i,.;./'
BLAC DIMNS  
BLACK DJAMONDS
GATHERED IN THE
DARKEY HOMIES OF THE SOUTH.
BY
EDWARD A. POLLARD,
A 
OF VIRGINIA.
'.:
PUDNEY & RUSSELL, PUBLISHERS,
No. 79 JOHN-STREET.
1859.
_ F _~~~~o0
Ir 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859,
BY PUDNEY & RUSSELL,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the
Southern District of New-York.
e.           ~
t 
t -z
PREFATORY.
THE writer of these simple pages has pre      pared them for publication from a collection of
hasty and unstudied letters, on the subject of
slave life in the South, which were originally
addressed to DAVID M. CLARKSON,  Esq., "Glen      brook," Newburgh, N. Y., a gentleman whose
friendship is one among those in the North that
a;/    f he has greatly prized,  and  whose  cultivated
patriotism is of that broad and noble type that
he has ever fervently admired. The letters
are not elaborated: the author wrote them from
what he found in his heart. Whether he shall
add still further to them will depend upon the
reception by the public of this humble offering.
I
}.        -  
" SLAVE LIFE IN THlE SOUTH."*
Ix general we are strongly averse to mixing up special questions in
ethics or in politics with what is called polite literature. Artistically
viewed, we doubt whether the mixture is ever allowable. Even satiric
poetry, we take it, forms no exception to the rule; for it is the province
of that species of literature to attack wickedness and folly from the
standpoint of admitted maxims of morality and wisdom, not to agitate
debatable or unsettled problems. The introduction into the novel or
poem of subjects pertaining to strict polemics or to severe philosophy,
as the main purpose of the work, produces an incongruous association.
which is never agreeable and is often disgusting.  Who wants to read a
novel designed to illustrate the beauties of free trade or a protective
tariff? Who does read Montgomery's maudlin poem, or Longfellow's
sentimental cant in rhyme, on the awful sin of negro slavery? Since
the publication of Mrs. Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin," which led the
van of a frightful procession of books of a similar order on both sides
of the slavery question, every reader of experience, taste, and discrimination, is predisposed to turn with loathing from any issue from the
press whose title page has a perceptible squinting toward the vexed
and vexatious subject. He is inclined to avoid it as a premeditated
bore  and  deliberate  swindle-a  delusion  and a snare-a cunning
"dodge," by which he may be made the victim of self-inflicted twaddle.
Of course there is frequently much matter of pith and moment in the
numerous books in which the discussion of the slavery question, in all
or a few of its aspects, is thrown into the shape of stories or sketches.
Indeed, there are some that touch the subject in a way so incidental
and natural, and with so little of a partisan or disputatious spirit, that
if the predisposition against them be once overcome, they may be read
with equal entertainment and instruction. 
* From the New Orleans Delta, Editorial. 
Among the last productions to which we allude, we unhesitatingly
place a small and unpretending volume, being a series of short sketches
of slave life in the South, in the form of letters originally addressed by
the author, Edward A. Pollard, of Washington City, to his friend,
David M. Clarkson, of Newburgh, New York.
The  author appears to be a thorough  Southerner in education,
opinion, sympathy, and attachment; yet, his letters are remarkably
free from sectional prejudice and acerbity, and, in truth, contain sketches
that are amongst the most catholic, and tolerant, and genial, we ever had
occasion to peruse.  He would seem to have travelled much, to have
observed much, and to know much of various countries and peoples.
But the negro nature he especially knows, profoundly, intimately;
knows it, not by intellection merely, but also by heart; knows it, not
through the cold light of ethnological science only, but most of all,
through the warm, enkindling recollections of boyhood and youth.
The negro, who, in his true nature, is always a boy, let him be ever so
old, is better understood by a boy, than by a whole academy of philosophers, unless the boy element in the said philosophers is unusually
long-lived and prosperous. The author, in this case, guided by his boyknowledge of the negro, cannot misconceive or untruthfully delineate
him.  How appreciative, how loving, how tender and sympathetic, he
is in his delineations, we will let a few extracts show.
*          **                        
I 
LETTER OF THANKS  FROM THE AUTHOR TO
HORACE GREELEY, ESQ.
WASHINGTON, JUNE 20, 1859.
HORACE GREELEY, ESQ.,
Editor New-York Tribune.
MY DEAR Sin: I undoubtedly owe you many thanks for the extra
ordinary and flattering marks of attention you have bestowed upon my
little book of sketches of Slave Life in the South. You have not made
them the subject of an ordinary " book notice." You have not bestowed
upon them an obscure and stinted paragraph in the literary corner of the
Tribune.  But you have done me the honor of devoting a long editorial
to the special subject of the interest of my literary performance. That
I have not acknowledged this extraordinary honor sooner has not been,
I assure you, my dear sir, for lack of appreciation, but in waiting for
occasion to mature wherein I might make my acknowledgments most
properly to you.
I was aware that the subject of my little book (the "almighty
nigger ") was a tender one with you. I had, I must confess, also heard
among the miserable, ignorant people of the South many bad accounts
of you. You had been represented to me as a curious old man, doting
on "niggers," and deriding all white persons who fancied themselves
superior to your idols. Indeed, report said, that you had taken your
models for manners from the negroes, and that, in speaking of your
superiors, you were in the habit of adopting that coarse insolence some times displayed by Cuffy in adverting to white people at a distance.
Can you then be surprised, sir, that, with such slanders of you made
familiar to my mind, I should have heard with some degree of tremu lousness that you had devoted a long editorial of criticism to my unob trusive little book. I naturally concluded from the slanders current in
relation to you that your criticism was very adverse; first, because it was
J*e 
LETTER TO HORACE GREELEY, ESQ.
my misfortune to be born in the South, and secondly, because I had
propitiated neither political party by that coarse abuse which has
heretofore been made the appanage of all the controvertists on the subject of slavery. I had indeed sought to shun in my book anything that
was sectional in an odious sense.  I had conceived the idea of regarding
the negro as one of the most fruitful and innocent topics of our literature, rather than as a firebrand of partisan controversy. Enough,
however, was to be gathered from my pages to show that I did not
sympathize with your own peculiar creed of nigger-idolatry. I therefore feared that the subject of my little book had been tortured by you
into a sectional discussion, and that you had, rather as the politician
than as the man, visited your censure upon my humble and defenceless
head.
Judge my surprise-my great relief-my gratification, in fact, to
find that, so far from treating my book with sectional acerbity, you
had overlooked the vexed question in its literary features, had commended its innocent beauties of sentiment, and had mentioned side by
side with some of the touching tales of the classics, the little domestic
stories it contains. You compliment its heartfulness; you speak of
the indulgence of the author in "the pleasures of memory," and say
"the way in which he does it is creditable to his heart."  I thank you,
sir, for this; for sincerity and tenderness I esteem no light virtues of
style. But, sir, I am surprised to find you remark that you have not
received a copy of the book. You appear to have praised it fromn
detached passages you have seen in the press. One extract you particularly distinguish in your praise, and you say of this:
"It has been disintegrated, if we  may say so, from the main work,
and, in the highly respectable character of an Elegant Extract, is now
making a fashionable tour through the newspapers. We trust that
the Reverend Doctor Adams has seen this wandering small paragraph;
that it has rendered moist his venerable eyes, and warmed the cockles
of his ancient heart."
Sir, I can only say, in the fulness of my heart, that I shall imme
x 
LETTER TO HIORACE GREELEY~ ESQ.
diately supply you with several newly-printed copies of my book
which you will observe I have done you the compliment of entitling
" Black Diamonds," from a term which you have applied in your own
criticism of it.  And I trust, sir, that not only the "wandering small
paragraph," but others of similar pathos may warm the cockles of your
own heart, as well as that of Dr. Adams.
The main object with which I wrote the pages you commend was to
present some natural portraits of negro character.   The tenor of your
criticism shows to what degree you esteem me to have attained in that
respect. And your judgment in this matter, my dear sir, I recognize
as of extraordinary value, on account of your relations to the negro.
You know the negro, not as myself from the distant observation of the
master, but from the contact of companionship.  You know him from
mingling with him, and from brotherhood with him.  Your criticism,
therefore, I gladly and proudly accept as a judgment of the naturalness
of my descriptions.
In one respect of your article, you must allow me, my dear sir, to
correct you in point of information. I am not, as you conjecture, an
"impoverished office-holder."'  Appearances, too, are only against me
when you judge, that, of all the population of the federal metropolis,
myself seems to be in the lowest spirits, "if we except MIr. James
Buchanan."  I am, thank you, sir, in tolerable spirits; am not a member of thle kitchen-cabinet; am a plain man, without office of trust or
profit; and am fond of niggers in my peculiar way, but without embracing in my affection for them free love, free wool, and " the forty
thieves." 
In conclusion, I hope, my dear sir, that you will remember the good
words I have addressed you, should I again fall into your hands. When
my Southern friends have warned me of your ire, I have invariably
responded with good words of you. In this, I have taken a lesson from
that sapient old negro, Uncle Junkl, of whose wisdom I have given some
brief account in my book. At one time, a minister was telling Uncle
xi 
Xli       LETTER TO HORACE GREELEYV  ESQ.
Junk, to work him to repentance, how the devil tormented those who
went to hell.  Junk hoped that "good Mass'r Debble " wouldn't be so
cruel. The minister reproved him for speaking of Satan in such polite
terns.  "Well, you see, Mass'r," replied the old negro, " no tellin' but
de enemy might cotch me, and den I trust he remember as how I
spoked of him perlitely, and jes de same as if he was a white man."
I remain, Sir,
Your obliged, humnble servant,
EVwD. A. POLLARD. 
CONTENTS.
LETTER I.'
MACON, Georgia, one of the most Beautiful Cities of the South-Fort
Hawkins-Vineville-The Public Cemetery-The "Peculiar Insti  tution "-An Infamous Libel-Yankee Doughfaces-Negro Portraits
of Fiction-Writers mere Caricatures-Slavery in Various Aspects An Unadulterated Negro-Aunt Debby-IHer Religion-Anecdote of
C.esar-Aunt Debby a Coquette-The Whipping-Post and Slave
MlartAbolition Bugbears-Illustrative Incident......P..A.,  17
LETTER [I.
A  Slave Auction-Prices of Slaves-Humanity of Masters-Uncle
George, alias "Old Bones "-A Beau Hickman in his Way-Cared
for in his Old Age-Aunt Belinda, his Wife-Religious Bent of the
Negro's Mind-Sam's  Religious Experience-Negro  Hymns  and
Chants-Negro  Churches  in Macon-Religious  Services-Negro
Funeral-The Grave of " Mammy"..................... PACE 28
LETTER III.
Happiness, What constitutes it?-Its Independence of External Con ditions-The Slave as Happy as his Master-Life in California-Its
Trials, Successes, and Reverses-Sympathy of Abolitionists entirely
Sentimental-Montgomery's Poem, "The West Indies "-Its Poetic
and Delusive Pictures of the Negro's Condition-Intimate and Genial
Intercourse between the Southern Planter and his Slaves-" Brother
Bromus," and Pleasants, the Colored Carriage-Driver-Practical
Jokes.................................PAGE 39
LETTER IV.
Re-opening of the Slave Trade-Benefits which would result from it Its Advantages to the Working Classes-An Objection to it met The Slave Gentry-Their Affected Superiority over the Humbler
Classes of the WhitesThe Simple, Unadulterated Slave-Pompey,
an Old Guinea Negro-His' Genteel" Wife-Anecdotes of Pom  pey................................................... PACe 52 
CONTENTS.
LETTER V.
" Disunion Doctrine "-Importation of Africans not Necessarily a
Violation of Law-Sufficiency of Labor a Want of the South-A
Conservative Policy-Critical Stage in the Political History of the
South-Let the South Stand or Fall by the Constitution..... PAGE 62
LETTER VI.
A RPound of Visits-Travelling on a Canal-Boat-One of the F. F. V.s
-" Boisterous Bet"-A Peep into Bet's Albumn-Disemnbarkation An Alabama Judge-" Sound on the Liquor Question"-Oakridge
Farm-Early Associations-" Uncle Jeames," alias "Uncle Jimruboo"
-Iis Boy Tom-Aunt Judy-My Brother Dick-Our Juvenile Bat tles-The Runaway brought back................................ PAG,: 69
LETTER VII.
Negro Slavery in the United States-Favorable Contrast with other
Systems of Slavery-A Justification of it-The Story of Rienzi, anl
Illustration-Characteristics of the Slaves' Religion-Uncle Nash,
the old Black Patriarch-lis Death and Burial-Place.......PAGF 81
LETTER VIII.
The Physical Pains of Death-Recollections of a Death-Scene-Death
of Aunt Marie, an Old Loved Slave-Angels in Human Form..PAGE 90
LETTER IX.
Worse than Idle to Argue with Abolitionists-Junk, the Cobbler-HIis
Remarkable Stories of Foreign Travel-The Skepticism of Coilhn  Junk's Battle with Nutty-Trial and Summary Punishment...PAGE 98
LETTER' X.
Perpetuity and Extension of Negro Slavery Considered-Tropical
America-Manifest Destiny of the South-Course of Great Britain  The Monroe Doctrine-Walker's Nicaragua Expedition-Words of
Southern Heroism.......................... PAGE 106
LETTER XI. I
A Christian Ghost Story —Little Sister Rosalie-IIer Early Death-The
Stories of Aunt Matilda-A Message from Spirit Land-Sicknes  A Vision........................................... PAGE 115
xiv 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
LETTEIR I.
MACON, GEORGIA, 1858
'IY DEAR C'   I engaged to write you from the
South, and I take the earliest opportunity to date my
correspondence from Middle Georgia.  But I should not
fail to drop you a line or two, at start, of Macon, where
I write, as it is accounted one of the most beautiful
cities of the South, and has many objects of interest.
It is the seat of several public institutions, but has very
little trade. Near by the city, on a commanding position, stands Fort Hawkins, a rude wooden building,
which was constructed as a protection against the Indians; for you must know that Macon was about the
frontier of Georg,ia in 1818.  An  Indian mound  is in
sight, on the top of which are standing a few tall, melancholy pines. On the hills which surround the city, and
in the beautiful little vill of Vineville, which adjoins it,
may be seen the evidences of refinement, in the hand 
BLACK DIAIONDS.
some residences adorned with shrubbery and evergreens;
among which the olive and the holly, with its lucid
green, are the most common.   Many of the residences
of men of wealth are admirable, especially for their
tasteful grounds. But there is the fondness for white
paint, which may be observed in all parts of the South,
and for a nondescript architecture, in which all styles
are jumbled; or a plain magnificence studied in rows of
pillars and flights of steps, which frequently give to a
Southern villa the singular appearance of an eleemosynary institution. The chief object, however, to which
the admiration of the stranger is directed in Macon is
the public cemetery, which is compared (not extravagantly) in some points of natural scenery, to lMount Auburn and Greenwood. It is a lovely piece of ground,
with natural terraces overhanging the Ocmulgee, and
the wild glen that divides it.  The picturesque effect,
however, is almost entirely destroyed by the thick brushwood, which prevents the eye from taking in the outlines
of the scene.  The ground is covered with coppices of
oak and pinie, and studiously kept in a state of nature.
It seems, however, a strange idea. to keep the natural
scene concealed by the brushwood which everywhere
intercepts the view. Mlaybe, it is intended to be
"Unadorned, adorned the most "
an aesthetic fogyism, en passcait, disproved and despised,
at least by the charming ladies of Macon. 
18 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
In writing to you, my dear C., of the South and its
peculiar institution (as I intend), I am sure that I have
no prejudice to dispel from your mind  on the subject;
but as I may hereafter publish some extracts from the
correspondence, I hope the sketches, which may amuse
you, may correct the false views of others, derived, as
they chiefly are, from  the libels of Northern spies,
who live or travel here in disguise. Thus I observed
lately a communication in some of the Abolition papers,
professing to have been written by one who has been a
resident of AIacon for eleven years, to the effect that the
people here do not allow Northern papers to circulate or
be taklien by subscribers, or even Congressional documents
to be among them, which do not harmonize with their
peculiar views.  Although this infamous libel is quite
as absurd and undeserving of contradiction as the famed
Arrowsrnith hoax, or any of the Sanguinary Crowbar
style of negro-worship fictions, it deserves notice in one
respect. There are a number of Yankee doughfaces in
the South, who, before us, are the greatest admirers of
the peculiar institution, and, to honey-fuggle us, even
chime in with the abuse of their own section. There is
danger in these men of disguised character, many of
whom  are doing business in the South.   They are not
to be trusted; and while, not satisfied with being tolerated among us, they impose on our confidence and hospitality by their professions, they take secret opportunis
19 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
ties to gratify their real hatred of us, by tampering with
the slaves, or by libelling the South under the shelter
of anonymous letters published in the North.   The man
who would devise a safe opportunity to publish what he
knew to be false and libellous of those whose good will
he had won by another lie, might, with the same hope
of impunity, venture on a grander revenge, and secretly
conspire with the slave in a rebellion.
