and treated, in all
respects, _as slaves_. Nor is it forgotten now, when the claims of the
South to "hospitality" are pressed, to object, because they are grounded
on the unpaid wages of the laborer--on the robbery of the poor. When
"Southern generosity" is mentioned, the old adage, "be just before you
are generous," furnishes the reply. It is no proof of generosity (say
the objectors) to take the bread of the laborer, to lavish it in
banquetings on the rich. When "Southern Chivalry" is the theme of its
admirers, the hard-handed, but intelligent, working man of the North
asks, if the espionage of southern hotels, and of ships and steamboats
on their arrival at southern ports; if the prowl, by day and by night,
for the solitary stranger suspected of sympathizing with the enslaved,
that he may be delivered over to the mercies of a vigilance committee,
furnishes the proof of its existence; if the unlawful importation of
slaves from Africa[A] furnishes the proof; if the abuse, the scourging,
the hanging on suspicion, without law, of friendless strangers, furnish
the proof; if the summary execution of slaves and of colored freemen,
almost by the score, without legal trial, furnishes the proof; if the
cruelties and tortures to which _citizens_ have been exposed, and the
burning to death of slaves by slow fires,[B] furnish the proof. All
these things, says he, furnish any thing but proof of _true_
hospitality, or generosity, or gallantry, or purity, or chivalry.

[Footnote A: Mr. Mercer, of Virginia, some years ago, asserted in
Congress, that "CARGOES" of African slaves were smuggled into the
southern states to a deplorable extent. Mr. Middleton, of South
Carolina, declared it to be his belief, that THIRTEEN THOUSAND Africans
were annually smuggled into the southern states. Mr. Wright, of
Maryland, estimated the number at FIFTEEN THOUSAND. Miss Martineau was
told in 1835, by a wealthy slaveholder of Louisiana, (who probably spoke
of that state alone,) that the annual importation of native Africans was
from THIRTEEN THOUSAND to FIFTEEN THOUSAND. The President of the United
States, in his last Annual Message, speaking of the Navy, says, "The
large force under Commodore Dallas [on the West India station] has been
most actively and efficiently employed in protecting our commerce, IN
PREVENTING THE IMPORTATION OF SLAVES, &c."]

[Footnote B: Within the last few years, four slaves, and one citizen of
color, have been put to death i