the baby. The sons of
the family taught reading to those who wished to learn. Some of the
house servants were very fine characters; the sketch of "Mammy Maria"
one would gladly reproduce. When secession came on, Thomas Dabney
altogether disapproved, and foresaw the ruin of the South. He proposed
to his wife that they close up their affairs, and go to live in England.
Her reply was: "What will you do with Abby? and with Maria and Harriet,
and their husbands and children, and the rest of our people?" That was
unanswerable. So he stayed, and with his family shared the
fighting,--for, the war begun, Dabney gave his hearty support to the
Southern cause, and his sons went to the field,--shared the hardships of
a devastated country, the social chaos that followed, and the slow
reconstruction,--a more intrepid and lovable figure in adversity than
before.

His daughter writes: "In the family of Thomas Dabney the first feeling
when the war ended was of joy that one dreadful responsibility at least
was removed. Gradual emancipation had been a hope and a dream not to be
realized." "A hope and a dream,"--it does not appear that it had ever
been seriously considered as a purpose or a duty. "Not an intelligent
white man or woman in the South," says the writer, "would now wish
slavery restored." But why,--it is impossible not to return to the
question,--why had the South done nothing to rid itself of the evil? Why
had it centered its political energies in maintaining and extending it?
Why had it revolted from the Union and invited war and ruin, for a
system which when once removed it recognized as a burden and a curse? No
right minded man can ponder that question without taking a step further,
and asking whether the evils in our present industrial system shall be
allowed to go on till they bring down the temple on our heads, or be met
with deliberate and resolute cure. And the good and conscientious man
who does his best under the existing system--as Thomas Dabney did under
slavery--is yet derelict unless he gives his thought and effort to such
radical amendment as the system may need.

There is yet another book in illustration of slavery which ought to be
read by every American. It is Fanny Kemble Butler's _A Residence on a
Georgia Plantation_. She was a woman of unusual genius, character, and
sensibility; the inheritor of a great dramatic talent, and a brilliant
actress until she married Mr. Butler of Georgia, and left the stage to