If we contemplate the present condition of the slaves from its best side in the American States, we shall find it to be, under a good master, a tranquil life without a future, but not without its enjoyment. The slave on the plantation has his own neat little house, his own garden, and besides this his pig and his poultry. His labour is moderate, and he can make his days somewhat cheerful; his children are well-fed, and he does not trouble himself about the morrow. The house-slaves, in good families, are still better off, still better cared for, as regards their dwelling and their old age, than free servants even, are sometimes with us.
But it is not right to give one human being an irresponsible right over another. No human circumstances can be more horrible and more hopeless than those of the slave under a bad master, and proof enough of this is found in the every-day history of slavery in the United States. Besides this, the institution carries along with it unhappy and degrading results, both as regards the white and the black population, which not even the best master can obviate. Even the best master may die, or may fall into pecuniary difficulties, and his servants be sold to any who will purchase them. Slavery, to the really good and noble slave-owners, in these States, is the source of anxiety and sorrow, and they regard it as a misfortune of which they would gladly be rid. And many of them are labouring silently for this purpose in their own immediate spheres.
In this rapid sketch of some of the principal features in the great community of the United States, I must of necessity pass over some of the lesser ones, which, nevertheless, like genre-pictures in a gallery of paintings, serve to give the whole a varied and more lively interest. I must, however, mention among these, some small communities which exist independently in the great community, although they are separated from it by their modes and
