Descriptions of Maryland: A Miscellany

Frances Trollope, On the National Road, 1830

Frances Trollope, Domestic Manners of the Americans (London: Whittaker, Treacher & Co., 1832), vol. I, pp. 270-288

I set off [from Wheeling] on my journey towards the mountains with more pleasure than is generally felt in quitting a pillow before day-light, for a cold corner in a rumbling stage-coach.

This was the first time we had got into an American stage, though we had traversed above two thousand miles of the country, and we had all the satisfaction in it, which could be derived from the conviction that we were travelling in a foreign land. This vehicle had no step, and we climbed into it by a ladder; when that was removed I remembered, with some dismay, that the females at least were much in the predicament of sailors, who, “in danger have no door to creep out;” but when a misfortune is absolutely inevitable, we are apt to bear it remarkably well; who would utter that constant petition of ladies on rough roads, “let me get out,” when compliance would oblige the pleader to make a step of five feet before she could touch the ground?

The coach had three rows of seats, each calculated to hold three persons, and as we were only six, we had, in the phrase of Milton, to “inhabit lax” this exalted abode, and, accordingly, we were for some miles tossed about like a few potatoes in a wheel-barrow. Our knees, elbows, and heads required too much care for their protection to allow us leisure to look out of the windows; but at length the road became smoother, and we became more skilful in the art of balancing ourselves, so as to meet the concussion with less danger of dislocation. . . .

The whole of this mountain region, through ninety miles of which the road passes, is a garden. The almost incredible variety of plants, and the lavish profusion of their growth, produce an effect perfectly enchanting. I really can hardly conceive a higher enjoyment than a botanical tour among the Alleghany mountains, to any one who had science enough to profit by it.

The magnificent rhododendron first caught our eyes; it fringes every cliff, nestles beneath every rock, and blooms around every tree. The azalia, the shumac, and every variety of that beautiful mischief, the kalmia, are in equal profusion. Cedars of every size and form were above, around, and underneath us; firs more beautiful and more various than I had ever seen, were in equal abundance, but I know not whether they were really such as I had never seen in Europe, or only in infinitely greater splendour and perfection of growth; the species called the hemlock is, I think, second to the cedar only, in magnificence. Oak and beech, with innumerable roses and wild vines, hanging in beautiful confusion among their branches, were in many places scattered among the evergreens. The earth was carpeted with various mosses and creeping plants, and though still in the month of March, not a trace of the nakedness of winter could be seen. Such was the scenery that shewed us we were indeed among the far-famed Alleghany mountains.

As our noble terrace-road, the Semplon of America, rose higher and higher, all that is noblest in nature was joined to all that is sweetest. The blue tops of the higher ridges formed the outline; huge masses of rock rose above us on the left, half hid at intervals by the bright green shrubs, while to the right we looked down upon the tops of the pines and cedars which clothed the bottom.

I had no idea of the endless variety of mountain scenery. My notions had been of rocks and precipices, of torrents and of forest trees, but I little expected that the first spot which should recal the garden scenery of our beautiful England would be found among the mountains: yet so it was. From the time I entered America I had never seen the slightest approach to what we call pleasure-grounds; a few very worthless and scentless flowers were all the specimens of gardening I had seen in Ohio; no attempt at garden scenery was ever dreamed of, and it was with the sort of delight with which one meets an old friend, that we looked on the lovely mixture of trees, shrubs, and flowers, that now continually met our eyes. Often, on descending into the narrow vallies, we found a little spot of cultivation, a garden or a field, hedged round with shumacs, rhododendrons, and azalias, and a cottage covered with roses. These vallies are spots of great beauty; a clear stream is always found running through them, which is generally converted to the use of the miller, at some point not far from the road; and here, as on the heights, great beauty of coloring is given to the landscape, by the bright hue of the vegetation, and the sober grey of the rocks.

The first night we passed among the mountains recalled us painfully from the enjoyment of nature to all the petty miseries of personal discomfort. Arrived at our inn, a forlorn parlour, filled with the blended fumes of tobacco and whiskey, received us; and chilled, as we began to feel ourselves with the mountain air, we preferred going to our cold bed-rooms rather than sup in such an atmosphere. We found linen on the beds which they assured us had only been used a few nights; every kind of refreshment we asked for we were answered, “We do not happen to have that article.”

We were still in Pennsylvania, and no longer waited upon by slaves; it was, therefore, with great difficulty that we procured a fire in our bed-rooms from the surly-looking young lady who condescended to officiate as chamber-maid, and with much more, that we extorted clean linen for our beds; that done, we patiently crept into them supperless, while she made her exit muttering about the difficulty of “fixing English folks.” . . .

Our second night in the mountains was past at a solitary house of rather forlorn appearance; but we fared much better than the night before, for they gave us clean sheets, a good fire, and no scolding. We again started at four o’clock in the morning, and eagerly watched for the first gleam of light that should show the same lovely spectacle we had seen the day before; nor were we disappointed, though the show was somewhat different. The vapours caught the morning ray, as it first darted over the mountain top, and passing it to the scene below, we seemed enveloped in a rainbow.

We had now but one ridge left to pass over, and as we reached the top, and looked down on the new world before us, I hardly knew whether most to rejoice that

“All the toil of the long-pass’d way”

was over, or to regret that our mountain journey was drawing to a close.

The novelty of my enjoyment had doubtless added much to its keenness. I have never been familiar with mountain scenery. Wales has shewn me all I ever saw, and the region of the Alleghany Alps in no way resembles it. It is a world of mountains rising around you in every direction, and in every form; savage, vast, and wild; yet almost at every step, some lovely spot meets your eye, green, bright, and blooming, as the most cherished nook belonging to some noble Flora in our own beautiful land. It is a ride of ninety miles through kalmias, rhododendrons, azalias, vines and roses; sheltered from every blast that blows by vast masses of various coloured rocks, on which

“Tall pines and cedars wave their dark green crests.”

While in every direction you have a back-ground of blue mountain tops, that play at bo-peep with you in the clouds.

After descending the last ridge we reached Haggerstown, a small neat place, between a town and a village; and here by the piety of the Presbyterian coach-masters, we were doomed to pass an entire day, and two nights, “as the accommodation line must not run on the sabbath.”

I must, however, mention, that this day of enforced rest was not Sunday. Saturday evening we had taken in at Cumberland a portly passenger, whom we soon discovered to be one of the proprietors of the coach. He asked us, with great politeness, if we should wish to travel on the sabbath, or to delay our journey. We answered that we would rather proceed; “The coach, then, shall go on to-morrow,” replied the liberal coach-master, with the greatest courtesy; and accordingly we travelled all Sunday, and arrived at Haggerstown on Sunday night. At the door of the inn our civil proprietor left us; but when we enquired of the waiter at what hour we were to start on the morrow, he told us that we should be obliged to pass the whole of Monday there, as the coach which was to convey us forward would not arrive from the east, till Tuesday morning.

Thus we discovered that the waiving the Sabbath-keeping by the proprietor, was for his own convenience, and not for ours, and that we were to be tied by the leg for four-and-twenty hours notwithstanding. This was quite a Yankee trick.

Luckily for us, the inn at Haggerstown was one of the most comfortable I ever entered. It was there that we became fully aware that we had left Western America behind us. Instead of being scolded, as we literally were at Cincinnati, for asking for a private sitting-room, we here had two, without asking at all. A waiter, quite comme il faut, summoned us to breakfast, dinner, and tea, which we found prepared with abundance, and even elegance. The master of the house met us at the door of the eating-room, and, after asking if we wished for any thing not on the table, retired. The charges were in no respect higher than at Cincinnati.

A considerable creek, called Conococheque Creek, runs near the town, and the valley through which it passes is said to be the most fertile in America.

On leaving Haggerstown we found, to our mortification, that we were not to be the sole occupants of the bulky accommodation, two ladies and two gentlemen appearing at the door ready to share it with us. We again started, at four o’clock, by the light of a bright moon, and rumbled and nodded through roads considerably worse than those over the mountains.

As the light began to dawn we discovered our ladies to be an old woman and her pretty daughter.

Soon after day-light we found that our pace became much slower than usual, and that from time to time our driver addressed to his companion on the box many and vehement exclamations. The gentlemen put their heads out, to ask what was the matter, but could get no intelligence, till the mail overtook us, when both vehicles stopped, and an animated colloquy of imprecations took place between the coachmen. At length we learnt that one of our wheels was broken in such a manner as to render it impossible for us to proceed. Upon this the old lady immediately became a principal actor in the scene. She sprung to the window, and addressing the set of gentlemen who completely filled the mail, exclaimed “Gentlemen! can’t you make room for two? Only me and my daughter?” The naïve simplicity of this request set both the coaches into an uproar of laughter. It was impossible to doubt that she acted upon the same principle as the pious Catholic, who addressing heaven with a prayer for himself alone, added “pour ne pas fatiguer ta miséricorde.” Our laugh, however, never daunted the old woman, or caused her for a moment to cease the reiteration of her request, “only for two of us, gentlemen! can’t you find room for two?”

Our situation was really very embarrassing, but not to laugh was impossible. After it was ascertained that our own vehicle could not convey us, and that the mail had not even room for two, we decided upon walking to the next village, a distance, fortunately, of only two miles, and awaiting there the repair of the wheel. We immediately set off, at the brisk pace that six o’clock and a frosty morning in March were likely to inspire, leaving our old lady and her pretty daughter considerably in the rear; our hearts having been rather hardened by the exclusive nature of her prayer for aid.

When we had again started upon our new wheel, the driver, to recover the time he had lost, drove rapidly over a very rough road, in consequence of which, our self-seeking old lady fell into a perfect agony of terror, and her cries of “we shall be over! oh, Lord! we shall be over! we must be over! we shall be over!” lasted to the end of the stage, which with laughing, walking, and shaking, was a most fatiguing one.

Frances Trollope, Baltimore, 1830

Frances Trollope, Domestic Manners of the Americans (London: Whittaker, Treacher & Co., 1832), vol. I, pp. 289-304

As we advanced towards Baltimore the look of cultivation increased, the fences wore an air of greater neatness, the houses began to look like the abodes of competence and comfort, and we were consoled for the loss of the beautiful mountains by knowing that we were approaching the Atlantic.

From the time of quitting the Ohio river, though, unquestionably, it merits its title of “the beautiful,” especially when compared with the dreary Mississippi, I strongly felt the truth of an observation I remembered to have heard in England, that little rivers were more beautiful than great ones. As features in a landscape, this is assuredly the case. Where the stream is so wide that the objects on the opposite shore are indistinct, all the beauty must be derived from the water itself; whereas, when the stream is narrow, it becomes only a part of the composition. The Monongahela, which is in size between the Wye and the Thames, is infinitely more picturesque than the Ohio.

To enjoy the beauty of the vast rivers of this vast country you must be upon the water; and then the power of changing the scenery by now approaching one shore, and now the other, is very pleasing; but travelling as we now did, by land, the wild, rocky, narrow, rapid little rivers we encountered, were a thousand times more beautiful. The Potapsco, near which the road runs, as you approach Baltimore, is at many points very picturesque. The large blocks of grey rock, now close upon its edge, and now retiring to give room for a few acres of bright green herbage, give great interest and variety to its course.

