It has been specially requested, my friends, that I should account to you, why I abandoned, almost at the outset, my tour of Lectures in the Northern States. It would be egotism only to suppose that any such narration would interest you, did it concern myself alone: but as this progress and its failure, has become involved in the politico-social relations of the two great sections of the country, now in absolute and direct antagonism, the history rises into an importance which otherwise it would not possess. As straws may be made to show the direction of the wind, so the simple career of an individual, may be made at times, to indicate the courses of the political currents, and especially the ebbs, flows, and overflows, which affect human communities. Believing then, that my narrative may be made instructive, I readily comply with the request, and trust that while I give it, it will occasion neither offense nor weariness. You may find it tedious, but may also, probably, find it profitable. To my mind, it involves many serious monitions, of great value to the Physicians of the State, and as I regard our people as approximating one of those periods of mortal crisis which are inevitable from the progress of all states, at certain almost regularly recurring times, I should be untrue to you, unjust to my own convictions of the danger which awaits you, were I to remain silent. The world, my friends, rarely shows us the spectacle, in any age, of any people, who have been able to maintain their independence, or preserve their liberties, for more than half a century;—certainly never, without going through the fiery furnace of foreign or civil war. And, duly aware of the trials which thus await humanity, a truly noble people will calmly and resolutely prepare themselves for every issue, and will deliberately study all those signs in the sky which seem to be the harbingers of convulsion. You will weigh my testimony, as that of all others, no matter how humble, with the serious consideration which is demanded by the vast value of the interests which you have involved in the Future. You will look at the blessings you enjoy, ask yourselves in respect to the rights which you inherit, the wealth you have at stake, the character which is your pride, the sires from whom you came, and the children who are to inherit after you. And I implore you especially to rise to such an appreciation of these interests as to become heedless of the mere medium through which you now Page 254 →receive your evidence. It is not now a season to sport with Thought, or ask of Fancy, the charm of colouring for speech. I shall aim at nothing of this sort. I shall employ no flourishes of rhetoric, but deliver to you a simple plain, unvarnished tale of experience. I do not come before you to amuse, and if you come hither only to find amusement, we are ill met tonight. I propose to tickle no ears with wit or fancy, to deal in no gaudy declamation. At this moment, my friends, I should as soon think of fiddling for you from St. Michaels’ tower, while your city is flaming all around us.

My progress at the North, my friends, may be likened to that of a certain valiant monarch of the French, who,

“With 20,000 men,

Marched up a hill & then marched down again.”

Or, rather, to that of one of the later Roman Emperors who set forth, with a vast armament, for the conquest of Britain, and returned home, bringing with him, as a trophy of conquest, only a basket of shells, which we may suppose the natives to have charitably flung at his head. For my part, if I failed in the oyster, I at all events escaped the shells. I brought none with me. If I could not return as a royal cruiser, bringing home rich argosies, I was resolved that my little craft should not be disparaged in her sailing trim by clumsy stowage and a vulgar ballast. I came as I went, accordingly,—came back, my friends, to my thirteen bushels of corn per annum. Satisfied, nay, happy, if having no better foods, I should yet be sure of my own, and the continued independence of my people!

You are to know, my friends, that for several years past, I have had frequent invitations to take part in the Lecture Circles of the Northern States; where the Lecture has grown into an institution; is one of the most efficient agencies of popular education, & exercises a vast influence upon the popular mind. Here it is otherwise. But the scene was too remote, my hands were usually too full of other labours, and I felt no adequate motive to compliance, until last year, when an earnest desire to vindicate our State and Section from the grievous slanders to which they have recently been subjected, furnished an impulse which proved superior to all personal considerations. These slanders of our Past, worked upon my mind, as I fancy, they worked upon yours. I felt that, in a fair field, they were easy of refutation. I had already, thro’ the press, done something towards their refutation; but the publications of the South, which hardly circulate at home, still more rarely reach the North, and the Lecturing System of that region seemed to promise a much more ample field. I resolved to avail myself of it—to re-open the old chronicles for the instruction of those who had no opportunity for undertaking the task for themselves. I said to myself “the people of the North are surely not all hostile. There are thousands who will gladly listen to the truth—nay, be glad of a case made out, for them, in the defence of a section with which they are closely Page 255 →connected by ties of blood, trade and habitual association. Those, at least, should be put in possession of our argument, that they may be enabled to maintain our cause in their own precincts. As all events, the case should not be suffered to go by default. There should be an advocate—issue should be joined, and it should be shown to the world that, even while we deny the jurisdiction of a foreign tribunal, we are yet perfectly prepared to challenge its judgments. Our lachesse had already lost us much, and we have reached a crisis which required that it should no longer cause us surfeit.” I proposed to make the survey of the revolutionary career of South Carolina, seizing upon the essential truths and principles, and using the details only where they were needed properly to illustrate the truth. A full summary of our Revolutionary career was essential to our character; and a people’s character is their best security. A thousand mistakes & misrepresentations were to be corrected. The latent truths, lying concealed under mere facts, were to be developed and clues to be furnished for the explanation of difficulties which must occur in all the rude chronicles of a people. All our State and Colonial histories—so called—are, in fact, little more than imperfect chronicles, which need wise sifting, narrow scrutiny and a philosophical judgment. These, it is true, belong to the common law of historical analysis; and I should not speak of them here, but for the gross mistakes of the popular mind, from the want of that nice criticism which we need in order to a just grasp of our revolutionary career. I proposed to show how & where South Carolina stood in the Revolution—what was her condition, her resources—what she did—and what is her relative claim to respect, in a fair review of her performances, according to her means, as tried by those of other colonies. This is the only just method. But it is one of great difficulty, when it is remembered that, in South Carolina, as in all the purely agricultural states, the public mind has seldom addressed itself to the preservation of the public records. In the North, in all commercial states, where the density of the population causes a more general and incessant intellectual attrition, the case is otherwise. There, they have been perpetually busy in the assertion of their local claims. Sedulously devoted to this object, they have as sedulously ignored the services of all other regions. They have studiously exaggerated all that they themselves have meritoriously done, and, just as studiously suppressed every thing which might tell against their pretensions. This labour of love has, at length, succeeding in impressing upon all their own people, at least, the conviction that they have done every thing; and, as a natural consequence of their own position of assured security & preeminence, it has now become a part of the practice to disparage all other sections. To correct this tendency was one of the objects—at least to interpose a seasonable caveat, against a too precipitate judgment. I prepared other lectures, illustrative of our partisan warfare—a subject which deserves a volume to itself—in which I proposed to make the career of Marion, in some degree typical of the whole history, and of the peculiar advantages of such a Page 256 →warfare in a country like ours. Still farther—as there exists at the North a very singular degree of ignorance, in respect to our rustic life, our social moral, and the geographical features of our country. I prepared one or more Lectures, the better to illustrate our resources, character and society, with descriptions of our peculiar scenery. I very well knew that much of the prejudice of sections against each other was the result of mere ignorance, and I held it vastly important to our future relations, that the truth should be made known, even to unwilling ears, if only to prevent those mistakes of policy, which, under false notions of our neighbors, so frequently lead to the most disastrous consequences. It was especially important that the North should be disabused of the notion that the South is imbecile—imbecile because of her slave institutions—imbecile in war—unproductive in letters—deficient in all the proper agencies of civilization,—and so, incapable of defense against assaults upon these notions our enemies very strenuously insist, & in every form of phrase, & through every popular medium—the press, the pulpit, the Poet and the Politician. A miserable paragraphist will prate of the intellectual, moral and military deficiencies of a region which has produced a Washington, Jefferson, Marshall, Rutledge, Calhoun; Randolph—Marion, Sumter, Jackson, Scott & Taylor; a catalogue including all the master minds in statesmanship & war of which the whole country rings from the earliest period to the present—not to speak of Scenes, besides,—where wisdom, virtue, valour, eloquence, have established the government; given it its form and pressure; fixing our laws & national policy:—mistreating our rights in field & council;—and, in spite of these recorded names, the babble about our imbecility, as a race, will be uttered every where, by the most miserable scribblers of a venal press, & fanatic pulpit—by flatulent orators & trading politicians,—creatures who themselves have done, and can do, nothing for the nation;—and there will be nobody to rise up to confront them, with a manly indignation—to cry aloud—“Fools! Get ye to Jericho: till your beards be grown!” This is the daily history. Shall we stop to ask, wherefore this malignant desire to prove base & worthless, the sister states to which we are bound in solemnly written contract? Enough that it argues a condition of hostility which must ultimately break all bonds. There is a Rubicon in every progress which, once passed, return becomes impossible. Return for all who deal, in this language, is even now impossible. Now, my friends, once persuade a jealous, grasping, arrogant race, always usurping,—that the section which they hate and denounce is at once rich in wealth and poor in spirit;—worthy of the spoiler, yet feeble of will; wanting in energy and courage; slow in action & timid of resolve;—and you hold forth to them every motive for aggression and assault; you stimulate their arrogance, & endow them with audacity if not with courage. Now, unless we prepare ourselves for the last issues, it is well perhaps, if we may disabuse these people of such notions. It was somewhat my purpose to do this in my lectures—not merely to vindicate our ancestors, but Page 257 →to show, as indirectly and inoffensively as possible, that we inherit their blood & spirit; their intellect & will—that we are not resourceless in any of the elements that enable a nation to maintain itself in the arena with all other nations,—not imbecile, but particularly powerful, whenever the necessity for conflict shall become sufficiently apparent to compel the exhibition of our strength. This is the case especially with all agricultural people, who, sparsely settled, are slow to action; unaccustomed to daily attrition with the multitude, have little variety of movement: and wait always, some extraordinary impulse:—but who are firm when roused, concentrative of will & purpose, from the very absence of capricious impulse; are more fearless in action; more tenacious of individuality; more jealous of their liberation when threatened than all other people;—and, strengthened by a self-esteem which has been nursed in comparative solitude, find in patriotism only the exercise of a personal pride which never slumbers under the invasion of its rights. These are the virtues of a rural population. Next then, to the vindication of our past history, it was an object to assert our present resources; to disabuse our neighbors of the notion that the South is to be crushed at a blow, or crushed at all;—to afford such clues to the thinking mind, as to satisfy any mind, that an agricultural people, however slow to excitement, are always better prepared than any other, for national emergencies; can better grapple in the fields of war: can better endure a protracted conflict:—are endowed with peculiar virtues of moral—are earnest & steadfast—such a soldiery, as in all exigencies, has always proved the best bulwark of states & nations.