But it is not my purpose to trouble you with a dissertation on " the vexed question," or the social system of
the South, or any of the political aspects of Slavery. I
merely design to employ a few leisure hours in a series
of unpretending sketches of the condition, habits, and
peculiarities of the negro-slave. The field, you know,
has furnished a number of books; and I am sure, my
dear C., that you-are too sensible of the large share of
public attention ni,gers occupy in this country to slight
them.   Besides, I am thoroughly convinced that the
negro portraits of the fiction writers are, most of them,
mere caricatures, taking them all, from "Uncle Tom's
Cabin," down to the latest reply thereto-" a book"
from a Virginia authoress, in which the language put in
the mouth of her leading character is a mixture of Irish
idioms with the dialect of the Bowery. Who ever heard
a Southern negro say, as the Virginia lady's sable hero
does, " The tip-top of the morning to you, young ladies!"
or "What's to pay now?"   Nor will we find any gf
20 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
Airs. Stowe's Uncle Toms in the South, at-least so far as
the religious portraiture goes. The negro, in his religion,
is not a solemn old gentleman, reading his Bible in corners and praying in his closet: his piety is one of fits
and starts, and lives on prayer-meetings, with its rounds
of'zortations, shoutings, and stolen sweets of baked
.Po,
pig.
You already know my opinion of the peculiarities of
the negro's condition in the South, in the provision made
for his comfort, and in the attachment between him and
his master. The fact is, that, in wandering from my
native soil to other parts of the world, I have seen
slavery in many forms and aspects. We have all heard
enough of the colliers and factory operatives of England,
and the thirty thousand costermnongers starving in the
streets of London; as also of the serfs and crown-peasants of Russia, who are considered not even as chattels,
but as part of the land, and who have their wives selected for them by their masters. I have seen the hideous
slavery of Asia.   I have seen the coolies of China
"housed on the wild sea with wilder usages," or creeping
with dejected faces into the suicide houses of Canton.
I have seen the Siamese slave creeping in the presence
of his master on all-fours-a human quadrup'ed.  It was
indeed refreshing, after such sights, to get back to the
Southern institution, which strikes one after so many
years of absence, with a novelty that makes him ap.
21 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
preciate more than ever the evidences of comfort and
happiness on the plantations of the South.
The first unadulterated negro I had seen for a number
of years (having been absent for the most of that time
on a foreign soil), was on the railroad cars in Virginia.
He looked like home.  I could have embraced the old
uncle, but was afraid the passengers, from such a
demonstration, might mistake me  for an abolitionist.
I looked at him with my face aglow, and my eyelids
touched with tears. How he reminded me of nay home
-of days gone by-that poetry of youth,  " when I
was a boy,"  and wandered with my sable playmates
over the wvarm, wide hills of my swveet home, and along
the branches, fishing in the shallow waters  with  a
crooked pin!  But no romancing with the past!  So
we continue our journey  onward to  " the State of
railways and revolvers."
Arrived in Georgia, I find plenty of the real genuine
,toolyj-heads, such as don't part their hair in the middle, like AMass'r Fremont.  ibly first acquaintance is
with Aunt Debby.  I insist upon giving her a shake
of the hand, which she prepares for by deprecatingly
wiping her hand on her apron.  Aunt Debby is an aged
colored female of the very highest respectability, and,
with her white apron, and her head mysteriously enveloped in the brightest of bandannas, she looks (to use
one of her own rather obscure similes) "like a new
22 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
pin."  She is very fond of usurping the authority of
her mistress below stairs, and has the habit of designating every one of her own color, not admitted to equality,
as "de ni-ger."  Aunt Debby  is rather spoiled, if
having things her own way means it. If at times her
mistress is roused to dispute her authority, Aunt Debby
is sure to resume the reins when quiet ensues. " Debby," cries her mistress, " what's all this noise in the
kitchen-what are you whipping Lucy for?"  " La,
missis, I'se jest makin' her'have herself. She too busy
wallin- her eyes at me, and spilt the water on the
steps."   Among the children, Aunt Debby is a great
character.   She  is, however,  very partial;  and her
favorite is little Nina, whom she calls (from what remote  analogy we are at a loss to conjecture) " her
jelly-pot."   I flatter myself that I am  in her good
graces.  Her attention to me has been shown  by  a
present of ground-peas, and accessions of fat lightwood
to my fire in the morning.
The religious element is very strong in Aunt Debby's
character, and her repertoire of pious minstrelsy is quite
extensive.  Her favorite hymn is in the following words,
which are repeated over and over again:
" Oh run, brother, run! Judgment day is comin'!
Oh run, brother, run!  Why don't you come along?
The road so rugged, and the hill so high And my Lord call me home,
To walk the go,lden streets of mry New Jerusalem."
23 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
Aunt Debby's religion is of that sort-always begging the Lord to take her up to glory, and professing
the greatest anxiety to go right now! This religious
enthusiasm, however, is not to be taken at its word.
You have doubtless heard the anecdote of Caesar,
which is too good not to have been told more than once;
though even if you have heard the story before, it will
bear repetition for its moral. Now, Coesar one day had
caught it, not from Brutus, but from Betty-an allegorical coquette in the shape of a red cowhide. On retiring
to the silence of his cabin at night, Cmsar commenced to
soliloquize, rubbing the part of his body where the castigation had been chiefly administered, and bewailing
his fate with tragic desperation, in the third person.
"Cmsar," said he,  " most done gone-don't want  to
live no longer!  Jist come, good Lord, swing low de
chariot, and take dis chile away!  Caesar ready to gohe wlants to go!" An irreverent darkey outside, hearing these protestations, tapped at the door.  "Who dar?"
replied Cesar, in a low voice of suppressed alarm.  " De
angel of de Lord come for Cesar,'cordin to request."
The dread summons had indeed come, thought Caesar;
but blowing out the light with a sudden whiff, he replied, in an unconcerned tone, " De  nigger don't live
here."
There is one other trait wanting to complete Aunt
Debby's character. Though at an advanced age, she i
24 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
very coquettish; and keeps up a regular assault on a big
lout of the name of Sam, whom she affects to despise as
" jist de meanest nigger de Lord ever put breath in."
I overheard some words between them last holidoy.
"I'se a white man to-day," says Sam, " and I'se not
gwine to take any of your imperence, old ooman;" at
the same time, taking the familiar liberty of poking his
finger into her side like a brad-awl.  "Get'long, Saten!" replied Aunt Debby, with a shove, but a smile at
the same time, to his infernal majesty. And then they
both fell to laughing for the space of half a minute,
although I must confess, that I could not understand
what they were laughing at.
Aunt Debby may serve you, my dear C., as a pieture of the happy, contented, Southern slave. Some of
your Northern politicians would represent the slaves of
the South as sullen, gloomy, isolated from life-in fact,
pictures of a living death.  Believe me, nothing could
be further from the truth. Like Aunt Debby, they have
their little prides and passions, their amusements, their
pleasantries, which constitute the same sum of happiness as in the lives of their masters.
The whipping-post and the slave mart are constantly
paraded before the eyes of the poor, deluded fanatics of
your section. Now I can assure you that the inhuman
horrors of the slave auction-block exist only in imagination. Many instances of humanity may be observed
25 
BLACKI DIAMONDS.
there; and but seldom does the influence of the
almighty dollar appear to sway other and better considerations in the breast of the slaveholder. The separation of families at the block has come to be of very
unfrequent occurrence, although the temptation is obvious to do so, as they generally sell much better when
the families are separated, and especially as the traders,
who usually purchase for immediate realization, do not
wish small children.  Indeed, there is a statute in this
State (Georgia) forbidding the sale of slave children of
tender age away from their parents.
I attended a slave auction here the other day. The
negroes were called up in succession on the steps of the
court-house, where the crier stood. Naturally most of
them appeared anxious as the bidding was going on,
turning their eyes from one bidder to the other; while
the scene would be occasionally enlivened by some jest
in depreciation of the negro on the stand, which would
be received with  especial  merriment  by  his  fellow
negroes, who  awaited their turn, and looked on from a
large wagon in which they were placed.  As I came
up, a second-rate plantation hand of the namle of Noah
but whom the crier persisted in calling " Noey," was
being offered, it being an administrator's sale.   Noey,
on mounting the steps, had assumed a most drooping
aspect, hanging his head and affecting the feebleness of
old age.  He had probably hoped to have avoided a sale
26
t 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
by a dodge, which is very common in such cases. But
the first bid-$1,000-startled him,  and he  looked
eagerly to the quarter whence it proceeded.  " Never
mind who he is, he has got the money. Now, gentlemen, just go on; who will say fifty?" And so the crier
proceeds with his monotonous calling. " I aint worth
all that, mass'r; I aint much'count no how,"  cries
Noey energetically to the first bidder. " Yes, you are,
Noey-ah, $1,010, thank you, sir," replies the crier.
The gentleman who makes this bid is recognized by
Noey as " I\ass'r John," one of the heirs.  $1,011, rejoins the first bidder, and Noey throws a glance of infinite disdain at him for his presumption in bidding
against his master. But as the bidders call over each
other, Noey becomes more excited. " Drive on, Mass'rI
John," he exclaims, laughing with excitement.  The
bidding is very slow.  Mass'r John evidently hesitates
at the last call, $1,085, as too large a price for the
slave, though anxious to bid the poor fellow in; but
Noey is shouting to him, amid the incitements of the
crowd, to " Drive on;" and, after a pause, he says in a
firm tone, eleven hIundred dollars.  The crier calls out
the round numbers with a decided emphasis. He looks
at the first bidder, who is evidently making up his mind
whether to no higher, while Noey is regarding him, too,
with a look of the keenest suspense. The man shakes
27
2 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
his head at last, the hammer falls, and Noey, with an
exulting whoop, dashes down the steps to his master.
Yours truly,                     E. A. P.
To D. M. C., Esq., N.Y.
LETTER II.
MACON, GEORGIA, 1858.
MVY  DEAR  C: The conclusion of my last letter
was, I believe, concerning that abolition bugbear, the
slave auction mnart. Macon, you must know, is one of
the principal marts for slaves in the South.   Some time
ago, I attended on the city's confines an extraordinarily
large auction of slaves, including a gang of sixty-one
from a plantation in southwestern Georgia.  The prices
brought were comparatively low, as there was no warranty of soundness, and owing very much, also, to the
fact that the slaves were all sold in families; and they,
too, uncommonly large, as I counted fifty-nine negroes
in ten families.  To give you some idea of the prices
brought, I quote the following: Clarinda's family-Clarinda, plantation cook, weakly, 45 years; Betsey, field
hand, prime, 22 years; James, field hand, prime, 14
years; Edmond, Betsey's son, 4 years, brought total,
$2,620.  Jourdon's family, bright mulattoes-Jourdon,
blacksmith, prime 33 years; Lindy, field hand, prime,
30 years; Mary, prime, 13 years; Winney, prime, T2
28 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
years; Abbey, prime, 9 years; Elizabeth, prime, 6
years, brought total, $3,650, Chloe's family, consisting all of likely negroes, the younger mulattoes-viz.
Chloe, field hand, prime, 33 years, classified as " the
best of negroes;" Clarissa, fieldhand, prime, 16 years;
Junius,  prime,  9 years;  Francis,  prime,  12 years;
Robert,  prime,  5 years;  infant,  2 months,  brought
total, $2,940.
During the sale referred to, a lot was put up consisting of a woman  and her two sons, one of whom was
epileptic (classified by the crier as "fittified "').  It was
stated that the owner would not sell them unless the
epileptic boy was taken along at the nominal price of
one dollar, as he wished him provided for. Some of the
bidders expressed their dissatisfaction at this, and a trader offered to give two hundred dollars more on condition
that the epileptic boy should be thrown out. But the
temptation was unheeded, and the poor boy was sold with
his mother. There are frequent instances at the auctionblock of such humanity as this on the part of masters.
Facts like these should teach us, my dear C., that
when that feature even, which we all confess to be the
worst in our system of negro-slavery, is relieved by so
many instances of humane and generous consideration
on the part of slaveholders, our peculiar institution is
one the virtues of which qualify its defects, and of pecu.
liar merit.
29 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
But I will leave off sermonizing, and give you what 1
promised-a simple, home picture of slavery.
I must tell you, next to Aunt Debby (who figured in
my last letter,) of "Uncle" George-" Old Bones," as
we boys used to call him. In our young days we were
perpetually either teasing or trading with the old fellow,
who was the head-gardener, and was kept constantly on
the lookout by our depredations on his vines.  Or when
wve got a few cents from "grandpa," or obtained leave
to give away our " old clothes," how we used to buy
from him, surreptitiously, little noggins of muddy cider!
Years ago, when I left home, he was then almost decrepit
from old age, but his avarice and keenness at a trade
with his " young mass'rs" were the same as ever.  He
was a queer-looking old fellow; never would wear a hat;
and, with his immense shock of hair as white as snow,
and standing off from his head, and his enormous leather
" galluses" (suspenders), he made a singular picture in
our boyish recollections.
Ah! how many times in years of exile from my native
land have I recalled the image of this old slave, with the
picture of the old brick garden, with its grass walks and
its cherry-trees, and the gentle mounds in the corner,
that saddest, sweetest spot on earth-the parental graves!
Boys are never very thoughtful.  Nothwithstanding
Uncle George's respectability and good nature, we used
to worry him very much, and were constantly on fhe
30
I 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
alert to cheat him in a trade. The latter, however, it
was difficult to accomplish. Quicksilvered cents, which
we used to cunningly offer him, protesting that we
had just "found " them, would not go with him.   I
remember well, when we went out hunting-four brothers, with an old flint gun-how, after shooting a few
"peckerwoods" in the orchard, we would go down to the
garden and banter Uncle George to shoot at a mnarkl for
"fourpence apenny."  He was very proud of doing this,
and enjoyed the privilege of "shooting a gun" with the
same zest as a ten-year-old school boy. But he discovered
our trick at last-how the gun was loaded for him without shot and with five "fingers" of powder, "kicking"
him most unmercifully, and never showing the least
sign on the target.
If you should ever visit "Oakridge," my dear C., you
must be prepared for a grand reception by Uncle George,
who is quite a Beau Hickman in his way. He is a very
genteel beggar. He makes it a point to see all the visitors
who come to our home; and has the ugly habit of
secretly waylaying them, and begging them to "remember" him.  You must have half-a-dollar for him when
you come. I think I can promise that you will not be
quite as heartless to his appeal for a place in your memory,
as was a gentleman from the North ("a friend of humanity"), who lately partook of our hospitality.   On his
ieaving, Uncle George, as usual, exercised his privilege
31 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
of bringing the horse to "the rack;" and, after assisting the gentleman to mount, begged that " mass'r would
remember the old nigger."   "Oh,  yes," replied the
friend of humanity, as he rode off, "I will not forget
you, my good fellow; I will think of you, and hope you
will be elevated into a better condition." But he never
gave him a dime to be elevated with.
On  the morning following my  return home, after
years of absence, I was told that Uncle George, who
was too decrepit from age to come up to the house,
wanted me to come to the negro "quarter" to see him.
He understood that I had been in " that gold country,"
(he meant California) and he wanted to see his young
mass'r very particularly, intimating quite clearly that
he expected a handsome present. I found the old fellow
very comfortably situated.  He had grown old gently;
he had never seen any hard service; and now in his old
age was he not only not required to do any work, but,
with that regard commonly exhibited toward the slave
when stricken with age, he had every attention paid
him in the evening of his life. His meals were sent
out to him from our own table. There was one little
considerate attention that touched me. His passion for
gardening, which had been the whole occupation of his
life, had been gratified by giving him a little patch of
ground in front of his cabin, where he might amuse
himself at his own option.
:32 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
I found Uncle George in his miniature garden. The
old fellow staggered up to see me, and, suddenly dropping, clasped me around the knees.   I was quite overcome.  This poor old man was " a slave," and yet he
had a place in my heart, and I was not ashamed to
meet him with tears in my eyes. Miserable abolitionists! you prate of brotherly love and humanity. If you
or any man  had dared to hurt a hair of this slave, I
could have trampled you into the dust.
"Uncle George," said I, " I am sorry to see you
look so old."  "Ah, mass'r, I'se monstrous old.  But
missis mighty good to me,  She know I set store by all
her children.   Belinda" (his wife) "nussed" (he means
' nursed') " all of you."  " Well, Uncle George," I said,
"I am  glad to see you made  so comntortable.  The
family should never forget you. I have often heard
how you saved grandpa's life, when he was drowning."
"Yes, yes, mass'r," replied the old fellow, "and  I
saved him many a dollar, too."
Aunt Belinda, Uncle George's wife, I find in  the
cabin, as blithe as ever, though stricken with age.
She is also on the retired list, and her only care is to
"mind" the children in the quarter.   The  religious
element is quite as marked in her character as in that
of Aunt Debby, of whom I spoke in my last epistle.
But it is more tender and of more universal love. She
parts from every one with the wish of " meeting them
33 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
at the right hand of God." She sings sonme simple
and touching hymns, which I am sorry I did not cornmit to paper. One she sings very sweetly, in which
the lines constantly recur
Oh, Heaven, sweet Heaven, when shall I see?
When shall I ever get there?
Of another favorite hym  of hers I  took  down  ele
following words:
"Go back, angels! Go back, angels!
Go back into Heaven, little children!
Go back, little angels!
And I don't want to stay behind Behold the Lamb of God!
Behold the Lamb of God!
And I don't want to stay behind."
