Chapter 16

"Painful as has been to me the spectacle of many of the leading influences of the ecclesiastical bodies in this country, either placed in direct hostility to, or acting as a drag upon, the wheel of the anti-slavery enterprise--and of the manifest preponderance of a slave-holding influence in the councils of the State--I am not one of those who despair of a healthful renovation of public sentiment which shall purify Church as well as State from this abomination. There are decided indications that all efforts of councils and synods to unite 'pure religion and undefiled,' with a slave-trading and slave-holding counterfeit of Christianity, must ere long utterly fail. And it is to me a matter of joy, as it must be to every friend of impartial liberty and free institutions, that the citizens of this republic are more and more feeling that the plague-spot of slavery, as with the increased facilities of communication its horrors and deformity become more apparent in the eyes of the world, is fixing a deep disgrace upon the character of their country, and paralyzing the beneficial influence which might otherwise flow from it as an example of a well-regulated free government. May each American citizen who is desirous of washing away this disgrace, to whatever division of the anti-slavery host he may attach himself, ever bear in mind that the cause is of too tremendous and pressing a nature to admit of his wasting his time in censuring and impeding the progress of those who may array themselves under a somewhat different standard from his own; and that any energies thus wasted, which belong to the one great object, so far as human instrumentality is concerned, is not only deferring the day of freedom to two and a half millions of his countrymen, but inasmuch as the fall of American slavery must be the death-blow to the horrid system, wherever it exists, the result of the struggle here involves the slavery or freedom of millions in other parts of the world, as well as the continuance or suppression of that slave-trade, to the foreign branch of which alone more than _one thousand victims are daily sacrificed_; and in reference to which it has justly been said, 'that all that has been borne to Africa of the boasted improvements of civilized life, is a masterly skill in the contrivance, and an unhesitating daring in the commission of crimes, which the mind of the savage was too simple to devise, and his heart too gentle to execute.' There are no doubtful indications that it is the will of Him, who has the hearts of all at His disposal, that, either in judgment or in mercy, this dreadful system shall ere long cease. It is not for us to say why, in His inscrutable wisdom, He has thus far permitted one portion of His creatures so cruelly to oppress another; or by what instrumentality He will at length redress the wrongs of the poor, and the oppression of the needy; but should the worst fears of one of your most distinguished citizens, who in view of this subject, acknowledged that he 'trembled for his country, when he remembered that God was just,' be finally realized, may each one of you feel that no exertions on his part have been wanting to avert the Divine displeasure, and preserve your land from those calamities which, in all ages, have rebuked the crimes of nations.

"Your sincere friend,

"JOSEPH STURGE.

"Boston, Seventh Month 31st, 1841."

My dear friend John G. Whittier, whose pleasant company and invaluable aid I had enjoyed, as much as his health would permit, during my stay in the United States, kindly accompanied me on board. Had he been less closely identified with the transactions of which the present volume is a record, I should have felt it due to his station among the earliest and most distinguished advocates of the anti-slavery cause in America, to attempt some delineation, however imperfect, of that rare and consecrated union of consistent Christian character, fine talents, and sound and impartial judgment, which give him so much weight in the councils of his fellow-laborers. We set sail about noon on the 1st of the Eighth month, (August,) and arrived off Liverpool about eleven o'clock, P.M. on the 13th, which interval included ten hours delay at Halifax. We had about ninety passengers from Halifax to Liverpool, and with the exception of a severe gale on the 10th, almost amounting to a hurricane, we had a very favorable voyage. The time from Halifax to within sight of the light house off the south coast of Ireland was announced to be only nine days and thirteen minutes.

One of my fellow passengers had recently been traveling in the southern States, and showed me a letter given to him as a curiosity at the post office at Charleston, South Carolina, which was addressed by a slave to her husband, but from insufficient direction had never reached its destination. It was to convey the tidings that she was about to be sold to the South, and begging him, in simple and affecting terms, to come and see her, as they would never meet again. Another of the passengers, who had also been a fellow voyager with my friend Joseph John Gurney, had recently travelled in Texas. He was strongly impressed with the evils likely to result from the proposed recognition of that government by Great Britain. In consequence of the promising aspect of these negotiations between General Hamilton and Lord Palmerston in favor of Texas, the paper money issued by that piratical government, and which had not been previously negotiable for more than one tenth of its nominal value, rapidly rose. The Texas republic, in his opinion, could not secure a permanence without British recognition.

