of it. People here are very sore at the foul slanders that have been
published by Northern writers. There have been many atrocities
perpetrated undoubtedly, by brutes who would have been brutes
whenever they had been born; but to collect a series of such
atrocities, to string them together into a story, and to hold them up,
as Mrs. Beecher Stowe has, as a picture of slave-life in the
Southern States, is as gross a libel as if any one were to make a
collection of all the wife-beatings and assaults of drunken English
ruffians, and to publish them as a picture of the average life of
English people.

"Such libels as these have done more to embitter the two sections
of America against each other than anything else. Therefore,
Vincent, my advice to you is, be always kind to your slaves--not
over-indulgent, because they are very like children and indulgence
spoils them--but be at the same time firm and kind to them, and
with other people avoid entering into any discussions or
expressing any opinion with regard to slavery. You can do no
good and you can do much harm. Take things as you find them and
make the best of them. I trust that the time may come when
slavery will be abolished; but I hope, for the sake of the slaves
themselves, that when this is done it will be done gradually and
thoughtfully, for otherwise it would inflict terrible hardship and
suffering upon them as well as upon their masters."

There were many such conversations between father and son, for
feeling on the subject ran very high in the Southern States, and the
former felt that it was of the utmost importance to his son that he
should avoid taking any strong line in the matter. Among the old
families of Virginia there was indeed far less feeling on this