You will find, my dear C., one of the most striking
characteristics of the negro in the South in the religious bent of his mind. Whether a member of the church
or no, he is essentially at war with the devil. With
him religion is entirely a matter of sentiment, and his
imagination often takes unwarrantable liberties with
the Scriptures.   This is particularly so in the images
he conjures up of the place where the bad niggers go,
and the things appertaining thereto. The negro who
has "got de'ligion," and has never been favored in the
process with a peep at " Ole Sa-ten," or is unable to
give a full description of his person, is considered by his
34 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
brethren a doubtful case-a mere trifler, if not a hypocrite.
Sam was relating to me the other day his religious
experience, in the course of which, the " Old Scratch"
seems to have given him a great deal of trouble, appearing at his elbow whenever he prayed, and walking unceremoniously into his room, cracking a long whip, of
which instrument of persuasion Sam seems to have a
peculiar horror.  "De last time he come," says Sam,
"he knock at de door and call'Sam;' my  courage
sorter fail me den, and I blows out de light and tell
him de nigger done dead two weeks'go; and den he
says,' If you don't open de door, you dam nigger, I -will
straighten you out;' and den I jis go right clean out
of der winder; and as I turn de corner, here come ole
mass'r right agin me; and when I tell him as how I jis
seed de debble wid my own eyes, he tell me I gwine
to catch him, too, and dat he was gwine to get'ligion
out me by hooping "-a new use you might imagine,
my dear C., to put " hoops" to; but I discovered that
Sam's pronunciation was bad, and that he meant
nothing more than a dressing to his hide.
But the idea we get of the negro's religion is not always ludicrous. Some of their superstitions are really
beautiful, and illustrate their poetic cast of mind. Their
hymns, or religious chants, might furnish a curious
book. The words are generally very few, and repeated
2*
35 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
over and over again; and the lines, though very unequal, are sung with a natural cadence that impresses
the ear quite agreeably.  Most of them relate to the
moment of death, and in some of them are simple and
poetic images which are often touching. The following
occur to me without any pains at selection:
"Oh, carry me away, carry me away, my Lord!
Carry me to the berryin' ground,
The green trees a-bowing. Sinner, fare you well!
I thank the Lord I want to go,
To leave them all behind.
Oh, carry me away, carry me away, my Lord!
Carry me to the berryin' ground."
The following is an image of touching simplicit)a thought of poetry:
"I am gwine home, children; I am gwine home, children,
De angel bid me to come.
I am gwine down to de water side Tis de harvest time, children,
And de angel bid me come."
The negroes here have three or four churches of different denominations-Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian-in which there is regular service every Sunday.
The sermons and exhortations of the colored preachers,
as we see them reported, are mostly mere caricatures.
They are often sensible, and though the images are those
of an untutored imagination, they are anything in the
world but ludicrous. I attended the services of one of
86 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
the negro churches last Sunday, and heard really a very
sensible exhortation from one of their colored preachers,
who, although he commenced by telling his congregation that " death was knockingi at their heels," went on
to draw a picture of the judgment with a wild, native
sublimity that astonished me.
A feature in the services struck me rather ludicrously.
The congregation sang a duet, which ran somewhat as
follows:
_First Voices.  Oh, hallelujah! Glory in my soul!
Second Voices.  Humph! Whar?
F. V.  When the moon go down the mountain, hide
your face from God.
S. V. Humph! Whar?
F. V. To talk with Jesus. Glory hallelujah!
The colored Methodist church here is a handsome
building, which the negroes have paid for, themselves,
besides maintaining a white preacher. You must know
that our colored gentry (many of -whom, as the custom
is here, make considerable money by " hiring their own
time," and paying their masters a stated sum for the
privilege), not only maintain parsons and build churches,
but hire carriages on Sundays to attend them.  The fact
is, we have too many of these colored codfish in some
parts of the South, especially in the towns.
While I was in Maeon, quite a spectacle was exhibited on the street, in the obsequics of one of our slam
37 
BLACK DIAMOND'S.
gentry. The deceased had been attached as a drummer
to one of our volunteer companies, the band of which
accompanied the body to the grave.  The funeral cortege was truly striking.  The body was borne through
the principal streets in a handsome  hearse,  fringed
with sable, and preceded by the band of the company,
playing funeral marches, while, following after, came a
long procession of negroes, in decent attire, and a portion riding in carriages. Yes! negroes actually riding
in carriages, hired each at eight dollars a day! What,
my dear C., will Mrs. Stowe and the nigger worshippers
say now of all this "fuss about a dead nig  er?"-a
deprecation, you will recollect, of mass'r Legree!
Let them say what they please, say I, as long as they
cannot get our negroes away from us, and kill them off
in their own unfeeling land with cold, nakedness, and
hung,er. I am not ashamed, my dear C., to confess to
be attached by affection to some of the faithful slaves
of our family, to have sent them remembrances in absence, and, in my  younger days, to have made little
monuments over the grave of my poor " mammy."   Do
you think I could ever have borne to see her consigned
to the demon abolitionist, man or woman, and her lean,
starved corpse rudely laid in a pauper's grave?  No!
At this moment my eyes are tenderly filled with tears
when I look back through the mists of long years upon
the image of that dear old slave, and recollect how she
38 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
loved me in her simple manner; how, when chided even
by my mother, she would protect and humor me; and
how, in the long days of summer, I have wept out my
boyish passion on her grave.  Yours truly,    E. A. P.
To D. M. C., Esq., N. Y.
LETTER III.
BRIARCLIFF, VIRGINIA, 1858.
IvY DEAR C: I have been reflecting how illusory
and fallacious are our poor human doctrines of happiness. What is happiness?-a question often proposed
and often answered by enumerations of pleasures and
gifts of fortune. But we cannot analyze happiness; we
cannot name its elements; we cannot say what constitutes it; all that can be determined, is the fact whether
or no we possess happiness, and that fact is one of individual consciousness. Happiness is a fact of consciousness: it is subjective; it is independent of all external
conditions; and it is individual. The body may be
surrounded by every comfort; the mind may be intoxicated by pleasures; the whole life may be illumined
with fortune; no affliction may ever cast its cold
shadow on the path; riches may dazzle; soft loves may
breathe their incense; the conscience even may never
accuse, and the wild pulse of pleasure may beat on and
on; but the man of all this store and of all this fortune,
39 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
when he explores his consciousness, may find the sentiment of unhappiness mysteriously and unalterably
there. How wonderful is this!
Yet, dear C., there may be many who would accuse
me of pressing a trite and very simple observation in
thus speaking of the independence of happiness of all
external conditions. I think this one of the great mysteries of life; and those who have felt its truth stealing
into their hearts will think so too. Some days ago, I
was walking in the fields; the sunset and the balmy
air tranquillized me; I had nothing at that time to complain of, or to accuse myself of, and yet at that moment
when I saw a poor man walking to his home along the cool
shadow of the road, I suddenly, mysteriously, and earnestly wished that I was he, and might rest, rest from  the
weary world.
Yes, my beloved friend, God gives happiness to men,
without reference to the circumstances that surround
them; he gives it to the beggar as well as the lord; to
the slave as well as the master. The doctrine of inequality in the distribution of happiness is impious and
infidel, and should be rejected as a vile and corrupting dogma of the atheists and free-thinkers. The distribution is, in fact, where men do not pervert the designs
of Providence, as nearly equal as it is possible to imagine;
for even in the distribution of that portion of happiness
derived from external condition. there is introduced a'
40 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
singular law of compensation, which adjusts our natural
and original appreciation of the gifts of fortune, precisely in inverse proportion to what we have of them.
There was a time when  I thought, too, how  unequally happiness —Heaven's gift-was shared in by
men. Often and acutely, when a tender and inexperienced boy, did I suffer from that thought. It diseased
my sensibilities; it introduced into my life a dark and
gloomy melancholy; it made me sorrowful, sometimes
sullen, sometimes fierce. Well do I recall those feelings. In the midst of my own boyish enjoyments,
when, having a pleasant ride in the old swinging carriage, or feasting on delicacies, I have suddenly thought
of my  poor little slave companions, how  they had to
work in the fields, how they were made to tote burdens
under the summer's sun, what poor food they had, and
with what raptures they would devour  " the  cake"
with which I was pampering myself. Then would I
become gloomy, embittered, and strangely anxious to
inflict pain and privation on myself; and with vague
enthusiasm would accuse the law that had made  the
lots of men so different.  1 was fast becoming the victim
of the same fanaticism, the fruits of which we see de veloped in a senseless self-martyrdom, or in a fierce in fidelity, or in modern socialism, or in the reckless spirit
of " abolitionism;"' or in any of the insane efforts to
make all men equally free and equally happy.           -
41 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
But the bitter experiences of life have cured  these
feelings. In its sad and painful struggles has expired
my juvenile and false philosophy, and I have awakened
to the calm, serious, profound conviction, that every
human lot has its sorrow and its agony, and that, as
an  Italian proverb beautifully signifies-" A  skeleton
misery is shut up in the closet of every heart." I am
profoundly convinced that the negro-slave has naturally
as much of happiness as I. What I disappreciate is
to him an almost priceless source of enjoyment; the
pain I derive from a thousand delicate griefs he never
feels; all that I suffer from struggles, from disappointments, from agonies in a superior career, he is a happy
stranger to. It is a very simple truth, my dear C.J that
happiness is in the mind-but when will the world learn
the plain leson, wipe away the tears of all sentimental sympathy, and adopt, as the great rule of life, that
every man should bear his own burdens; that the object
of sympathy is individual; and that it is equally senseless and sinful to sorrow over lots inferior to our own,
as tA) repine for and envy those which are superior.
I have no tears for the lot of the negro-slave; he can
make it as happy as, and perhaps happier than, my
own. I look into my own heart and write what I find
there. Years ago, I left my home to adventure into the
world, to seek my fortune tens of thousands of miles
away; but my heart was swelling, defiant, joyous; T
42 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
had glowing prospects, and was departing with a flush
of exultation, which even the last tears that I dropped
on my mother's bosom clouded but for a moment. But
when I stood waiting for the boat along the little
muddy canal, where began my journey, that was by
progressive stages at last to enter upon the great ocean,
and when poor old gray-headed Uncle Jim came down
to the bank, tottering under my fine trunk, and stood
watching my departure with loud, fervent blessings, my
heart was struck with a peculiar grief. I thought that
while I was going out to the world, to taste its innu.
merable joys, to see its fine sights, to revel in its fine
linens, its wines, and its dissipations, here was poor,
good old Uncle  Jim  to go back along the old wagon
rut through the woods to his log cabin, to return to the
drudgery of the stupid old fields, condemned never to
see the fine world, never to taste its pleasures, never
to feel the glow of its passionate joys, but to die
like the clod, which alone was to mark his grave.   So I
thought when I left Uncle Jim on the canal bank, bewailing his "little young  mass'r's"  departure; (but
considerately provided by me with two whole dollars to
console him with a modicum of whiskey, molasses, and
striped calicoes, at the grocery that stood hard by.)
Well, dear C., I went out into the world. I went first
to California, and for four years there I think I learned
some lessons that will last me through life. I had lost
43 
BLACK  DIAMONDS.
none of my buoyancy when I first stepped on old " Long
Wharf,'? and took my first drink of genuine strychnine
whiskey at an old shanty that stood curiously at the
head of the wharf, surmounted by an immense wooden
figure of "the Wandering  Jew."   I went boldly and
buoyantly to work the moment  I landed.  Well, it is
needless. to repeat to you here the story of my trials, my
successes, and my dread reverses. When the world
treated me most roughly-when  I writhed in all the
agony of the defeat, self-distrust, and self-contempt of
a sensitive ambition-when poverty-stricken I worked
along one of the little streams that ran through a pine
glade of the Sierra, and when I buried my only friend
Mtac there, high up on the hill-side, that the gold-diggers
might never disturb his dust, and lay down at night
in despair, waking up with the demoniac joys of a reekless life burning in my  heart, burning out my lifefriendless, moneyless, agonized-with such experiences
of my own of the life of this world, I had very little
sympathy left, I assure you, for buck negroes "pining
in their chains," or any other sort of sentimental barba
rians. I just felt that every man has his own burden
to bear in this life; that, while (I hope to God) I would
always be found ready to sympathize with and assist any
individual tangible case of suffering, I would never be
such a fool thereafter as to make  the abstract lots of
men in this world an object of sympathy. I vent-are
44 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
to say that I have suffered more of unhappiness in a
short worldly career than ever did my "Uncle Jim" or
any other well conditioned negro slave in a whole lifetime. How many of us, who are blessed with so
many external gifts of fortune, can lay our hands on
aching, unsatisfied hearts, and say the same!
I am persuaded, my dear C., that the sympathy of
the abolitionists with the negro slave is entirely sentimental in its source. They associate with the idea inspired by that terrible word' slavery" the poetic and
fiendish horrors of chains, scourges, and endless despair.
They never pause to reflect how much better is the lot
of the sable son of Ham, as a slave on a Southern plantation well cared for, and even religiously educated, than
his condition in Africa, where he is at the mercy of both
men and beasts, in danger of being eaten up bodily by his
enemy, or being sacrificed to the Fetish or in the human
hecatombs, by which all state occasions are said to be
celebrated in the kingdom of Dahomey. Indeed, these
foolish abolitionists, under a sentimental delusion, aie
brought to regard the condition of the negro in Africa-as
one of simple, poetic happiness, while associating with
the idea of his "slavery" a thousand horrors of imagination.  If you will hunt up a poem by James Mo1ntgomery, entitled " The West Indies," which was written
during the early days of the British " abolitionists,"
and used as a most powerful appeal in their cause, being
45 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
published with the most profuse and costly illustrations,
you will find the same poetic and delusive pictures of the
condition of the negro in Africa on the one hand, and his
lot as a slave on the other, which exercise so great an influence on the weak imaginations of the present day. I
copy some characteristic passages. Here is the picture
of the negro at home:
"Beneath the beams of brighter skies,
His home amidst his father's country lies
There with the partner of his soul hlie shares
Love-mingled pleasures, love-divided cares;
There, as withl nature's warmest filial fire.
Hie soothes his blind and feeds his helpless sire,
His children, sporting round his hut, behold
How they shall cherish him when he is old.
Trained by example, from their tenderest youth,
To deeds of charity and words of truth.
Is he not blest? Behold, at close of day,
The negro village swarms abroad to play;
He treads the dance, through all its rapturous rounds
To the wild music of barbarian sounds."
But the negro, (according to our poet) is rudely
snatched away from this poetic home of peace, loveliness,
virtue, rapture, &c., &c., and is condemned to" slavery,"
condemned to endure
"The slow pangs of solitary care
The earth-devouring anguish of despair;
When toiling, fainting, in the land of canes,
His spirit wanders to his native plains,
His little lovely dwelling there he sees,
Beneath the shade of his paternal trees The home of comfort."
46 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
Is not all this very absurd? But it is just such stuff
on which are fed the weak, fanatical imaginations of our
modern abolitionists and shriekers. Here, again, is a
picture, by our poet, of a slave proprietor, which will suit
to a nicety the modern New-England conception of a
Southern " nigger-driver."
"See the dull Creole at his pompous board,
Attendant vassals cringing round their lord;
Satiate with food, his heavy eyelids close,
Voluptuous minions fan him to repose.
Prone on the noonday couch he lolls in vain,
Delirious slumbers rack his maudlin brain;
He starts in horror from bewildering dreams,
His blood-shot eye with fire and frenzy gleams.
He stalks abroad; through all his wonted rounds,
The negro trembles and the lash resounds;
And Ories of anguish, shrilling through the air,
To distant fields his dread approach declare."
Now, my dear C., it is needless to say to you that we
have no such ogres in the South, or to delay you with
criticisms of these hyper-poetical and nonsensical pictures
of slavery. I wish to recur to the more logical style,
with which I started out in the commencement of this
letter. I wish to say that the happiness of the Southern
slave is not to be estimated by his paucity of fortune, or
any such vulgar standard; but that we are to consider,
as peculiar elements of happiness in his lot, his peaceful
frame of mind, his great appreciation of the little of
fortune he has (by a rule of inverse proportion), and
his remission from all the ordinary cares of life. I will
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here add, too, in contradiction and in contempt of the
poet's picture supra of the dreadful slave-owner, that a
great and peculiar source of happiness to the Southern
slave is the freedom of intercourse and attachment between himself and his master. 
Instead of a slave-owner stalking around " with fire
and frenzy," amid the "shrilling" cries of slaves, we
will find the intercourse between the Southern planter
and slave, even in the fields, to be generally of the
most intimate and genial kind. Your own observation
in the South, dear C., will doubtless attest this circumstance. You have seen, as well as I, a master
kindly saluting his slaves in the field, and listening patiently to their little requests about new clothes,
new shoes, &c. And you have, no doubt, also seen slaves,
in their intercourse with the fanmilies of their masters,
playing with the children, indulging their rude but singularly innocent humor with them, ant joining their
young masters in all sorts of recreation. It is these
social privileges which constitute so large and so peculiar
a source of enjoyment in the life of the slave, and which
distinguish his lot so happily from that of the free laborer,
who has nothing but a menial intercourse with his employer.
