THE SLAVE AND THE FREEDMAN
THE others had retired but Percy and his host continued their
conversation far into the night.
"There are almost as great variations among the negroes as among
white people," Mr. West was saying. "To a man like Wilkes who was
born and raised here on the farm, I would entrust the protection of
my wife and children as readily as to any white man. He has been
educated, so to speak, to a sense of duty and honor; and negroes of
his class have almost never been known to violate a trust. Of course
there are bad niggers, but as a rule such negroes have grown up
under conditions that would develop the evil in any race of men.
"During the Secession it was the most common thing for the men to go
to war and leave their defenseless women and children wholly in the
care of their slaves; and, even though the federal soldiers were
fighting to free the slaves and their masters to keep them in
slavery, rarely did a negro fail to remain faithful to his trust.
They hid from the northern soldiers the horses and mules, cotton and
corn, clothing and provisions, and all sorts of valuables; and in
most cases were ready to suffer themselves before they would reveal
the hidden property. To be sure there were masters who abused their
slaves, and some of these were naturally ready to desert at the
first opportunity; but in the main the slave owner was more kind to
his human property than the considerate soldier was to his horse,
and the negro as a race is appreciative of kindness."
"I suppose the depreciation in soil fertility and crop yields dates
largely from the freeing of the slaves does it not?" asked Percy.
"Well, that was one factor, but not the most potential factor. Much
land in the south had been abandoned agriculturally long before the
war, and much land in New York and New England has been abandoned
since the war. The freeing of the negroes produced much less effect
in the economic conditions of the south than many have supposed. The
great injury to the South from the war was due to the war itself and
not to the freeing of slaves. In the main it cost no more to hire
the negro after the war than it cost to feed and clothe him before;
and the humane slave owner had little difficulty in getting plenty
of negro help after the war. Very commonly his own slaves remained
with him and were treated as servants, not particularly differently
than they had been treated as slaves. Of course there were some
brutal slave holders, just as there are brutal horse owners, and
such men suffered very much from the loss of slave labor.
"The southern people have no regrets for the freeing of the slaves.
Probably it was the best thing that ever happened to us; and the
South would have less regret for the war itself, except that our
recovery from it was greatly delayed by the reconstruction policy
which was followed after the war. The immediate enfranchisement of
the negro, especially in those sections where this resulted in
placing all the power of the local government in the hands of the
negro, was a worse blow to the South than the war itself.
"It is believed that this would not have been done if Lincoln had
lived. Lincoln was always the President of all the people of the
United States, and his death was a far greater loss to the South
than to the North. To place the power to govern the intelligent
white of the South absolutely in the hands of their former ignorant
slaves was undoubtedly the most abominable political blunder
recorded in history; and even this was intensified by the
unprincipled white-skinned vultures who came among us to fatten upon
our dead or dying conditions. Those years of so-called
reconstruction, constitute the blackest page in the history of
modern civilization."
"I quite agree with you," said Percy, "and so far as I know them the
soldiers of the northern armies also agree with you. Several of my
own relatives fought to free the negro slave; but none of them
fought to enslave their white brothers of the South by putting them
absolutely under negro government. And yet there is one possible
justification for that abominable reconstruction policy. It may have
averted a subsequent war which might have lasted not for four years,
but for forty years. Even if this be true, perhaps there is no
credit in the policy for any man who helped to enforce it, but you
will grant that there were two important results from those bitter
years of reconstruction:
"First, the negro learned with certainty at once and forever that he
was a free man.
"Second, he at once acquired a degree of independence effectually
preventing the development of a situation throughout the South, in
which the negro, though nominally free, would have remained
virtually a slave, a situation which, if once established, might
have required a subsequent war of many years for its complete
eradication. Even under the conditions which have prevailed, there
have been isolated instances of peonage in the southern states since
the war; and if the education and gradual enfranchisement of the
negro had been left wholly in the hands of their former masters,
from the immediate close of the war, I can conceive of conditions
under which slavery would essentially have been continued."
