CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PS 1207.B25C5 1866 
 
 Chlval 
 
 1924 021 994 920 
 
I Cornell University 
 
 fj Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021994920 
 
(.'HIVALRY SLAVERY, 
 
 YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 By SENNOIA RUBEK. -f^m^idr J 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 FREDERIC A. BRADY, PUBLISHER, 
 
 No. 22 ANN STPwEET. 
 1866. 
 
J+-«^-^.^~C^ 
 
 '3* 
 
 -C^ 
 
 Entered According to Act of Congress, In thfl ycnr 1S66, 
 
 By JOHN" BURKE, 
 
 in the Clerk'6 Office of the District Court «)f the United ytjiti'S for thu 
 Sotithorn District of Ntw York. 
 
TO THE MEMORY 
 or 
 
 RICHARD JBURIiE. 
 
 A VICTIM OF 
 KNOW-NOTHING AGITATION. 
 
 '■*■ Xon. illo melior quiequam nee umantior itqni. 
 ^^ Integer vitm^ scelerisqne puriin."" 
 
 A WORD OF COMPLIMENT TO HIS ADOPTED OOL'N'TK 
 '"'' Lectos ex omnUnia or/s 
 Evehis ; et meritum^ non qum cnnuhula^ tjuwrin 
 Et qnalia^ non nnde satua." 
 
AUTHOE'S APOLOGY. 
 
 Now that Know-Nothingism is a thing of the past, that slavery is forever 
 abolished in the United States, and that men's minds are chiefly occupied in the 
 great worlc of reconstruction, it may be asked to what purpose is the pubUcation 
 of the following poems. The question, we think, is very easily and. we trust, 
 B.'itisfaetorily answered. It will be readily conceded that the subjects to which 
 these poems refer, are, like many other things of the past, still fresh in our re- 
 membrance, and not unworthy of being chronicled in verse or prose. If the 
 author neglected to publish them, with such additions and improvements as time 
 and opportunity have permitted, it is not at all improbable that they may, with 
 many interpolations to his prejudice, be publislied at the South by liis enemies, 
 into whose hands, by the fortunes of war, they have fallen, with all his other 
 manuscripts of tliirty years' labor. 
 
 When, in the year 1864, the Author published in pamphlet form, and under 
 a disguised name, a few poems, called the "Burden of the South," which now 
 appear again in these volumes, he was, to his surprise, pressed with qucstioas 
 from various quarters regarding his birth, parentage, education, and calling, all 
 which questions he declined to answer until the time arrived, if it ever should 
 arrive, when it may be his fortune to publish something more important tlian the 
 few pages of that little work. In anticipation, on the publication of these 
 volumes, of inquiries similar to the above, the Author begs leave to inform his 
 readers, that he has filled, for many years, an obscure, humble, but he trusts 
 useful position, as a non-combatant in the military service of the United States. 
 Having in the discharge of his duties to the Government, before the rebellion, 
 contracted a fearful disease, he visited New York on leave of absence, with a 
 view to the best surgical assistance. How he survived his sufferings is as much 
 a mystery to himself as to others. More dead than alive, he lay for many days 
 in a, charity hospital, and reviving to consciousness, learned that the rebellion 
 had commenced ; that Ivis property was in the hands of the rebels; his occupation 
 gone ; and that his family, like himself, in wretched health at the time, were fly- 
 inp; before the enemy — on the prairies of the "West — an Indian country — without 
 even a blanket to cover them from the chilling vapors of the night. 
 
 1 
 
ACmOR'S APOLOGY. 
 
 Before his departure from I'ort AT , lie had, wilh liis personal clothing, his 
 
 manuscripts, and some curious ani beautiful minerals, sent all his books, some of 
 them rare and valuable works, to the care of tlio Quarter-Master at Fort Smith, 
 Arkansas. All the information ho has been ablo to obtain respecting them up to 
 the present time, is, that they were turned over for examination to a committee, 
 and that his writings in verse and prose, having been found full of treason to the 
 Sourh, books, papers, and all, were scattered among the inhabitants of that 
 neighborhood. The loss of his cattle, which had greatly increased and multi- 
 plied in ten or twelve years ; of his clothing, household furniture, and of every 
 thing else he possessed, was as notliing to the Author in comparison with his 
 papers and books, which he can never hope to replace, and which were the chief 
 solace of his life. 
 
 A small carpet-bag contained all our worldly possessions, including crude 
 copies of some portions of this work, when we arrived in Xew York. But let us 
 speak in the third person. Here the Author, with a viev,' to publication, visited 
 some publishers and a few editors of the newspaper press. It must be borne 
 in mind that he was poor, friendless, unknown, looking perhaps somewhat seedy, 
 and was moreover diffident, sensitive, unassuming, humiliated, and well stricken 
 in years. By some he was received and dismissed with curt courtesy, others 
 were rude, abrupt, and insulting. There are who gave very bland advice touching 
 slaves and slave-owners. He was damned with faint praise by a few, and by 
 many most graciously ridiculed. At that time, and subsequently until a very 
 recent period, he remembers no publisher— save Mr. G. P. Putnam, and the firm 
 of Ticknor & Fields — to whose testimony he can refer with satisfaction. He is, 
 however, a debtor to tlie wise and to the unwise, to the Greek and the Barbarian. 
 Rejected as he was without examination, he had time to add, correct, and amend, 
 and in regard to some of his manuscript to carry out literally the counsel of 
 Horace "nonum queprematur in anmim," and so present to the public, for the most 
 part, the well-matured fruit of his labor. 
 
 Should it interest any one to be acquainted with a little more of his personal 
 history, be it known that after twelve months of poverty, sickness, and \\-retch- 
 edness, during which time he was incapable of discharging his duties, he was not 
 forgotten by the War Department, but was restored to his former position, the 
 duties of which, by no means onerous or irksome, he is now as well able to per- 
 form as at any former period of his life, and for which he is most thankful to the 
 Almighty. The circle of the author's acquaintance in this part of the world is 
 exceedingly hmited. During his dark days of adversity he found, in the Rev. Dr. 
 Ogilbyof Trinity Church, a most kind, generous, and sympathizing friend; and 
 during his illness derived much edification and instruction from the spiritual min- 
 istrations of tho Rev. Dr. Uuhlenbergh. To the Ro\-. Dr. Pyne of Washingtou 
 
 2 
 
AUTHOR'S apolo;;y. 
 
 City ho never can be sufficiently grateful. To General R. Maroy and his family, 
 and tlie Chief of Artillery of the Army of the rotomac, General II. J. Ilimt, 
 whose heart and purse and influence wore all at work in his behalli lie would 
 vainly endeavor to express his obligations. From those faithful and excellent 
 ofBcers, General Martin Burke and General Harvey Brown, ho has received marlts 
 of favor and consideration, which can never be forgotten ; and always, and under 
 all circumstances, from the Rev. Ralph Hoyt, of the Good Sliepherd, the aflfec- 
 tionato regards of a friend and a brother. 
 
 Churches of the Good Shepherd, in such statuary marble and dendritic rook 
 as the writer of these lines discovered in his rambles through the Indian Terri- 
 tory, should be, were he a millionaire, erected in Fort Lee and Fifty-fourth street 
 as testimonials more durable than brass of the Rev. Ralph Hoyt's Christian zeal 
 and benevolence. He should also have a castle ou his own grounds near the 
 palisades, commanding a view of our commercial intercourse with a world only 
 less extended than the range of his own philanthropy. For the Rev. Dr. Muhlen- 
 bergli S. R. would create a new department at St. Lulie's Hospital in favor of 
 those poor patients, whose habits, associations, physical condition, in short, whose 
 idiosyncracies, of whatever kind, demand seclusion and privacy. 
 
 The aiithor has now fought his battle of life, and finished his journey, or 
 nearly so. He has nothing to ask save the restitution of his books and papers 
 by the State of Arkansas, and of the general public such patronage of these 
 little volumes as would enable him to pay the printer, wliioh he is now endeavor- 
 ing to do in part by monthly savings from a small income. "With these two favors 
 granted him the author would be perfectly contented, and rest in that peaceful 
 socurity which noihing should ever take away. 
 
 SKNNOTA RUBEIC. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 A GOOD Satire upon our social, moral, religious, and 
 political condition, as a people, is said, by our best re- 
 viewers, to be the chief desideratum in American litera- 
 ture. The shrewd Editor of the New York Herald has, 
 under this impression, oifered, within the last few days, 
 Two Hundred Dollars ($200) for the best Poem, of four 
 hundred lines or more, as a Satire upon the Follies of the 
 day. He will doubtless have the satisfaction of drawing 
 out many able and skilful writers, either as competitors 
 for his prize, or for the sole honor of victory in such a 
 contest. 
 
 We are said to be, touching satire — whether personal 
 or general, individual or national — more thin-skinned than 
 any civilized people, and this may account for the fact 
 that so few good satires have appeared among us. But 
 why we should be, in this matter, more sensitive than 
 other nations, is a question of no very easy solution. 
 There is so much to admire in our laws and institutions — 
 ,so much that is wonderful in our progress in all the affairs 
 of life, war, commerce, manufactures, agriculture, educa- 
 tion, art, science, literature ; our prosperity is so un- 
 bounded, our resources are so vast, and the increase of 
 our population, native and foreign, so great and unexam- 
 pled, that we ought to bear with more equanimity than 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 any other community of mankind some wholesome repre- 
 hension, in verse or prose, of the peculiarities and eccen- 
 tricities, the vaporing, conceit, and extravagance of many, 
 very many, among us, and those, of course, the most un- 
 travelled and least enlightened of our citizens. 
 
 The great nations of antiquity were remarkably tolerant 
 of satire, even when it dealt most severely with their own 
 follies and vices. Horace, Terence, Juvenal, and Persius, 
 among the Romans ; among the Greeks, Lucian, Menan- 
 der, and Aristophanes ; in England, more recently, among 
 our Anglo-Saxon cousins, Butler, Dryden, Pope, Swift, 
 Donne, Young, Hall, Johnson, Wolcot, Hogarth, Byron, 
 Hood, Jerold, Thackeray, Dickens ; in Franc.e, Moliere, 
 Racine, Boileau, Corneille, Voltaire ; in Spain, Cervantes ; 
 in Germany, Schiller, Goethe, Richter, have all satirized 
 their countrymen, whensoever and wheresoever, in any 
 station of life, they afforded them just cause of censure ; 
 nor did those authors by their satires ever forfeit their 
 popularity as writers. 
 
 The Irish character, as satirized by Irishmen, is, in refer- 
 ence to their bulls and blunders, love and whiskey, wit, 
 riots, wrath and blarney, a source of never-ending amuse- 
 ment to themselves and others. The Scotch take no 
 offence at mocking imitations of their dialect, or sarcasms 
 on their thrift and trimming, nor the English at our 
 mimicry of Cockney pronunciation, or ridicule of their 
 national pride or personal self-importance. On the con- 
 trary, they go much beyond us themselves in laughable 
 exhibitions of vulgar slang, baseless assumption, and 
 snobbish conceit. Of the truth of this remark, a few 
 numbers of the London Punch will convince the most 
 incredulous. 
 
 The effects of a good satire have often been felt through 
 
 6 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 all the ramifications of society. De Foe says that national 
 mistakes, vulgarisms, and even a general practice, have 
 been reformed by a just satire. He has a remarkable pas- 
 sage against the Know-Nothings of his day in England, 
 in consequence of their antipathy to foreigners, especially 
 the Dutch, forgetting, as our natives do, their own descent 
 from foreign ancestors : — 
 
 " These are the heroes who despise the Dutch, 
 And rail at new-oome foreigners so much, 
 Forgetting that themselves were all derived 
 From the most scoundrel race that ever lived ; 
 A horrid crowd of rambling thieves and drones, 
 Who ransacked kingdoms and dispeopled towns ; 
 The Pict and painted Briton, treacherous Scot, 
 By hunger, thirst, and rapine hither brought • 
 Norwegian pirates, buccaneering Danes, 
 Whose red-haired offspring everywhere remains ; 
 Who, joined with Norman French, compound the breed, 
 From whence your true-born Englishmen proceed — 
 And lest, by length of time, it be pretended 
 That climate may the modern race have mended. 
 Wise Providence, to keep us as we are. 
 Mixes us daily with exceeding care." 
 
 It cannot be denied that the subject of the present 
 satire is of infinite importance to this country. A large 
 party is, and always has been, opposed to foreign suf- 
 frage, or at least to the appointment of foreigners to places 
 of trust in the State, and yet it has been clearly proved, 
 by the late rebellion, that their loyalty to the Union has 
 been greater by far than that of the native-born of all the 
 States of the South, or than that of thousands at the 
 North, and among them of many educated by the General 
 Government at the Military Academy of the nation. The 
 soldiers who served under Twiggs and Lynde remained 
 loyal to a man, and I believe it is admitted that they were 
 
 n 
 
PEEFACB. 
 
 nearly all foreigners. The whole rebel army, in short, 
 Avas, with few exceptions, composed of natives. As 
 respects the Irish population, so much under the influence 
 of Copperheads, in sympathy with rebels, and most incon- 
 sistently opposed to negro emancipation, I believe it is 
 conceded that such of them as served in our armies, du- 
 ring the war, rendered as eifective service to the Govern- 
 ment as any other troops. 
 
 Though many imagine that Know-Nothingism is now 
 dead, and not likely to be resuscitated, yet are there cer- 
 tain signs of the times, which would lead to the belief 
 that "the snake is not kiEed, but scotched." 
 
 We may shock many deserving people by our animad- 
 versions on certain societies, but we only speak the honest 
 conviction of our hearts, and repeat the lessons of expe- 
 rience, when we make bold to assert, that much of the 
 apparent change of life, in many belonging to those socie- 
 ties, is occasioned by the substitution of night drinking 
 for open indulgence &?/ day in the use of intoxicating 
 liquors. As respects the societies referred to, we need 
 only add, that if Christianity does not make men good, 
 sober, temperate citizens, no other affiliation can. 
 
 In relation to the word Native in this Poem, the author 
 wishes it well borne in mind, that it is used altogether for 
 convenience, as designating those Americans opposed to 
 free labor, free suffrage, and eligibility to office of persons 
 born in foreign States. It is not intended to apply to those 
 born in the land who recognize in foreigners the rights 
 and immunities guaranteed to all citizens by the letter and 
 spirit of the American Constitution. The opposition to 
 negro suffrage is based upon the fact of the negro' s igno- 
 rance of the nature of the elective franchise. The same 
 objection, of course, should lie against the equally igno- 
 
 8 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 rant of other races. If negroes must not enter into the 
 "waters of political life before they have learned to swim, 
 we know not why others should be permitted to do so. 
 
 Of Indians, Fillibusters, and the Monroe Doctrine, the 
 writer expresses his sentiments freely, fearlessly, unre- 
 servedly, and disinterestedly ; nor does he doubt that the 
 Editor of The New York Herald and others, from whom 
 he differs toto ccelo, in some of his views, wiU weigh with 
 candor his arguments, nor suffer a difference of opinion to 
 bias their judgment as to the general merit of these satires, 
 
 Sennoia Rubek ascribes to Know-Nothing politics 
 the untimely death of a most beloved brother, yet he dis- 
 avows from his heart any sentiment that is unnational, 
 unpatriotic, un-American, in the strictest and most com- 
 prehensive import of those terms ; and in the hope and 
 conviction that this assurance will be received in the same 
 spirit of truth and candor in which it is now entertained 
 and expressed, most respectfully submits his satires to 
 the judgment of a liberal, discriminating, and enlightened 
 public. 
 
YOUNGl AMERICA. 
 
 "Eumoris nescio quid." 
 
 ClOBRO. 
 
 Behold, ye are nothing, and your work Is naught. 
 
 Isaiah, xU. 
 
 One needs no pass-word nor degree, 
 
 True patriots to scan; 
 Their Talisman is Liberty, 
 
 Their Shibboleth is man. 
 
 OANTO L 
 
 In an address to the Know-Nothings, the author contemplates, iu connection 
 witli the loss of the elective franchise to foreigners, the abstraction of foreign 
 labor and capital from all our institutions and possessions. Episode on the 
 demoralizing influence of the Modern Drama. Our martyred President, and the 
 Booth family. The Press. The Condition of our Streets. Cholera. 
 
 Ye blind " Vitruvii of Euin !" 
 From Filraore to the lowest Bruin ; 
 Who would from Foreigners withdraw 
 Their franchise rights conferred by law ; 
 Take from our fields of golden grain, 
 Our blooming gardens' wide domain, 
 From flocks and herds now roaming wide, 
 O'er fertile meads and rivers' side. 
 Take from our cities as they rise — 
 Our temples reaching to the skies, 
 Our roads, our wharves, our harbors, fleets. 
 Our bridges, aqueducts, and streets, 
 Our tunnels, railways, barges, locks. 
 Our steamers, merchantmen, and docks — 
 11 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 Take from our furnaces and looms, 
 
 Our quarries, mines, our hamlets, homes. 
 
 Our stores, our shops, our trains of cars. 
 
 Our camps, our fortresses, bazaars — 
 
 The labor wrought by foreign hands, 
 
 Their produce, capital, and lands ! 
 
 Ah, me ! the foreign bones and dust — 
 
 Cemented with our public works ; 
 
 Would, if erected as a bust. 
 
 Or mound as wont among the Turks ; 
 
 Or, say enclosed within an urn — 
 
 For States there be which corpses burn — 
 
 A bust, a mound, an urn, a frame, 
 
 Require as large as any name. 
 
 Among the Pyramids ; which came 
 
 From most remote antiquity ! 
 
 But thanks for foreign blood or bone. 
 
 Or crushed by weight of log or stone, 
 
 For money spent or labor done — 
 
 In any service, e'en their own — 
 
 To natives is iniquity! 
 
 II. 
 Take from our colleges and schools 
 Books, teachers, lessons, foreign rules — 
 From all our union trades and arts. 
 What foreign influence imparts ; 
 Take from our press its foreign force, 
 Its every foreign help and source 
 Of knowledge, profit, power. 
 Prints, foreign papers, and reviews, 
 Our weekly, daily foreign news- 
 Writers, reporters, carriers take. 
 Let foreign editors forsake 
 Their chairs forevermorc. 
 
 12 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 Take from our operas and balls, 
 
 Our orchestras, theatres, halls, 
 
 Their music, dresses, scenery. 
 
 But that you canH — a people used 
 
 To foreign shows, will be amused. 
 
 Though often to their cost abused 
 
 By humbug and chicanery ! 
 
 Ay, more than humbug, gracious God, 
 
 "Why should our scenic boards be trod 
 
 By the worst brotherhood of vice 
 
 From every land's metropolis ? 
 
 Not thus was sought the Grecian stage. 
 
 That mirror of a golden age. 
 
 When myriads entered at its gates, 
 
 And thronged its high ascending seats, 
 
 To hear the tragic muse proclaim 
 
 Their country's valor, power, and fame ; 
 
 Nor less when with the magic art 
 
 Of genius, Roscius reached the heart 
 
 Of Roman citizens, and found, 
 
 In answering echoes all around, 
 
 That vice unfigleafed shrunk and sought 
 
 In vain to shun the light that brought, 
 
 In fiercest wrath and darkest hue. 
 
 Its hateful image to the view ; 
 
 Yet Rome's theatrical renown 
 
 Must yield to Greece the tragic crown. 
 
 Not so the British muse : in all 
 
 Her tragic scenes, or comical. 
 
 Or mimic, or satirical ; 
 
 Our glorious Shakspeare stands confest. 
 
 Above the greatest and the best 
 
 Of Greece, or Rome, or France or Spain, 
 
 And so for ever will remain. 
 
 Yet he, in sunshine or in storm 
 13 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 So true to nature, needs reform. 
 
 Behold the Drama now disQ-raced 
 
 By robbers, bulUes, bawds, and paste, 
 
 Fescennine masks and vulgar gibus. 
 
 And all the progeny of bribes, 
 
 With brazen front displayed, as once 
 
 In revolutionary France, 
 
 Or in that shame of British Isles, 
 
 The stygian purlieus of St. Giles, 
 
 To extii'pate the moral sense 
 
 Of blooming youth and innocence. 
 
 When not received as thieves and mgucs. 
 
 As robbers, murderers, and Thug-;, 
 
 But decked with plumes and civic wreaths, 
 
 (-)ur Turpins, Sheppards, and Machc.it iis. 
 
 Are, in theatres and saloons, 
 
 Enacting villains and buffoons — 
 
 All hailed with long and loud applause, 
 
 As heroes unrestrained by laws; 
 
 Why marvel that our lanes and streets, 
 
 Our offices and home retreats, 
 
 Aie so beset by depredators. 
 
 Cut-purses, murderers, garotters. 
 
 Seducers, swindlers, siren-cells, 
 
 Drabs, (Irunkarfls, gamblers, brothel hells, 
 
 That some apprentices and clerks. 
 
 Like \'ulturcs or \ oracious sharks, 
 
 To glut their appetite for pleasure. 
 
 Should each, according to his measure. 
 
 Lay hands on his employer's treasure ; 
 
 A'N'hy marvel such a set of fellows 
 
 Should stage our jails and star the gallo\\s. 
 
 Stage-plays, and characters so fraught 
 
 With lewdness, both in act and thought, 
 14 
 
I'OUNG AMERICA. 
 
 And woi'd and look, and unchaste dross, 
 The garb of impisli bawdiuess, 
 Demands an outcry from the press ; 
 Nor let its strictures be iu vain. 
 This Thespian license to restrain. 
 Lest other Presidential murders 
 Be added to our foul disorders. 
 
 Our martyred Lincoln from on hio'h 
 Looks down with ever-pitying eye 
 Upon our inconsistency. 
 Ah ! where is now the grief wiiicli late 
 Pervaded every realm and state ? 
 Nay, every village, house, and honic. 
 Within the bounds of Christendom, 
 And far beyond ; for Moslem tribes 
 Send forth their orators and scribes, 
 Tlieir heartfelt sympathy to .show 
 In strains responsive to our woo. 
 Nor less do Brahma's followers own 
 Our people's loss, our chief's renown. 
 Yet in the city where his hearse — 
 The wonder of the universe — 
 In solemn and funereal state. 
 With more than royal splendor great, 
 Drew tears from eyes unused to weep, 
 And from our pillows banished sleep, 
 Men rush in crowds to greet and hear 
 The brother of his murderer ' 
 Is this the gratitude we feel. 
 And this the faith our acts reveal. 
 In him whose consecrated blood. 
 Cementing human brotherhood. 
 Of varying type and caste and shade, 
 As by creative wisdom made, 
 15 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 Booamc a costly sacrifice 
 For national iniquities ! 
 cruel ! cruel ! cruel lot ! 
 To be thus speedily forgot 
 By those who should liis high deserts 
 Embalm within their heart of hearts ! 
 To him it was reserved to strike 
 The cursed chain from slavery's neck, 
 To make the bondman taste and see 
 The priceless fruits of liberty, 
 And at her shrine the homage pay 
 Of nations ransomed in a day. 
 Coaso Edwin Booth ! to show thy face in 
 The character of an assassin I 
 At least ne'er venture to appear 
 In Sophoclean buskin here. 
 Where memory in thine every feature 
 Sooks traces of thy brother's nature; 
 And some with curses long and loud 
 Denounce the hated brotherhood. 
 Thv brother's keeper, true, thou wert not, 
 And an approver, doubtless, art not. 
 Of his offence, which smells to heaven, 
 A crime too rank to be forgiven ; 
 But though thou didst not in his guilt 
 Take part, the blood so foully spilt 
 Will stain the records of thy name 
 Through all its calendar of fame. 
 This only copperheads deny. 
 Thy vanity to gi-atify ; 
 Or on their party schemes intent, 
 To use thee as an instrument. 
 A fickle multitude may go, 
 As they are wont, to any show ; 
 But those who wish to see thee most, 
 16 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 In fancy hear poor Lincoln's ghost, 
 
 Like Hamlet's, everywhere around, 
 
 Or sec him dying of the wound 
 
 Inflicted by that cursed hand 
 
 Which smote the mirror of our land. 
 
 Suppose Wilkes Booth had killed the son. 
 
 Wife, brother, sire, of any one 
 
 Who now is nightly found among 
 
 The crowds that to thine acting throng; 
 
 Think'st thou he would thy presence greet 
 
 At every play, in every street. 
 
 Nor rather wish and pray and hope 
 
 To see thee dangling from a rope ? 
 
 Why then, when our chief magistrate — 
 
 The ruler of a miglity state — 
 
 Is slain, why should our people cheer 
 
 The brother of his murderer ? 
 
 Dramatic rant and fitful ire 
 
 And drunken brawls disgraced thy sire ; 
 
 AA'hat marvel then, that, wedded so, 
 
 His spouse brought forth a child of woe 
 
 And wrath and shame and monster vices. 
 
 Increased by scenic artifices ? 
 
 Such all must needs admit in sooth 
 
 Was the assassin, John Wilkes Booth. 
 
 Not tears alone and doleful cries 
 Characterize our Tragedies, 
 But blood, which, found in every age 
 A feature of the British stage, 
 May in some hearts those passions nurse 
 That prove a hissing and a curse. 
 In keeping with thy first intent 
 Of voluntary banishment. 
 Retire with ample means and ways 
 17 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 To spend thy residue of days 
 111 private life, admired, esteemed, 
 And as a loyal burgess deemed. 
 The gods may now with loud applause 
 Greet thee, yet reason finds just cause, 
 E'en though the pit should also cheer, 
 To damn thee in thy pet career. 
 
 As faithful watchmen keeping guard 
 
 In every town and city ward. 
 
 Our daily journals now proclaim 
 
 The burdens of a grievous shame, 
 
 Of seething filth and festering stews 
 
 In cellar-tenements and mews; 
 
 And garbage, slush, and foul disease, 
 
 And all the steams and stench of vice. 
 
 Of bone-house caldrons, putrid flesh. 
 
 And heaps of decomposing fish ; 
 
 Of sess-pools, shambles, tanneries. 
 
 Pest-houses, hells, infirmaries. 
 
 And want, and poverty, and woe. 
 
 And all the ills that overflow, 
 
 To taint the air and choke the breath. 
 
 Like poison from a den of death : 
 
 Sufh scenes must every feeling shock 
 
 In hearts not harder than a rock. 
 
 If now upon the Simoom's blast 
 
 Grim death, careering from the east, 
 
 Should, in the shape of cholera, 
 
 His ever-dreadful visit pay ; 
 
 Such the condition of our strecits, 
 
 Our sewers, sinks, and either seats 
 
 Of filth, our slaughtered populace 
 
 Would in our catacombs lack space. 
 
 Then would the curse of dead men's eyes 
 IS 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 Pursue our street authorities, 
 Our city council and thcii' tools, 
 Now self-condemned as erring fools; 
 And worse than fools, a set of knaves 
 Whose hell begins this side their graves. 
 Return we now, again to pay 
 Our dues to Young America. 
 
 III. 
 Take what is foreign from our codes, 
 Of laws and manners, forms and modes, 
 In medicine what wo may obtain — 
 From foreign sources let remain. 
 
 In darkness and in night — 
 What foreign literature has taught — 
 Let us eschew, some think it fraught 
 
 With anti-slavery liyht. 
 
 And so it is, for we suppose. 
 
 That all who wi'itc in verse or prose. 
 
 If thc}- be honest, must condcnm 
 
 That ruthless, heartless class of men. 
 
 Who deal in human flesh and blood. 
 
 As those who purchase daily food. 
 
 We cannot censors now elect, 
 
 Books to approve and to reject — 
 
 Broadcast, the press, in bales and billions. 
 
 Sends out those works which please the millions ; 
 
 The leaven of freedom in our schools 
 
 Spreads slowly, yet, by certain rules. 
 
 Which find a suitable expression 
 
 In arithmetical progression; 
 
 As in our geologic laws. 
 
 Wo trace each layer to its cause : 
 19 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 Wave after wave, deposing matter, 
 As the condition of the vi'ater; 
 Or those phenomena of nature- 
 Volcanoes, earthquakes, mark each feature. 
 So, in the wavelets of the mind. 
 We may some certain traces find. 
 With now and then " a fault or dike," 
 Which mark the bounds and show the extent 
 Of progress in each great event. 
 Or past or present, which, belike, 
 May operate in future ages. 
 In the same ratio of stages. 
 Till men obey each law divine, 
 As nature in the hidden mine. 
 And every man in every other 
 May view an equal and a brother. 
 Perfecting thus pure freedom's code, 
 To man delivered by his God. 
 
 V. 
 
 Let Milton, Spenser, Shakspeare lie 
 With Dryden, in obscurity. 
 And Goldsmith, Byron, Moore, and Young, 
 And Scotia's sweetest child of song — 
 Immortal Burns, whose fame is not 
 One whit behind the fame of Scott — 
 Send Wordsworth, with his angelot, 
 Divine philosophy to quote 
 To eagles, choughs, and rocks — • 
 Show Southey, Coleridge, Bowles the way — 
 With epic, sonnet, German play 
 To line a trunk or box. 
 Pope, Campbell, Rogers, send them where 
 Macaulay's left to rot. 
 20 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 CANTO n. 
 
 Treats briefly of our obligations to men of science in the mother countries. 
 What we owe to France, Germany, Italy. A Mammoth Skeleton — Babylon or 
 Bome not so great a mass of ruin. 
 
 Of sons of science we might name, 
 Conspicuous in the rolls of fame, 
 A host of men whom Britain gave. 
 But we our privilege shall waive; 
 And simply ask who first made known 
 The laws which rule the sun and moon — 
 The laws, whose heaven-directed force, 
 Maintains the planets in their course ? 
 Who traced their orbs through endless space. 
 Their sizes, figures, distance, place ? 
 Who taught whence they derived their Hght, 
 Whence their velocity of flight ? 
 Who first, with scientific ken, 
 Gauged their diameters ; and when 
 The cycles of their days and moons. 
 Their seasons, years, their nights and noons, 
 Expire : Why Cynthia's golden horn 
 Wanes, waxes, disappears at morn. 
 And why, at night, she reappears, 
 A queen among the troops of stars. 
 Which all, in pure and bright array, 
 Around her throne their homage pay ! 
 Who taught how comets in their course. 
 Revolving with elliptic force — 
 At certain periods come and go — 
 Portending wrath and overthrow, 
 As some suppose, to mighty States, 
 When doomed to ruin by the fates? 
 21 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 II. 
 
 See Nature's Bible, writ in stone, 
 
 In short, in all we gaze upon — 
 
 See revelation, nor be loth, 
 
 The self-same source to claim for both, 
 
 Dividing sunshine from the night — 
 
 Or darkness from celestial lights 
 
 The light of truth : Or, call it day. 
 
 Of Heaven, an uncreated ray — 
 
 Da}' unto day revealing more 
 
 Than ever was revealed before ; 
 
 And night to night more useful knowledge 
 
 Than ever was acquired at college. 
 
 Thy beams, Geology ! ..at moi'n. 
 
 With glorious light our land adorn. 
 
 We rank in thee "no whit behind" 
 
 The oldest nations of mankind ; 
 
 (_)i-, if in aught, perhaps the style 
 
 Of Miller, Connybeare, and Ly'll. 
 
 III. - -■■ JtiiUi^'. 
 
 In Humboldt, Goethe, Schiller, see, 
 Those noble lights of Germany ; 
 See Gcsner, Leibnitz, and Des Cartes — 
 Where'er philosophy and art 
 
 Have spread their fame afar. 
 La Lande, La Place, and Carnot next. 
 May furnish each a glorious text 
 
 For science and for war. 
 Guizot, Thiers, and Lamartine, 
 Arago, Cnvier, I ween. 
 Will scarcely be displaced by those 
 Who would not lead men by the nose, 
 22 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 To think all learning but their owii, 
 A burden and excrescence grown. 
 Italian names would far extend 
 Our rhymes beyond what we intend, 
 Especially in works of art : — 
 We therefore with our reader part 
 On this point ; promising again 
 To touch on painting, sculpture, when 
 We find what's written is disputed. 
 Or these, our present rhymes, refuted. 
 
 Remove all works, nor let remain 
 Aught, but what Natives may attain, 
 
 Without external aid ; 
 Then, if you can, with steadfast gaze. 
 Behold the ruin you have made. 
 Of genius, wisdom, strength, and health, 
 In this our glorious Commonwealth. 
 Behold ! I write it with amaze — • 
 A lifeless mammoth skeleton, 
 Of witheringjnuscle, nerve, and bone — ^ 
 
 Destruction all around ! 
 The fearfnllest and wildest sprite, 
 That ever glared on mortal sight. 
 
 Or uttered doleful sound ! 
 A hydra corse ! a Saurian home ! 
 A second Babylon or Rome. 
 
 Low levelled with the dust, 
 A constellation, chaos turned — 
 A world of light, in darkness mourned, 
 
 A monumental crust, 
 I Of all that was both good and great, 
 
 I The nurse of thought and free debate, 
 
 23 
 
TOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 In this fair orb of man's abode, 
 His fairest, brightest, best estate. 
 Next paradise and God. 
 
 CANTO III. 
 
 Many Foreigners supposed to be quite as competent to exercise their elective 
 franchise rights, for the public good, as thousands of our Know-Nothing Natives. 
 Morally, and in other respects, as good men as those who choose a booby natne. 
 Certain Secret Societies in league with Know-Nothings. One such Society de- 
 scribed. Symbols and Watchwords a Sham. Election Days. Pat, Teague, 
 Donald, Crapaud, and Snyder. A broad view of depravity in Natives and Foreign- 
 ers. From Oregon to Maine, &c. Why should a test be required of one class of 
 bad men and not of another 7 
 
 If, of the millions native born. 
 
 Who view a foreigner with scorn, 
 
 There were not thousands, who, in worth, 
 
 To thousands yield of foreign birth, 
 
 A few of these — it may be so — 
 
 For we protest, we do not know — 
 
 Might then despairingly forego 
 
 Their rights, and sink to slaves. 
 And if some myriads may be found. 
 From foreign peoples all around. 
 
 As wise, as good, as just. 
 As some who choose a booby name. 
 To hide the acts which fear or shame 
 
 Compel them to distrust : 
 Should we a difference seek to make — 
 Reject the good, and freemen take 
 
 From villains and from knaves ? 
 Who constitutions sets at naught. 
 Who puts up conscience to be bought ; 
 24 
 
TOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 Who auctions places for the wage 
 Of highest pay for meanest gage ; 
 Who musters factions in the State, 
 For anarchy and civil hate ; 
 Who has no barrier in laws, 
 Who views the person, not the cause, 
 Who dares invade his neighbor's right 
 By tests and theologic spite ; , 
 Nay : who for party, clamor, hire, 
 Would even disfranchise his own sire ! 
 Pray, is not such a one, in truth. 
 Less Christian, citizen, and man — 
 
 Though in our country born — 
 Than who, because of change or chance. 
 May not among us pass his youth — 
 But whom the State would fain advance, 
 Who would, though under native ban, 
 
 The highest place adorn ? 
 