I might, dear C., give you a number of anecdotes from
my own experience, of the intimacy which is frequently
indulged between the Southern slave and the members
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BLACK DIAMONDS.
of his master's family. I was trained in an affectionate
respect for the old slaves on the plantation; I was permitted to visit their cabins, and to carry them kind
words and presents; and often have I been soundly and
unceremoniously whipped by the old black women for
my annoyances. All my recreations were shared by
slave companions. I have hunted and fished with Cuffy;
I have wrestled on the banks of the creek with him;
and with him as my trusty lieutenant, I have "fi]ibustered" all over my old aunt's dominions from " Rucker's
Run" to cousin "Bobity Bee's."
And then there was "brother Bromus," who had many
a fight with Wilson and Cook Lewis, and who, beside
being generally whipped, always paid the penalty for the
fun of fighting by a sound thrashing at the hands of
Pleasants, the colored carriage-driver, and the father of
the aforesaid black youngsters.  Would you believe it,
poor Bromus stood in such terror of this black man, that
even after he had gone to college, and used to spout
Latin, and interlard his conversation to us boys with
pompous allusions to college life, and with the perpetual
phrase of "when I was at the U-ni-ver-si-ty," it was
only necessary to threaten him with Pleasants' wrath, to
subdue and frighten him into anything. But Pleasants
was an amiable enough negro gentleman, and although
he used Bromus pretty badly at times, he showed him a
good deal of rough kindness, which B., to this day,
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BLACK DIAMONDS.
gratefully acknowledges, and which Pleasants avers,
with great pride in his manly master, was the "making
of him."
la.ny a time, with my sable playmates as companions
and conspirators in the deed, have I perpetrated revenge
for such "rough kindness" on the old ill-natured blacks.
What fun we used to have; and then there was no
cruelty to mar the sport. We limited ourselves to simple
practical jokes, and all sorts of harmless annoyanceswould propel apples at Uncle Peyton when he got drunk
in the orchard; and would send the negroes out of the
fields upon all sorts of fools' errands, and lie in wait to
witness their reception at the grand stone steps of the
house by "ole mass'r," with his inevitable square-toed
boots.  No one enjoyed the sport more heartily than our
sable companions, who, in all the affairs of fun and recreation, associated with us on terms of perfect equality.
But let me dismiss these desultory allusions to young
days, to which my memory reverts with more of sadness
than of laughter. I ask, seriously, who shall say that
the black companions of our rambles and sports, who
cheated us, quizzed us, fought -us as freely as we did
them, were not as happy as ourselves? Now we, their
young masters, and they, have grown up to be men.
From being companions in youth, they have grown up
into slaves, we into masters. We two are pursuing
journeys far apart across the fickle desert of life.  Put
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mtay it not be that they are still as happy as we? It is
true that they have an humble and inglorious career
before them, and must ever bear the painful thought of
dying without leaving a mark behind them; but unlike
many a poor white man, who has to tread the same career,
not only without a hope of glory, but along the thorns of
want and through great agony, they see manifested a constant care to provide for their support, to lead them along
peaceful and thornless paths, and to sustain them even
to the final close of life's journey to the grave. Is there
no happiness in this? Is it possible that the negro, who
has his human and rational wants supplied constantly
and certainly, and who is indulged with so considerable
a degree of social intercourse with his master, can be
made, by the single abstract reflection that he lacks
"liberty" (abolition liberty, mark you), more unhappy
than his master, who may see nothing in his own career
but a struggle with the great necessities of life, closing
in a grave as readily forgotten as that of his sla,3? Who
shall judge of other men's happiness in this world?  Let
the slave speak for himself; let the master speak for
himself; and let the record be made when justice, the
only equal thing-and that equalizes all things-shall
be brought down from the heavens to be done upon
earth.
Yours truly,
E. A. P.
To D. M. C., Esq., N.Y.
51
14 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
LETTER IV.
CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA, 1858.
MY DEAR C:  You will permit me to say that the
expressions in your letter, of repugnance at the proposition to re-open the Slave trade, and of horror at what
you esteem will be its consequences to the country, as
well as to the abstract cause of morality, are, in my
humble opinion, unjust to the facts of the case, and uncalled for.
In preceding letters, I think I promised you something
about not discussing slavery as a political question in
any respect. I believe that so far I have adhered generally to that engagement; and you will now indulge me
for a moment, dear C., simply to say that there are many
minds among us firmly convinced that the slave trade is
almost the only possible measure, the last resource to
arrest the decline of the South in the Union. They see
that it would develop resources which have slept for the
great want of labor; that it would increase the total
area of cultivation in the South to six times what it now
is; that it would create a demand for land, and raise its
price, so as to compensate the planter for the deprecia.
tion of the slave; that it would admit the poor white
man to the advantages of our social system; that it
52 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
would give him dearer interests in the country he loves
now only from simple patriotism; that it would strengthen
the peculiar institution; that it would increase our representation in Congress; and that it would revive and
engender public spirit in the South, suppressed and
limited as it now is by the monopolies of land and labor.
But I recognize especially in the proposition/to re-open
the slave trade, the interests of the working classes
and yeomanry of the South.   The cause of the poor
white population of the South cries to IHeaven for justice.
We see a people who are devoted to their country, who
must be intrusted with the defence of the institution of
slavery, if ever it be assailed by violence, who would die for
the South and her institutions, who, in the defence of
these objects of their patriotism, would give probably to
the world the most splendid examples of courage, who
would lay down their simple and hardy lives at the command of Southern authorities, and who would rally
around the standard of Southern honor in the reddest
crashes of the battle storm-we see, I say, such a people treated with the most ungrateful and insulting consideration by their country, debarred from its social system, deprived of all share in the benefits of the institution of slavery, condemned to poverty, and even forced
to bear the airs of superiority in black and beastly slaves!
Is not this a spectacle to fire the heart! As sure as God
is judge of my own heart, it throbs with ceaseless sym
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BLACK DIAMONDS.
pathy for these poor, wronged, noble people; and if there
is a cause in the world I would be proud to champion, it
is theirsso help me God! it is theirs.
But you doubtless ask, dear C., to be shown more
clearly how their condition is to be reformed and elevated
by the slave trade. Now I calculate, that with the re-opening of this trade, imported negroes might be sold in our
Southern seaports at a profit, for one hundred dollars to
one hundred and fifty dollars a head. The poor man
might then hope to own a negro; the prices of labor
would then be brought within his reach; he would
be a small farmer (revolutionizing the character of agriculture in the South); he would at once step up to a respectable station in the social system of the South; and
with this he would acquire a practical and dear interest
in the general institution of slavery, that would constitute its best protection both at home and abroad. He
would no longer be a miserable, nondescript cumberer
of the soil, scratching the land here and there for a subsistence, living from hand to mouth, or trespassing along
the borders of the possessions of the large proprietors.
He would be a proprietor himself; and in the great work
of developing the riches of the soil of the South, from
which he had been heretofore excluded, vistas of enterprise and wealth would open to him that would enliven
his heart and transform him into another man. He
would no longer be the scorn and sport of "gentlemen
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BLACK DIAMONDS.
of color," who parade their superiority, rub their
well-stuffed black skins, and thank God thait they
are not as he.
And here, dear C., let me meet an objection which has
been eloquently urged against the proposition to import
into this country slaves from Africa. It is said that our
slave population has attained a wonderful stage of civilization; that they have greatly progressed in refinement
and knowledge, and that it would be a great pity to
introduce among them, from the wilds of Africa, a barbarous element which would have the effect of throwing
back our Southern negroes into a more uncivilized and
abject condition.
What is pleaded here as an objection I adopt as an
argument on my side of the question-that is, in favor of
the African commerce. What we want especially in
the South, is that the negro shall be brought down from
those false steps which he has been allowed to take in
civilization, and reduced to his proper condition as a
slave. I have mentioned to you, dear C., what an outrage
upon the feelings of poor white men, and what a nuisance
generally, the slave gentry of the South is. It is time
that all these gentlemen of color should be reduced to
the uniform level of the slave; and doubtless they would
soon disappear in the contact and admixture of the rude
African stock.
Most seriously do I say, dear C., that numbers of ther
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negro slaves of the South display a refinement and
an ease which do not suit their condition, and which
contrast most repulsively with the hard necessities of
many of the whites. I have often wished that the abolitionists, instead of hunting out among the swamps and
in the raggedest parts of the South, some poor, exceptional
victim to the brutality of a master, and parading such a
case as an example of slavery, would occasionally show,
as a picture of the institution, some of the slave gentry,
who are to be found anywhere in the cities, towns, and
on the large farms of the South, leading careless, lazy,
and impudent lives, treating white freemen with superciliousness if they happen to be poor, and disporting
themselves with airs of superiority or indifference before
everybody who does not happen to be their particular
master.  Pictures drawn as equally from this large class
of our slave population, as from the more abject, would,
I am sure, soon convert some of your Northern notions
of the institution of slavery.
I must admit to you that I have the most repulsive
feelings toward negro gentlemen. When I see a slave
above his condition, or hear him talk insultihgly of even
the lowest white man in the land, I am strongly tempted to knock him down.  Whenever Mrs. Lively tells
her very gentlemanly dining-room servant that he carries his head too high, I make it a point to agree with
her; and whenever she threatens to have him "taken
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BLACK DIAMONDS.
down a button-hole lower," I secretly wish that I had
that somewhat mysteriously expressed task to perform
myself. Of all things I cannot bear to see negro slaves
affect superiority over the poor, needy, and unsophisticated whites, who form a terribly large proportion
of the population of the South.  My blood boils when I
recall how  often  I have seen some poor  "cracker,"
dressed in striped cotton, and going through the streets
of some of our Southern towns, gazing at the shop
windows with scared curiosity, made sport df by the
sleek, dandified negroes who lounge on the streets,
never unmindful, however, to touch their hats to the
"gem'men" who are "stiff in their heels," (i. e. have
money); or to the counter-hoppers and fast young gents
with red vests and illimitable jewelry, for whom they
pimp. And consider that this poor, uncouth fellow,
thus laughed at, scorned and degraded in the estimate
of the slave, is a freeman, beneath whose humble garb
is a heart richer than gold-the heart of a mute hero,
of one who wears the proud, though pauper, title of the
patriot defender of the South.
I love the simple and unadulterated slave, with his
geniality, his mirth, his swagger, and his nonsense; I
love to look upon his countenance, shining with content
and grease; I love to study his affectionate heart; I
love to mark that peculiarity in him, which beneath all
his buffoonery exhibits him as a creature of the tender
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est sensibilities, mingling his joys and his sorrows with
those of his master's home. It is of such slaves that I
have endeavored, in the preceding letters, to draw some
feeble pictures.  But the "genteel" slave, who is inoculated with white notions, affects superiority, and exchanges his simple and humble ignorance for insolent
airs, is altogether another creature, and my especial
abomination. 
I have no horror, dear C., of imported savage slaves
from Africa. I have no doubt that they would prove
tractable, and that we would find in them, or
would soon develop, the same traits of courage, humor,
and tenderness, which distinguish the character of the
pure negro everywhere.
When I was last through the country here, I made
the acquaintance of a very old "Guinea negro," Pompey by name, who had been imported at an early age
from the African coast; and a livelier, better-dispositioned and happier old boy I have never met with.
The only marks of African extraction which Pompey
retained in his old age, were that he would talk Guinea
"gibberish " when he got greatly excited, and that he
used occasionally some curious spells and superstitious
appliances, on account of which most of the negroes
esteemed  him  a great  "conjurer."   Pompey  is a
very queer old fellow, and his appearance and wonderful stories inspire the young with awe. He looks
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like a little, withered old boy; and the long, fantastic
naps of his wool give him a mysterious air. According
to his story, he once travelled to Chili through a subterranean passage of thousands of miles. He also is occasionally bribed to exhibit to his young mass'rs, the impression of a ring around his body, apparently produced
by the hug of a good strong rope, but which he solemnly avers was occasioned by his having stuck midway in
a keyhole, when the evil witches were desperately attempting to draw him through that aperture.
Pompey had married a a genteel" slavewoman, a
maid to an old lady of one of the first families of Carolina, and lived very unhappily with his fine mate, because she could not understand " black folks' ways."
It appears that Pompey frequently had recourse to the
black art to inspire his wife with more affection for him;
and having in his hearing dropped the remark, jokingly, one day, that a good whipping made a mistress love
her lord the more, I was surprised to hear Pompey speak
up suddenly, and with solemn emphasis,  "Mass'r Ed'rd,
I bleve dar is sumthin' in dat. When de'ooman get
ambitious"- he means high-notioned and passionate" de debble is sot up against you, and no use to honey
dat chile; you jest got to beat him out, and he bound
to come out'fore the breath come out, anyhow." I am
inclined to recommend Pompey's treatment for all " ambitious" negroes, male or female.
3 
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BLACK DIAMONDS.
By way of parenthesis, I must tell you how Pornmpey's mistress scolds him. He is so much of a boy,
that she has imperceptibly adopted a style of quizzing
him and holding him up to ridicule, to which he is very
sensitive.  I will just note the following passage betwveen the two: In the absence of the butler, Pompey
is sometimes called to the solemn office of waiting on
the table, at which elevation he is greatly pleased.
Imagine the scene of a staid and orderly breakfast, attending on which is Pompey, having a waiter tucked with
great precision under his arm, and presenting the appearance of a most complacent self consequence. Unluckily,
however, making some arrangement in the pantry, he
produces a nervous jostle of china. " Pompey, Pompey," cries his mistress, "what are you doing?  Ah,
Pompey, you are playing  witl the little mice, ain't
you?" Pompey, in a fluster of mortification at this
accusation, denies playing with " little mice." Ah, yes,
Pompey, I know you want to have a little play-here,
Martha, Sally, take Pompey out into the yard and let
him play." The two maid-servants approach poor old
uncle Pompey in a most serious manner, to take him
out to play, but he shoves them aside, and crestfallen,
and with bashful haste, retreats from the room; while
the two women solemnly keep alongside of him, as if
really intent upon the fulfilment of the orders of their
I
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mistress, to put the old fellow through a course of gambolling on the green.
Pompey is greatly cut up by such scoldings; and to
be made a jest of before the genteeler and more precise
servants, is his especial punishment and pain in this
world.
I must confess for myself a strong participation in
Pompey's contempt for " town niggers."  Whenever he
espies a sable aristocrat, he uses the strongest expression
of disgust, "dam jumpy fish," etc.; and then he will
discourse of how a good nigger should do his work
soberly and faithfully, illustrating the lesson always by
indicating what he does, while Henry, a more favored
slave, has nothing, according to Pompey's account, to
do, but to recline in an easy chair and eat "cake."   I
agree with Pompey, as to what constitutes a useful and
respectable negro, and tell him that we shall soon have
some such from the country from which he came, at
which prospect he is greatly pleased.  "Ah, Mass'r,"
says he, " dat is de nigger dat can do your work; he
de chile dat can follow arter the beast, like dis here,"
tugging away and gee-hawing while he speaks, at the
hard mouth of a stupid mule, with which he is plowing
in the garden.  "But I tells you what, Mass'r Ed'rd,"
continues Pompey, impressively, "no matter how  de
dam proud black folks hold der head up, and don't love
do mule, and don't love de work, and don't love nothing
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but de ownselves, I tells you what, I ain't but nigger
nohow; and I tells you, and I tells'em all, de nigger
and de mule am de axle-tree of de world."
The truth is, my dear friend, we want more such
slaves in the South as Pompey, who while they can
speak such honest and brilliant sentiments, will also be
as humble in their hearts and as faithful to their work
as he, and who will sustain the car of progress over all
obstacles in the path of Southern destiny.
Yours truly,            E. A. P.
To D. M. C., Esq., New-York.
LETTER V.
CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA, 1858.
MY DEAR C -: In your rejoinder to my letter on
the subject of the slave trade, which was touched upon but
lightly and incidentally, you charge me with preaching
" disunion doctrine," and say, that " I have overlooked
the political consequences to this country of re-opening
the African trade," and that "the first consideration
should be, that this commerce could not be opened without risking the Union." I cannot, dear C., rest in silence
under the charge of paying no regard in my recommendations for the legalization of the slave trade, to the
peril in which it may place the permanency of the Union,
especially when I am confident, if my memory does not
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greatly deceive me, of having suggested in my former
letter (which you read cursorily, I suppose) that this
commerce, by strengthening and satisfying the South,
would confirm the bonds by which the two sections are
united. I shall therefore vary somewhat from the original design of the correspondence, not indeed to go into
a political discussion, but to call your attention to the
relation which the proposition to re-open the slave trade,
or the general proposition to strengthen and develop the
South by new systems of labor, bears to the always interesting question of the perpetuation of "the glorious
Union."
But in the first place, my dear friend, I must say that
I do not agree with your judgment, that the slave trade
cannot be re-opened by us except by infraction of our
statute and treaty law. I contend, on the contrary, that
the commerce in African labor can be carried on under
the permission of existing laws.   Observe  that the
African may be imported of his own will, as an apprentice, for any number of years; and when he arrives in
the South, what is there to prevent him (although you
say he cannot alienate his liberty) from accepting inducements to live in bondage? This I grant you, would be
practically the re-opening of the African slave trade;
but where exists the law that can suppress a trade which
buys labor, not liberty, and which is really, in a legal
point of view, conducted on the basis of enfranchise-_
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ment. You may cry out that this is an evasion of the
law; and I will simply answer, that you will find that
it very often becomes necessary to evade the letter of
the law in some of the greatest measures of social happiness and patriotism.
