“All we want,” said the South Carolinian, “is that our Yankee rulers should give us the same privileges with regard to the control of labor which they themselves have.”
“Very well; what privileges have they which you have not?”
“In Massachusetts, a laborer is obliged by law to make a contract for a year. If he leaves his employer without his consent, or before the term of his contract expires, he can be put in jail. And if another man hires him, he can be fined. It is not lawful there to hire a laborer who does not bring a certificate from his last employer. All we want is the same or a similar code of laws here.”
“My dear sir,” said I, “all any man could wish is that you might have just such laws here as they have in Massachusetts. But with regard to the code you speak of, it does not exist there, and it does not exist in any Northern State with which I am acquainted. There is nothing like it anywhere.”
“How do you manage without such laws? How can you get work out of a man unless you compel him in some way?”
“Natural laws compel him; we need no others. A man must work if he would eat. A faithful laborer is soon discovered, and he commands the best wages. An idle fellow is detected quite as soon; and if he will not do the work he has agreed to do, he is discharged. Thus the system regulates itself.”
“You can’t do that way with niggers.”
“Have you ever tried? Have you ever called your freedmen together and explained to them their new condition? A planter I saw in Alabama told me how he managed this thing. He said to his people, ‘If you do well, I shall want you another year. The man who does best will be worth the most to me. But if you are lazy and unfaithful, I shall dismiss you when your contracts are ended, and hire better men. Do you know why some overseers are always wandering about in search of a situation?’ ‘Because nobody wants ’em,’ said the negroes. ‘Why not?’ ‘Because they a’n’t good for their business.’ ‘Why did I keep John Bird only one year?’ ‘Because, soon as your back was turned, he slipped off to a grocery, or went a-fishing.’ ‘And why did I keep William Hooker eight years, and increase his salary every year?’ ‘Because he stuck by and always looked after your interest.’ ‘Now,’ said the planter, ‘you are in the condition of these overseers. You can always have good situations, and your prospects will be continually improving, if you do well. Or you may soon be going about the country with bundles on your backs, miserable low-down niggers that nobody will hire.’ In this way he instructed and encouraged the freedmen; and he assured me they were working better than ever. But by your serf-codes you would crush all hope and manhood out of them.”
“Well, there may be something in all that. I can’t say, for I never thought of trying but one way with a nigger. But nigger suffrage the South a’n’t going to stand anyhow. We’ve already got a class of voters that’s enough to corrupt the politics of any country. I used to think the nigger was the meanest of God’s creatures. But I’ve found a meaner brute than he; and that’s the low-down white man. If a respectable man hires a nigger for wages, one of those low-down cusses will offer him twice as much, to get him away. They want him to prowl for them. A heap of these no-account whites are getting rich, stealing cotton; they’re too lazy or cowardly to do it themselves, so they get the niggers to do it for ’em. These very men hold the balance of political power in this district. They’ll vote for the man who gives ’em the most whiskey. Just before the war, at an election in Columbia, over a hundred sand-hillers sold their votes beforehand, and were put into jail till the polls opened, and then marched out to vote.”
“By what right were they put in jail?”