 And ye with titles meet for gibes. 
 Grand, worthy Pharisees and Scribes,* 
 
 * It is impossible to exaggerate the evils of drunkenness. Temperance So- 
 cieties, so called, cannot prevent or do away with it. They only diminish it in 
 appearance, or change its character, by substituting hypocrisy and night drinking 
 for open and shameless intemperance. Those societies have degenerated into 
 mere pohtioal clubs — ^the hybrids of a hybrid Odd-Fellowship. They have con- 
 stituted themselves, with signs and symbols, into the most pragmatical and in- 
 quisitorial of all secret fraternities. Smellers and peepers, as they are frequently 
 termed, they excite the disgust and indignation of every manly and generous 
 spirit. 
 
 Be it emphatically understood, that it is not the cause of temperance we con- 
 demn. Heaven forbid I but those pretenders to temperance, whose rules and 
 whose practice, so much at variance, have produced, now produce, and will con- 
 
 25 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 Even to yourselves a mockery 1 
 To us poor laics, it appears, 
 Tliat velvet feet and trumpet ears 
 Should to such animals belong, 
 As lie in wait to catch their prey, 
 Which first they sport with ere thoy slay, 
 
 The jungle roots among. 
 No eagle, vulture, lynx, or kite, 
 Can match you in the sense of sight ; 
 No hound or setter-dog excel 
 Your boundless faculty of smell. 
 Whene'er through crevices and chinks 
 You seek the seats of baneful drinks ; 
 Or in the breeze, or on the breath. 
 Perceive the taint of moral death. 
 
 In alcoholic cookery ! 
 
 Ye lights in darkness ! normal schools ! 
 Guides of the blind, instructing fools ! 
 Ye have of knowledge but the form— 
 Your heart of hearts a canker-worm 
 Devours, as locusts oft are seen 
 Devouring whatsoe'er is green. 
 When warping from a leeward shore, 
 They on our crops their legions pour; 
 The skeletons of herbs and plants 
 They leave to beetles, grubs, aiid ants. 
 
 tinue to produce, a reaction, that is calculated to pUinge men more and more into 
 cant, profligacy, servility, and incurable meanness. Admitting that the ancient 
 Masonic and other Societies— apart from strictly religious ones — ha\e done good 
 yet we assert, without fear of contradiction, that they are not necessary, and that 
 one great society, the Christian Church, of which aU should be members can 
 alone be the means of "uplifting our humanity from its deep degradation." 
 
 26 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 As all good locusts for a feast 
 
 Must have what food they can digest. 
 
 Our laws and freedom thus bereft — 
 
 The spirit gone, the letters left ; 
 
 Nor this left all — a shell, a frame — 
 
 Grand worthy scribes record your shame. 
 
 Your double infamy proclaim. 
 
 You, kind inquisitors, forsooth ! 
 Domestic foibles to detect. 
 
 Advise the aged, save the youth, 
 And from strange gods the land protect ! 
 Look well at home, you need not roam, 
 
 For lives that want reform ; 
 Your heart presents the elements 
 
 That typify the storm. 
 By you society is batched 
 Into the watching and the watched ; 
 " A thief to catch a thief," of course, 
 Y'"our maxim, ever in full force. 
 Detectives all— a scurvy set — 
 As ever yet in conclave met ; 
 Foes of all truth and independence : 
 Who, from one word, concoct a sentence. 
 And from one sentence coin a speech : 
 Some honest record to impeach. 
 I'^ea, from imaginary evil, 
 Are ready to stir up the Devil ; 
 For instance, in the smell of wine. 
 To find unpardonable sin ; 
 And oft, without a shade of reason, 
 Accuse a brother of high treason 
 To every pure and sacred code 
 Of laws, enjoined by man and God. 
 You, honest patriots, indeed ! 
 You men whose sordid, selfish greed — 
 
 27 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 Whose every wish and end and aim 
 
 Is place and pension, power and fame ; 
 
 Ay ! pelf the means and power the end, 
 
 To which your signs and pass-words tend. 
 
 Your meddling, prying, knavish tricks, 
 
 All meet in party politics ; — 
 
 No more with oaths and symbols vain. 
 
 The name of patriot profane. 
 
 One needs no pass-word nor degree, 
 
 True patriots to scan ; 
 Their Talisman is Liberty, 
 
 Their Shibboleth is Man. 
 
 IV. 
 
 'Tis true, that on election-day, 
 
 Pat puts his spade and shou'l away, 
 
 And trudges to record his vote, 
 
 With stammering tongue and tattered coat, 
 
 With broken head and battered nose. 
 
 And other signs of cuffs and blows ; 
 
 That Teague and Donald have their fill, 
 
 And old Crapaud his wonted swill, 
 
 On great days of the feast ; 
 And that mine vriend, our goot mynheer, 
 May pour a quart of horrid beer 
 
 On stomach filled with crout, 
 And, without fear of God or law. 
 With neighbor or his comely frau, 
 
 A rumpus raise or rout. 
 
 And make himself a beast ! 
 But do they more than others do, 
 Who, better taught, ought better know, 
 
 A pure and perfect way ? 
 Our guardian watchmen are not lulled, 
 Nor penal statutes disannulled, 
 28 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 By gross but partial ill. 
 Protective laws and justice still 
 Their aim and object to fulfill : — 
 Defend the weak, subdue the strong, 
 Prohibit violence and wrong, 
 And punish whom they may. 
 
 Yet, look abroad with map in hand — 
 Survey at large our mighty land — 
 Look this way, westward from Cape Fear, 
 Tow'rd Rio Grande, far as Mier, 
 Thence passing up to Santa Fe, 
 Or if you will, Francisco Bay ; 
 Or, say we go to Utah Lake, 
 A close reconnoisaance to make 
 
 Of Mormon lust and blasphemy ; 
 Or of the California schools 
 Of politics and moral rules. 
 
 And all their Lynch-law infamy; 
 Or, of the hells and of the mines 
 Take views from Devil's Mount ; * 
 Or, like the student in Le Sage, 
 Through every roof the living page 
 
 Of every life recount — 
 
 Men's virtues and their sins : 
 Think you that in this mighty space 
 We may not find a full-grown race, 
 
 0{ natives born free, 
 As vicious, villanous, and vile 
 As e'er, from continent or isle, 
 
 Abused the name of Liberty? 
 
 * Monte Diavolo. 
 29 
 
TOUNa AMERICA. 
 
 Alas ! who travels on our coast, 
 
 Who can a native riot see ? 
 
 Whose home's a city, village, town. 
 
 Plain, mountain, backwood, parts unknown, 
 Yet shut his eyes and proudly boast. 
 
 Of our supreme morality ? 
 Poll foreign ruffians most forlora — 
 Each villain also native born — 
 Each thief, each swindler, traitor, knave 
 
 Of high or low degree ; 
 All who, in short, to vice enslave 
 
 The spirit's immortality : 
 Their crimes and ignorance compare — 
 
 Their number, too, and then declare 
 Why worth, which you would make a test. 
 
 When foreigners ask equal right, 
 You hold no better than a jest 
 
 When native claims are brought to lia'ht ? 
 
 But you don't mean to disfranchise 
 The good, intelligent, and wise ; 
 You only mean to show good cause 
 For change in our organic laws — 
 
 Restricting freedom's boon. 
 In short, you think it meet and just 
 That posts of profit, power, and trust 
 
 Should only be to natives given ; — 
 "Americans this land must rule," 
 The maxim of the native school — 
 
 You think a voice from Heaven ! 
 
 30 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 CANTO IT. 
 
 Shows who is not a, true American. Treats of the Louisville Riots. A trio of 
 Editors, all of whom are Fillibusters, and two of them Know-Nothings. 
 
 Shall we Americans call those 
 
 Who disregard the countless woes 
 
 Of war in every race or nation, 
 
 With or without civilization ? 
 
 Or the aggressive Fillibuster, 
 
 Who would his hireling ruffians muster, 
 
 To rob and steal from love of pelf. 
 
 And sole aggrandizement of self; 
 
 Who values not a single straw 
 
 Or life, or liberty, or law ; 
 
 Or doctrines of a Whig or Tory, 
 
 Or faith, or our Republic's glory ; 
 
 Albeit his lying tongue may wag 
 
 Of ceaseless insults to our flag. 
 
 Nor more American is he, 
 
 Who, by brute violence, abuses 
 The man that uses liberty 
 
 To vote for whomsoe'er he chooses. 
 Not muffled da^ers, pistols, oaths, 
 Nor foul blaspheming funnel mouths. 
 Nor well-directed salivation, 
 Nor anti-despot declamation, 
 Nor Anglican vituperation, 
 Nor over-reaching the unwary; 
 
 Nor aught that's rude in speech or dress, 
 Although perhaps they are not chary 
 
 In plain distinctness to express 
 Their sentiments, can ever mark 
 Oar true Americans. But hark ! 
 31 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 What frantic noise invades our ears — 
 
 What shrieking, wailing, bitter crying? 
 
 Men, women, children, bleeding, d)'ing ! 
 Houses on fire ! and, borne on biers. 
 At every turning-point, one meets 
 The dead and wounded in our streets. 
 Alas ! alas ! between the fire 
 
 Of their own dwellings and the range 
 Of fierce assassins' deadly rifles. 
 The aged matron, hoary sire. 
 The child, the youth, the maid expire. 
 
 In one sad hour, ah ! what a change 
 Can ruthless ruffians make from trifles ! 
 Yet not Americans are men 
 Who gag the press, who bribe the pen — 
 Ascribe to foreign peoples all 
 The human evils which befall 
 
 In populations, where, alas ! 
 They often share in evil-doing — 
 Their opportunities foregoing, 
 Of cultivating peace, good-will, 
 
 W^ith every citizen and neighbor. 
 As well as exercising skill 
 
 In every art, in every class 
 
 Enriched and honored by their labor. 
 
 But these things admitted, we cannot be blind 
 To the frenzy possessing the popular mind. 
 Ye sons of Kentucky, so gallant and brave, 
 To strangers so kind, and so good to the slave — 
 Abroad so esteemed, so respected at home. 
 From Cadiz to Glasgow, from Moscow to Rome, 
 From Maine to Panama, ay I farther, in truth — 
 Where bounds Colorado the plains of the South,* 
 
 * P. S. means that Eio Colorado whicli, flowing through the southern pampas 
 
 32 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 Why should the voice of a Know-Nothing press 
 
 To strangers and foreigners cause such distress 3 
 
 Some journals among you, confessedly clever,* 
 
 Keep credulous crowds in a crisis of fever — 
 
 Of principles judging by stubborn facts, 
 
 And these ('tis so said), by authentical pacts — 
 
 A bribe, in the guise of a generous loan, 
 
 A Cerberus sop, or a meat-covered bone. 
 
 An oflBce to build, or a press to i-enew. 
 
 Will greatly contribute to alter one's view ; 
 
 A diamond to wife, or to child, a rich present, 
 
 To some, as douceurs, are amazingly pleasant; 
 
 Such things made the greatest of orators dumb — 
 
 He had swallowed gold cups and could only say ?num !\ 
 
 Gold buttons, rare diamonds, rich cabinet wares. 
 
 Led Veruiam's lord into troubles and snares.J 
 
 of Buenos Ayres, falls into the Atlantic Ocean some miles soulli ^^f l!ie I!.,y o'.' 
 Anegarda, about 38J S. lat. 
 
 * " Do you mean English clever or American clever?" Bhouted a critic in the ear 
 of S. R., as he uttered that word. "Look to the context," replied the satirist. 
 I write English. 
 
 f For the story of the bribery of Demosthenes, see Plutarch. " Demosthenes 
 could not resist the temptation — i. c, of the gold cup and twenty talents. He 
 received the money like a garrison into his house, and went over to the interest 
 of Harpalus. Next day he came into the assembly with a quantity of wool and 
 bandages about his neck, and when the people called upon him to get up and 
 speak, he made signs that he had lost his voice. Some answered, ' By swaUoxoinrj 
 gold and silver I' At another time, when he wanted to speak in his own defence, 
 somebody or other stood up and said, sneeringly, ' Will you not hear the man V/ith 
 the cup r " 
 
 \ Without entering into the over-nice distinction between Yitla temporis and 
 Vitia hominis — a plea on which many, besides Lord Bacon, might set up some 
 defence — we take, as evidence of his guilt, his own humble confession to the 
 lords, &c., in which he says: "I do plainly and ingenuously confess that I am 
 guilty of corruption, and do renounce all defence, and put myself on the grace and 
 mercy of your lordships." See Life and "Works of Lord Bacon, pp. 96, 91 ; see, 
 also, 3d, 9th, and 19th articles of charge. 
 33 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 Another example than eithei, much worse, 
 Is Judas, -with silver and gold in his purse ! 
 
 Gold often occasions a chronic hronchitis. 
 The brain it congeals and disorders the wit; 
 The Iright it makes murky, the lynx-eyed makes fit 
 To stumble in mire ox fall into a pit. 
 Men scarcely know why, and they cannot tell when. 
 The spirit of change has come over their pen — 
 
 A change of that sort so confoundedly fleet is ! 
 
 There is, if he could, who, foul murder excusing. 
 
 The guilty defending, the victim abusing, 
 
 Would fain prove the heart of a sparrow-legged cripple 
 
 As soft as a mole-skin, and pure as a ripple 
 
 On Heaven-fanned waves of the waters of life — 
 
 Better prove from his look his aversion to strife. 
 
 How, spitting above and below and around him. 
 
 He would worry a Briton and try to impound him ; 
 
 From John so familiar with costard and face, 
 
 With impudent boasting and monkey grimace; 
 
 If striking such reptile were not a disgrace 
 
 (Such cases excepted as that of poor Butler,* 
 
 Whose doom was forecast in the shop of a cutler) ; 
 
 Our cripple in limb but in spirit a thug. 
 
 Might catch some mischance o'er the site of his plug. 
 
 * See a book called " English Items," by Matt. 'Ward, a very sink of hatred, 
 malice, and envy. It was avowedly designed as a set-off against the TroUopes 
 and Pidlers of their day, and in acrimony and malignity, in all, in short, but 
 ability, went far beyond them. "When a certain by-stander had heard a young 
 friend of S. R. read a few passages from the book referred to, he exclaimed : 
 " Surely the fellow who wrote tliat book will commit murder be/ore he is six months 
 older!" Alas, alas! not more than six days had elapsed from that time, when 
 the newspapers had informed the most distant parts of our Union, that poor 
 Sutkr's wife was a vjidow and his child an orphan I 
 
 34 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 At home among cousins, such brutalized pranks 
 Would end in their smashing his teeth or his shanks.* 
 Ye shades of the murdered ! if shade ever sent is ! 
 Appear and refute the assertions of********' 
 
 If murder again be committed, regard him 
 Who looks to an advocate's fee to reward him ! 
 Who won't all free voters, who clash with, or rat him, 
 To kill to the war-cvy of " Up, Guards, and at them !" 
 Who, if you would catch a political fish. 
 Will echo Buchanan with cries of Buksheesh— 
 Like Pat, who to " How d'ye's ?" in Sullivan's dell. 
 Is answered by £cho : " l thank you, sir, well /" 
 He greedily gulps a gold bait with the hook ! 
 Not Pat, but our man of the gudgeon and fluke — 
 For money he will have, by hook or by crook. 
 By lecture, by libel, by sonff, or by wit. 
 By puffing, derision, black mail, or deceit. 
 A man ever ready to taunt or proscribe him. 
 Who is not a "Native," or scorns to bribe him. 
 He seems to expect, as the meed for his crimes, 
 (This multiple multiplied echo of chimes) — ■ 
 A flattering notice or two in the Timcs.\ 
 
 * One of the witnesses in Ward's trial, for the murder of Butler, spoke of 
 Ward's legs as the smallest and feeblest he had ever seen. What a fellow to seek 
 quarrels with John Bull ; and, ye gods, what a representative of John Mammoth I 
 Physical infirmities, are, we freely admit, no legitimate subject for satire, unless 
 (as we devoutly believe they are, in the cases of Ward and Prentice) the cause or 
 effect, or both, of great moral depravity. Considering its own savage attacks 
 upon some of the most venerable characters in Christendom, there is no news- 
 paper in existence that has less reason to complain of the severity of satire than 
 the Louisville Journal. 
 
 f The influence of the London Times upon public opinion in this country, as 
 everywhere else, is wonderful; but, considering its far-seeing views upon political 
 bearings and events, the pith and point of its leaders, and the unsurpassed ability 
 
 35 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 The Times, in the van of an era of mind, 
 
 Its influence happily wields for mankind ; 
 
 Its thundering peals and electrical force, 
 
 To stay or to hasten or alter the course 
 
 Of events, in the march of an empire or state. 
 
 All seem to promulgate the fiats of fate. 
 
 (Ah me ! what a change in foreknowledge and merit , 
 
 Has lately come o'er its political spirit !) 
 
 Other journals, as planets, were lost in its blaze. 
 
 Or asteroids hid in a nebulous haze. 
 
 The hope to be mentioned with praise in its columns, 
 
 "With P outweighs a lohole score of their volumes ! 
 
 Our native laudation is scarcely a puff 
 
 In the vanes of a kite, whose soul cry is " luff, luff !" * 
 
 His hatred of Catholics — German or Irish — 
 
 Is wolfish, malignant, as cruel as currish ; 
 
 He tells of a lady " complacently dying !" 
 
 'Tis thus that he hugs his political lying, 
 
 With words often wise — his whole life is a sample 
 
 Of all that is thoroughly base in example ; 
 
 He shrewdly declines his opponents to meet, 
 
 In personal conflicts, except in the street ; 
 
 with which it fortifies itself in all its positions, it would, perhaps, be still more 
 wonderful if its influence were less felt. Some of its daily editorials and much of 
 its correspondence are among the most masterly productions that ever graced our 
 literature and language. "We doubt not that its leading articles, if directed to 
 those objects, would do as much to check fillibustering, border warfare, or at 
 least border ruESanism and Know-Nothingism among us, as the ablest of our 
 Presidential messages and of the speeches delivered in Congress. This may be 
 unpalatable, but is it not true 7 The London TiTnes has, since the commencement 
 of our civil war, lost all its influence among the loyal citizens of the loyal States. 
 Its prophecies were false, its positions untenable, its abuse of our Government un- 
 warrantable, and its laudation of our enemies not unfrequently unjust and in- 
 vidious, 
 
 * The vanes of a kite — " The vane is the thin membranous web of a feather on 
 the side of the shaft." — Paley. 
 
 36 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 For thither his satellites thvong to support him, 
 
 With a chance, ten to one, that no weapon shall hurt him ; 
 
 Or that he may fearlessly shoot from a crowd 
 
 Of ruflSans, athirst for his enemies' blood; 
 
 But should he a rival or murder or wound — 
 
 His plea, " self-defence,^' no indictment is found. 
 
 'Tis thus the arch-rioter plans to escape 
 
 The meshes of law by the tissue of tape ; 
 
 A thing so effete and decrepit from vice — 
 
 No man would encounter, no woman entice ; 
 
 Albeit, it is said, he has tools at his will, 
 
 To pander and riot, shoot, buffet, and kill. 
 
 His quacks are all Galens, his actors all Garricks, 
 His poets all Homers, his Harlequins Yoricks, 
 His Ethiop minstrels imported Tuaricks, 
 His trulls of the ballet excel Taglioni, 
 His songstresses — Malibran, Liiid, and Alboni ; 
 His chief violin, so much like Paganini, 
 Is worthy the muse of Mozart and Kossini — 
 Who backs him in alt, double bass, pirouetting 
 On key-notes of typo, will scarce lose by liis betting. 
 His lady contributors — Sapphos, Aspasias — 
 Are graceful and bright as our brightest acacias ; 
 And be it admitted, he has the great merit 
 To foster in them a poetical spirit ; — 
 A poet himself, both in thought and expression. 
 We owe him t^^MS much in the way of concession. 
 His statesmen are far beyond Tully or Pitt, 
 The pillars of freedom, the lights of debate. 
 His fairs, exhibitions, renowned auctioneers. 
 Nor eyes have seen equalled, nor heard of men's ears. 
 In heroes and orators, gentlemen, look ye ! 
 All ancients and moderns must yield to Kentucky ! 
 37 
 
YOUNG AMERTCA. 
 
 Such, sirs, are his magical touches with dollars. 
 
 To change black to white in cksert or in colors. 
 
 lie now seems at rancorous feud with the Flaskoes — 
 
 Cousins-gcrman in all diabolic _/?a4-cos. 
 
 Both wights arc the veriest Barnums of type, 
 
 Both animals, too, of a synchronous stripe — 
 
 Or, birds if you will, of such beak and such feather 
 
 That all ornithologists class them together ; 
 
 Yet, both of a trade, they can never agree 
 
 In aught, save in taking a bribe or a fee ; 
 
 While one, if he could, would make ready for fight. 
 
 The other trusts more to a criminal writ ; 
 
 Indeed, it appears from our criminal dockets. 
 
 That whips and ratans have, with gold, filled his pockets; 
 
 The other poor imbecile vastly prefers 
 
 To risk his own skin and set friends by the ears. 
 
 Sir Oracle, now of the Know-Notliing school, 
 
 A crutch for his wand, and his tripod a stool ; 
 
 He always, for suitable victuals and wages, 
 
 The Know-Nothing doom of our Union presages. 
 
 Our President, this time, the idol of one, 
 
 The other regards as a fox or raccoon ; — 
 
 "Hie opere strvil sublime thealruin, 
 
 Et iste ? quid refert ? par nohile fratrum P' 
 
 Another there is, in a city where beans. 
 
 By some are much prized, as they rhyme with Orleans ; * 
 
 But he of small beer or potatoes a type is, 
 
 Or aught thin and fragile as stem of a i)ipe is. 
 
 Or twelfth of a musket-boll cut ilirough the middle — 
 
 To guess who he is, is not much of a riddle. 
 
 * "I like teans," said a prating little lawyer once to S. R. ; "because," he 
 added, " they riiymo with Orleens." " Query," said our friend Prosody. This 
 corrupt pronunciation is not uncommon even in the South. 
 
 38 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 Grammarians that figure synecdoche call, 
 Which all for a iiart, or a part puts for all — 
 "What a thing to resemble the pan of a head, 
 4-S postage stamp thin and as heavy as lead ; 
 Bound too, like a wafer, diameter same, 
 And eke the periphery — give it a name ! 
 Good friend, if your rhyme be not much out of tune. 
 You will find it, I think, in the word Pic — y — u — ne. 
 He finding the Know-Nothing cause would not pay. 
 Abandoned his colors and scampered away ; 
 A certain appendage behind him concealing— 
 'Twas all of the creature that had any feeling. 
 
 If Irish and German and French foreign labor 
 
 Abandon his city, how vain his endeavor 
 
 Its cycle to fill from the shape of a crescent ! * 
 
 'Tis hoping old age will become adolescent. 
 
 One would think yellow fever, and drunkenness, and vice. 
 
 And murder', to thin the doomed place, would suffice, 
 
 Without native factions, to cause the expulsion 
 
 Of all those most likely to stop a convulsion 
 
 In commerce, and trade, and improvement, and all 
 
 The employments of life ; nay, a ruinous fall. 
 
 To cities, and kingdoms, and empires, and states. 
 
 Whose wreck from sedition and tyranny dates ; 
 
 When Pic. shall have paid for day's work a five-dollar 
 
 Gold-piece to the hodman employed on his house, 
 It will add, or we err, a wee bit to his choler 
 
 To think of the insults, the oaths, and the vows 
 He heaped and made use of in Know-Nothing phrase, 
 To banish free labor, slave war/es to raise. 
 We, Yankees ! to working, prefer being " bosses !" — 
 
 In jobbing, contracting, lie mainly our skill: — 
 
 * New Orleans is called the Orescent City. 
 39 
 
YOUNG AMKRICA. 
 
 If as tradesmen \yefail, we make up for our losses, 
 With good foreign craftsmen to work out our will. 
 
 We often Know Nothing of what we engage iu — 
 Our foreigner /oremara will look to our text ; 
 
 But, keen observation soon learns a page in 
 
 Those rules which will always hold good till the next, 
 
 I mean the next scaffold, a rest to our feet is — 
 We then look'around at our altitude crowing — 
 Nor less at our skill to perfection fast growing ! 
 This, all must admit, highly proper and meet is. 
 
 CANTO V. 
 Shows how certain Gentlemen would change their key-notes of Political turbu- 
 lence if Emigration were to set in to some other quarter of the Globe. This no 
 trivial matter. What the Country would lose. Political enemies. True Sons of 
 Freedom contrasted with audacious Swaggerers and Pretenders to Independence. 
 The conduct of the latter in Foreign Countries. IIow they deport themselves in 
 the presence of European Sovereigns. Queen Victoria, JjOnis Philippe, Louis Xa- 
 poleou. Oily Gammon, Influence of the Press, Sam Slick, and the Great Republic. 
 Boundary lines Men. Diplomatic Peddlers. Harney and Douglas. North and 
 South. FiUibusters. "Walker and his Men. Paulding. Parallel Cases. Wolf. 
 Senator Pierce. Cuba, Kic.iragua, Indian Territories. Annuities. Houston. 
 Benton. Carving out States and Territories. Indian Tribes. Our mammoth 
 Commonwealth and John Bull. 
 
 I. 
 
 Ye, who in numbers so delight ! 
 
 Aritliraeticians, Algebraists ! 
 Of every creed and dogma hight. 
 
 From Millerites to Monotlieists, 
 Subtract, divide, and multiply. 
 
 Add and reduce by static table. 
 Then frankly tell Iho reason why 
 
 To calculate you are not able. 
 The boundless gain from immigration. 
 But, most of all, to this great nation. 
 40 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 Suppose Know-Nothings keep away 
 
 One hundred thousand strangers yearly ; 
 
 Supposing each of those to lay 
 
 Up for his wants, ten guineas nearly, 
 
 Or louis, pistoles, ducats, pounds. 
 
 That he may not be, on first landing, 
 Eeduced to want, lest he his ^^ standing" 
 
 Should lose ; or, e'er he makes his rounds, 
 
 To seek some suitable employment- 
 Some fifty dollars, told in guineas, 
 
 Is no large sum to foreign ears. 
 
 Who brings much less, or counts in pennies, 
 
 Sans hope of work or health's enjoyment. 
 May often have to sup on tears ! 
 
 Admit the aggregate amount. 
 
 Is not a sum of small account 
 
 In certain business speculations. 
 
 It swells beyond one's expectations ; 
 Count of their industry, the worth. 
 
 The houses built, the lands reclaimed. 
 
 The vessels manned, the troops recruited. 
 The mountains levelled, trees uprooted. 
 
 The knowledge spread, the statutes framed ; 
 
 From East to West, from South to North, 
 
 The shops, the stores, the mines supplied. 
 
 On roads, canals, the labor plied. 
 The value of domestic servants. 
 
 In hewing wood and drawing water ; 
 
 Nay, call not this a trivial matter. 
 Or scarcely worthy your observance. 
 
 The man who, with a wall of fire. 
 Would stay the tide of emigration. 
 
 May live to witness his desire; 
 By means of native legislation. 
 
 41 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 Not many bite the hand that feeds them, 
 Not many kiss the hand that bleeds them, 
 Not many praise the tongue that slanders, 
 Not many pay the print that panders 
 To the worst passions of their foes, 
 The origin of countless woes — 
 Not many lick the barb that tears them, 
 Not many press the brand that sears them, 
 Not many hate a kindly neighbor. 
 Or think that threats of knife or sabre 
 
 In pay for work or pay for votes, 
 ^Miicli they, &% freemen freely render. 
 Should be esteemed a legal tender; 
 
 Like other promissory notes. 
 They're somewhat of a doubtful gender I 
 
 True sons of freedom act not thus. 
 Like Bushman, Boer, Kamtschatka-Russ ; 
 One finds them gentle, courteous, gracious. 
 Not fiercely brutal, rude, audacious. 
 ******* 
 
 IV. 
 
 Nor yet a second Oily Gammon, 
 
 Who worships God much less than Mammon; 
 
 Superior far to Samuel Slick — 
 
 Eschewing slang in all his speeches — 
 He would not for the world pick 
 
 One's pockets, yet he overreaches ; 
 Makes it appear, at least he tries to. 
 In fox'eign parts, where'er he hies to, 
 That here our journals have no force, 
 That nothing follows, as of course, 
 42 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 Which they predict or wish to tcrach ; 
 Exponents only of those views 
 Which they initiate or choose, 
 As most conducive to their profit, 
 And all the consequences of it. 
 
 " The people act, the journals preach "- 
 
 Peripatetic lions thus 
 
 Most infamously slander us ; 
 
 Where'er their semi-regal faces 
 
 Shine, 'tis to squint at certain places. 
 
 If journals once the truth discover, 
 
 As touching every such rover, 
 
 'Tis ten to one they will defeat them, 
 
 Or teach some vulgar chuff to beat them 
 
 At all the Punchinello dodgings 
 
 Of our political dislodgings. 
 
 'Tis to the teachings of the Press 
 
 That all our public men confess. 
 
 They owe the fame of their success — 
 
 Be it or on the bench or stage, 
 
 Or in commercial patronage ; 
 
 Or at the hustings or the bar. 
 
 Or 'Change, or other thoroughfare ; 
 
 Or in the councils of the State, 
 
 Or in congressional debate. 
 
 Or in the pulpit or convention, 
 
 Met for polemical contention : 
 
 Sometimes political, alas ! 
 
 Where resolutions fail to pass 
 
 Of thanks to God for putting down 
 
 Pro-slavery rebellion ; 
 
 Or in the literary page 
 
 Asserting freedom's heritage. 
 
 Or in the diplomatic skill 
 
 Of some great statesman calm and still, 
 43 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 Who moulds whole nations to his will ; 
 Or in the battle's hideous roar, 
 And echoing peals from shore to shore, 
 Or on the land or on the sea 
 Proclaiming rout or victory ; 
 Or in the soarings of the muse, 
 While rapt in ecstasy she views 
 That which in poesy and art 
 Inspires and elevates the heart. 
 
 Who doubts the press or will not own 
 As a great power in a realm, 
 To aid the chief who holds the helm ; 
 To keep and guide the mighty ship. 
 Or in or out the harbor slip ; 
 Or through the billows of the ocean 
 Of some fierce popular commotion, 
 
 Is but the more a fool or clown. 
 
 There is, who of the type Sam Slick, 
 At no dishonesty would stick ; 
 Given to diplomatic peddling. 
 And parliamentary intermeddling; 
 His idol is a boundary line. 
 Or of St. Lawrence or Ea.^t Maine ; 
 Or through St. Juan, near Saltillo, 
 Or 'tween Omoa and Truxillo, 
 Or Nootka Sound and Puo Gila, 
 Or Caiman Lake, in Coahuila, 
 Mosquito Shore and Consiguina, 
 Or other fitting place bntween-a ! 
 Glorious land, in our opinion. 
 
 Fur propa;r:itiiig slave dominion. 
 
 14 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 Van Couver's Island on the North, 
 And Costa Rica on the South, 
 
 Should also be embraced, the former 
 Throughout the whole of its extent, 
 On this our Northern continent 
 (We mean, of course, pray mark it well, 
 Of Latitude the parallel) — 
 
 Would both the Canadas take in, 
 Beside the Island of St. Juan — 
 Meet subject for some future Duan — 
 As late of mingled wrath and blarney. 
 Between the Douglas and the Harney 1 
 And Anti-Costi, and so forth, 
 All to the Great West Eiver North ;* 
 
 The latter — those who like a warmer — 
 Climate would suit through Darien • 
 Thus giving to us Carthagena, 
 And the sweet City of Cumana, 
 And all the trade of Oronoco : 
 Hides, coffee, indigo, and cocoa. 
 And all our very best Tobacco ! 
 No better market on the earth 
 For slaves of home and foreign birth ; 
 Nor where from Africa transported, 
 They could so safely be escorted. 
 
 From ten degrees to fifty-five. 
 Thus owning, we are bound to thrive. 
 Quoth Sam : Nay, we should take the whole. 
 Both North and South, to either pole. 
 
 * The Northwest Eiver, passing through the southern part of Labrador, falls 
 into the Straits of Bellisle. 
 
 45 
 
YOUN& AMERICA. 
 
 This is tlie programme of our Wall^er, 
 
 And he is something more than tallcer; 
 
 Not like our Quitmans, Fabens, Borlands, 
 
 Though they, too, greatly covet more lands ; 
 
 But he, by hook or crook, will have them, 
 
 Or with men's skeletons will pave them. 
 
 Nolus volus ! is the word with him,* 
 
 No puling fiUibusters herd with him ; 
 
 Sighing for money and for arms. 
 
 They first mark out their future farms ; 
 
 Then rob and murder, scouting fears. 
 
 Like all determined Buccaneers, 
 
 Whose trust is chiefly in their triggers, 
 
 To find plantations full of niggers. 
 
 Quoth B. : Dear sir, but is it fair. 
 
 To hang John Brown and AA'alker spare ? 
 
 They go, by Jove, the entire hog, sir ! 
 
 Though all should hang for it, like dogs, sir ! 
 
 They beat not round and round, but push 
 
 Right to the middle of the bush ; 
 
 But if the bush should prove too hot, 
 
 A burning 'bush or blazing moat, 
 
 " They yield," cried C, " or compromise. 
 
 To brood o'er new atrocities !" 
 
 'Twas thus of late, in Nicaragua, 
 
 The selfsame felon sought to plague you a- 
 
 Gain, divine and human laws 
 
 He scorns, in both detecting flaws ; 
 
 He breaks parole, renews aggression. 
 
 And labors hard to take possession 
 
 Of States which once had cast him forth, 
 
 To seek a refuge farther North. 
 
 'Tis true, with unsurpassed ill luck, 
 
 His expedition ends in smoke, 
 
 * " Nolus volus." These words were called " General Taylor's Latin." 
 
 46 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 Kfumum exfulgore issue, 
 Befitting plots of such a tissue. 
 Thy fulgor, Paulding ! is exfumo, 
 A pyramid of light to loom o- 
 'Er ages yet unborn, when thou 
 Shalt, like thy sire, increasing grow 
 In fame unisonant with duty, 
 Memnonian chords ! irradiate heauty !* 
 Yet Paulding little more than censure 
 Receives for checking this adventure. 
 