I sincerely believe, dear C., that with the slave trade
movement, rests in a measure the great political problem
of the day, viz.: the just elevation of the general condition of the South, as an integral part of the Federal
Union.
It is evident that the great want of the South is a
sufficiency of labor.   Certainly no equal part of the
globe can vie in sources of wealth with the belt of cotton territory in America, which, it is estimated, is capable of producing twenty millions of bales of the snowy
fleece of modern commerce. Add to this the consideration, that within the borders of the South, owing to
the singular advantages of a climate that partakes of an
inter-tropical temperature, and enjoys in its change of
seasons the peculiarities of the temperate zone, is a
country capable of a greater variety of crop and agricultural product, than any other territory of equal size
on the face of the globe. To develop this occult wealth;
to introduce on the soil the many varieties of tropical
vegetation of which it is capable-the olive, the camphor, and the cork tree; to bring into cultivation the
thirty thousand square miles of cotton-producing lanl,
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which is now lying unproductive; to multiply by almost
infinite processes the product of our great staple, which
now, under all disadvantages, is said to increase, according to an average calculation, three per cent., or about
eighty thousand bales annually; to expand our agriculture and infuse into it new spir'it; and to malike the
golden age of the most splendid fables of history our
own, there are but wanting labor and the energy to employ and direct it. To attain this desideratum we have
no other hope except the importation of labor from
Africa.
The proposition to re-open the slave trade may be
most truly characterized as a measure to strengthen and
elevate the South in the Union; and this being the condition of the perpetuation of the Union to us, as emphatically a conservative policy. In brief, dear C., tlte
slave trade proposition means Union and conservatism.
The policy which I avow is, that the South shall
secure to herself the utmost amount of prosperity and
streingthen herself in the Union, which, as sure as the gen
tle hastenings-on of time, can only be preserved on this
condition. This policy, then-the only one to save the
Union-even if adopting extremest measures, is ever
the truly " conservative" one.
I must confess to you, that I have the greatest contempt
for that time-serving and shallow policy of many false
politicians in our section, who decry a measure of South
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ern patriotism, in order to conserve our party interest in
the North. I refer to the counsels of a certain class of
politicians, who tell us that our party alliance at the
North will be hazarded by firee discussion at the South,
and that it is to be cemented by our abandonment of
the proposition to re-open the slave trade. Now. [ truly
honor our democratic allies in the North; but as a
Southerner, I am not disposed (and I am sure, dear C.,
for one you would not demand of me) to sacrifice to their
prejudices any measure of domestic policy which it is
at once our right and our paramount duty to decide on
for ourselves. Was the South to yield up Kansas " for
the sake of the party?" Is this the beginning of the
end? As God is my judge, I forswear, forever, this
false policy in the South, to sacrifice any interest of hers
to the consolidation or prestige of a party.
To the policy to strengthen a party, I would place in
antithesis the policy to strengthen the South.
The South, my dear C., is approaching a critical stage
in her political history, when she must act, if ever, for
herself. The tendency to her enslavement, ruin, and
dishonor, must be avoided by constitutional measures,
or changes of domestic policy. The question is, how can
the Union be preserved under the sanctities of the Constitution, and on terms of equal rights and equal advantages-how can the decline of the South be arrestedhow can she be saved? She has now no means to de'.
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velop her resources pari passeu with the rapid progress,
in this respect, of the North; she is unable, from want
of labor, to expand her agriculture, or to follow where
enterprise beckons; her public spirit wanes under her
disabilities, and her constant sense of dependence on the
markets and manufactures of the North; she is being
constantly weakened by party identifications; her political prestige is gone; her peculiar institution has to
bear a burden of censure, under which, even the best
men of the South think it must sink, unless strengthened by new measures; the common territories of the
Republic are being steadily closed to it; the black lines
of free-soilism, in which it must languish and die, are
being drawn around it, and the dregs of the poison cup
are at our lips. In all plainness, what is to become of
the South, if she is to remain in the Union without a
change of policy?   How is she to fulfil the necessities
of progress and self-development, unless means to do so
are provided by herself? How is she to be rescued from
the fate which she has brought upon herself, and which
now impends? The Democratic party cannot save her.
The President cannot save her. She must save herself?
Will she do it? Let every patriot of the South
answer for himself. Let him resolve that she shall not
be argued into repose. Let him resolve that the inventions of policy to restore her strength, and at once raise
and confirm her in the Union, shall not be hooted out by
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party cries of "peace!" Let him resolve that she shall
not rest in the supine embrace of party alliances. Let
him resolve that she shall be called to the necessity of
strengthening herself by independent measures of prosperity and power, within the terms, as such a policy
must be, of honorable rivalry and of the Constitution.
Nor shall we, patriots of the South, despair of the
result! Rather would we turn from the panic fears of
disunion to the hopes of victory in new measures of
Southern independence For myself, I respect disunion
only for its sincerity of motive; commended as it is, too,
by many minds, and actuated as it may be by a generous spirit; but alas! one
" Turned aside
From its bright course by woes and wrongs and pride."
And yet, dear C., I regard disunion as unconsciously involving a moral cowardice, which puts to blush the
courage of our land. Let the South, say I, stand or fall
by the Constitution!  True courage would dictate this
course, even if the hope of ultimate victory, in the fact of
the South's holding the balance of political power, did not
commend it. The hard-fought field of constitutional
contest should not be forsaken by the South for shelter
beneath a divided flag; but the battle should be continued with the same weapons, while new exertions should
be put forth to conquer by the power of the Constitution.
We see, indeed, the necessity of following up each vics
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tory, and of devising new measures of Southern advantage and development; and to this necessity and its demand of a new policy, let us, ye true men of the South,
God helping us, be true! But disunion is not a necessity. No! not a necessity as long as patriots still keep
the field under the banner of the Constitution; and the
prize of valor there is the victory of PEACE.
Yours truly,                     E. A. P.
To D. M. C. Esq., New York.
LETTER VI.
OAKRIDGE, VIRGINIA, 1858.
MlY DEAR C: The last lines I sent you from dear
old Virginia, from the retirement of Briarcliff, were
written in one of my fits of meditation, and I fear conveyed you but little of interest concerning my visit to
the old familiar haunts of earlier days.
I have since been making a round of visits to " the
kin," and I have been travelling most of the way on a
canal-boat, at the rate of four miles an hour. Rather
slow progress, surely; but I have not lacked for
pastime. In the first place, I had to wait for "the
packet," as the codgers call it, at a solitary  "lockhouse," where a bed could not be had for love or money,
from night-fall until 3 o'clock next morning. But ther'
69 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
I had some charming companions in my vigils. A
sweet, gentle lady, with her little boy, was there, and
with agreeable and modest conversation beguiled the
hours; and this lady, who kept her uncomplaining
watch in the rude cabin, and who was dressed so plainly, and who even deigned to enter into the fun of a corn-'
pany of boisterous humrnbly-born girls, who also occupied
the room, was, as I learned, the next morning, really one
of the F. F. Vs, for she was met at the lock where she
landed by her father, whom I at once recognized as one
of the most distinguished politicians and gentlemen of
the Old Dominion. She did not even forget to say farewell to the boisterous "Bet" and her tom-boy companions, who had so vexed the drowsy ear of the night
before.
The boat-horn wailed out as the locks opened, and as
I glided down the big, dirty ditch along the James, I
turned for consolation to Bet, who in all the charms of
rural beauty, was watching from the deck the scenery
of the canal.
Bet was a rural curiosity, indeed-a pretty, coarse,
and very ungrammatical girl, whose chief amusement
the night before had been surreptitiously emptying
gourds of water over the heads of her drowsy companions. Bet had been quite sociable with me through the
night; but now that she was aboard the packet, she
treated  me  with disdainful  coolness.   Approachixg
70 
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her, I hazarded the old hackneyed remark of canal
travelling, that "I hoped Miss Bet was not suffering
from sea-sickness." "No, she warn't sick a bit." A
pause, and then I ventured to ask "if Miss Bet proceeded as far as Richmond."   "No, it was too furrer.'
The cause of her reticence and disdain was soon discovered. I found, to my discomfiture, that Bet had
recognized an old beau in the steersman, whose city
manners and glass and copper jewelry had quite extinguished me in her eyes. A dog-eared album told the
story plainly. The following tribute I managed to
transcribe literally, as with slow and jealous deliberation, I turned over the leaves of the record of Miss Bet's
charms and conquests:
"When I from thee, dear maid, shall pa'
Shall leave a sting in each other's heal
I to some grove shall make my moan,
Lie down, and die, as some has done.
(Signed)
At last I reached my point of disembarkation, and I
summarily dismiss Bet from my mind. I see again the
beautiful mountains of the Blue Ridge in the distance,
and the woods stretching far away across level plains
to their base.  How lovely it all looked, especially when
with the whole scene were associated a thousand memories. In my childhood I had looked upon these distant peaks, and wondered about them.  How  much
71
" PIIIL. TOOLEY." 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
nearer and smaller they appeared now than when I saw
them through the eyes of youth!-yet still beautiful,
ever pointing through sunlight and through cloud to
heaven, ever unchanging in their robes of blue, ever
putting on at the same hours the purple and gilt of
evening!
Having landed at W          village, I prepare to pursue my journey on horseback. I disembark with an old
gentleman, who, in the course of the voyage, had managed
to convey to me the information that hewas a judge from
Alabama, and had travelled a thousand miles on the
" steam cars," and who had delighted the whole boat's
crew and company with his learning and sententiousness, having advanced in a learned geological discussion
in the cabin of the canal boat " that the vein of water
was like the human vein," which illustration summarily closed all argument as to the distribution of subterranean waters. The old fellow was sound on the liquor
question though, and proved himself "a judge" of
good whiskey before retiring to his virtuous couch in the
old " Rock Tavern."  The sun was high when the black
boy  " Washington"  roused  me  from my slumbers.
Having bestowed  " a quarter " on  Washington,  in
abundant gratitude for which he wished to know " if
mass'r didn't want his footses washed "-an ablution
which the slaves of Virginia constantly perform for their
masters with little noggins of warm water-I took up
72 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
my journey along the old, red clayey road to the local
habitation of my dear, respected old uncle.   Here I
spent a few days of delightful happiness, especially in
company Bith my pretty cousin with the Roman name.
But having found out that kissing cousins was no longer fashionable in Virginia, and that it excited my dear
aunt's nerves, with one last lingering kiss of the sweet
lips, I had my little leather Chinese trunk packed on
the Bead of a diminutive darkey, and again embarked
upon the James river and Kanawha canal.
After a round of visits to others of "the kin," I at last
find myself the guest of that most excellent and beloved old lady, Miss R., and strolling about over the
beautiful lawns and green affluent fields of Oakridge
farm.
In the bright day, with the light and shade chasing
each other over the fields where I wandered in youth, I
recall many a laughing and many a sorrowing memory.
I cannot write of all these. I must pursue the sketch
of the slave, which is, indeed the prominent figure inll
the early associations of all home-bred sons of the
South.
I find the old, familiar, black faces about the house.
Uncle Jeames, the dining-room servant, is an old, decayed family negro, wearing a roundabout, and remarkable for an unctuous bald head, unadorned by hat or cap.
Miss R., who has known him since he was a boy, still 
73 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
addresses him by the name of " Jimrnboo." Uncle Jimboo
has a good deal of slave-pride, and is anxious to appear
to visitors as one of great dignity and consequence in
household affairs. He is especially proud of his position
as general conservator of the order and security of the
household, and any interruption of his stilted dignity is
very painful to him. Devoted to his mistress, he assumes
the office of her protector. Hlaving in one of his winter
patrols, according to his account, been chased by some
forgotten number of " black bars," and having valiantly
whipped " the king bar," and put the others to flight, it
remains that he is afraid of nothing in the world " but a
gun."
Peace to Uncle Jimboo I May his days never be shortened by the accidents of his valiant service! I can
never expect to see the old man again; he is passing
away; but, thanks to God, he, the slave, has not to go
down to the grave in a gloomy old age, poverty-stricken
and forgotten; he has a beloved mistress near by to provide for him in the evening of his life-a rare mistress,
who, distinguished in her neighborhood for hospitality and
munificence, has delighted also to adorn herself with
simple and unblazoned charities to the humblest of all
humanity-the poor, dependent, oft-forgotten slave.
And there is Tom, too, the hopeful son of Uncle Jimboo, a number one boy of about thirty, splendidly made,
and of that remarkable type of comeliness and gentility
7.4 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
in the negro-an honest, jet-black, with prominent and
sharp-cut features.  When I was a boy I esteemed Tom
to be the best friend I had in the world. He was generally employed as a field hand, occasionally, however, at
jobs about the yard, waited upon the table when there
was "company," and on Sundays he rode in the capacity
of footman on the little seat behind the old, high-swung,
terrapin-backed carriage to church. I had a great boyish
fondness for him, gave him coppers, stole biscuits for
him from the table, bought him a primer and taught
hiln to read.
There appears to have grown up a terrible rivalry for
supremacy in the kitchen between Tom and his daddy.
As time progresses, Uncle Jimboo becomes impressed
with the prospect of being supplanted by his smart son,
and, in consequence, he is very jealous and depreciatory
of Tom.  According to the former's account, Tom is a
stuid boy, and is "good for nothing'cept meat and bread."
On the other hand, it is quite shocking to witness Tom's
disrespect to his ancient daddy, whom he calls by no
other name than "de nigger," and whom he artfully represents as "mighty shackling," and as making the last
stage of life.  The parental relation is completely ignored.
Here, too, lives Aunt Judy, who is associated with my
earliest recollections of the days of boyhood. Especially
do I remember the intensity of her religious sentiment,
and how, for the faith of every assertion that any one
4
75 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
ventured to dispute, she would appeal to the "judgment
seat of G-o-d." Her hymns, her fairy tales, her traditions of old Sa-tan, her " shoutings " at meeting, her
loud and ostentatious prayers among the alder bushes
and  briars of the brook-which latter used to be  to
us boys a great exhibition-are yet fresh in memory.
How well do I remember the wonderful stories, with
which she used to fill our youthful minds with awe, superstition, and an especial dread of being alone in dark
rooms. We were told by her of every variety of ghosts,
of witches that would enter through the key-hole and
give us somnambulic rides through the thickets and bogs,
and worse than all, of awful and terrible visions that
had been afforded her of the country of the dead. She
had a superstitious interpretation for everything in
nature. In our childhood we were even induced by
her to believe that the little bird which sang plaintively to
our ears was the transmigrated soul of a little child that
had been the victim of the cannibalism of its parents,
and that it was perpetually sining the following touchand that it wvas perpetually singing the following toueh
ing words:
"My mammy kill me,
My daddy eat me,
All my brudders and sisters pick my bones,
And throw them under the marble stones."
Unfortunately, however, for the credit of Aunt Judy's
Christianity, she was always very passionate, and our
boyish plaguing of her was sometimes replied to in great
76 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
bitterness. Dick, who was always ahead in plaguing,
had no other name for the old woman, who was a great
exhorter in colored congregations, but "the Preacher,"
or sometimes " Old Nat Turner." It was especially on
religious subjects, which we found to be tender ones with
Aunt Judy, that we thoughtlessly-but ah, how wrongly
-delighted to tease and annoy her.  Under pretence of
delivering some message from head-quarters, Dick would
call to her with an ordinary countenance, and have her
come very near him, when he would bawl out, taking
to his heels at the same instant, "I say, Preacher, what
text are you going to preach from to-day."  " Go'way,
boy," would scream out Aunt  Judy,  "I ain't gwine
preach from nothing; if you want to hear preaching,
go and hear your own color."
All the warning about the tragic fate of Nat Turner
which Dick would give, Aunt Judy greatly despised,
and would retaliate by asking that young moralist what,
when he was "put an the lef' hand," which she assumed
as a fixed fact, he was "gwine to say to black folks
preacher den?"
From Aunt Judy's sentence of poor Dick it might be
inferred that he was a bad boy. And so he was, after
a fashion; and I fear that in this respect my humble
self was only behind him in years.
When I was an eleven-year-old, "white-headed,"
irascible little boy, Dick, the elder brother, and myself
77 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
were perpetually at fisticuffs, and the negroes would
often egg us on to fight each other, which we would do
in the most passionate manner. We used to have some
downright terrible fights.  Whenever we were captured
by some vigilant house servant in the midst of hostilities,
or were informed upon, we were made to smart under
the rod, and what was more painful to the proud and
angry spirit of each, we were made to kiss each other,
while our beloved mother in vain spoke to us lessons of
brotherly love. We hated each other thoroughly, I believe. How curious, indeed, are these boyish animosities
between brothers, which in progressing manhood are so
often converted into the most passionate loves!
How distinctly, how sadly, do I recollect one dark,
cloudy morning in the years of our boyhood, when I ran
away from home to escape well-deserved punishment for
a fight I had had with Dick. Ah, how painfully do we
revert to the memories of youth-the memories of our
reckless wounding of the hearts that-loved us best!
