It has appeared to some that the South has not done its full duty by the Negro. Perfection is, without doubt, a standard above humanity; but, at least, we of the South can say that we have done much for him; if we have not admitted him to social equality, it has been under an instinct stronger than reason, and in obedience to a law higher than is on the statute-books: the law of self-preservation. Slavery, whatever its demerits, was not in its time the unmitigated evil it is fancied to have been. Its time has passed. No power could compel the South to have it back. But to the Negro it was salvation. It found him a savage and a cannibal and in two hundred years gave seven millions of his race a civilization, the only civilization it has had since the dawn of history.
We have educated him; we have aided him; we have sustained him in all right directions. We are ready to continue our aid; but we will not be dominated by him. When we shall be, it is our settled conviction that we shall deserve the degradation into which we shall have sunk.
FOOTNOTES:
[65] This paper was written some years ago and was published in a volume of essays by the author, entitled “The Old South.” It is reprinted here substantially as it was then published, partly with a view to having the entire discussion of the subject by the author in one volume, and partly to show the result of studies of the Race Question at that time and since that time. A comparison may readily be made by anyone who may be sufficiently interested in the matter to make it.
[66] The percentage of increase of the Negro race is shown to be considerably less than that of the white; the percentage of deaths among the former race being largely in excess of that of the latter. See “Vital Statistics of the Negro,” by Frederick L. Hoffman, The Arena, April, 1891, p. 529.
[67] “The commissioners of the United Colonies found occasion to complain to the Dutch governor in New Netherlands in 1646 of the fact that the Dutch agent in Hartford had harbored a fugitive Indian slave-woman, of whom they say in their letter: ‘Such a servant is parte of her master’s estate, and a more considerable parte than a beaste.’ A provision for the rendition of fugitives, etc., was afterward made by treaty between the Dutch and the English” (Moore’s “History of Slavery in Massachusetts,” p. 28, citing Plymouth Colony Rec. IX. 6, 64, 190).
[68] “History of New England,” II., p. 30, note; Moore, p. 21.
[69] M. H. S. Coll. III, VIII. 231.
[70] Compare Hildreth, I. 278.
[71] “The breeding of slaves was not regarded with favor. Dr. Belknap says that negro children were considered an encumbrance in a family; and when weaned were given away like puppies” (Moore, p. 57, citing M. H. S. Coll. 1, IV. 200).