“My overseers are all black, every one!  I would’nt have a white one; they are mostly tyrants,” says the deacon, looking at his fields, exultingly.  “And my overseers plan out the very best mode of planting.  They get through a heap of work, with a little kindness and a little management.  Those two things do a deal, Sir!  Five years ago, I projected this new system of managing negroes-or, rather my lady planned it,—­she is a great manager, you see,—­and I adopted it.  You see how it has worked, Mr. Scranton.”  The deacon takes Mr. Scranton by the arm, pointing over the broad expanse of cultivated land, bending under the harvest.  I make all my negroes marry when they have arrived at a specific age; I assure them I never will sell one unless he or she commits a heinous crime; and I never have.  There is a great deal in keeping faith with a negro; he is of mankind, and moved by natural laws mentally and physically, and feels deeply the want of what we rarely regard of much consequence-confidence in his master’s word.  Wife encourages their moral energy; I encourage their physical by filling their bellies with as much corn and bacon as they can eat; and then I give them five cents per day (the heads of families) to get those little necessaries which are so essential to their comfort and encouragement.  I call it our paid-labour system; and I give them tasks, too, and when they have finished them I allow a small stipend for extra work.  It’s a small mite for a great end; and it’s such an encouragement with them that I get about thirty per cent. more work done.  And then I allow them to read just as much as they please-what do I care about law?  I don’t want to live where learning to read is dangerous to the State, I don’t.  Their learning to read never can destroy their affections for me and wife; and kindness to them will make them less dangerous in case of insurrection.  It’s not the education we’ve got to fear; our fears increase with the knowledge of our oppression.  They know these things-they feel them; and if by educating them one can cultivate their confidence, had we not better do it with a view to contingencies?  Now, as the result of our system, we have promised to give all our negroes their freedom at the expiration of ten years, and send such as wish to go, to Liberia; but, I hold that they can do as much for us at home, work for us if properly encouraged, and be good free citizens, obedient to the laws of the State, serving the general good of a great country.”

“Yes!” the good lady interposes; “I want to see those things carried out; they will yet work for the regeneration of their own race.  Heaven will some day reward the hand that drags the cursed mantle from off poor Africa; and Africa herself will breathe a prayer to Heaven in grateful acknowledgment of the act that frees her from the stain of being the world’s bonded warehouse for human flesh and blood.”