Do a majority of Northern working men dwell in habitations having no more elements of comfort, even taking difference of climate into consideration, than Mr. De Bow ascribes to the residences of the slaves' owners? No Northern man can for a moment hold such an opinion. What, then, becomes of the theory by which the planters justify slavery to themselves and recommend it to us? If the ennobling luxuries which the institution of slavery secures to the "superior class," and by which it is supposed to be "qualified for the higher duties of citizenship," are, at the most, sugar, instead of molasses, in its coffee; butter, with its pone; cabbage, with its bacon, and two sheets to its bed—and the traveller who goes where I travelled, month after month, with the same experience, cannot help learning to regard these as luxuries indeed,—if "freedom from sordid and petty cares," and "leisure for intellectual pursuits," means a condition approaching in comfort that of the keeper of a lightship on an outer bar, what is the exact value of such words as "hospitality," "generosity," and "gallantry?" What is to be understood from phrases in such common use as "high toned," "well bred," "generous," "hospitable," and soon, when used in argument to prove the beneficence of slavery and to advocate its extension?
From De Bow's Review.
"Mr. Frederick Law Olmsted, after signalizing himself by two very
wordy volumes, abounding in bitterness and prejudice of every sort, and
misrepresentations upon the 'Seaboard Slave States,' finding how profitable
such literature is in a pecuniary point of view, and what a run is being made
upon it thoughout the entire limits of abolitiondom, vouchsafes us now
another volume, entitled a 'Journey through Texas, or a Saddle-trip on the
South-western Frontier.' Here, again, the opportunity is too tempting to be
resisted to revile and abuse the men and the society whose open hospitality
he undoubtedly enjoyed, and whom we have no doubt, like every other
of his tribe travelling at the South, he found it convenient at the time to
flatter and approve. We have now grown accustomed to this, and it is not