I especially avoided the subject of slavery. I well know that the time had gone by for any national discussion of this topic—that the whole case was prejudiced—that madness ruled the hour—that the people of the North were precisely in the category of those who, in France, in the days of philanthropic insanity, decreed the doom of the fairest portion of the tropical world;—surrendering, at Hayti, the civilization of Christendom to the usurpations of the savage. I well knew that, to use this subject, in any description of the rustic life in the South, would be only to provoke abuse and hostility. Besides, I was, myself, sick of the discussion. I had already, more than twenty years ago, published an elaborate review of our argument upon it, taking the ground, from which most persons then recoiled, that slavery, as it exists among us, was a great moral institution, of incalculable benefits to the human races, whether white or black—perhaps the most extensively benevolent in the whole circle of human philanthropy—authorized by the special sanction of the Deity—justified by the whole world’s experience of its benefits—and, under proper definitions, perfectly legitimate when tried by the severest notions of civilization among mankind. But, though thus prepared to defend the Institution, I was restrained by the conviction that the discussion would be vain, and not only vain but unbecoming. A great people, my friends—a people equal to their liberties—must not recognize Page 258 →the tribunals of other nations when these become aggressive. The moral judgments of the age, are only to be regarded, in the absence of partisanship, & when they deal abstractly with the case. The moment that they become usurping & insolent—the moment that they propose to follow up opinion by assault,—then, a people must throw themselves back upon their paramount equality—their reserved individuality & rights,—and, if need be, the sword must decide the legitimacy of the cause which has become one of quarrel & aggression! Governed by these considerations, I avoided the subject of slavery. I could not recognize the right of those who had first stolen the negro, then sold him to us and pocketed the money, to the question the tenure by which we held him. If our little be not good, they are bound to make it so. They must come into court with clean hands before they can hale us thither. If our own practice be criminal, they are the original parties to the crime: and whatever our share in it, our responsibility is to the great father of the world’s destinies, and not to them. We are to understand, and to make them understand, that, socially & politically, we are their equals; and any effort which they may make us to appeal to their courts of judgment are aggressions, usurpative & offensive, and a direct invasion of our independence.

I have thus endeavoured to show you upon what plan & principles my Lectures were formed; with what object; why certain Subjects were chosen; why others were forborne. Yes my avoidance of the subject of slavery was a matter of misconception and reproach. It was assumed, by certain of the assailing presses, that I had avoided the subject only because it told against us—because it exposed our asserted imbecility—and I was referred to an effort on the part of certain South Carolinians in the Congress of 1779 to authorize the employment, in war, of regiments of slaves—a measure tantamount to a confession of physical weakness on the part of the white population. But the imputation was a mere absurdity. Nobody doubted or denied that, in the revolution, the States of North & South Carolina & Georgia were deficient in population. This indeed, was a part of our own argument, by which we undertook to show how unreasonable it was to expect very powerful performances from colonies so sparsely settled and by such heterogeneous elements. So far as these states were concerned, the revolution was premature. But, even with this admission of weakness, it was resolved, and by votes & voices of Carolina chiefly, that the slaves should not be employed. Of what value then, this charge, though the measure was proposed by certain Carolinians, at a moment of threatened invasion, and after three years of the war had already elapsed in which South Carolina & Georgia had exhausted a large proportion of their strength, when it was decided by the very people, whose weakness was yet supposed to render it necessary. They, at least, would not acknowledge such weakness: and were willing to maintain the struggle without seeking such doubtful alliance. Thus answered, our assailants next changed the manner of attack, and ascribed our refusal to bring the slaves into the field, to our Page 259 →own fears; as if it would not have been the wiser policy, regarding the negro as hostile, to place him in our own ranks & regiments, under the surveillance of our own race, rather than leave him, almost without control, in full possession of the plantations! No resolve could more decidedly have shown how small was our fear of this people, when we see them left to cultivate the homestead, while all the white military population had gone into the field—left to the care of old men, and boys & women. No doubt some apprehensions were entertained, and expressed at first, in reference to this people, for they were Africans, not natives, & thousands of them, just brought into the country were in a state of comparative savagism. And, no doubt, that these apprehensions were brought before Congress, the better to carry the object of the Committee to which the subject had been confided. And well might the fear be expressed when the State was about to be overrun by a powerful & reckless enemy, who, it was readily conceived, would exercise every art of seduction which could prevail with an ignorant & barbarous race. But there was a policy, superior to that which suggested their military service, which required that they should be kept at the tasks of agriculture. The British felt this policy, even when they had overrun the country, and never sought to disturb it, except on one or two occasions of great exigency, when their occupancy was endangered. They felt how much wiser it would be to keep the negro busy, raising the food which was to maintain their armies; and so it was that, during the last three years of the war, the troops, both of Great Britain & America, in the two Carolinas and Georgia, were almost wholly supported by the rice & corn fields of South Carolina; while the tobacco & indigo of the same state, furnished a large part of the trading currency. All fears of the negroes soon died out with the experience of single campaign. When incorporated in arms, and under their own captains, as they were in some few instances, they were found inefficient; a disorderly mob; timid in moments of danger, and easily dismissed; but insolent in person, brutal in excess, and quite as likely to hunt as to help their employers. It was only when incorporated with white troops, in a subordinate capacity, and led on by white officers, that they could answer any useful purposes. It was because he saw them thus employed in the New England regiments, that John Laurens conceived the idea of subsidizing some five thousand of them in South Carolina, to be called Janissaries,—to be led wholly by white officers. He it was, who first originated the idea which brought the proposition before Congress. He urged that the negroes of the North constituted a considerable portion of the best New England regiments—that, kept under subordination by white leaders, they were tolerably efficient—in other words would fight well enough under the eye & guidance of their masters; were, in fact, many of them times employed by our own partisans, and so employed, were faithful, diligent & fearless. In the New England regiments they were scattered freely, formed no inconsiderable item among their best, such as Glover’s regiment of Marblehead—nay, Page 260 →they formed some of the earliest & best patriots of that region, which has never accorded them proper honours—the very mob of Boston, which drew the first fire of the British troops, being led on by the negro Attucks; who, by the way, might well be honoured as their first martyr to Independence, as he was the first to perish for his patriotism, in that affair. Young Laurens knew all these facts, and others, and, carefully insisting that the negroes were to be officered by the superior race, he urged their incorporation with our soldiery. He was opposed by his own father, who argued powerfully against the scheme, and it failed of recognition. And why did he urge it at the particular time when it was brought before Congress? 1779. South Carolina & Georgia, the two feeblest colonies, were then threatened by a fleet and land force of from 12 to 15000 men. These two colonies, feeble at first, the elder only 100 years old, the younger but 40; the former hardly able to bring 10,000 men into the field; the latter not 3,000; both formed of singularly heterogeneous stock; both exhausted by numerous strifes, toils and misfortunes; both wanting as much in the material as the personnel of war; were evidently doomed, unless by extraordinary exertions, and the employment of the most extraordinary agencies, and the peculiar favour of Providence. The Northern States, with more than 100,000 men on paper could not send men enough into the field for the one army of Washington, which was filled with regiments of Maryland & Virginia & battalions even from North Carolina, and the very Committee of Congress to which was confided this measure of arming the slaves of Carolina, reported solemnly in March 1779 that the “Circumstances of the Northern army will not admit of the detaching of any force for the defence of South Carolina & Georgia.” Strange, indeed! With but the show of an enemy in New England, the Continental Army could not muster 20,000 men—the circumstances of the army would not justify the draught of 5000 bayonets to the succour of the two feeblest of the Southern states. You can judge of the resources of South Carolina & Georgia, against the approaching army & fleet of Britain, of at least 12000 men, in all the panoply of war, when you remember that, with just this force of 12000 men, the British were enabled to maintain possession of New York against the united force of all the colonies under Washington—and to retain Newport, with 3000 men against all the power of New England. Washington never could procure sufficient numbers to attempt any thing against New York, and Greene could not command from all the 110,000 troops of New England, on paper, a force of 5000 volunteers, to expel the British from Rhode Island. No wonder—knowing the physical weakness of Georgia & South Carolina—knowing the immense territory which they had to defend,—twice or thrice the territory of any New England state,—that Laurens thought of arming the negroes. The very idea shows the confidence which our ancestors entertained in the fidelity of this caste; and their services were rejected—not because they feared them—for they left them in the charge of their women & children,—but Page 261 →because they thought them much more efficient as field hands, raising rice and corn, tobacco & indigo, than as field soldiers, doing execution in war. I might, as you see, have introduced this very subject of slavery, profitably, for my revolutionary argument, but did not, as I wished to excite no prejudices which would interfere with my mission.

