In the South, I do greatly fear, there is no alternative between
suppression and subjugation.
There is no reason why the second great evil--the separation of families
(under a certain age) should not be entirely removed by proper
legislation; and I believe measures to this effect have already been
mooted in more than one of the slaveholding States. Putting these two
points aside, I believe that the condition of the slave--especially
where the "patriarchal" system prevails--is infinitely better than that
of the coolies: the unutterable horrors and waste of life in the Chincha
Islands have never been matched in Kentucky or Louisiana. I believe that
the whole roll of authenticated cruelties exercised on the negroes in
any one year would be outnumbered and outdone by the brutalities
practiced within the same time upon the apprentices in our own coast
trade, and upon seamen--white and colored--in the American
merchant-service. With all this it should be remembered that the
ordinary slave-rations far exceed, both in quantity and quality, the
Sunday meal of an English west-country laborer; and that the comforts of
all the aged and infirm, whom the master is, of course, obliged to
maintain, are infinitely superior to those enjoyed by the like inmates
of our most lenient work-houses.
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