Baltimore is, I think, one of the handsomest cities to approach in the Union. The noble column erected to the memory of Washington, and the Catholic Cathedral, with its beautiful dome, being built on a commanding eminence, are seen at a great distance. As you draw nearer, many other domes and towers become visible, and as you enter Baltimore-street, you feel that you are arrived in a handsome and populous city.

We took up our quarters at an excellent hotel, where the coach stopped, and the next day were fortunate enough to find accommodation in the house of a lady, well known to many of my European friends. With her and her amiable daughter, we spent a fortnight very agreeably, and felt quite aware that if we had not arrived in London or Paris, we had, at least, left far behind the “half-horse, half-alligator” tribes of the West, as the Kentuckians call themselves.

Baltimore is in many respects a beautiful city; it has several handsome buildings, and even the private dwelling-houses have a look of magnificence, from the abundance of white marble with which many of them are adorned. The ample flights of steps, and the lofty door frames, are in most of the best houses formed of this beautiful material.

This has been called the city of monuments, from its having the stately column erected to the memory of General Washington, and which bears a colossal statue of him at the top; and another pillar of less dimensions, recording some victory; I forget which. Both these are of brilliant white marble. There are also several pretty marble fountains in different parts of the city, which greatly add to its beauty. These are not, it is true, quite so splendid as that of the Innocents, or many others at Paris, but they are fountains of clear water, and they are built of white marble. There is one which is sheltered from the sun by a roof supported by light columns; it looks like a temple dedicated to the genius of the spring. The water flows into a marble cistern, to which you descend by a flight of steps of delicate whiteness, and return by another. These steps are never without groups of negro girls, some carrying the water on their heads, with that graceful steadiness of step, which requires no aid from the hand; some tripping gaily with their yet unfilled pitchers; many of them singing in the soft rich voice, peculiar to their race; and all dressed with that strict attention to taste and smartness, which seems the distinguishing characteristic of the Baltimore females of all ranks.

The Catholic Cathedral is considered by all Americans as a magnificent church, but it can hardly be so classed by any one who has seen the churches of Europe; its interior, however, has an air of neatness that amounts to elegance. The form is a Greek cross, having a dome in the centre; but the proportions are ill-preserved; the dome is too low, and the arches which support it are flattened, and too wide for their height. On each side of the high altar are chapels to the Saviour and the Virgin. The altars in these, as well as the high altar, are of native marble of different colours, and some of the specimens are very beautiful. The decorations of the altar are elegant and costly. The prelate is a cardinal, and bears, moreover, the title of “Archbishop of Baltimore.”

There are several paintings in different parts of the church, which we heard were considered as very fine. There are two presented by Louis XVIII.; one of these is the Descent from the Cross, by Paulin Guirin; the other a copy from Rubens, (as they told us) of a legend of St. Louis in the Holy Land; but the composition of the picture is so abominably bad, that I conceive the legend of its being after Rubens, must be as fabulous as its subject. The admiration in which these pictures are held, is an incontestable indication of the state of art in the country.

We attended mass in this church the Sunday after our arrival, and I was perfectly astonished at the beauty and splendid appearance of the ladies who filled it. Excepting on a very brilliant Sunday at the Tuilleries, I never saw so shewy a display of morning costume, and I think I never saw any where so many beautiful women at one glance. They all appeared to be in full dress, and were really all beautiful. . . .

There are a vast number of churches and chapels in the city, in proportion to its extent, and several that are large and well-built; the Unitarian church is the handsomest I have ever seen dedicated to that mode of worship. But the prettiest among them is a little bijou of a thing belonging to the Catholic college. The institution is dedicated to St. Mary, but this little chapel looks, though in the midst of a city, as if it should have been sacred to St. John of the wilderness. There is a sequestered little garden behind it, hardly large enough to plant cabbages in, which yet contains a Mount Calvary, bearing a lofty cross. The tiny path which leads up to this sacred spot, is not much wider than a sheep-track, and its cedars are but shrubs, but all is in proportion; and notwithstanding its fairy dimensions, there is something of holiness, and quiet beauty about it, that excites the imagination strangely. . . .

Baltimore has a handsome museum, superintended by one of the Peale family, well known for their devotion to natural science, and to works of art. It is not their fault if the specimens which they are enabled to display in the latter department are very inferior to their splendid exhibitions in the former.

The theatre was closed when we were in Baltimore, but we were told that it was very far from being a popular or fashionable amusement. We were, indeed, told this every where throughout the country, and the information was generally accompanied by the observation, that the opposition of the clergy was the cause of it. But I suspect that this is not the principal cause, especially among the men, who, if they were so implicit in their obedience to the clergy, would certainly be more constant in their attendance at the churches; nor would they, moreover, deem the theatre more righteous because an English actor, or a French dancer, performed there; yet on such occasions the theatres overflow. The cause, I think, is in the character of the people. I never saw a population so totally divested of gaiety; there is no trace of this feeling from one end of the Union to the other. They have no fêtes, no fairs, no merry-makings, no music in the streets, no Punch, no puppet-shows. If they see a comedy or a farce, they may laugh at it; but they can do very well without it; and the consciousness of the number of cents that must be paid to enter a theatre, I am very sure turns more steps from its door than any religious feeling. A distinguished publisher of Philadelphia told me that no comic publication had ever yet been found to answer in America.

We arrived at Baltimore at the season of the “Conference.” I must be excused from giving any very distinct explanation of this term, as I did not receive any. From what I could learn, it much resembles a Revival. We entered many churches, and heard much preaching, and not one of the reverend orators could utter the reproach,

“Peut-on si bien prêcher qu’elle ne dorme au sermon?”

for I never even dosed at any. There was one preacher whose manner and matter were so peculiar, that I took the liberty of immediately writing down a part of his discourse as a specimen. I confess I began writing in the middle of a sentence, for I waited in vain for a beginning. It was as follows:—

“Nevertheless, we must not lose sight of the one important, great, and only object; for the Lord is mighty, his works are great, likewise wonderful, likewise wise, likewise merciful; and, moreover, we must ever keep in mind, and close to our hearts, all his precious blessings, and unspeakable mercies, and overflowing; and, moreover we must never lose sight of, no, never lose sight of, nor ever cease to remember, nor ever let our souls forget, nor ever cease to dwell upon, and to reverence, and to welcome, and to bless, and to give thanks, and to sing hosanna, and give praise,” and here my fragment of paper failed, but this strain continued, without a shadow of meaning that I could trace, and in a voice inconceivably loud, for more than an hour. After he had finished his sermon, a scene exactly resembling that at the Cincinnati Revival, took place. Two other priests assisted in calling forward the people, and in whispering comfort to them. One of these men roared out in the coarsest accents, “Do you want to go to hell to-night?” The church was almost entirely filled with women, who vied with each other in howlings and contortions of the body; many of them tore their clothes nearly off. I was much amused, spite of the indignation and disgust the scene inspired, by the vehemence of the negro part of the congregation; they seemed determined to bellow louder than all the rest, to shew at once their piety and their equality.

At this same chapel, a few nights before, a woman had fallen in a fit of ecstasy from the gallery, into the arms of the people below, a height of twelve feet. A young slave who waited upon us at table, when this was mentioned, said, that similar accidents had frequently happened, and that once she had seen it herself. Another slave in the house told us, that she “liked religion right well, but that she never took fits in it, ’cause she was always fixed in her best, when she went to chapel, and she did not like to have all her best clothes broke up.”

We visited the infant school, instituted in this city by Mr. Ibbertson, an amiable and intelligent Englishman. It was the first infant school, properly so called, which I had ever seen, and I was greatly pleased with all the arrangements, and the apparent success of them. The children, of whom we saw about a hundred, boys and girls, were between eighteen months and six years. The apartment was filled with all sorts of instructive and amusing objects; a set of Dutch toys, arranged as a cabinet of natural history, was excellent; a numerous collection of large wooden bricks filled one corner of the room; the walls were hung with gay papers of different patterns, each representing some pretty group of figures; large and excellent coloured engravings of birds and beasts were exhibited in succession as the theme of a little lesson; and the sweet flute of Mr. Ibbertson gave tune and time to the prettiest little concert of chirping birds that I ever listened to.

A geographical model, large enough to give clear ideas of continent, island, cape, isthmus, et cetera, all set in water, is placed before the children, and the pretty creatures point their little rosy fingers with a look of intense interest, as they are called upon to shew where each of them is to be found. The dress, both of boys and girls, was elegantly neat, and their manner, when called upon to speak individually, was well-bred, intelligent, and totally free from the rude indifference, which is so remarkably prevalent in the manners of American children. Mr. Ibbertson will be a benefactor to the Union, if he becomes the means of spreading the admirable method by which he has polished the manner, and awakened the intellect of these beautiful little Republicans. I have conversed with many American ladies on the total want of discipline and subjection which I observed universally among children of all ages, and I never found any who did not both acknowledge and deplore the truth of the remark. In the state of Ohio they have a law (I know not if it exist elsewhere), that if a father strike his son, he shall pay a fine of ten dollars for every such offence. I was told by a gentleman of Cincinnati, that he had seen this fine inflicted there, at the requisition of a boy of twelve years of age, whose father, he proved, had struck him for lying. Such a law, they say, generates a spirit of freedom. What else may it generate? . . .

About two miles from Baltimore is a fort, nobly situated on the Patapsco, and commanding the approach from the Chesapeak-bay. As our visit was on a Sunday we were not permitted to enter it. The walk to this fort is along a fine terrace of beautiful verdure, which commands a magnificent view of the city, with its columns, towers, domes, and shipping; and also of the Patapsco river, which is here so wide as to present almost a sea view. This terrace is ornamented with abundance of evergreens, and wild roses innumerable, but, the whole region has the reputation of being unhealthy, and the fort itself most lamentably so. Before leaving the city of monuments, I must not omit naming one reared to the growing wealth of the country; Mr. Barham’s hotel is said to be the most splendid in the Union, and it is certainly splendid enough for a people more luxurious than the citizens of the republic appear yet to be. I heard different, and, indeed, perfectly contradictory accounts of the success of the experiment; but at least every one seemed to agree that the liberal projector was fully entitled to exclaim,

“’Tis not in mortals to command success;
I have done more, Jonathan, I’ve deserved it.”

After enjoying a very pleasant fortnight, the greater part of which was passed in rambling about this pretty city and its environs, we left it, not without regret, and all indulging the hope that we should be able to pay it another visit.

Frances Trollope, Southern Maryland, 1830

Frances Trollope, Domestic Manners of the Americans (London: Whittaker, Treacher & Co., 1832), vol. II, pp. 33-48, 52

The greatest pleasure I had promised myself in visiting Washington was the seeing a very old friend, who had left England many years ago, and married in America; she was now a widow, and, as I believed, settled in Washington. I soon had the mortification of finding that she was not in the city; but ere long I learnt that her residence was not more than ten miles from it. We speedily met, and it was settled that we should pass the summer with her in Maryland, and after a month devoted to Washington, we left it for Stonington.

We arrived there the beginning of May, and the kindness of our reception, the interest we felt in becoming acquainted with the family of my friend, the extreme beauty of the surrounding country, and the lovely season, altogether, made our stay there a period of great enjoyment.

I wonder not that the first settlers in Virginia, with the bold Captain Smith of chivalrous memory at their head, should have fought so stoutly to dispossess the valiant father of Pocohontas of his fair domain, for I certainly never saw a more tempting territory. Stonington is about two miles from the most romantic point of the Potomac River, and Virginia spreads her wild, but beautiful, and most fertile Paradise, on the opposite shore. The Maryland side partakes of the same character, and perfectly astonished us by the profusion of her wild fruits and flowers.