To return from this digression

Provided, as I have shown you, with sundry lectures, wholly Southern in character,—I made my first public appearance in the flourishing town of Buffalo. The committee of the Society by which I had been called, had been permitted a choice of subjects. They, themselves, chose, as I wished, my Lecture on South Carolina in the Revolution. The very title of this lecture, under the warm & racing excitements occasioned by Sumner’s speech, and Brooks’s punishment of him, necessarily indicated a controversial performance. That it should be chosen, argued favorably for the public mind to my own. The auspice seemed to be good. It seemed to say,—we are prepared to hear the truth on this subject—let us have it. We have heard one side—let us hear the other. The tacit adoption thus, of the rule audi alteram partem, was in proof of honesty & fair mindedness, and I asked nothing farther from my audience. This was large, estimated at more than 1200 persons. During the discourse, I was heard, with frequent applause. I, myself, heard not a syllable of discontent. But, the next day, I was told that I had been hissed on one or two occasions, though the hisses were drowned by the applause. Fortunately, being rather deaf, I heard none of these exhibitions of discontent. I had not the slightest reason to suppose that I had given offence. I had certainly designed none. I had resolved, fearlessly, to assert the truths of history, but not to assail or irritate. The press, however, even that portion which maintained towards me the language of decorum, yet objected to the comparisons—not always odious—which I had made between the conduct of South Carolina, and other states on sundry occasions. It was said that I should have foreborne all comparisons—should have confined myself simply to the action of South Carolina. But this, my friends, was not always possible. I had a mission, which, under the circumstances, was [word unintelligible]. South Carolina was under this ban. She was herself the subject of odious comparisons. It was necessary, not only to assert her history; but to show what was that of her assailants; not only to defend her against the assaults of those who had mutilated her history, but to show where they had falsified their own. It was quite legitimate that I would endeavour not only to protect our own rooftree, but tear away from others their stolen garlands. For all such appropriation of borrowed laurels is a direct wrong to other sections. But, though quite proper, I did just as little of this as I well could. I made no comparisons, save in regard to issues which had been made already by our assailants, & only with the view to the establishing of correct standards, by which the audience, seeing what other colonies had done, or failed to Page 262 →do, under like circumstances, should be able to judge what should be expected of South Carolina. Thus, for example, when in answer to the charge that our people had failed to defend their capital city, it was quite proper for me to show that, in this respect, they had done much more than Boston, New York or Philadelphia. All these cities were seized & held by the British, without standing siege at all; and this too, at the very opening of the Revolution: when, we might reasonably suppose that each was in its fullest vigour. Charleston, of all these, was the only city that did endure a siege, a leaguer and constant bombardment of near two months, and this, after repelling & defeating two formidable assaults, and at a period—1780—when her resources and her strength had been materially impaired by the previous campaign, which had tried her strength equally upon the frontiers & upon the seaboard, in the defence of Georgia and in an invasion of Florida. This was the only sort of comparison which I made, and a just criticism will not only admit that it was quite legitimate and proper to my argument, but, under the circumstances of provocation, especially called for. You will believe me when I assure you that I strove, as much as possible, to forbear all gratuitous offence. I might have indulged in frequent sarcasm, and, by sharp recrimination, have shown to our assailants how much more penetrable their armour was than ours. But I forbore—they know not how greatly I forebore.

It was also made matter of grievous offence that I should refer to Mr. Sumner; that I should denounce his attack on S.C. as equally false & malignant. But why should I forbear Mr. Sumner? Is he immaculate? Was he not himself a wanton assailant? Did not his cold blooded, venomous, deliberate assault upon our State, so entirely gratuitous, invite and justify retort? So. Caro. was not the subject before the Senate. He went out of his way to spoil her, and in a more deliberate expression of malignant hatred than was ever suffered to show itself in Senate House before. This was not done in the heat of passion—it was a work of time, of cool deliberate purpose & studied preparation. And he had even submitted his anathemas to his friends—Seward and others—all perhaps equally prepared to wound as himself, but more shrewd and politic; & they counseled him against it. His philippic was the work of months—a closet labour—giving him time for thought, for better councils—a more Christian spirit;—but, in vain! The good angels, if we may suppose any to have been in waiting, while the venomous cauldron was boiling up under his ministering hands—boiling up with equal froth & venom—were unheard. He rejected all his better counsellors! The two main characteristics of this Senator, the sophomoric vanity, and the political ambition,—were too powerful to suffer either prudence or policy—his better moods, or the counsel of wiser friends—to have a hearing; and, having sharpened his javelin, and anointed it with venom from his concoction, no human argument, no social scruples, no Christian virtue, could keep his vanity from launching his bolt at the bosom of his victim. He had studied Demosthenes in the preparation Page 263 →of his Philippic; and the thought that all his people looked on lovingly to hear his thunders, was the irresistible motive for his eloquence! Why should I forbear him? Because he had been cudgelled? His slanders were on record, and still demanding refutation. His offence was still scored on our chronicles, and would there remain, even when the cudgel marks had faded from his forehead. There was no reason why I should forebear him. Yet, in some measure I did. I dismissed him as briefly as I could, with but a passing allusion, and a single comment. It was said that even this might have been foreborne. Not so! My Lecture was avowedly controversial. It was in reply to the assaults upon South Carolina; and this man, if not the most able of her assailants, was among the most venomous & most conspicuous. It would have been a mere paltry evasion, to undertake her defence, yet forbear all allusion to the very party who had made this defence necessary. It would have been a feeble affectation, on my part, to have done so, as it would be mere feeling, on the part of any audience to make the requisition. But, in alluding to Sumner, as the assailant of my country, I forbore all allusion to current politics—said nothing of the slavery or Kansas Questions—nothing of the Presidential election—forbore to discuss the virtues of Fremont, though claiming a birthplace in ours, as in sundry other states; and, did not, in fact, care a straw about whether he should be successful or not. The safety of the South, my friends, is not to be found in any party, or in the morale of any President. The President, now-a-days, is a mere nose of wax, in the hands of party, or he is powerless in all respects. We are to learn, from this time forth, the great lesson, that we are to live & maintain ourselves by our own virtues, by our own vigilance, & wisdom, or we must perish! These are the only conditions of safety & security for a people, as for individual man; and that people who look to this or that Cabinet, for guardianship, is already doomed—to degradation!

I have shown you what was the opinion of the more moderate of the Buffalo press upon my Lecture. In respect to its claims, merely, as a Literary production, I had no reason to complain of their criticism. This was laudatory. But there were other presses that used a different sort of language. It would be difficult to describe to you, accustomed to regard the press as a reflection of society, its manners no less than its morals, the brutal character of these attacks, nor will I attempt to do so. It was by this press that I was first described as a Southern pauper seeking Northern charities;—it was said that the people of the North, sometimes called in a Southern orator or Lecturer, as they would a foreign fiddler, with his dancing dogs & monkey,—to amuse them. And much more of the same stuff. But the Southron, on this occasion, made them angry, & did not amuse them; and to make him odious, he was denounced as having employed a speech of the most insulting kind to the people of the North; such as should properly have caused him to be hooted from the stage. The same presses joined issue with me upon my facts, showing a most lamentable ignorance of the history. For example; when Page 264 →I stated that New England had never furnished any troops for the defence of Carolina, the press impudently asked if I had forgotten that Greene led an army to our succour? I could not reproach them for this ignorance, my friends, when I remembered, that, misled by false histories, thousands of my own people had labored under the same idle notion, until a very recent period;—until, in fact, my own humble publications, had disabused them of the error. Greene brought with him but a single aide, and he a Southron, when he assumed command of the Southern army. He found the debris of Gates’s Continentals, awaiting him in North Carolina—an army made up wholly from the Southern states, & to be renewed exclusively from the same sources; for, with an obvious propriety, Congress had arranged that the military organization of the Country, should contemplate a geographical division of the troops of the two great sections. Yet, from the first, in consequence perhaps of the war opening first in the Northern States, large divisions from Virginia, Maryland, & North Carolina constituted a very considerable proportion of the army of Washington, and distinguished themselves in all the great actions in which he fought. In the siege of Boston, the rifle volunteers from these Colonies crowded thither, more than fifteen hundred in number, while the New England troops could not be prevailed upon to stay—when they were marching away, in fact, 5000 in a drove. And these same Southern riflemen constituted the most efficient portion of the force which Arnold led in the invasion of Canada.