"Such a possibility is, of course, conceivable," said Mr. West, "and
we must all admit that there were some slave holders who would have
taken advantage of any such opportunity; but had Lincoln lived the
terms made would probably have been such that the South would have
felt in honor bound to enforce them. Probably the enfranchisement
would have been based upon some sort of qualification such as the
southern states have very generally adopted in subsequent years; but
the idea of social equality of slave and master was so repulsive to
the white people of the South that it could not be tolerated under
any sort of government."
"This question of social equality," remarked Percy, "has probably
been the cause of more misunderstanding between the North and the
South than all other questions relating to the negro problem. I have
rarely, if ever, talked with a southern man who did not have it
firmly fixed in his mind that the common idea of the northern people
is that the negro race should be made the social equal of the white
race. This I have heard from southern lecturers; I have read it in
southern newspapers; and I have found it in books written by
southern authors; but, Mr. West, I have never yet heard that idea
advanced by a man or woman of the North.
"Of course there have been visionary theorists or 'cranks' in all
ages, and there must have been some basis for this almost universal
erroneous opinion in the South that the people of the North
advocated social equality or social intercourse between the white
and colored races; and yet nothing could be farther from the truth.
In all my life in the North, I think I have never seen a colored
person dining with a white man. This does not prove that there are
no such occurrences, but it certainly shows that they are extremely
rare. On the other hand, in traveling through the South I have seen
a white woman bring her colored maid or nurse, to the dining car and
sit at the same table with herself and husband. Of course there is
no suggestion of social equality or social intercourse in this, but
there is a much closer relationship than is common or would be
allowed in the North."
"That may be true," said Mr. West, "and there was in slave times a
very intimate relationship between the negro nurses and the white
children of the South. Some of our people are ready to take offense
at the suggestion that we talk negro dialect, and perhaps we would
all prefer to say that the negroes have learned to talk as we talk;
but the truth is that the negroes were brought to America chiefly as
adults; and, as is usually the case when adult people learn a new
language, they modified ours because their own African language did
not contain all of the sounds of the English tongue. Similarly we
hear and recognize the other nationalities when they learn to speak
English. Thus we have the Irish brogue, the German brogue, and the
French brogue, or dialect.
"The negro children learned to speak the dialect as spoken by their
own parents; and as a very general rule the white children learned
to talk as their negro nurses talked. So far as there is a southern
dialect it is due to the modification of our language by the negro."
"You have mentioned several things," said Percy, "that are much to
the credit of the negro who has had a fair chance to be trained
along right lines; and I think the modficaton of our language which
his presence has brought about in the South is not without some
credit. It is generally agreed that the most pleasing English we
hear is that of the Southern orator.
"Referring to social conditions, the most marked difference which I
have noticed between the North and South, and really, it seems to
me, the only difference of importance, is that the South has
separate schools for white and colored, whereas in the North the
school is not looked upon as a social institution.
"As a rule no more objection is raised to white and colored children
sitting on separate seats in the same school room than to their
sitting on separate seats in the same street car. The school is
regarded as a place for work, where each has his own work to do,
much the same as in the shop or factory where both white and colored
are employed. The expense of the single school system is, of course,
much less than where separate schools are maintained; and perhaps an
equally important point is that in the single system the same moral
standards are held up by the teachers for both white and colored
children."
"That point is worthy of consideration," said Mr. West. "It is very
certain that a class of negroes has grown up in these more recent
years that was practically unknown in slave times when white men
were more largely responsible for their moral training. The vile
wretches who made the attack this evening probably never received
any moral training. It is conceivable that the moral influence of
the white children over the negroes in the same school might exert a
lasting benefit, even aside from the influence of the teacher; and
the relationship of the school room could not be any real
disadvantage to the white child. But this could only be brought
about where white teachers were employed. Some such arrangement
would doubtless have been made had the mind of Lincoln directed the
general policy of reconstruction; but it is doubtful now if the
negro teacher will ever be wholly replaced, although time has
wrought greater changes in political lines since the black years of
the reconstruction."
"Yes," said Percy, "and those changes which have been brought about
in the South have the full sympathy and approval of the great
majority of the Northern people. Indeed, it is extremely doubtful if
the North will be able to completely banish such a source of vice
and corruption as the open saloon until limitation is placed upon
the franchise by an educational qualification."