A Southern View of Slavery

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It is nearing a half-century since the arbitrament of war removed from the body politic for all time that most fruitful source of sectional friction, the institution of slavery. Surely, therefore, it should now be possible for North and South to discuss the subject dispassionately. I hold no brief for the defense of slavery, but belonging to the fast-thinning ranks of a generation which links together the South of past and present, being closely in touch with the old regime, and having a personal knowledge of conditions then existing, I desire, in the interests of historic truth, to present as concisely as possible an inside view of the institution of slavery: First, as regards its effects upon the white race; and secondly, in its relation to the negro, in which last aspect the subject naturally divides itself into two parts, viz., the moral warrant for slavery, and the practical workings of the system as it actually existed in the southern states. As being in many respects closely allied both to the patriarchal, and the feudal system, the institution of slavery in the United States might be regarded as a survival, and, like all anachronisms, it naturally jarred upon the sense of fitness in those unacquainted with its special adaptation to the peculiar circumstances of the case. Before entering upon the subject, however, an explanatory word may not be out of place, to guard against possible misapprehension. First: Desiring only to present statements verified by actual observation, I shall describe the system in my native state; having no reason to suppose that slavery in South Carolina differed in essential particulars from slavery in the other southern states. Secondly: Throughout this paper I propose to speak of general, representative types, not of exceptional,