Nov. 27, 1861

Nov. 27, 1861: Mrs. Mary Boykin Chestnut of South Carolina writes in her diary:

"On one side Mrs. Stowe, Greeley, Thoreau, Emerson, Sumner, in nice New England homes—clean, clear, sweet-smelling—shut up in libraries, writing books which ease their hearts of their bitterness to us, or editing newspapers–all which pays better than anything else in the world. Even the politician’s hobbyhorse—antislavery is the beast to carry him highest."

"What self-denial do they practice? It is the cheapest philanthropy trade in the world—easy. Easy as setting John Brown to come down here and cut our throats in Christ’s name.

"Now, what I have seen of my mother’s life, my grandmother’s, my mother-in-law’s:

"These people were educated at Northern schools mostly—read the same books as their Northern contemners, the same daily newspapers, the same Bible—have the same ideas of right and wrong—are highbred, lovely, good, pious—doing their duty as they conceive it. They do not preach and teach hate as a gospel and the sacred duty of murder and insurrection, but they strive to ameliorate the condition of these Africans in every particular. . . ."

After more commentary about how most plantations are in debt, and how the labor and crops produced are not sufficient to support the slaves there, she adds: 

"I say we are no better than our judges North—and no worse. We are human beings of the nineteenth century—and slavery has got to go, of course. All that has been gained by it goes to the North and to negroes. The slave-owners, when they are good men and women, are the martyrs. And as far as I have seen, the people here are quite as good as anywhere else. I hate slavery. I even hate the harsh authority I see parents think it their duty to exercise toward their children."