 If when a wolf a neighbor's fold 
 Invades, shall we be gravely told 
 We must composedly look on. 
 To see them slaughtered, every one, 
 Nor should unto the rescue fly. 
 
 To punish violence and wrongs. 
 Usurping the authority 
 
 Of him to whom the fold belongs ? 
 Now Walker, as a wolf, invades 
 With bands of lawless renegades — 
 
 Rapacious, thievish, ravenous — 
 A neighboring state at peace with us, 
 Its herds and flocks to kill and fleece ; 
 And tho' oft cautioned, will not cease 
 To bring about a revolution 
 Against our laws and constitution — 
 With men and means provided here ! 
 In short, declared a Buccaneer. 
 
 * The Statue of Memnon {Memnonis saxea effigies) near Thebes, in Egypt, was 
 said to give forth amelodious sound every day at sunrise. — Tacitus, Annals, ii., 61. 
 Dimidio magics ubi Memnone chordaa 
 Atque vetus Thebe centum jacet obruta portis. 
 
 Juvenal. 
 4Y 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 Shall we ? or shall we not, though landed, 
 And with his ruffian rabl>le banded — 
 Pray mark, too, on a sandy point, 
 Where any honest neighbor, joint 
 Possession would accord another. 
 That came to succor as a brother- 
 See him destroy a friendly state ; 
 Yet deem it proper to await 
 Till its inhabitants, like sheep, 
 Within a tiger's fatal sweep, 
 Behold themselves and rulers slain, 
 Nor yet have reason to complain 
 That we have suffered them to be 
 The victims of his tyranny ; 
 Or, of oui- cruel apathy ! 
 All this, because the law of nations. 
 By most gratuitous illations. 
 Requires, some tliink, that any power, 
 Or equal or superior^ 
 Should rather see another die, 
 Than violate neutrality ! * 
 
 * An abstract in the National Intelligencer, of a speech delivered in Congress by 
 Mr. Pearce, of ilaryland, on the 28th of January, 1858, fell under the observation 
 of S. R. soon after he had written the above rhymes. The speech referred to, 
 reflects equal honor upon the head and heart of the distinguished Senator. 
 "Walker, he said, if only guilty of a misdemeanor against the municipal law of our 
 own country, was, in every sense of the term, a freebooter and a pirate against 
 the sovereign terriiorial rights of Nicaragua. In the light of general principles 
 (which Mr. P. had most ably illustrated), he went on to say that the quality of 
 Commodore Paulding's conduct, in compassing the arrest of "Walker, could be 
 clearly apprehended. Punta Arenas, where that arrest took place, might almost 
 be regarded as derelict territory. Certain it was, that Nicaragua had no actual 
 or potential jurisdiction over it. If not ousted by Costa Rica, she was, at least, 
 ousted by "Walker, when he landed and took possession of the locality in question. 
 Nicaragua being thus powerless, at this point, it was no assumption on the part 
 of Commodore Paulding, to suppose her sovereignty waived, in behalf of those 
 
 48 
 
TOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 Ah, me, how feeble are our aids 
 To border nations in these raids ! 
 But let the evil touch our own, 
 As in the case of old John Brown, 
 How quick, how furious is our vengeance, 
 How little is our condescendence ! 
 Suppose adventurers from Cuba 
 Proclaimed, as free, the sons of Juba 
 In our Slave States ; and driven thence, 
 Again renewed their insolence, 
 With or without consent of Spain — 
 Would any Southern man complain, 
 That we pursued them to Cardenas, 
 Or, if you will, to Punt Arenas, 
 And, or in port or bare terrene, ass- 
 Ailed and captured, whipt and banged them ; 
 Or from our yard-arms strung and hanged them. 
 Without consulting Nicaragua, 
 Or Spain, or caring 'neath what flag we, a- 
 Land * or sea, or fought, or found them. 
 Or how we pommelled, killed, or drowned them ! 
 No, no ! those orators who now 
 Our Paulding's conduct disallow, 
 Would only then think Paulding right, 
 When boldly entered into fight ; 
 
 who landed as her friends and allies. In the present case, Nicaragua, through 
 her recognized minister, had soUcited an interference, at this very point, for the 
 prevention of Walker's descent. 
 
 Again, if any error had been committed by Com. P., it was not "a grave one," 
 but was just such conduct as might have been expected from a bluff and honest 
 sailor, anxious to do his duty and to protect the honor of his country. He, Mr. 
 P., desired to see the Government vigilant, but just and courteous in its for- 
 eign intercourse, and he would have it magnanimous towards feeble powers. 
 Especially did he expect it to crush, with a broad and heavy hand, the turbulent 
 spirits who rebel against the restraints of municipal and international law. 
 
 * Aland — the word is used odv&biaMy. 
 D 40 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 Would, to a man, the foremost be 
 
 To rail at such neutrality 
 
 As condign punishment presents, 
 
 To thieves, in action or intents. 
 
 The thieves who seek to make them martyrs. 
 
 Will find they've caught a nest of Tartars. 
 
 Alas ! some strange delusion spreads 
 
 Cimmerian darkness o'er their heads, 
 
 Quoth B., they will not see a sin 
 
 Beneath a fiUibuster's skin ! 
 
 The South and Walker, slaves and felons. 
 
 And piccaroons with vulture talons. 
 
 Plunder and havoc lands laid waste — 
 
 Kape, murder, incest, shrines defaced. 
 
 Are but more matters of opinion. 
 
 To those who lust for slave dominion ! 
 
 All Southern Statas, rejoined Sam, must be ours, sir ! 
 For we to control them, alone, have the power, sir 1 
 To keep our good people from constant vexation, 
 We need the prestige of our loved annexation — ■ 
 Nor can we maintain all our world-wide renown, 
 Except we thus constantly add to our own 
 Other lands : we as yet rank but fifth in accessions — 
 Brazilian, Chinese, British, Russian possessions* 
 
 * Our latest authorities furnish the following table, in square miles, of the 
 countries referred to : — 
 
 Russian Possessions in square miles 7,540,402 
 
 Chinese Empire 5,000,000 
 
 British " 4,131,333 
 
 Brazil 3,956,800 
 
 United States 3,384,865 
 
 iSee " Harper's Gazetteer " and " Colion's Atlas." 
 " One to ten I 
 Lean, raw-boned rascals, who would o'er suppose 
 They had such courage and audacity ?" 
 
 Shakspeare^ Hen. VI., Act Ist, Scene lat 
 
 50 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 Are larger than ours — but this ought not to be, 
 
 We must be ascendant by land and by sea : 
 
 'Tis true many nations in numbers surpass us, 
 
 But that is no standard by which men should class us — 
 
 Compare us with others in war, and &o forth. 
 
 Our one counts for ten in importance and worth ! 
 
 Besides, with a progress wholly unmatched, sir, 
 
 "We alone may count chickens before they are hatched, sir ! 
 
 Nor — such are our wisdom, our laws, and our mines. 
 
 Like Rome, be in terror of " falls or declines"— 
 
 Men not to be hanged or beheaded and quartered. 
 
 Should at least, replied B., have their state somewhat altered ; 
 
 We must for our felons, so badly divided. 
 
 Have some penal colonies duly provided — 
 
 We view such possessions as national salves. 
 
 For States and for Empires, the best safety-valves ; 
 
 Occasions arise, too, when corporate scape-goats 
 
 Are better preservers than canister-grape moats ; 
 
 The Mormons, we think, may serve well for a sample, 
 
 Of all we need cite in the way of example ; 
 
 Bodies politic, abscesses need for their tumors. 
 
 To rid them of some of their pestilent humors. 
 
 So, gases and vapors need pipes of escape. 
 
 Like those which the British possess at the Cape — 
 
 A word to the wise will convey our full moaning, 
 
 Tho' fools may not find it through volumes of scanning. 
 
 Those preachers we always least highly revere 
 Who tell us 'tis proper to hope and to fear — 
 That if we own slaves, it is not a good sign. 
 But a presage and proof of our speedy decline ; 
 But those we esteem far above all the rest 
 Who tell us we are of all nations most bless'd I 
 The greatest, the happiest, wisest, and best ! 
 51 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 And should, notwithstanding some national blotches, 
 Have faith in our cannons, our laws, and cartouches. 
 
 Thus he. Quoth Sam : Send Walker north of us. 
 
 Some great events will issue forth of us. 
 
 Thus verifying what was said 
 
 By some great poet long since dead ; 
 
 Matters it if his name was Tim, 
 
 Or Bill or Joel, Jack or Jim ? 
 
 " No pent-up corner cramps our powers, 
 
 But the whole continent is ours !"* 
 
 We want no geographic scraps, sir, 
 
 We must have continental maps, sir : 
 
 This is our motto : " 'tis our right, sir. 
 
 Our destiny, and we must fight, sir ! " 
 
 Have it we must, or I, by George, sir. 
 
 Will send my sword unto the forgo, sir ! 
 
 To be converted to a plough-share. 
 
 So may my country be my voucher ! ! 
 
 To balance "well our slave and free States, 
 
 We ought to have a dozen sea States 
 
 On the Pacific — and, inland 
 
 A dozen more should take their stand ; 
 
 Tracts, too, must farther west be found, sir, 
 
 To serve for Indian hunting-ground, sir ! 
 
 Or else must fitting men instruct them. 
 
 And into civil ways conduct them ; 
 
 They must have territorial laws, sir. 
 
 And no mistake — such is, or was, sir, 
 
 Our first intention when we gave them 
 
 Those lands which now so much deprave them, 
 
 * This very foolish boast — false when it was uttered, and still false — ^lias, 
 nevertheless, immortalized a sorry poet. Such, alas I are too often the stepping- 
 stones to fame. 
 
 S2 
 
TOUNa AMERICA. 
 
 Or which they once, as more light-headed 
 
 Than we, for special objects ceded 
 
 To us : their murders,* feuds, and strife, 
 
 Their utter recklessness of life, 
 
 Their drunkenness — a besetting vice — 
 
 Their brutal, savage prejudice 
 
 Against the white man — these suffice, 
 
 Or should suffice to caution us 
 
 Against continual abuse. 
 
 tT "P *P ^ 
 
 Of wrongs, or fancied wrongs — their creed 
 
 Is to repay a deed for deed. 
 
 An eye for eye, or tooth for tooth ; 
 
 Nay, rather 'tis, in very sooth, 
 
 Their creed to take two eyes for one, 
 
 Or, for one tooth take all or none ! 
 
 We know these people far too well, 
 To think 'twill ever much avail. 
 If we their friendship would secure, Sir, 
 To give them other laws than ours, Sir, 
 The Choctaws, Chickasaws,f and Creeks, 
 
 * An es-ohief of a certain tribe, whose son wag lately assassinated, being ad- 
 vised to make his case known to the Governor (the present title of the national 
 chief), replied, as he dropped the end of his rifle on the ground : " I know no 
 governor hut this I " 
 
 f In the Appendix (Part V., pp. 693-4) to Schoolcraft's excellent work on the 
 " History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States," 
 there is, in a letter from one J. A. H., who calls himself a member of the Choc- 
 taw Nation, and writes, April 15th, 1855, a glowing (query, glozingi) account of 
 the present prosperity of these people. 
 
 The statistics as to schools are not much exaggerated, save in describing them 
 as second to none in the tlnited States. TMs is a little too barefaced, even for 
 the credulity of his Indian readers. He speaks of their laws as comparing favor- 
 ably with those of many of the States. That may well be, as they are taken 
 verbatim et Kleratim (with essential modifications) from the laws of a neighboring 
 
 53 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 As all our best experience speaks, 
 The Seminoles and Cherokees 
 Will never be true feodaries 
 Of ours, excepting in appearance. 
 Until they learn, by our forbearance. 
 To wait such processes of court 
 As with our civil laws comport : 
 Besides, our marcli is upward, onward ; 
 Nor must we let them sink far downward, 
 But rather carry them along — 
 So weak men always yield to strong. 
 Our o'eriand route sufficient pledge is 
 That now, at last, the entering wedge is 
 Fairly impacted to the heart 
 From which that life-blood is to start, 
 Which gives new vigor to the growth 
 Of every State and nation South — 
 Where — for the thing is fairly planned — ■ 
 All white men who shall make a stand 
 Shall each his nigger have, and land : 
 Ay, land enough, we pledge our word. 
 
 State. When he goes on to say that those laws are generally respected and 
 obeyed, he states that which is the very reverse of truth. There is not a com- 
 munity on the globe, with any pretension whatever to Christianity and civiliza- 
 tion, among whom law is so little regarded, and horrid murders so frequent. In 
 fact, their present leading men see no other hope for them, nor is there, if they 
 would be saved from utter extirpation — by internecine violence — than handing 
 them over to the territorial jurisdiction of the United States. 
 
 As respects the iielda of golden grain, the industry, the neat and comfortable 
 dwellings, the shrill whistle of the steam-engine echoing, &C. — echo answers 
 where? — where, but in the imagination of H. ? There was, it is true, once 
 upon a time, one steam-whistle in the place referred to, but it is gone like H. 
 Finally, this man is Twt, never was, and assuredly never will be, a member of the 
 Choctaw Nation. He was, for a short time, printer and editor of a little news- 
 paper, which failed in his hands, and would have failed in the hands of a far 
 h( Iter man. 
 
 54 
 
TOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 To suit a nabob or a lord. 
 
 Indians, in short, must be subdued, 
 
 However turbulent or rude, 
 
 And law maintained and rights defended. 
 
 Far as our limits are extended. 
 
 All the annuities we pay them, 
 
 Alas 1 tend only to betray them 
 
 To trading sharks, who closely watch them, 
 
 And with vain baubles basely catch them, 
 
 As fish or birds are caught by hooks 
 
 With gudgeons baited, or with flukes : 
 
 Besides, they have no wish to toil. 
 
 Or cultivate a grateful soil — ; 
 
 So long as they expect a pension. 
 
 By statutory intervention, 
 
 Rather than make the least endeavor, 
 
 They hope and hope, and hope forever. 
 
 And hoping thus, they far prefer 
 
 To starve than labor half the year : 
 
 They also are in mines too rich. 
 
 Coal, marble, granite, tar, and pitch 
 
 In lead, in copper mines, in iron. 
 
 And other things which so environ 
 
 Or fill their lands, that we must be 
 
 The veriest ninnies not to see 
 
 It is our interest and our duty, 
 
 A soil of so much wealth and beauty. 
 
 So fit for pasture, agriculture. 
 
 And all those products which most nurture 
 
 Arts, commerce, sciences, to otim, 
 
 As of our sinew and our bone ; 
 
 Our railroads must to the Pacific 
 
 Pursue their course, with trains magnifio. 
 
 And to our country most lucrific, 
 
 Within ourselves, thus made Omnific. 
 65 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 As in Nebraska and in Kansas 
 
 We've made our territorial plan pass, 
 
 So treat we every Indian nation, 
 
 With or without their approbation. 
 
 So shall we soon treat Arizona, 
 
 Where Samuel Houston would atone a- 
 
 New for all his past transgressions. 
 
 In fillibustering invasions. 
 
 And end his days in rural peace. 
 
 The Jason of a golden fleece ! 
 
 Or, lord of the Mosilla Valley, 
 
 In vine3'ards rich as Eleale ! 
 
 He, with our Benton, in creation 
 
 Of States, ranks foremost in our nation ; 
 
 While one is sketching them on paper. 
 
 The other marks them with a scraper, 
 
 C>r deftly cuts them, like a draper. 
 
 Or shears them as he shears his wool, 
 
 Or carves thera as he carves a spool. 
 
 Or on his liickorv a noil ! 
 
 Or pares them as a piece of ginger. 
 
 Or twists as fillets round his finger ! 
 
 Kegarding treaties of alliance. 
 Wo well may bid the world defiance. 
 To show a nation such as ours, sir. 
 That has not more abused its power, sir. 
 These half-breed fellows are the worst 
 Among the tribes — a race accursed : 
 'Tis easier far to tame the savage. 
 Who roams at large, to kill and ravage, 
 Than (^save hy bribes!) insure subjection 
 From men so wan'ting in affection, 
 j\s are these treacherous demi-devils. 
 The cause of most our Indian evils ! 
 .i6 
 
TOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 We want all the lands of the Iroquois tribes, sir, 
 
 Or else, we must, very soon, tread on their kibes, sir ; 
 
 The Senecas, Mohawks, Cayngas, Oneidas, 
 
 Wyandots, Shawnees, Tuscaroras, as wide as 
 
 The Chippewas, Ottowas, Weas, Miamies, 
 
 Wherever on Michigan waters their claim is, 
 
 The Delawares, Kickapoos, Ottoes, Peonies, 
 
 Sacs, Foxes, Piankeshaws, Crees, Menomonies — 
 
 They dwell on Missouri, Platte River, the Kansas, 
 
 Not far from the powerful Sioux, whose advance, as 
 
 The newspapers tell us, extending far west. 
 
 For them and for us is alike for the best — 
 
 Must all be soon ceded as Free or as Slave States, 
 
 For so irrepressible conflicts will have States. 
 
 The giant Osages, the Quapaws and Poneas, 
 
 The Crows and the Mandans and Cheyennes, tho' once as 
 
 Distinguished in war as the best of their race. 
 
 To many beneath them are now giving place ; 
 
 The Kichies and Caddoes, Apaches and Wacos, 
 
 Comanchcs and Wichits,* Pawnees and Andacos — 
 
 Their lands on the Llano, Eed River, and Brazos 
 
 Are ours, as migration progressively draws us 
 
 And must, as some think, till the conflict be ended. 
 
 For slaves and their masters be chiefly intended. 
 
 In Oregon, too, we but name the Cay uses, 
 
 The Chatsops and Tillamooks, Umpquaws, Paloosas, 
 
 The Wascopans, Spokans, the Snakes and Mallallas, 
 
 Grilles, Okonnagans, Rogues,f andWalwallas, 
 
 Nez-Perces, Des Chutes, Sinhnmanish, Klackamas — 
 
 Wheelapas, Vancouvers, Timwaters, Yahamas — 
 
 All, all must depart, or be wholly absorbed, sir. 
 
 And see all their titles completely usurped, sir ! 
 
 * Wichitaws. 
 
 f Indians on Koguo River. 
 
 51 
 
YOUXG AMERICA. 
 
 A mamniotli Commonwealth like ours 
 
 Must dwarf all other human powers ; 
 
 In Oregon, one fore-foot's planted, 
 
 For t'other, Canada is wanted ; 
 
 The hinder two will need Brazil — 
 
 It suits them singularly well. 
 
 One heel, perhaps, may press Peru, 
 
 But what is that to me or you ? 
 
 We care not to be thought Peruvians — 
 
 Content with being " border ruffians ;" 
 
 The British, Greonlanders, and Russians 
 
 For head and horns will give possessions ; 
 
 The body with the middle place 
 
 Will be contented, if there's space 
 
 Sufficient left to take repose. 
 
 Or for the rump, or for the nose ; 
 
 The flanks may get a little wet, 
 
 And cause an inconvenient jet 
 
 On Florida or New Granada, 
 
 Mayhap ingulfing a llanada * 
 
 On either coast : the hip, on Hayti, 
 
 Would, in its hollow, so conceit ye, 
 
 Protect both Cuba and Jamaica. 
 
 Ye British ! how we then might rake ye ! 
 
 The tail will lash the angry water. 
 
 And fill both oceans with huge slaughter, 
 
 Submerging all the small-fry islands 
 
 With Porto Rico and some highlands. 
 
 If foreign powers forget Monroe, 
 
 And cruise with frigates to and fro. 
 
 Or tamper much Avith Mexico — ■. 
 
 (For she is ours, but in abeyance. 
 
 Waiting the process of conveyance) ! 
 
 * Llanada means in Spanish a wide tract of level ground — a plain. 
 58 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 Or lash the Caribbean Sea, 
 
 Down South, as far as Uruguay ; 
 
 Or from the Northern Archipelago, 
 
 As far as Terra Delia Fuego ! 
 
 In short, dear sir, we'll give them h — 1, 
 
 If they against our wish rebel I 
 
 John Bull, in Asia, works destruction 
 
 To native States — why not John Mammoth, 
 
 Who always "betters his instruction," 
 
 Push from the land the priests of Ramoth ?* 
 
 CAKTO VI. 
 THE TRUE AilERICAN. 
 
 I. 
 
 A TRUE American is he 
 Who marks the bounds of liberty. 
 Whose head, and heart, and parse, and hand 
 Would aid th' oppressed in every land. 
 Not in a fruitless, vain crusade. 
 Or pageantry of masquerade ; 
 Nor yet, in gasconading speeches, 
 Which in a fortress make no breaches ; 
 Not threatening, as a fiUibuster, 
 ' A host of valiant men to muster, 
 Altars and empires to o'erthrow. 
 And turn their joy to notes of woe : 
 
 * Ramoth. — "And Zedekiah, the son of Chenaanah, made him horns of iron: and 
 he said, Thus saith th(3 Lord, "With these shall thou piish the Syrians, until thou 
 liave consumed them. And all the prophets prophesied bo, saying, Go up to 
 Bat)i/}th- Crilead and prosper: for the Lord shall deliver it into the king's hand." — 
 1 Kings xxii. 11, 12. 
 
 59 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 But here at home, assist each neighbor 
 
 To profit by his honest labor ; 
 
 The widow help, the orphan cherish, 
 
 Nor suffer any one to perish, 
 
 Whom Christian charity can save 
 
 From filling an untimely grave! 
 
 Who means and influence would expend 
 
 Free trade and commerce to extend, 
 
 Encourage foreign immigration. 
 
 As well as slave emancipation. 
 
 And African colonization. 
 
 And peace with every race and nation. 
 
 Diffuse religion, science, art. 
 
 The head enlighten, mend the heart ; 
 
 Genius of every clime and creed 
 
 Assist and cheer in time of need ; 
 
 Instructing in true courtesy 
 
 Barbarian, Scythian, bond and free. 
 
 A type of all that's great and good. 
 
 In virtue, learning, noble bearing, 
 
 He wears no mask, he needs no hood. 
 
 Brave, open, honest, ever daring. 
 
 To speak the truth, he dreads no jeers, 
 
 No threats of violence and faction. 
 No mob or Lynch-law fury fears — 
 
 In speech sincere and cool in action. 
 
 lie feels no sense of degradation 
 
 In honoring worth in any station ; 
 
 To equals courteous, yet, not hoping 
 
 To influence their choice by stooping 
 
 To craft or skill in pulling wires, 
 
 If he to power or place aspires ; 
 
 Not thankless for a favor rendered, 
 
 lie can, with grace, decline one tendered. 
 
 From platform calumny and wrath, 
 (30 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 lie flies, as from a viper's path ; 
 
 Friendship not rash to antedate, 
 
 Yet fixing, fixes, fast as fate ; 
 
 He keeps the promise he has made, 
 
 He hates caprice in man or maid ; 
 
 His dress his station ever fitting, 
 
 The "juste milieu " in all things hitting. 
 
 We hail these qualities as real 
 
 In gallant Clay, our beau-ideal. 
 
 As certain stones will point where gold is, 
 
 As gold of character the mould is, 
 
 As fire, your drossy gold refining. 
 
 Proves what is pure, so, in divining 
 
 The human mind, there is a test 
 
 Infallible of what is best : 
 
 Our model character to scan, 
 
 We sketch a true American, 
 
 In dignity and elevation 
 
 A normal type for every nation ; 
 
 And giving to the whole physique 
 
 An air half Roman and half Greek. 
 
 Such men were Everett and Irving, I 
 
 So great, so good, and so deserving — I 
 
 (Our martyred Lincoln ranks before, | 
 
 Or Consul, King, or Emperor j 
 
 Of Greece or Rome !) ; and such is Chase — j 
 
 Reflecting lustre on our race ; 
 
 Such is the lion-visaged Scott, 
 
 Such Seward and Sumner, without blot ; 
 
 Grant, Sherman, Thomas, Farragut; 
 
 And more than such was Washington, 
 
 Unblamed, unrivalled, and alone! 
 
 61 
 
TdUNG AMEBICA. 
 
 CANTO VII. 
 
 Who are Americans in the strictest sense. All that we have and are, due to 
 
 Europe. Paupers. Their support. Free labor compared with Slave labor. 
 
 Worth of the former to this Country. Nothing to be feared from Koman Catho- 
 
 lies. What is really to be feared. Religious Scliisms. Dishonestyin our Markets 
 
 exemplified. Scant fare at Restaurants. How rich criminals escape justice, 
 
 while the friendless are punished. Want of discipline. Crittenden. Marshall. 
 
 Fillmore. 
 
 I. 
 
 Bears, bisons, wolves, and alligators, 
 And all such savage, brutal creatures, 
 Insects and reptiles, a whole host of. 
 We leave to Know-Nothings to boast of. 
 As natives : customs, rites, and manners, 
 Our commerce, trade, and agriculture. 
 Arts, armies, navies, owe their nurture 
 To European laws and banners ; 
 All somewhat modified, no doubt, 
 By influences within, without. 
 Yet all we are, and all we have. 
 From our first statesman to the slave 
 Who cultivates our grain and cotton, 
 We owe to Europe, though forgotten 
 By men unthankful and unkind, 
 Wilfully ignorant and blind ; 
 Who now, on strangers, would bestow 
 A frightful heritage of woe. 
 
 Paupers, indeed, there are among us. 
 But do these paupers greatly wrong us ? 
 Our immigrants pay vast expenses : 
 What man is there who, in his senses, 
 Denies that capitation fees, 
 From all who cross Atlantic seas, 
 62 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 And eke Pacific, be they yeomen, 
 Mechanics, laborers, children, women, 
 Two dollars each, go far to pay 
 For burials, physic, and would say 
 That those who in our country's service 
 Or die of wounds, are mad or nervous, 
 Should not, in sickness, be attended, 
 Or be in anywise befriended ? 
 The cost of justice, we opine. 
 Is greatly aided by the fine 
 Imposed by judges in the State* 
 Where men ofiiences perpetrate. 
 
 Free labor is as Jive to three, 
 
 Compared with working Slavery ; 
 
 A thousand dollars is the price,]- 
 
 In fields of sugar-cane or rice. 
 
 At which a single slave is rated : 
 
 Now say that this is estimated 
 
 To be the value of the labor. 
 
 Of any Scotch or Irish neighbor. 
 
 Who, by his hands and sweat of brow. 
 
 May earn his bread with spade or plough ; 
 
 And say one hundred thousand yearly 
 
 Of such day-laborers, or nearly, 
 
 Come to our coasts ; one hundred millions- 
 
 We might go on to count in billions — 
 
 * The aggregate amount of pecuniary fines throughout the towns and cities of 
 the United States, for crimes and misdemeanors, must be enormous. To one not 
 conversant with police reports in New Orleans, their amount in that city alone 
 seems absolutely incredible. 
 
 f This estimate of Adam Smith, in the "Wealth of Nations," differs little from 
 the present market value of slaves. 
 
 63 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 Would be the constant annual gain 
 
 Which follows in the prosperous train 
 
 Of European emigration, 
 
 To swell the coffers of our nation. 
 
 The Asiatic we pass by, 
 
 It is not meet to amplify ; 
 
 Albeit the California mines 
 
 Exact from China heavy fines. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Eespecting Catholics, who fears 
 As much from them as from the jeers 
 Of countless sectaries and ranters, 
 And Atheistical dissenters, 
 Has yet to learn the a, b, c 
 Of Christian truth and polity. 
 In short, innumerable istns. 
 Politico-religious schisms, 
 The want of faith, the want of truth, 
 The want of modesty in youth. 
 The want of teachers who agree 
 In creeds — of parents, who foresee 
 What divisions these all will lead to; 
 What loose domestic ties are said to 
 Produce — at homo, most sad misrule, 
 And worse, if possible, at school. 
 The want of honesty in trade, 
 Take for an instance one great curse. 
 Spread wide to pick the public purse, 
 Dead fowls with all their purtenance left. 
 Plus heads and legs for market heft ; 
 And pinions and some feathers, too, 
 Are weighed in balances not true, 
 Their craws and paunches filled and crammed, 
 64 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 Nay, oft with grain and gra\ cl rammed, 
 
 To cheat some honorable fool 
 
 Who buys through fear of ridicule, 
 
 And for his offal pays as much 
 
 As though sound flesh had filled each pouch. 
 
 In bills and fees, and false amounts, 
 
 Claimed on unwarranted accounts ; 
 
 In spurious papers and bank-notes, 
 
 In buying and recording votes, 
 
 In oaths of office never kept, 
 
 To have our thoroughfares well swept; 
 
 Or, touching customs and excise, 
 
 Involving fiscal sacrifice. 
 
 In mixing deleterious drugs. 
 
 Wines, spirits, dyes, and hydragogues. 
 
 Fit work for scurvy thieves and rogues ; 
 
 Nor less in shoddy goods we see 
 
 Our trafficking iniquity. 
 
 Whoso another instance wants. 
 
 May find it in our restaurants. 
 
 Where no one gets a quantum suf. 
 
 Of rations ; nay, scarce half enough, 
 
 If with good appetite and health, 
 
 A worker for the commonwealth. 
 
 Yet he is forced for wafer slices 
 
 To pay unconscionable prices. 
 
 The sole exception Rubek knows 
 
 Is met with at Delmonico's, 
 
 Where citizens or aliens 
 
 Have all they wish and want, he weens, 
 
 And if they pay a little more 
 
 Than others ask ; yet on that score 
 
 Not one complains, for all is right, 
 
 In price and quality and weight. 
 
 Alas ! Delmonicoes are rare, 
 65 
 
yOTJNG AMERICA. 
 
 And more so still the liberal fare, 
 Which they provide for every guest 
 Who can upon their viands feast. 
 
 Ah ! where shall now the suffering poor 
 
 Provide their food and shut tlie door 
 
 Against those wolves of gaunt disease 
 
 And want, which stalk abroad to seize 
 
 Those impotent to ward the blow 
 
 Of hunger, nakedness, or woe. 
 
 On such as triumph in the cheer 
 
 Of plenty, through the fruitful year, 
 
 Must strangers, orphans, widows call. 
 
 For He, the bounteous Lord of all, 
 
 Enjoins, commands, to bless and give, 
 
 And every child of want relieve. 
 
 On him who now in mercy sows, 
 
 And with a liberal hand bestows 
 
 His alms, or charitably lends. 
 
 And every human aid extends, 
 
 If change or chance should bring distress. 
 
 His soul in everlasting peace 
 
 Shall rest secure — his shield the word, 
 
 His roch the promise of the Lord. 
 
 Again must we our steps retrace. 
 
 With due regard to time and space. 
 
 The want of honesty in trade. 
 
 Of principle, in every grade ; 
 
 The want of duo subordination 
 
 To those who rule, in every station. 
 
 From those who serve ; the daily life 
 
 Of license running into strife ; 
 
 The want of filial love and fear. 
 
 To every true believer dear. 
 66 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 It is commanded in the Word 
 
 Of God, that " children in the Lord" 
 
 Obey their parents ; yet we see 
 
 The precept, as in mockery, 
 
 Eead backward thus : " Ye parents must 
 
 Obey your children, as is just !" 
 
 Pray is not such too oft the case 
 
 In this our selfish age of brass ? 
 
 The mother is the daughter's drudge, 
 
 The son the sire's, and if a judge 
 
 Elected by the people's voice 
 
 Holds law and guilt in equipoise, 
 
 And feels disposed to visit sin 
 
 With salutary discipline, 
 
 The tenure of his seat in court 
 
 Must needs be onerous and short. 
 
 For all wrong-doers hate a man 
 
 Who dares their evil deeds condemn ; 
 
 And having power, possess the will. 
 
 His place with supple tools to fill. 
 
 In thievish banking, now so rife, 
 We see the issue of the strife 
 'Tween principle and love of gain, 
 And other vices which obtain. 
 Our shortest catechisms teach 
 On these points all we fain would preach 
 Touching our duty towards our God — 
 What we must do and what avoid ; 
 Our duty also towards our neighbor. 
 And towards ourselves — that we should labor 
 To get our living in some state 
 Which conscience deems legitimate ; 
 Nor with our hands or pick or steal. 
 Or offer violence or kill ; 
 67 
 
YOTJNG AMERICA. 
 
 Nor with our tongues or lie or slander, 
 
 Or to a brother's lapses pander. 
 
 But thieves arc far too dignified, 
 
 With such plain teaching to be plied ; 
 
 Our heartless Ketchums cannot see 
 
 The depth of their depravity. 
 
 'Tis true we have no lack of schools. 
 
 Imparting knowledge unto fools ; 
 
 Yet want of pure religious training, 
 
 In thought and word and action reigning, 
 
 Among our youth, explains in all things 
 
 The dread abuses which befall things. 
 
 If to the masses they extend. 
 
 They must in general ruin end. 
 
 O Ketchum ! Ketchum ! now behold 
 
 The folly of your lust of gold ; 
 
 The root of pride and every evil 
 
 Within the empire of the Devil ! 
 
 The man who though by hunger led 
 
 Abstracts a loaf or two of bread, 
 
 Or poor and hapless orphan boy. 
 
 While vainly seeking some employ. 
 
 Who steals a watch or ring or chain. 
 
 Or say a, golden-headed cane — 
 
 Is seat to expiate his crime 
 
 " For time and times, and half a time," 
 
 Within the precincts of some jail. 
 
 Where such as he can never fail 
 
 To add to their iniquities 
 
 New lessons in the aits of vice. 
 
 But if one steal a hundred thousand 
 
 In bills and checks, and ojvns a house, and 
 
 Has land, possessions still in store, 
 
 Or still abounds in golden ore, 
 
 'Tis ten to one that he escape 
 68 
 
TOTING- AMERICA. 
 
 By skilful management of tape, 
 By bribes that is, and by chicane 
 Of court tribunals, and their train 
 Of jurors, witnesses, and lawyers, 
 Hydraulic jacks for rich employers 1 
 How oft do men with murder red. 
 Who at elections have been made 
 The tools of noted demagogues. 
 Or other over-reaching rogues. 
 Been known the gallows to elude 
 By means of such a brotherhood I 
 How oft in cases of divorce. 
 If those most guilty show most force 
 In friends or money, does success 
 Their undermining efforts bless. 
 Ah 1 no : not bless, for what they sow 
 In sin, they needs must reap in woe. 
 Enough thus said — par-parenthese, 
 We to our text return apace. 
 
 V. 
 
 Say! Fillmore, Crittenden, and Marshall, 
 
 Pike, Prentice, * * * ggy Jjqw far shall 
 
 The bounds of naturalization 
 
 Extend in your codification ? 
 
