'That may be, but if so, it is because you keep them in ignorance. Build a free-school at every cross-road, and teach the poor whites, and what would become of slavery? If these people were on a par with the farmers of New-England, would it last for an hour? Would they not see that it stands in the way of their advancement, and vote it out of existence as a nuisance?' 'Yes, perhaps they would; but the school-houses are not at the cross-roads, and, thank God, they will not be there in this generation.' 'The greater the pity; but that which will not nourish alongside of a school-house, can not, in the nature of things, outlast this century. Its time must soon come.' 'Enough for the day is the evil thereof, I'll risk the future of slavery, if the South, in a body, goes out of the Union.' 'In other words, you'll shut out schools and knowledge, in order to keep slavery in existence. The Abolitionists claim it to be a relic of barbarism, and you admit it could not exist with general education among the people.' 'Of course it could not. If Sandy, for instance, knew he were as good a man as I am--and he would be if he were educated--do you suppose he would vote as I tell him, go and come at my bidding, and live on my charity? No sir! give a man knowledge, and, however poor he may be, he'll act for himself.' 'Then free-schools and general education would destroy slavery?' 'Of course they would. The few can not rule when the many know their rights. But the South, and the world, are a long, way off from general education. When it conies to that, we shall need no laws, and no slavery, for the millennium will have arrived.' 'I'm glad you think slavery will not exist during the millennium,' I replied, laughing; 'but how is it that you insist the negro is naturally inferior to the white, and still admit that the 'white trash' are far below the black slaves?' 'Education makes the difference. We educate the negro enough to make him useful to us, but the poor white man knows nothing. He can neither read nor write, and not only that, he is not trained to any useful employment. Sandy, here, who is a fair specimen of the tribe, obtains his living just like an Indian, by hunting, fishing, and stealing, interspersed with nigger-catching. His whole wealth consists of two hounds and their pups; his house--even the wooden trough his miserable children eat from--belongs to me. If he didn't catch a runaway nigger once in a while, he wouldn't see a dime from one year to another.' 'Then you have to support this man and his family?' 'Yes, what I don't give him, he steals. Half-a-dozen others poach on me in the same way.' 'Why don't you set them at work?' 'They can't be made to work. I have hired them time and again, hoping to make something of them, but I never got one to work more than half-a-day at a time. It's their nature to lounge and to steal.' 'Then why do you keep them about you?'