68

WOMEN ON THE BLOCK.

[1861.

than five minutes. An herculean fellow, with an immense chest, was dressed in rusty black, and wore a superannuated silk hat. He looked the decayed gentleman to a charm, and was bid off for $840. A plump yellow boy, also in black, silk hat and all, seemed to think being sold rather a good joke, grinning broadly the while, and, at some jocular remark, showing two rows of white teeth almost from ear to ear. He brought $1,195, and appeared proud of commanding so high a figure.

Several light quadroon girls brought large prices. One was surrounded by a group of coarse-looking men, who addressed her in gross language, shouting with laughter as she turned away to hide her face, and rudely manipulating her arms, shoulders, and breasts. Her age was not given. "That's the trouble with niggers," remarked a planter to me; "you never can tell how old they are, and so you get swindled." One mother and her infant sold for $1,415.

Strolling into the St. Charles, a few days later, I found two sales in full career. On one platform the auctioneer was recommending a well-proportioned, full-blooded negro, as "a very likely and intelligent young man, gentlemen, who would have sold readily, a year ago, for thirteen hundred dollars. And now I am offered only eight hundred-eight hundred-eight hundred-eight hundred; are you all done?"

On the opposite side of the room another auctioneer, in stentorian tones, proclaimed the merits of a pretty quadroon girl, tastefully dressed, and wearing gold finger and ear rings. "The girl, gentlemen, is only fifteen years old; warranted sound in every particular, an excellent seamstress, which would make her worth a thousand dollars, if she had no other qualifications. She is sold for no fault, but simply because her owner must have

1861.] MOTHERS AND CHILDREN.-" DEFECTS."

69

money. No married man had better buy her; she is too handsome." The girl was bid off at $1,100, and stepped down to make way for a field-hand. Ascending the steps, he stumbled and fell, at which the auctioneer saluted him with "Come along, G-d d-n you!"

Mothers and their very young children were not often separated; but I frequently saw husbands and wives sold apart; no pretense being made of keeping them together. Negroes were often offered with what was decorously described as a "defect" in the arm, or shoulder. Sometimes it appeared to be the result of accident, sometimes of punishment. I saw one sold who had lost two toes from each foot. No public inquiries were made, and no explanation given. He replied to questions that his feet "hurt him sometimes," and was bid off at $625-about two-thirds of his value had it not been for the "defect."

Some slaves upon the block-especially the mothers— looked sad and anxious; but three out of four appeared careless and unconcerned, laughing and jesting with each other, both before and after the sale. The young people, especially, often seemed in the best of spirits.

And yet, though familiarity partially deadened the feeling produced by the first one I witnessed, a slave auction is the most utterly revolting spectacle that I ever looked upon. Its odiousness does not lie in the lustful. glances and expressions which a young and comely woman on the block always elicits; nor in the indelicate conversation and handling to which she is subjected; nor in the universal infusion of white blood, which tells its own story about the morality of the institution; nor in the separation of families; nor in the sale of women— as white as our own mothers and sisters-made pariahs by an imperceptible African taint; nor in the scars and

70

A MOST REVOLTING SPECTACLE.

[1861.

"defects," suggestive of cruelty, which are sometimes

seen.

All these features are bad enough, but many sales exhibit few of them, and are conducted decorously. The great revolting characteristic lies in the essence of the system itself that claim of absolute ownership in a human being with an immortal soul—of the right to buy and sell him like a horse or a bale of cotton-which insults Democracy, belies Civilization, and blasphemes Christianity.

In March, there was a heavy snow-storm in New York. Telegraphic intelligence of it reached me in an apartment fragrant with orange blossoms, where persons in linen clothing were discussing strawberries and icecream. It made one shiver in that delicious, luxurious climate. Blind old Milton was right. Where should he place the Garden of Eden but in the tropics? How should he paint the mother of mankind but in

"The flowing gold

Of her loose tresses,"

as a blonde-the distinctive type of northern beauty?

1861.]

NORTHERNERS AND THE MINUTE MEN.

71

CHAPTER V.

There's villany abroad; this letter shall tell you more.-Love'S LABOR LOST.

NEARLY every northerner whom I heard of in the South, as suffering from the suspicion of Abolitionism, was really a pro-slavery man, who had been opposing the Abolitionists all his life. I recollect an amusing instance of a man, originally from a radical little town in Massachusetts, who had been domiciled for several years in Mississippi. While in New England, during the campaign after which Mr. Lincoln was elected, he expressed pro-slavery sentiments so odious that he was with difficulty protected from personal violence.

He was fully persuaded in his heart of hearts of the divinity of Slavery; and, I doubt not, willing to fight for it. But his northern birth made him an object of suspicion; and, immediately after the outbreak of Secession, the inexorable Minute Men waited upon him, inviting him, if he wished to save his life, to prepare to quit the State in one hour. He was compelled to leave behind property to the amount of twenty thousand dollars. His case was one of many.

Even from a Rebel standpoint, there was an unpleasant injustice about this. Perhaps Democrats were almost the only northerners now in the South-Republicans and Abolitionists staying away, in the exercise of that discretion which is the better part of valor.

I well remember thinking, as I strolled down to the post-office one evening, with a long letter in my pocket, which gave a minute and bitterly truthful description of the slave auctions:

72

A LIVELY DISCUSSION.

[1861.

"If the Minute Men were to pounce upon me now, and find this dispatch, no amount of plausible talking could save me. There would be a vacancy on The Tribune staff within the next hour."

But when the message was safely deposited in the letter-box, I experienced a sort of relief in the feeling that if the Rebels were now to mob or imprison me, I should at least have the satisfaction of knowing they were not mistaking souls; and that, if I were forced to emulate Saint Paul in "labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in pains more frequent, in deaths oft," I should, in their code, most richly have earned martyrdom.

NEW ORLEANS, March 17, 1861.

Yesterday was a lively day in the Convention. Mr. Bienvenu threw a hot shot into the Secession camp, in the shape of an ordinance demanding a report of the official vote in each parish (county) by which the delegates were elected. This would prove that the popular vote of the State was against immediate Secession by a majority of several hundred. The Convention would not permit such exposure of its defiance of the popular will; and, by seventy-three to twenty-two, refused to consider the question.

A warm discussion ensued, on the ordinance for submitting the "Constitution of the Confederate States of America" to the popular vote, for ratification or rejection. The ablest argument against it was by Thomas J. Semmes, of New Orleans, formerly attorney-general of Louisiana. He is a keen, wiry-looking, spectacled gentleman, who, in a terse, incisive speech, made the best of a bad cause. The pith of his argument was, that Republican Governments are not based upon pure Democracy, but upon what Mr. Calhoun termed "concurring