On March 4, 1861 The New-York Times published a report by JASPER, the Charleston correspondent for The Times Here’s an excerpt (The New York Times Archive):
CHARLESTON, C.S.A., Tuesday, Feb. 26, 1861. …
There is a famous old darkey here, or, to speak more respectably, a venerable colored gentleman, of a very delicate brown complexion, whose card lies before me. WM. W. SEYMOUR writes a hand that a bank clerk might envy. He is only sixty-five, yet he is as active as an early cricket. SEYMOUR keeps a hotel, and has been worth, in his day, a cool $50,000, and has held, and still holds slaves. He thinks this condition is decidedly the best for the mass of the niggers; and certainly he ought to know. In the war of 1812 he commanded, so I have heard, a regiment of his own color, and says he is ready now to march at the head of an equal number, “if the d — n Yankees come down here to interfere with our institutions.” It is amusing to see the fire in the old man’s eyes when he talks on this subject. SEYMOUR is the crack cook of Charleston, and is in great demand for private suppers, etc. His place in State-street is well known to all lovers of good living and good drinking. He is the very personification of the fine old gentleman, courtly and suave, and would make a splendid study for an artist like your ELLIOT. I frequently see the first men in town shaking hands with the old man. In fact, he enjoys the respect of all, and bids fair to last at least twenty more years. …
Jasper does not mention if the election of a “Black Republican” as U.S. president made Mr. Seymor frightened of a slave insurrection. Although he was a War of 1812 veteran who was willing to fight the Yankees to defend the institution of slavery.
Larry Koger in Black Slaveowners: free Black slave masters in South Carolina, 1790-1860
says there was almost an economic necessity for black business owners to buy slaves if they wanted to expand their businesses. Free whites would not want to work for a black person. Free blacks would rather start their own businesses. Therefore, the only available labor supply was slaves.
