, though a comparatively new State, is very much engaged in raising slaves to supply the southern market.  In a former chapter, I have mentioned that I was once in the employ of a slave-trader, or driver, as he is called at the south.  For fear that some may think that I have misrepresented a slave-driver, I will here give an extract from a paper published in a slaveholding State, Tennessee, called the “Millennial Trumpeter.”

“Droves of negroes, chained together in dozens and scores, and hand-cuffed, have been driven through our country in numbers far surpassing any previous year, and these vile slave-drivers and dealers are swarming like buzzards around a carrion.  Through this county, you cannot pass a few miles in the great roads without having every feeling of humanity insulted and lacerated by this spectacle, nor can you go into any county or any neighborhood, scarcely, without seeing or hearing of some of these despicable creatures, called negro-drivers.

“Who is a negro-driver?  One whose eyes dwell with delight on lacerated bodies of helpless men, women and children; whose soul feels diabolical raptures at the chains, and handcuffs, and cart-whips, for inflicting tortures on weeping mothers torn from helpless babes, and on husbands and wives torn asunder forever!”

Dark and revolting as is the picture here drawn, it is from the pen of one living in the midst of slavery.  But though these men may cant about negro-drivers, and tell what despicable creatures they are, who is it, I ask, that supplies them with the human beings that they are tearing asunder?  I answer, as far as I have any knowledge of the State where I came from, that those who raise slaves for the market are to be found among all classes, from Thomas H. Benton down to the lowest political demagogue, who may be able to purchase a woman for the purpose of raising stock, and from the Doctor of Divinity down to the most humble lay member in the church.

It was not uncommon in St. Louis to pass by an auction-stand, and behold a woman upon the auction-block, and hear the seller crying out, “How much is offered for this woman?  She is a good cook, good washer, a good obedient servant.  She has got religion!” Why should this man tell the purchasers that she has religion?  I answer, because in Missouri, and as far as I have any knowledge of slavery in the other States, the religious teaching consists in teaching the slave that he must never strike a white man; that God made him for a slave; and that, when whipped, he must not find fault,—­for the Bible says, “He that knoweth his master’s will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes!” And slaveholders find such religion very profitable to them.