My dear mother was at first not disquieted on account
of my absence; she naturally thought that I had hid
myself somewhere about the yard, and would soon
return, sullen and slouching, as usual, to submit myself
to the punishment I so well deserved. But as the morning wore away, and I came not, she became uneasy.
Inquiry for me was set afoot among the negroes.
Uncle. Lewis, the cook, testified that "de last he see -f
78' 
BLACK DIAMIONDS.
mass'r Ed'rd, he was running straight down toward the
crik."  3ly poor mother was instantly thrown into the
most violent and heart-rending anxiety.   The  creek,
which was fed by a number of mountain streams, and
often overflowned its banks, had risen, and was still rising
from the recent rains; and it was certain that if I had
attempted to cross the stream, which was not improbable,
as I had  often waded across its shallows at ordinary
times, I would have been drowned in its swollen waters.
The painful fears of my mother could not be quieted;
they communicated themselves to those around her, and
in an agony of tears she ordered instant search to be
commenced for me along the creek and over all parts of
the farm.  M3any of the negroes were mounted on horses
to scour the fields, and the tutor and the whole school,
including brother Dilck, who trotted along in tears, joined
in the search.
I was eventually discovered, but not until near night.
fall, by Smith, the head slave, who carried me home on
the back of the cart horse, "Old Windy Tom," in spite
of my remonstrances and kicking. He was very short
to all I had to say, which was little, as Windy Tom, who,
for my particular punishment I believe, was kept in a
high trot through the whole distance, jolted all argument
out of me. I could only understand from Smith, that
my mother was in a dangerous state from the excitement of her grief; that I ought to be "hooped all to
79 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
pieces;" and whenever I remonstrated at his restraint
of my liberty, the answer was that he warn't "fraid of
my fuss," and that my "mar' knew what he was doing
for her and hern."
Approaching the house I heard cries of anguish.'  My
poor mother imagining me to be dead, was bewailing me
with all the tears and agony of a devoted parent. Alas,
how my conscience smote me! With my own cheeks
wet with penitent tears, I presented myself to my dear
mother, who covered me with embraces and kisses, and
wept over me with happy forgiving tears.
Would to God I had been made to suffer pain equivalent to what I had inflicted upon the heart that loved
me  best in all this world!   Going astray in maturer
life, wandering away among its shadows, selfish, unreflecting, careless of that watchful and searching love
which never forsakes, never forgets, and never ceases to
watch and pray for the return of "the son that was lost,"
I have found the same easy, weeping forgiveness that
took me into its arms the dreary night that I came home
from the woods.  I could offend and offend, ever in the
hope of seeking that forgiveness at the last, and ever
with the cheating comfort of amendment soon.   One
being on earth remained to fly to-one from whom to obtain foigiveness again and again as life wore on.  Nowoh, my God, now I can only in tears look up to the skies,
look to the beautiful, imaging clouds of heaven, and
80 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
beseech the forgiveness of the angel-spirit that I see
there resting and returning nevermrore.
Yours truly,
E. A. P.
To D. M. C., Esq., N.Y.
LETTER VII.
BRIARCLIFF, VIRGINIA, 1858.
MY  DEAR  C: In reflecting on  the subject of
negro slavery in this country, I have been greatly im.
pressed by a characteristic, which, I think, has never
been sufficiently recognized and dwelt upon; and which
most honorably distinguishes it from other systems of
slavery known to the world.  Consider, dear C., that the
American institution of slavery does not depress the
African, but elevates him in the scale of social and religious being. It does not drag him down from the condition of free-citizenship and from membership in organized society to slavery; but it elevates him from the
condition of a nomad, a heathen, a brute, to that of a
civilized and comfortable creature, and gives to him the
priceless treasure of a saving religion. Other institutions of slavery are found, generally speaking, to rest
on systems of disenfranchisement and debasement.
Look, for instance, at the Roman slavery. Its victims
were obtained in war; they came generally from tht
81 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
ranks of enemies as civilized as the Romans themselves;
or-more horrible still-they came from  the ranks of
ticir own free and co-equal citizens, who  might be sold
for terms of years by their parents in their non-age, or
by their creditors for debt. Thus their institution of
slavery was founded on the debasement of man; it
was anti-progressive, depressing, barbarous.   How free
is the American inst,itution of negro slavery of such
ideas!  It rests on thle solid basis of  iu,mnai iimproveqvent.  And in this respect, does its elevated spirit concur with the progress of civilization and of the religion
of Christ, that, like the winds of Heaven, moves in its
mysterious;ways, gathers on its wings to and fro, and
never is at rest.
Surely, God proceeds mysteriously to us in His works
of love and redemption.  While missionary efforts have
proved, generally, so unavailing in the conversion of the
heathen, we find great institutions and events in the
common history of humanity used as instruments in
the enlarging work of the redemption of man.   We
discover this in all that we know of human progress.
Thle translation of African savages from their country as
slaves —a great, improving and progressive work of human
civilization-we also discover to be one of the largest
worokBs of Christianity, endowing a people with a knowledge
of the Christian God, and they, in turn, enlightening us
as to His Grace, and the solemn and precious mystery
82 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
of the conversion of the soul to Christ. The work of
gathlering to Christ goes on, through all the tumults of
the world, and notwithstanding its contempt-of God's
means and its own vainglory. Many developments in
history, however unmerciful to our eyes, may be seen to
be turned to the glory of God: and all our prosperity and
progress is taxed for the completion of the work of the
redemption of the world. On, on speeds and gathers the
work in the changes of dynasties, in the founding of human institutions, in the intercommunications between
nations, and in all the consummations of man's power on
earth. Already it is said that the problems of the world
-the political -and social problems, and with them the
great problem of Christ's religion, are to be aided to
their solution by the swiftest and most sovereign agent
that science has discovered in the world's domain-the
electric current. Already may we declare glory to the
Most High, and  prophesy-oh, with what beautiful
strangeness- that the lightnings, the home of which
verse and the unwritten poetry of our natures have
placed fast by the Throne of God, shall be sent on the
missions of His love to all the nations of the earth.
But to return. I think the remarkable characteristic
of our "peculiar institution," in improving the African
race humanly, socially, and religiously, is alone sufficient to justify it. It would insult it to plead it in
extenuation.  Indeed, dear C., I venture to say that if
4*
83 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
nothing else was accomplished in taking the African
from the gloom and tangles of his forests, and from savage suffering and savage despair, than bringing him to
the unutterable riches of Christ, this alone should justify
and even adorn our institution of slavery in the eyes of
the Christian world.
We are accustomed, dear C., to hear of the paramount value of the religion of our Saviour-how far it
exceeds all that this world can give or can take away.
But we scarcely appreciate, in-the practical intercourse
of life, the comprehension and force of the truism. The
best of us do not properly esteem it, in our comparative
judgment of the condition and happiness of God's
creatures. What, indeed, is the vainglory of the world,
the names of free and great, compared to the riches of
Christ and the ecstacy of a hope in Heaven, which the
poorest, and, to our earthly eyes, the most suffering portion of humanity, may enjoy equally with-nay, in
excess over-the elevated and sumptuous ones of the
world.
You have read the story of Rienzi, the last and the
most august of the Roman tribunes. He made a vow
by the dying body of a young, sinless brother.  In the
death of those we love, there is a beautiful prompting
of Providence to order our lives anew. We feel, in the
depths of our nature —and it is therefore true-that the
angel spirits of those who were beloved on earth ant
84 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
who worship in Heaven, still watch over us in tender
sorrow at our worldliness, or in exceeding joy at our
leaving the fleeting things of earth and coming home to
them in Christ. But Riienzi, desolated by the death of
his childish brother and the snapping of the last loved
tie on earth, did not make the vow that nature
prompted. He did not resolve to leave his proud manhood, to give up the vanities of his great learning, and
to go back to childhood, searching in tears for the innocence he had lost there. He made a vow of bitterness
-a vow to drown grief in enmity to man, in selfish
studies, and in the pursuit of glory. And he succeeded
in the accomplishment of his vow.  He mounted the
throne of the Caesars; and all that treasure, luxury, or
art, could yield was made to contribute to the pageantry
and magnificence of his power. He was hailed by the
extravagant populace as the deliverer of Rome and the
arbiter of the world. Standing before the Roman people,
he unsheathed his sword, brandished it to the three parts
of the world, and thrice repeated the declaration,  "And
this, too, is mine!" He exhausted in this speech all the
extravagance of self-glorification. But, alas! he could
not do what the humblest Christian slave that waited on
his pageant might do-point to heaven, and say, in the
comprehension of all joy and glory, " But this, this is
mine!"
Go, false servitors of Christ, ye who, on the ground'
$5 
BLACK  ])IAMONDS.
of religion itself, and in the garb of God's ministers,
assail the institution of negro slavery, that has brought
the knowledge of Christ to the heathen, and who recoinmend its excision by the sword of civil war, go and
speak to the slave in our own country.  Tell him he is
assigned to an inferior lot, to life-long labor, in which
he can never be great or rich, and can never taste of the
applause of this world. And yet, how would you feel
rebuked, if, pointing to heaven, he should declare,
" But this is mine."
He has been plucked from the wilds of Africa, and
saved to Christ.  He is never an infidel, for he does not
require, to establish his belief in the reality of the Saviour, expenditures of learning and processes of reasoning, and arg,-uments about the prophecies and the miracles.   He is not reasoned into religion (as no man ever
truly was); but he teaches us, even us, an unlettered
lesson of religion beyond all price-to cast down  the
pride of reason, and to listen to the voice of the intuitive divine spirit, telling us without argument, without
learning, without price, of the eternal, irresistible truths
of the religion of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Not for all,our saintliness, ye red-nosed shepherds of
God's people, who preach licentiousness and discord,
and the contentions and parting of brethren, would  I
exchange the simple faith in the Saviour, of the poor,
ignorant negro slave, whom you affect to pity. He ha*
86 
BLACK DIAMONDS,
none of your learned assurance in matters of salvation; his ideas of religion may be fantastic, and may
excite the laughter of your superior wisdom, that scorns
the tender and beautiful  i,gnorance that  throws  the
charm of superstition around the lessons and emblems
of religion; his notions of his state and calling here may
never have been edified by your learned jargon about the
Christian duty of socialism, of rebellion, and of the baptism of blood; but the great preacher Jesus Christ has
spoken to him-not in lessons of discontent, not holding
out freedom, or riches, or licenses, not addressing the
lust of the flesh, or the lust of the eye, or the pride_
life, but in precious consolations, in assurances sweeter
than learning and research, ever found in their Bibles,
and in lessons of perfect peace-the peace of the stricken, the weary, and the desolate, in the life everlasting.
It is true that the slaves' religion is greatly mixed up
with superstitions, that it is ostentatious and loud, and
that it has some comical aspects. But in his simple,
earnest, affectionate, and believing heart, in his ecstasies
of love for " MIass'r Jesus,"  and in his tenderness to
whatever appeals to him in nature, are principles of religion as saving I venture to say, as the precise creeds,
and the solemn and exact manners of the churchmen.
Mlany a death-scene have I witnessed among the slaves
on the old plantations, and many  a time have I seen
those whose untutored and awkward religious profess
87 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
sions amused me when a thoughtless youth, yet dying
with the sustainment of that religion, joyfully, and with
exclamations of triumph over the grave. No Christian
philosopher, no preacher of politics or creeds, could add
to that triumph and joy eternal, or could diminish
the ecstasy of that inner assurance of Heaven by weighing the hopes of the poor slave's salvation in doubting
scales.
Precious is the memory of the dead! And precious
to me, my beloved friend, is the memory of the black
loved ones who left me in the thoughtless, unremembering, laughing hours of boyhood, for that peaceful shore,
where, now recollecting and sighing, I would give all of
earth to meet them. Pressing upon me, and drawing the
sweet tear from a nature that has long lain in the decay
ing embraces of the world, come the memories of youth.
I have often spoken to you of the old black patriarch,
Uncle Nash, who led me by the hand to the preaching
at the negro quarter every Sunday fortnight. This good
old Christian man fell in harness, and died with on
master but Jesus to relieve the last mysterious agonies
of his death. He died out in the woods, where the
angel had suddenly come to him. How vividly do I recall the excitement of the search for Uncle Nash, and the
shock to my heart, of the discovery, in the bright morning, of the corpse lying among the thick undergrowth,
and in the whortleberry bushes of the wood. But why'
88 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
lament the old slave, and wail at the terrible sight!
The body in its coarse garments, dank with dew, lay
there in the bushes, in the loathsomeness of death, but
the immortal soul had been clothed for the service above,
in its raiment of glory, and was singing the everlasting
song in heaven.
He was buried in the grove, which my eye, from the
point where I am writing, can catch on the warm hill,
covered now with the blue blossoms of the thistle.  Unusual marks of affection and respect were shown in his
burial. The funeral services were read before all the
negroes at the grave, and the younger members of our
family attended as mourners; and, according to the
negro custom, each one of us threw a handful of dirt on
the coffin lid, as the last farewell. Many years have
gone by since then, but I can never forget that scene of
the deep, red grave, in which the old Christian slave
was laid; and when the day expires, I revisit the spot
and read on the white head-board that marks it, the
words-" The testimony of the Lord is sure, making
wise the simple."
Yours truly,
To p. M. C Esq., New-York.
89
4
E. A. P. 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
LETTER VIII.
ADDEBARRY, MARYLAND, 1858.
M- DEAR C.: I can recollect that once I entertained
a belief, and found a dangerous comfort in the common
doctrine that the physical pains of death were not terrible, and might generally be endured with ease. lliy
present belief differs greatly from this deceitful impression. I now believe the pains of this dread change to
be unutterable, and to surpass all else of the pains and
sorrows of the flesh in exceeding sharpness. Reason,
revelation, and the analogies of nature, all seem to me
to point to this opinion.
Is it to be supposed, my dear C., that any change in
nature so great and so vast as that of death-that the
parting of so many subtile and close ties as those which
unite body and soul-is accomplished without great travail and agony!
It may be that the failing body has not the power of
demonstrating the last dread agony of the separation.
That agony may be reserved until the body can no longer
reveal its pain by demonstration or gesture, and thus be
mercifully veiled, as it were, from the terror-stricken
senses of poor, fearful humanity.
Have you, my dear C., ever witnessed, closely and
steadily, a scene of natural death? In the quietest scene
of this kind, there are yet, I think, terrors to those who
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exercise reflection and a just imagination upon its signs.
How terrible is the cold, cold sweat, the heavy, dragging
breath, the eye evidently-and it may be really-looking
upon the veiled figures that stand by the parting soul,
the gray mist that gathers upon its lids, and the restless
arms reaching out and swinging in the dizziness of death.
Oh, how fearful to have to pass through the unknown
feelings of which these are signs, and to descend into
the darkness of the last agonies of dissolution!  How
fearful, how awful to go down into the dark valley, and
to meet there, in silence to all the world, the last, mysterious, veiled agony of death!  Nothing can avert this
meeting. We, dear friend, are to enter the valley, and
alone there, with the world and friends and all shut out,
to go down to death-to go down  to meet, in secre(y
with our God, the viewless, shrouded agony of the last.
Oh, may that God sustain us in those momnents!
Surely naught else can. Then the comforter prays his
last, and we have spoken, with the last effort, the last
hard whisper the curious man extorts-then we leave
behind all consolations of earth-then the world swims
around us, and is gone-then our consoling friends fade
from our sight and disappear-then voice and gesture to
appeal for sympathy are gone too-then we are gone,
gone away into the darkness and dumbness of advancing
death-and then who is there to be with us to sustain
the spirit in the last and real contest of dissolution that'
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remains! Who but the precious Saviour, who in Heaven
remembers the sufferings of Gethsemane and Calvary,
and who has expressly promised to be with his beloved
when called upon to tread the same path of nature's travail. Oh, how precious is this consolation! Here, here
is the sweet lesson of death.
The impression, my dear C., made upon me by the
first scene of death I ever witnessed, can never be erased
or wholly  overcome.  It is the recollection of it that
sometimes comes into the career of my life, and stuns
the heart of joy, and has induced the thoughts I have
just, in deepest sincerity, expressed of the terrors of
the dissolution of the earthly tabernacle of the body.
It was the death of her who had held a place in my
boyish heart, second only to the beautiful and lasting
love we draw from community of blood-the death of a
poor, old, black-skinned woman.   The angel of terrors
struck her in age, disease, and feebleness; and yet the
scene of the parting of the spirit was one of the most
mysterious and appalling struggles that ever yet appealed
to my eyes.
Well do I recollect the night of gloom and storm,
when the all-visiting messenger of death came in the
darkness to the little log hut, and stood by the old straw
couch, to demand the fleeting spirit of the old, worn slave.
The family were awakened by a summons from the doetor, told in the usual, kind, suppressed manner that Aunt
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Marie was dying. It was with a stunned feeling that I
dressed and hurried out to the cabin. How I recall the
solemn, relentless sound of the thunder which was
rolling in the sky as I passed on to the scene of death!
It sounded to me as the terrible voice of nature, saying,
" There is no hope, for I am merciless; I am insensible,
and must obey the forces that are in me, for I am
nature." Never have I heard that voice but once again,
and then it was amid the billows of a raging surf that
swept over a wreck to which I was clinging, and then the
sea seemed to say, " I am inexorable, I am obeying exact
mathematical forces, and what care I for you." Alas! I
felt not then that there was a God, to whose dominion
and mercy man may look for his rescue from the boiling
waves, from every scene of agony and danger, from
every merciless law of nature, and even from the dark
despair of a shipwrecked soul.