Many planters, with their slaves, have emigrated thither to escape their creditors from the border States, and the republic has been lavish of grants of land to men of capital and influence, to induce them to settle within its limits. My informant considered the state of society to be as bad as it well could be, and continue to exist. The white inhabitants are living not only in fear of hostile Indians, but in fear of each other.

From a late letter of a friend in America, I make the following extract relative to the present condition of Texas.

"To give thee some adequate idea of the importance of that beautiful republic of Texas, which Lord Palmerston and the late Whig government of England took under their especial protection, I will just refer to the statistics of the late election of its President. The successful candidate, General Houston, a man notorious for his open contempt for all the decencies of civilized society,--brutal, brawling, profane, and licentious,--received somewhat rising five thousand votes: his competitor, Judge Burnet, between two and three thousand,--a vote smaller by thousands than that of our little county of Essex, in Massachusetts. Late accounts from Texas inform us that gangs of organized desperadoes, under the names of moderators and regulators, are traversing its territory, perpetrating the most brutal outrages. In one instance they seized a respectable citizen who dared to express his dissatisfaction with their proceedings, hurried him into the forest, and deliberately dug his grave before his eyes, _intending to bury him alive_! The miserable victim, horrified by the prospect of such a fate, broke away from his tormentors, and attempted to escape, but was shot down and instantly killed! Such a congregation as Texas presents was never, I suspect, known, save in that city into which the Macedonian monarch gathered and garnered, in one scoundrel community, the vagabond rascality of his kingdom.

"Thou would'st be amused to read an article, which has made its appearance in the _Houston Telegraph_--a Texian paper--in which the editor says, 'that while we deeply commiserate the situation of our sister republic, in regard to the political scourge of abolitionism, it is pleasing to reflect that our country enjoys a _complete immunity from its effects_. Indeed we may with safety declare, that throughout the whole extent of our country, not a single abolitionist can be found.' He goes on to say that this induces many of the southern planters to emigrate to Texas, who, he remarks, '_will necessarily look to Texas, as the Hebrews did to the promised land, for a refuge and home_.' It will thus be seen that Texas is the promised land of the patriarchal slave-holders of the southern States. When hunted from every other quarter of the globe by the inexorable spirit of abolition, when even Cuba and Brazil cease to afford them an asylum--when slave-holding shall be every where else as odious and detestable as midnight larceny, or highway robbery,--Texas alone, uninfected and secure, is to open its gates of refuge to the persecuted Calhouns and McDuffies, and their northern allies in church and state--the San Marino of slavery, dissevered from the world's fanaticism--isolated and apart, like the floating air-island of Dean Swift."

The following extract from a recent New York paper gives an equally deplorable representation of the society in Texas.

"The pestilent influence of the recent horrible murders on the Arkansas, and other United States' rivers, has caused the practice of lynching to break forth with renewed fury in Texas, where it had apparently slept for the previous year. And we find recorded in the Texas papers nearly a dozen of these murders that have occurred, and undoubtedly there have been more than as many more. In Shelby county two citizens have been shot down, and several houses burned by a party of outlaws. In Red River two men have been hanged as horse-thieves, without judge or jury. In Washington county one man has been shot down, under the pretence that he was a murderer. In Austin county two men were killed, and two hostile parties were in arms for several days, taking the law into their own hands. In Jefferson county two men have been killed, and the house of one of them burnt to the ground by a party of self-styled 'regulators.' And all this in the space of a year."

Several of my fellow-passengers were from Cuba, and some of them slave-holders by their own admission. With one or two of those who could speak English, I had much conversation on the abolition of slavery. They concurred with apparent sincerity in the desire that the slave trade might be effectually suppressed. They seemed to consider that this trade was promoted by the mother country as one means of preventing the colony from aspiring to independence. They admitted the abstract injustice of slavery, and one remarked, that a difference of the color of the skin was a misfortune, not a crime. They were not, however, disposed to entertain a thought of emancipation, without being fully compensated for their slaves.

I had again the pleasure of observing on this voyage, the benefits of the change of system with regard to the supply of wines and spirits, each passenger paying for what he consumes, instead of his fare including the privilege of drinking _ad libitum_. One of the stewards told me the quantity consumed was little more than one-tenth as much as under the former system.

