Belonging to my congregation, though not a member of my church, was a banker and slaveholder. He was a Mississippian by birth and education, and profoundly believed in the righteousness of slavery. Knowing that I came from the North, he set out to convince me that African slavery was not only right, but beneficent and beautiful. But he little suspected how difficult the job was that he had undertaken. However, to attain his object, he proceeded in a cautious, artful manner. He invited me and mine to dinner. It was a very natural move for a man to make in reference to his pastor. But once warmly welcomed under his roof and to his table loaded with the best from the market, his unseemly ardor in setting forth the attractiveness of the “peculiar institution” slightly revealed his ulterior purpose in making me a recipient of his bountiful hospitality. But the dinner was good, his wife was a charming hostess and his young daughters were winsome. Under the circumstances it became me to be a good listener, to make some commonplace remarks, and to ask questions with an air of innocence. This seemed to encourage mine host, and he set forth with much particularity and with the accent of conviction the manifold benefits of slavery as it existed in the United States. I made no adverse comment, which incited him to illustrate the beauties of human bondage by the condition of the slaves in his own household. He was the proud owner of two. One of them was a mulatto, over six feet in height, and between twenty-five and thirty years of age. He was good-looking, and evidently a man of energy and decision. My host said, “Did you see Wash when you came in?” I assured him that I did, and that I was very much impressed by him. “Well,” he said, “Wash has been with me for many years; I think a great deal of him, and he is warmly attached to me and my family. Nothing could persuade him to leave me. I have perfect confidence in him. He is also a man of good judgment. I never buy a horse or trade horses unless I first get Wash’s opinion.” And so he went on extolling his slave, who seemed to me to be a manlier man than his master. Having exhausted the subject of Wash, he began to dilate on Mammy. “Did you notice her?” he said. “She waited on the table. She has nursed these daughters of ours, and loves them as though they were her own children and they love her. Why, sir, she is so attached to her home and to us all that nothing could tempt her to leave us.” Well, to hear mine host talk, if one had never known anything about slavery except what he set forth, it could not but have been considered in some respects a beneficent institution.