The Brutal attacks of the Buffalo press preceded me to Rochester. There, I found the Committee by which I had been invited, labouring under considerable uneasiness. They too had chosen the same Lecture on So. Carolina, but a portion of them were disposed to recoil from it in consequence of the excitement occasioned by the Buffalo reports. A discussion took place among the members of the Board, at which I was present. Some of the members would have changed the Lecture. After listening patiently for awhile, I became a little excited, & said—“Gentlemen, you yourselves have chosen this lecture out of several that I offered you; you have already announced it, and I am here, prepared to deliver it, tho’ the skies fall! If you insist, I will substitute another for it, but now, I frankly tell you, I prefer to deliver this. I owe it to myself to express this preference, if for no other reason than this: that it has been so shamefully misrepresented. It is controversial. It denies much of the history to which your ears have been accustomed. It endeavours to set some matters right in our history which have been grossly perverted; it defends South Carolina from the malignant misrepresentations which have been made of her history; and no doubt, on all these subjects, I express myself with a natural warmth, & no less natural indignation: but it is untrue, that I use disrespectful or insulting language to the people of the North, unless the truth itself shall be construed to mean offence. I think it very likely that what I say will be unpleasant to all that class who utter to themselves and listen eagerly Page 265 →to assaults upon the character and performances of the South; offensive to all those who have sworn the ruin of the South. But you deny that you are in this category, and with such a disclaimer, honestly felt, I do not fear that I shall give offence. I speak in terms of censure of Mr. Sumner? I deny the claims set up for Massachusetts as more pure, or true, loyal & valiant than other colonies, in the great struggle of the Revolution. But what of that? Is Massachusetts to be held more sacred from assault in N.Y. than South Carolina? If so, there is no value in any of your disclaimers of hostility to us. Are you to be required to hearken daily to the attacks on the one section, at which nobody seems to take offence, and shall it be a scandalous thing for a South Carolinian to retort, in your hearing, upon the assailant? Is this justice, or fair play? You are New Yorkers, or you are nothing. Surely, New York, at least, should be an open arena, as between Massachusetts & South Carolina. You should be able to listen patiently to me, as you have listened a thousand times, through a thousand channels, to the wholesale diatribes against my people!”

My remarks, of which the preceding is the substance, and very nearly the language, were echoed warmly by one of the Editors of the place whose name I take shame to myself for having forgotten. He said promptly:

“Mr. Simms demands nothing but what is just. You have repeatedly listened to such orators as John P. Hale, when the abuse of the South was all the burden. I insist that we shall equally hear the other side. I tell you that, if the Lecture is changed, I for one shall withdraw from the society, and shall denounce the whole proceedings in my paper.”

This seemed to decide it. It was resolved that the Lecture should be delivered, and it was delivered. There was a full and showy assemblage of probably a thousand people. Excited by the previous discussion, & by the attempts made to prevent the Lecture, and by the assaults made upon me, I addressed some extempore remarks to the audience before opening, in review of this treatment; and while I spoke respectfully, & good humouredly, I yet spoke warmly, of the false relations in which the social elements of the country stood to each other, in consequence of the interposition of selfish & malignant parties. I asserted the claims of the South, upon the Northern people—the value of the Union to themselves especially, and assured them that its perpetuation could only depend upon the truth & justice & magnanimity. That any other bond of union must be false and hollow; that merely political ties & obligations, could never make, or keep the Confederacy whole, if there were not also certain sacred social sympathies, founded upon faith, good feeling & real kindnesses, to make the connection one of cement, rather than of law! All this was received favorably and with general applause. In the delivery of the Lecture, itself, I indulged in an occasional aside, in commentary, or explanation, at those portions which had given offence elsewhere and there was no voice of dissent that reached my ears. The audience was Page 266 →indulgent. Their attention was unbroken, even in those portions of the discourse, where the interest was wholly local, and required a minute examination of detailed operations. The applause was repeated at frequent intervals, and warmly followed the closing sentences of the Lecture. From the Lecture room, I retired with the Board, & a number besides, to their private apartments, where we were hospitably entertained. The circle was large & intelligent, consisting mostly of clever, active, young men, who were no doubt desirous of the truth,—desirous of progress, proper performances, and free from the malignant impulses of fanaticism and party—as free as they can be under those controlling influences of party, which, in the North, have warped & tortured society, out of all symmetry and form. It is all wild, disordered, anarchical, ready for chaos and disruption. And, the Northern mind, where not fanatical, is marked by a frivolity, a levity, which makes it reluctant to grapple seriously, with serious things—makes it unwilling to believe in dangers which it does not know how to meet; & is perfectly content, if it possesses the hour, and can sport and play, & seek its amusements. All this class of persons, and they are very numerous in all communities which grow to great & sudden prosperity, are flexible tools & creatures in the hands of more earnest & intensely working people. They never lead, they never engage in conflict, they shrink from new issues, and dread minorities. In their age, they become what the world indulgently describes as conservatives. They stand still, at all events, and as they find themselves alone, in solitude, with the world passing beyond them, they gather up their knapsacks, and mournfully follow the great march. Any people, living so wholly for show & appearances, are easily swept along with the masses. They lack individuality. In the conversation which followed in the little circle, we spoke freely of our issues, North & South; and I dealt much more freely with them, as pleasant companions, then I had dealt with my audience. There was intelligence, good sense, and good feeling among them; and I could not but regret that such admirable elements, for a noble social organization, could have no chance for proper exercise, in the condition of their country. The great lack of veneration in Northern communities, the wretched habit of refusing to recognize any thing as sacred; the habit engendered by a morbid self esteem, of striving to bring down, & trampling upon all authority, necessarily expatriates all honest leadership; and he who would acquire power, must first debase himself to servility; to popular sycophancy; to the adoption, pro tempore, at all events, of all the popular rages. But I must not expatiate here. It is enough that I had the warmest assurances of all the parties present of respect, & the most grateful feeling. They expressed no complaint, and gave me no reason to suppose that I had given any offense. On the contrary, passing beyond the mere courtesies of Hosts & Entertainers, they treated me with a warm kindness that took pains to give me pleasure.

Page 267 →My next stage was Syracuse. But here the Buffalo denunciations had again anticipated my coming and made a deeper impression. The committee positively declined my South Carolina lecture, & another, wholly innocuous was substituted for it. Syracuse, in N. York, is understood to be the hotbed of abolition. Here appears to be the grand central agency for what is called the Underground Rail Road. Here is an Institution, openly avowed and existing, for carrying on a regular warfare against the sister states of the Confederacy, to which they are pledged by the most sacred bonds of law, by all the ties which should give oneness and Entirety to a National existence. Only think of the monstrous anomaly of an organization, asserting union and common necessities, which beholds, without rebuke or remedy, the perpetual warfare of one section upon the rights of another. While conversing with a Gentleman at the depot, and while he was giving me the assurance, that the people of the North, were really very friendly to the South, loved the South in fact, were delighted with its generosity, hospitality and other vulgar domestic virtues, another came up and remarked to him, with a smile,—“They brought in five fugitives from Maryland last night, by the Underground Rail Road.” Here was a rich commentary upon all this loving sympathy. Now, my friends, these are our brethren—great friends of the Union, sworn to the Constitution; obedient to its law—the people who rise up and call the Union blessed. Yet, here, they daily commit, or sanction such violations of Law, Constitution, Union, as would be cause of War between nations living under independent dynasties. Persons will tell you—O! These are only our fanatics, a poor despicable faction, whom we loathe and detest quite as much as you do. This is all nonsense, if not hypocrisy and impudence. These despicable fanatics rule the country, and these virtuous lovers of the South have neither the courage nor the will to oppose them with the energy of a proper personal or political manhood. No doubt that, in one sense, they cherish the Union, but only as the agency by which they prosper in uncounted prosperity. It is to them, the very health of life; it has made them rich and powerful, & keeps them so. No doubt they love the South, but it is as the wolf loves the lamb; covering and devouring it. They do not love it as the fountain of good faith and national honour; as the guaranty of law & justice, truth and magnanimity, but as the secret of spoil & profit. What is the idea of nationality, in any sense, which excludes these ideas, in respect to the integrals of the Confederacy;—which makes one party lie in wait, perpetually to assail, to revile, to disparage the other;—which makes it grateful to defame those very achievements of one section, which, properly recognized, became a portion of the national capital of renown & character;—which, trampling down right & justice, seeks only to exact tribute; which insists upon the obligations of the minority, and scorns and contemns all laws that bind itself—making a law for itself—a higher law—through which it rejects all fraternal obligations?