 Defining rights, if rights you give 
 
 To men as worthy to receive 
 
 Those rights as you have proved to be, 
 
 In your broad views of liberty ? 
 
 They understand our Constitutions, 
 
 And all our country's institutions ; 
 
 Why should they not, if blest at all 
 
 With understandings such as fall 
 69 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 To most men's lot, in shorter time 
 
 Than that which comes to half a dime 
 
 Of years ? Their duty and their oath, 
 
 And solemn promises of both ; 
 
 They know as well as you or /, 
 
 Who find in them no mystery. 
 
 If all may read and understand them, 
 
 Why unintelligible brand them ? 
 
 Pray listen to an exile's song — 
 
 To you of right it doth belong ; 
 
 In you, and such as you, ambition 
 
 May drag our country to perdition ; 
 
 Of reins executive, the power. 
 
 If you possess, in evil hour, 
 
 The day which ends our country's glory 
 
 Is come. Our song contains a story. 
 
 CANTO Till. 
 
 Tlie Emigrant's Song. 'Wandering Jew. Uzzah. FoUy of rejecting Foreign- 
 era. Sevastopol. European dynasties. Our Constitution lilie the Ark upon the 
 Flood, finally resting upon an Ararat of peace, and sending forth its olive-branch 
 to all the nations of the earth. 
 
 EMIGRANT'S SONG. 
 
 Back, back to the land of your birth and your sires. 
 
 Ye Emigrants, hasten ! Columbia no more 
 Your skill, or your valor, or labor requires — 
 
 She spurns you, as outcasts, away from her shore. 
 Descended from fathers who, strangers, like you. 
 
 Sought safety and homes in these lands of the West ; 
 Like so many Pharaohs, our Natives renew. 
 
 While boasting of freedom, a religious test. 
 70 
 
YOUNG AMEEIOA. 
 
 In numbers now strong, and in riches increased, 
 
 They need not your aid foreign foemen to fight, 
 Or fancy they need not ; your valor has ceased 
 
 To be prized as of yore in these days of their might. 
 Why crossed ye the ocean to peril your lives, 
 
 In sickness and toil, want, and travail and woe ? 
 Where many must perish, like bees in a hive, 
 
 While Natives grow great by the sweat of their brow. 
 
 From Liberty's birth-place — the home of the brave — 
 
 As doves to their windows, so fly ye towards home, 
 Wher3 freedom, less talked of, beholds not a slave. 
 
 And all may, in concert, sing slavery's doom. 
 Like Jews to their Zion, then hasten ye East, 
 
 To mingle your dust with the dust of your sires ; 
 Sweet freedom, her altars thrown down in the West, 
 
 May chance in the East to rekindle her fires. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Farewell to the relics of those that are sped, 
 
 To whiten, like snow-spots, our Golgotha plains ; 
 The tears they have wept and the blood they have shed, 
 
 In vapors arising, descending in rains. 
 Proclaim with shrill plaints, in the hurricane's blast 
 
 (As a dirge from the grave), that their friends are denied 
 Those blessings of freedom, for which, to the last. 
 
 They had striven and struggled, and conquered and died. 
 Then back to the land of your birth and your sires. 
 
 Ye Emigrants, hasten ! Columbia no more 
 Tour skill, or your valor, or labor requires — 
 
 She spurns you, as outcasts, away from her shore. * 
 
 * The Emigrant's Song was written during the excitement occasioned by the 
 
 71 
 
TOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 Who rudely shakes or dares divide 
 
 Our freedom's ark and sacred home, 
 Should die the death that Uzzah died, 
 
 Or like that Jewish wanderer roam. 
 Who feels a never-dying death — 
 
 Despised, estranged, forlorn ; 
 And, in his every latest breath. 
 
 Laments that he was born. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Dash not away, on futile grounds, 
 The ladder on whose faithful rounds 
 
 Thou mounted'st far on high ; 
 Thou may'st again its aid require, 
 In reaching summits which aspire 
 
 To touch the starry sky. 
 Some battles may again be fought. 
 And victory be dearly bought, 
 And glory lost, or nobly won, 
 Audi fame more durable than stone! 
 
 With all thy bastions, gabions, towers, 
 Backed by the mightiest of powers, 
 Thy gallant garrison, despite 
 Thy valor unsurpassed in fight. 
 And all thy scientific light — 
 For of the cities'nitrh and far. 
 
 Louisville riots, and by no means expresses the present feelings and wishes of 
 the writer, as respects a return to the Old Country. He has not failed, in other 
 publications, to reprobate the conduct of the New York Irish rioters, as the tools 
 of the Copperhead Peace-men. 
 
 72 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 None scarcely could with thee compare 
 
 In every art of war — 
 
 Yet thou, Sevastopol ! at length, 
 
 All citadels to warn, 
 Assaulted by superior strength. 
 
 Hast greatly, grandly fall'n 1 
 Thy fall the glorious epoch whence 
 "We date thy chief magnificence, 
 
 Thy diadem of thorn ! 
 The places which retain in trust 
 
 The armor thou hast worn, 
 Thy heroes' bones, where now, in dust, 
 
 Thine honored trophies lie, 
 Shall ever, ever, noble town ! 
 Be first in glory and renown, 
 
 In war's sad history ! 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Should Europe's thrones, with hostile bands. 
 Invade our peaceful, happy lands, 
 May we, in closest bonds allied, 
 Have always, fighting by our side, 
 Whate'er their forms or creed, 
 "Where'er they first drew vital breath, 
 Or on the Shannon or the Tweed, 
 The Thames, the Vistula, the Seine, 
 The Po, the Danube, or the Rhine, 
 Good men and gallant men and free — 
 Not bastard sons of liberty. 
 But skilled in every martial deed. 
 And daring unto death ! 
 
 IX. 
 
 Borne like the ark upon the flood. 
 
 Through foaming billows streaked with blood, 
 7,3 
 
YOUNG AMERICA. 
 
 Beneath a rainbow ligbt, 
 Ah, may our Constitution float 
 Thro' winds and waves, and mark the spot 
 
 (If we our banners raise in fight) 
 Round which the angry breakers beat, 
 In safety, as round Ararat ; 
 And thence, with greeting, send its wand 
 Of joy and peace to every land. 
 
 74 
 
TO THE MBMOET 
 
 EDMUND BURKE, 
 
 WHO 
 
 DIED, MANY TEARS AGO, 
 
 AT 
 
 PETERSBURCr, VIRGINIA. 
 
 ** Semper honos^ nomenque tiiimi, laudenque manebunV 
 
 ybn ingenio quaeHtum nomen ah <bvo. 
 
 Mccidet ; ingenio siat sine morte decua. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The prose worka on Slavery which have lately issued from the press seem, 
 with very few exceptions, to have perished at their birth. The reason probably 
 is, that they were regarded by the public as mere essays upon a topic which, 
 from constant discussion, like that of our great July celebration, presents nothing 
 new to the reader or hearer. 
 
 And why, it may be asked, should these metrical effusions, by an author with- 
 out ^as%e, and with small pretensions, comparatively, to an extensive acquaint- 
 ance with literature — an author without friends, influence, commanding talents, 
 or established local habitation — in short, one inevitably and hopelessly obscure — 
 why or how should a work on Slavery, emanating from such a source, and com- 
 pounded (as the reader of advertising columns will naturally — how erroneously 
 soever — imagine it needs must be) of the commonplace views of Abolitionists, 
 the hackneyed diatribes of their orators and scribes, be fated to any other than a 
 sudden and unheeded extinction? 
 
 The Author grounds his hope of a different, nay, opposite result, upon the 
 freshness, the truthfulness, the painfully interesting nature of the scenes he has 
 ventured to describe, as well as upon the variety and novelty of his manner of 
 description, as shown in his varied iambics. 
 
 Another ground of hope entertained by the Author, of a popular appreciation 
 of these pages (as observed in his Preface to some poems, already published, on 
 the same subject), is, that they address themselves successively — and may ho 
 trust, not unsuccessfully, — to the strongest sympathies of our nature ; that they 
 touch, in their nearest and dearest interests, all orders and degrees 'of human 
 beings, all religious denominations and parties, all trades, professions, and occupa- 
 tions of life. Our octosyllabics have, in a word, what is so attractive to the 
 millions — a tale or tales in them — that sort of human interest frequently wanting 
 in more aspiring productions. 
 
 Of some of the scenes exhibited in the text and illustrations, the writer was an 
 eye and ear witness ; others were matters of daily conversation among his neigh- 
 bors at the times and places when and where they had occurred. Even those 
 which he has draped with such humor and satire as came at his bidding, are all 
 substantially true. 
 
 79 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 For the scenes in a Virginia tavern and court-house, he is, perhaps, more than 
 editorially responsible ; having retouched, amplified, and, in some instances, mod- 
 ernized them, so to speak, by interpolations of the text of a dear deceased friend 
 and relative. They will, doubtless, be regarded by many aa caricature tableaux of 
 men and things as they existed some forty years ago in the Old Dominion. He 
 unhesitatingly indorses them, and doubts not they will be recognized by others, 
 as true and vivid pictures of those days, and of days somewhat later in its his- 
 tory. 
 
 The lines upon Legree, and those upon the Georgian, Cato D — le, and others, 
 have tripped into their places so naturally, and with so very little effort to the writer, 
 that he can scarcely persuade himself they cost Mm, in conception or construction, 
 a moment's hesitation ; or, that where any thing of dialogue occurs, they were not 
 the ipsissima verba of the speakers. If poor Cato, -and other dramatis personce 
 mentioned, had not expressed themselves in verse, they assuredly have said some- 
 thing so like what is here set down for them, that the writer is scarcely conscious 
 of a variation from a single syllable ascribed to them. But of these things the 
 reader will judge for himself 
 
 Defects, anomalies, redundancies, mannerisms, pedantry, shortcomings, and 
 overdoings of all kinds and degrees, will be, according to the temper in which it 
 is read, urged against our homely little volume. 
 
 The occasional succession of rhymes in four consecutive lines, and the recur- 
 rence of the same or similar rhythmical sounds and terminations, at shorter in- 
 tervals than seem warranted by the practice of certain eminent writers, nor less 
 so, perhaps, the variety of metrical construction in one continuous composition — 
 sanctioned though such variety be, especially in satire, by the examples of Boi- 
 leau, Racine, the sweetest of our own English poets, and, passing over the satires 
 of Ennius, Pacuvius, Licinius, in iambic, trochaic, hexameter verses * by one f 
 who was ewphatically pari sermonis amator — will be brought forward as evidence 
 of unskillfulness, carelessness, ignorance, or want of power. But, all these objec- 
 tions notwithstanding, the Author finds, or thinks he finds, in the exercise of his own 
 simple judgment, as good reasons for retaining his numbers as they now stand, 
 as others can find for retrenching, recasting, or altogether suppressing them. 
 
 He has imitated no one — has borrowed from no one — save in those few in- 
 stances in wliich imitation or quotation is acknowledged. The plan of his workis 
 his own. It is all that he designed it to be. TVliat in this little book many may, 
 from a cursory view, regard as disjecta membra, will be found, upon closer exam- 
 ination, not wanting in the unities of dramatic action (unless when such unities 
 should be properly disregarded), but "fitly joined together and compacted," ac- 
 
 ♦ See Dacicr's Preracc to tbe Satires nf Horace. + Julius Caisar. 
 
 SO 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 cording to the measure of a work of design — and that design or unity of object, the 
 utter abolilion of negro slavery. If he has, in a manner agreeable to his readers and 
 just to himself, given utterance to important truths ; if he has endeavored to pass 
 " from gay to grave, from lively to serene," he is contented to leave to those of 
 more distinguished reputation a brighter and less perishable garland. 
 
 In writing under a disguised signature, for reasons satisfactory to himself, 
 Sennoia Rubek has only done what other and better writers have done before 
 him. He wishes to preserve his incognito always, or, at least, until he gives 
 to his readers — if he ever does — a production more worthy their perusal than 
 the unadorned rhymes of these narratives. 
 
 For his Preface, Introduction, and Notes, our Author has no better apology to 
 offer than that, such as they are, they will, probably, be as acceptable to his read- 
 ers as any other portion of his work. 
 
 The advantage or expediency of at all discussing Slavery, in the present state, 
 or in any state of excitement upon that subject, is the cardinal point of judgment 
 in the matter of these poems. If Slavery be of- God, as Mr. Bledsoe and others 
 contend it is, we cannot abolish it. If it be not of Grod, it will come to nought. 
 
 ATe believe we have as good a right to discuss it as Mr. Bledsoe, Mr. Harper, 
 Mr. Hammond, Professor Dew, Dr. Seabury, Dr. Raphael, Mr. Tan Dyke, Bishop 
 Hopkins, or any one else. Why not? The wisest and best men, and many of 
 whom the world was not worthy, are to a man on our side, and we are perfectly 
 willing to stand or fall with them. Possibly also we possess another right which 
 certain gentlemen may feel more disposed to call in question — the use of satire in 
 our verses. 
 
 Carmine mordaci popvM depingere mores. It is not unlikely we may, with others, 
 be accused of carrying our satire too far. 
 
 " Sunt quibus in saiira videar nimis acer, ei vltra, 
 Legem tendere c^tis." 
 
 The principle of saying nothing but good of the dead, would, if urged to its ut- 
 most extent leave us in utter ignorance of the history of mankind. 
 
 Many of the personal allusions found in these pages, and, whether direct or in- 
 direct, doubtless unpalatable to some of those for v-hom they are intended, as 
 well as to their abettors and friends, relate to things of moment in the chronicles 
 of our day. For these and certain other personalities, the advocates of Slavery 
 have no one to blame but themselves. They have challenged pubho opinion, and 
 must abide by its result. 
 
 Among planters and slave-owners there are many — there is one in particular — 
 to the forfeiture of whose friendship by the present exposition, the Author looks 
 forward with unmitigated pain. 
 
 F 81 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 But enough ; there never was a reform, religious or political, without a sundering 
 of those ties which are nearest and dearest to the heart. If the Author has found, 
 even in his own family, for years, the most vehement and persevering opposition 
 to his anti-slavery principles and acts, and especially to the publication of these 
 metrical prolusions, can he ever be surprised by an outcry from abroad? 
 
 The stanzas addressed to Her Majesty Queen Victoria, in a former publica- 
 tion, as well as the others In Memoriam, and those to the Emperors, were some- 
 what hurriedly introduced after aU the other poems had been completed. 
 
 The first volume contains, besides our Spenserian stanzas, two cantos on the 
 Brooks and Sumner affair, as growing out of the question of Slavery. 
 
 It is useless to speculate upon the popular reception of these satires, or their 
 effects upon the friends of Mr. Brooks. Suffice it to say, that none of these pieces 
 should ever see the light, were it not for the recommendation by the Governor of 
 South Carolina of the re-establishment by law of the African slave-trade; the 
 strenuous advocacy of that measure by many of the delegates to certain Southern 
 conventions (though recently disavowed), and the laudation of the conduct of 
 Brooks by certain writers and orators of the pro-slavery party. 
 
 The contemplated Index Expurgatorius of Southern school men, and the es- 
 tabhshment, or intended establishment, of the so-called University of the South 
 for the education of the sons of slaveholders, will account for the Song of the 
 Students, and ihejeux d'e^prih addressed in the first volume to the Bishops and 
 certain other ecclesiastics of the Slave States. The lines addressed to Mr. Pike, 
 Mrs. Grundy, Mrs. Partington, and some prominent British and American states- 
 men, wUl speak for themselves, as will also the family pictures in the ballad 
 stories of Little Fanny and Mary. Scenes in Congress and the Pro-Slavery Bishop 
 would scarcely be out of place in any part of our works. 
 
 To the charges of disorganization, disunion, treason, perfidiousness, inordinate 
 vanity, love of notoriety, &c., being the old stereotyped dodges against all who 
 oppose slavery, we are not solicitous to reply. T.Ve believe, and have always be- 
 lieved, that those are the only true friends of our Union who advocate abolition, 
 immediate or gradual, with the proviso of a suitable compensation to loyal slave- 
 owners, and who urge upon the consideration of the national executive an earnest 
 and vigorous co-operation in the suppression of the African slave-trade. 
 
 It is only in the estimate of such men as Governor Alston, of South Carolina, 
 and the rebels now in arms against our Government, that we are not as good 
 patriots as those greatest missionaries the world ever saw, viz. . piratical kid- 
 nappers, and the chivalrous consignees of their liviug human cargoes. It is only 
 in the estimate of such men we are not as patriotic as those mild.spoken celebri- 
 ties, who bring to the land of the free and the home of the brave hundreds upon 
 hundreds and thousands upon thousands of our fellow-beings, forced to sit, or 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 lie down spoon-ways, in holds and under hatches of corsair skippers, covered with 
 vermin, inhaling putridity, steeped in filthiness, and, like our Union prisoners at 
 the South, reduced to two-thirds of their number by starvation and disease. And 
 why all this ? To gratify the rapacity of slavers — the pride, cupidity, and ambition 
 of a hard-hearted, insolent, and intolerant ojigarchy. 
 
 But there must be no agitation of the question of Slavery — of course not ; or, 
 the discussion must be (Hibernicel) all on one side. These one-sided gentry are 
 never aggressors, but peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, as the records 
 of Congress prove. Simms, Bledsoe, Hammond, and others may prose ; Carolina 
 Governors issue pronunciamientos ; Virginia Governors, with more of ambition for 
 the Presidency than zeal for the patriarchal institution, transgress the ne quid 
 nimis by fuss and fustian ; conventions pass resolutions ad infinitum, and poetasters 
 write verses upon the beauties of Slavery, and its blessmgs to the slave among a 
 peculiar and beloved people ; but it is a subject tabooed, and forever, to the rest of 
 mankind. 
 
 Men at the South who are not owners of slaves are looked upon as a set of 
 poor insignificant "Bukra," who have not, or cannot, or ought not to have a stake 
 in the soil, unless upon the condition of being the flunkies of slave-owners and 
 executing Lynch-law upon every Abolitionist, every enemy of human bondage. 
 They must, each one, think, speak, and act In accordance with the wishes of his 
 liege lord — some rich neighbor — and be fitted to the Procrustean bed of his moral 
 proportions ; or, proving intellectually and politically too expansive to suit the 
 views of this lord, consigned to abandomnent, exile, and ruin. 
 
 If vanity, the desire of notoriety, or even the honest love of fame, could at one 
 time have urged the author of these poems to Uterary effort, that time, he begs to 
 assure his readers, has forever passed away. Should fame through these pages 
 commend him as a writer, she could only (probably) invest him with posthumous 
 honors, or at best deck his temples at a period and under circumstances when 
 he would not, to use the words of a very great man, " give a peck of refuse wheat" 
 for all that the world calls glory. 
 
 With these prefatory remarks, the Author, gentle reader, rejoices in the hope 
 that you will aid him, through these pages, in accomplishing an object most dear 
 to his heart, — the emancipation from slavery among demi-savages of those two 
 worthy, though humble persons, referred to in the following Dedicatory Tale, 
 Odeeiok and Millt. 
 
 83 
 
INTEODUOTIOIfr. 
 
 " Theke are those who take the name of Christians, and yet cling to the prac- 
 tice of making their fellow-creatures an article of conlmerce. Some delude them- 
 selves with the idea that they can ameliorate the condition of those over whom 
 they have usurped this unlicensed power ; but forget that he who begins to be a 
 slave, ceases to be a man ; that slavery is the extinction of our nobler part, and 
 the abuse even of that part in us which we have in common with the brutes. 
 Slavery in its most aggravated form — ^bondage — adds to the loss of personal lib- 
 erty, cruel treatment." — Cea3be. 
 
 Bvirum nimis jugum iyranni. 
 
 "Flee from the rage 
 Of cruell will, and see thou kepe the free 
 From the foul yoke of sensual bondage." 
 
 ■Wtat. 
 
 "I have nothing at his hands for my service but blows; when I am cold he 
 heats me with beating ; when I am warm he cools me with beating ; I am waked 
 with it when I sleep, raised witli it when I sit, driven out of doors with it when I 
 go home, welcomed home with it when I return ; nay, I bear it on my shoulders, 
 as a beggar wont her brat." — Shakspeabe's Com. Err., Act iv.. Scene Iv. 
 
 " I have struggled through much discouragement, and much opposition, much 
 obloquy, much calumny, for a people with whom I have no tie but the common 
 bond of mankind." — ^Buekb. 
 
 " ' This is God's curse on slavery I a bitter, bitter, most accursed thing I a curse 
 to the master and a curse to the slave I I was a fool to think I could make any 
 thing good out of such a deadly evil. It is a sin to hold a slave under laws like 
 ours. I always thought so when I was a girl. I thought so still more after I 
 joined the church, but I thought I could gild it over. I thought by kindness, 
 and care, and instruction, I could make the condition of mine better than free- 
 dom I fool that I was I' 
 
 " ' Why, wife 1 you are getting to be an Abolitionist quite.' 
 " ' Abolitionist 1 If they knew all I know about slavery, they might well talk I 
 
 85 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 wo do not need them to tell us. Tou know I never thought that slavery was 
 right, never felt willing to own slaves.' 
 
 " ' TiVeU, then you differ from many wise and pious men. Tou remember Mr. 
 B.'s sermon, the other Sunday ?' 
 
 " 'I do not want to hear such sermons; I never wish to hear Mr. B. in our 
 churcii again. Ministers can't help the evil, perhaps can't cure it, any more than 
 we can; but defend it! it always went against my common sense; and I think 
 you did not think much of that sermon, either.' 
 
 "'Well,' said Shelby, 'I must say these ministers carry matters further than 
 wo poor sinners would exactly dare to do.' "^C»cfe Tom's Cabin, vol. i., chap. v. 
 (1852), p. 58. 
 
 " Tell me not of rights ; talk not of the property of the planter in his slaves. I 
 deny the right ; I acknowledge not the property. lu vain you tell me of laws that 
 sanction such a claim. There is a law above all the enactments of human codes, 
 the same throughout the world, the same in all times. It is the law written by 
 the finger of God in the hearts of men ; and by that law, unchangeable and 
 eternal, while men despise and loathe rapine, and abhor blood, they shall reject 
 with indignation the wild and guilty phantasy that man can hold property in man." 
 — Beougham. 
 
 " I can never cease to be most uufeignedly thankful that I was not born in a 
 land of slaves. Ko one can understand the effect of the unutterable meanness 
 of the slave system on the minds of those who, but from the strange obhquity 
 which prevents them from feeling the degradation of not being gentlemen to pay 
 for services rendered, would be equal in virtue to ourselves. Fraud becomes as 
 natural to them as paying one's way is to the rest of mankind." — Livingstone's 
 Travel'^, p. 39. 
 
 '.' Many politicians in our time are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evi- 
 dent proposition, that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their free- 
 dom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go 
 into the water till he had learned to swim. If men are to wait for liberty till 
 they become wise and good in slavery, they may wait forever." — Maoaulat'S 
 Miscellanies. — Milton, p. 13. 
 
 "Goo, little booke, thyself present. 
 As child whose parent is unkent ; 
 And when thou art past jcopardee. 
 Come tell me what was said of mee, 
 And I will send more after thee." 
 
 Spenser. 
 8G 
 
DEDICATORY TALE. 
 
 ODERICK AND MILLY. 
 
 Early trials. Native States. First owners. Separation. Eeunion as the prop- 
 erty of a benevolent man ; after whose death they fall into the hands of a 
 tyrant. Attempt to escape. Capture. Punishment. Present condition. 
 Object of these rhymes their Uberation. 
 
 While young, their souls were knit in one, 
 
 Nor knew they how to part ; 
 The grief that Oderick would own, 
 
 Oft rent his MlUy's heart. 
 An Indian claimed poor Oderick, 
 
 A white man owned his wife ; 
 Those men (kind masters) were alike 
 
 Averse to wrath and strife. 
 
 Change to our lowly friends ensued ; 
 
 A caitiff purchased both, 
 "Who only self in all things viewed, 
 
 Nor was to part them loth. 
 Dragged from her husband and her child. 
 
 The trial Milly bore 
 For three long years ; but God beheld 
 
 Her wrongs ! — they met once more. 
 
 Both, taken to a good man's home. 
 There till his death abode, 
 87 
 
DEDICATORY TALE. 
 
 Nor ever thought from him to roam, 
 Nor fate nor fortune chode.* 
 
 Next, as their owner, is declared 
 One who, in harshness schooled. 
 
 Nor black nor white folks ever spared, 
 By angry passions ruled : 
 
 One, too, miscalled a man of God, 
 
 A preacher of His word ; 
 But better named, a scourge, a rod, 
 
 A scorpion, or a sword : 
 One who his country has for gold. 
 
 His conscience, and his friends — 
 Yea ! would his hopes of heaven have sold 
 
 To serve his private ends : 
 
 An old-school Presbyterian late, 
 
 A bigot New-Light now ; 
 Austere, morose, with Choctaw pate, 
 
 A bulBe head and brow. 
 Decided by his views of gain 
 
 And grace ! this church he found 
 To suit him, scriptural and plain. 
 
 And on slave chattels sound. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Those felt his ire, and sought by flight 
 
 From bitter bonds to flee ; 
 But, captured, manacled, and beat, 
 
 Bewail their misery ! 
 
 * Cliode, tl'.e olil preterite of chide. "And Jacob was wroth, and chode with 
 Laban," Gen. xxxi, 3G. Again, Numbers xx. 3: "And the people chode with 
 
 Moses." 
 
 88 
 
DEDICATORY TALE. 
 
 Their capture happened in this wise — 
 
 It is a tristful tale 1 — 
 The woman donned a boy's disguise — 
 
 They took an Indian trail. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Her side-long saddle she retained, 
 
 But changed her name to Billy, 
 And rode as women are constrained 
 
 By mode ! Sad mode for Milly ! 
 Her party numbered four in all, 
 
 One white, and negroes three, 
 Now flying fast from cruel thrall, 
 
 ArkaTisas slavery.* 
 
 A trader marked her horse's gear. 
 
 And raised a hue and cry ; 
 Poor Milly's looks (half dead with fear) 
 
 Soon solved the mystery. 
 John Crabtree was the trader hight, 
 
 A coarse and burly brute; 
 His very name imports a wight 
 
 Of bitter bark and fruit. 
 
 With armed men and boys and hounds. 
 To bind them hand and foot. 
 
 This knave the little group surrounds. 
 Who, rather than be shot, 
 
 Submit themselves again to be 
 
 Consigned to savage slavery. 
 
 * The people of Arkansas generally accent the penultimate, as in the text. 
 
 so 
 
DEDICATOET TALE. 
 
 Long they beheld the cursed spot 
 
 Whereon their blood was poured ; 
 The stocks, the paddles, and the knout ; 
 
 The man Ihey most abhorred. 
 Ay ! more than stocks or whips accurst. 
 
 Or dogs that lapped their blood, 
 Was HE, in hateful memory first — 
 
 That minister of God ! 
 Now hired to him who writes these lays, 
 
 And serving faithfully. 
 He by this little book essays 
 
 To buy and set them free. 
 
 Kind, gentle reader, pray regard ! 
 
 In this, his humble muse, 
 It needs must be his best reward 
 
 That thou his rhymes diffuse. 
 Their profit, profit should there be, 
 
 To Afrio we devote. 
 An offering meet to Liberty ! 
 
 Go, sail our little boat ! 
 
 May favoring gales, through reefs and rocks, 
 
 Impel thine onward course. 
 And steer thee clear of all the shocks 
 
 Of treachery and force ; 
 Or drift thee to some sheltered place 
 
 Where tempests never blow. 
 And angels! ministers of grace. 
 
 Keep watch upon thy prow. 
 90 
 
DEDICATORY TALE. 
 
 If once, thou fragile little bark I 
 
 Thou touch the British Isles, 
 Or Britain's gracious sovereign mark 
 
 Thy tiny sails with smiles, 
 Thou still, though vexed and tempest-tossed, 
 
 Wilt jubilantly ride 
 Through ocean, sea, and rocky coast, 
 
 In triumph o'er the tide ; 
 Or safely auchor'd in some cove 
 
 Of this our Empire State, 
 Thou mayest the little book, in love, 
 
 Send forth to try its fate. 
 Thy mission, bond-slaves to unloose, 
 
 The exile to restore. 
 To bring to wearied hearts repose, 
 
 And fetter lawless power. 
 91 
 
CHIViVLRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 IN EIGHT CANTOS. 
 CANTO L 
 
 ANALYSIS. 
 
 Capture of negroes in Africa. No need of fiction. Slavery at home. Slave 
 piracy aa it now exists. American ports at wliicli slaves are landed. Dis- 
 eases on board slavers. Inexpressible horrors. Death-scenes. Conclusion 
 of Canto I. 
 
 I. 
 Who from a slave-ship dares to borrow 
 Its history of human sorrow, 
 Or touches on the first assault, 
 The flight, the rout, the conquest, halt— 
 The dragging from the land to shore 
 Of all they loved or could adore — 
 From freedom, children, homes, and wives, 
 To woe and slavery and gyves — 
 Of trembling captives; how they sink 
 To earth, as, on the very brink 
 Of utter ruin, they implore 
 Mercy from those who ne'er before, 
 Or then,:, to cries of mercy listened. 
 Or marked the tear-drops as they glistened 
 In eyes that ne'er again may see 
 The glorious sun of liberty ! 
 Or who home slavery essays 
 To make the subject of his lays. 
 May well a heavenly muse invoke, 
 As one involved in mist and smoke 
 
 9.3 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Would pray for an unerring liglit, 
 Ilis stumbling steps to plant aright, 
 His heart to warm, his spirit fire, 
 And quicken every good desire, 
 That while, in all his soul's revealings 
 And all his sympathetic feelings. 
 
 Such dreadful records pass before him. 
 He may not, from the truth abating, 
 Or, for effect, a fact misstating. 
 One jot or tittle add ; and see. 
 For thus infringing verity, 
 
 The sword of vengeance hanginir o'er him ! 
 
 Ah me ! what need is there of fiction, 
 \Mien it is found past contradiction 
 That on this point no fiction reaches 
 What the most truthful record teaches 
 Of horrors multiplied on horrors. 
 In all their dark and hideous colors? 
 Horrors enough there are at home, 
 Where'er in Southern States we roam ; 
 But what in Africa wo trace 
 To the dishonor of our race. 
 Be first our song. By law abolished, 
 Nations esteemed among the polished, 
 'Tis said, slave-traffic still connive at. 
 Slavers such daring skill arrive at. 
 That, mauf/re prohibition laws, 
 And Argus eyes and lions' claws. 
 Along the line of Afric's coast. 
 There are who often make their boast 
 That Ihey, of treaties contraband. 
 Bring human cargoes to our land, 
 94 
 
CHIVAI.ET AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Or parts of cargoes. What the rest 
 Befalls, it is by all confessed, 
 Those and those only best narrate 
 Who've witnessed their unhappy fate. 
 
 m. 
 
 Texas, Peru, Brazil, and Cuba ! 
 
 How dreadful to the sons of Juba I 
 
 Matters it if they reach Aranzas, 
 
 Or come to anchor at Matanzas, 
 
 Or Arequipa or Truxillo, 
 
 Para, Callao, Mazanillo, 
 
 Iquiqui, Arioa, Guasco, 
 
 Bahia, Kio, San Francisco, 
 
 Or at the mouth of Pearl River, 
 
 Accursed now, accurst forever ; 
 
 Or at that Mississippi jetty, 
 
 Dubbed, as par excellence, a city* 
 
 Not by the rule of a crescendo, 
 
 But lucus like a non lucendo ; 
 
 Or, lower down, at Pascagoula, 
 
 Or Timbalicr or Pensacola, 
 
 Or Barataria or Biloxi, 
 
 Black Bay, Perdido, Choctawhaxi, 
 
 Vermilion Inlet, or Cote Blanche, 
 
 Or in that Mississippi branch, 
 
 Atchafalaya, or Sabine, 
 
 Or any other place between. 
 
 Or in thy wards, Floridian Key ! 
 Or Georgian Isles to Offeeohee ; 
 
 * Mi.ssisaippi City, in the State of Mississippi, on the Gulf coast, has a oourt- 
 Iiouse, some stores, two hundred and fifty inhabitants, and a good harbor. See 
 Harper's Gazetteer. 
 
 95 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Or near tlic mouth of Great Peiloo, 
 
 The vaunted homo of cliivulry ; 
 
 Or Helen Sound or Beaufort Isle, 
 
 Through swamps and thickets to dcrile; 
 
 Or up to Edgefield, where one Ijrooks 
 
 Reigns pararaount of bully rooks ; 
 
 Or anywhere along that coast 
 
 Which both the CaroUnns boast. 
 
 And old Virginia, up to Hampton, 
 
 By spider laws, less cramped than Crampton/" 
 
 V. 
 
 While hurried inward from the strand. 
 
 The traders find for each a stand 
 
 In fields of sugar-cane, tobacco, 
 
 Grain, coffee, cotton, rice, or cocoa. 
 
 There, lashed in gangs, they end their days 
 
 In ceaseless toil or wild amaze ; 
 
 Some, death preferring to submission, |- 
 
 Perish from want in manumission. 
 
 Thus slaves are openly imported. 
 
 And for our markets classed and sorted, 
 
 With approbation and applause. 
 
 In utter scorn of all our laws ! 
 
 Yet yield we not the right of search. 
 
 Or visitation, and would stretch 
 
 Our own immunities to knaves 
 
 Whose only commerce is in slaers. 
 
 '■' The -webs of diplomatic texture by which Mr. Crampton was snared must 
 be fresh in the recollection of the reader. 
 
 f A young and esteemed friend, from Texas, reports the case of a poor nntivo 
 African, who, landed from a piratical vessel, fled to the woods from his captor."!. 
 preferrinL;, like hundreds of liis race, starvation and death to the bread and the 
 bitterness of bondage. Others are spolcon of as so inicouquerable that their pur- 
 chasers suffer them to depart, or send them away. 
 
 9(i 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 VI. 
 
 To loathsome dungeons chained, confined, 
 Ilundreds on hundred^ arc consigned 
 In slave-ships. Cohorts of diseases 
 Appear, and each its victim seizes. 
 Scurvi/, the meanest of the throng 
 
 Of foul eruptions, widely spread 
 The hapless sons of men among. 
 