We had not been long within reach of the great falls of the Potomac before a party was made for us to visit them; the walk from Stonington to these falls is through scenery that can hardly be called forest, park, or garden; but which partakes of all three. A little English girl accompanied us, who had but lately left her home; she exclaimed, “Oh! how many English ladies would glory in such a garden as this!” and in truth they might; cedars, tulip-trees, planes, shumacs, junipers, and oaks of various kinds, most of them new to us, shaded our path. Wild vines, with their rich expansive leaves, and their sweet blossom, rivalling the mignionette in fragrance, clustered round their branches. Strawberries in full bloom, violets, anemonies, heart’s-ease, and wild pinks, with many other, and still lovelier flowers, which my ignorance forbids me to name, literally covered the ground. The arbor judæ, the dog-wood, in its fullest glory of star-like flowers, azalias, and wild roses, dazzled our eyes whichever way we turned them. It was the most flowery two miles I ever walked.

The sound of the falls is heard at Stonington, and the gradual increase of this sound is one of the agreeable features of this delicious walk. I know not why the rush of waters is so delightful to the ear; all other monotonous sounds are wearying, and harass the spirits, but I never met any one who did not love to listen to a water-fall. A rapid stream, called the “Branch Creek,” was to be crossed ere we reached the spot where the falls are first visible. This rumbling, turbid, angry little rivulet, flows through evergreens and flowering underwood, and is crossed à plusieures reprises, by logs thrown from rock to rock. The thundering noise of the still unseen falls suggests an idea of danger while crossing these rude bridges, which hardly belongs to them; having reached the other side of the creek, we continued under the shelter of the evergreens for another quarter of a mile, and then emerged upon a sight that drew a shout of wonder and delight from us all. The rocky depths of an enormous river were opened before our eyes, and so huge are the black crags that inclose it, that the thundering torrents of water rushing through, over, and among the rocks of this awful chasm, appear lost and swallowed up in it.

The river, or rather the bed of it, is here of great width, and most frightful depth, lined on all sides with huge masses of black rock of every imaginable form. The flood that roars through them is seen only at intervals; here in a full heavy sheet of green transparent water, falling straight and unbroken; there dashing along a narrow channel, with a violence that makes one dizzy to see and hear. In one place an unfathomed pool shews a mirror of inky blackness, and as still as night; in another the tortured twisted cataract tumbles headlong in a dozen different torrents, half hid by the cloud of spray they send high into the air. Despite this uproar, the slenderest, loveliest shrubs, peep forth from among these hideous rocks, like children smiling in the midst of danger. As we stood looking at this tremendous scene, one of our friends made us remark, that the poison alder, and the poison vine, threw their graceful, but perfidious branches, over every rock, and assured us also that innumerable tribes of snakes found their dark dwellings among them.

To call this scene beautiful would be a strange abuse of terms, for it is altogether composed of sights and sounds of terror. The falls of the Potomac are awfully sublime; the dark deep gulf which yawns before you, the foaming, roaring cataract, the eddying whirlpool, and the giddy precipice, all seem to threaten life, and to appal the senses. Yet it was a great delight to sit upon a high and jutting crag, and look and listen.

I heard with pleasure that it was to the Virginian side of the Potomac that the “felicity hunters” of Washington resorted to see this fearful wonder, for I never saw a spot where I should less have liked the annoying “how d’ye,” of a casual rencontre. One could not even give or receive the exciting “is it not charming,” which Rousseau talks of, for if it were uttered, it could not be heard, or, if heard, would fall most earthly dull on the spirit, when rapt by the magic of such a scene. A look, or the silent pressure of the arm, is all the interchange of feeling that such a scene allows, and in the midst of my terror and my pleasure, I wished for the arm and the eye of some few from the other side of the Atlantic.

The return from such a scene is more soberly silent than the approach to it; but the cool and quiet hour, the mellowed tints of some gay blossoms, and the closed bells of others, the drowsy hum of the insects that survive the day, and the moist freshness that forbids the foot to weary in its homeward path, have all enjoyment in them, and seem to harmonize with the half wearied, half excited state of spirits, that such an excursion is sure to produce: and then the entering the cool and moonlit portico, the well-iced sangaree, or still more refreshing coffee, that awaits you, is all delightful; and if to this be added the happiness of an easy sofa, and a friend like my charming Mrs. S——, to sooth you with an hour of Mozart, the most fastidious European might allow that such a day was worth waking for.

I now, for the first time since I crossed the mountains, found myself sufficiently at leisure to look deliberately round, and mark the different aspects of men and things in a region which, though bearing the same name, and calling itself the same land, was, in many respects, as different from the one I had left, as Amsterdam from St. Petersburgh. There every man was straining, and struggling, and striving for himself (heaven knows!). Here every white man was waited upon, more or less, by a slave. There, the newly-cleared lands, rich with the vegetable manure accumulated for ages, demanded the slightest labour to return the richest produce; where the plough entered, crops the most abundant followed; but where it came not, no spot of native verdure, no native fruits, no native flowers cheered the eye; all was close, dark, stifling forest. Here the soil had long ago yielded its first fruits; much that had been cleared and cultivated for tobacco (the most exhausting of crops) by the English, required careful and laborious husbandry to produce any return; and much was left as sheep-walks. It was in these spots that the natural bounty of the soil and climate was displayed by the innumerable wild fruits and flowers which made every dingle and bushy dell seem a garden.

On entering the cottages I found also a great difference in the manner of living. Here, indeed, there were few cottages without a slave, but there were fewer still that had their beefsteak and onions for breakfast, dinner, and supper. The herrings of the bountiful Potomac supply their place. These are excellent “relish,” as they call it, when salted, and, if I mistake not, are sold at a dollar and a half per thousand. Whiskey, however, flows every where at the same fatally cheap rate of twenty cents (about one shilling) the gallon, and its hideous effects are visible on the countenance of every man you meet.

The class of people the most completely unlike any existing in England, are those who, farming their own freehold estates, and often possessing several slaves, yet live with as few of the refinements, and I think I may say, with as few of the comforts of life, as the very poorest English peasant. When in Maryland, I went into the houses of several of these small proprietors, and remained long enough, and looked and listened sufficiently, to obtain a tolerably correct idea of their manner of living.

One of these families consisted of a young man, his wife, two children, a female slave, and two young lads, slaves also. The farm belonged to the wife, and, I was told, consisted of about three hundred acres of indifferent land, but all cleared. The house was built of wood, and looked as if the three slaves might have overturned it, had they pushed hard against the gable end. It contained one room, of about twelve feet square, and another adjoining it, hardly larger than a closet; this second chamber was the lodging-room of the white part of the family. Above these rooms was a loft, without windows, where I was told the “staying company” who visited them, were lodged. Near this mansion was a “shanty,” a black hole, without any window, which served as kitchen and all other offices, and also as the lodging of the blacks.

We were invited to take tea with this family, and readily consented to do so. The furniture of the room was one heavy huge table, and about six wooden chairs. When we arrived the lady was in rather a dusky dishabille, but she vehemently urged us to be seated, and then retired into the closet-chamber above mentioned, whence she continued to address to us from behind the door, all kinds of “genteel country visiting talk,” and at length emerged upon us in a smart new dress.

Her female slave set out the great table, and placed upon it cups of the very coarsest blue ware, a little brown sugar in one, and a tiny drop of milk in another, no butter, though the lady assured us she had a “deary” and two cows. Instead of butter, she “hoped we would fix a little relish with our crackers,” in ancient English, eat salt meat and dry biscuits. Such was the fare, and for guests that certainly were intended to be honoured. I could not help recalling the delicious repasts which I remembered to have enjoyed at little dairy farms in England, not possessed, but rented, and at high rents too; where the clean, fresh-coloured, bustling mistress herself skimmed the delicious cream, herself spread the yellow butter on the delightful brown loaf, and placed her curds, and her junket, and all the delicate treasures of her dairy before us, and then, with hospitable pride, placed herself at her board, and added the more delicate “relish” of good tea and good cream. I remembered all this, and did not think the difference atoned for, by the dignity of having my cup handed to me by a slave. The lady I now visited, however, greatly surpassed my quondam friends in the refinement of her conversation. She ambled through the whole time the visit lasted, in a sort of elegantly mincing familiar style of gossip, which, I think, she was imitating from some novel, for I was told she was a great novel reader, and left all household occupations to be performed by her slaves. To say she addressed us in a tone of equality, will give no adequate idea of her manner; I am persuaded that no misgiving on the subject ever entered her head. She told us that their estate was her divi-dend of her father’s property. She had married a first cousin, who was as fine a gentleman as she was a lady, and as idle, preferring hunting (as they call shooting) to any other occupation. The consequence was, that but a very small portion of the divi-dend was cultivated, and their poverty was extreme. The slaves, particularly the lads, were considerably more than half naked, but the air of dignity with which, in the midst of all this misery, the lanky lady said to one of the young negroes, “Attend to your young master, Lycurgus,” must have been heard to be conceived in the full extent of its mock heroic.

Another dwelling of one of these landed proprietors was a hovel as wretched as the one above described, but there was more industry within it. The gentleman, indeed, was himself one of the numerous tribe of regular whiskey drinkers, and was rarely capable of any work; but he had a family of twelve children, who, with their skeleton mother, worked much harder than I ever saw negroes do. They were, accordingly, much less elegant and much less poor than the heiress; yet they lived with no appearance of comfort, and with, I believe, nothing beyond the necessaries of life. One proof of this was, that the worthless father would not suffer them to raise, even by their own labour, any garden vegetables, and they lived upon their fat pork, salt fish, and corn bread, summer and winter, without variation. This, I found, was frequently the case among the farmers. The luxury of whiskey is more appreciated by the men than all the green delicacies from the garden, and if all the ready money goes for that and their darling chewing tobacco, none can be spent by the wife for garden seeds; and as far as my observation extended, I never saw any American ménage where the toast and no toast question would have been decided in favour of the lady.

There are some small farmers who hold their lands as tenants, but these are by no means numerous: they do not pay their rent in money, but by making over a third of the produce to the owner; a mode of paying rent, considerably more advantageous to the tenant, than the landlord; but the difficulty of obtaining money in payment, excepting for mere retail articles, is very great in all American transactions. “I can pay in pro-duce,” is the offer which I was assured is constantly made on all occasions, and if rejected, “Then I guess we can’t deal,” is the usual rejoinder. This statement does not, of course, include the great merchants of great cities, but refers to the mass of the people scattered over the country; it has, indeed, been my object, in speaking of the customs of the people, to give an idea of what they are generally.

The effect produced upon English people by the sight of slavery in every direction is very new, and not very agreeable, and it is not the less painfully felt from hearing upon every breeze the mocking words, “All men are born free and equal.” One must be in the heart of American slavery fully to appreciate that wonderfully fine passage in Moore’s Epistle to Lord Viscount Forbes, which describes perhaps more faithfully, as well as more powerfully, the political state of America, than any thing that has ever been written upon it.

