The conversation was conducted by the captain of the canal boat, as
he walked on the deck to and fro. He was full of information. He
said he was a native of Kentucky; had come down the Ohio river from
Louisville; was taking freight to Chicago; reckoned he was bound to
rake in the dollars on the canal; was no dog-gonned Abolitionist;
niggers were made to work for white folks; they had no souls any more
than a horse; he'd like to see the man who would argue the point.
Mrs. Beecher Stowe was then writing "Uncle Tom's Cabin," at too great
a distance to hear the challenge, but a greenhorn ventured to argue
the point.
"What about the mulatto? Half black, half white. His father being a
white man had a whole soul; his mother being black had no soul. Has
the mulatto a whole soul, half a soul, or no soul at all?"
The captain paused in his walk, with both hands in his pockets, gazed
at the argumentative greenhorn, turned his quid, spat across the
canal, went away whistling "Old Dan Tucker," and left the question of
the mulatto's soul unsolved.
When I arrived at Joliet there was a land boom at Chicago. The canal
company had cut up their alternate sections, and were offering them
at the usual alarming sacrifice. A land boom is a dream
of celestial bliss. While it lasts, the wisest men and the greatest
fools walk with ecstatic steps through the golden streets of a New
Jerusalem.
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