I found in South Carolina a more virulent animosity existing in the minds of the common people, against the government and people of the North, than in any other State I visited. Only in South Carolina was I treated with gross personal insults on account of my Northern origin.
There is notwithstanding in this State a class of men whom I remember with admiration for their courteous hospitality and liberal views. Instead of insulting and repelling Northern men, they invite them, and seem eager to learn of them the secret of Northern enterprise and prosperity. Their ideas, although not those of New-England radicals, are hopeful and progressive. Considering that they have advanced from the Southern side of the national question, their position is notable and praiseworthy. This class is small, but it possesses a vital energy of which great results may be predicted. From it the freedmen have much to hope and little to fear. It is not so far in advance of the people that it cannot lead them; nor so far behind the most advanced sentiment of the times that we may not expect them soon to come up to it.
Foremost among this class is Governor Orr,—almost the only man in South Carolina who seemed to me prepared to consider dispassionately the subject of universal suffrage. The color of the negro’s skin, he said, was no good reason for keeping the ballot out of his hand. “In this country, suffrage is progressive; and when the colored people are prepared for it, they will have it.” A large proportion of the freedmen, he felt sure, would become industrious and respectable citizens. As an instance of the capacity and fidelity shown by many of their race, he gave an account of one of his own slaves.
“He is by trade a carpenter, and a first-class workman. He was the son of his original owner, who emancipated him by his will, and gave him, with his liberty, a mule, a saddle, a set of tools, and some money. One of the heirs of the estate was the executor of the will. Finding Henry a very valuable man, he looked for some legal flaw by which the will could be broken. There was a law of South Carolina designed to prevent slave-owners from emancipating old worn-out servants, and thus converting them into public paupers. It required the master, before freeing his servant, to make a certain statement, under oath, that the said servant was capable of self-support. This formality had been neglected in Henry’s case; and the court decided that he must remain a slave. When the fact was made known to him, he said to the executor, ‘If the court has so decided, I suppose I must abide by the decision. It is unjust, but I submit to it. But I will never serve you. I have lost all confidence in you, and all respect for you; and the best thing you can do is to sell me.’ The executor was so impressed by this declaration, that he told him to go and choose his future master. He came to me, and entreated me to buy him. I finally consented to do so, and paid his price,—fifteen hundred dollars.
“He lived as my slave until the close of the war; and all the time his patience under his great wrong was wonderful. He never complained; and he served me with the most conscientious fidelity. By overwork, he earned two hundred dollars a year, which he spent upon his family. I had bought him a set of tools worth five hundred dollars, and scientific books worth one hundred, which I gave him when we parted. He has wit and education enough to understand the books, I assure you. He is now doing business in Columbia. He might become wealthy, but he is too generous. He will not spend his earnings foolishly, but he will share whatever he has with his people. If I was in want, he would give me his last dollar.”
There were in January fifty freedmen’s schools in operation in South Carolina, with one hundred and twenty teachers, and ten thousand pupils. The New-England Freedmen’s Aid, and the National Freedmen’s Association, had each about fifty teachers in the field. The Boston teachers in Charleston get forty-five dollars a month, and pay their own expenses. At other points, where expenses are less, they get thirty-five dollars. The average yearly cost of each teacher to the associations is six hundred dollars.
The American Missionary Association, the Pennsylvania Freedmen’s Relief, and the Friends’ Freedmen’s Association, had also teachers in the field.
The State superintendent of freedmen’s schools spoke in high praise of the school in the Normal school building, at Charleston. The principal was a colored man who had been educated at his own expense at the University of Glasgow. Another teacher was a colored girl, who had taught a free colored school in Charleston during the war,—paying half her income to a white woman for sitting and sewing in the school-room, and appearing as the teacher, when it was visited by the police.
“This woman’s pupils,” said Mr. Tomlinson, “draw maps, and do everything white girls of twelve and sixteen years do, in ordinary advanced schools.” General Richardson of the Eastern District, had set a number of old soldiers, unfit for military duty, to teaching the freedmen.
There was not much active opposition shown to the schools in the State, nor yet much encouragement. Only here and there an enlightened planter saw the necessity of education for the negroes, and favored it.