Oh! Freedom, Freedom, how I hate thy cant!
Not eastern bombast, nor the savage rant
Of purpled madmen, were they numbered all
From Roman Nero, down to Russian Paul,
Could grate upon my ear so mean, so base,
As the rank jargon of that factious race,
Who, poor of heart, and prodigal of words,
Born to be slaves, and struggling to be lords,
But pant for licence, while they spurn controul,
And shout for rights, with rapine in their soul!
Who can, with patience, for a moment see
The medley mass of pride and misery,
Of whips and charters, manacles and rights,
Of slaving blacks, and democratic whites,
Of all the pyebald polity that reigns
In free confusion o’er Columbia’s plains?
To think that man, thou just and gentle God!
Should stand before thee with a tyrant’s rod,
O’er creatures like himself, with soul from thee,
Yet dare to boast of perfect liberty:
Away, away, I’d rather hold my neck
By doubtful tenure from a Sultan’s beck,
In climes where liberty has scarce been named,
Nor any right, but that of ruling, claimed,
Than thus to live, where bastard freedom waves
Her fustian flag in mockery over slaves;
Where (motley laws admitting no degree
Betwixt the vilely slaved, and madly free)
Alike the bondage and the licence suit,
The brute made ruler, and the man made brute! . . .

The same man who beards his wealthier and more educated neighbour with the bullying boast, “I’m as good as you,” turns to his slave, and knocks him down, if the furrow he has ploughed, or the log he has felled, please not this stickler for equality. There is a glaring falsehood on the very surface of such a man’s principles that is revolting. It is not among the higher classes that the possession of slaves produces the worst effects. Among the poorer class of landholders, who are often as profoundly ignorant as the negroes they own, the effect of this plenary power over males and females is most demoralising; and the kind of coarse, not to say brutal, authority which is exercised, furnishes the most disgusting moral spectacle I ever witnessed. In all ranks, however, it appeared to me that the greatest and best feelings of the human heart were paralyzed by the relative positions of slave and owner.

Joseph Sturge, Of Slavery and Religion, 1841

Joseph Sturge, A Visit to the United States in 1841 (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1842), pp. 29-37

On the 28th. [of April] we arrived at Baltimore; during a stay of two or three days, we found several persons who were friendly to our cause. There are computed to be five thousand slaves in this city, but of course slavery does not obtrude itself on the casual observer. Here, as in other countries, he who would see it as it is, must view it on the plantations.

The free people of colour in Baltimore, are alive to the importance of education. One individual told us, that in distributing about two hundred and fifty religious books, which had been sent to be gratuitously supplied to the poor of this class, he found only five or six families, in which the children were not learning to read and write. . . .

The religious public of this city appear to be doing nothing collectively, to abolish or ameliorate slavery, and with the exception of “Friends,” and the body who have lately seceded from them, I fear that all are more or less implicated in its actual guilt. I was informed not long since, even the Roman Catholics, who are more free from the contamination than many other religious bodies, had, in some part of the State, sold several of their own church members, and applied the proceeds to the erection of a place of worship. We called upon the Catholic Bishop to enquire into the truth of this, but he was from home. When at Philadelphia afterwards, in conversation with a priest, I gave the particulars, and said I should be glad to be furnished with the means of contradicting it. I have not heard from him since.

I am informed that the Yearly Meeting of “Friends” has advised its members not to unite with the anti-slavery societies, and has latterly discontinued petitioning the legislature for the abolition of the internal slave trade, and the amelioration of the slave code; such is the prevailing influence of a pro-slavery atmosphere. The code in question has of late years been rendered more severe, and the legal emancipation of slaves more difficult; yet I was pleased to learn that public opinion has in this respect counteracted legislative tyranny; that slavery has in fact become milder and the number of manumissions has not lessened.

The mischievous influence of the Colonization Society is very extensive among professing christians in Baltimore, and is paramount in the legislature of the State.

The American slave trade is carried on in the most open manner in this city. We paid a visit to the establishment of an extensive slave dealer, a large, new building in one of the principal streets. The proprietor received us with great courtesy, and permitted us to inspect the premises. Cleanliness and order were every where visible, and, might we judge from the specimens of food shewn us, the animal wants of the slaves are not neglected. There were only five or six negroes in stock, but the proprietor told us he had sometimes three or four hundred there, and had shipped off a cargo to New Orleans a few days before. That city is the market where the highest price is generally obtained for them. The premises are strongly secured with bolts and bars, and the rooms in which the negroes are confined, surround an open court yard, where they are permitted to take the air. We were accompanied and kindly introduced by an individual who has often been engaged in preventing negroes from being illegally enslaved; and the proprietor of the establishment expressed his approval of his efforts, and that when such cases come before himself in the way of trade, he was accustomed to send them to our friend for investigation; he added that slaves would often come to him, and ask him to purchase them, and that he was the means of transferring them from worse masters to better; that he never parted families, though of course he could not control their fate, either before they came into his hands, or after they left him. He said he frequently left his concerns for weeks together, under the care of his head slave, whose wife he had made free, and promised the same boon to him, if he conducted himself well a few years longer. I thought it right to intimate my view of the nature of slavery and the slave trade. . . . This he did not attempt to controvert, yet he stated in extenuation, that the law permitted the trade in slaves, though he should be as willing as any one to have the system abolished, if the State would grant them compensation for their property. He farther said, that he was born in a slave State, that his mother had been for fifty years a member of the Wesleyan body, and that though he had not joined a christian church himself, he had never sworn an oath, nor committed an immoral act in his life. He also shewed, I think, convincingly, that dealing in slaves was not worse than slave holding. On leaving the premises, we found the door of his office had been locked upon us during this conference. I subsequently learned that this person, though living in considerable style, was not generally received in respectable society, and that a lady whom he had lately married, was shunned by her former acquaintance. Such is the testimony of the slave holders of Baltimore against slave dealing, by which they condemn themselves in the sight of God and man, and add the guilt of hypocrisy to their own sin. Some time afterwards I addressed the following letter to this individual which was published in many of the American papers.

TO HOPE H. SLAUGHTER,
Slave Trader, Baltimore.

Since thou courteously allowed me, in company with my friend, J. G. WHITTIER, to visit thy slave establishment in the city of Baltimore, some weeks since, I have often felt a desire to address a few lines to thee. . . .

To thy remark that thy business was necessary to the system of slavery, and an essential part of it—and if slave-holding were to be justified at all, the slave-trade must be also—I certainly can offer no valid objection; for I have never been able to discover any moral difference between the planter of Virginia and the slave dealer of Baltimore, Richmond and Washington. Each has his part to act in the system, and each is necessary to the other. And if the matter were not in all its bearings, painfully serious, it would be amusing to witness the absurd contempt with which the slave owner of Maryland or Virginia professes to look upon the trader, whose purchase of his surplus slaves alone enables him to retain the residue in his possession; for it seems very evident that the only profitable part of the system in those States, at the present time, is the sale of the annual increase of the slaves.

In passing from thy premises, we looked in upon the Triennial Convention of the Baptists of the United States, then in session in the city of Baltimore, where I found slave-holding ministers of high rank in the church, urging successfully the exclusion from the Missionary Board of that Society, of all those who, in principle and practice, were known to be decided abolitionists; and the results of their efforts satisfied me that the darkest picture of slavery is not to be found in the jail of the slave-trader, but rather in a convocation of professed ministers of the Gospel of Christ. . . .

Thy friend,
JOSEPH STURGE.
New York, 6th. Month, 30th. 1841.

The Baptist convention alluded to in the foregoing letter was one whose proceedings I regarded with considerable interest, for it had been generally understood that the ministers delegated from the South, as well as some of those from the Northern States, intended to exclude abolitionists from every office on the missionary board, and especially to remove my friend, ELON GALUSHA, a distinguised Baptist minister, from the station of vice-president, for the offence of attending the London Antislavery Convention, and more particularly for supporting . . . resolutions of that assembly. . . .

On entering the meeting, we found the question was already before them, previous to balloting for the officers for the ensuing three years. The pro-slavery party were anxious to prevent all discussion, but some on the other side proposed questions which compelled their notice. . . . The enquiry becoming more searching, an expedient was resorted to, which, though quite novel to me, was, I am told, not unfrequently adopted when discussions assume a shape not quite satisfactory to the controlling powers of a synod. It was proposed that they should pray, and then proceed at once to the ballot. The ministers called upon were R. FULLER and ELON GALUSHA, who were considered to represent the opposite sides of the discussion. The former individual is a large slave-holder, an influential leader in his denomination, and had canvassed and condemned ELON GALUSHA’S views and conduct in the public newspapers. I must avow, this whole proceeding was little calculated to remove my objection to the practice of calling upon any individual to offer supplication in a public assembly. After prayer had been offered, they proceeded to the ballot, and we left the meeting, deeply impressed with the profanation of employing the most solemn act of devotion to serve the exigencies of controversy.

In the evening I met a number of the anti-slavery members of the Convention, from whom I learned that the vote had excluded ELON GALUSIIA and all other known abolitionists, from official connection with the board, by a hundred and twenty-four to a hundred and seventeen, which being a much smaller majority than was expected, they considered the result a triumph rather than a defeat.

Charles Lyell, Money Matters, 1842

Charles Lyell, Travels in North America (London: John Murray, 1845), vol. II, pp. 6-8, 14-15

We reached Philadelphia without fatigue in less than twenty-two hours, a distance of 300 miles from Boston, having slept on board the steam-boat between Stonington (Rhode Island) and New York. We proceeded from Philadelphia to Baltimore, and from thence ascended the beautiful valley of the Patapsco, for 60 miles, to Frederick. . . .

I had hired a carriage at Frederick to carry me to Harper’s Ferry, and thence to Hagarstown, on the main road across the mountains. When I paid the driver, he told me that one of my dollar notes was bad, “a mere personal note.” I asked him to explain, when he told me that he had issued such notes himself. “A friend of mine at Baltimore,” he said, “who kept an oyster store, once proposed to me to sign twenty-five such notes, promising that if I would eat out their value in oysters, he would circulate them. They all passed, and we never heard of them again.” I asked how he reconciled this transaction to his conscience? He replied, that their currency was in a very unsound state, all the banks having suspended cash payment, and their only hope was that matters would soon become so bad that they must begin to mend. In short, it appeared that he and his friend had done their best to hasten on so desirable a crisis.

The next day two Marylanders, one of them the driver of the stage-coach, declared that if the State should impose a property tax, they would resist payment. As funds are now wanted to pay the dividends on the public debt, the open avowal of such opinions in a country where all have votes, sounded in my ears, as of ominous import.

In our passage over the Alleghanies, we now followed what is called the National Road to Cumberland and Frostburg, crossing a great succession of parallel ridges, long and unbroken, with narrow intervening valleys, the whole clothed with wood, chiefly oak. The dogwood, with its white flowers, was very conspicuous. The north-western slopes of the hills were covered with the azalea in full flower, of every shade, from a pale pink to a deep crimson. . . .

Having one day entered a stage coach in our passage over these mountains, I conversed with two Kentucky farmers returning in high spirits from Baltimore, where they had sold all their mules and cattle for good prices. They were carrying back their money in heavy bags of specie, paper dollars being no longer worthy of trust. They said their crops of grain had been so heavy for several seasons, that it would have cost too much to drag it over the hills to a market 400 miles distant, so they had “given it legs by turning it into mules.” I asked why not horses. They said mules were nearly as serviceable, and longer lived, coming in for a share of the longevity of the ass. . . .

