andid observers at the time. As to
gradual emancipation, she believed it unwise--the system, she writes, is
too absolutely bad for slow measures. Had she owned her husband's
plantation, she would at once have freed the slaves, and hired them, if
only as a means of financial salvation.

She pronounces _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ to be no exaggeration. Her own story
of facts gives a darker impression than Mrs. Stowe's novel. It may be
asked, why, at this distance, revive the tragic tale? The answer is,
that the truth of history is precious, and our present problems cannot
be understood if we shut our eyes to their antecedents. Just now there
is a fashion, among many Southern writers on the negro question, of
beginning their story with the wrongs and sufferings of the
reconstruction period. Now, it was indeed deplorable, and a thing not to
be forgotten, that ignorant negroes sat in the Senate chambers of South
Carolina and Mississippi, that taxes were excessive, and the public
business mismanaged. But, in the broad view, it is well to remember that
a few years earlier very much worse things than these were happening,
and that a system which made cattle of men and women might be expected
to avenge itself.

Another work may be merely mentioned as illuminating the facts of
slavery. It is Frederic Law Olmsted's three volumes of travels in the
slave States. He studied them with the eyes of a farmer and a practical
man; a well-equipped, fair, and keen observer. His testimony, already
touched on in these chapters, is very strong as to the economic mischief
of the system, its frequent cruelties, its demoralization of both
master and slave, and the absolute need of its ultimate extinction. From
his pages we can borrow but one or two passages. The contrasts of
slavery are epitomized in two plantations he found side by side in
Mississippi. On one the slaves had good food and clothes, were not
driven hard, were given three stops in the day for meals, and had the
time from Friday night till Monday morning for themselves. In this time
the men cultivated gardens and the women washed and sewed. They were
smartly dressed, and seemed very contented; many could read and write;
on Sundays there was a church service and a Sabbath school taught by
their mistress, both of which they could attend or not as they pleased.
On the other plantation, owned by a religious woman, the working hours
were from 3.30 A. M. to 9 P. M. The slaves had only Sunday free