Page 268 →But I must not digress, even to declare my indignation. My next engagements were in the city of New York; a city of near a million of inhabitants—from its circumstances, the metropolis of the Union—a city rolling in wealth, arrogant with power, possessed of the vastest material resources: in which congregate so many of the finest intellects of the country, even as they congregate, for example, in London & Paris;—a city which derives more than half of its sustenance from the trade & commerce with the South. Here, if any where, the South should have a hearing—should have fair play. The general intelligence, here, should insist upon it: the very wealth & prosperity, should make it magnanimous & just; superior to fanaticism; to jealousy; to mere sectional influences; to all base and narrow standards. If these be here, as they must be to some extent, in every large city; at least, they will be kept in subjection by superior intelligence; by the natural play of circle against circle; by the contrasting interests of society and at large, by the very vanity of magnanimity. A large city like this, should naturally afford a sufficient body of highminded people, solicitous of right & justice; calm and judicious; thoughtful and earnest; who will confer upon it tone and character, and interpose, to prevent fanaticism from any preoccupation of the ground. Here, too, there must be two hundred thousand people, allied indissolubly with the destinies & prosperity of the South. It is their policy to maintain kindly relations with us, and they must naturally seek to possess themselves of every argument by which to assert the rights and morals of our section when assailed in theirs. Their own self respect, no less than policy, would seem to require this. It may be that thousands shall assail, but there will be other thousands to sustain. They will see that the advocate of the South shall have fair play, and a patient hearing. They will not only rejoice to hear him, but rejoice if he shall provide them with a proper argument so that they, in him, may also assert his argument. It was natural that I should reason thus on their behalves—as natural that I should assume, that, in that city, if any where, the chances would be altogether in favour of my having an indulgent hearing & a large audience. I had been honoured with a public invitation from several of the most distinguished citizens. Among these were Bryant, Bancroft, Broadhead, Francis, Duyckinck, and others, not merely in social position, but men of national reputation. My personal relation with Bryant had been most intimate for 25 years. We had shared the mutual warmth of hospitable ties; and though his political course had raised a barrier between us, wide, high, & deep, on political subjects, these had never been suffered to affect our personal relations of a quarter of a century. I had no wish to disturb his opinions. I cared not what they were. In the South none of us care a straw what are the opinions, upon slavery, of the old or the New England man, who eats at our board. We do not wish to coerce any man’s sentiments. We demand only that we shall be left alone, in the enjoyment of our individual rights, or, as a community: and, in the degree & kind of civilization which we have chosen & continue to Page 269 →prefer. And, in my personal intercourse with Bryant & other friends at the North, this was always conceded. In spite, then, of all the politico-social differences which were tacitly understood between us, Bryant was one of the first to invite my Lectures in New York. He knew me, and took for granted, that I would be warm in the defence of South Carolina, and he was prepared to make the proper allowances for a warmth, which he, no doubt, as well as myself, held to be perfectly justified under the provocation. And such was the language of his paper after the delivery of my Lecture.—Mr. Bancroft’s hospitality I had enjoyed many years ago in Boston. He, too, joined in the invitation. So did Mr. Brodhead, one of the local historians of New York. Dr. Francis, an octogenarian, well known to all the literary circles of that city; Mr. Duyckinck, one of the old Knickerbocker stock, the young amicable & talented Editor of the Cyclopedia of American Literature. That such men should invite my Lectures seemed a sufficient guaranty for their favorable reception. I was approached by a committee, who made a contract with me for one or more courses. These Gentlemen were experienced in such matters. They did me the honour to assume that I possessed a sufficient capital of popularity, as an author, to render the contract a profitable speculation to themselves. And the auspices appeared favorable on all hands. But, meanwhile, the hostile matter of the Buffalo press had found circulation. Echoes, in the same tone & temper, had been heard from other journalists. Letter writers had taken their cue from these sources, and had heightened report of my offences. They sought artfully to appeal to social, as well as political & historical prejudices. It is a common method of assault upon the South, in the North, to describe our people as an indolent & haughty aristocracy, who show themselves especially scornful of all the working classes, by reason of the degrading influences of slave labour. You will perhaps have noted that an article in the Edinburgh Review—said to be written by one of your own sons—represents us as having, in familiar use, the epithet “poor trash”—as applied to the poor & labouring class of whites among us—a phrase which I never heard so employed, in all my life! We have all heard “Poor Buckrah,” used by the slaves themselves, in regard to those whites, who, owning no slaves, are yet very tyrannical in their treatment of the negro. It is them that the indignation of the negro, denounces a petty tyranny; but among the planters, the owners of slaves themselves, I doubt if there be a person in this assembly, who has heard such a phrase from their lips. And I am personally familiar with most the states of the South, Seaboard and interior, from the Chesapeake to the Mississippi. This sort of report of us constitutes a favorite staple of misrepresentation, and it was not to be left unemployed in my case. It so happened that somewhere, in my Lecture, I had used the word ‘vulgar’—in the sense of men, low, base, and narrow minded. This was seized upon, among a score of other points, and I was denounced as having absolutely applied this epithet to the very people I was addressing. Now, in the case of a Page 270 →people with whom appearances and social position are paramount objects;—who are jealous, in the last degree, of exclusiveness and aristocracy; there could be no mode employed better calculated to occasion a popular odium which would be fatal to the Lecturer. My friends in New York began to feel, and to fear, all these things, and several of them came to me, as soon as I got back from Buffalo, and adjured me to strip my Lecture of every thing that might possibly be offensive to Demos. I went with them over the performance, yielded in some instances to their suggestions; striking out something, here & there, which prejudice and suspicions might contrive into gratuitous sarcasm—and was only stubborn on resolving not to yield every thing. I could not consent to erasures, which might, in any degree, impair the integrity of the discourse. My friends expressed themselves satisfied. They augured favorably from what they read. The sharper portions which were suffered to remain, were, as they considered, but proper hits—neither acrimonious nor malignant—and but a natural & legitimate use of obvious material. Speaking deliberately now, I aver that there was nothing in the discourse which did not fall strictly within the province of a proper historical criticism. What if there was an occasional sharpness in the tone—what if the temper of the speech was warmly Southron. Surely, under the perpetual & goading provocation to which the South has been subjected—these had their justifications—and with any, the smallest amount of magnanimity on the part of any audience, these traits would have been regarded as not only natural enough, but absolutely laudable!—But to the Lecture.