We passed many waggons of emigrants from Pennsylvania, of German origin, each encumbered with a huge heavy mahogany press, or “schrank,” which had once, perhaps, come from Westphalia. These antique pieces of furniture might well contain the penates of these poor people, or be themselves their household gods, as they seem to be as religiously preserved. Our companions, the two farmers from Kentucky before mentioned, shook their heads, remarking, “that most of them would go back again to Pennsylvania, after spending all their money in the West; for the old people will pine for their former homes, and persuade the younger ones to return with them.”

Charles Dickens, A Trip Through Maryland, 1842

Charles Dickens, American Notes for General Circulation (London: Chapman and Hall, 1842), vol. I, pp. 271-278

We left Philadelphia by steamboat, at six o’clock one very cold morning, and turned our faces towards Washington. . . .

As Washington may be called the head-quarters of tobacco-tinctured saliva, the time is come when I must confess, without any disguise, that the prevalence of those two odious practices of chewing and expectorating began about this time to be anything but agreeable, and soon became most offensive and sickening. In all the public places of America, this filthy custom is recognised. In the courts of law, the judge has his spittoon, the crier his, the witness his, and the prisoner his; while the jurymen and spectators are provided for, as so many men who in the course of nature must desire to spit incessantly. In the hospitals, the students of medicine are requested, by notices upon the wall, to eject their tobacco juice into the boxes provided for that purpose, and not to discolour the stairs. In public buildings, visitors are implored, through the same agency, to squirt the essence of their quids, or “plugs,” as I have heard them called by gentlemen learned in this kind of sweetmeat, into the national spittoons, and not about the bases of the marble columns. But in some parts, this custom is inseparably mixed up with every meal and morning call, and with all the transactions of social life. The stranger, who follows in the track I took myself, will find it in its full bloom and glory, luxuriant in all its alarming recklessness, at Washington. And let him not persuade himself (as I once did, to my shame) that previous tourists have exaggerated its extent. The thing itself is an exaggeration of nastiness, which cannot be outdone.

On board this steamboat, there were two young gentlemen, with shirt-collars reversed as usual, and armed with very big walking-sticks; who planted two seats in the middle of the deck, at a distance of some four paces apart; took out their tobacco-boxes; and sat down opposite each other, to chew. In less than a quarter of an hour’s time, these hopeful youths had shed about them on the clean boards, a copious shower of yellow rain; clearing, by that means, a kind of magic circle, within whose limits no intruders dared to come, and which they never failed to refresh and re-refresh before a spot was dry. This being before breakfast, rather disposed me, I confess, to nausea; but looking attentively at one of the expectorators, I plainly saw that he was young in chewing, and felt inwardly uneasy, himself. A glow of delight came over me at this discovery; and as I marked his face turn paler and paler, and saw the ball of tobacco in his left cheek, quiver with his suppressed agony, while yet he spat, and chewed, and spat again, in emulation of his older friend, I could have fallen on his neck and implored him to go on for hours.

We all sat down to a comfortable breakfast in the cabin below, where there was no more hurry or confusion than at such a meal in England, and where there was certainly greater politeness exhibited than at most of our stage-coach banquets. At about nine o’clock we arrived at the railroad station, and went on by the cars. At noon we turned out again, to cross a wide river in another steamboat; landed at a continuation of the railroad on the opposite shore; and went on by other cars; in which, in the course of the next hour or so, we crossed by wooden bridges, each a mile in length, two creeks, called respectively Great and Little Gunpowder. The water in both was blackened with flights of canvas-backed ducks, which are most delicious eating, and abound hereabouts at that season of the year.

These bridges are of wood, have no parapet, and are only just wide enough for the passage of the trains; which, in the event of the smallest accident, would inevitably be plunged into the river. They are startling contrivances, and are most agreeable when passed.

We stopped to dine at Baltimore, and being now in Maryland, were waited on, for the first time, by slaves. The sensation of exacting any service from human creatures who are bought and sold, and being, for the time, a party as it were to their condition, is not an enviable one. The institution exists, perhaps, in its least repulsive and most mitigated form in such a town as this; but it is slavery; and though I was, with respect to it, an innocent man, its presence filled me with a sense of shame and self-reproach.

After dinner, we went down to the railroad again, and took our seats in the cars for Washington. Being rather early, those men and boys who happened to have nothing particular to do, and were curious in foreigners, came (according to custom) round the carriage in which I sat; let down all the windows; thrust in their heads and shoulders; hooked themselves on conveniently, by their elbows; and fell to comparing notes on the subject of my personal appearance, with as much indifference as if I were a stuffed figure. I never gained so much uncompromising information with reference to my own nose and eyes, and various impressions wrought by my mouth and chin on different minds, and how my head looks when it is viewed from behind, as on these occasions. Some gentlemen were only satisfied by exercising their sense of touch; and the boys (who are surprisingly precocious in America) were seldom satisfied, even by that, but would return to the charge over and over again. Many a budding president has walked into my room with his cap on his head and his hands in his pockets, and stared at me for two whole hours: occasionally refreshing himself with a tweak of his nose, or a draught from the water-jug; or by walking to the windows and inviting other boys in the street below, to come up and do likewise: crying, “Here he is!” “Come on!” “Bring all your brothers!” with other hospitable entreaties of that nature.*

* editor‘s note—After Washington and a trip to Virgina, Dickens returned to Baltimore and had occasion to observe: “The most comfortable of all the hotels of which I had any experience in the United States, and they were not a few, is Barnum’s, in that city: where the English traveller will find curtains to his bed, for the first and probably the last time in America (this is a disinterested remark, for I never use them); and where he will be likely to have enough water for washing himself, which is not at all a common case.” American Notes, vol. II, p. 25.

Charles Dickens on Slavery, 1842

Charles Dickens, American Notes for General Circulation (London: Chapman and Hall, 1842), vol. II, pp. 249-266

The upholders of slavery in America—of the atrocities of which system, I shall not write one word for which I have not had ample proof and warrant—may be divided into three great classes.

The first, are those more moderate and rational owners of human cattle, who have come into the possession of them as so many coins in their trading capital, but who admit the frightful nature of the Institution in the abstract, and perceive the dangers to society with which it is fraught: dangers which however distant they may be, or howsoever tardy in their coming on, are as certain to fall upon its guilty head, as is the Day of Judgment.

The second, consists of all those owners, breeders, users, buyers and sellers of slaves, who will, until the bloody chapter has a bloody end, own, breed, use, buy, and sell them at all hazards; who doggedly deny the horrors of the system in the teeth of such a mass of evidence as never was brought to bear on any other subject, and to which the experience of every day contributes its immense amount; who would at this or any other moment, gladly involve America in a war, civil or foreign, provided that it had for its sole end and object the assertion of their right to perpetuate slavery, and to whip and work and torture slaves, unquestioned by any human authority, and unassailed by any human power; who, when they speak of Freedom, mean the Freedom to oppress their kind, and to be savage, merciless, and cruel; and of whom every man on his own ground, in republican America, is a more exacting, and a sterner, and a less responsible despot than the Caliph Haroun Alraschid in his angry robe of scarlet.

The third, and not the least numerous or influential, is composed of all that delicate gentility which cannot bear a superior, and cannot brook an equal; of that class whose Republicanism means, “I will not tolerate a man above me: and of those below, none must approach too near;” whose pride, in a land where voluntary servitude is shunned as a disgrace, must be ministered to by slaves; and whose inalienable rights can only have their growth in negro wrongs.

It has been sometimes urged that, in the unavailing efforts which have been made to advance the cause of Human Freedom in the republic of America (strange cause for history to treat of!), sufficient regard has not been had to the existence of the first class of persons; and it has been contended that they are hardly used, in being confounded with the second. This is, no doubt, the case; noble instances of pecuniary and personal sacrifice have already had their growth among them; and it is much to be regretted that the gulf between them and the advocates of emancipation should have been widened and deepened by any means: the rather, as there are, beyond dispute, among these slave-owners, many kind masters who are tender in the exercise of their unnatural power. Still, it is to be feared that this injustice is inseparable from the state of things with which humanity and truth are called upon to deal. Slavery is not a whit the more endurable because some hearts are to be found which can partially resist its hardening influences; nor can the indignant tide of honest wrath stand still, because in its onward course it overwhelms a few who are comparatively innocent, among a host of guilty.

The ground most commonly taken by these better men among the advocates of slavery, is this: “It is a bad system; and for myself I would willingly get rid of it, if I could; most willingly. But it is not so bad, as you in England take it to be. You are deceived by the representations of the emancipationists. The greater part of my slaves are much attached to me. You will say that I do not allow them to be severely treated; but I will put it to you whether you believe that it can be a general practice to treat them inhumanly, when it would impair their value, and would be obviously against the interests of their masters.”

Is it the interest of any man to steal, to game, to waste his health and mental faculties by drunkenness, to lie, forswear himself, indulge hatred, seek desperate revenge, or do murder? No. All these are roads to ruin. And why, then, do men tread them? Because such inclinations are among the vicious qualities of mankind. Blot out, ye friends of slavery, from the catalogue of human passions, brutal lust, cruelty, and the abuse of irresponsible power (of all earthly temptations the most difficult to be resisted), and when ye have done so, and not before, we will inquire whether it be the interest of a master to lash and maim the slaves, over whose lives and limbs he has an absolute control!

But again: this class, together with that last one I have named, the miserable aristocracy spawned of a false republic, lift up their voices and exclaim “Public opinion is all-sufficient to prevent such cruelty as you denounce.” Public opinion! Why, public opinion in the slave States is slavery, is it not? Public opinion, in the slave States, has delivered the slaves over, to the gentle mercies of their masters. Public opinion has made the laws, and denied the slaves legislative protection. Public opinion has knotted the lash, heated the branding-iron, loaded the rifle, and shielded the murderer. Public opinion threatens the abolitionist with death, if he venture to the South; and drags him with a rope about his middle, in broad unblushing noon, through the first city in the East. Public opinion has, within a few years, burned a slave alive at a slow fire in the city of St. Louis; and public opinion has to this day maintained upon the bench that estimable Judge who charged the Jury, impanelled there to try his murderers, that their most horrid deed was an act of public opinion, and being so, must not be punished by the laws the public sentiment had made. Public opinion hailed this doctrine with a howl of wild applause, and set the prisoners free, to walk the city, men of mark, and influence, and station, as they had been before.

Public opinion! what class of men have an immense preponderance over the rest of the community, in their power of representing public opinion in the legislature? the slave-owners. They send from their twelve States one hundred members, while the fourteen free States, with a free population nearly double, return but a hundred and forty-two. Before whom do the presidential candidates bow down the most humbly, on whom do they fawn the most fondly, and for whose tastes do they cater the most assiduously in their servile protestations? The slave-owners always.

Public opinion! hear the public opinion of the free South, as expressed by its own members in the House of Representatives at Washington. “I have a great respect for the chair,” quoth North Carolina, “I have a great respect for the chair as an officer of the house, and a great respect for him personally; nothing but that respect prevents me from rushing to the table and tearing that petition which has just been presented for the abolition of slavery in the district of Columbia, to pieces.”—“I warn the abolitionists,” says South Carolina, “ignorant, infuriated barbarians as they are, that if chance shall throw any of them into our hands, he may expect a felon’s death.”—“Let an abolitionist come within the borders of South Carolina,” cries a third; mild Carolina’s colleague; “and if we can catch him, we will try him, and notwithstanding the interference of all the governments on earth, including the Federal government, we will HANG him.”

