But thousands and thousands of those who wuz slaves, bred to concealment and lies in self-defence, taught all kinds of vice by the system under which they wuz born and nurtured, seem to have no sense of what is right and what is wrong; they will steal with no compunction of conscience; lie when the truth would serve them better; will only work when compelled to, and are low and depraved every way.
“What is to be done with them?” sez I. And Maggie said and I thought there wuz but one answer to this, wherever they be, for movin’ their bodies round won’t purify their souls to once nor quicken their intellects imegiatly.
Give them the Bible, teach them, arouse them from the dark sleep of sin and ignorance, learn them to stand upright and then to walk.
Givin’ such men the right to vote and control by their greater numbers the educated race is as simple as it would be to set a baby that had never took a step to runnin’ a race for a prize with an athlete.
The baby has got to stand on its feet first, get a little strength in its soft, unused muscles, then it has got to learn to walk, then to run, and so on; after long patience and teachin’, it can mebby win its race by runnin’ and leapin’; but not at first, not before it can creep.
Why, for a time after I first went South things looked so new and strange to me, and my daughter Maggie wuz so firm in her belief, that I seemed to think jest as she did, and we would talk for hours and hours, and agree jest as well as two human creeters could agree. And I guess I even outdone her in drawin’ metafors, and drawin’ ’em to great distances, as my way is.
For I am always one to speak out and tell how things look to me to-day; if they look different to-morrow under the light of some different knowledge, why, then I’ll speak out agin and tell that when the time comes.
And some of these beliefs Maggie and I promulgated to each other, I believe now jest as strong as I did then, and some of my idees got sort o’ modified down in the course of time. Of this more and anon.
But then Maggie would talk to me, and I’d say to Maggie:
Why, lettin’ such ignorant and onexperienced men rule the country, rule free, educated, cultured men and wimmen, is as foolish as it would be to put a blind man onto a wild, onbroke horse, and tell him to guide it safe when it wuz led right along by pits, and canyons, and kasems, and helpless ones and infants are layin’ right in its path, and lots of mean, ugly creeters ready to ketch holt of the bits and back him off out of their way.