 Here all its subjects counts as dead. 
 There fever drinks the tide of life — 
 A few more tossings end the strife. 
 Small-pox, confounding every feature, 
 Leaves not a trace of human nature, 
 Or nought except a putrid mass 
 Of what a human body was. 
 Perhaps a cry of execration 
 On all this foul and deep damnation 
 Escapes from lips that burst asunder : 
 Nor surely need we greatly wonder 
 That they who to the sin of color 
 And love of the almighty dollar 
 Owe all their woes, should curse and hate 
 The men who brought them to this state. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Better those fierce sirocco blasts 
 
 Should rend their sails and snap their masts. 
 
 And whelm them in the boiling deep 
 
 Till the last trumpet's sounds awake them — 
 Better an everlasting sleep 
 (If such there were), than thus to be 
 The prey of such wild agony — 
 
 The fears, the throes, the paflgs that rack them. 
 What muse can sing, what tongue can trace, 
 The awful horrors of that place ? 
 G 97 
 
CHIVALET AND SLAVERY. 
 
 What heart conceive the sighs and groans, 
 The low, despairing monotones, 
 Of dying men, in masses spread 
 Upon the bodies of the dead ? 
 With matted hair and wan despair, 
 And haggard eyes and dreadful cries, 
 And poisoned breath, the smell of death. 
 Some call aloud for those they love. 
 
 While others, trembling, faltering, feai'ing, 
 
 Confused alike in sight and hearing, 
 Ask pitying mercy from above ! 
 No friend is near to calm their fear. 
 
 No suns arise on wings of healing ; 
 Around their bed no tear is shed 
 
 Of sorrowing love or kindly feeling ; 
 No pious prayer, religion's care. 
 Is breathed to lift their souls to heaven ; 
 
 No sound is heard of that blessed word 
 Which speaks, through Christ, of sins forgiven. 
 The cry for drink upon the brink 
 
 Of life's fast ebbing sands, so needed, 
 Meets no regard — it is not heard. 
 
 Or heard, is cruelly unheeded ! 
 The swollen tongue, unnerved, unstrung, 
 
 Parched, stiffened, from the mouth protruding. 
 Locked fast in death, impedes the breath, 
 
 All hope of ease or life precluding. 
 Such is this hell of souls unUcss'd, 
 Of heaving waves and wild unrest, 
 Of Gorgon dreams and doleful sounds. 
 Of fetid steams and gangrened wounds — 
 A tragic drama thronged with spectres, 
 Infernal hypocrites the actors.* 
 
 * The writer of this poem met, some years back, in one of tho lower parishes 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 When plunged into the foaming deep, 
 
 The curtain falls on those who sleep 
 
 In death : their shroud and grave and dirge, 
 
 The trough and thundering of the surge ! 
 
 Yet happier far who thus find graves 
 
 In ocean's deepest, darkest caves, 
 
 Than those who live to serve as slaves ! 
 
 CANTO IL 
 
 ANALYSIS. 
 
 Some instances of cruelty. Separation. Punishments. Pitch pine kindled on 
 the lacerated flesh. Flogging with a saw. Crushing to death in a cotton- 
 press. EoUing and flogging on a barrel. A beardless Nero. An incarnate 
 deviL Teeth punched out with mallet and chisel Washington and Lafayette, 
 Slaves. Mutilation. Eaten up by worms. Financial policy of H. in the pur- 
 chase of slaves. Fiasco with one arm. The centipede. Description. The 
 higher law. The Missionary Hymn. The child. Bishop Heber. Greek and 
 Roman Poets. Homer. Hesiod. Corinne. Sappho. Virgil. Horace. Ovid. 
 Hebrew poets. Christian Fathers. Te Deum. Lord Macaulay. Addison 
 and other writers of sacred song. 
 
 I. 
 At home, we might such facts disclose, 
 So fuU'of horrors and of woes. 
 As, unrecorded in a court, 
 Would challenge faith in our report; 
 How well soc'cr it may consort, 
 
 of Louisiana, a Virginia slave-pirate, just landed with hia cargo oi smds. He had 
 long before seen him on board a Norfolk (Va.) steamer, with a number of negroes 
 chained together, on their way to the human flesh market of Georgia. If fisheries 
 be a school for sailors, is not domestic slavery a school of African slave-piracy ? 
 The re-establishment or sanction by the law of nations of the African slave-trade 
 is strenuously advocated by Governor Alston, of South Carolina, and by many of 
 the delegates of late Southern Conventions. Some of them regard it as " one of 
 the greatest missionary enterprises the world ever saw I" 
 
I CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 I ~ ■ 
 
 j With wliat is oft the fate of slaves, 
 
 From earliest childhood to their graves. 
 
 The butcher, who purveys our veal. 
 
 Will from the cow her offspring steal, 
 
 Nor cares thongli she the valleys fill 
 
 With piteous lowings, if he still, 
 
 At wonted marketable price, 
 
 Make good his every-day supplies ; 
 
 Nor cares the purchaser of slaves, 
 
 The infant from its mother's breast, 
 The brother from the sister weeping. 
 The father, mother, husband, wife, 
 To drag and scj)arate for life. 
 
 They look in vain for peace or rest ; 
 In distant States they find their graves, 
 Sorrows on sorrows ever heaping. 
 
 It chanced that in a Southern State, 
 Which one 'twere bootless to relate. 
 Two slaves were, under the pretense 
 Of some — by no means grave — offense. 
 Pinned down and fastened to the ground, 
 Their backs by scourging made one wound ; 
 Then on the bleeding, mangled flesh 
 Were knots of pitch-pine, cut afresh. 
 Ignited : each to each was near, 
 The bubbling blood-streams to enscar ; 
 Nor till the tortured victims died. 
 Were wrath and vengeance satisfied. 
 The overseer, and not the master, 
 Was the foul cause of this disaster ; 
 In nham arrest, he broke parole ! 
 The gnilt lies still upon his soul, 
 100 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 His body safe : for Alabama, 
 Or for the coast of the Grand Lama, 
 For aught wc know, he left ; we leave him. 
 Can he repent, so Heaven forgive him ! ! 
 What the unpardonable sin is, 
 Not very easy to explain is : 
 Some say the callousness of Pharaoh, 
 And some the cruelty of Nero, 
 Some one thing say, and some another ; 
 But though the point excite such pother, 
 The sin, we think, is found in both — 
 In Rome and Egypt, will and oath — 
 Cause and effect, combined in one, 
 A cruel will, a heart of stone ! 
 
 Bound down and pinioned, as we've stated, 
 Another (so authenticated) 
 O'er the stark bodies of his slaves 
 With threats and furious vengeance raves ; 
 Flatways a saw descending hacks 
 And lacerates their subject backs, 
 By atmospheric pressure denting 
 The stricken part ; thence raised by force, 
 It scatters in its upward course, 
 A rainco of dripping flesh and blood ! 
 Can such atrocities, God ! 
 Begin, thy lightning not preventing ? 
 The wretch who thus his negroes treated, 
 Had all such chattels sequestrated. 
 And by an act of legislation 
 Condemned, disfranchised, by the nation 
 Or State (we rather should have said). 
 Is now politically dead ! 
 101 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Two hands beneath a cotton-press 
 
 Were placed ; the martyr — was he less ? — 
 
 Thus left all night to writhe in pain, 
 
 Livcil till the mornino; dawned again. 
 
 Enters the master : his poor slave 
 
 Xow turns his head relief to crave. 
 
 '■ What ! damn j-ou ! grin," the tyrant cries, 
 
 '' In with him ; press !" The victim sighs 
 
 His last brief litany, and dies ! 
 
 V. 
 
 We knew a youth, his name was Daves, 
 
 His father owned a score of slaves — 
 
 It may be more, it may be less ; 
 
 We might in either acquiesce. 
 
 Although to have them overrated 
 
 Gives less offense than understated. 
 
 No man of property so proud as 
 
 He who of slaves a numerous crowd has ; 
 
 So true it is men often hoast 
 
 Of that which ought to shame them most. 
 
 Our youth was graduate of a college, 
 
 Arid had, 'twas thought, imbibed some knowledge- 
 
 Not a groat deal, we may presume. 
 
 Nor tliink it too much to assume 
 
 That graduating is no tost 
 
 Infallible of what is best, 
 
 Or for the body or the soul, 
 
 As evidenced in self-control. 
 
 Or rather luant of it, in schools 
 
 Where rods ne'er reach the backs of fools ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 By power, licentiousness and drink. 
 This hopeful hero had, we think, 
 102 
 
CHITALRY AND SLATERT. 
 
 His head and heart alike corrupted. 
 
 One act of liis is here reported : 
 
 He tutored thus his overseer, 
 
 His negroes' flesh with whips to tear: 
 
 " Rise on your feet, as I on mine — 
 
 You so a better purchase gain — 
 
 Then, jerldng, bring the thong toward you; 
 
 The practice soon will well reward you !" 
 
 VII. 
 
 On whisky-cask, bound down with rope, 
 And taut as any iron hoop, 
 He rolled a hapless slave around, 
 His back one wide and ghastly wound, 
 His blood fast streaming to the ground. 
 The tyrant's dogs, without control. 
 Lap fiercely up the crimson pool. 
 While bellowing cattle spurn the gutter. 
 Infuriate, as from scent of slaughter. 
 The beardless Nero sank exhausted. 
 So long the sickening torture lasted : 
 He sank, we said, but soon upstarted, 
 And to the whisky-bottle darted. 
 Thence, quick returning, he renewed 
 His work of blood ; but what ensued ? 
 How long the victim lived we know not, 
 And what we know not, we avow not ; 
 But this we know, that, bending double, 
 His after life was pain and trouble ; 
 He rather crawled than walked as man, 
 Till death released him from his pain. 
 And this we know, his wicked master, 
 
 Or urged by drink or something worse, 
 From crime to crime went fast and faster, 
 
 Till suicide cut short his course. 
 103 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Thy snow-wliite cotton, Carolina, 
 Was blood-stained by this full hyena ! 
 
 Braiived by the kicking of an ass — 
 
 Lut other circumstances pass — 
 
 The ivhin, the where, the special how ; 
 
 Suffice it wo the means avow, 
 
 And that in all Dcatli's armorj',- 
 
 No shaft so suited our Legrec — 
 
 Was W. II., whom, to be civil, 
 
 We would not call " incarnate devil 1" * 
 
 If he had not such acts committed, 
 
 As "Moloch homicide" had fitted, 
 
 i\nd Satan we believe outwitted. 
 
 His mode of punishment was this : 
 
 W^hcne'cr he fancied aught amiss. 
 
 Chisel and mallet, both in hand. 
 
 Ho quickly uttered the comujand, 
 
 " Open your mouths, hold fast your breath, 
 
 Till I h;ive punched out your d d teeth !" 
 
 Poor AVashington, wq knew him well, 
 And Lafavette this fate befell; 
 From curses, oaths, and imprecations, 
 Legree such horrid mutilations 
 Wrought on their bodies, as no pen 
 Can dare describe. O Heaven ! and when, 
 While yet alive and both in chains. 
 The worms devouring their remains ;— 
 Not lialf remained, save skeleton, 
 Of Lafayette and \\'ashington — 
 In myriads crawled in every wound. 
 Where yet a loathsome place was found; 
 
 * Parlor and Cabin. 
 104 
 
CniVALllY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Tliey L'l'icd fur incvcy : gibes and scoft's 
 AVcrc mixed the more willi stripes and cnii'.-i 
 Death came at last to end their woes. 
 But not our narrative to close, 
 The ice once broken, we more apt arc 
 To write than not — another chapter. 
 
 IX. 
 
 I buy, said he, the old and feeble, 
 Whom other planters gladly part with 
 At a small price ; I quickly treble. 
 The value of what thus I start with : 
 I calculate their length of days, 
 And all the produce they are able 
 AVithin that given time to raise ; 
 And thus I make them profitable, 
 By extra work, in say, three years : 
 It may be more, 'tis sometimes less, 
 They sink, of course, into their graves ; 
 But then, just mark how it appears : 
 My profit on the work that kills them 
 Enables me to buy youwj kIuvcs ; 
 My neighbors all declare it fills them 
 "With sheer amazement — they confess 
 That T, with sixty hands, each day can 
 Thrice as much cotton roork as they can 
 With the same number ; do they lie ? 
 No, no ! our plans explain the why : 
 They use the whip, the chisel, I ! 
 
 X. 
 
 Do look at Fiasco, mark his work ; 
 Light and elastic as a cork, 
 He's just the same at hoe or fork ; 
 He lost his left arm in a gin. 
 To me it matters not a pin ; 
 105 
 
CHIYALRT AND SLAVERY. 
 
 I make him do as all the rest, 
 
 And, as you see, they do their best ; 
 
 Am I to suffer any harm, 
 
 Because that wretch has lost an arm ? 
 
 At first he seemed disposed to linger 
 
 Behind his fellows ; now my finger. 
 
 Held up in threatening to his cheek 
 
 Makes him forgot that he is weak. 
 
 Use, my dear sir, you know makes master. 
 
 His work grows better, if not faster; 
 
 I've only left him a few grinders. 
 
 But they may serve as prompt reminders 
 
 Of what he may expect, if I 
 
 Think right the chisel to apply. 
 
 When I'm away, my overseer 
 
 Has whips and paddles on their rear.* 
 
 XI. 
 
 While chattering thus, and bottling wrath, 
 A centipede upon his path 
 Appeared ; he lifted up his cane, 
 And dropped it on its end again. 
 Close to the reptile, near the hole 
 Which of its wanderings seemed the goal. 
 As by electric shock confounded. 
 Or by some other cause astounded. 
 An instinct of self-preservation, 
 Perhaps, pervading animation, 
 Wherever found, collapsed as dead, 
 The creature moved nor limb nor head 
 
 * Mr. Bledsoe, and all who quote the Bible to support Slavery, would do well 
 to see how far such cruelty as this is countenanced by the law of Moses : 
 
 "If a man smites out his man-servant's tooth, or his maid-servant's tooth, ho 
 shall let him go free for his tooth's sake." Esod. xxi. o. v. 27. 
 
 106 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLATERY. 
 
 For a few moments ; " Look you ! see I" 
 
 Said H. ; "A law for you and me. 
 
 Deception, after all our toil, 
 
 Is what best makes the kettle boil. 
 
 That insect only seemed to die. 
 
 Suspecting that a foe was nigh ; 
 
 Now mark, that when the danger's o'er, 
 
 'Twill run as nimbi}' as before." 
 
 And fio it was ; silence ensued, 
 
 The centipede its course pursued. 
 
 Surveying cautiously the ground. 
 
 And looking furtively around-; 
 
 Or ere the eye could mark its flight, 
 
 It had evanished out of sight. 
 
 " This," H. resumed, " is nature's skill ; 
 
 I call it but deception still. 
 
 The Jesuits understand it well. 
 
 And very justly make it tell 
 
 To their advantage ; 'tis their rule. 
 
 And who gainsays it is a fool ; 
 
 All means arc right, whene'er the end 
 
 To one's self-interest may tend." 
 
 XII. 
 
 " There is," said B., " a higher law. 
 Our bestial instincts to o'erawe. 
 If you regard yourself as blest 
 In that a miscreant confess'd 
 You stand, or reptile, follow nature — 
 The only law of such a creature ; 
 But if you would let reason guide. 
 Or by God's written law abide. 
 It would far different views instil. 
 Expand your mind, subdue your will." 
 107 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 " By George ! tliat law wont do for me, fir ; 
 
 'Twould make my niggers all go free, sir. 
 A law of that kind is but fustian — 
 I hope I ne'er may be a Christian ! 
 A law of that kind is all nonsense. 
 It runs a-tilt against my conscience; 
 In short, sir, you are too dogmatical, 
 Though somewhat radical, not practical." 
 " Aye ! root and branch,^' responded B., 
 " Oppression, fraud, hypocris}' 
 I would uproot, and rescue slaves 
 From ruffian taskmasters and knaves. 
 And pray that God may soon convert 
 To love an<i truth each atheist heart !" 
 
 XIII. 
 
 "You have my daughter taught a hymn, sir— 
 
 A sort of stuff I much contemn, sir — 
 
 A Missionary hymn, I think ; 
 
 I must not at such doings wink." 
 
 "The hymn," said B., "is Bishop Heber's; 
 
 I had supposed that if a Gheber's 
 
 Were couchf(l in language so sublime, 
 
 You'd scarcely think it a foul crime 
 
 To make a little child repeat it. 
 
 AYhat's your objortion ? Let me meet it." 
 
 "Tis very old, sir." "You're tni^^takcn ; 
 
 It would in this sweet child awaken" — 
 
 " Sir, sir ! tis ynu mistake, not I; 
 
 I've heard it in my infancy." 
 
 " Not you," said B., " you are as old 
 
 As he who wrote it he is cold. 
 
 And has been some time in his grave, 
 An honored prelate and a brave, 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. i 
 
 Whoso spirit grieved to see a slave." 
 " Sir, you are personal." " Agreed — 
 It is precisely what you need. 
 But would you," B. pursued, " a hymn, 
 Because you think it old, condemn ?" 
 " Yes, yes ! I always like what's new. 
 And let me add, 'twixt me and you" — 
 ******* 
 
 XIV. 
 
 " There is," said B., " our Mend, Dan Homer — 
 
 Pray do not think him a new-comer 
 
 Into these parts — he wrote some hymns 
 
 In noble measure, thongh not rhymes. 
 
 Our overseers might call him foggy. 
 
 And, drunk themselves, think Homer groggy. 
 
 Of better folks we've met with some 
 
 Who Homer's nods ascribe to Kum ! 
 
 Old Ilcsiod, Homer's rival bard. 
 
 Had for the gods supreme regard. 
 
 His deathless book ' Of Works and Days ' 
 
 In moral rules and songs of praise 
 
 Abounds; and his Theogony, 
 
 The birth of gods, called eke Cosmogony, 
 
 Like Moses', David's, Miriam's verses, 
 
 God's wonders in his works rehearses. 
 
 One Virgil, too, was ' up to snuff;' 
 
 The hymns he wrote were well enough. 
 
 A man named Pindar wrote some Peans, 
 
 Wliicli few could rival in Orleans;* 
 
 * The factors and pettifoggers of the New Orleans slave-market, and the 
 scribes of the pro-slavery press, were this creature's ideals of all mercantile and 
 literary talents. The accent on the penult in Orleans is not unfroqucnt in the 
 South. 
 
 109 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 His hymns from ruin saved his house, 
 
 Perhaps his heirs,' and cko his spouse. 
 
 Corinna, Sappho, women both. 
 
 Wore, as your daughters, nothing loth 
 
 Some sacred poems to recite; 
 
 Few could like them, or read or write 
 
 Like Sappho,* muse of Mytylone, 
 
 And eke of Tanagra, Corinne. 
 
 The former added to the ' Nino,' 
 
 The latter scarcely less divine. 
 
 A Roman man, named little Horace,f 
 
 Would as a church-mouse he as poor as. 
 
 Were he not able to proclaim 
 
 In song, his god's and country's fame. 
 
 You have an Ovid in translation, 
 
 And know him well in illustration ; I 
 
 Of his great art and transmutation 
 
 You need no sort of information — 
 
 * Sappho was called the Tenth Muse. 
 
 \ Horace ia regarded as the i?oet Laureat of Augustus. See Carmen Secu- 
 lare, &o. 
 
 ^ Our liero was a great patron of- this species of ilUistrative art. It is to be 
 hoped hia friends will not object to see himself well illustrated. 
 
 He was scarcely of middle height, with a tanned, Arab-shaped face and figure. 
 Ho was lank-jawed, herring-gutted — had a forehead villanous low — sandy, exere- 
 mentitious liair — whitish brows — sparse, swinish laslics of the same color, and 
 crnd gray eyes, between which liis nose — somewhat aquiline — formed an isthmus 
 of marvellous tenuity, indicating, phrenologically, ''small size!" 
 
 Veneration was wanting ; benevolence, inappreciable ; self-esteem, inordinate ; 
 destruetivenoss, monstrous. Ilis hands were freclvlod, bony, lean, and long- 
 fingered. Ho was sparrow-legged and splay-footed (slightly so) ; choleric, quick 
 spoken; inarticulate and asthmatic. Passion had the same effect upoa this jab- 
 berer as fear has upon others. 
 
 " Steteruntgue comce, et vox faucibus luxsit." 
 llii 
 
CHIVAI>BT AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Save this, mayhap, that he sometimes 
 
 Would to the gods address some hymns : 
 
 Isaiah, David, Job, and Moses, 
 
 From one who poetry composes, 
 
 Or values justly, for their lays 
 
 Are thought entitled to some praise." 
 
 " To A7nbrose and Augustine, we 
 
 Who cherish no antipathy 
 
 To sacred songs, though e'er so old. 
 
 The hymn " Te Deurri''' are so bold 
 
 As to ascribe. Both men were true, 
 
 And great, perhaps, as I or you. 
 
 'Tis true Macaulay damns their Latin * 
 
 * The great historian has himself accounted for the inelegant Latinity of the 
 declining empire, and comparatively new religion of Rome in the days of Augus- 
 tine and Ambrose. But what is it in the present instance that offends Lord 
 Macaulay'a classical taste? Is it the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Sabaoth of the 
 Sacred Writings? Has he forgotten that even PoUio and Jlaecenas might have 
 used monoptofe in their own majestic vernacular? Or is it the phrase " proclamant 
 iibi Satictus," that has induced him to lay his heavy hand upon a composition so 
 sublime and venerable as the Te Deum ? 
 
 Possibly the guests of PoUio and Maacenas, of Cicero and Caesar, would not — 
 if Christians, or acquainted with the doctrines of Christianity — have been more 
 shocked or perplezed by the technical phraseology of Ambrose and Augustine, 
 had they lived in their time, than Lord Macaulay or Mr. Russell now are by somo 
 of the technicalities of Geology and other sciences, in the wTitings of certain living 
 authors as eminent as themselves. Are the Almo Sol I Levis lUythia, Veraces, 
 Parc33, &c., of Horace, more subUme tlian the Sanctus, Sanotus Dominus Deus 
 Sabaoth ? 
 
 In the age to which Lord M. refers, and stfll more in subsequent ages, law and 
 medicine had almost, if not quite, as large a share in the corruption and dooliiie of 
 the Latin tonguo, as the technical language of Christian theology. 
 
 On the whole, there is much unprofitable pedautry in the discussion of the ques- 
 tion as to the time when the golden age of the Latin tongue had ceased. If Vida, 
 
 111 
 
CHIVALITY AND SLATERT. 
 
 As gibberish, rude and misbegotten, 
 Or fustian woven upon satin ; 
 Yet scarce his own immortal laj's, 
 Have won more unrestricted praise. 
 Transition, faith, as well as rock, 
 Must needs fastidious critics sliock, 
 With words importing novel features. 
 As grafts on older nomenclatures : 
 In short, all sciences and schools, 
 Are fain to clioose new words and rule 
 ^Yhicb, more or less, are innovations 
 On all the usages of nations ; 
 
 Sannazarius, Bacon, Buchanan, Milton, Addison, Vincent Bournes, or the Marquis 
 of Wellesley had written as good Latin verses as Horace (and in very many in- 
 stances they are scarcely behind him), how few of our critics would dare to avow 
 it I 
 
 "Though the classical Latin," says Dr. C. French, "had salus and salvus, it had 
 not salcare nor salrator. The strong good sense of Augustine disposed of the diffi- 
 culty. He made no scruple about employing sa'vator, observing, with a truein-sight 
 into thf law of the growth of wwds, that it was not good Latin before the .Saviour 
 came ; but when He came, Ho made it to be such — for as shadows follow sub- 
 stances, so words result from things. 
 
 One of the very best authorities on this point is Lord Macaulay himself, who, in 
 his review of the writings of Sir James Macintosh, observes that Jlr. Fox's ex- 
 treme attention to the niceties of language was hardly worthy of sn manly and 
 capacious an understanding. He then proceeds to notice the censures of Horace 
 upon the fastidiousness of the purity of Rome, and quotes Politian and Erasmus 
 against unreasonable scrupulosity on that head. 
 
 " TJt bene currere non potest," says Politian, " qui pedom ponere studet in alionia 
 tantum vestigiis, ita, nee bene scribcre qui tanquam de prfescripto non audet 
 egredi." 
 
 " Posthac," exclaims Erasmus, "nonliccbitepiscopos appellare patres reverendos, 
 neo in calce literarum scribere annum a Christo nato, quod id nusquam faciat Cicero- 
 Quid autem ineptius quam toto sa;c\do novato — religione, imperio, magistratibus, 
 locorum vocabulis, asdiflciis, cultu, inoribus, non alitor audere loqui quam locutus est 
 Cicero. 8i revi;isceret ipse Cicero, rideret hoc Ciceronianorum genus." 
 
 112 ■ 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Shall wc then faith and science smother, 
 Or boar with one as well t'other? 
 Though more than Atticus condemn, 
 Abjure wc not o<ir noblest hymn! 
 
 " One Addison, a man of taste, 
 
 Did not consider it a waste 
 
 Of time and talents to indite 
 
 Hymns which this child can well recite. 
 
 Young, Thomson, Milton, Moore, and Byron, 
 
 You doubtless value as old iron ; 
 
 Nay, Tennyson and Browning, too. 
 
 Because as old as I or you." 
 
 XVII. 
 
 " Now what I mean I know full well," 
 Said n., " I wish you all in h— 1, 
 And wont be pestered any more 
 With your confounded musty lore." 
 B. wished his atheist host good night, 
 To chew his cud of wrath and spite. 
 
 CANTO in. 
 A vision. Cato, a slave. His terror and grief. His wife, children, and mother 
 in Carolina. His horrible punishment and sufferings. Flight, pursuit, capture, 
 death. Remonstrance. Inquest. Decomposition of the body of Cato. Re- 
 verses of H. Remorse of Gate's former owners. Reflections. 
 
 I. 
 Though early, B. wished to repair 
 Or to his couch or to his chair, 
 To meditate on what he'd seen 
 That day, or said, or beard, or been ! 
 H 113 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 The moon was hid, the stars were dim, 
 The stiUnoss, such as saddened liim ; 
 The air was close, he gasped for breatli, 
 He seemed as in a house of death ; 
 While thus he mused in gloomy mood, 
 A figure close behind him stood. 
 Its gentle breathing scarce the flix 
 Could ajritate on infants' necks. 
 Not Priam, when, his curtain drawn, 
 He Troy in flumes before the dawn 
 Beheld : nor Job, in dead of night, 
 As near him stood that dreadful sprite ; 
 Nor who the locks and glaring eyes 
 Of gory Ban quo saw arise ; 
 Nor yet that Babylonian king, 
 As, revelling, and rioting. 
 His joints are loosened, and his knees 
 Smite one another as he sees 
 A band in mystic figures scrawl 
 His swift destruction on the wall- 
 Had more of terror and amaze 
 Than B. at what now fixed his gaze. 
 
 " In God's name ! what are you ?" he said, 
 " I'm Cato, mas'r, almost dead," 
 The vision answered ; " buy me, buy, 
 Or I this very night must die. 
 Hush ! softly, he would kill me now, 
 If he could see me talk to you ; 
 You knew old mas'r in Car'lina, 
 And missis, too, and old Aunt Dinah : 
 She is my mother. sad day ! 
 That brought me here, so far away ! 
 114 
 
CniVALEY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Mas'r was young, and missis slie 
 Had always sort of jealousy. 
 I was her coachman, footman, waiter — 
 She said she never had a better. 
 You knew my wife, she was their cook ; 
 We had two children: — one was Brook ; 
 The little girl we called her Kitty — 
 You saw her, mas'r — wa'nt she pretty ? 
 And we did love them both so dearly, 
 Mary and me did : we wore nearly 
 The same in age ; she was qf me 
 As fond as I was fond of she. 
 Oh ! it did almost bre^k my heart, 
 To think that I from them should part. 
 And won't you write for me a letter. 
 To say I never loved them better 
 Than I do now ? Do tell how strong 
 My wish to kind folks to belong, 
 Who would my children and my wife. 
 And me together buy for life. 
 Bat Mary now must have another. 
 More like a sister and a brother 
 We looked, as many people said. 
 Than man and wife — Pm almost dead ! 
 Mary will never see mo more, 
 Nor Brook nor little Kate deplore 
 My death ; yet tell them, if I die, 
 That God will still take care of me ; 
 That I will look down from above 
 On all below that share my love ; 
 That I will watch their souls till God 
 Shall take them all to his abode ; 
 That I shall pray for them, as they 
 Should pray for me, to meet.that day 
 115 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 "\Yhen the Great Judge shall in his book 
 Note every thought and every look, 
 And every wicked word and deed, 
 That malies a brother's heart to bleed." 
 
 Poor Cato was a brown mulatto. 
 
 Still young in years. Alas ! poor Cato ! 
 
 Once very handsome, now his hair 
 
 All stood on end ; his eyes would glare 
 
 With wild and preternatural light. 
 
 Like some ill-omened bird of night, 
 
 As he around the chamber glanced, 
 
 To see if any one advanced. 
 
 " They watch, me mas'r, watcb me, fear 
 
 I should say something in your ear, 
 
 And which — oh I don't I know them well- 
 
 They do not wish that I should tell. 
 
 "Mas'r, this misery in my head, 
 Oh ! it do feel so mighty bad ! 
 He shot me here, he left me lying, 
 And thought — he did — I was a-dying: 
 The lead do make me heavy like — 
 See, feel, 'tis here the shot did strike, 
 Just in the back part of my skull. 
 Oh ! it do make mo mighty dull. 
 See here 1" he opened wide his mouth. 
 His toothless gums revealed the truth, 
 Of teeth within that swollen face, 
 Mallet and chisel left no trace ; 
 Black, bruised, his eyes were ; and his noso 
 Was beaten flat with brutal blows. 
 116 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 V. 
 " Old mas'r, that is not the worst — 
 Sec, mas'r, here." " Oh ! d — d, accursed 
 Villain," cried B., with sudden start, 
 And sobbed as if his very heart 
 Were breaking, breaking. " Oh my God ! 
 Can these things be ? and not Thy rod 
 Uplifted high this wretch to smite, 
 And cast him howling into night 1" 
 
 VI. 
 
 Now B. consoled him all be could, 
 And promised faithfully he would 
 Use all his influence with the brute, 
 Who thus his vengeance dared to glut. 
 " Sooner," said H., " than Cato sell, 
 
 I'd see you all G — d d d in h — 1 ; 
 
 Now my revenge must have its turn, 
 And his black hide must bleed or burn." 
 
 VII. 
 
 That night poor Cato left the camp, 
 And sought a refuge in the swamp ; 
 The game was up, the dogs were out, 
 And a few neighbors round about 
 Assisted in the deadly chase. 
 The hapless fugitive to trace. 
 Crossing an inlet where no hound 
 Could take the scent, poor Cato found 
 A little island ; there, in vain, 
 He would his plans review again. 
 His wounds were fresh, his joints were sore, 
 Alas I for him no open door 
 Lay for escape in any quarter. 
 Where he might rest his head thereafter. 
 117 
 
CHIVALEY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 The dogs at fault upon the bank 
 
 He saw : his heart within him sank. 
 
 The Hunters came upon the bay, 
 
 T\'here now in view the islet lay. 
 
 " Cross, cross," said 11., " this bay of islands ; 
 
 The villain has not sought the highlands. 
 
 If any see him, shoot him dead, 
 
 Though, blast him ! he's not worth the lead." 
 
 They cross ; and near a heap of bones. 
 
 The relics of some hogs and coons, 
 
 They saw him crouch : at once they fire. 
 
 Poor Cato did not yet expire ; 
 
 He lived some days — the fatal wound 
 
 Was in his side ; upon the ground, 
 
 Dying, he lay. A few suggest 
 
 A truck on which his weight might rest,- 
 
 Till they conveyed him to the " quarters 
 
 Where they dispose of such deserters." 
 
 VIII. 
 
 " We've found him ; he is shot," said J). 
 
 " And who his murderer ?" cried B. ; 
 
 " Ho ! ho ! sir, you the act condemn ?" 
 
 " I do," retorted B. again. 
 
 H. took his knife and 'gan to grit 
 
 His teeth, and fiercely looked and spit. 
 
 " The blood which from that poor slave's wound, 
 
 Forth issues, coloring the ground 
 
 Shall rise in judgment to the throne 
 
 Of God, and draw due vengeance down 
 
 Upon your head, O wretched fool ! 
 
 To bring such ruin on your soul," 
 
 Said B. " I leave you — shall proclaim 
 
 Your cruel acts, your cruel name : 
 118 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Aye, kill nio ! look that look again 1 
 Your wrath I fear not, man of sin ! 
 Repent you of this horrid crime. 
 While God in mercy grants you time." 
 
 IX. 
 
 B. when resolved all risks to brave. 
 Thus whispered to a neighbor's slave : 
 "When Cato's eyes in death are closed. 
 If you to me should feel disposed 
 To bring the news, I shall regai-d you. 
 And give five dollars to reward you." 
 Poor Cato had lain under ground 
 Long time, or e'er a single sound 
 Of his decease had reached the ears 
 Of B., who now li«d certain fears. 
 He notwithstanding called a jury 
 Of inquest : II. was in a fury. 
 Decomposition had set in, 
 And.this time saved that man of sin. 
 Some one thing said, and some another, 
 And some resolved to act the brother ; 
 H. threatened B. at sight to kill. 
 But feared to carry out his will, 
 Assured that Texas had no place 
 To save his nock in such a case. 
 
 X. 
 
 The man commissioned to bring word, 
 When he of Cato's death had heard, 
 Was told he should meet Cato's fate, 
 If he of such a thing should prate. 
 Or should to B. the news narrate. 
 What more ensued we may disclose 
 Some day at full, in verse or prose ; 
 119 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 It \v;is tliis caitiff's first disaster 
 To sci'vc as steward a rigid master ; 
 His cruel financiering failed him, 
 And to tlie counter basely nailed hiin. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Now Mary wept without control, 
 For grief lay heavy at her soul ; 
 She blamed her owners as the cause 
 Of Cato's death, against all laws 
 Divine and human : the}- were bruised 
 And sore in spirit, and accused 
 Each other of a grave offense, 
 Against propriety and sense. 
 They parted; he his native shore 
 Beyond the ocean sought once more ; 
 And she retained both land and slaves — 
 They both lie low in distant graves. 
 She treated Crook and Kitty kindly, 
 And was to Mary more than friendly ; 
 She made th(.'m free in Carolina, 
 W'hx^re they are living with Aunt Dinah, ' 
 Where they will L-ver and anon 
 Cato lament and NVashington, 
 And Lafayette, their youngest brother — 
 Aunt Dinah was of all the mother. 
 
 XII. 
 