Public opinion has made this law.—It has declared that in Washington, in that city which takes its name from the father of American liberty, any justice of the peace may bind with fetters any negro passing down the street and thrust him into jail: no offence on the black man’s part is necessary. The justice says, “I choose to think this man a runaway:” and locks him up. Public opinion empowers the man of law when this is done, to advertise the negro in the newspapers, warning his owner to come and claim him, or he will be sold to pay the jail fees. But supposing he is a free black, and has no owner, it may naturally be presumed that he is set at liberty. No: HE IS SOLD TO RECOMPENSE HIS JAILER. This has been done again, and again, and again. He has no means of proving his freedom; has no adviser, messenger, or assistance of any sort or kind; no investigation into his case is made, or inquiry instituted. He, a free man, who may have served for years, and bought his liberty, is thrown into jail on no process, for no crime, and on no pretence of crime: and is sold to pay the jail fees. This seems incredible, even of America, but it is the law.

Public opinion is deferred to, in such cases as the following: which is headed in the newspapers:—

“Interesting Law-Case.

“An interesting case is now on trial in the Supreme Court, arising out of the following facts. A gentleman residing in Maryland had allowed an aged pair of his slaves, substantial though not legal freedom for several years. While thus living, a daughter was born to them, who grew up in the same liberty, until she married a free negro, and went with him to reside in Pennsylvania. They had several children, and lived unmolested until the original owner died, when his heir attempted to regain them; but the magistrate before whom they were brought, decided that he had no jurisdiction in the case. The owner seized the woman and her children in the night, and carried them to Maryland.”

“Cash for negroes,” “cash for negroes,” “cash for negroes,” is the heading of advertisements in great capitals down the long columns of the crowded journals. Woodcuts of a runaway negro with manacled hands, crouching beneath a bluff pursuer in top boots, who, having caught him, grasps him by the throat, agreeably diversify the pleasant text. The leading article protests against “that abominable and hellish doctrine of abolition, which is repugnant alike to every law of God and nature.” The delicate mamma, who smiles her acquiescence in this sprightly writing as she reads the paper in her cool piazza, quiets her youngest child who clings about her skirts, by promising the boy “a whip to beat the little niggers with.”—But the negroes, little and big, are protected by public opinion.

Let us try this public opinion by another test, which is important in three points of view: first, as showing how desperately timid of the public opinion slave-owners are, in their delicate descriptions of fugitive slaves in widely circulated newspapers; secondly, as showing how perfectly contented the slaves are, and how very seldom they run away; thirdly, as exhibiting their entire freedom from scar, or blemish, or any mark of cruel infliction, as their pictures are drawn, not by lying abolitionists, but by their own truthful masters.

The following are a few specimens of the advertisements in the public papers. It is only four years since the oldest among them appeared; and others of the same nature continue to be published every day, in shoals.

“Ran away, Negress Caroline. Had on a collar with one prong turned down.”

“Ran away, a black woman, Betsy. Had an iron bar on her right leg.”

“Ran away, the negro Manuel. Much marked with irons.”

“Ran away, the negress Fanny. Had on an iron band about her neck.”

“Ran away, a negro boy about twelve years old. Had round his neck a chain dog-collar with ‘De Lampert’ engraved on it.”

“Ran away, the negro Hown. Has a ring of iron on his left foot. Also, Grise, his wife, having a ring and chain on the left leg.”

“Ran away, a negro boy named James. Said boy was ironed when he left me.”

“Committed to jail, a man who calls his name John. He has a clog of iron on his right foot which will weigh four or five pounds.”

“Detained at the police jail, the negro wench, Myra. Has several marks of LASHING, and has irons on her feet.”

“Ran away, a negro woman and two children. A few days before she went off, I burnt her with a hot iron, on the left side of her face. I tried to make the letter M.”

“Ran away, a negro man named Henry; his left eye out, some scars from a dirk on and under his left arm, and much scarred with the whip.”

“One hundred dollars reward, for a negro fellow, Pompey, 40 years old. He is branded on the left jaw.”

“Committed to jail, a negro man. Has no toes on the left foot.”

“Ran away, a negro woman named Rachel. Has lost all her toes except the large one.”

“Ran away, Sam. He was shot a short time since through the hand, and has several shots in his left arm and side.”

“Ran away, my negro man Dennis. Said negro has been shot in the left arm between the shoulder and elbow, which has paralysed the left hand.”

“Ran away, my negro man named Simon. He has been shot badly, in his back and right arm.”

“Ran away, a negro named Arthur. Has a considerable scar across his breast and each arm, made by a knife; loves to talk much of the goodness of God.”

“Twenty-five dollars reward for my man Isaac. He has a scar on his forehead, caused by a blow; and one on his back, made by a shot from a pistol.”

“Ran away, a negro girl called Mary. Has a small scar over her eye, a good many teeth missing, the letter A is branded on her cheek and forehead.”

“Ran away, negro Ben. Has a scar on his right hand: his thumb and forefinger being injured by being shot last fall. A part of the bone came out. He has also one or two large scars on his back and hips.”

“Detained at the jail, a mulatto, named Tom. Has a scar on the right cheek, and appears to have been burned with powder on the face.”

“Ran away, a negro man named Ned. Three of his fingers are drawn into the palm of his hand by a cut. Has a scar on the back of his neck nearly half round done by a knife.”

“Was committed to jail, a negro man. Says his name is Josiah. His back very much scarred by the whip; and branded on the thigh and hips in three or four places, thus (J M). The rim of his right ear has been bit or cut off.”

“Fifty dollars reward, for my fellow Edward. He has a scar on the corner of his mouth, two cuts on and under his arm, and the letter E on his arm.”

“Ran away, negro boy Ellie. Has a scar on one of his arms from the bite of a dog.”

“Ran away, from the plantation of James Surgette, the following negroes: Randal, has one ear cropped; Bob, has lost one eye; Kentucky Tom, has one jaw broken.”

“Ran away, Anthony. One of his ears cut off, and his left hand cut with an axe.”

“Fifty dollars reward for the negro Jim Blake. Has a piece cut out of each ear, and the middle finger of the left hand cut off to the second joint.”

“Ran away, a negro woman named Maria. Has a scar on one side of her cheek, by a cut. Some scars on her back.”

“Ran away, the Mulatto wench Mary. Has a cut on the left arm, a scar on the left shoulder, and two upper teeth missing.”

I should say, perhaps, in explanation of this latter piece of description, that among the other blessings which public opinion secures to the negroes, is the common practice of violently punching out their teeth. To make them wear iron collars by day and night, and to worry them with dogs, are practices almost too ordinary to deserve mention.

“Ran away, my man Fountain. Has holes in his ears, a scar on the right side of his forehead, has been shot in the hind parts of his legs, and is marked on the back with the whip.”

“Two hundred and fifty dollars reward for my negro man Jim. He is much marked with shot in his right thigh. The shot entered on the outside, halfway between the hip and knee joints.”

“Brought to jail, John. Left ear cropt.”

“Taken up, a negro man. Is very much scarred about the face and body, and has the left ear bit off.”

“Ran away, a black girl, named Mary. Has a scar on her cheek, and the end of one of her toes cut off.”

“Ran away, my Mulatto woman, Judy. She has had her right arm broke.”

“Ran away, my negro man, Levi. His left hand has been burnt, and I think the end of his forefinger is off.”

“Ran away, a negro man, NAMED WASHINGTON. Has lost a part of his middle finger, and the end of his little finger.”

“Twenty-five dollars reward for my man John. The tip of his nose is bit off.”

“Twenty-five dollars reward for the negro slave, Sally. Walks as though crippled in the back.”

“Ran away, Joe Dennis. Has a small notch in one of his ears.”

“Ran away, negro boy, Jack. Has a small crop out of his left ear.”

“Ran away, a negro man, named Ivory. Has a small piece cut out of the top of each ear.”

While upon the subject of ears, I may observe that a distinguished abolitionist in New York once received a negro’s ear, which had been cut off close to the head, in a general post letter. It was forwarded by the free and independent gentleman who had caused it to be amputated, with a polite request that he would place the specimen in his “collection.”

I could enlarge this catalogue with broken arms, and broken legs, and gashed flesh, and missing teeth, and lacerated backs, and bites of dogs, and brands of red-hot irons innumerable: but as my readers will be sufficiently sickened and repelled already, I will turn to another branch of the subject.

These advertisements, of which a similar collection might be made for every year, and month, and week, and day; and which are coolly read in families as things of course, and as a part of the current news and small-talk; will serve to show how very much the slaves profit by public opinion, and how tender it is in their behalf.

John Robert Godley, Classes and Masses, 1843

John Robert Godley, Letters From America (London: John Murray, 1843), pp. 170-171, 177-187

From Philadelphia I travelled by railroad and steam-boat to Baltimore, 115 miles, in seven hours and a half. On board the boat I bought Dickens’s work on America (price 6d.), the eagerness of anticipation for which it is impossible to describe; every individual one meets is reading it or talking about it. How very funny it would appear at home to see people looking out in this way for the critique of a foreigner upon England! Most people seem exceedingly angry with Dickens; they dwell particularly on the enthusiasm of friendly feeling and admiration with which he was received, and the unnecessary ill-nature with which, they say, he has returned it: as to the laudatory parts of the book they are quite forgotten in dwelling upon the remarks about slavery, Congress, &c.

I find myself in another of these admirable American hotels, which one meets with in all the towns: for the best of entertainment and attendance the price is seven shillings a day.

Baltimore is a handsome town, with good buildings and spacious streets, and is surrounded by a very pretty park-like country, interspersed with villas, and reminding one of English suburban scenery. The style of architecture is “old-worldlike,” and has not the glaring, unsubstantial look of New York and Boston, though in fact Baltimore is a much more modern town. It was settled by Lord Baltimore, a Roman Catholic, and has always been considered the head-quarters of the Romish church in the States. There are still a good number of old families in it, who profess their original faith, but a large proportion of them have left it; and the mass of the Roman Catholic population is composed of Irish and German emigrants, the latter of whom particularly abound, both from the facility of communication between Baltimore and the West, and from the intercourse with the North of Germany, which the commerce of tobacco produces. There is a very massive and costly Roman Catholic cathedral not quite finished, the architecture of which I do not admire at all. The style is new to me, nor have I any idea what it may be called. . . .

I have paid a visit to the Baltimore almshouse, a large building, in a beautiful situation, about three miles from the town, surrounded by 300 acres of land, principally under cultivation, the labourers on which are all paupers. It seems very well conducted,—presenting, in this respect, a favourable contrast to similar institutions in some of the other large towns: the house is clean, orderly and comfortable; and really, with plenty of good food and clothing, occupation, either on the farm, or at any trade which he may be acquainted with, care taken of him when he is sick, and the power to go away when he pleases, the inmate must lead a very satisfactory life; indeed those to whom I spoke admitted it, and said distinctly that they were far better off in point of physical comforts than the generality of labourers in the neighbourhood at this moment (a period of distress, be it recollected), not to speak of the slaves. Now this must be wrong. Without any wish for harsh tests of destitution, it is surely not too much to say that the industrious labourer, who struggles to maintain himself and his family independently, ought not to see his next-door neighbour, equally able-bodied and capable in every respect, but who prefers the comparative idleness of an almshouse, better off than himself. The principle is false, and in a crowded state of society would be fatal. As it is, though applicants are never rejected, I was surprised to find that the average number of inmates does not quite amount to 600; but the easy access to the West, and the fact that a large proportion of the lowest class are slaves (who of course are not admitted), accounts for this: about two-thirds of the paupers are native Americans, the rest almost entirely Irish and Germans.