When I appeared in the Pulpit, I found about 150 persons, of both sexes, in the church. This, in a magnificent hall, capable of holding 3000 persons! So small a result,—taken in connection with the large calculations of my committee, was absolutely ludicrous. I did not feel it mortifying. I readily conceived the secret. The newspapers had done their work; my friends had shown their fears; and, according to every report, the very name of South Carolina was everywhere a word of odium; so that I was already fully prepared to understand that, even in this great city—this Babylon of all races—distinguished by its levities and lack of character—it was easy for a vigorous, powerful, concentrated party, fanatical of mood, despotic of will—embodying in its ranks almost the entire mind of the community—certainly all the great leading intellectuals—to coerce the public temper, on all occasions, and, easily, in the case of an individual who lacked the prestige of party for his support. This was my lack. Had I gone thither as a Party Politician, speaking to partisan topics,—I should, no doubt, have been sustained by a large party demonstration. Thousands of Whigs, Democrats, or Native Americans, would probably have gathered to hear and cheer me, at the foot of the Exchange. But to neither of these had I appealed. My chief support was that of personal friends, and that portion of the literary guild, which had not been tainted by abolition. But, I do not believe that I suffered the smallness of my Page 271 →audience to affect my mind or deportment. I was as cool, composed & free from cloud, as I am at this moment—nay, much more so. Satisfied that my audience, though small, was select, I consoled myself, sotto voce, with the prayer of Milton, for “audience fit, though few”; and to these I delivered myself of my history of Carolina in the Revolution, as respectfully, as if ten thousand had been present. And, through various sources, I heard of commendations, from worthy lips. Mouths of wisest censure did me the honour to approve. My friends, after this Lecture, endeavoured, in various ways, to account for the smallness of the audience. They ascribed it, in part to the opening of a new fashionable theatre that night (Laura Keene’s); to a great public banquet and illumination at Jamaica, L.I.; to the attraction, for all the temperance societies, of a famous Lecturer (Mr. Gough) and to the high prices at which my tickets were sold. I could readily understand how these rival attractions might have had some influence with the mere seekers after amusement. But the appeal was not to them; and it is, perhaps, the severest commentary upon the people of the North, that, in an issue like the present, involving the pride, dignity & character, of a sister state, with which the alliance of interest, if not of feeling, is so close, there should not be found thousands, eager to ascertain her argument, in a case which had already been distinguished by such impressive events! But the motif of the next day’s newspapers furnished a better solution of the problem. The leading abolition papers had repeated, with unction, the brutal assaults of those of Buffalo. I was again spoken of as the Southern pauper, abandoned in his age, by his own people, to the cold charities of Northern Lecture rooms; and every epithet of odium, which could be cast upon our Section, was employed in the connection, that we both might be rendered more odious. But the matter which was likely to exercise the worst effect, was in the studied identification of myself and my objects, with the affair of Brooks and Sumner. It was represented that a Confederacy had been formed among the South Carolina members of Congress, to assault Sumner in such a manner, as to ensure themselves escape from injury! This idea—this invention—upon which it is not necessary that I should make the least comment—is, by the way, elaborated, even more effectually, in the last number of the North British Review—and I must read you this extract, in order that you should find some relief, in a smile, once at least, during this tedious narrative. Our British Reviewer says—“We are assured that this assault on Mr. Sumner was preceded by a consultation as to the safest mode of perpetrating it. The notion of encountering him on equal terms, in one of the public walks, was speedily dismissed, upon the ground that he, being a stout man of acknowledged spirit, his assailant might get worsted in the struggle. A proposition to make a rush at him, from the higher ground, as he was ascending the steps of the Senate House, was abandoned for similar reasons, and it was at length determined to strike him when he was off his guard, or in a defenceless position; and to strike in such a manner as to disable Page 272 →him at once.” These nice details of our Representatives in Secret conclave, you will perceive, are only an expansion of the rough general history, as given by the abolition press. Without saying actually, that I was one of the parties to this consultation, the same person described me as seeking to do, in the historical field, what Brooks had done in the physical. I was only another sort of bully, dispatched to hector the Northern people in their own homes. This imputation, as you may well conceive, once put in circulation, & so well calculated to provoke the most the most unreasoning temper of the people—must be fatal to my mission; and I was by no means surprised, accordingly, when, that very afternoon, my committee appeared before me, & said—in so many words—“We are afraid that you will have to give up your Lectures. We can do nothing for them. We have canvassed the whole city, in all its leading centres, and can neither sell the tickets nor give them away. Such is the offence taken by your allusion to Sumner,—who is described as in a dying state from the assault of Brooks—such the odium of South Carolina—such the rancour of public feeling, just after the election—that the common answer to our applications—is one of imprecation!—The answer is, in brief—‘D—n South Carolina, and every thing that hails from her. We want no more blowing about South Carolina.”—After this report, my friends, but one course remained to me, as a gentleman, and I said to the committee—“I release you from your contract.” I communicated this result to Mr. Bancroft, as the first on the list of those who had invited my Lectures. He, and others, expressed themselves greatly chagrined—were disposed to think my committee mistaken in their report—admitted that there was a bad feeling in the community, but did not think it so rancorous or blind in character. They proposed to take up this experiment themselves—did so, without any encouragement or wish of mine—and failed. The effort was abandoned, and several of the parties were compelled to admit that the public temper was far more bitter than they had believed it. In view of the brutal and malignant assaults of certain newspapers, and with a full knowledge of the power which they exercised over communities which form no opinions independently of the Press, they concluded that my decision was a correct one; that there was no remedy; the case was prejudged fatally. One matter, tho’ small in itself, will serve to show the degree in which I might expect justice from the press. At the close of my lecture, it was announced that my second lecture would be given two nights after. But the very next day my engagement was rescinded. The advertisements were all suppressed. Neither placard nor advertisement appeared on that, or the ensuing day; and that night I never left my lodgings. Yet these presses, stating none of these facts, nor the additional fact that there was a cold rainstorm prevailing, and that the church was never opened, yet described the Lecturer & his Committee as waiting in vain for the audience, and the former, as finally refusing to lecture to a small gathering of ten or fifteen persons. Invention was thus coerced in aid of the fact, in order to Page 273 →form a climactic finish to the story; and there was quite a howl of triumph over the event! They had gained a victory! They had succeeded in depriving the advocate of an odious section, coming alone, and only asking to rectify error, of all chance of being heard. Thus, my friends, the dominant spirit of the North suffers no opposition to its will & purpose. You can only obtain a hearing through means of your own party, and the South has no party in the North! Our few friends are too few, too feeble, too timid, to exercise power or command respect. There are some presses that affect our Cause, but they have small circulation and no influence. Besides, they wholly misconceive our argument, are not possessed of our facts; and never, in any case, meet the true issues. They assail the abolitionists; but, in a petty fashion, and not because they would serve us, but that they would resist a party which is a terrible despotism over themselves, & which, enthroned in power, with earnest passions at work, and working with a terrible intensity, sweeps over them, in every encounter, as easily & fiercely as the hurricane sweeps over a tract of reeds or willows. The mercantile classes, who are perhaps the only classes at the North, who feel the danger to which they are driving headlong, rarely take part in the conflict of opinion; and never think to move until the election approaches, when they naturally ally themselves with their party—no matter which, that promises most conservatism;—to maintain the status quo of trade being the only motive to their actions at any time. The literary guild, however favorably inclined to one of their paternity, have no sort of power in the action of political parties; and, unfortunately, but too many of the most able of the men of letters in the North, looking to political position, & leagued with the press, are identified with all the purposes & policy of the Anti Slavery Party.