 That eighty slaves, or even one, 
 Should be in such a miscreant's power 
 As IL, from twenty to require — 
 By age, disease, and work ontworn — 
 What few from sixty could desire ; 
 Or force by cruel lashes torn. 
 Should almost move a heart of stone, 
 120 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 To consccnite each day and hour, 
 
 In cveiy way the law allows, 
 
 To bi'cak their chains, their cause espouse ; 
 
 In short, to teach the holy creed. 
 
 That every human slave be freed. 
 
 Say that three thousand men like II.,* 
 
 In all our Slave States may be found — 
 
 That eighty hands, for every wretch | 
 
 Of such a stamp, must till the ground ; 
 
 A total eighty times three thousand 
 
 Results for field-work and for house, and — 
 
 All other objects to fulfil — 
 
 Lust, torture, wrath, a tj'rant's will. 
 
 * 'Wlien it is considered that tliero were in the United States, in 1800, 3,20i,313 
 slaves, probably now (1860), 4,000,000, and that (lie number of families owning 
 slaves was 3-17,025; that there are 2,000,000 in the relation of slaveowners, or 
 about a third of the population of the Slave States ; that, passing over smaller 
 proprietors, G, 19G own 50 and imdor 100 slaves; 1,497, 100 and under 200; 187, 
 200 and under 300, &o. (see Harper's Slatislical Gazeteer), it will be readily 
 conceded that the writer of tlieso rhymes has no disposition to exaggerate the 
 statistics of cruelty, in supposing 240,000 slaves under merciless taslimasters lilio 
 H. 
 
 To represent cases like those above described — as stale, exceptional, incredible, 
 impossible, &c. — the hacknicd accusations of lying and fanatical abolition scribblers 
 — is a favorite topic of pro-slavery men. But alas I such cases are new every 
 morning, and yet the same yesterday and to-day as they will ever continue to bo 
 under the tyrannous rule of a slave-irresponsible oligarchy. 
 
 f The end of H was worthy of his character. Ruined as a planter, on a fali:o 
 capital, he became, during the ilcxican war, a trader in mules. One of these ani- 
 mals, infuriated by his cruelty, kicked olf the roof of his skull. Hence, " brained 
 by the kicking of an ass." 
 
 121 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 CANTO IV. 
 
 "Wrath of the Southern people and the Southern press. Denial of alleged atro- 
 cities, how clearly soever proved. Legal abolition and the introduction of free 
 labor, as cheaper and better, the only hope of a ISTatioual e.'cpurgation from the 
 curse of slavery. Instanced in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Influence of 
 the clergy. Incident to a clergyman traveling in Virginia. 
 
 The South says, tell it not in Gatli, 
 Let hostile Ascalon not hear it ! 
 
 Lest abolition on our path 
 
 Should tread, and such abuses ferret. 
 
 As from an Listitution spring, 
 
 Which to our marts such profits bring. 
 
 Nav, more : let's swear it is not true. 
 
 Who sa3's he from plantations knew 
 
 Crimes so atrocious to transpire. 
 
 Let us avouch a reckless liar. 
 
 Press, mallet and chisel, snw, jacklcnife, are weapons 
 Fit only for cotton-bags, lumber and capons ! 
 
 From Picayune B 1 to P e the venal, 
 
 We all shall pronounce it a calumny penal ; 
 Men, of course, will reply, " see your own advertisements ; 
 If we are huge liars, 'tis oft by advisements 
 Of editors, planters, and mild overseers 
 [How milJ, from their threats it most plainly appears). 
 Oar noses to slit, and to crop off our ears. 
 These facts notwithstanding, let's treat them as fools — 
 The dupes of Ward Boecher, Lloyd Garrison's tools." 
 122 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 III. 
 Other horrors there are which produce a reaction ; 
 But those we eschew. Wc are not of the faction 
 Who think that the slavery sanctioned by law 
 Can without law be banished from this generation, 
 Or even its discussion receive toleration 
 In our Southern States ; for we always foresaw 
 That only free-labor, as cheaper and better, 
 Can from the poor slave strike his collar and fetter. 
 The Jerseys and Pcnn's State are pertinent cases : 
 
 Their slaves were made free when free-labor grew cheaper. 
 
 And no one desired to be always a keeper 
 Of paddles and chains to hold slaves in their places. 
 Perpend this, yc Know Nothing's, maugro your creed. 
 If jK)U wish that the blacks should from bondage be freed. 
 
 It may be the clergy would dare to attack, 
 
 This compound of cruelty, fraud, and oppression ; 
 A priest in a Slave State is only a hack. 
 
 Whose place must depend on his cautious expression. 
 More gagged than the press, he must labor to teach 
 What on that point his patrons all wish him to preach ; 
 Or, at least, must keep silent on what he despises, 
 And drive from his flock abolition surmises ; 
 Those Bien have no 'chance who condemn the black code. 
 But to starve or subsist in some other abode, 
 Or loaf as Jack Puddings, whom famine impells 
 On Gunny-bags Harper and Baptist hard-shells !* 
 
 * It is truly marvellous that an editor with a respectable easy-chair, a table well 
 furnished with excellent articles, fair literary notices, capital illustrations, &c., 
 should produce from his drawer, as Harper does, the vapid tom-fooleries of Bap- 
 tist hard-shells and the like illiterate droks. Other monthlies, and all our great 
 quarterlies, devoutly eschew such twaddle. It is not, however, the mere joking, 
 
 123 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 In short, by slave-preaching to Jo any good 
 
 One's faith must, like Sumner's, be sealed with his blood ; f 
 
 but the quality of the jokes we consider a fair subject for satire; and that their 
 quality is, for the most part, beneath contempt, can scarcely escape the observa- 
 tion of tliose gentlemen themselves. 
 
 Surely there is genuine wit enougli in the world, and accessible to the Harpers' 
 to make manifest the needlessness, the detriment to good taste, and offense to 
 sound scholarship, of overloading their columns, and surfeiting tlieir readers with 
 these messes of cold porridge from the drawer ; but if new wit be lacking within 
 the limits of a month, better is it far to resort at once to the conceits and frivolities 
 of those standard professional jolcers, Prentice & Co. 
 
 Strong, indeed, arc tlie inducements held out to the Harpers to continue the bad 
 practice referred to, for most of their readers, we are told, begin at the end of 
 their periodical to search for their own or their neighbor's shame, in this species 
 of lunacy ; and many, no doubt, are subscribers and patrons for the consideration 
 of seeing themselves in print. But is it not dangerous and pernicious to minister 
 to a pruriency so pitiful ? Wo, liave constantly present to our mental and, alas I 
 bodily eyes, a tribe of feeble and stupid punsters, whom we regard as by no means 
 the least of the many social evils we know of 
 
 We wish well to the Harpers, and to the noble cause in which they are engaged, 
 and to which they have done, and are still doing, distinguished service ; but we 
 pray that it may not be retarded by these pestilent small humorists, the greatest 
 drawbacks imaginable to sonnd reasoning and general progress. 
 
 Finally, if the Harpers wish to increase the general circulation of their monthly, 
 they must abstain from attacks, whether founded in ignorance or inspired by 
 malice, upon tlie first lady in Cliristendom. The day of such small things, gentle- 
 men, has passed away, and we trust forever, from the American public. 
 
 f Obscure individuals are, for the free expression of their sentiments upon sla- 
 very, treated, from time to time in the Soutlu rn States, as fanatical vagabonds ; and 
 mercilessly Ij-ncliod by the most vociferous c^hbraton of tlie Anniv nary of IncUpen- 
 dence. But it requires such illustrious victims as Cl]arles Sumner to help essen- 
 tially the cause of freedom, and to establish the trutli of the aphorism, " Sanguis 
 martyruni, semen Ecde^iif." 
 
 Such men as Cyprian, Justin, and Polycarp, did more for Christianity by their 
 confession as martyrs than thousands of inferior note, how zealous soever in the 
 cause of truth. Could a band of devoted clergymen bo now found to preach the 
 abolition of slavery in our Southern States, as Jloses and Aaron preached it in 
 
 124 . 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 At least ho must count on most cruel extremes 
 From those whose strange gods he both hates and contemns. 
 A clergyman traveling once in Virginny, 
 Most feelingly spoke of the sons of New Guinea 
 Oppressed in our midst : " Stop the stage, stop the stage !" 
 Loud shouted the passengers, bursting with rage ; 
 "Who slanders a freeman and sides with a slave, 
 Is a cursed Abolitionist, traitor, and knave." 
 When dragged from the stage to be instantly lynched. 
 And like a vile Caliban cruelly pinched. 
 One well known to fame promptly came to his aid. 
 Assuring the crowd that the man so suspected 
 
 Egypt, as the Apostles and their followers preached it throughout the world, 
 they would, doubtless, in very many instances find such preaching a short road to 
 slander, extrusion, imprisonment, and death, but would do more by it to put an 
 end to slavery than can bo done by all the books, money, and speeches expended, 
 or to be expended upon its abolition in all other sections of our Union or of Chris- 
 tendom. 
 
 As respects the alleged evils of such doctrine to the lives and fortunes of plant- 
 ers, and other white people in tlie South, we believe that the preaching of it in 
 prudence and faithfulness would tend greatly to prevent or avert those evils, which, 
 from the state of things, as now existing, must sooner or later ensue, or sudden 
 visitations, as on Egypt ; or a Federal disunion, as in Greece ; or both, perhaps, 
 with servile insurrection and massacre superadded, as in Rome and St Domingo. 
 We are now in tho South, as we must be, till slavery be abolished, sleeping on tho 
 brink of a smouldering volcano. 
 
 '.' Ignes mpposUos cineri doloso /" 
 
 " The Church must take the slave by the hand," says the Bishop of Oxford, " and, 
 owning him as one of Christ's body, must lead him into the family of man. Not 
 that she is bound to preach insurrection and rebellion. Far from it. It is qaite 
 easy to enforce upon the slave his duties under a system, the unrighteousness of 
 which is, at the same time, clearly stated. His bonds are illegal ; but it is God's 
 arm, and not his own violence, which must break them. Let the clergy of the 
 South preach submission to tho slave, if, at the same time, they declare to his 
 master that those for whom Christ died are now no longer slaves, but brethren 
 beloved; and that a system which withholds from them their Christian birtliriglit 
 
 125 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVEEY. 
 
 Was himself-a slaveowner, though one not afraid 
 
 To say what he thought, and was highly respected 
 In a neighboring State, to which State he was going, 
 To see how his slaves and his cotton were doing. 
 
 INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS OF RHYMES. 
 
 BY A FRLEND. 
 
 CAXTO V. 
 
 Sunrise. Scenes in a bar-room. In a Court-House. Judge, Lawyers, Jurorsi 
 Legislators, in tlie days of Judge Marshall and GoosequiUs. Judge Predom's 
 opening address. Deportment. The prisoner. Clerk. "Witness. Lawyer 
 Jones' speech. Lawyer Pryor's speech. Summing of the eTidcnce. Scripture 
 text. St. Paul. Remarks which lie might make if now living, and the case 
 were brought before him. A reference to G. Smith and other celebrated aboli- 
 tionists. The jury disagree. Summary vengeance by the populace. Examina- 
 tion of the judge's argument. Bledsoe's book. His profundity so much greater 
 than that of other well-known authors. Locke, Blackstonc, Montesquieu, and 
 Burke, HaU, Whewell, Paley, Wayland, Charming. Scriptural arguments, &c. 
 
 I. 
 
 While pricking thus our winged horse, 
 A friend observant of our course 
 Asked, If, by way of episode. 
 We would a narrative or ode 
 Of his insert among our lines ? 
 Preferring labor in those mines 
 
 is utterly unlawful; that it is one which the master, not the slave, is bound to set 
 himself honestly to sweep away. Above all should they, at auy cost, and by any 
 sacrifice, protest in life and by act against this grievous wrong. The greater the 
 cost, and the more painful the sacrifice, the clearer will be their testimony, and the 
 more it will avail. To tlicni it is given not ouiy lo behove in Christ, but also to 
 suffer for His sake." — Riproof of (lie Americ-m ClivrcJi, Ilarned, New York, 184G. 
 
 1:^6 
 
CHIVALEY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Wherein ourselves, as Heaven's free gift, 
 Our drossier ore compound aud sift. 
 Yet could we not with grace refuse, 
 The free-will offering of his muse ; 
 And therefore, with inverted comma, 
 Produce his change of rhythmic broma. 
 There are who relish its aroma, 
 And think it worthy a diploma, 
 Relating still to old Virginny, 
 And the dark offspring of New Guinea: — 
 
 " 'Twas early on a day in June, 
 The stars had vanished with the moon. 
 The full-orbed potent god of day. 
 Nature to clothe in bright array, 
 "Was just prepared his course to run, 
 And scale the distant horizon.* 
 Once fairly entered on his track. 
 He waltzed along the zodiac. 
 The road was dry, the weather still. 
 When he the summit of yon hill 
 Had reached : he stopped, and looking down, 
 Beheld the bustle of our town. 
 And as the tavern bar was near. 
 Just in the path of his career. 
 Or seemed so — as its figure threw 
 Its shade athwart the glittering dew — 
 However occupied elsewhere, 
 His chief attention centred there. 
 
 * Our moon's eclipsed, and the occidental sun 
 Fights with old Aries for his horizoi. 
 
 See Rxliardson's Didioiicmj. 
 127 
 
CHIVALRY AKTD SLAVERY. 
 
 He saw the table, hearth and floor, 
 With various ruins covered o'er ; 
 Boxes and dice were scattered round, 
 A pack of cards bestrewed the ground ; 
 In wild confusion lay spittoons, 
 As stamped by boot-heels of dragoons, 
 And mantling pools of salivation. 
 Proclaimed the freedom of the nation ; 
 Ejected quids and stump cigars, 
 Looked up the chimney at the stars, 
 As if rejoicing they were free, 
 i'rom lips defiled with blasphemy — 
 Prom lips that still defile their embers. 
 Tongs, hearthstones, andirons and fenders, 
 Or what there is in shape of cinders. 
 As many a traveling wight remembers. 
 Decanters, pitchers, broken glasses. 
 Had of wild orgies left grim traces ; 
 Men still were at the bar-room roaring. 
 While negi-o boys around lay snoring ; 
 When each had drivelled o'er his dew-lap, 
 His quantum stiff, of honey julep, 
 And breakfasted, so says report, 
 As 'twas agreed, they trudged to court, 
 A grave deportment all assuming, 
 While far and near the air perfuming 
 With Yankee rum and applejack. 
 Made by receipt of Almanac. 
 
 Renowned for justice, law, and freedom 
 Of manner, sat our Justice Predom. 
 The lawyers right in front appear, 
 Each with his own peculiar leer ; 
 128 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 The slierifF, somewliat in a hurry, 
 Called and impanelled a jury. 
 And in the intermediate space 
 Between the judge and populace, 
 Sheriff and jury take their place. 
 'Twas at a time when men used goosequills, 
 And on their pantaloons wore moose friUs. 
 'Twas in the time of corduroys, 
 And shocking hats, when the b'hoys 
 Did as they pleased in old Virginny, 
 And still imported slaves from Guinea ; 
 When rival limbs of legislature 
 Seemed much improved in every feature 
 Of the inward and the outward man, 
 By change of garb — a blameless plan, 
 In those who only once a year 
 Can at the State's expense appear. 
 To sport their toggery in town. 
 And on the less distinguished frown. 
 Short triumph ! sure as death and taxes. 
 The man who thus vain-glorious waxes,' 
 How high or low his pedestal, 
 Is destined soon to have a fall. 
 Political or physical. 
 
 As rays proceeding from the sun, 
 Spread warmth and life from morn till noon. 
 And from the noon to dewy eve, 
 Yet nothing lose by what they give ; 
 Even so our State's centralization, 
 Its light diffuses through the nation, 
 Maturing science, truth, and power. 
 Which, every day and every hour 
 129 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Increasing, spread, reflexive shine, 
 
 Or on the sea or in the mine, 
 
 Or in the forge, or in the shop. 
 
 On hill, or vale, or mountain-top, 
 
 On river, railroad, and canal, 
 
 Or, in one word, to sum up all. 
 
 The moral and material. 
 
 Our Congressmen, or met from Maine, 
 
 From California, or the plain 
 
 Of Utah, Oregon, or Kansas, 
 
 Or round our seaboard from Aransas, 
 
 Or higher up to Arizona, 
 
 Nevada, Laramie, Colona, 
 
 Superior, or where'er we own a- 
 
 N embryo State, or read in story 
 
 Of some groat Western territory. 
 
 Or peak, or pas?, or bluff, or digging, ' 
 
 Or inlet, dotted o'er with rigging ; 
 
 Or say some district like Dacotah — 
 
 Though late without a single vote : a 
 
 Realm of future Eomes and Catos, 
 
 Of Homers, Xenophons, and Platos, 
 
 Of Hannibals, and Alexanders, 
 
 Of Shakspeares, Terences, Menanders, 
 
 Of Newtons, Bacons, Franklins, Lockes, 
 
 Of merchant-princes, skilled in stocks ; 
 
 Of Austins, Chrysostoms, and Barrows, 
 
 Safe guides in theologic narrows ; 
 
 Of Galens, Coopers, Motts, and Larrys, 
 
 Of Humboldts, Taylors, Kanes, and Parrys, 
 
 Pugins, Palladios, and Ruskins ; 
 
 Of Liston socks, and Garrick buskins ; 
 
 Of Raphaels, Angolos, and Titians ; 
 
 Of men renowned among: Venetians, 
 
 ! 
 
 i 130 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Like Giorgio Del Castel Franco, 
 
 Impressive as the ghost of Banquo, 
 
 Of Haydens, Handels, and Mozarts, 
 
 Brunells, in engineering parts ; 
 
 And some like Morse, to whom 'tis given 
 
 To gnide the lightning drawn from heaven ; 
 
 Of Broughams, Marshalls, Sydenhams, Storys, 
 
 And Bunyan's far-famed allegories ; 
 
 Of Livys, Bancrofts, and Macaulays, 
 
 Prescotts, and Liebigs, to whom all is 
 
 Assigned the task to teach the masses, 
 
 With Miller, Cuvicr, Agassiz, 
 
 Watt, Fulton, Peel, Jackuard, and Arkwright, 
 
 McCormick, Whitney, Hargreaves, Cartvvright — 
 
 Brothers who, in far-distant homes. 
 
 Design or take from Eastern domes 
 
 The new improvements in our looms. 
 
 Our agriculture, dwellings, docks ; 
 
 Our roads, our aqueducts, and locks ; 
 
 Our fashions, habits, social rules ; 
 
 Our books, our sciences, and schools ; 
 
 Nay, oft their teachers overtake. 
 
 And mighty impulses awake, 
 
 Which as the lightning from the pole,* 
 
 Pervade the heart, the life, the soul 
 
 Of every man in every place, 
 
 Within our commonwealth's embrace. 
 
 V. 
 
 Our patent-office, as a school, 
 
 We scarce sufficiently extol. 
 
 Of scientific skill and art, » 
 
 The sou], the spirit, and the heart — 
 
 * The point or points in a magnet, in whioli the magnetic force is concentrated. 
 
 131 
 
CHIVALEY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Not hampered much in execution, 
 
 By endlessness of coUocution, 
 
 Or functional circumvolution.* 
 
 Our Barnacles must find a way 
 
 To do a thing without delay, 
 
 Or else into oblivion pack, 
 
 And never venture to come bact. 
 
 But this we find is a digression 
 
 On centro-lateral progresssion ; 
 
 The march, in triplicate alliance, 
 
 Of art, civility, and science. 
 
 Keturn we back to old Virginuy, 
 
 And slaves imported from New Guinea. 
 
 'Twas when Judge Marshall in his glory 
 Of law and wisdom sat before ye, 
 Ye men of Eichmond ! ere your hall 
 Had heard or Black or. Blanco bawl. 
 Like Allienus:f not a word 
 They uttered could bo plainly heard. 
 They sought, as others do, applause 
 By strength of lungs and strength of jaws, 
 Not from their arguments or cause. 
 Silence proclaimed, " We now begin." 
 Our judge, from nibbling at his pen. 
 Did of the silence soon avail him ; 
 But lest his memory should fail him, 
 
 * CircwmvoluUon — as good a word, perhaps better, than that used by Dickens, 
 " Circumlocution." 
 
 f Deinde ut opinor habet AUienum. In clamando quideni video oum esse bene 
 robustum et exercitatum. — Cicero ui Qidntum O-ccitiam. 
 
 132 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 His hand into his pocket slipt, 
 
 And thence brought forth a manuscript. 
 
 He stroked his chin and eke Iiis head, 
 
 And thus oracnlarly read : 
 
 " My friends, I ask what brings you hither, 
 
 Remember we are met together 
 
 To guard the Union, peace, and health. 
 
 Of this our glorious commonwealth — 
 
 The happiest, you will all agree. 
 
 That was, or is, or e'er shall be. 
 
 An act has passed our legislature. 
 
 Well suited, in its every feature, 
 
 To put down gambling, duellings, 
 
 Brawls, abolition, pugil rings ; 
 
 But more than all, said Abolition, 
 
 Which means disruption and sedition. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Hear it, ye Buckeyes ! Old-School Quakers ! 
 
 Ye Hoosiers, Wolverines, and Shakers, 
 
 If living still among appeachers — 
 
 Hear it, he would have said, ye Beechers ! 
 
 Ye missionary rifle preachers ; 
 
 Hear it ye squatters now in Kansas, 
 
 From Pasmaquoddy to Aransas; 
 
 Hear Chase and Sumner, Seward and Greeley, 
 
 And thou most philosophic Silli- 
 
 Man, who with Lane, and Brown, and Reeder, 
 
 Would' st be regarded a ringleader 
 
 Of those unwilling to extend 
 
 Slave chattels to our country's end. 
 
 Let hear that arch-fanatic Cheever, 
 
 Who thirsts as in a raging fever. 
 
CHI7ALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Till in his sermon or liis prayer, 
 
 He thrills the organs of the fair, 
 
 And vents nnmitigated wrath 
 
 On every Southern planter's path ; 
 
 With fitting- words nt his command, 
 
 To paint this curse upon our land, 
 
 And him, that foe to slavery. 
 
 Whose nom de plume is S. H. T. — 
 
 Strange ! that a man so prone to ire. 
 
 Should glow with vehement desire, 
 
 As fame reports, to spread the trutli 
 
 From cast to west, from north to south, 
 
 Where'er the ministers of grace 
 
 Can preach salvation to our race, 
 
 'Till the whole earth with piety 
 
 Be filled, as waters fill the sea ; 
 
 lUit when the law of Christian love 
 
 Can make a tiger as a dove. 
 
 Then well may tinkling cymbals sound 
 
 Like heavenly strains, o'er hallowed ground. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Hear abolition-raving Smith, 
 
 Of this conspiracy the pith. 
 
 The nerve, the sinew, and the bone. 
 
 Thy money-offerings alone 
 
 Have in. our strongholds made more breaches, 
 
 Than all their orators and speeches, 
 
 Not even excepting God-send Parker,* 
 
 Or Garrison, liis brother barker. 
 
 Or Thompson's fascinating tongue,f 
 
 * Theodore. 
 
 •j- Georgo Thompson, of London, or the Rev. J. P. Thompson, New York. 
 
 134 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Or subtle Campbell's ding-a-dong, 
 
 Jay, Giddhigs, Tappan, Wilson, all, 
 
 In Sumner centered, or in Hall. 
 
 When pyramids resolve to dust, 
 
 The fame of Smith, by moth or rust 
 
 Untouched, shall flourish more and more, 
 
 And still to loftier regions soar. 
 
 Its immortality to find 
 
 Among the best of human kind ; 
 
 Thinks Rubek, mauger errors known. 
 
 To fly as clouds before the sun— 
 
 The Sun of Righteousness, whose light 
 
 Dispels the shades of moral night 
 
 From all like him who live and die 
 
 In doing works of charity. 
 
 And so think all men at the North, 
 
 Who know his purity and worth. 
 
 Hear all convicted bands of floutlaws, 
 
 Rebels, and rioters, and outlaws. 
 
 Men armed against our constitution, 
 
 And ripe for any revolution. 
 
 Such G — d d — d freedom shrieking fellows 
 
 Should hang as high as Ilaman's gallows. 
 
 IX. 
 
 So lately swung their Saint, John Brown, 
 
 Who hoped to win a martyr's crown 
 
 By preaching liberty like Moses, 
 
 The wretch ! — and so our law disposes 
 
 Of all those miscreants who try 
 
 To rob us of our property. 
 
 So now would fare the famons Helper, 
 
 135 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Or any abolition jx'lper 
 Who dares to sermonise or write 
 Our happy bond-slaves to incite 
 To that most fonl of all disasters, 
 Revolt against their virtuous masters. 
 Were Helper here, no judge or jury 
 Could save him from our people's fury ; 
 His book and he would, both together. 
 Perfume the air in tar and feather. 
 Inaugurating — not delivery 
 From bonds, but something wnrsc than slavery- 
 New laws to fetter free opinion 
 Within the bounds of our dominion ; 
 To hang up every mother's son 
 Who tells a slave his life's his own. 
 Or any thing thereto belonging 
 That's worth or having or prolonging ; 
 Talk of the wisdom of past ages, 
 Our Wise excels all former sages. 
 As doth the sun a pitch pine tnreh, 
 Or starry heavens a lighted porch ; 
 As gas what many men call courage. 
 Or smoking flummery cold porridge ! 
 Sir, those who say a Child can beat him 
 In writing letters, underrate Jtim ! 
 
 X. 
 
 Nor can wo praise withhold from Polk, 
 Keitt, Chestnut, Cobb, and other folk, 
 Who preach sedition and secession. 
 In virtue of the foul aggression 
 On slaveiy by Northern States, 
 
 136 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Whose laws admit of free debates 
 Upon our slavery constitution : 
 In short, our every institution, 
 Instead of hanging up as traitors. 
 That miscreant crew of agitators. 
 Who rant such billingsgate and nonsense, 
 On rights and liberty of conscience." 
 Thus would the judge have sung or said, 
 To those who now for negroes plead, 
 But fame, we think, reports him dead. 
 All this s\\j>i)Osed, par parent hcse, 
 We to his Honor's speech retrace 
 Our steps, to give the peroration 
 Of his immortal objurgation : 
 " The law explicitly decrees 
 To punish these iniquities ; 
 Now if these things by any chance 
 Should come within your cognizance. 
 As I well know you're men of wit, 
 You'll act as you yourselves think fit 1 
 
 DEPORTMENT. 
 
 Thus having said, he placed on chair 
 
 His coat — his feet he poised in air ; 
 
 Then spat, and looked august complaisance, 
 
 As who should say, " Revere my presence." 
 
 Now from the prison to the hall 
 
 Of Justice came a criminal. 
 
 Who, having ta'en his proper stand. 
 
 Was ordered to hold up his hand : 
 
 " You air,^^ exclaimed the clerk, " indicted, 
 
 137 
 
CHIVALRY AlTD SLAVERY. 
 
 And air before this body cited, 
 
 To answer in a serious cause, 
 
 A breach upon oar buckskin laws. 
 
 You cursed and swore most solemnly 
 
 That every nigger should go free. 
 
 The reason's obvious, and well known, 
 
 'Cause you ha'nt any of your own ; 
 
 For if you had, I know full well, 
 
 You'd sooner see them all in hell. 
 
 'Tis almost grog-time, so I praj', 
 
 Ila'nt yon got nothing for to say ?" 
 
 Enters the witness next : a mope. 
 
 For shortness known as C. N. Pope, 
 
 He kissed the book, and said " I tell yer, 
 
 This scoundrel Smith, this same here feller, 
 
 Did curse, and swear, and blast, and sink 
 
 Himself, if he an easy wink 
 
 Would sleep, till black and white should be 
 
 Both blessed alike with liberty. 
 
 I give you now this evidence. 
 
 Appealing to your better sense." 
 
 XI. 
 
 Up rose a bag of learned bone?, 
 
 A good blnnt man, yclept Squire Jones ! 
 
 Ho wiped his mouth with sleeve of coat, 
 
 And hem'd, and coughed, and cleared his throat. 
 
 " My fellow citizens all round," 
 
 He cried : " I am in duty bound. 
 
 As no one else will take my place. 
 
 To say a word in this here case. 
 
 This man said all were equally 
 
 Children of Heaven and liberty. 
 
 138 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 xVow, though you his opinion censure, 
 I to repeat the same adventure. 
 Should wo, who words of liberty 
 Ti'umpet abroad by land and sea. 
 At home against the thing exclaim ? 
 Americans, oh fie ! for shame !" 
 He said no more, but sat him down, 
 And left them all to stare and frown. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Silence being ordered by the crier. 
 Starts up in wrath one M-r-s-U I'r-y-r ; 
 He placed his hands upon his hips, 
 And twitched his nose, and bit his lips. 
 And quickly curved his middle digit. 
 To scoop a large tobacco pledgitt 
 From out the hollow of his cheet. 
 Then hera'd, and thus essayed to speak: 
 " May I with bowie knives be gnarled — 
 Although I hate the barbarous things. 
 As serpent bites, or scorpion stings. 
 Or Beimel squibs, or Potter plugs. 
 Or Lander Pills, ' atrocious ' drugs 1 — 
 
 And into for ever hailed. 
 
 If this here business ain't too bad ! 
 By George ! 'twill make our niggers mad. 
 I ask your pardon, sir, for swearing. 
 Your Honor knows 'tis hard forbearing. 
 What ! let the niggers all go free ; 
 
 I'll be G— d d d if that shall be ! 
 
 Think you what would become of me. 
 
 Of you, and every man around ? 
 
 Pray, in God's name, who'd till the ground ? 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Though I ha'nt got a single aero, 
 
 Yet, by the blessing of my Maker, 
 
 You know right well my sole dependence 
 
 Is on ray fellows' strict attendance ; 
 
 Or those who hire them. With mosquitoes 
 
 And gnats all ready for to eat us, 
 
 'Twould be a cause of endless strife 
 
 Not to have one to fan my wife. 
 
 So help me ! I'd as soon be hung 
 
 As raise the clatter of her tongue ; 
 
 Though she, in point o{ pedigree, 
 
 Rauks first of all who claim to be 
 
 F. F.'s in old Virginia; 
 
 Lineally come, by marriage laws. 
 
 From Pocahontas, Queen of Squaws ! " 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Thus he: the crowd with exultation, 
 And the ]nost vehement laudation, 
 Express t'l him their gratulation. 
 The Judge, with wonted eloquence, 
 Next sums up all the evidence — 
 Repeats the statutes of Virginia 
 Relating to the sons of Guinea; 
 Then, with well practised knavery. 
 Quotes scripture ie\t pro-slavery. 
 "We need but glance at, once for all," 
 Quoth he, " an argument from Paul : 
 Was not Oncs'imns a slave? 
 And did not the apostle crave 
 His friend Philemon to receive 
 That base deserter, and forgive 
 The wrong he did: his debts' amount 
 
 140 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVKRY. 
 
 Set clown in full to Paul's account." 
 This said, the Judge most plainly shows 
 That Christianity allows 
 Of having slaves, and sending back 
 A fugitive upon his track. 
 The plot now thickens, and we come 
 To scenes within the jury-room ; 
 Some vote to set the prisoner free, 
 And some to hang him on a tree ; 
 Our populace, who seldom falter, 
 Enter the prison with a halter. 
 Tlipy tie his hands, they shave his head — 
 Shave all his whiskers and his beard — 
 (A thing, perhaps, before unheard) ; 
 They scourge him till he seems half dead. 
 They strip him to the skin and bone. 
 Put tar and feathers thickly on ; 
 The fondest mother scarce would own 
 In such a coat a darling son. 
 Like Plato's cock, he looked so queer, 
 They said he'd make a bishop leer. 
 They send him forth with shouts of laughter, 
 . And pious hopes that he, thereafter. 
 May mend his manners, nor be free 
 To prate of human liberty. 
 At least without regard to color. 
 Or view to the almighty dollar. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Hail Bledsoe ! great in mathematics, 
 Nor less renowned in moral statics ; 
 141 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 You prove, in this your wondrous work, 
 
 Montesquieu, Blackstone, Locke, and Burke, 
 
 On human rights, a squad of boobies, 
 
 And equaled only by those loobies. 
 
 Hall, Whewell, Paley, Parker, Channing, 
 
 And other abolition planning 
 
 Quacks who, with Sumner at their head. 
 
 And by fanatic notions led, 
 
 Would arm the North against the South, 
 
 And peril liberty and truth. 
 
 Though deemed as men of erudition. 
 
 They cannot give a definition 
 
 Of liberty or human right. 
 
 They err, like all who shun the light. 
 
 Those, and those only, you allege, 
 
 Can know those rights who would abridge 
 
 All right to freedmen but their own, 
 
 To furious despotism grown. 
 
 In short, those only who have slaves 
 
 Can mark the bounds of freedom's waves. 
 
 Th}' fallacies of abolition 
 
 Are matchless, sir ; a recognition 
 
 Of that indomitable force 
 
 Which signalizes freedom's course. 
 
 They prove thee less a subtle critic, 
 
 Profoundly skilled in analytic. 
 
 Than a poor partisan, whoso spite 
 
 Is imaged by a midge's bite. 
 
 XV. 
 
 " Masters claim not to own the soul. 
 They only exercise control 
 142 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Upon the persons of their slaves," 
 
 Thou sayest ! Sir ! who the person rules 
 
 AVith sovereign swiiy, so say the schools, 
 
 Has soul and body for his tools. 
 
 We've heard thy arguments from knaves, 
 
 Wlio, with the body in possession, 
 
 Made it a point of free confession 
 
 When serious, that to force the will 
 
 To the commission of such ill 
 
 As they desire, they cannot fail 
 
 By power and license to prevail. 
 
 Slave owners, self-styled men high toned, 
 
 Arc not for self control renowned. 
 
 Brooks is an instance, to our mind, 
 
 As good as any wc can find. 
 
 Let who our postulate pretends 
 
 To doubt, look round on Southern friends. 
 
 Such is the truth, and such must be 
 
 One bitter fruit of slavery. 
 
 From Exod. it indeed appears,* 
 
 That slaves had holes in both their ears ; 
 
 At least in one, if not in both. 
 
 Which ear, however, 'tis in truth 
 
 Not very easy to decide, 
 
 Nor of importance — specified. 
 