I cannot conclude my narrative more gratefully to my own feelings than by a tribute to the upright and conscientious officer who commanded the vessel. On the first day of the week, the only one we spent at sea, the passengers, and as many of the servants as could conveniently attend, assembled morning and evening in the saloon, for the purpose of religious worship. Lord Frederick Fitzclarence, one of the passengers, officiating as a minister of the English Establishment; and every evening a similar opportunity was offered in the fore cabin to all who were inclined to be present. The captain firmly resisted the introduction of cards on the first day of the week, and in his whole conduct manifested an anxiety not only for the temporal comfort and safety, but for the spiritual interests of those under his care. Would that all captains of vessels, invested as they are with such authority and influence over the passengers and crews, were like-minded with my friend Captain McKellar.

I disembarked at Liverpool early in the morning on the 14th of Eighth month, (August,) 1841.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS

The reader who has accompanied me thus far, will not need to be informed that I have designedly omitted many of those remarks on scenery, manners, and institutions, which were naturally suggested to my own mind by a retrospect of my sojourn in the United States. On various subjects of great interest and importance, it would be difficult for me to add anything new or valuable to the information contained in other and well known works; while on those points to which my attention was chiefly directed, I have endeavored, as far as practicable, to incorporate the results of my inquiries in the preceding narrative. There remain, however, a few observations, for which, having found no appropriate place, I would bespeak attention in a concluding chapter.

In the Northern States, education, in the common acceptation of the term, may be considered as universal; in illustration of which it may be mentioned, that on the occasion of the late census, not a single American adult in the State of Connecticut, was returned as unable to read or write. Funds for education are raised by municipal taxation in each town or district, to such an amount as the male adults may decide. Their public schools are universally admitted to be well conducted and efficient, and combine every requisite for affording a sound, practical, elementary education to the children of the less affluent portion of the community. I need scarcely add that in a republican government, this important advantage being conceded, the road to wealth and distinction, or to eminence of whatever kind, is thrown open to all of every class without partiality--the colored alone excepted.

The following extract from a letter received since my return from a respected member of the Society of Friends, residing in Worcester, Massachusetts, will give a lively idea of the general diffusion and practical character of education in the New England States.

"The public schools of the place, like those throughout the State, are supported by a tax, levied on the people by themselves, in their primary assemblies or town meetings, and they are of so excellent a character as to have driven other schools almost entirely out from among us. They are so numerous as to accommodate amply all the children, of suitable age to attend. They are graduated from the infant school, where the A B C is taught, up to the high school for the languages and mathematics, where boys are fitted for the University, and advanced so far, if they choose, as to enter the University one or two years ahead. These schools are attended by the children of the whole population promiscuously; and, in the same class we find the children of the governor and ex-governor of the State, and those of their day-laborers, and of parents who are so poor that their children are provided with books and stationery from the school fund. Under this system, we have no children who do not acquire sufficient school learning to qualify them for transacting all the business which is necessary in the ordinary pursuits of life. A child growing up without school learning would be an anomaly with us. All standing thus on a level, as to advantages, talent is developed, wherever it happens to be; and neither wealth nor ancestral honors give any advantage in the even-handed contest which may here be waged for distinction. It is thus that we find, almost uniformly, that our first men, either in government or the professions, are the sons of comparatively poor and obscure persons. In places where the wealthier portion of the community have placed their children in select schools, they are found much less likely to excel, than when placed in contact and collision with the mass, where they are compelled to come in competition with those whose physical condition prepares them for mental labor, and whose situation in society holds forth every inducement to their exertions. To this system, which is co-eval with the foundation of the State, I attribute, in a great degree, that wonderful energy of character which distinguishes the people of New England, and which has filled the world with the evidences of their enterprise."

The preceding statements refer to New England, the oldest portion of the free States. The more recently settled Northern and Western States are necessarily less advanced, yet their educational statistics would probably bear comparison with any country in the world, except the most favored portion of their own. In the slave States the aspect of things affords a striking contrast. Not only is the slave population, with but few exceptions, in a condition of heathen barbarism, a condition which it is the express object of those laws of the slave States, forbidding, under the heaviest penalties, the instruction of the slaves, to perpetuate; but the want of common elementary education among large numbers of the privileged class is notorious. Compare Virginia with Massachusetts,--"The American Almanac for the year 1841, states, (page 210) there are supposed to be hardly fewer than 30,000 adult white persons in Virginia who cannot read and write!" An able writer gives the following facts.

