uisiana. We have regular
meetings of the blacks in the building where I attend public
worship. I have, in the years past, devoted myself assiduously,
every Sabbath morning, to the labour of learning them to read. I
find them quick of apprehension. They learn the rudiments of
reading quicker than even the whites, but it is with me an
undoubting conviction, that having advanced them to a certain
point, it is much more difficult to carry them beyond. In other
words, they learn easily to read, to sing, and scrape the fiddle.
But it would be difficult to teach them arithmetic, or
combination of ideas or abstract thinking of any kind. Whether
their skull indicates this by the modern principles of
craniology, or not, I cannot say. But I am persuaded, that this
susceptible and affectionate race have heads poorly adapted to
reasoning and algebra.

I had heard, before I visited the slave states in the West,
appalling stories of the cruelty and barbarity of masters to
slaves. In effect I saw there instances of cruel and brutal
masters. But I was astonished to find that the slaves in general
had the most cheerful countenances, and were apparently the
happiest people that I saw. They appeared to me to be as well fed
and clothed, as the labouring poor at the North. Here I was told,
that the cruelty and brutality were not here, but among the great
planters down the Mississippi. So strongly is this idea
inculcated, that it is held up to the slave, as a bugbear over
his head to bind him to good behaviour, that if he does not
behave well, he will be carried down the river, and be sold. When
I descended to this country, I had prepared myself to witness
cruelty on the one part, and misery on the other. I found the
condition of the slaves in the lower country to be still more
tolerable, than in that above; they are more regularly and better
clothed, endure less inclemency of the seasons, are more
systematically supplied with medical attendance and medicine,
when diseased, and what they esteem a great hardship, but what is
in fact a most fortunate circumstance in their condition, they
cannot, as in the upper country, obtain whiskey at all.

It is a certain fact, and to me it is a delightful one, that a
good portion of the lights of reason and humanity, that