Strangers of respectable appearance were not met with apparent
suspicion, but with hospitable kindness; and especially was this the
case toward young men who professedly came in search of a new home and
new fields for the exercise of their abilities professionally, or for
the more profitable employment of any means they might to have brought
to the country. Now, at seventy years of age, and after the experience
of half a century of men and society in almost every portion of the
Union, I can truthfully say, nowhere have I ever met so truthful, so
generous, and so hospitable a people as the planters and gentlemen of
the river counties of Mississippi, fifty years ago--nowhere women more
refined, yet affable; so modest, yet frank and open in their social
intercourse; so dignified, without austerity; so chaste and pure in
sentiment and action, without prudery or affectation, as the mothers,
wives, and daughters of those planters.
The Bench and the Bar were distinguished for ability and purity; many
of these have left national reputations--all of them honorable names to
their families and profession.
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