 But say that Abraham orf Moses 
 
 Had slaves whose ear-holes and their noses 
 
 Were large of caliber as hawses, 
 
 * Exodns xxi. 6. Deut. xv. \1. 
 
 f " It might be inferred from the confidence and evident delight \mih which the 
 example of Abraham is urged in vindication of ' our domestic institution,' that 
 the father of the fnithful was also the father of all who traffic in human flesh. If 
 he was, indeed, a slaveholder, he was very far from being the type of a Southern ^ 
 planter. "While childless, he designated one of hia slaves as his future heir. He 
 was afterwards prevented only by Divine appointment from making the son of the 
 
 143 
 
CniVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 For 'tis a savage heritage, 
 
 The riglit to bore that cartihigc, 
 
 And elce witli rings and pkiincs liodiglit, 
 
 All negroes are secundum Keilt 
 
 But savages, as in despite 
 
 Of workshops, parloi'S, gardens, fields, 
 
 And all that civic freedom yields. 
 
 And grant, besides their women slaves, 
 
 To Jews, plnrality of wives, 
 
 bondwoman heir with the son by promise, and was oon.?oled by tlie assurance that 
 the former should become the father of princes, and the founder of a great nation. 
 He, moreover, intrusted to one of his slaves the election of a wife for his favorite 
 son. 
 
 " The three hundred and eighteen servants born in his house, the Bishop of Texas 
 asserts, wei'O slaves. Still they were men whom he armed and led to battle. 
 They, with their parents, brothers, sisters, wives, and children, must have formed 
 a gang of about two thousand in number. Yet we find the master of this multi- 
 tude of slaves leaving his guests to catch a calf, to provide dinner for them, while 
 the mistress of the goodly household occupied herself in kneading and baking cakes 
 for her company. A pro-slavery theory alone can blind one to the evidence afforded 
 by these facts, that Abraham was the chief of a clan or tribe, and that the ex- 
 pression 'born in his own house' only indicates that the throe hundred and 
 eighteen were not strangers whom he employed on the occasion, but members of 
 the community acknowledging him as its \ia-AA.."—Jntrodudiun by an American 
 clerijyrnan to a reproof of the American Church by the Bishop of Oxford. 
 
 That this servitude (that among the Hebrews) was not founded on the idea of 
 property, appears from the prohibition, " Thou shalt not deliver unto his master 
 the servant which is escaped from his master to thee." — Deut. xxiii. 15. 
 
 This law, whether the fugitive were a Jew or heathen, is utterly irreconcilable 
 I with common honesty — supposing the servant to have been a mere chattel — and 
 I certainly belonged to a very different code of morals from that which enjoins, "If 
 thou meet thy enemy's ox or his ass going astray, thon shalt surely bring it back 
 again to him." — -Ibii-Lj 26. 
 
 Is slavery or servitude among the Hebrews (supposing, for argument's sake, not 
 admitting, the worst view of the c fB) more designed as an example or a precept 
 to Christians, by the Divine author of their religion, than the command given to 
 the people of God to destroy the »ien, women, and children of Canaan ? This 
 example, Jlr. Bledsoe ami his fiicnds will not, it is to be hoped, without a now 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Who thence would slavery now defend, 
 If they to reason would pretend. 
 As Turks or Mormons must, per force, 
 Polygamy, the fertile source 
 Of countless ills, defend, approve; 
 Or else as Christians 'twill behove 
 Them all such customs to reject, 
 As now unworthy of respect ; 
 
 and clear and special revelation, advise lis to follow in our wars witli the Indians. 
 Yet he seems to think the old revelation quite sufficient in the matter of negro 
 slavery. Why it should be so in one case, but not in the other, is, we confess, 
 entirely beyond our comprehension, except upon the new-light theory of the La 
 Grange Convention men, that negro slavery is the greatest missionary enterprise 
 the world ever saw. 
 
 Verily, Messrs. Keitt, Gragorty, Womack & Co., ye are bright and shining lumi- 
 naries upon those dark places of the cartli which are full of the habitations of 
 cruelty. You have in your gospel a newer still than the new commandmenc, that 
 ye love one another ; namel}-, that ye reduce to bondage the whole negro popula- 
 tion of Africa: a. command which has escaped the sagacity of all the conclaves, 
 synods, and councils of the Clmstian Church, in all countries, in all ages of its 
 existence. 
 
 Ye doctors, confessors, teachers, preachers, and evangelists of the elder dispen- 
 sation! glorious company of apostles 1 goodly fellowship of prophets I noble army 
 of martyrs I hide your diminished heads at the approach of those far greater lumi- 
 naries, the greatest missionaries the world ever saw of the now and divine dispen- 
 sation. 
 
 Go on, gentlemen ! A few more conventions like those of Charleston, Savannah, 
 and La Grange ; a few more prormnr.iamentos, like that of a late Governor of 
 South Carolina ; a few more Louisville and Baltimore massacres ; a few more 
 filibustering expeditions ; a little more overwrought zeal and rampant patriotism 
 of the wise men of Virginia, will do more to run the thing of slavery into the 
 ground than all the great efforts of all the great leaders of abolition in Congress. 
 
 There are, fortunately, in the Slave States thousands of planters and others, as 
 much opposed as any Abolitionist can be to the views of Governor Alston, of 
 South Carolina, and his convention friends, Womack & Co., upon the revival of the 
 African slave trade ; thousands who do not, cannot think the preceding language 
 too severe against men entertaining such preposterous, such abominable notions. 
 J 145 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Conflicting with their constitntions, 
 
 Their laws, and otlier institutions; 
 
 Their manners, -liabits, rites, and creeds ; 
 
 Their peace, tlieir interests, and needs. 
 
 Those things were for a time allowed, 
 
 While yet the chosen tribes were rude ; 
 
 For circumstances alter cases 
 
 In individuals as in masses. 
 
 Now that the Gospel's glorious light 
 
 Has scattered ignorance and night, 
 
 The hardness of the heart of man 
 
 A cause suiBcient never can 
 
 Bo deemed, or for polygamy. 
 
 Divorce, or human slavery. 
 
 But rude as men were under Moses, 
 
 His slave laws this great truth discloses, 
 
 That slaves were then much better used, 
 
 And much less beaten, worked, and bruised, 
 
 Than they are now, as may be shown 
 
 By veiy brief comparison 
 
 Of every Slave State statute-book. 
 
 And those found in the Pentateuch. 
 
 What master sets his bond slave free 
 
 If he smites out his tooth or eye ? * 
 
 Who advocates a jubilee. 
 
 Which would to all bring liberty ? 
 
 A female slave, as wife or daughter, 
 
 Was not to fetch or wood or water, 
 
 Like Helots ; or go out as men. 
 
 Her food, her raiment, and her pin 
 
 * If a man smite the eye of Uis servant or the eye of his maid, tliat it perish, 
 he shall let him go free for his eye's sake. And if he smite out his man servant's 
 tooth, or his maid servant's tooth, he shall lot him go free for his tooth's sake. 
 — Exodus xxi. 2Gj 27. 
 
 140 
 
CHIVALRT AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Allowance paid ; or, ftiiling these* 
 Conditions, she all penalties 
 Of bondage might thereafter 'scape, 
 And, as she pleased, work, wed, or trape 
 Some model Jefferson, good Blcdsou,f 
 No doubt might treat a favorite slave so : 
 
 * And if a man sell his daughter to be a maid servant she shall not go out as the 
 men servants do. If she please not her master who hath betrothed her to him- 
 himself, then shall be let her be redeemed. 
 
 And if he hath betrothed her to his sou, he shall deal with her after the manner 
 of daughters. If he take him another wife, her food, her raiment, and her duty 
 of marriage, shall not diminish. .\nd if he do not these three things unto her, then 
 shall she go out free without money. — Exodus ixl, 7-11. 
 
 f This gentleman, in his most pretentious treatise on pro-slavery dialectics, lauds 
 and magnifies himself in imaginary victories over Locke, Paley, Chauning, Mon- 
 tesquieu, Macaulay, and others. Tet there is not in the whole of his humdrum 
 argumentation a single paragraph that is novel, interesting, instructive, or amusing. 
 His arguments, so called, against those eminent writers, are alike disingenuous 
 and flimsy. All that need bo said of him and others of the same school is, that 
 they get their living, or have been bora in Slave State." ; that they are like that 
 man of Ephesus, so wise in liis generation, who, perceiving that his craft was in 
 danger by the introduction of Christianity, became tenfold more vehement than 
 ever in his zeal for the honor and worship of his goddess. Those gentlemen, to 
 say the least, and secluding the worst possible cause, act in one particular with 
 singular indiscretion, provoking a controversy with writers, who are botli in 
 number and talents immeasurably their superiors. 
 
 Some of them, it is true, write books and sell them. If they succeed in that 
 
 censorship of the press to which they are now invited, with a bishop at their 
 
 head, viz., by preparing such a series of books in every department of study, from 
 
 the earliest primer to the liighest grade of literature and science (no query as to 
 
 their competency), as shall seem to them best quahfied (sic) to elevate and purify 
 
 the education of the South ! and, thereby, of course, to perpetuate slavery, they 
 
 will have attained the acme of all their worldly ambition ; and, as we have already 
 
 proved, or hope more abundantly to prove, in these simple rhymes, have added, 
 
 (can thpy think so ?) to their faith, virtue ; and to virtue, knowledge ; and to 
 
 knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience ; and to patience, godhness; 
 
 and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, charity — that 
 
 charity which prompts us to do unto others as we would that they should do 
 
 unto us. 
 
 147 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Olio who, no antitype of Boxes, 
 All women equal presupposes. 
 
 If science, as well as literature and religion, become abolitionist, as no doubt 
 she will (nay, ever has been), we well may commiseratD their attempts to reform 
 her. AVe had, in our ignorance, imagined that even a proscription of obscene 
 books was already impossible. But what can be impossible with men who, in 
 these days of raikoads and steamboats, can suppress the circulation of many of 
 the very best in our language I Pride's purge, gentlemen I was a strong purge, 
 but weak in comparison with the purge of your folly. Some of you, clergymen 
 and lawyers, have been considered so liber_l, on diversity of opinion, in religion 
 and politics, that you were supposed to be the bitterest enemies of the 
 Indcj- Expurgaiorius of Rome 1 But, is there, or is there not to be an Index 
 Uxpunjalorius' oC Charleston, Savannah, or New Orleans ? Alasl gentlemen, must 
 the works of Hall, Cowpor, W'lUberforce, and Channing, be cast to the moles and 
 to the bats, and the illustrated obscenities of cards, novels, and model statuary, 
 bo tiie order of the day? The time was, when you all freely admitted that 
 slavery is an evil — a great evil, a deadly evil — which you lamented, but could not 
 at present get rid of, yet hoped to see ullimately removed; you have lately 
 changed ground and regard it as a blessing ; yea, even as a divine institution — 
 " tlie greatest of all missionary enterprises I" 
 
 Vhich of these views shall we adopt — the present view or the past? 
 
 But slavery and slaveowners must be let alone I Indeed! But was it so from 
 the beginning ? Did Moses let Pharaoh alone and the other breeders, speculators, 
 taskmasters, and oppressors of Hebrew bondmen in Egypt? Did Christ let the 
 Pharisees alone; or the Apostles acquiesce in the corruptions of Paganism? Did 
 Lutlier let alone Indulgences, or the preacliers and abettors of the doctrine of 
 Indulgences ? The fact is, there can be no compromise between truth and error, 
 light and darkness, Christ and Belial I The conflict is irrepressible. 
 
 We, you assert, have no mission in this matter. Every one has a mission, in 
 a good sense, to impart, according to his measure, the light that is in him. You, 
 gentlemen, in common with ourselves, have lately had, still have, some share in u 
 mission against those pests to society, the Mormons; not reflecting, possibly, that 
 Morraonism and Slavery agree in one; that there is, in fact, as there must be, in 
 Slave States, as much Mormonism in certain relations of life, as ever existed in 
 Turkey or Utah. 
 
 Our slaveholders of the South, many of them prime movers, nay, constituting 
 v/itli their abettors and tools the aggregate of the pious fraternity of filibusters, 
 claim a mission peculiar, extraordinary, and divine — a mission of which Walker 
 is, or was, the head — a mission of manifest destiny, i. e., manifest cupidity, against 
 
 i4S 
 
nillVALRY AND SLATEET. 
 
 CANTO VI. 
 
 Planters, overseers, and traflickers in human flesh, commonly called negro- 
 traders, or speculators, compared, contrasted, &c. Two recent murders, selected 
 from thousands, show how this home-trafflc works. First case, that of Sambo, 
 a slave. Second, that of Prince, respectively described. Overseers turned 
 planters. Their brutality and cruelty, generally speaking. A benevolent 
 planter. Dialogue between Messrs. Jones and Smith, in reference to Brown's 
 crop of sugar. Robinson, Jones' overseer. His sj'stem of labor. Losses. 
 Murder of Eobinson. Unprofitableness of excessive labor, and severity. Squire 
 Jones' wise resolution. 
 
 I. 
 
 AVhile somfi among our Southern planters 
 Intolerati are as covenanters, 
 And low and boisterous as ranters, 
 
 tlieir fellow-republicans of Central America: not for tho extension of the princi- 
 ples of free government, which those people already possess, or do not desire at 
 such hands, but avowedly for the preservation of the balance of power by the 
 Southern States of this Union, and the establishment, diffusion, and perpetuity cf 
 slavery. They have also a mission of manifest destiuy against the island and gov- 
 ernment of Cuba, and all its institutions and laws. It embraces even the wholo 
 Continent of America, and all the islands of the Ocean ; nay, more, it is the one 
 great mission superseding all others, the mission of slavery : whose apostles — the 
 apostles of slavery — are commissioned to go into the whole world and preach their 
 gospel to every creature. 
 
 Verily, it comes with a bad grace from the slaveholders of the South, to twit I 
 their fellow-citizens with impertinent intermeddling in slavery ; as if the institu- 
 tions of a common country were none of their business ; while they, themselves 
 (the slaveholders), are perpetually meddling with a foreign sovereign people of 
 another race, with v/hom their country is at peace, and who are far beyond tlie 
 sphere of their legitimate intervention. 
 
 But slavery is one of our institutions. Admitted. Institutions, evil in their 
 very nature, ought, like other evils, be abolished by those who have a right, whoso 
 'duty it is to abolish them. Paganism, Buddhism, Mahometanism, are, wiJi tiieir 
 multifonn abominations, all institutions. Monarchy was once in these Uuited 
 States an institution, universally recognized. Auguries, Luperoalia, Flaraiues, 
 Corybantcs, Epulones, amphitheatres, idols, sacrificial rites and ceremonies, 
 
 149 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Others, as numerous there be, 
 
 True models of civiUty. 
 
 Between the good and very bad. 
 
 In short, is every hue and shade ; 
 
 The speculator, or overseer. 
 
 Part fox, part ti£>;er, and part bear, 
 
 Part hog, part monkey, and part wolf, is 
 
 A wide, impenetrable gulf, is 
 
 Betwixt the one class and the other. 
 
 The planter, never as a brother, 
 
 A friend, an equal,. or a neighbor. 
 
 But as a needful tool of labor. 
 
 Views the o'ersoer or speculator,* 
 
 were, together with that very hydra, slavery — against which we are contending — 
 all institutions of Rome, 
 
 Those who are not completely Gibbonized — under the influence, that is, of the 
 anti-Christian anodynes of that prince of scoffers, the author of " The Decline 
 and Pall of the Roman Empire" — will admit the wrath, riot, and confusion, which 
 took place throughout the Roman world, when those institutions, associated 
 and interwoven with the inmost frame and constitution of their civil polity, their 
 statutes, ordinances, and regulations — the education, the prejudices, the supersti- 
 tions, the habits, manners, and customs — ^the passions, enjoyments, and interests 
 of priests and people — gave way, before the preaching of the Gospel, like a mist 
 before the rays of a trojiical sun; or, as in the vision of tlie King of Babylon, the 
 images of clay, iron. Ijras';, ami gold, crtmiblcd and were hroiien into pieces by 
 that stone cut out without hands, which became s, great mountain, and iiUed the 
 whole earth. 
 
 Slavery, gentlemen, cannot stand, and you know it ; and, to use the words of a 
 great political reformer, we know that you know it, and you know that we know 
 that you know it. Hence it is you are so nervous, irritable, and zealous, at our 
 naming it. Hence it is you so often say, "Tails to us no more on this subject;'' 
 but, W6 will tails, nevertheless, gentlemen, though our testimony, like that of the 
 noble Sumner, should bo sealed with oiu- blood. 
 
 * It is unnecessary, on this side the Atlantic, to sliow the general estimation in 
 which slave-traders are held. One or two authorities may suffice to convince us 
 in what light tliey arc- regarded by tliiuking men in Europe : — 
 
 "When we come down to Christianity," said the Bishop of St. David's, in the 
 
 150 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 As sui generis, a creature, 
 
 Through whom he tries, tho' oft in vain, 
 
 Wealtli, power, and station to obtain. 
 
 But negro-traders and o'erseers. 
 
 Are most harmonious compeers 
 
 In U7iity-duality, 
 
 In both, compound equality, 
 
 In all things, base rascality. 
 
 Brutal, unprincipled, ferocious, 
 
 They stop at nothing, how atrocious 
 
 Soever it may chance to be ; 
 
 However stained with cruelt}'. 
 
 If it puts money in their pocket. 
 
 No matter if it shame the docket 
 
 In infamy, provided proof 
 
 Be wanting, to keep fear aloof 
 
 Of law or punishment, or both ; 
 
 For law receives no negro's oath 
 
 Against a white man, if his will 
 
 Should be a dozen slaves to kill. 
 
 Supposing that no white man saw 
 
 The deed committed — such the law — 
 
 Tho murderer would be acquitted. 
 
 And all the jionalty remitted. 
 
 One near us whispere the sugg'estion 
 
 Of a remission out of question : 
 
 House of Lords (1806), " v/e find that dealers in slaves are held among the worst 
 
 of the human race." St. Paul, in his Epistle to Timothy, tells what the dealers in 
 
 slaves are, and who are their companions. The slave-dealers are called stealers 
 
 of men and their companions arc liars, perjurers, murderers, and parricides. 
 
 Bishop Horsely (1190), after proving- that the mcn-stealors, classed in the Bible 
 
 with murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, were in fact, according to 
 
 the true meaning of the Greek word, slave-traders, adds, "We have reason to 
 
 conclude from tho mention of .'jlave-tradors by St. Paul, that if any of them should 
 
 find their way to heaven, they must go thither in company with murderers and 
 
 parricides." 
 
 151 
 
CHirALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Wliou charges arc not entertaiiiej, 
 'Tis as if nobody coniplaiiieJ. 
 
 I "■ 
 
 J Two I'oeoiit murders, in our view, 
 
 I rro\'c what we say, alas ! too true — 
 
 Murders by blood negotiators, 
 
 I In courtesy called spcoalators — 
 
 ! Slaves might well name them separators, 
 
 i Because it seems their sclieme of life, 
 
 Parents and children, man and wife, 
 
 To part, and break, in human ties, 
 
 Consanguineal sympathies. 
 
 Wa knew those fellows but too well ; 
 
 The one named Cobb, the other Crcol. 
 
 The varlets purchased two men's lives ; 
 
 Those men, like other men, had wivc-^, 
 
 And children too; and both objected 
 
 To go to Tc\:\% They rcliected 
 
 That they might just as well be dead 
 
 As by such vanipircs captive led, 
 
 And into cruel bondage sold, 
 
 Where they could ne'er again behold 
 
 Wives, children, parents, homes, or friends 
 
 Where hope in desolation ends. 
 
 Sambo in irons was secured, 
 
 His safe delivery insured ; 
 
 But from his cruel owners broke 
 
 So soon as he could slip his yoke. 
 
 lie then his footsteps 'gan retrace. 
 
 To sec his wife's abiding place. 
 
 The sum of just two hundred dollars, 
 
 Without account of caste or colors, 
 
 To captors, as a meet reward. 
 
 Was offered in poor Sam's regard — 
 
 152 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVKRY. 
 
 Alive or dead. An Indian who 
 
 Poor Sam's retreat was wont to know, 
 
 To save the trouble of departure 
 
 From liome, made sure bis victim's capture 
 
 By simply blowing out bis brains, 
 
 And sending for the proffered gains. 
 
 We saw poor Sara ! lie lived three days 
 
 In stupor or in wild amaze ; 
 
 His brains bedropping down bis face, 
 
 Blinded his eyes. He could not see, 
 
 Nor hear, nor taste, apparently ; 
 
 Nor did he speak, or once complain 
 
 Of all his soiTow or his pain. 
 
 But looked unutterable woes 
 
 On all around, or friends or foes. 
 
 We learn that Prince has just expired ; 
 Of hfe and lingering torments tired. 
 Since first the rifle's fatal track, 
 Some three days since, had ploughed his back, 
 He lived in agony ; yet glad 
 To think his death, however sad. 
 Would rid him of a life of pain 
 And wretchedness, for others' gain. 
 His only crime was that be ran, 
 Or so attempted, from a man 
 Whom to behold is but to hate 
 Worse than a rattlesnake or rat. 
 A most perfidious sort of villain ; 
 A thief, a swindler, a rampallian. 
 Now wives and children sore lament. 
 These murders rash and truculent. 
 153 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Yet as poor negroes are but chattels, 
 Who talks of punishment but twattles ; 
 There never would be wanting elves 
 To swear that they had killed themselves ; 
 Perhaps were killed in self defence, 
 Secluding malice called prepense, 
 By men whose lives they had attainted, 
 And would have slain, if not prevented. 
 
 From Prince, the latest {nformation 
 States that his constant supplication 
 Was of his days a prolongation, 
 Till he could better be prepared. 
 In faith, to hope for the reward 
 Which he, perhaps, too slightly prized, 
 Or had to passion sacrificed. 
 That he most bitterly complained 
 Of his foul murderer, and arraigned 
 Him constantly before the bar 
 Where murdered and the murderer 
 Must both on trial soon appear ; 
 That he lamented the estate 
 Of all like him, whoso hapless fate 
 Is thus interminably hung 
 Or from the arm or from the tongue 
 Of ruthless and capricious tyrants, 
 ^^'ithout or law's or reason's warrants ; 
 That he had nothing left in life, 
 Except his children and his wife. 
 From which he parted with regret : 
 lie left for them an amulet. 
 By which who wore it was secure. 
 In way of antidote or cun», 
 154 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Against the bite of rattlesnakes. 
 
 Alas ! poor Prince ! it sometbing takes 
 
 More potent than thy simple charm 
 
 To keep thy family from harm ; 
 
 Those worse than serpents to disarm, 
 
 Who thus have cruelly decreed 
 
 Thy doom, and may cause them to bleed, 
 
 If anger should the love of treasure 
 
 In savage hearts like theirs outmeasurc. 
 
 Adieu ! poor Prince ! thy foes forgive, 
 
 The Saviour died that thou might'st live. 
 
 VI. 
 
 When overseers are turned planters. 
 And fond of bottles and decanters, 
 Then more than commouly irate, 
 It is impossible to state 
 The aggregate of crime and wrong 
 They perpetrate their slaves among. 
 They cannot rise to the same station 
 Of dignity and elevation 
 Which men, perhaps, of wealth inferici-, 
 But of acquirements far superior, 
 Attain ; as must be in those States 
 Where worth, not wealth, respect awaits. 
 Low and unprincipled, and base. 
 They cannot reach the lowest place 
 Where only gentlemen are met. 
 On public matters to debate ; 
 Or in those social circles sit, 
 For which they feel they are unfit. 
 But then at home, where none dispute 
 Their power, they show the human brute. 
 See such a man, a slave his victim. 
 No law or jury to convict him, 
 155 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 You cannot, in his wrath, depict him. 
 One may, of course, exceptions trace, 
 In tliis, as almost every case. 
 One sometimes finds an overseer, 
 To wliom our censures can't refer, 
 But speculators, every one, 
 Come under our proscription ban. 
 
 Planters who are of high repute, 
 
 Humane, benevolent, and kind. 
 
 Courteous, upright, and honorable, 
 
 Truthful, reliable, and stable, 
 
 Think, being such, they can refute 
 
 All anti-slavery men, and find 
 
 In their own hearts, an answer suited 
 
 To all the questions over mooted — 
 
 To prove that slavery far worse is 
 
 Than all the other deadly curses, 
 
 Since Cain first saw his hands imbrued 
 
 With the red tide of Abel's blood. 
 
 Those planters err, the very best. 
 
 The ills of slavery attest. 
 
 They often prove the instruments. 
 
 And see the dreadful increments 
 
 Of crime, derived from their demeanor, 
 
 And very gentleness of manner. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Quoth Jones to Smith, " I saw in town 
 My friend and neighbor, Aaron Brown- 
 Ho tolls me that, with eighty hands, 
 Ho makes of cane, in upper lands, 
 One thousand hogsheads of fine sngar. 
 He must in truth be a hard tugger, 
 ir.6 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 I cannot, with an equal number, 
 Perfect machinery, and himber. 
 Much more than half that quantum make. 
 There's Day and Martin, Doyle and Hunter, 
 And, what's his name ? that hoary grunter, 
 Mac, something, living on our coast — 
 Whose slave, from fearing something worse. 
 Jumped with iiis chain into the river, 
 They have not yet fished up his corse, 
 Nor will they, I imagine, ever, — 
 Who, in my hearing, often boast. 
 That with my slaves they'd undertake 
 To raise three hundred more than Brown. 
 Ilicy oven swear it down and down. 
 And that with full one hundred firkins 
 Of sijrop more than Scamp or Jerkins." 
 "By what Freemasonry," says Smith, 
 " For unto me it seems a myth ?" 
 "Why, simply this," replied his friend, 
 " By extra working of his slaves. 
 A man, who every danger braves, 
 Of fire and dagger, axe and poison, 
 May every day increase his foison ; 
 But I can see no potent reason. 
 My fortunes by such means to mend." 
 
 IX. 
 
 Now, Robinson, the overseer, 
 Who happened to be standing near. 
 Promptly rejoined, "I'll tell you what, sir ! 
 You never can, no", you can not, sir. 
 Compete with any planting neighbor — 
 You interfere so with our labor. 
 If you to me the matter leave. 
 And all your toil and trouble ^ave, 
 157 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 I'll venture boldly to insure you, 
 
 That is, provided I can cure you 
 
 Of what, I said before, both vain is 
 
 And of our industry the bane is, 
 
 I shall not hurt a single hand 
 
 By double produce of your land." 
 
 " Well, Robinson, at least, I'll try you, 
 
 And promise not to mortify you," 
 
 Quoth good Squire Jones, " by any order 
 
 Which 3'our prerogatives may border. 
 
 I wish your labor duly rated, 
 
 But still would have my slaves well treated." 
 
 Two hours before the daylight shone, 
 They worked as horses, every one ; 
 Nor young nor old, nor big nor little. 
 Found rest, but during sleep or victual ; 
 Nor ceased till daylight disappeared. 
 And they the screech-owl's voice had heard. 
 No prayers, no Sabbath day for them ; 
 No song, no dance, no solemn hymn; 
 While sugar-grinding all the night. 
 They, in relays, were worked, till light 
 Again proclaimed continuous work, 
 Hunger and thirst, and rancid pork. 
 That year the sugar-house was burned. 
 All plans, all hopes were overturned, 
 All pledu'es were made null and void. 
 And present profits quite destroy ei.l ; 
 Death took at least a score of slaves, 
 O'ertaskod, o'erworkod, unjustly whipped. 
 They sunk to their untimely graves ; 
 All prospects in the bud were nipped, 
 
CHIVALRY AND RL AVERT. 
 
 And Robinson, who daily ordered 
 
 Some wrongful chastisement, was murdered. 
 
 Two slaves were for the murder tried, 
 
 Condemned, and hanged, but they denied 
 
 All guilt, and, unrepcnting, died. 
 
 With blood and vengeance satisfied. 
 
 Squire Jones, who, as we should have stated, 
 
 Was absent a whole year, now dated 
 
 All his misfortunes to the vigor, 
 
 The ceaseless, cruel, brutal rigor. 
 
 To which, to rival Day and Martin, 
 
 Scamp, Jerkins, Hunter, Doyle, McAlpin, 
 
 Themselves the victims to their graves 
 
 Of secret plots among their slaves, 
 
 His overseer had so resorted. 
 
 As we have faithfully reported, 
 
 Now, evermore resolved to see 
 
 The exercise of clemency. 
 
 And, with more profit and less labor, 
 
 Show good example to his neighbor. 
 
 CANTO VII. 
 
 The old Judge and his book. His views of Slavery. Curse of Ham. Designs of 
 Providence. Benefllt of Slavery to Africa. Conversion to Christianity. Euro- 
 pean Missionaries. Comparative failure of. Negro Missionaries. African 
 tribes in a state of perpetual warfare. Cannibalism. Future African Bishoprics. 
 Diocesan divisions. Restoration of Africans and Jews. The Fable again, Fa- 
 cial Angles. Amalgamation. Cyprian. Augustine. Bishops Elliott and Heber. 
 
 A certain judge, aged eighty -four, 
 'Twas said, wo thought him ton years more, 
 1.59 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Supposing B. bad studied Greek, 
 
 And witli authority could speak, 
 
 Ere lie (the judge) wished death to brave. 
 
 Would know if dovXog * meant a slave, 
 
 * Slaves, as long as they were under the government of masters, were ealled 
 outeToi, but after their freedom was granted them, they were Soi'^o'. not being, like 
 the former, a part of their master's estjte, but only obliged to some grateful 
 acknowledgments and small services, such as were required of Mstoikoi, to whom 
 they were in some few things inferior. — Potiefs Antiquities of Greece, o. a., p. 59, 
 
 If the present generation of slaveholders had lived under the government of 
 Greece, in the days of Pericles — or of Rome, in those of Domitian, when Lydians, 
 Syrians, Paphlagonians, Gauls, Britons, and Dacians were slaves — they would And 
 the same arguments in favor of the system which they now use in defence of 
 African pl.ivery; namelj"", the moral, physical, and intellectual inferiority of the 
 races enslave 1, adding, if Christians or Hebrews, the authority of the Bible, and 
 the cuvse of Ham I Allow the poor African in these days (facial angles, not- 
 witlistauding) the same opportunities and advantages of education as some slaves 
 enjoyed in llioEe, they would, doubtless, soon rise above the level of their present 
 condition, ami e.xhibit to the admiration of contemporaries and of posterity — not 
 peili.ip^ for many generations, if ever, the faultless figure of many an aboriginal 
 Indian, or, the more acute facial angle, the refined physiognomical contiur and 
 symmetrical proportions of an aristocratic European — but, what is still better, 
 snch literary pre-eminence as that of those illustrious bondsmen, Esop, Terence, 
 and Epictetus. The genius of Dumas is not the less brUliaut, that its light is de- 
 rived in a great measure from an African origin. 
 
 " Is it certain that bondsmen, so called by our translators, but not distinguished 
 in tl;o original Scriptures from servants, were slaves?" The word in the original, 
 sometimes rendered bondsman, sometimes servant, is Gied. It is applied to 
 Chii^l : Behold my servant, whom I uphold I It is applied to King Rehoboam : 
 I. KinjT xii. 7. Ziba, Saul's Obed, had himself twenty Obeds: IT. Samuel ix. 
 10. We find, I Chronicles ii. 34, that Sheshai, the head of one of the families of 
 the tribe of Judah, gave his daughter and wife to his servant, an Eg5'ptian; and 
 so far was any disgrace, in consequence, from being attached to their children, 
 that the son of this very daughter was enrolled among the valiant men of David's 
 army ; I. Chron. ii. 41. — See Reproof, &c., p. 21. 
 
 That servants are in some few instances in Scripture called the money of their 
 masters may signify nothing more than they were the means of their living. 
 Mechanics, journeymen, apprentices, farm laborers, and others, may certainly, 
 without overstraining a figure of speech, lie called the money of their employers. 
 
 160 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Such veritable slaves, as we 
 
 Pronounce unfit for liberty. 
 
 " You know,'' said lie, "I mean our niggers, 
 
 Domestics, choppers, reapers, diggers." 
 
 He gravely then began to quote 
 
 From reams of foolscap, which he wrote, 
 
 To prove that Slavery is a blessing. 
 
 Beyond most others, worth possessing; 
 
 That 'tis man's natural estate 
 
 That few men ever can be great ; 
 
 That they must serve, as is most fit, 
 
 Those bless'd with greater power and wit ; 
 
 That paddles, cowhides, cudgels, thwacks, 
 
 Were all designed for nigger backs ; 
 
 That now to free the race of Cain 
 
 Was idle, foolish, devilish, vain. 
 
 The curse of Ham is on them all, 
 
 Or young or old, or great or small. 
 
 He quoted largely from Bible, 
 
 To show it was a silly libel 
 
 On scripture, slavery to call 
 
 In question, as it must befall 
 
 A portion of the human race. 
 
 Aside fi'om others far less base. 
 
 That slaves had holes in both their ears. 
 From Exod. xxi. appears. 
 He proved that Providence designed 
 Thus to instruct the negro mind ; 
 That He, with whom a thousand years 
 Are as a day. His mode prefers 
 To ours, whose structures, wrouglit of clay, 
 As airy visions fade away. 
 K l(n 
 
OrilYALEY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 'Twas thus the Hebrews under Pharaoh, 
 
 And thus the Christians under Nero, 
 
 Baptized in suflFerings, were trained. 
 
 And thus for glory disciplined. 
 
 If, of the race, a generation. 
 
 Or five or ten, by transportation 
 
 From Afric's coast, were all made slaves, 
 
 Who, but your abolition knaves, 
 
 Would look upon it as a price 
 
 Too high, too great a sacrifice. 
 
 If they with Christian truth imbued, 
 
 And Christian virtues were endued? 
 
 "How great the company of preachers," 
 Said B., " when slaves become the teachers 
 Of those in Africa, who now 
 To heathen idols vainly bow. 
 Their education soon would fit them. 
 Should we instruct and manumit them, 
 To be apostles of a clime 
 Where, or inland, or maritime. 
 Our missionary labors fail, 
 Or seldom are of much avail, 
 That sable race to Christianize, 
 And our foud wishes realize. 
 Witness our etforts in Goree, 
 Medina, Bathurst, and La Bee, 
 Or Guinea, or Sierra Leone, 
 Or Benin, or that apogoon 
 Of missionary light, Boroo, 
 Kiiarta, Jcnne, Tombuctoo. 
 If, ill Liberia, more success 
 Our Christianizing efforts bless, 
 102 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 We owe it to emancip.ation, 
 Wrought by our own colonization. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Monrovia, Harperstown, and Greenville, 
 As those who've visited those scenes will 
 Bear witness, prove that slaves made free 
 Do more for Christianity 
 Than all our other Christian teachers, 
 However excellent as preachers. 
 There may be some this fact who question, 
 From ignorance or indigestion, 
 Then lot them prove it false, if they 
 A visit to Liberia pay. 
 Denham and Clapperton, the Landers, 
 And all wiio Quorra's strange meanders 
 Have traced, and who can best describe," 
 Rejoined the Judge, " each ebon tribe, 
 With unanimity declare 
 That they arc evermore at war. 
 They state, moreover, it appears. 
 That they or kill their prisoners, 
 Or make them slaves, or have them sold 
 As slaves, for merchandise or gold. 
 To traders visiting the coast, 
 Or eat them parboiled, raw, or roast." 
 " Not yet the time, but it must come," 
 Quoth B., "when slaves returning home. 
 Across the desert of Sahara, 
 Shall spread the Gospel through Bambarra, 
 Daoomba, Yoruba, Mandara, 
 The gold coast, ivory and grain coast — 
 Pray, let it not be deemed a vain boast — 
 From Harperstown to Ashantoe, 
 Will, centering at Coomassie, 
 16.3 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 With Cape Coast Castle and Aboraey, 
 Be made thy Diocese, Dahomey. 
 
