State Journal

From "Human Rights" for April.

FRUITS OF ABOLITIONISM.

may be expected to excite.

LETTER OF WM. R. BUFORD.

Dear Sir,

As you are ardently engaged in the discussion of Slavery, I think it likely I may be of service to you and through you to the cause which you are advocating. You wished to know of me whether I thought the South a proper place to get correct views of slavery. I think not. My reasons for so thinking are as follows: I was born and brought up at the South in the midst of slavery as you know. My father inherited slaves from his father and I from him. So far from thinking slavery a sin or that I had no right to own the slaves inherited from my father, at an early age when I came to the North for the first time I thought no one could venture to dispute that right any more than I could his right to his land or stock. It is now several years since I came to the North -and at that time Colonization had the field. I advocated it, as I thought it on many accounts a good plan to get rid of such colored persons as wished to go to Africa ; but my conscience as a slaveholder was not troubled by it. Of course it had no tendency to make me disclaim my right to my slaves. Abolition-immediate abolition began afterwards to be discussed in various parts of the country. My right to the slaves I own began to be disputed. I had to defend myself. In vain did I say I inherited my slaves from a pious father, who seemed to be governed in his dealings, by a sense of duty to his slaves. In vain did I say that nearly all my property consisted in slaves, and to free them would make me a poor man. My duty to emancipate was still urged. At length my eyes were opened-partly by the arguments used by the abolitionists-but mainly by long being compelled by them to examine the subject for myself. Subsequently I returned to Virginia. I found it desolate and degraded by vice, ignorance and dissipation. No longer could I close my eyes to the evils of slavery, nor could I any longer despise the abolitionists, "the only true friends of their country and kind."

I now think, I know, I have no more right to own slaves, whether I inherited them or not, than I have to encourage the African slave trade, for either tends to perpetuate slavery. By declaring this sentiment, I expect and design to abet the cause of Abolition at the North, and through the North the emancipation of slaves at the South. I know that in doing this I condemn the South. No one can suppose, however, that I have any unkind feelings towards the South, when I say they have no right to their slaves, and are therefore committing sin in keeping them in bondage, (such as are or may be enlightened if they would.) All my relatives live in the slaveholding states, and are almost all slaveholders. I believe I should never have looked at slavery as I do now if I had remained at the South. The North is the place to see slavery as it is. I might adduce in further proof of this fact that two young men came on when I did, who now say they cannot reconcile it to themselves to hand slavery down to posterity, notwithstanding they are both slaveholders at present. You inquire of me, whether I thought a man could reside at the North a few years and then return to the South and continue to hold slaves? Without answering for others I will say that I could not, with the views I now have of slavery, without committing great sin. That is, I could not consider them as property nor dispose of them in any other way than such as my judgment should decide their well being demanded. You wished to know how Virginia looks to me now when I re-visit the land of my fathers. As I have already said, desolate. When I was there last year every thing appeared on the decline. In eastern Virginia, large tracts of country once rich and fertile, are turned out, as deserted land there is termed—being too poor to afford inducement to enterprise. The tendency of slavery is to impoverish the land where it exists. A glance at the old slaveholding states will furnish satisfactory evidence of this fact.

Negroes expecting to be free at the death of their masters are invariably the best slaves. I know many instances of this.—Why should they not be? He looks upon his master as his benefactor, and is buoyed up by the hope of one day being freed.—Without assigning any reasons which very naturally suggest themselves however, it is sufficient to state the fact that such are the most trusty and honest servants-laboring for what they consider the greatest reward-their freedom. Others can expect nothing during a long life of servitude, than as much coarse fare as they need and sufficient clothing to protect them from the weather. No one will therefore wonder at the fact, that negroes expecting to be free, are the best slaves.

One word as to the capacity of the blacks. They know how to plant corn, when to plough, and when to eat it-and are capable of managing plantation concerns. Many of them within my knowledge control plantation, master and all. They do it well too so far as I am capable of judging. They do it not by positive command, but by better judgment. The slave hides his advice; the master swears awhile to convince him of his authority, but the advice will be taken notwithstanding.

The danger to be apprehended from the liberation of the slaves is entirely chimerical. Is it natural that a man should injure his benefactor? Suppose all the slaveholders at the South should be looking forward to free their slaves as soon as the best interest of the negroes required it -do you believe that you would hear of any more insurrections? I believe that if professors of religion would give up their slaves, slavery would go down. Suppose an influential Christian at the South should come out and say, he thought it to be a sin to keep his slaves in bondage and should free them and teach them in defiance of the law, could it be possible that his example would not affect his neighbor, who professed to be governed by the same rule of conduct? If this be true, could any thing stay the progress of such an example as long as there was one behind to follow it? I have found it much easier to convince a Southern Christian of the necessity of the immediate abolition of Slavery, than Northern Christians, whenever they could be induced to listen on the subject. The evil effects of slavery are before their eyes. They have but to open them and the light breaks in-demanding the immediate and thorough abolition of slavery.

I think the abolitionists have done, and are doing, a great deal of good by holding slavery up to the public gaze. Sentiment at the North on the subject of slavery, must have the same effect on the South that their opinions have on any other matter. If the North were a rum dealing people, the South would be much more so than they are now. Why should not this be true as it respects slavery?

Slavery is from the very nature of the case, the mother of ignorance. Intelligent men in large bodies are never slaves. Vice always goes with masses of ignorance. Young men are extensively and universally corrupted and destroyed morally by slavery. Slavery, too, is the mother of mobs, and the slaveholding States are, I think, as a general thing, fond of mobs, if we may judge from their engaging in them as extensively as they do at the present day.

As it respects the question of the amount of labor performed by a slave, I would say—that as far as I have been enabled to observe, I think in the course of the year, the slave performs as much again labor as a Northern man in the same employment. I mean there is as much again waste of strength and muscle. His labor does not amount to the same in profit, because he has none of those improvements in the use of tools, not even the most simple, which I noticed in the Northern States. But he labors harder in point of exertion and strength, and longer in duration of time, I am certain from a careful comparison of some years' observation. I know that this is not the commonly received opinion of the North. but the mistake arises from the fact that men look at the products of labor rather than the amount of physical exertion.

The opinion that white men cannot labor at the South prevails extensively at the North. It is an entire mistake. They can labor and do labor as far south as North Carolina; nor can any reason be assigned why they cannot do so in South Carolina as well as an African can in New England.

The slave trade between the old and new States contributes, in my opinion, more than any other one cause, and perhaps more than all others together. to perpetuate slavery. Were it not for this, the old States would be free from this curse in less than ten years. The best interests of the whole South require that the slaves should be immediately free, independently of all other considerations.

Yours truly,

WM. R. BUFORD.