The Sable Cloud A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861)   By: Nehemiah Adams (1806-1878)

A SOUTHERN TALE,

WITH NORTHERN COMMENTS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "A SOUTH SIDE VIEW OF SLAVERY."

"I did not err, there does a sable cloud Turn forth her silver lining on the night"

MILTON'S COMUS

BOSTON: TICKNOR AND FIELDS. MDCCCLXI

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1861, by

TICKNOR AND FIELDS,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts

RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY H O HOUGHTON

CONTENTS.

PAGE CHAPTER I. DEATH AND BURIAL OF A SLAVE'S INFANT 1

CHAPTER II. NORTHERN COMMENTS ON SOUTHERN LIFE 5

CHAPTER III. MORBID NORTHERN CONSCIENCE 32

CHAPTER IV. RESOLUTIONS FOR A CONVENTION 53

CHAPTER V. THE GOOD NORTHERN LADY'S LETTER FROM THE SOUTH 59

CHAPTER VI. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 118

CHAPTER VII. OWNERSHIP IN MAN. THE OLD TESTAMENT SLAVERY 150

CHAPTER VIII. THE TENURE 177

CHAPTER IX. DISCUSSION IN PHILEMON'S CHURCH AT THE RETURN OF ONESIMUS 205

CHAPTER X. THE FUTURE 239

CHAPTER I.

DEATH AND BURIAL OF A SLAVE'S INFANT.

"The small and great are there, and the servant is free from his master."

A Southern gentleman, who was visiting in New York, sent me, with his reply to my inquiries for the welfare of his family at home, the following letter which he had just received from one of his married daughters in the South.

The reader will be so kind as to take the assurance which the writer hereby gives him, that the letter was received under the circumstances now stated, and that it is not a fiction. Certain names and the date only are, for obvious reasons, omitted.

THE LETTER.

MY DEAR FATHER,

You have so recently heard from and about those of us left here, and that in a so much more satisfactory way than through letters, that it scarcely seems worth while to write just yet. But Mary left Kate's poor little baby in such a pitiable state, that I think it will be a relief to all to hear that its sufferings are ended. It died about ten o'clock the night that she left us, very quietly and without a struggle, and at sunset on Friday we laid it in its last resting place. My husband and I went out in the morning to select the spot for its burial, and finding the state of affairs in the cemetery, we chose a portion of ground and will have it inclosed with a railing. They have been very careless in the management of the ground, and have allowed persons to inclose and bury in any shape or way they chose, so that the whole is cut up in a way that makes it difficult to find a place where two or three graves could be put near each other. We did find one at last, however, about the size of the Hazel Wood lots; and we will inclose it at once, so that when another, either from our own family or those of the other branches, wants a resting place, there shall not be the same trouble. Poor old Timmy lies there; but it is in a part of the grounds where, the sexton tells us, the water rises within three feet of the surface; so, of course, we did not go there for this little grave. His own family selected his burial place, and probably did not think of this.