The result of my experimental Lecture in the city of New York, involved, almost necessarily, the abandonment of all my engagements. If the temper of a city, like New York, which may be assumed to be somewhat cosmopolitan, showed itself hostile or indifferent to my topics, what could I expect farther East? If my Committee lost money by me in that city, there was good reason to suppose that similar and even greater losses would follow the experiment in other places; for the press was still busy at its work of prejudicing public opinion in anticipation of my progress. The Societies which invite the Lecturer contemplate certain profits to themselves, after paying his demands. But how should I consent to draw loss upon them? How, drawing such loss upon them, should I consent to receive their money? I could not deceive myself with the vain hope that, after the course pursued by the abolition presses, I could make a profitable tour into regions wholly occupied by abolitionists. The country papers were already engaged—following those of the city, in denouncing me as a Southern bully, insulting the very people who come to hear him. Nay, Blanche & Sweetheart—all the little dogs—were in full cry; and, by this time, I, too, was beginning to lose my temper, under a treatment to which my experience had never taught me to submit Page 274 →and which I had no means to resent. I could not reply to the blackguardism, it would have been mere Quixotism to attempt to repel the principle falsehoods of the Press. You beat out the brains of one lie, and fifty others, stand up from the scattered members. Reflecting, with as much coolness & deliberation as possible, upon the prospect before me, I decided that self-respect required that I should close my Portfolio and retire quietly from the scene. And so I wrote to the several Societies which had invited me, respectfully but firmly, expressing, in a few brief words, which I felt sure that the language of the press would sufficiently illuminate my necessity and the propriety of the dissemination to which I had come. As I had more than fifty of these letters to write, I made them very brief. I could not enter into details; nor were these necessary. From many of these Societies, I received answers entreating me to reconsider, & giving me assurances of cordial welcome. But I knew that such assurances must be based upon mere conjectures, which presupposed too much on behalf of committees, and their influence upon the masses. There is a power at the North, striding in between the people and all their social influences, which leaves the latter at a woeful discount, in the moment of collision. Fanaticism and Politics, in alliance, and in possession of the press, is of so terrible a potency in all the North that society has ceased to speak, does not decide for itself and dare not ask. Irrespective of faction and fanaticism, it has not Independence enough for the formation of its own opinion, nor courage for its assertion. A popular rage, once begun, no one thinks to arrest it. The individual is merged wholly in the mass; and a majority is unquestioned in its march, in utter disregard of every principle. Here & there you find little circles who moan over this condition; but you find no manly opposition. The abler men of the community sink wholly out of sight, except when unscrupulous; and then they affect the popular rage which they do not feel—which they only fear—and seek to direct the outlawry, making it profitable to their own hands, which they dare not oppose. There is really, therefore, no party, sufficiently strong, in any of the Northern States, to offer, even a respectable barrier to the progress of fanaticism. The little societies which aim at popular tuition, through the Lecture room, can in no way determine for their audiences. These they are compelled to conciliate. The Lecturer, himself, is but too apt to seize upon some of the popularized topics, in the hope of making little capital for himself; and he takes care, in doing so, not to come in conflict with the will which the masses have already declared. If he forbears this, he seeks only to amuse; and popular Lectures, even on moral subjects, are, half the time, made up from old Jest Books, and the stale bon mots of the venerable Joseph Miller. I felt that the key note once sounded through the North against my topics, I should be met Everywhere by anticipative hostility. All the rancorous bitterness of feeling & speech against South Carolina & the South would have renewal with hourly increase of venom. The topics, having been made of familiar phrases, through the recent general election, were easy of Page 275 →utterance; stereotyped ravings; which it requires no thought to frame, and which it was grateful for Passion to deliver. The defeat of the abolitionists in this election—a temporary defeat only, which only served to teach them their overwhelming sectional strength,—had yet left them full of fury. My subjects, and my manner of treating them, served only to fan the political fires; to afford new ingredients for that hellbroth which they had been compounding of all elements for so long a season. As one of my personal friends said to me,—“You are a Godsend to them. You are a fresh stick of Southern pitch-pine to be flung into their furnaces, that the fires by which they keep the party warm, may not burn down!” I was not willing to be used for such a purpose; not willing that my presence should be provocative to the renewal of that cancerous rage with which the name, the fame, the institutions & the safety of my country, were to be pursued. And again—I was not in any position whether public or private, to make me eager after a hearing, at all odds, & at every sacrifice of pride or sensibility; and a resort to any acts of conciliation, after the unscrupulous language of the press, would have been simply base & slavish. I did not seek the smiles of Society: I was not ambitious of political position. Though wanting in riches, I had never in all my life, surrendered a single sentiment of my soul, a single conviction of my mind, a single feeling of my heart, in the pursuit of gain. I had jealously maintained my independence, through long years of self denial, poverty, isolation, and frequent reproach. And why should I now, at the mellow term of fifty, make sacrifice of any of those sensibilities which I had held & nursed so tenaciously, as the best securities for the equal vigour, purity and power, of mind & soul! I had been willing to lecture professionally, in the hope of teaching the truth, and correcting the false,—with a vain hope perhaps, of doing some good to my country. But not to submit to vulgar defamation & the grossest sort of abusive misrepresentation. And doomed to the encounter with such assailants, I was necessarily stripped of all power of effecting good. And to lecture,—speaking to the necessities of the country—I must do so with a clear conscience, untroubled with the doubt that I am bringing loss, and probably odium, upon the several societies which entreat my labours. Besides, after the attacks upon me, I could not consent to deliver any other than my Southern lectures. It was a point of honour with me to do this. I could not, with any patience, have consented to discourse on ordinary moral topics,—as well expect the soldier, in the heart of the battle, to fling aside the proper implements of war, and confront the enemy with a popgun. My assailants had driven me to this position. I had other lectures, moral, social, historical, which might have gratified an audience. But these no longer suited my necessities. They no longer sufficed for me at a moment when I was a mark for general assault. My assailants had made the mistake of compounding mine with a political mission. Had I sought political power, I would have accepted this assumption. And I should have continued my lecturing career. The Politician recognizes the Page 276 →assumed rights of the Press to play the blackguard at pleasure. The filth and the venom are so many conditions of place & power. But he has resources which the literary man has not. If one party assails, there is another that cheers. With the literary men, the case is otherwise. He must stand upon the dignity of his profession, for there is nothing, of place or party, to compensate to him, the forfeiture of his self-respect.—With all these considerations in mind, I was compelled to decline the renewed applications of certain of the Societies which had entreated me to change my resolution; and to the implied reproaches of some of them, which suggested the inconvenience to which they would be subjected by my refusal, I indicated my own superior sacrifices—in loss of time, labour, expense, and money. In the latter respect, my decision cost me more than $2500. All this was stated, in order to show that I had not wantonly, & without due respect and consideration for them, withdrawn from my engagements. Two or three of these letters, I have seen in print. Others may have appeared also, which have escaped my notice. These, you will please remember, were not published by me, or with my consent. They were none of them designed for publication. I have not put in print a single syllable on the subject, & should probably never say a word in respect to it, were it not for the frequent enquiries of friends, & because of the natural claim, which my own people have upon me, to be satisfied in regard to a mission which so much concerns themselves. I had no motive for publication. I had simply made a venture, in a new literary field—which proved a failure;—it did not much matter why—since I had no reason to suppose, that, out of my own little circle, the world would care a copper about the result. I accepted this result without comment or complaint—should so accept it still,—but that the event invokes social & political considerations which are much more important to you than any interests of mine. It was enough for me that the failure did not lie with me. But the Northern Press is not quite satisfied. It has shown itself somewhat uneasy. There is something so monstrous in the idea, that, in a Confederacy like this, one member, one section, may be denounced & reviled with impunity, as a public enemy, and no advocate in its behalf should be heard, that the inevitable conclusion becomes one of terrible import, as showing how wretched is the tenure of sympathy in our alliance. In this headlong impulse which marks all their social conduct, they made a political mistake. They should have maintained appearances. They should have heard me as a matter of policy—should have crowded to hear me, as really anxious for the defence of the South, as a part of their own country—and then, if displeased, they should have charged the failure to my incompetence, and not to my facts or topics! These should not have disquieted them. They blundered politically through their blind passion. It is fortunate for mankind that malignity is seldom cold enough to be politic. It strikes, as the rattlesnake is said to do in the Dog days, blinded by its own venomous secretions. After the thing was done, and they began to see the inevitable Page 277 →result of their headlong impulse, a portion of the press felt the necessity of soothing our hurts. They saw that the rejection of an advocate from the South—one, too, disclaiming politics, and aiming only to defend her character from assaults, must prove, irresistibly the viperous hostility which pervades their society toward us. I do not know that our people need any new proof to this effect. If they have not long since seen it, then, I fear, there is no mortal surgery which shall couch their sight. But, whether they see this or not, I fancy there are very few persons not prepared to believe that my treatment was due to my topics. Indeed, all their attacks declared it. But some of the newspapers, subsequently, beginning to see the evil results of their course, have endeavoured to convey the idea that my Lecture was merely encyclopedic, compiled from common histories, with which they were all sufficiently familiar. But, my friends, this will not do! This very pretence puts them on the horns of a dilemma. If my history was so familiar, the mere compilation from accepted histories, why should it make them angry? If mere commonplaces, why rage against it? The other difficulty is even more embarrassing. If so familiar, how does it differ from Mr. Sumner’s? And if it differs from his, yet is the one most familiar to them, why did they not rage against that of Sumner?—How happens it, being so commonplace, that it should come in conflict with that which they have striven to teach us as the true history? They certainly never delivered the same history to their people; and just as certainly it afforded them such a version of the history as they were by no means willing to hear. The same papers, with unheard of impudence, add—“So far from being hostile or unfriendly to the South, we love the South!” Ay, as the tick, the cow;—as the leech the vein upon which it fastens, clinging till the fountain of life runs dry! Nay, God, in his mercy, whatever else the doom he has in store for us, save us from that attachment which subjects us equally to the venom and the slaver of the toad!—It is a frequent subject of self congratulation, with the people of the North, that their magnanimity suffers to the South, that freedom of argument on slavery and other topics, which they themselves, in the South, are denied a corresponding privilege. I have had this taunt thrown into my teeth a thousand times, in this very progress. But this whole claim is an impertinence. There is no parallelism in the cases. The South, at the North, is purely on the defensive. The North, in the South, is aggressive. The North assails Institutions which are wholly Southern;—we hurt none of their institutions when we attempt the defence of our own. Their demand to enter our precincts & assail existing conditions, which are peculiar to us, is insolent and usurpative,—to teach a subordinate race lessons of disaffection, leading to insurrection, an aggression, which, were they to try it in France or England—seeking to make any classes discontent with Government & Law, would be punished signally, as treason & sedition. But you point out these distinctions to them in vain. They are insolent by habit, and usurpative of necessity. As for their toleration toward those who claim to speak for us, Page 278 →there would be nothing meritorious in the fact, even were it so; since they can lose nothing, and suffer no hurt, by any expression of opinion on subjects in which they have no interest. Besides we are brethren, are we not, and hail each other when we meet in argument, with “Dearly Beloved!” But, in truth, they exhibit no toleration. They are the most intolerant people in the world, and have been so from the days of Cotton Mather. They have never shown any indulgence to any who oppose their vanities or will. The old malignant leaven of puritanism, which made them loathsome to England; made them the persecutors of old women & quakers; the Dutch of Manhatta, made them the slayers & enslavers of the red men, and now the assailants of the South; still pervades their society, and will suffer no speech of censure, even where it amounts to no assault, on the part of the stranger. The foreign singer who is reported to have spoken disrespectfully of their graces, virtues, & wisdom;—the foreign actor, who was supposed to be less deferential than became the pauper seeking their cold charities—were both pelted & driven from the stage and country. Jealous even of that foreign Labour to which they owe so much, they have actually deprived him of arms, even when a regularly admitted citizen. And even Religion fails—when it happens to prefer another creed to their own—to protect the young virgins, in their own dwellings, from the brutal, midnight violence of an incendiary mob. I did not, could not descend, to conciliate this nest of vanities. It is a fine absurdity to talk of Northern toleration, whenever opinion shall offend its self esteem!