I approached and looked upon the rude bed with a
beating heart, and yet with a strange curiosity. There,
with eyes half closed, and with low, sobbing breath, lay
the lean, worn body of the dying old slave.  She was
out of her senses; the soul was wandering forth in a
dark and terrible delirium. Horror-struck, I gazed upon
the scene of death, and yet curious, eager to note every
sign of the awful change, stretching forward to see each
token of agony and each print of death. For twelve
hours I witnessed that scene, during which time the
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dying old slave was in the pains of dissolution, and never
can I forget that long spell of utter heart-broken agony,
mingled strangely with the most mysterious caprices of
thought and fancy. Who, dear friend, can explain this
curious psychology of the soul-these thoughts of utter
levity and recollections of rude mirth, that intrude even
while the broken spirit bewails its loved and lost by the
couch of death, or in the last heart-rending but beautiful
office of the burial.
Watching until the sun came out from the night and
the storm upon the bright meridian of an autumn day,
I saw Aunt Marie die.  She died in a long delirium of
pain, but not an unbroken one, as I believe. I watched
it all-the writhing of those lips, the gaze of dumb terror in those eyes as they looked upon the hidden spectres
and the weary reaching out of the arms above the head,
that lay in the gathering cold damps of death.   The
doctor said her sane consciousness was utterly gone; he
consoled us with this, as we broke out into grief on seeing the agony of the sufferer-he said she probably felt
no pain. But who can tell of this? As the poor sufferer
lay gasping and darkly struggling, but a few moments
before the last, the minister came to the bedside and said,
" Let us pray." Ah, what is she trying to do? With
what strange fancy are her hands reaching out and groping as if to find something? The doctor at last divines
the meaning of the gesture.  He joins her hands to
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gether-this is what she wanted, to join her weak,
trembling hands in prayer to God. An expression of
peace lights up the face for a moment.  Thank God, we
say, that she is not dying in dark unconsciousness-thank
God, that no mortal ever dies, as we may truly believe,
in unbroken unconsciousness.   The prayer is ended;
all of earthly consolation is over, and the soul is committed to its God. A moment, and the lips are moving
in a whisper.  What is it? " Thanky, Mass'r Jesus," is
caught from the expiring breath. And now she is with
her great Master, and has gone. The doctor shuts down
the eyelids; she is now in the dark last agony of which
she cannot testify; death gives the silent, veiled stroke,
and the body stretches out, sharp, rigid, dead.
This death scene, comforted by the man of God, and
watched by white faces wet with tears, was that of a
slave. But seldom is it, that the slave is left to meet
his death as the white pauper in his rags and
desolation. His master and mistress and the white
family are always by to visit him in this great need
of humanity.   Indeed, when an old, loved slave (as
Aunt Mlarie was), who has grown up with the family,
the handmaiden of the old when they were young, and
the mammy of the young before they have grown  old
in worldly care, is taken away by the equal hand of
death, it evokes a sympathy and grief that many a
white, saintly soul of your Northern Pharisees might
envy, when he leaves the world unhonored and unwept.
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There are angels in human form, and doubt it not, dear
C., even among the slave-owners of the South. One I
have seen, who to my youth was given, and who won
my heart to love and worship her forever by her beautiful,
angel ministrations at the couch where first I witnessed
the appalling struggle of death. It was thee, my gentle
Adelaide! It was thy calm and holy beauty, as, when
all around were lost and idle in their grief, you sat
chafing the cold hands of the poor, dying slave, with
thy eyes ever raised in sweetest tears to heaven, and repeating the beautiful prayers of your faith for mercy for
the departing soul.
Oh, mystery of the beauty of woman, how does the
world misunderstand you! That world you court with
bright eyes, and gay blandishments, and skilful dress,
and painted cheeks. But more beautiful than a queen in
all her lustre was the pale, gentle, brown-haired girl that
attended the couch of the dying slave she had loved.
There she sat, with no outburst of grief, pale, quiet,
self-possessed, keenly alive to every imagined want of
the dying sufferer, and anon tuining her beautiful eyes,
drowned in tears, to heaven, andl repeating during the
long, long hours the sweet hymns of the church.  I had
often admired some of these hymns; but an eloquence
was therein I never before imagined when thou, my gentle
Ad(lie, with streaming eyes, and in trembling, sweet tones
which told of the sinner's love of Jesus, pronounced tiw
lines:
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"Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From thy side a healing flood,
Be of sin the double cure,
Save from wrath, and make me pure.
"Should my tears forever flow,
Should my zeal no languor know,
This for sin could not atone,
Thou must save, and thou alone;
In my hand no price I bring,
Simply to thy cross I cling.
"While I draw this fleeting breath,
When mine eyelids close in death,.
When I rise to worlds unknown,
And behold thee on thy throne,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee."
And so Aunt Marie died-and numbered is she, the
old negro, among those whom, with love-lit eyes, I can
so often see beckoning to me  firom  Heaven.   How
often, and oh, my friend, how plainly have I seen them
standing on the edges of the white clouds of the dayand how often and how lovingly have I seen them floating on and among the still more beautiful clouds that
are gathered from  the day at the gates of evening!
Yes, they are all there-the beloved parents, who folded
their hands meekly in their age and died-the bright
and noble brother that fell on the stained battle-fieldthe little sister that laid down her life among the flowers
as a used toy-and with them and among them the,
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dear, old, familiar blacks of my boy's home, their faces
now shining with a radiance that has no distinguishing
color of black or white-the radiance that is beyond the
sun and moon and stars-the radiance of love to God
and happiness in him. And there they are in sweet rest,
and all in robes of white. Ever blessed are they in a
love that knows no heartache, or parting, or reverse, or
distractions, or degrees, but is even like unto the love
of " Him who sitteth upon the Throne."
* * "Who to these can turn,
And weigh them,'gainst a weeping world like this,
Nor feel his spirit burn
To grasp their so sweet bliss?"
Yours truly,
E. A. P.
To D. M. C., Esq., N.Y.
LETTER IX
GRElEN MOUNTAIN, VIRGINIA, 1858.
MiY DEAR C.: It is clear that vain and unprejudiced
minds are merely provoked by argument.  How useless
then, how worse than idle, to argue with abolitionists!
In writing to you, dear friend, of negro life, I have purposely avoided contentious arguments about slavery. I
have drawn some few hurried pictures of negro life and
character, satisfied that the truth told of the Southern
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slave, in simple descriptions and anecdotes, will do more
to cultivate wholesome  sentiments on the subject of
negro slavery, than wrangling sermons and essays.   It
is right, however, to state, that these pictures have been
intended rather as amusements than as lessons.
In the course of the desultory sketches I have thus
talken for your amusement, of the dark acquaintances I
have made or renewed in my Southern sojourns, I have
reserved for you some account of that most distinguished
palavarer, romancer, diplomat, and ultimately a cobbler
of old shoes-Junk.   You will doubtless bring the hero
to mind from the recollections preserved of him by one
of your household, in whose early Yirginia life Junk
was a prominent figure.  He was a short, puffy, coppercolored nigger, very greasy, always perspiring, and a little
lame.  " ilissis Perline" can tell you of many sore experiences of Juiik's shoe-leather; and particularly how,
when by especial privilege, she was mounted on " hip-shot
Jack" to go to church, Junk would waylay her in the
woods at a distance from the house, and claim a lift behind
her, where, by dint of his best boots and crutch, seconded
by his young  mistress' endeavors with the swit(h, the
afflicted horse would be forced into all sorts of shuffling
excuses for a gallop.
Junk had not always been a cobbler. To believe his
own narrative, he had been a circus-rider, an alligator
hunter, an attache6 of a foreign legation, and a murderer,
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stained with the blood of innumerable Frenchmen, with
whom he had quarreled when on his European tour.
The fact was that Junk's master was actually once
sent on a European mission, and proposed at first to take
our sable hero in his company.   Before leaving the limits
of Virginia, however, he became alarmed at the risk of
takling Junk among the abolitionists, and finally disposed
of him by hiring him out as a shoemaker or cobbler, in a
town at some distance from our dark hero's former residence. Junk never forgave his master for this unlokoedfor slight. It cut him hard and deep, for he was a nigger of "unbounded stomach."  As an  instance of the
nice and becoming pride of our hero, it is well known
that when Junk was in his working habiliments, he
always professed to belong to the man who kept the
shoe shop, and that it was only when he disported himself in his holilay attire, that he claimed to belong to
the minister plenipotentiary.
But it was when Junk returned to the old plantation
that his great importance began.  He commenced by
imposing on all the negroes round about, old and young,
the story that he had actually been to France with his
master, who still remained there, and that during the
time he had been missed from the Green Mlountain he
had been lionizing in the famous city of Paris.  The
story took with the innocent darkies and gained Junk
great fame.  He became the oracle of the kitchen, and
4 ~
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the negroes would crowd around him on every possible
occasion, as he dispensed the eventful experiences of
his pilgriimage.  Some few of the men were  skeptical,
many were envious; but Junk held his own, and was
still the especial object of the admiration of the housemaids, who gave their sympathy and cheers in every combat he had with rival beaux as tributes to the truth of his
information.  "Twarnt no use," Miss Irene would remark, "to talk to niggers that never knowed nothin' bout
de furrin country and de Parish, where ole mass'r was minister and out-preached dem all. Didn't Mr. Junk speak
the langwig?-and  dar is dat nigger, Colin, wid his
swelled head, must always put in his mouth, and make
MIr. Junk out a born liar."
Still Colin would continue skeptical.  Junk, however)
was more than his match, and had a ready answer for
every question of the doubting.
The ideas concerning the French which Junk promulgated among the negroes were somewhat extraordinary.
He represented them as a good-for-nothing set, much below the standard of nigger civilization, a sort of puny
barbarians, who regarded an American darkey as a being
of great majesty.   Junk had slain Frenchmen,  had
treated the little, barbarous nigger-worshippers with
disdain, and had received from them tokens of great
distinction.  To these points Colin's cross-examinations
were mainly directed.  He doubted Junk's prowess; he
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BLACK DIAMONDS.
laughed incredulously at his deeds of blood; and he
even went so far as to dispute the assertion of Junk's
intimacy " wid barbarians dat were white folks," and to
contend that his friend, the count, was some old "no
count" nigger  he  had come  across among  the benighted regions outside of Ole Virginny.
We boys used often to join the crowd of Junk's listen.
ers, and would have our own amusement in quizzing
the old cobbler.  "I suppose, Uncle Junk," Dick would
say, "when you were in Paris you saw the Palais
Royal."
"Saw de Paris Lawyers, young mass'r! Why, in
course I did. You see when I got dere, I went to de
courthouse to hear'em plead. And when I come in, de
Paris lawyers were pleading in French; but when dey
seed me, dey den commence pleadin in Amerikin."
This compliment of the Paris Bar to Junk would be
doubted by the skeptical Colin, who would again come
up to the attack.
"I say, big hoss, I hope you didn't disgrace Ole Virginny by wearing dose boots in de city"-referring
contemptuously to Junik's immense cowhide boots, which
showed the deformity of one of his feet.
But Junk was always ready for the attack; and immediately remarked with a serious and gloomy look,
that he had once killed a certain small Frenchman who
had insulted his boots.
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" How was it, Junk?"
"'Well, you see I was walkin in de garden wid my
breeches tucked down in my boots, when two of dese
mean Frenchmen comne along, and de one to toder east
an insult on my boots, cos you see he didn't know dat 1
knowd de langwig and could hear him. Well, I wouldn't
stan no insult from no Frenchman, no how; so I jes
struck him wid my nerves. And one lick was jes enufit killed de man; and dey sent for de secretary to sot
on him."
"But what did he say about de boots, big hoss?"
would inquire the persistent Colin.
"Well, you see de man  talked French, and tain't
while to tell dat to poor ignorant black trash like you."
But Colin was pressing. He wanted to hear Junk's
French. The housemaids too, desired a specimen of the
same, if Mr. Junk would kindly consent to put his
rival down.  "Dat nigger Colin had too much sass anyhow —Mr. Junk, won't you please say what de Frenchman say?"
"Well," replied Junk, with a sudden jerk of condescension, " de man didn't say much.  He say'Poly glot
sots,' and de Amerikin for dat, you know, is'de boots
brought de fool.'"
And while all joined in laughing at Colin's discomfiture, Junk would make his retreat good, walking off
with a careless and provoking whistle.
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Poor Junk! His travels were never more extended
beyond the slopes of the Green Mountain. He was
settled down as cobbler for the plantation; unable to
revisit, except in fancy, the beautiful world he had
traversed as diplomat, man-slayer and circus-rider-for
Junk, according to his own account, had also been, in
his various transmigrations, the star of a circus, and
was accustomed to perform the feat of bearing five men
around the ring " on his nerves."
The last I saw of the old cobbler in his decay, was
when he was arraigned before a country magistrate, for
having wounded with a scythe blade a negro on a neighboring plantation.
The sum of the evidence was that Junk had been
surprised in his attentions to Nutty's wife, and in the
scuffle that ensued had nearly chopped the jealous husband's arm off. A counter charge of assault and battery
was also preferred against Nutty.
The miserable Nutty stood with his wound upon his
arm exposed to view, raw and agape, as if to plead for
him. He had no eloquent advocpeate to plead for the
sanctities of his home.   He had no wanton judge to
listen to excuses of insanity. He had no committees of
matrons to uphold him; no crawling serpent in the stolen
livery of Heaven to tell him he had done right He
was a slave, and must submit to the law.
On the other hand, Junk was greatly at his ease,
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BLACK DIAMONDS.
losing neither his accustomed plausibility nor pompousness. Of course, being in the presence of his master,
he was very insolent to the magistrate; and he gave in
his evidence wNvith his accustomed falseness, and with an
air that was by no means conciliatory of mercy, to the
following effect:
" Name, Junk Jefferson. Dunno how ole I is-was
boy'long wid mass'r Tudor.  Never was hooped before
for nothin'; never run arter other folk's wives —humph!
-leave dat to de white folks" (magistrate looks indignant).   " Nutty sassed me all for nothin'.  Call me cuss
words, and beat me. So when he come comvortin round
me, I tell de nigger go way, I didn't wavant to hurt him,
cos you see"-(with magnanimity)-"  de chile was much
younger dan I was.  And den when he come gin me,
and I had a piece of cradle blade in my hand dat I had
jes found, he hit up he arm'gainst it, and den he holler
for de white folks-and den de dog come, and den'twas
'Lord foot help body;' and den you may know how dat
wvas, Boss."
There was no other alternative for the magistrate but
to sentence Junk to the lash. But it would not do,
thought the wise man, to grant any great deal more to
one litigant than another. So poor Nutty was also condemned to punishment. The sentence was, that Junk
should have thirty-nine lashes, and Nutty, fifty; those
for Junk to be laid on by Nutty's overseer, and those for
Nutty by Junk's overseer.
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BLACK DIAMONDS.
And so the matter was finally arranged to satisfy the
pullctilios of the masters, who attended the trial at the
cross-road, somewhat in the character of opposite lawyers.  The whippings were administered on the spot.
The unhappy and discomfited Nutty took his with the
touching sing-song of the negro under the lash; while
Junk firmnly restrained his voice, hustled on his shirt, and
left the bowers of justice with a hateful gleam of
triumph in his eyes.
I...... "Equal and exact justice to all men!"  Alas,
the phrase is irony, not only on the slave plantations,
but on how many other scenes constantly passing before
us in the history of society and in the dioramas of the
world.
Yours truly,
To D. M. C., Esq., New-York.
LETTER X.
WASHINGTON  CITY, I). C., 1858.
3BY DEAR  C: The remarks you have on more
than one occasion addressed to me, to the effect that in
both the natural and political course of events in this
country, slavery was destined to disappear, have induced
me to pay to this question considerable and especial reflection. And to my mind the question has assume/
106
E. A. P. 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
vast proportions. It has risen above the partisan questions of the day-risen above all local and passing excitements, presenting itself to me as a great problem,
involving the largest interests of the world.
In this catholic view, I may treat:the question of the
extension of the negro slavery of the South. Not as a
question between parties, or between seetions, or between
conflicting prejudices shall I regard it, but as an element to be solved in the mighty problem of who  sh11
lead the world's progress, and who shall be the founders
of its greatest empire of industry.
It is this question: shall the institution which has
built up the commerce and industry of such large por
tions of the civilized world, that has so identified itself
with the progress of the age, that is so beneficent to
national strength and character, that secures the bulwarks of social conservatism, that inspires with independence, refines the soul, and nourishes a graceful pride;
shall an institution at once so powerful and so polishing,
be condemned to extinction, or shall it continue to
flourish and gather strength and beneficence in the
coming time?
True, I see with you, my friend, that slavery is losing
political ground in this country, and that barriers are
already erected to its extension -in the West, (which is
the present direction of our new settlements) that perhaps will never be surmounted. But I see other prospects.
5*
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BLACK DIAMONDS.
Looking into the possibilities of the future, regarding
the magnifient country of tropical America, which lies
in the path of our destiny on this continent, we may
see an empire as powerful and gorgeous as ever was pietured in our dreams of history.  What is that empire?