"No one of the slave States has probably so much general education as Virginia. It is the oldest of them--has furnished one half of the Presidents of the United States--has expended more upon her University than any State in the Union has done during the same time upon its colleges--sent to Europe nearly twenty years since for her most learned professors; and in fine, has far surpassed every other slave State in her efforts to disseminate education among her citizens; and yet, the Governor of Virginia in his message to the legislature, (Jan. 7, 1839) says, that of four thousand six hundred and fourteen adult males in that State, who applied to the county clerks for marriage licences in the year 1837, one thousand and forty seven were unable to write their names." The governor adds, "these statements, it will be remembered are confined to one sex: the education of females, it is to be feared, is in a condition of _much greater neglect_."--The editor of the Virginia Times published at Wheeling, in his paper of January 23d, 1839, says,--"We have every reason to suppose that one fourth of the people of the State cannot write their names, and they have not of course any other species of education."[A]

[Footnote A: "American Slavery as it is," page 187.]

The destitution of the means of moral and religious improvement is in like manner very great. A recent number of the "Monthly Extracts from the correspondence of the American Bible Society," contains the following extract from the 28th annual report of the Virginia Bible Society: "The sub-sheriff of one of our Western Counties stated the following fact to your agent. A jury was to be empannelled in a remote settlement of this country--he happened to have left his home without a Bible--there was no Bible in the house where the jury was to sit, and the sheriff travelled fourteen miles calling at every house, before he found a Bible. Pious surveyors stated to your agent that they had traversed every settlement in a remote section of one or two of our south western counties, that they had frequently inquired among the settlers for a Bible, but had never seen or heard of one in a region, say sixty miles by fifty."

There are few things more striking in the free States than the number and commodiousness of the places of worship. In the New England States, however general the attendance might be, none would be excluded for want of room. The other means or accompaniments of religious instruction are in the same abundance. How is it possible to evade the conclusion that Christianity flourishes most, when it is unencumbered and uncorrupted by state patronage? What favored portion of the United Kingdom could compare its religious statistics with New England?

Religion and morality, viewed on the broad scale, are cause and effect--a remark which is fully borne out in the Northern States, and in no instance more remarkably exemplified than in the spread of temperance. A few years ago the consumption of ardent spirits, and other intoxicating drinks, was as general as in England, and the effects even more conspicuous and debasing. It is now very rare, in the free States, to see a drunken person, even in the most populous cities. At the large hotels, as far as my observation extended, it is the exception, not the rule, to take any spirituous or fermented beverage at or after dinner; and no case of inebriety came under my notice in any of these establishments. I have already remarked, that some of the first hotels in the principal cities are established on the strictest temperance principles. I believe, in private hospitality, intoxicating drinks are, in like manner, very much discarded. At the tables of members of the Society of Friends, it is very rare to see either wine or malt liquor introduced; while, as already noticed, the selling, using, or giving ardent spirits is so great an offence as to be made the subject of church discipline. This is, by no means, one of the "peculiarities" of "Friends," as I believe it may be generally stated that the same practices, in most other Christian communities, would be considered as quite incompatible with a profession of religion.

The effects of this great reformation are not confined to the United States, although the change hitherto has been much more gradual in my native country; not so, however, in Ireland, now, by a happy reverse, a scene of light and promise, amidst surrounding gloom and depression. Of the American facts I have to record, connected with the temperance movement, the most grateful is the striking contrast that is exhibited in the Irish emigrants. By the divine blessing on Theobald Mathew's benevolent labors, they have generally forsaken their besetting sin of drunkenness in their native land, and if compelled to seek the means of subsistence in another country, they now at least do not carry with them habits that tend irresistibly to destitution and degradation. The Irish movement is likewise re-acting most beneficially on the native Irish, who have long been settled in America, and who are joining the total abstinence societies in great number, though hitherto the most intemperate part of the community.

In short, whether I consider the religious, the benevolent, or the literary institutions of the Northern States--whether I contemplate the beauty of their cities, or the general aspect of their fine country, in which nature every where is seen rendering her rich and free tribute to industry and skill--or whether I regard the general comfort and prosperity of the laboring population,--my admiration is strongly excited, and, to do justice to my feelings, must be strongly expressed. Probably there is no country where the means of temporal happiness are so generally diffused, notwithstanding the constant flow of emigrants from the old world; and, I believe there is no country where the means of religious and moral improvement are so abundantly provided--where facilities of education are more within the reach of all--or where there is less of extreme poverty and destitution.