An
emancipated slave, at any rate, has not received good training for
earning his bread by the wages of labor; and if, in addition to this
and his being treated as an outcast, he is excluded, as it is said,
from many employments, by the refusal of white laborers to work along
with him, he will have gained little by taking refuge in the Northern
States.
I have now laid before you the views which I conceive to be most
prevalent among us, and for which I am not myself responsible.
For the safe and effectual emancipation of slaves, I myself consider
there is no plan so good as the gradual one which was long ago
suggested by Bishop Hinds. What he recommended was an _ad valorem
tax_ upon slaves,--the value to be fixed by the owner, with an
option to government to purchase at that price. Thus the slaves would
be a burden to the master, and those the most so who should be the
most valuable, as being the most intelligent and steady, and therefore
the best qualified for freedom; and it would be his interest to train
his slaves to be free laborers, and to emancipate them, one by one, as
speedily as he could with safety. I fear, however, that the time is
gone by for trying this experiment in America.
With best wishes for the new year, believe me
Yours faithfully,
Rd. Whately.
Among the many letters written from this side of the Atlantic
regarding the reply, was one from Nathaniel Hawthorne, in which he
says:--
I read with great pleasure your article in the last "Atlantic.
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