It is an empire founded on military ideas; representing
the noble peculiarities of Southern civilization; including within its limits the isthmuses of America and the
regenerated West Indies; having control of the two
dominant staples of the world's commerce-cotton and
sugar; possessing the highways of the world's commerce; surpassing all empires of the age in the strength
of its geographical position; and, in short, combining
elements of strength, prosperity, and  glory, such  as
never before in the modern ages have been placed within
the reach of a single government.
What a splendid vision of empire!  How sublime in
its associations!  How noble and  inspiriting the idea,
that upon the strange theatre of tropical America, once,
if we may believe the dimmer facts of history, crowned
with magnificent empires and flashing cities and great
temples, now covered with mute ruins, and trampled
over by half-savages, the destiny of Southern civilization is to be consummated in a glory brighter even than
that of old, the glory of an empire, controlling the
commerce of the world, impregnable in its position, and
representing in its internal structure the most harmonrious of all the systems of modern civilization.
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BLACK DIAMONDS.
The magnificent ruins of Thebes,
"The world's great Empress on the Egyptian plain,"
or the snow-white ruins of the ancient city of Palmyra,
standing ill the yellow sand of the desert, are well accounted to be sublime.  But standing in the deep shade
and hush of the tropical forests of America, are similar
monuments of sublimity, around which, too, we can hear
voices calling to us out of the gathered gloom of time.
In the darkness and tangles of the forest, stand the ruins
of immense cities and the splendid monuments of a
strange religion. And it is to these magnificent fields of
romance that the manifest destiny of the South invites us.
It is to rebuild these ancient cities, to emulate this ancient
magnificence, and to found anew the empire of tropical
America, that our posterity may be called.
Ever since its first discovery, the Great American
Isthmus, connecting the two large table lands of North
and South America has attracted the regards of the
world.   It has particularly excited the jealous and.
grasping spirit of England. And it has been in the
contest for the control of its transits, that she has
founded an impostured dominion in Central America;
has uniformly thwarted the progress of American interests in that quarter; and has, under the disguise of
concessions, sought to prevail upon our government to
renounce all dominion, at any time, in a country marked
for our inheritance in the future.
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BLACK DIAMONDS.
Treacherously, has England struggled for the mastery
in this country. Persistently has she wronged our government by the arts and anfractuous cunning of her
diplomacy.  But-believe it, dear friend-tlthis cannot
continue.   The day approaches, when the Amnerican
people will take this subject out of the hands of diplo.
macy.   The signs of this approaching day are gathering. A glorious emblem is in the skies. It is that of
the eagle and the serpent; the eagle stooping and snatching from the earth a glittering serpent, and, as the
glorious bird sweeps onward and upward with his loud
scream of exultation, he is seen to tear it in pieces with
his talons, -and the glittering scales are falling in the
sunshine.
What is the " Mlonroe Doctrine "-the doctrine that
the American continents are " not to be considered as
subject for future colonization by any European powers?"
What is this but the honored language of self-protecting
and progressive American liberty?
The object, as well as intention, of the enforcement
of the gIloiroe doctrine in Central America, would be
but the legitimate one of a reversion of that country to
its natural destiny.  We are sworn, by a solemn declaration of poliey, and by the eternal oath of American
liberty, to protect the fulfilment of that destiny against
foreign disturbance; and if the fact be that such destiny left free points to our advantage, it only fortifies ad
right, and recommends a duty by policy.
1 -to 
BLACK DIAMONDS.
I do not, my dear C., speak of the political fate of
Central America in the absurd sense, and with the supine
satisfaction of the fatalist; but as a history of the
future, capable of a degree of certainty, and resolving
itself into a destiny which is morally manifest-one
made manifest by a history of disorder and crime, and
assured by the curse of fratricidal blood!
One step toward the accomplishment of this destiny;
one advance toward the rearing of that great Southern
Empire, whose seat is eventually to be in Central Amerrica, and whose boundaries are to enclose the Gulf of
3Mexico,  was the  memorable  expedition of William
Walker to Nicaragua, invited there by one of its revolutionary chiefs.
The objects of that expedition, my dear C., were for a
long time extensively misunderstood. They are now
being apprehended by the Northern people; they were
long ago appreciated by the people of the South.   It
was to found in a glorious land of promise the institutions of the South, to extend them to other inviting
countries of Spanish America, and, on the doubly secured
foundation of these institutions, and of military ideas
of government, to build up the great tropical empire of
America.
This great idea, I have reason to believe, was conceived in its fulness by William Walker. Regardless
of the clamors of the world, he pursued, in reserve,
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though with a burning spirit, the single object to which
he devoted fortune, life, and honor. And while that
world was regarding his expedition as a short-sighted
and rapacious conquest, a mere raid, a vulgar seizure
of a nation's territory, he, in secret, had undertaken one
of the grandest schemes ever set a-foot in the Western
world.
Crushed may be all the aspirations of one individual.
But the idea of empire conceived by an unfortunate
leader can never die from the hearts of the South. Ever
perpetuated, and ever living, it will seek its accomplishment on and on, perseveringly, and at the last irresistibly.   This, dear C., is a serious truth; and the
American people, of all sections, of all countries, and
of both continents, might as well accept the manifest
destiny of a great, slave Southern empire in the tropics
of the Western hemisphere.
We have the strange, prophetic words of Walker himself, when surrounded by his enemies, indicating the
end, and prompting the Southern heart to its consummation. These words, dear C., I recite as those of a
man, who, whatever the errors of his head, was yet a
hero in his heart.
" In such a war as they are now waging against us,
there can be but one result.  They may destroy my
whole force-a circumstance I deem almost or quite
impossible; they may kill every American now in
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Nicaragua; but the seed is sown, and not all the forces
of Spanish America can prevent the fruit from coming
to maturity   The more savage the nature of the war
they wage against us, the more certain the result, the
more terrible the consequences.  I may not live to see
the end, but I feel that my countrymen will not permit
the result to be doubtful. I know that the honor and
the interests of the great country, which, despite of the
foreign service I am engaged in, I still love to call my
own, are involved in the present struggle. That honor
must be preserved inviolate, and those interests must
be jealously maintained.  Nothing but our own sense
of the justice of the cause we are engaged in, and of
its importance to the country of our birth, has enabled
us to struggle on as far as we have done. We may
perish in the work we have undertaken, and our cause
may be for a time lost; but if we fall, we feel it is in
the path of honor. And what is life, or what is success,
in comparison with the consciousness of having performed a duty, and of having co-operated, no matter
how slightly, in the cause of improvement and progress!"
Beautiful, glorious words!
They are the words of Southern heroism-uttered by
a hero, and uttered by him when the storm was beating darkest around the pathway he was then treading,
and where his countrymen will seek his footsteps among
the blood stains of the battle-field.
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BLACK DIAMONDS.
The explanations contained in the quotation I have
made, dear C., confirm and enlighten the assertion, that
filibusterism or rapacity was not the original spirit of
the Walker expedition. It was not to be supposed that
the Americans would shed their blood in a foreign cause
for naught; they expected to acquire certain interests
in Nicaragua, and a weight in the government; and
they might have hoped that, in time, their civilization
and industry, would win a peaceful and natural triumph
over native imbecility, and change the destiny of the
country.   Such expectations and hopes were perfectly
legitimate; but the result is hastening.  The fickleness,
the jealousy, the treachery, and the revolutionary spirit
of the Central American people, that deny our countrymen the honors and rewards of a foreign service, and
that would expel them from a country they have rescued
from an internecine war, and baptized in their own
blood, as saved for a higher destiny, can but tend to
provoke and offer opportunities of just revenge to a spirit
-call it filibustering  if you will-not easily pacified,
but active, invasive, persevering and eventually to triumph, wherever it carries the Southern civilization and
arms.
Turn we, for a moment, dear C., to the concluding
portion of the thrilling language of soul-greatness that
I have just quoted. How noble, heroic, and transcendental the sentiment that can hold life and personal suo
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cess in such little estimation! How eloquent, indeed,
of that high and ravishing enthusiasm, which impels,
animates, and sustains, the noble and chivalrous leaders
of progress everywhere-which is superior to success;
which is nobly careless of human criticism; and which
is its own  reward, whether it leave its memorial of
greatness in the splendid monuments of fortune, or in
the nameless grave of self-devotion.
Truly yours,
E. A. P.
To D. M. C., Esq., New-York
LETTER XI.
GREEN MOUNTAIN, VA., 1858.
AIv DEAR C.: You have repeatedly rallied me on the
evidences of my sympathy with some of the superstitions of the negro. You tempt me, in addition to the
particular subject of our correspondence, to devote a few
pages to the great subject, in which white nature and
black nature are both interested-that of superstition.
I propose to do so by telling you
A CHRISTIAN GHOST STORY.
I am inteinsly superstitious.
est consolations  of my life to
have  perished from the earth
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It is one of the sweet.
think that those who
may still stand aboflt 
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me-to think that they may watch over me in the
darkened hour of contrition-to feel, when night gathers
around me in the lonely chamber, that I can almost
stretch forth my hand in the darkness to touch the
features of the precious dead.   The  derisions of the
world-the scoffing of the foolish-wise-the rebukes of
the cold, dreary men of God, who measure the future
state of the soul by rules, and brand with their contempt
the tender and precious superstitions that God has given
us, shall not cheat me of my consolation. There is a
superstition above the vulgar standard of science.
There is a superstition founded on the mystery of
nature, transcendental, tender, and altogether lovelylooking from earth to the beautiful sky of heaven, its
silver stars, and the long, long homes in our Father's
house.
I do not know, my dear C., whether, in the desultory
recitations of my boyish life among the loved ones of the
South, I have ever told you of the bright little sister so
loved by all the negroes, and so petted by the old, black
ones, who claimed her as their darling mistress. She
was the light and the joy of them all. She cheered
the dark lot of the poor slaves, by exhibiting to them
her own innocent happiness, by reading them the consolations of the Bible, by the ministrations of an angel
Oh, there is no blasphemy in calling an angel of the
earth her, whose youth and innocence, and gentle
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beauty came to brighten our dark home on the mountain
like golden sunshine falling from a parted cloud.
But the angel on the earth had become an angel in
heaven. Sweet Rosalie had died in her youth. Ah, how
I remember the burial that so solemnly closed her forever
from my human eyes! The gentle limbs of the precious
dead were laid in the earth, when it was smiling with
light and verdure, when the lambs were bleating in the
meadow, and when Spring was hastening with its
reviving kiss for nature,  but its sweetest showers of
tears in vain for the flower that had been plucked. It
is needless to tell of the force of my  affliction: that
sorrow, at least is sacred. But year by year, my grief
grew less and my love the more.
It was in tlhe days of my mourning that I first began
to take into my heart those tender superstitions, that
make the negro's religion, to my consciousness, to my
soul, a truer religion than that preached from the thousand
pulpits of the land. The old negroes told me of appari tions of " their sweet chile," as they named my angel
Rosalie, of seeing her in heaven, of meeting her spirit
among the lonely trees at midnight. And I believed
them all. I would steal away from the observation of
the white family, to listen with passionate and thrilling
interest to the stories of dear Aunt Matilda, who told me
how my little sister appeared to her in visions of the night,
with the angel-children of the Redeemer-and how they
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rode through the air singing songs-and how the spirit of
her young mistress had told her, that the brightest place
in heaven was not for little children, but for "the long —
time mourner."  And then she would chant some of her
curious hymns.  In what  a fervent and beseeching
manner she would sing some lines, which I cannot now
clearly recollect, but the repeated prayer of which
was:
"Swing low chariot!  Pray just let me in!
For I don't want to stay behind.
Swing low chariot!  Pray just let me in!
For I don't want to stay here no longer."''
And there was another hymn of triumph and encouragement:
"Another little mourner strike Zion's hill!
And I heard from heaven to-day;
Rise, mass'r, climb the hill!
For I heard from heaven to-day."
Smile not, dear friend, at these rude chants of the
poor negro. Examine them rather in your heart, and
say if there is not nature's poetry in these untutored
imnages; "the chariot" of the Redeemer's glory sweeping
by, to which the poor slave looks with passionate longing-and then the" climbing of the hill," and the word
of encouragement "heard from heaven!"
it is from the negro that I have learned my superstitions. It is the slave that has given me these precious
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consolations. It is he that has taught me and persuaded
me that the spirits of those mourned as dead are with me
still.
But to return to the story which I started to tell:
One day Aunt matilda told me, as was not unusual,
that she had a message for me from my angel-sister.  It
was a curious message, unlike former ones of love and
encouragement. The old woman delivered it with an
ominous look, refusing to explain by a single word its
meaning, which was hidden to my boyish sense, and
yet awful in its impression.  It was,  that "she was
coming for me."  Coming for me!  What did it mean?
Should I indeed see again my precious little sister, as
the old slave had described her, with her golden locks
clothing her in glittering beauty, and with "silver slippers on her feet! "  For a long time my imagination
dwelt upon the promise.
And now, dear friend, believe me-oh, do not mock me,
but believe me-when I tell you solemnly, and speaking
from all the heart can feel of truth, that the promise has
been kept!
Many, many years after the message had been given
me by Aunt Matilda, when I had grown up to manhood, and entered upon its serious years, I was taken
down by a memorable sickness. It was a long, weary
sickness, to which my memory reverts with a shudder.
I had lain for many weeks in a slow fever, and was
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reduced to a very critical state of weakness. Everything was kept still and solemn about my room.
One night, I was lying in restless, broken reveries.
The lights, which had been withdrawn by my nurse into
an adjoining room, left mine in an indistinct gloom, a
darkness filled with shadows. I was in an uncertain
state, neither asleep nor awake; but in an indescribable
sort of stupor. Suddenly, I felt myself curiously failing.  I can describe my  sensation only as that of a
sinking, like the running down of mechanism; my
mind falling away into a sort of lightness, then with
unutterable terror grasping at consciousness, and then
falling away deeper and deeper into the vagueness.
I felt that I was dying. But I had no strength to call
out. Further and further, I felt falling away, still
grasping, clutching at consciousness, oh! with what
inconceivable  agony.   One terrible effort-one more
wrestle of agony, and I felt a sudden, boundless freedom, a sense of an unutterable expanse around me-an
aUrialness that human words cannot express. I was still
in my chamber, but I seemed to touch nothing; I felt
an irrepressible lightness, and yet I was so keenly conscious, that I could hear sounds that seemed to be far
away over the hills, and floating up to the skies.
A slight rustle by my side attracted me.  I turned
my  eyes.  M}erciful God l it was my  angel, Rosalie,
who stood there.  Father in Heaven, it was thy mesenger. There she stood in the darkened room, with a
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countenance as white and calm as death, no earthly
beauty there, no smiles, but white, white, and yet a
thousand times beautiful in the deep, passionless, Heavensealed peace of God's beloved. I could not speak to my
darling.   An awful restraint was upon me; and when
she beckoned to me, I followed, as if on air. All things
seemed dissolving from me; the earth appeared to be
falling away into shadows. I felt as if encompassed by
darkness, and treading through it to an illimitable
Beyond.
Oh, the darkness is breaking at last!  The  angel
form before me, never turning as I have followed, is
now growing brighter and more glorious. I see the
great white radiance, to which her path leads up through
the darluess.  Oh, Gracious Father, is this the home
of thy beloved! I see dimly as through a glass. But
amid myriads of figures peopling this everlasting light,
where no shadow ever falls, and no storms, no rent banners in the sky, or wars, or " garments rolled in blood,"
are ever known-amid them all, I distinguish white
figures advancing to meet me   Who comes on in the
the bright raiment of glory so swiftly and happily? Who
is she with the everlasting seal of peace upon her brow
that comes to meet me? Saviour, sweet Saviour, will
you grant me this reunion also!-for it is my mother
that comes, it is my mother, reaching out her hands to
the son that was lost!
I am standing on the confines of darkness, with one
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step from it into unutterable happiness. My darling, my
angel, Rosalie, turns to me.  A smile of Heaven now
lights up her face; a scarce repressed song seems to
tremble on her lips. She stretches her tiny hand toward
me. I seek to grasp it. But as I touch it, she starts,
the whole scene rocks and falls before me into nothingness; and I hear the voice of Rosalie sweetly, sadly,
saying, "AJlas, I thlougitt you were dead!"
Was it a dream you ask-a nightmare broken and
changing into a dreamer's ecstacy. Call it what you will,
let the world use the cold sneering term of " a dream"
to conceal its ignorance of-the mysterious communings
of the soul, let it congratulate itself upon the easy explanations of the wonders of Hlim, who worketh visions of
the night.  But the day comes, when the " dream" of
life itself shall pass away, and we shall stand, as I
solemnly believe, in the reality of what was revealed to
us in the night, and in the darkened hours of our lives
on earth.
No, my Rosalie, not dead yet; not ready yet to cross
into the light everlasting! But struggling on, considering all things of this world lightly, bearing its insults
and its goads, putting away its quarrels, looking up ever
to the better day, suffering, worn and weary, I pray to
my Saviour, that a broken family may be reunited at
his Throne, and that there, as on earth, my beloved and
I may praise himn together    Yours truly,   E. A. P. To D. M. C., Esq., New-York.
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