 Benin, Biafia, and Loango, 
 
 Will make a seconc?, joined with Congo, 
 
 Close by the Quorra, Tombuctoo, 
 
 With Housa, Bigharmi, Bornou, 
 
 Extending round thy coast. Lake Tchadd ! 
 
 To British memories so sad,* 
 
 Shall be regarded as another 
 
 Within thy charge, our sable brother. 
 
 Along the west from Delagoa, 
 
 Extending northward to Quilloa. 
 
 In Zanguebar and Mosambique, 
 
 The natives will a fourth bespeak. 
 
 Thence to the straits of Babel Mandel, 
 
 Thro' Ajan, Soumali, who can tell 
 
 What future Moses may conduct them 
 
 Back to the lands from which we'\c plucked them ; 
 
 Not flying now from slavery. 
 
 But independent, great, and free, 
 
 Across the channel of that sea. 
 
 Where Pharaoh and his chivalry 
 
 Before Jehovah's anger fled, 
 
 A numerous host lay stark and dead. 
 
 Thus travelling onward to their farms. 
 
 Their sons and daughters in their arms. 
 
 On camels' backs and dromedaries, 
 
 In transits, called hebdomedarics, 
 
 Not only with their beasts of burden 
 
 Will they obtain some pleasant Jordan, 
 
 * See Lander's Travob. 
 1(U 
 
CHIYALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Our steamers and our railroad cars 
 "Will furnish all particulars, 
 Which are to wayfarers essential, 
 For all is clearly Providential." 
 
 Not less of Africans than Jews, 
 
 Thus prophesies our Christian muse : 
 
 " Our chambers, parlors, workshops, fields," 
 
 Eemarkcd the judge, "are helps and shields. 
 
 To save them from the precipice 
 
 Of want and indolence and vice. 
 
 When whole millenniums shall have passed, 
 
 In bondage, so supremely blessed 
 
 As theirs is now, they needs must bo 
 
 All, in the Lord Jehovah, free ! 
 
 Their facial angles less obtuse, 
 
 They doubtless will have perfect use 
 
 Of tongues, and gifts, and powers of mind, 
 
 To aid the weak, to guide the blind. 
 
 '' At Alexandria or Cairo, 
 Or whore, immortalized by Marc, 
 Carthage," quoth B., " defiance hurled 
 At Rome, the mistress of the world ; 
 Or say at Hippo, or at Lais, 
 Or Utica, or Ptolemiiis, 
 Or on the Delta of the Nile, 
 Or straits where Moslem saiuts defile ; 
 Or where in Sennaar's fertile plain 
 The graceful Nubian reaps his yiaiii. 
 And, from the summit of a rock, 
 Beholds a lion in his flock. 
 1(35 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Upon tlie banks of the Albara, 
 
 Or yet at Gondar of Amhara, 
 
 In Abyssinia, as of old, 
 
 Men may again the cross behold, 
 
 With banner to the breeze unfurled, 
 
 A badge of triumph to the world. 
 
 Some sable Cyprian may arise. 
 
 Or Athanasius, great and wise, 
 
 Or spotless Austin write and teach, 
 
 And highest excellency reach ; 
 
 Or Origen, whose eagle flight 
 
 Pierced far beyond the solar light ; 
 
 Or Chrysostom, whose dauntless tongue 
 
 With priceless treasures round him flung, 
 
 Was wont his hearers' hearts to hold 
 
 As compassed with a chain of gold. 
 
 Speed Heaven ! the happy times that may 
 
 Iicstcvc such men to Afiica. 
 
 About or Cyprian's facial angle, 
 
 Or Chrysostom's, 'tworc vain to wrangle. 
 
 Since both, as Africans, deny 
 
 The right to human slavery. 
 
 But say they were not of the race 
 Which you and Elliott think so base ! 
 Oeries, they were thine equals, Elliott ! 
 And each, as thou, a Christian zealot. 
 Perhaps the angles of their faces 
 Did not, like thine, dixplat/ ihc Graces ! 
 Birth, worth, and talents, and high station 
 Are a most charming combination. 
 1(',6 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERy. 
 
 With piety and learning ci-owncd, 
 Tliey claim a homage most profound, 
 And all contribute to unfold ' 
 
 The aspects of a perfect mould ; 
 Befitting caskets for a mind, 
 With every gift of Heaven refined. 
 Such gifts m-e Elliott's, such were Heber's, 
 Beyond the common lot of neighbors. 
 The difference between them lies 
 In this, that one would not disguise 
 His horror of that human bondage 
 Which t'other thinks but lawful poundage ; 
 For slaves come into one's possession 
 By hereditary succession." * 
 
 X. 
 
 When B. thus ended his oration, 
 
 Ho left the judge in perturbation. 
 
 Then called a very little boy 
 
 (The old man's grandson). When ho came, 
 
 * That a rhetorician so fascinating, a gentleman so accomplished and of a per- 
 sonal presence so highly distingue, as Bishop Elliott, could find much to say on the 
 subject of slavery — which, to a lady traveller of gentle blood and courtly breed- 
 ing, like the honorable Miss Murray, would seem altogether unanswerable — will 
 surprise no one, who has any knowledge of the best society of the slave-holding 
 States. Dr. Elliott might have refe.'red her, possibly, to the menage of his own 
 household, or to that of many others of his acquaintance, as models of subordina- 
 tion, harmony, and comfort. But lot him go to the plantation quarters, have a 
 thorough knowledge of overseers, speculators, and their doings — of field opera- 
 tions, etc., the moral, physical, social, religious, intellectual condition of all around 
 — let the experience of half, or even quarter of a century, have its perfect work 
 in this matter, unbiased by prejudice or interest, uninfluenced by any of those 
 ten thousand considerations which mislead or make captive the understanding ; 
 and if any one of sane mind, who chooses to submit or who has submitted to 
 such an ordeal, do not arrive at the same conclusion as that of the author of 
 these poems, touching slavery — he, the author of said poems, will undertake, to 
 the manifest peril of his digestion and life, to cat up the roU of this manuscript. 
 
 Hi 7 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 B. asked liim if he were not able 
 One or two moments to employ, 
 From ^sop's Greek, to read a fable, 
 And sec that it was well translated. 
 The Dog and Wolf, B. chose to name, 
 As to the Georgian he had statei.l. 
 The worthy judge the tale heard through. 
 And, sighing, said to him 'twas new. 
 He then took up his hat and cane, 
 And never trouliled B. again. 
 So true it is what Holy Writ, 
 With vastly more than human ivit, 
 Saith to this point, so oft detected — 
 "From cluldren's lips is praise perfected." 
 
 XI. 
 
 It is susceptible of proof, 
 
 That persons in the highest station 
 
 Have servants, who, for their behoof. 
 
 Live in the open violation 
 
 Of that great law of moral life, 
 
 Touching not only man and wife, 
 
 But all to whom such law is given, 
 
 By the authority of Heaven. 
 
 How hostile to miscegenations 
 
 Are white men living on plantations. 
 
 And foes to all emancipations. 
 
 Let different shades of color own, 
 
 From darkest griffe to bright quadroon. 
 
 It may appear a case uncommon, 
 
 That son and sire should of one woman 
 
 Be both the paramours ; but wc 
 
 Oft find such facts in slavery. 
 
 A man, wo now and then behold, 
 
 Whose sister " is hi& childreu's mother." 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Such unions, and so manifold, 
 Are found impossible to smother ; 
 They show most clearly in reflection 
 The various shadings of complexion, 
 For every lineament and feature 
 Is drawn with all the skill of nature; 
 Nor stamp, nor letterpress can be 
 Proof stronger of paternity. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Many their children all enslave, 
 
 And thus expense of labor save, 
 
 If they in bondage hold the mother ; 
 
 But if in bondage to another, 
 
 Her children are her master's chattels. 
 
 So laio determines all such titles. 
 
 Slave women privileged to hire 
 Their time, and live as they desire. 
 By paying certain weekly wages, 
 Will often be induced to act 
 In such a manner as, in fact, 
 "Would, if described, defile our pages. 
 Thus, many live by prostitution. 
 In virtue of this institution ; 
 Masters and mistresses are made 
 Sharers in profits of the trade — 
 Nay, oft depend for all their inning 
 0;i this most hopeless sort of sinning ; 
 Nathlcss are socially thought pure, 
 And of their standing quite secure. 
 As members of a Slave State union, 
 And in some church's full comniunion, 
 169 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 In wliich such things are tolerated, 
 And never heard as reprobated : 
 In short, the thing is far too common 
 To shock the ears of man or woman 
 In churches South ; yet time shall be, 
 When all shall curse such infamy. 
 
 CANTO VIII. 
 
 Eoly-polies. Felony to teach them the Alphabet. Parlor and Cabin. Romance 
 
 of Louisiana I George and llousieur G-. H. D 1. Hia Terrors and Tyranny. 
 
 Determination to die rich. "The Death of the Righteous." (Notes on tlie Hon. 
 Miss Murray and tlie Bishop of Georgia, Monsieur G. of Louisiana and a 
 certain Western Trader among the Indians.) 
 
 Kind ladies talk of "Roly-polies," * 
 
 And tell us gallo-taurine stories. 
 
 And write the nicest allegories 
 
 About our little negro /o//c«. 
 
 Some talk of Santa Claus and banjos. 
 
 And eke boleros and fandangos, 
 
 And some of preacliings and convertings 
 
 And silly Scriptural pervertings, 
 
 Like sorry jests of hard-shell sconces 
 
 For Harper's ilonthly, sent by dunces ; 
 
 But not a word of whips and chains, 
 
 li'ipcs, paddle^, collar,^, thwacks and pains. 
 
 This sort of talking, on the whole, is 
 
 Fudge ! and an instance of their follies. 
 
 Black little children will bo mcny, 
 
 Crisp, cosy, curly, sleek, and fat. 
 
 With skins that shine lilcc a blackberry, 
 
 * Negro children — so called by the amiable, gifted, and to-be-lajnented lady, 
 E. T. TVortlcy. 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Especially if greased, and Lady W. 
 Is with a visit going to trouble you. 
 But all admitted — -what of that ? 
 Save this, that in them human nature 
 Is sunk, debased in every feature. 
 
 That slaves are children all, in mind, 
 
 Stupid, untutored, weak, and blind ; 
 
 That 'tis a felony to teach them 
 
 Their A, B, C, lest men should preach them 
 
 Into a knowledge of the worth 
 
 Of life and freedom, and so forth. 
 
 Is one great fact, left out by those 
 
 Who fain would lead men by the nose. 
 
 To think that they desire such light 
 
 As would from slaves dispel the night 
 
 Of ignorance, that they might bo 
 
 In time prepared for liberty. 
 
 Can such assertions help a cause. 
 
 Which light precludes by penal laws ? 
 
 Man's mental progress without schools. 
 
 Or books, or teachers, is of fools 
 
 The theory, if not of knaves. 
 
 Determined enemies of slaves. 
 
 If knowledge only should make free, 
 
 Why make instruction felony ? ''■' 
 
 * To teach slaves to read is forbidden, under the severest penalties, in almost 
 every Slave State. 
 
 In North Carolina, to teach a slave to read or write, or give him any boolc (the 
 Bible not excepted), is punished with thirty-nine lashes, or imprisonment, if the 
 offender be a freo negro ; with a fine of two hundred dollars, if he be a wliite. 
 
 In Georgia, the fine is five hundred dollars ; and the father is not suffered to 
 teach his half-caste c'.iild to read the Scriptures. — Ueproof, &e., p. 48. 
 
 "At this very moment," says Bi:;liop Elliott, ''there are from three to four mil- 
 
 171 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 But chambers, parlors, workshops, fields, 
 Transcend for slaves what learnuni- yields. 
 
 lions of African slaves, educating for earth and for heaven, in the so vilified Southern 
 States ; educating in a thousand ways of whicli the world knows nothing ; educat- 
 ing in our nurseries, in our chambers, in our parlors, in our workshops, and in our 
 fields, as well as in our churches, &c. God's ways are not discordant with the 
 ways of slavery. lie (God!) cares very little for the present moans through which 
 His will is working. What is it that a man should be a slave, if through that 
 means he may become a Christian? "What is it that one or even ten generations 
 should be slaves, if through that arrangement a race be training for future glory 
 and self-dependence ? My feeling just now is, that I would defend it against all 
 interference, just as I should defend my children from any one who would tempt 
 them to an improper independence ; just as I should defend any relation of life 
 which man was attempting to break, or to violate, ere the purpose of God in it had 
 been worked out." — United States, Canada, and Cuba, pp. 34ri, 350. 
 
 Is it not astonisliiug that tlie shrewd intellect of the honorable Miss lilnrray did 
 not intuitively discern the consequences of the principle that God cares very little 
 for present means ; and is it not still more astonishing that Dr. Elliott should him- 
 self have published to the world such a sample of Georgian theology 1 
 
 If it had beon enunciated by a Jesuit, the bishop and the lady would, both of 
 them, at a glance liave perceived that it is the old fallacy of the end justifying tlie 
 means — supposing, tliat i--, that slave-pirates, speculators, &c., had ever any other 
 end in view than their own selfish interests in the capture or purchase of slaves I 
 
 "God," says the bishop, "cares very little for the present means through which 
 His will is working." Indeed 1 We had, in our simplicity, always imagined that 
 God cares a great deal for the means through which Ilis will i=: working, else we 
 are guilty of solemn mockery in His sight when we pray, as it is to be jjresumed 
 we do frequently, in the words which He has Himself taught us, that He would 
 bless and sanclify those " means " for the advancement of His empire in our hearts 
 and for the accomplishment of His will upon earth by mankind, as in heaven by the 
 spirits ihii minister at Ilis throne. 
 
 If prayers, preaching, sacraments, &c., be but means of rendering to Him the 
 homage due to His divine sovereignty — if He enjoins upon us the duty of well-doing 
 as one of the means of future happiness — if it be our doctrine that v/hile prohibiting 
 He permits evil, and overrides it as a means for working out His designs — we cannot 
 for a moment submit to those loose theological views so jubilantly cited by the 
 honorable Miss Murray from the writings of Dr. Elliott, viz., " That God cares very 
 little for the means through which His will is working," &c. 
 
 But if God cares very little for the present means to an end, it would seom an 
 
 IT2 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLA-YEBY. 
 
 So certain bishops would imply, 
 See, gentle reader, our reply. 
 
 obvious inference that neither should man. Shall a man be more righteous than 
 his Maker? "Why should poor Hebrew slaves in Egypt — why should good and 
 pious Abolitionists, in the days of Pharaoh — ^have been troubled by four hundred 
 years' oppression, seeing it resulted so gloriously in their deliverance by Moses ? 
 
 "Oh, happy sin of Adam I" says an ancient father of the church, " which brought 
 about to his posterity the promise of a better hope than he or they could have 
 cherished, if sin had not entered into the world." But was Adam the more justified 
 in transgressing ? If so, then prosper and cry victory African slave-pirates, Mis- 
 sissippi speculators, GeorgLi taskmasters, Virginia breeders, Alabama overseers, 
 Tennessee jobbers, Kentucky Know-Nothings, Carolina governors I Ye Grogerties, 
 Womacks, Keitts, Pryors, Lyonses, Prentices I proceed at home and abroad in 
 your traffic, or advocacy of the traffic, in human flesh and human souls. Great is 
 your reward in heaven I Great, vast, infinite are the obligations you have imposed 
 upon the whole human race, and especially upon Africans, as the happy instru- 
 ments, under those great apostles, Bishops Freeman and EUiott, of "the greatest 
 missionary enterprise the world ever sawl" 
 
 Go on, then, ye edwators for earth and heaven! Go on, in your own ten thousand 
 ways, " of which the world knows nothing I" Go on, in your nurseries, your parlors, 
 your workshops, and your fields — aye, from two hours before daylight till darkness 
 and weariness send you again to your rest. Noble speculators! magnanimous 
 traders I illustrious corsairs I chivalrous man-stealers I kidnap, separate and for- 
 ever, at home and abroad, the child from the parent, the parent from the child, the 
 sister from the brother, the husband from the wife, and the wife from the husband ; 
 ply the lash, corrupt the heart, break the back with heavy burdens, in your Sab- 
 bathless pursuit after gain — brand the cheek, crush the spirit! What is it to be 
 a slave, if you make a man a Christian ? "What is it if ten generations be slaves, 
 if the whole succeeding race be trained for future glory and self-dependence ? God 
 cares very little about the matter I Educate for earth and heaven; but take good 
 heed that in making them Christians you seal up hermetically from their view that 
 sacred volume which alone infallibly contains the sacred revelation of His will ; 
 nay, forbid, under the severest penalties, that they be ever instructed in the 
 perusal of a single sentence in its pages; and that, too, while you vehemently 
 contend that the Bible, and the Bible alone, is the religion of Protestants I 
 
 How many are there in Bishop Elliott's diocese who will have slaves, but not 
 Christians! "We could name scores of slaveowners in the South, who, as they 
 express it, would rather see the devil among them than a clergyman. Nay, wo 
 
 173 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 The book on Parlors and on Cabins, 
 Though specious as the gloss of Rabbins, 
 On points of fact is minus habens, 
 Not more reliable than Fabens.* 
 There never has been, since the flood, 
 A slave threshed| in thy neighborhood. 
 Like Monsieur G — y — r — e, of La., J 
 If George, his slave, will run away, 
 
 know of clergymen who have suffered violence in attempting to impart to them 
 religious instruction. 
 
 " My feeling just now is," &c., continues the bishop. " Just now ! " 'What a 
 significant clause : jtist now. "What, right reverend sir, will be your feeling at the 
 hour of death ? 
 
 "And these," adds Miss M., '• are the opinions of Bishop Elliott of Georgia 1 the 
 man who remained nursing and consoling the sick and the dying, and burying the 
 dead, when Savannah was being decimated by yellow fever, and when thousands 
 were falling victims around him. After this, who will dare stand up and contrast his 
 own aboUtionism with the patient practical doings of a conscientious slaveowner ?" 
 
 That dare we, most excellent lady ; and permit us to declare, not '■ with self- 
 laudatory philanthropy," but in all humility of heart, without presuming on any 
 comparison in merit, or clauning any merit at all in a point of duty, that we know 
 many clergymen in the South as much opposed to slavery in their hearts as your 
 most conscientious slaveowners are in its favor, who, in burying the dead and 
 visiting the sick and the dying, have come quite as much in contact with the 
 vomito as the episcopal ring of Dr. Elliott. 
 
 It is but just to the bishop to admit that we believe he would, with as much 
 sincerity as any man living, repudiate the pernicious practical consequences of the 
 principle we have combatted. But the God of this world seems to bhnd him. 
 
 * Fabens, a well-known politician. 
 
 f " A slave threslied," etc. — See Parlor and Cabin. 
 
 \ Like M. G — y — r — e, of La. " Did you not lately run away for two months; 
 for what reasonable cause, God only knows, and did you not come back with tho 
 face of a whipped dog, telling me that you were satisfied with that great blessing, 
 freedom, and that you would not try it any more ; if for a whole weelc you allow 
 any human body to cross my threshold, I swear, and you know I always keep my 
 word, that I'll kick you away to the abolitionists." "What impression this order pro- 
 
 174 
 
CHIVALKY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 He threatens to dismiss instanter 
 The rascal. Creoles love to banter : 
 When George once took him at his word, 
 He raved, like Balaam, for a sword; 
 But, as the sword was not forthcoming, 
 He drubbed him, as was most becoming 
 In a great Secretary of State — 
 A man of most prodigious weight — 
 With cudgel, cowhide, and a rope, 
 Plied deftly, d la gantelope,* 
 
 duced on this mistrable slave I do not know, but it was striclly executed. The 
 italic characters are Mr. G.'s, and they convey more trutli than he intended. — 
 Preface to Romance of ihe History of Louisiana. 
 
 * A Western trader, captured and plundered a few years since by a large body 
 of Comanches, and with difiBculty escaped out of their hands, has described to the 
 writer of these rhymes a discipline obtaining among those savages, which strik- 
 ingly resembles and illustrates that of the gantlet, gauntlet, or gantelope referred to. 
 
 With a face much darkened by long residence in a Southern climate, and never 
 deficient in bronze, our trader, acquainted with the language of the Choctaws, 
 wished to pass as an Indian pedlar among the wilder denizens of the plains. 
 While stooping to display hit commodities to a promiscuous group of men, women, 
 and children, most wistfully assembled to survey them, an anlucky breeze lifted 
 liis summer kilt, and revealed to his customers the sinfulness of his skin, or speak- 
 ing more correctly, as a friendat our elbow reverentially intimates, TiepicracCav, Kanias. 
 By-the-way, Robinson, after Pott, explains this phrase, every excrescence of evil, 
 referring kokw to moroseness in teaching. — James i. 21. 
 
 If it be true that our friend, the trader, was a colporteur of a morose school of 
 theology, his pupils, it must be owned, somewhat bettered his instructions. His 
 punishment was in this wise: 
 
 The women formed themselves into two lines with a distance of a few paces 
 between. Our hero, in passing through this formidable Thermopylaa, received on 
 his vicarious back, as administered with right hearty good will by these ,-iunly 
 viragoes, some smart stripes, from a raw cow-hide whip, which each held in her 
 hand The unfeeling male savages, in the meanwhile, were jeering and scofBng at 
 their victim. 
 
 Our poor scape-goat, knowing or imagining, perliaps, that this discipline did not 
 fall precisely under the class of personal adventures, originating in, associated 
 
 175 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLATERY. 
 
 George ran because he was so happy, 
 
 Or was it that his brain was sappy, 
 
 From cuffs and blows, which all who know 
 
 Monsieur, can prove he could bestow 
 
 On George's back, and often did, 
 
 In wanton cruelty and pride, 
 
 As we, perhaps, have elsewhere said. 
 
 Within the reach of Plodnarph's ears, 
 The lash each day its victim tears : 
 How often since the Mississip- 
 pi last its grassy banks o'erflowed. 
 Has H — y D — 1 applied his whip — 
 If P. were frank, he might have told. 
 
 with, or very particularly suggestive of those "pleasures " of which a greater that 
 Rogers has sung — 
 
 " Forsan ct ha3C olim meminisse javal>it." — (Vieg.) 
 has, we understand, as indeed it is very natural he should, become exceedingly 
 sensitive of late, at any allusion to a piaculum so involuntary and distasteful. ■ 
 It was, in truth, «- most untoward flagellation ; but altogether unavoidable ; or, 
 say that prudence could have avoided, no human valor could have averted it. 
 We offer and owe this remark as an emollient, such as it is, to the wounded 
 honor of our friend, who, if the truth must be told, was himself — when he had 
 power, and a black, unresisting subject — a most energetic flagellator. 
 
 Most consolatory, moreover, to a sincere penitent, like our friend, is the reflec- 
 tion, that the retributive economy evinced in his case and in all similar cases — 
 how penal soever in its character — affords striking evidence even to the most scep- 
 tical, that God, as the Supreme Disposer of events, is not less wise, irresisti- 
 ble, and just in the moral, than He is in the physical government of the uni- 
 verse. 
 
 It is hot justice to add, that seeing there often is, according to the philosophy 
 of Sancho Panza, as much courage displayed in enduring as in administering 
 heavy blows, our friend has had by universal consent— independent of the Ga- 
 zette — the great solace of a brevet-majority for his passive gallantry on that ever- 
 memorable occasion, and wiU doubtless, in his next journey o'er the plains, go 
 out, like Sir Hudibras, "a ColonellingI" 
 
 176 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 That trader, planter, overseer, 
 Is known as brutal far and near. 
 As well as many more beside him. 
 Who, as a booby, all deride him. 
 Deride not P., pray mark but D — 1, 
 Whose life is terror mixed with toil, 
 And carking cares and love of wealth, 
 Acquired by furiousness of tilth,* 
 Goading and driving scores of slaves 
 To sleepless work and early graves ; 
 Who in pro-slavery books puts faith. 
 Can never clearly see his path. 
 One cordial drop from Uncle Tom 
 Is worth an ocean of such rum.f 
 
 In haste his victuals to ingulf, 
 D. bolts them like a hungry wolf; 
 If chance a visitor should call, 
 He leaves him standing in his hall ; 
 Or, should he ask him to his table. 
 He rushes to his field or stable. 
 With heavy whip of overseer ; 
 And if, surprised at his career, 
 You seem his rudeness to accuse, 
 He hopes his business you'll excuse ; 
 
 * Never in the Cabinet, the Parhament, or the battle-field, was victory more 
 ardently sought after than it is, as resp'ects the quantity and quality of sugar, by 
 the planters on the Mississippi and other rivers of tht South. Not even the 
 fierce industry of steamboat hands — who, in paroxysms of effort from the stimuli 
 of double wages and double drams, under captains struggling for the quickest 
 passage, roll cotton bales or sugar barrels, on our western landings — surpasses 
 or equals, in many instances, the Sabbathless toil of plantation negroes under the 
 lash of avaricious and tyrannical taskmasters. 
 
 f Rum (Dunder) is sometimes understood to be spirits distilled from the lees or 
 dregs of former distillations. — See Webster. 
 L 177 
 
CHITAIiEY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 He leaves you to the ladies' care, 
 
 To make the best of homely fare ! 
 
 Sleepless himself, in dead of night 
 
 He creeps to see that all is right ; 
 
 Horses and harness in their places. 
 
 Cows, oxen, mules, and slaves and asses; 
 
 That smell of fire or match there none is, 
 
 That in his negro huts no gun is ; 
 
 Sugar and carriage-houses safe, 
 
 Hay, shavings, maize, and oats and chaff; 
 
 That fires and lights be all extinguished, 
 
 Nor the right hand from left distinguished. 
 
 Then woe betide the man or woman, 
 
 Cook, driver, spadesman, herdsman, ploughman, 
 
 That has not perfected his task. 
 
 To please this frantic basilisk. 
 
 Dragged from their beds with blows and stripes, 
 
 Of paddles or of raw-hide whips. 
 
 They glut the sordid villain's wrath, 
 
 Yet dare not cry above their breath. 
 
 Or scream on penalty of death, 
 
 Lest any neighboring planter hear. 
 
 And as a witness should appear. 
 
 Of cruelties condemned by laws, 
 
 If well-paid lawyers find no flaws. 
 
 And jurors can impartial be, 
 
 And judges charge with equity. 
 
 While often in the darkness gi'oping. 
 And at some clay-built cottage stopping, 
 He hears conspiracy in trees. 
 Or in the drippings from the eaves. 
 Or in the whisperings of the breeze. 
 Or in the curling of the leaves, 
 178 
 
CniVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Or in the marsh, or in the lake, 
 
 Or in the wrigglings of the snake ; 
 
 Or in the chirping of the cricket, 
 
 Or cautious opening of a wicket ; 
 
 Or in the crawUng of the worm, 
 
 Or in the pelting of the storm ; 
 
 Or in the river's sullen roar, 
 
 Or plash of wavelets on the shore, 
 
 Or in the loud crevasse or bore,* 
 
 Or wary dip of muffled oar ; 
 
 When by the willows, thick and dank, 
 
 The hunter creeps along the bank. 
 
 And, on the margin of the water, 
 
 A bird or stag marks out for slaughter. 
 
 In terror at the rifle's crack, 
 
 D. trembles, starts, and looking back. 
 
 There, as a statue fixed, would glare : 
 
 His blood congealed, erect his hair. 
 
 The thunder's din and lightning's flash. 
 
 He fancies as the doomsday crash. 
 
 Yea, reads his fate and hears his knell 
 
 In every tinkling of a bell, 
 
 Be it a bell of cow or sheep. 
 
 That jars his nerves in troubled sleep. 
 
 VII. 
 
 If, when his door-bell wires are shaken. 
 By blustering night-winds, they awaken 
 The restless tyrant — they appal 
 His guilty conscience most of all. 
 
 * " A tide swelliDg above another tide." — Bukkb. Or a sudden influx of the 
 tide into a river or narrow strait, conflicting with the water from above. These 
 who hve, or have lived or traveled, in Wales know what is meant by the Severn 
 bore. 
 
 179 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 The gases crackling in his fire, 
 
 Or insects' cries ere they expire, 
 
 Or hideous faces in the embers, 
 
 Which fancy paints, perhaps remenibers ; 
 
 Or howling dogs and storms and moans, 
 
 Of owls and cats and thief raccoons — 
 
 All to this wretched man betoken 
 
 Some peril near, some wrath unroken. 
 
 In flittering myriad fire-fly lamps, 
 
 He views the angels' lighted camps — 
 
 Detective hosts of heaven's pplicc, 
 
 To guard the good, to menace vice ; 
 
 In every flash some near patrol, 
 
 With lightning streak surveys his soul, 
 
 And takes inexorable note 
 
 Of every damning blood-red spot. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Charred stumps appear as negro faces, 
 In threatening aspects and grimaces ; 
 And withered limbs of foresftrees 
 Are outstretched arms, his soul to seize ; 
 Or ghosts of murdered souls who peal 
 His dirge and beckon him to hell. 
 With skinny lips and bony fingers. 
 
 And hands and arms with blood begrimed ; 
 They ask why still on earth he lingers. 
 
 Since Satan has his body claimed ? 
 If, when he outs his nightly taper, 
 A beetle creeps beneath his paper; 
 Or mouse should patter in his basin. 
 It is the knife of an assassin — 
 As Ilolofernes once was smote — 
 Uplifted high to cut his throat. 
 Not Galen's skill in medicine, 
 180 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 By Morpheus aided and Morphine, 
 Could bring to this unquiet snorer 
 Tired nature's bahniest restorer. 
 
 Such is the life of one who raves, 
 A madman murderer over slaves : 
 " By Heaven 1" he cries, " I'll never stop 
 Thus struggling till I make a crop 
 Of sugar, heavier far than Hunter, 
 Or any other Southern planter ; 
 Until I have more hands than they 
 Can hire, or own, or work or pay ; 
 Then shall I live at peace and be 
 Indifferent as to pedigree. 
 What ! I a Celt, my wife low Irish ! 
 And both in heart and nature cureish ! 
 They lie, the knaves ! that would despoil 
 Of high descent the house of D — 1 ! 
 Ye Gods ! I long with cudgel thwacks 
 To prove it on their haughty backs : 
 There's not an Ormond of them all. 
 So proud of his original 
 As I, or who pretends to be 
 Like me, of royal ancestry. 
 If they my ignorance deride, 
 I'll have revenge in wealth and pride ; 
 I'll sell no more, nor buy new slaves. 
 They're all a cursed pack of thieves ; 
 I'll leave them to my overseers 
 To manage, then adieu to cares. 
 I'll try to pass my latter days 
 As Christians should, in prayer and praise ; 
 Like a true Christian patriot, 
 I'll patronize the polyglott, 
 181 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 And schools and missions round about, 
 And at camp-meetings groan and shout ! 
 
 My steamboats and my raih-oad cars 
 
 Shall all divines exempt from fares ; 
 
 I'll teach ray haughty neighbor Butler, 
 
 I'm not inferior to a sutler — 
 
 Or sumptuary counter-caster. 
 
 Or military Quartermaster, 
 
 Major or Colonel ! I invoke ye. 
 
 His cousins ! squires of Ofekenochee ! 
 
 Planters of sugar-cane and rice. 
 
 Factors of slavery and vice ! 
 
 Ye are my witnesses, if I 
 
 Or speak the truth, or basely lie ! 
 
 If he invites me to a dinner, 
 I shall not come, as I'm a sinner. 
 What ! sit at table like a mummy. 
 Butt, clown, or harlequin, or dummy. 
 While he, a mouthing politician. 
 At heart an arrogant patrician. 
 Plays demagogue or rhetorician ; 
 Besides, I never feel so heady. 
 So shy, embarrassed, and unsteady, 
 Never so awkward and unready, 
 A.S in the presence of his lady ; 
 This I am sure she plainly sees, 
 And tries to put me at my ease. 
 All which perplexes me the more ; 
 For such her grace and beauty bright. 
 Her noble mien, her portly height, 
 She moves, as doth the queen of night, 
 182 
 
CHIVALRY AND SLAVERY. 
 
 Througli minor stars, a mount of light — 
 A living, breathing, Kooh-y-uor. 
 No, no ! I'll stay at home, I will, 
 And thus my projects best fulfil ; 
 I'll build a church, and eke endow it, 
 Then shall the preachers, well I know it, 
 Who utter now such fooleries 
 Against my pride and avarice. 
 My floggings and debaucheries, 
 Eight speedily my worth discover. 
 And all my wickedness gloss over. 
 I'll send the Gospel to the heathen. 
 And who can question we shall see then 
 My piety held up to view, 
 As something wonderful and new. 
 While all the time my life was Stygian, 
 As that of Cypriote or Phrygian,* 
 My slaves as badly used as ever. 
 Myself as mach an unbeliever ; 
 Yet if I now should chance to die, 
 And you could hear my eulogy. 
 Be well assured no man on earth 
 E'er honored more his second birth, 
 Or of corruption had less leaven. 
 Than I when thus rigged out for Heaven, 
 By grace converted and forgiven !"f 
 
 * The Cyprians and Phrygians were always proverbial for sensuality and 
 licentiousness. 
 
 f Tlie author of these poems has' no idea that the hope of leaving a good name 
 behind liim could elicit from D. the munificence referred to. Nothing more is 
 meant than a satire upon that bad practice, too prevalent among the clergy in 
 the South and elsewhere, of pronouncing funeral panegyrics upon the worst 
 sort of men — if they show or seem to show, at the hour of death, any compunc- 
 tious visitings of conscience touching their past lives — or exercise any acts of 
 liberality towards religious Institutions. 
 
 183