We have seen the tree--dwarfed and yellow-leafed--in the sterile
rock-bound soil of the mountain peak, and we have felt that its life
was a mere existence, a mere hair’s-breadth remove from death. The
fearful regime of slavery had reduced the mental life of the Negro
to the point where its activity was a simple, natural struggle for
existence. By the terms mental life are designated especially the
knowing faculties and voluntary powers, as well as that part of the
emotional nature that has to do with character-making. I mean to
say that in his intellect, will, and moral sense, the Negro was, by
slavery, reduced to the minimum. It could not be otherwise for these
reasons: (_a_) It was unlawful for him to know books; he must know
nothing save what his master told him, and must never ask for a reason.
(_b_) He was not allowed to have any will of his own except in minor
points, with reference to a brute or a fellow slave. His master’s will
was substituted for his, and out of his master’s choice his words and
deeds must proceed, even as concerned the most sacred relations of
life. At his master’s choice he took the wife, and at his choice he
gave up the wife. (_c_) He was not allowed to have any conscience,
except where his master had no choice. Whatever the master _said_ the
slave must do, that he _must do_, conscience or no conscience. Now this
state of things had gone on for over 200 years. From this condition
we came forth into liberty, and with this eking existence of wilted
life we must make a beginning as freemen. With nothing of that sort of
manhood which comes only of the well ordered domestic circle, we had to
put our shoulders beneath burdens which come of the family institution.
The duties of citizenship were imposed upon us, notwithstanding we had
never felt or studied anything of the privileges and obligations which
center in individual sovereignty. Though we were ignorant of the gospel
for the most part and knew nothing of the order of business in church
meetings, we found ourselves suddenly forced into the management of
church affairs. We had now to look to our own heads for light, to our
own hearts for courage, and to our own consciences for moral dictation.
So much for the hinderances from within ourselves.
[Illustration: Rev. J. W. Jackson, Pastor Eufaula Baptist Church.]