Semi-Weekly Mississippian [Jackson, MS], February 24, 1860
For the Mississippian.
Ed. Mississippian:–The Abolition papers, says the New York Day Book of the 11th inst., just now contain a very affecting and melancholy appeal from some free negroes who have left Arkansas for good, asking alms and support from Northern people, the names of whom, at the close of the paragraph, some dozen in number, are given, which it is barely possible, the Day Book adds, our friends in Arkansas will find to be fictitious. Now, whatever may have been the fate of a majority of those unfortunate creatures driven from their homes to fail in receiving the alms and protection sought at the hands of those who have brought upon them their present distress, the following narrative related to me a day or two since, will at least account for the whereabouts of some five or six of them who have sought as the last resort save one, the blessings of liberty in a free State. Says Mr. F., the brother of Judge F., for many years a well-known and popular citizen of Mississippi, but now of Arkansas, on his arrival at Napoleon, a town on the bank of the Mississippi, a few days ago, he witnessed at no great distance a somewhat enthusiastic mingling and shaking of hands between a crowd of citizens and some negroes which at first struck him with some surprise. On his near approach, however, he recognized one of the men, a barber who had just arrived with four or five other negroes from Cincinnati for the avowed purpose of becoming slaves to Southern masters in preference to the enjoyment of freedom, so-called, in the Northern States. A more affecting scene, says Mr. F., than the one above mentioned, he has rarely witnessed. With tears and sobs, they told of the cold reception, illiberal and inhuman treatment they had received at the hands of those who make such loud professions of love and friendship for the negro race, and declared themselves then ready to be sold into slavery.
Now, however strange this may appear to Southern men, it is a matter of no surprise.—Nothing is better understood in the South than the total aversion that the more intelligent negroes of the South have to Northern men and Northern freedom; and if there was no other evidence with which to disprove the slanders heaped upon the institution of Southern slavery and slaveholders, and forever stamp the dark and malignant brow of Abolition with wilfull and unmitigated falsehood, the tenacity with which free negroes of the South cling to Southern men and southern institutions, would be ample and overwhelming; preferring, as many do, as a last resort, slavery itself, to be driven out among those whom they know are only hypocritically professing to be their friends. It is a well-known fact that had the bill which passed the late House of Representatives, and failed by only one vote in the Senate, become a law, our free negroes had determined on Jackson slavery in preference to Northern freedom.—So much for the glories of Northern freedom and the horrors of Southern slavery.
….. N.