It is asked if I did not know all this before? I did! Scores of friends have said or written to me, North & South, “we knew what would be your reception. How should you expect that they would listen to you with forbearance! What must be the result of any attempt to correct those false histories by which they have manufactured a spurious reputation at the expense of the rest of the country? You call upon them to resign their laurels & heroism, & expect them to keep their temper? You refuse to give them that aliment of praise, upon which they have fed so long, that is has now become their essential diet? They can digest no other.” I felt all this. I had known these people for 25 years; knew their history; comprehended perfectly their society. There were premonitions, too, of a more direct motive, which were of recent experience. Only last summer, an able writer of the South, an accomplished citizen, well known to all of us, had written a fine masculine poem, comparing the condition of the Hireling in foreign parts with that of the slave in our section. This work was actually stereotyped, in the press of one of the greatest of Northern publishing houses, when the Publishers suddenly became apprehensive to themselves of its publication, and refused to issue it. They feared to trust the resentful temper of their people, towards all those who should assert the Southern argument. All this I knew! If you ask me whether I had not reason to apprehend the treatment I received, I answer in the affirmative: To a certain extent, at least. I expected coldness & indifference, and I did not hope to Page 279 →give satisfaction. But, as I forebore politics, I fancied that I should have toleration. Still, there was a consideration, such as I have already intimated to you, which made these apprehensions matter of little concern. It was essential that we should join issue with the slanderers of our history upon their own ground. That we should not allow the case to go by default. That we should exhibit to the world a readiness for this issue; that we should challenge the argument; and not suffice it to be supposed, that, conscious of our weakness in the morals of the case, we were compelled to resort only to violence, and shrunk from every other mode of arbitrage. We know that the course of Brooks contemplated only the punishment of violence, offence, the slander; and contemplated nothing beyond. It was necessary that, while showing ourselves capable of manly resentment for insult, we should at the same time, show ourselves equally prepared to answer in the grand forum of Conscience & Justice. And whether I was heard patiently or not, did not affect the result. It was enough that the world should know that we were ready for the issue, in any field, in letters, in justice, in morals & society, as in the field of physical warfare. Even if denied a hearing, the result was in our favour. It cannot now be said that we shrank from the issue. It is on record that we challenged it, and joined issue on the facts. It is for the future to decide the case; and Posterity will thus be made to pause in its judgment, explore, examine, weigh and revise, where otherwise the judgment must have been taken by default. You now understand my motive and the reasoning by which I was governed. Enough that I proposed to meet the slanders of my people, and was in turn encountered by the slanderer.

My mission thus ended, my friends, the question will occur to you,—What, indeed, are the relations, Social, Moral—political, between this people and ourselves? Is it peace between us? Does it promise peace? Do you persuade yourselves that all the hubbub & clamour of abolition amount to nothing more than that “windy suspiration of forced breath” which characterizes the ordinary progress of mere political parties? Do you really feel secure—satisfied that the confederacy is held together by ties of amity and sympathy as well as law, against which the strifes of fanaticism must beat in vain? If so, no more need be said. But, in truth, you have no such grateful conviction. Party Politicians have striven to persuade you to this,—and the politicians, nay, the parties themselves have perished under the strokes of this fanaticism, in the very moment when they declared it contemptible! The moralists and preachers have told you, this is mere wind & vapor; yet the churches are broken up, and the Preachers themselves, have become prophets of destruction; breathing towards you anarchy & blood. The schools, the colleges, to which you send your own sons, now teach hostility to the South as duty to God. The provisions of Law under the General Government are defeated by risings of the people, and by state enactments; and, on all sides, you can hear but the one cry—“Delende est Carthago!” The Institutions of the South Page 280 →must be destroyed! Is there any potency in this cry. Nobody can better judge than yourselves! You have the evidence before you of what these people themselves declare, and must decide for yourselves what they mean and what it is in their power to execute. You hear the voice of society, which declares you foul, enemies of man, living in open hostility to the primary laws of God. And, under this social voice, you see the old parties of the Country destroyed; you see the amenities of society perish and the decrees of law despised;—you hear a fanatic Priesthood, harking on the dogs of havoc against you, and you behold a dominant faction—every where in power—which has but one article of faith—which makes but one declaration of purpose—and that is your destruction, as an independent social organization—all involved in your peculiar institution! The very foundation of a purely sectional party, is a virtual sunderance of the Union; and the object of this organization is avowedly the overthrow of your individuality at all hazards. The argument used by newspapers in New York only a few days before the last election, addressed to the working classes especially, held forth to them the assurance, that, with the election of Fremont, free labour would supersede that of the slave in the South, thus opening, a new and boundless province for their enterprise, and this is addressed to a class, counting millions of desperate men, whom a grinding daily necessity, makes reckless of every consideration of law, justice and the constitution. I have shown you that all classes are united against you; that even the leading portion of the Literati are Hostile; the abstract notions of the Rights of Man, promising a new Utopia to the Imagination, & naturally appealing to the sympathies of a class whose ordinary pursuits render them heedless of more literal or practical considerations. So, for a like reason, are the clergy; the more especially as there is no portion of the Northern Communities, who seek with more eagerness after popularity, and abolition now is the most open & obvious pathway to its attainment. Schools & schoolbooks all appealing to the popular sentiment teach the same lesson; and shall we doubt our danger—doubt that force is designed & will be used, to carry this sentiment into political power, & for your ruin, when all society urges it—when the very altar places hitherto dedicated to Christ have been specially consecrated to Moloch—when rifles, sabres, Bowie knives & bullets, are held to be the most grateful votive offerings, placed upon the altars, by the hands of childhood, women & the Priesthood? It needs nothing but the occasion—any concurrence of circumstances, such as the state of Parties in Kansas, may bring about the sudden trial of the respective strength and courage of the antagonist sections, bring them into mortal collision. And you are to remember that the issues are really rather social than political. Society is corrupted against you to the destruction of Party. In private circles, every where, even among your old friends, you find this indicated in a thousand ways. You find the books of Mrs. Stowe & a thousand others of the same school—the Dreds & Uncle Toms—lying—ay, lying—on every parlour table. No circles Page 281 →escape the contagion—no place remains free of the usurpation—no class has the courage, or will, to resist the phrenzy, which, taking the guise of a Crusade, & armed with the coercive will of a vast majority, is inevitable in a community, which only needs to know where the majority lies, to surrender, at once, to all its exactions. You go no where but to meet with controversy, which takes the most offensive tone on the threshold—a tone of equal authority and insolence. The very sight of the Southron is the signal for assault; and the waiters at the Hotels are thus indirectly taught to exhibit neglect and positive insolence to the people of a section against which all classes fulminate hate, malice and savage denunciation. It is in vain that you try to escape the discussion. It is forced upon you, hic et ubique, until your passion rushes to the succour of your reason, and you hurl your defiance into the teeth of that Insolence which you will fail to quell in any other way.—But, I must cease. I have wearied out your Patience. But this whole subject presents itself very seriously to my mind, as a Paramount danger, however it may look to yours. It may be that there is nothing in it. The Politician, anxious to save his party, swears there’s nothing in it. The office seeker, and office holder, to whom fleshpots are precious things—more precious than the holy oil streaming down the beard of Aaron,—these are all prepared to prove to you that so long as they can get or hold office, there’s nothing in it. That it is only a peculiar mode among the Yankees of making themselves merry. That they mean fun only. That when they swear your destruction they mean only to give you a very bad scare. They know that we of the South are a very timid race, and they practice upon our fears, as a wicked urchin, behind the door, operates upon the nervous system of his palpitating playmate. It may be so! It may be that when they revile you to your face, as a thief, a manstealer, and monster & a coward, they mean only to exercise themselves in the strong eloquence of the ancient British school, by way of a fresh revival of letters; when they rob you of your slaves, they would only relieve you of a very unprofitable property; when they usurp your territories, they would save you from the corrupting influence of gold; and when they swear solemnly, before God, to root your institutions up, in your despite, they mean nothing more serious than to come to your assistance next season & help in breaking up your land.—We may admit, for a moment, that they mean nothing. But, would it not be well to suppose that they mean everything. My notion is that they mean what they say. There are Politicians who will try to teach you otherwise. I propose a compromise between us. While the matter seems doubtful to you, whether the abolitionists mean to be simply funny, or in downright earnest, my advice is that you take them to mean the very things that they avow. They tell you, honestly enough, that they mean to abolish slavery in the South, that it is a war to the knife, and through life with you, until they succeed in their objects. And I believe them. Do you the same, by way of decent precaution, in spite of the Politicians. If then,—having destroyed them, having saved yourselves,—you Page 282 →should discover that nothing but fun was meant—then, my friends, I entreat, I implore you, to make the most prompt apology, declare your regrets in the most moving language; I can suppose that a man may, in jest, take his neighbour by the nose or beard, and get himself knocked over for it. But should the violent man find that he who took him by the beard, really meant nothing more than a clever jest, a compliment, or a courtesy, then, I am clear, that the other should make him a very neat apology, in the best English—but, be sure, that you have first knocked him down!