James Parton, The life of Horace Greeley

[418] those slaves: “ You are free, and may leave if you choose; but I advise you to stay with me till I shall have taught you how to use and enjoy your freedom. I will either myself teach you two hours daily, or I will employ some competent person to do so; and I will share fairly with you the proceeds of my land and your labor. At the year's end, I will settle fairly with you, and any one who chooses may then take his portion and leave, while I with those who remain will endeavor to raise a better crop next year. I think you can all earn more, live better, and save more, by staying with me than by going off; if you don't think so, go; or, if you stay now, go whenever you shall come to think so. But while you stay here, I must be obeyed; and any one who don't obey me and behave himself will have to leave.”

Now we feel confident that a slaveholder who should adopt this course and firmly pursue it, would soon have the finest plantation and the best crops in his county—keeping all his good blacks and getting rid of the bad ones, and with all his laborers working under the stimulus of personal interest, and impelled by pride to make as good a show as possible in the settlement at the end of the year. We believe the great majority of any planter's slaves might thus be quietly educated into fitness for freedom and self-direction, as well as into a competent knowledge of letters and the elemental arts, while the planter would find himself, at ten years end, not only wiser but actually richer than if he had continued to hold his laborers in hopeless slavery. Rely on it, friend! it can never be dangerous nor impolitic to do right; and what Washington, John Randolph, and many other eminent Southrons saw fit to do on their death-beds you may safely and wisely do while you live.

To country editors.

We fear there are some Country editors who do not clearly perceive and improve the advantages of their position. If they would only make their papers the vigilant gleaners of all local intelligence, the fosterers of local interests, local institutes for promoting knowledge, &c., &c.,—above all, if they would stop publishing so many frivolous stories and other mere transcripts from the City Magazines and Journals, filling their columns instead with accounts of the latest and most valuable discoveries and improvements in Agriculture, the Arts and all branches of practical Science, they would have an abundance of subscribers, and could not be “destroyed” even though City Editors were so “unprincipled” as to give their papers away and pay the postage. Only make your papers what they should be, and the people of your vicinity cannot afford to do without them.

Do these remarks offend any? They surely ought not, for they are dictated by a sincere desire to benefit. We learned what little we know of our business mainly in “sticking type,” &c., for various Country papers, and ought to know something about them. We have an earnest desire that they should