From a native Virginian, who has resided in New York:
“To the Editor of the N. Y. Daily Times.
“Sir—You will not object, I think, to receive an endorsement from a Southern man, of the statements contained in number seven of ‘Letters on the Productions, Industry, and Resources of the Southern States’ [by Mr. Olmsted], published in your issue on Thursday last * * *
“Where you would see one white labourer on a Northern farm, scores of blacks should appear on the Virginian plantation, the best of them only performing each day one-fourth a white man’s daily task, and all requiring an incessant watch to get even this small modicum of labour. Yet they eat as much again as a white man, must have their two suits of clothes and shoes yearly, and although the heartiest, healthiest looking men and women anywhere on earth, actually lose for their owners or employers one-sixth their time on account of real or pretended sickness. Be assured, our model Virginia farmer has his hands full, and is not to be envied as a jolly fox-hunting idler, lording it over ‘ranks of slaves in chains.’ No, sir; he must be up by ‘the dawn’s early light,’ and head the column, direct in person the commencing operations, urging, and coaxing; must praise and punish—but too glad to reward the meritorious, granting liberty (i. e. leave of absence) often to his own servant, that he dare not take himself, because he must not leave home for fear something will go wrong ere his return. Hence but too many give up, to overseers or other irresponsible persons, the care and management of their estates, rather than undergo such constant annoyance and confinement. Poor culture, scanty crops, and worn-out land, is the inevitable result; and yet, harassed and trammeled as they are, no one but a Southerner regards them with the slightest degree of compassion or even forbearance; and our good friends, the Abolitionists, would have ‘all the rest of mankind’ rank them with pirates and cut-throats. But my object in this communication is not to sympathize with nor ask sympathy on behalf of slaveholders. For, however sinning or sinned against, they seem quite able to take their own part, if molested; and are remarkably indifferent, withal, as to the opinions expressed by ignorant ranters concerning them.
“If I have the ability, my desire is to draw a parallel between the state and condition of Northern and Southern farmers and farming. The Northern farmer does undoubtedly experience a full share of those troubles and cares attendant even upon the most easy and favourable system of farming; but, sir, can he have any such responsibility as that resting upon the owner of from 50 to 300 ignorant, lazy negroes?
“You must plough deep, follow up quickly, and sow with powerful fertilizers, attend closely to the growing crop, gather in rapidly before blight or mildew can come and destroy, says our Northern farmer. On a farm of three hundred acres, thus managed with five hands, two extra during harvest, I can raise thirty bushels of wheat to the acre. Now picture the condition of him South, and hear his answer. With from three to fifteen hundred acres of land, and a host of negroes great and small, his cares and troubles are without end. ‘The hands,’ able men and women, to say nothing of children, and old ones laid by from age or other infirmity, have wants innumerable. Some are sick, others pretend to be so, many obstinate, indolent, or fractious—each class requires different treatment; so that without mentioning the actual daily wants, as provisions, clothing, etc., etc., the poor man’s time, and thoughts—indeed, every faculty of mind—must be exercised on behalf of those who have no minds of their own.
“His answer, then, to the Northern farmer is: ‘I have not one hand on my place capable and willing to do the work you name.’ They tell me that ‘five of them could not perform the task required of one.’ They have never been used to do it, and no amount of force or persuasion will induce them to try. Their task is so much per day; all over that I agree to pay them for, at the same rate I allow free labourers—but ’tis seldom they make extra time, except to get money enough to buy tobacco, rum, or sometimes fine clothes. Can it be wondered at that systematic farming, such as we see North and East, is unknown or not practised to any great degree South? The two systems will not harmonize.
“R. J. W.”
From a native New Yorker, who has resided in Virginia:
“To the Editor of the New York Daily Times.
“I have read with deep interest the series of letters from the South, published in your columns. Circumstances have made me quite familiar with the field of your correspondent’s investigation, much more familiar than he is at present, and yet I am happy to say, that his letters are more satisfactory than any I have ever seen relating to the South. It is now about ten years since, going from this State, I first became familiar with those facts in regard to the results of slave labour, etc., that your correspondent and his readers are so much surprised at. I have talked those subjects over as he is doing, with the planters along the shores of the Chesapeake, and on both sides of the James River, through the Tidewater, the middle and the mountainous districts east of the Blue Ridge, and in many of those rich counties in the Valley of Virginia. I may add that, subsequently, spending my winters at the South for my health, I have become well nigh as familiar with the States of North and South Carolina, and Georgia, as I am with Virginia. I have, therefore, almost of necessity, given not a little thought to the questions your correspondent is discussing.
