There now lies before me a paper, containing the following remarks:  “There is, however, one admitted feature in American slavery of a character so shameful as to justify almost anything that can be said or imagined of the institution.  Men live with their female slaves in a state of concubinage, beget children, raise them in their families with a perfect knowledge of their origin, and sell them or leave them to be sold by others in case of decease or reverses.”  It is strange that those who indulge in such opprobrious remarks about southern slaveholders, do not look after their own white bastards which are scattered over this entire country, east, west, north and south.  Men are everywhere, (with a few exceptions,) the world over, utterly devoid of all parental affections for their illegitimate children; and the Southern man, no doubt, has fully as much concern about his mulatto bastards as the Northern man has about his white bastards.  What is the Southern man to do with his brood of mulatto children?  Suppose he liberates them, their condition is but little improved thereby, unless he sends them out of the country.  It is, however, clearly his duty to educate and manumit such children; but what is the duty of the Northern man surrounded by a score of his illegitimate progeny?  The condition of the children of the white concubines of the North are not a whit better, than that of the colored concubines of the South; and the Northern man who suffers his children to become the victims of poverty and vice—­to sink into the very lowest depths of degradation!—­hopelessly, irretrievably lost, is no better than the Southern man who suffers his mulatto children to be sold.  One thing is clear; the Northerner can do much more to ameliorate the condition of his unfortunate offspring than the Southerner; and for this reason, he is probably the worst man of the two.

CHAPTER I.

While I was preparing the following work for the press, a friend called on me, and with apparent solicitude, inquired, “Which side of the question are you on, Sir?” I answered him, that I was on the side of truth, or at least, that I wished to be found on that side.  Calling at a book-store, I purchased a work on slavery, returned immediately to my room, and was anxiously looking over its pages; a friend tapped at my door, “Come in, Sir; take a seat.”  He had scarcely seated himself, before he inquired, “What book are you reading, Sir?” A work on slavery, was my answer.  “Which side of the question is it on?” It was but a short time before I purchased two other volumes on the same subject, and laid them on my table.  A gentleman called on business, and observing the books, inquired what kind of books they were?  I laughingly answered that they were novels.  “Why,” replied he, “I thought you did not read novels.”  I remarked (in substance), that they were novels on the subject of slavery, and that I had been for some