There is another interesting institution here, called the Farm-school. It is a place for agricultural education, supported by private subscriptions: there is a farm of about 300 acres attached to it; and it contains now about forty boys, from twelve to eighteen years old: they are the children of poor people (not paupers), such as widows, or men with large families, and are admitted upon application to the directors, who select the most proper objects. The education is almost entirely that of a practical agriculturist, combined with reading, writing, and arithmetic; and the pupils are boarded, lodged, and clothed, during the period of their residence. The only permanent fund is that derived from the farm, which has been purchased for the institution; and it is hoped that after some time (it is now quite a recent establishment) this may be made to pay the expenses. If properly managed, and connected with a religious and moral education, this system might be the means of training a very useful class of citizens; and is infinitely better than the Boston and Philadelphia plane for giving the children of mechanics a superficial acquaintance with the whole circle of arts and sciences. I am sure that the best plan is to educate a child up to, not beyond, the station in life to which he is born. The few who are heaven-born geniuses will make their way in spite of obstacles. . . .

There are several Englishmen at present in Baltimore, one of them, Lord ——, whom the lower class of Americans throng to see as a sort of curiosity, or as though, when his appearance does not correspond with their expectations, there were some enigma to penetrate about him. The idea which many of them entertain of an English lord is, that he is a sort of feudal Sybarite—something between Sardanapalus and Guy Earl of Warwick; and accordingly they expect to find him, in appearance, a gorgeous being, clothed in purple and fine linen, and requiring the attendance of a small army of servants,—expectations doomed seldom to be realised in these days.

Another of my countrymen here is a gentleman of large fortune, and somewhat advanced in life, who for the last seven years has been living alone among the Indian tribes somewhere near the Rocky Mountains, hunting the buffalo and grisly bear. What fantastic tricks our countrymen do play, in the very wantonness of wealth and self-indulgence, to get rid of the ennui and craving for excitement. . . .

As Maryland is the first slave-state which I have visited, I have of course been much interested in observing and inquiring about the condition and prospects of the negro race, and particularly about the probable success of the plans which have been adopted for colonizing the coast of Africa, by the emigration of free blacks from this country. The subject is universally considered one of immense interest and importance here; and the most thoughtless look forward with feelings of uneasiness and alarm to the period, now apparently approaching, when slavery will disappear from this state, and the population will consist entirely of whites and free blacks. It seems to be admitted by all, that the change which is taking place in the proportions of the different classes of population must, at no distant period, produce that result. . . . The whole coloured population of Maryland, at the first census, in 1790, was 111,079; it numbered at the last census 151,556: the free population amounted then to only 8043; it has risen now to 61,937. The proportion of the free coloured population to the whites, in 1790, was one to twenty-seven; it is now about one to five. Excluding the increase of the city of Baltimore, the white population of the State has diminished for the last ten years, and in the same time the free coloured has increased 17 per cent. The coloured population is changing its character from slave to free, and the free are rapidly increasing: the apparently natural result of this must be an ultimate numerical equality between the whites and the free blacks. Now, without entering here into the question of how far amalgamation or social equality between the two races is possible, I will only state that not a single individual in this country believes in such a possibility; and all have therefore been eagerly looking out for some scheme which, by disposing satisfactorily of the free coloured population, may avert the fearful consequences which they apprehend as likely to spring from the causes which I have mentioned. . . .

In the autumn of 1831 the legislature of Maryland appropriated a sum of 200,000 dollars, to be applied under the direction of the Maryland Colonization Society (which was formed and chartered in the same year) to the purpose of transporting the free coloured population from this State, and making suitable provision for them in such places as they might choose for a residence. Soon afterwards it was resolved to establish a colony on the African coast, for the purpose of receiving emigrants exclusively from Maryland. The locality selected was Cape Palmas, a point nearly central, between the mouth of the Niger and those of the Senegal and Gambia. . . .

Maryland in Liberia, as it is called, now embraces a territory of about 1000 square miles, extending along the sea-coast about thirty-five miles: the territory is said to be well watered, and the land rich and productive. The number of the colonists, amounts now to about 600, all negroes. . . .

Under all the circumstances I cannot but look upon this successful experiment, undertaken, as it has been, by one of the smallest states of the Union, and opposed by the two extreme parties of pro-slavery men and abolitionists, as not only most creditable to those concerned in it, but as containing the germ at least of solution for the problem which has occupied the minds of all who have contemplated American futurity,—namely, what is to be done with the blacks. The abolitionists oppose the scheme, as antagonist to their theory of complete social equality between the races on American ground, and the duty of immediate emancipation: the ultra-slavery men dislike it as professing to exhibit the social and political capabilities of the negro in a manner which seems to militate against their theory of his inherent and irremediable incapacity. . . .

The “bête noire” (literally) of Americans is a population of free blacks. While the negroes are in a state of slavery they reckon upon being able to keep them under efficient control, and at least to provide against the possibility of successful insurrection, by stringent legislative and police regulations; but, above all things, they dread the combination and designs of a class to whose passions and energies emancipation has given a stimulus and scope, while it has removed the possibility of applying effectually the system of espionage and physical repression, which render any conspiracy among slaves so difficult and uncertain.

An Englishman in Baltimore, 1845

[Anonymous (George Warburton)], Hochelaga; or, England in the New World, ed. Eliot Warburton (London: Henry Colburn, 1846), pp. 70-71, 82-90

Seven hours of railway and steamboat conveyance carried me to Baltimore. In entering Maryland the day’s journey was rendered memorable to me, but it was by a very natural occurrence. At the last stopping place before arriving at the town, I saw a sight which filled me with a new and strange emotion—I saw a being which not one among thousands of our English people has ever seen. He walked, he spoke, he was tall and erect, with active, powerful limbs, and shape of fair proportions. He was made in God’s own image—but he was a SLAVE! . . .

The suburbs of Baltimore were different from those of any American town I had yet seen; there were as wretched houses, and as miserable-looking a population as those of Manchester or Birmingham could shew. . . .

The portion of the town inhabited by the wealthy classes has a more solid and lasting appearance than in the other Atlantic cities; the private houses are very good, but the crop of grass in some of the streets gives them a dreary look. The Washington column is one of the best specimens of that kind of building I have ever seen. . . . A few printed words on a board hung on the railing entreat that this monument may not be spat upon or otherwise injured: in spite of this appeal for respect to the memorial of their greatest hero, it is defiled in a sickening manner. . . .

I had the good fortune, through the kindness of one of the officers, to see the evolutions of a troop, or as they designate it, a company of horse-artillery, on the drill-ground near Fort Mac Henry, a few miles from the city. It was said to be the best troop in the army, modelled in a great measure on the English system. The matériel, the harness, and carriages, were decidedly inferior to their professed examples, and in some respects quite different. . . . Their brass guns were polished so brightly that they were painful to look at in the sunshine, and impossible to be laid correctly; they would afford a charmingly conspicuous mark for the shot of their opponents. By their equipment, only four men were available for the working of the piece, a number quite insufficient, and they were neither active nor soldier-like; the uniform is much like that of the French artillery. The horses were good, but too light for this service. The drill was slower and more complicated than the English. In either appearance or evolutions it would be unjust to compare with them the horse-artillery or batteries of Woolwich. . . .

I went to the Museum, where there is a very fine and complete skeleton of the Mastodon, found, I think, near the Ohio. There was nothing else particularly worthy of attention; so I went up stairs to the top of the building, where there is a theatre; a performance was going on quite as good as could be expected. A man near me put his feet upon the rail of the seat before him and stretched himself out till his head was as low as was consistent with staring at the stage between his upraised legs. The sovereign people seemed to disapprove of this graceful position, and a cry of “Trollope, Trollope,” had at length the effect of influencing him to restore his head and heels to their usual relative altitudes. I have been told by very good authority that the satirical works of English writers have had a decidedly beneficial effect upon the habits and manners of the Americans; within the last ten years the improvement is perceptible to the most careless observer. If this be true, the state of things formerly in some of the public conveyances, and the smaller inns, must have been such as to palliate any amount of sarcastic bitterness. Even now, I defy any one to exaggerate the horrors of chewing and its odious consequences; the shameless selfishness which seizes on a dish and appropriates the best part of the contents if the plate cannot contain the whole; and the sullen silence at meal times. But it is only fair to say that the most eminent heroes of these performances belong to a class of people with whom the traveller in England is not brought into contact at all: indeed I believe that there, such a class—in manners at least—has no existence; I have never met with such, though thrown at different times among men in great extremes of social position.

The Trollope question being satisfactorily settled, I tore myself away from the pleasures of the stage, to read the newspapers at the bar of the hotel. This was a fortunate step for me—an earnest observer of the peculiarities of human nature; for there I saw collected four more perfect specimens of the ruffian than I had ever hoped or feared to meet with in the course of my pilgrimage. I should have thought them, from their appearance, the most villanous and offensive things I had ever encountered, had I not heard them speak; their language outdid their looks—filthy, blasphemous, ferocious, deepening in abomination as they drenched themselves with liquor. The bar-keeper—who was addressed as “Doctor,” to do him justice, seemed thoroughly disgusted with them, and relieved when they were gone.

The custom of carrying the bowie knife, is universal in these southern States; even boys at school are not exceptions, and they not unfrequently have been known to use it for the settlement of their disputes. Education is far from being so general or so well conducted here as in New England, and is diminishing in many places as the population increases. . . .

I conclude that Baltimore is not remarkable for the security of property, from one or two circumstances which fell under my own observation. I was advised not to leave my hat in the hall one evening while paying a very pleasant visit to an agreeable household; the weather was extremely warm, all the doors and windows were open, and they seemed to think this possible opportunity of stealing my hat would certainly be taken advantage of. In the hotel, an excellent one by-the-bye, there was a printed notice, earnestly requesting guests to keep their doors bolted at night, as frequent robberies had occurred from the omission of this necessary precaution. Here it is only necessary for the safety of your property; further south it is equally so for the safety of your life.

From the specimens I saw of the lower classes of the slave States, and the information which I obtained about them, I consider them to be, to a frightful extent, rude, demoralized, and ferocious; some of the gentry appear only to the greater advantage by the force of the strong contrast in which they are placed with the masses of their countrymen.