“His statement, in regard to the comparative value of slave and free-labour, will surprise those who have given little or no attention to the subject. I wish to confirm his statements on this subject. In Eastern Virginia I have repeatedly been told that the task of one cord of wood a day, or five cords a week, rain or shine, is the general task, and one of the most profitable day’s work that the slave does for his master. And this, it should be remembered, is generally pine wood, cut from trees as straight and beautiful as ever grew. The reason of this ‘profitableness’ is the fact that the labour requires so little mental effort. The grand secret of the difference between free and slave labour is, that the latter is without intelligence, and without motive. If the former, in Western New York, has a piece of work to perform, the first thought is, how it can be done with the least labour, and the most expeditiously. He thinks, he plans, before he commences, and while about his labour. His mind labours as much as his body, and this mental labour saves a vast deal of physical labour. Besides this, he is urged on by the strongest motives. He enjoys the products of his labour. The more intelligent and earnest his labours, the richer are his rewards. Slave labour is exactly the opposite of this. It is unintelligent labour—labour without thought—without plan—without motive. It is little more than brute force. To one who has not witnessed it, it is utterly inconceivable how little labour a slave, or a company of slaves, will accomplish in a given time. Their awkwardness, their slowness, the utter absence of all skill and ingenuity in accomplishing the work before them, are absolutely painful to one who has been accustomed to seeing work done with any sort of spirit and life. Often they spend hours in doing what, with a little thought, might be despatched in a few moments, or perhaps avoided altogether. This is a necessary result of employing labour which is without intelligence and without motive. I have often thought of a remark made to me by a planter, in New Kent County, Virginia. We were riding past a field where some of his hands were making a sort of wicker-work fence, peculiar to Eastern Virginia. ‘There,’ said he, in a decidedly fretted tone, ‘those “boys” have been —— days in making that piece of fence.’ I expressed my astonishment that they could have spent so much time, and yet have accomplished so very little. He assured me it was so—and after a slight pause, the tones of his voice entirely changed, said: ‘Well, I believe they have done as well as I would in their circumstances!’ And so it is. The slave is without motive, without inducement to exertion. His food, his clothing, and all his wants are supplied as they are, without care on his part, and when these are supplied he has nothing more to hope for. He can make no provision for old age, he can lay up nothing for his children, he has no voice at all in the disposal of the results of his earnings. What cares he whether his labour is productive or unproductive. His principal care seems to be to accomplish just as little as possible. I have said that the slaves were without ingenuity—I must qualify that remark. I have been amused and astonished at their exceeding ingenuity in avoiding and slighting the work that was required of them. It has often seemed to me that their principal mental efforts were in this direction, and I think your correspondent will find universal testimony that they have decided talent in this line.
“H. W. P.”
In a volume entitled “Notes on Uncle Tom’s Cabin; being a Logical Answer to its Allegations and Inferences against Slavery as an Institution,” by the Rev. E. J. Stearns, of Maryland (much the most thorough review of that work made from the Southern stand-point), the author, who is a New-Englander by birth, shows, by an elaborate calculation, that in Maryland, the cost of a negro, at twenty-one years of age, has been, to the man who raised him, eight hundred dollars. Six per cent. interest on this cost, with one and three-quarters per cent. for life insurance, per annum, makes the lowest wages of a negro, under the most favourable circumstances, sixty-two dollars a year (or five dollars a month), paid in advance, in the shape of food and clothing. The author, whose object is to prove that the slaveholder is not guilty, as Mrs. Stowe intimates, of stealing the negroes’ labour, proceeds, as follows, to show that he pays a great deal more for it than Mrs. Stowe’s neighbours in New England do, for the labour they hire:—
“If now we add to this (what every New-Englander who has lived at the South knows), that Quashy does not do more than one-third, or, at the very utmost, one-half as much work as an able-bodied labourer on a farm at the North; and that, for this he receives, besides the five dollars above mentioned, his food, clothing, and shelter, with medical attendance and nursing when sick, and no deduction for lost time, even though he should be sick for years, while the ‘farm-hand’ at the North gets only ten or twelve dollars, and has to clothe himself out of it, and pay his own doctor’s and nurse’s bill in sickness, to say nothing of lost time, I think we shall come to the conclusion if there has been stealing anywhere, it has not been from Quashy.”—P. 25.
“I recollect, the first time I saw Quashy at work in the field, I was struck by the lazy, listless manner in which he raised his hoe. It reminded me of the working-beam of the engine on the steam-boat that I had just landed from—fifteen strokes a minute; but there was this difference: that, whereas the working-beam kept steadily at it, Quashy, on the contrary, would stop about every five strokes and lean upon his hoe, and look around, apparently congratulating himself upon the amount of work he had accomplished.
“Mrs. Stowe may well call Quashy ‘shiftless.’ One of my father’s hired men—who was with him seven years—did more work in that time than an average negro would do in his whole life. Nay, I myself have done more work in a day,—and followed it up, too—than I ever saw a negro do, and I was considered remarkably lazy with the plough or hoe.”—P. 142.