Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 12.djvu/69

 I ^^ Degrading Influence of Slavery." 59

but this boat had left when he arrived. We will take her if she is not sunk. Yesterday (5th November) Lieutenant Buchanan returned from another trip up the Bayou Teche with the Esirella. He had three men killed by bullets. The Colton was there. The Rebels placed a battery on each side of the bayou, but he succeeded in chasing them away. I believe the Cotton is casemated, for our shells ricochet on her. We could see clearly our shot strike her, but she fights with her bow to the front."

" Degrading Influence of Slavery" — Reply of Judge Critcher to Mr. Hoar.

In the debate on Education in the House of Representatives, Mr. Hoar, of Massachusetts, remarked that slavery in the South was not so observable in the degradation of the slave as in the depravity of the master.

Mr. Critcher, of Virginia, replied : Reminding the gentleman from Massachusetts that every signer of the Declaration of Independence, except those from his State, and perhaps one or two others, were slave-owners, he would venture to make a bold assertion ; he would venture to say that he could name more eminent men from the parish of his residence, than the gentleman could name from the Common- wealth of Massachusetts. He would proceed to name them, and yield the floor to the gentleman to match them if he could. On one side of his estate is Wakefield, the birth-place of Washington. On the other side is Stratford, the residence of Light Horse Harry Lee, of glorious Revolutionary memory. Adjoining Stratford is Chantilly, the residence of Richard Henry Lee, the mover of the Declaration of Independence, and the Cicero of the American Revolution. There lived Francis Lightfoot Lee, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Charles Lee, at one time Washington's Attorney- General ; and Arthur Lee, the accomplished negotiator of the treaty of commerce and alliance between the Colonies and France in 1777. Returning, as said before, you come first to the birth-place of Wash- ington ; another hour's drive will bring you to the birth-place of Monroe ; another hour's drive to the birth-place of Madison, and if the gentleman supposes that the present generation is unworthy of their illustrious ancestors, he has but to stand on the same estate to see the massive chimneys of the baronial mansion that witnessed the birth of Robert PI. Lee. These are some of the eminent men from the parish of his residence, and he yielded the floor, that the gentle- man might match them, if he could, from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.