James Dixon, Observations of Maryland, 1848

James Dixon, Personal Narrative of a Tour Through a Part of United States and Canada: with Notices on the History and Institutions of Methodism in America (New York: Lane & Scott, 1850), pp. 70-80

I liked Baltimore as much, or more, than any city I saw in America. It is, indeed, a beautiful place. The houses are fine, spacious, and elegant. There is, moreover, an air of aristocracy, which is seldom to be met with. It is clear enough that aristocrats reside in this place; and although the Americans decry this class of men constantly, yet there is certainly something about a people, and institutions, of the aristocratic cast, which gives the impression of superior dignity. We were now, indeed, in one of the slave-holding States; and from the specimen given in this and other places visited, it is pretty apparent, that the system of slavery tends to produce this spirit. Indeed, the slave-holder, in despite of the prejudices against the name, exhibits all the characteristics of a perfect feudal aristocracy. As I understood, his house is, generally, in the case of the wealthy classes, a complete palace; princely in its dimensions; its furniture, its ornaments, and its luxuries. How can it be otherwise, with a man who is the lord of a great number, not of vassals, but of slaves? These poor creatures are the absolute property of the master, obedient to his behests, the panderers to his passions and appetites, and in all things the servants of his caprices. The young gentlemen and ladies, brought up in the midst of slavery, learn, as early, as they are capable of authority, imperiously to command the service of the menials of their father. They stir not without their attendance; they are waited upon in the most trivial matters; they are fanned when the weather is hot, and guarded in the most assiduous manner from the approach of the buzzing insect; while all their wants are, if possible, more than anticipated by the black slaves. What is all this, if not feudal aristocracy, in its most revolting features? The lords of the European nations, when the institution existed in its most perfect glory, were never in so transcendental a state of power as these gentlemen. Their vassals, though low enough in the scale of humanity, were not so degraded as these Africans. The right of the seigneurs of Europe to exact the services of their serfs, never amounted to the absolute dominion of the slave-bolder. . . .

Baltimore is sometimes called “the Monumental City,” by reason of the number of statues it contains. The Washington Monument, at the intersection of Charles and Monument streets, is a noble specimen of architecture, both in design and execution. . . .

We have another called Battle Monument, erected to the memory of those who fell defending the city in September, 1814, at the corner of Calvert and Fayette streets. . . . Such are some of the architectural ornaments of this city. But none of them equal the Popish cathedral. This, in point of fact, is the true monument of the place; and as far as such things are concerned, its distinction and glory. It reminds one of home, of Europe, more than anything I saw in the United States; and tends to give this city a peculiarly European appearance. . . . America is pre-eminently, in its whole appearance, the emblem, the type, of modern ideas; but there is just one memorial of the past, of a defunct age. In the midst of the simple forms of republicanism, the activity of commercial life, the humble and unostentatious churches of Protestantism, the cathedral of Baltimore seems to stand as the catacomb, the mausoleum of departed ages; and as a mighty fragment, a rock, separated by some great convulsion from surrounding things. Nothing appears in unison; it stands in solitude, in the midst of a vast population, having no sympathy to bestow, and receiving none from the young generation around.

On Monday morning, May 1st, we took an affectionate adieu of our dear friend Sargent, and the Baltimore people, and set out by the railroad for Cumberland. Our party had now increased. Besides Mr. Porter, we here met with Dr. Pierce, the representative from the South Methodist Church to the Pittsburgh Conference, Dr. Bond, the editor of the Christian Advocate in New-York, and a gentleman and his son, planters and slave-holders, from the Mississippi State, Methodists, and very agreeable persons. The assembling of these parties in the same vehicle was rather ominous; nobody could tell to what it might lead,—whether the peace would be kept, or the tedium of our journey be relieved by a polemic war. The two doctors were amongst the heads and chiefs of the great controversy, which had been going on for the past four years, and which had ended in dividing the church; the one by his pen, and the other by his vivâ voce eloquence. They had been old friends; and it was pleasing to see, that the undying instincts of Christian love soon gained the ascendant. The knotty questions in dispute were forgotten, or only referred to in general terms; and the North and South, at any rate, in this journey, met without collision.

Our route lay along a very interesting country, partly in the State of Maryland, and partly in Virginia. We beheld a great number of slaves at work in the fields; the first I had seen at their degrading labours. They exhibited no life, no activity, in their occupation; but seemed to drag themselves along, as if existence were a weariness; they plied their implements of industry, careless as to the amount of work done, or studious to do as little as possible. My companion, Mr. Porter, a stanch anti-slavery man, descanted on the deleterious effects of slavery on the soil itself; endeavouring to prove that Maryland and Virginia were worn out by this kind of cultivation. Whether it is so or not, I cannot pretend to determine; but the whole country where these slaves were at work, has an extremely barren appearance. Such is the decree of God, that this enormous evil may wear itself out, and the planters be obliged to turn to the cultivation of such productions as may make it profitable to employ free labour. God appears to curse with sterility the land cultivated by slaves. The planters, I was informed, were getting very poor; and it was, apparently, becoming their interest to turn their attention to something else in the place of tobacco and the other productions on which slave-labour is chiefly employed. We passed on, and soon lost sight of the haggard, dispirited, broken-hearted, oppressed slave. Those fields had witnessed the labour, the tears, the blood, of their race, for generations; and, for aught which appears, must continue to witness the same miseries in their children, unless Heaven shall, in mercy, increase the intensity of his malediction, and render the country completely sterile. But would this be any relief? No; these poor wretches would be sold, and sent farther south; and if even the same fate should follow them into the Carolinas and Georgia, still there are Texas, Mexico, and California, to be peopled and cultivated by this unfortunate race. The evil seems to be indefinite, eternal. Provision has been made, designedly or otherwise, by the conquests of the States, for the progress of this scourge, for all time to come.

Harper’s Ferry, a curious phenomenon of nature, lay in our line, and as it was our dining-place, and the Americans not being so exact, as to time, as the railroad authorities in this country, I obtained an interval, which, though brief, enabled me to take a look at the scenery, in itself pre-eminently grand. . . .

In this journey our line lay, for many miles, along the meanderings of the beautiful Potomac. Nature, as if in bounty to man, had just left room enough for a road between the banks of the river and very lofty and precipitous rocks. This made the route perfectly romantic, and the scenery beautifully picturesque and agreeable. The Americans have been charged with travelling slowly by their trains. The mystery, however, was, that they could get on at all in the midst of the elbows, curves, and bends of this serpentine course; and yet, with the difficulties of this zigzag kind of movement, we reached Cumberland from Baltimore, a distance of one hundred and seventy-eight miles, in about nine hours.

Cumberland lies at the foot of the Alleghany mountains, which we had now to cross in “stages” in the night. I had determined to remain here till morning, being desirous of gaining as complete a view as possible of these lofty regions. But I was informed that the proprietors of the “stages” never ensured a passage, unless they could obtain the full complement of nine, this being the number which one of the coaches would accommodate; and, likewise, that it was perfectly uncertain as to whether there would be any such number to cross the following day. Hence, no choice was left. I was unwilling to run the hazard of losing a day, and therefore preferred to mount the “stage,” and cross the mighty barrier betwixt the east and the west. . . .

Our cavalcade consisted of six or eight stages, all well horsed and manned. On leaving Cumberland we instantly plunged into the midst of rocks and precipices, the road meandering its course among gullies and cataracts, and then again by the side of the rising mountain. The scene was unmixed forest; for though the mountain, of course, consists of rock, yet, as is the case everywhere else, it was covered from the bottom to its most elevated summit with noble trees. Having two or three hours before night closed the prospect from our view, I had consequently that space to look upon the scene as we passed along. The impression was a very melancholy one, in exact agreement with the sombre aspect of all things around: the stillness, the indefinite and mystic character of the forest, as if forming a sort of infinite labyrinth; the stupendous rocks and precipices; the moaning of the waters, as they rolled down the gullies, or dashed among the stones; the wilderness itself, which seemed vocal with no note of bird or voice of man; and then the gradual approach of night, till the curtain dropped. . . .

Our long train of “stages,” with their brilliant lamps, reflected by the foliage, presented a singular appearance, and not devoid of interest and beauty. It became very cold as we ascended the mountain, and we were glad to halt for supper. This was served, considering the character of the place, in very good style; and, no doubt, we did it justice. After a good warming, we again renewed our journey. The road is designated “national,” being prepared at the public expense; but unpleasantly rough. The shaking and jolting, the up-and-down kind of exercise we had to endure, made sleep in my case quite out of the question. . . .

All my companions, being accustomed to this kind of travelling, slept soundly; but I “watched for the morning” with great desire.

Henry Adams, A Journey to Washington, 1850

Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1918), pp. 43-45

The journey was meant as education, and as education it served the purpose of fixing in memory the stage of a boy’s thought in 1850. He could not remember taking special interest in the railroad journey or in New York; with railways and cities he was familiar enough. His first impression was the novelty of crossing New York Bay and finding an English railway carriage on the Camden and Amboy Railroad. This was a new world; a suggestion of corruption in the simple habits of American life; a step to exclusiveness never approached in Boston; but it was amusing. The boy rather liked it. At Trenton the train set him on board a steamer which took him to Philadelphia where he smelt other varieties of town life; then again by boat to Chester, and by train to Havre de Grace; by boat to Baltimore and thence by rail to Washington. This was the journey he remembered. The actual journey may have been quite different, but the actual journey has no interest for education. The memory was all that mattered; and what struck him most, to remain fresh in his mind all his lifetime, was the sudden change that came over the world on entering a slave State. He took education politically. The mere raggedness of outline could not have seemed wholly new, for even Boston had its ragged edges, and the town of Quincy was far from being a vision of neatness or good-repair; in truth, he had never seen a finished landscape; but Maryland was raggedness of a new kind. The railway, about the size and character of a modern tram, rambled through unfenced fields and woods, or through village streets, among a haphazard variety of pigs, cows, and negro babies, who might all have used the cabins for pens and styes, had the Southern pig required styes, but who never showed a sign of care. This was the boy’s impression of what slavery caused, and, for him, was all it taught. Coming down in the early morning from his bedroom in his grandmother’s house — still called the Adams Building — in F Street and venturing outside into the air reeking with the thick odor of the catalpa trees, he found himself on an earth-road, or village street, with wheel-tracks meandering from the colonnade of the Treasury hard by, to the white marble columns and fronts of the Post Office and Patent Office which faced each other in the distance, like white Greek temples in the abandoned gravel-pits of a deserted Syrian city. Here and there low wooden houses were scattered along the streets, as in other Southern villages, but he was chiefly attracted by an unfinished square marble shaft, half-a-mile below, and he walked down to inspect it before breakfast. His aunt drily remarked that, at this rate, he would soon get through all the sights; but she could not guess — having lived always in Washington — how little the sights of Washington had to do with its interest.

The boy could not have told her; he was nowhere near an understanding of himself. The more he was educated, the less he understood. Slavery struck him in the face; it was a nightmare; a horror; a crime; the sum of all wickedness! Contact made it only more repulsive. He wanted to escape, like the negroes, to free soil. Slave States were dirty, unkempt, poverty-stricken, ignorant, vicious! He had not a thought but repulsion for it; and yet the picture had another side. The May sunshine and shadow had something to do with it; the thickness of foliage and the heavy smells had more; the sense of atmosphere, almost new, had perhaps as much again; and the brooding indolence of a warm climate and a negro population hung in the atmosphere heavier than the catalpas. The impression was not simple, but the boy liked it: distinctly it remained on his mind as an attraction, almost obscuring Quincy itself. The want of barriers, of pavements, of forms; the looseness, the laziness; the indolent Southern drawl; the pigs in the streets; the negro babies and their mothers with bandanas; the freedom, openness, swagger, of nature and man, soothed his Johnson blood. Most boys would have felt it in the same way, but with him the feeling caught on to an inheritance. The softness of his gentle old grandmother as she lay in bed and chatted with him, did not come from Boston. His aunt was anything rather than Bostonian. He did not wholly come from Boston himself. Though Washington belonged to a different world, and the two worlds could not li