“If it were not the best relation for the happiness and welfare of both races—morally, physically, intellectually and politically—it was wrong and ought to have been abolished. This I said of it years before secession, and I repeat it still. But, as I have said, this is no time now to discuss those questions.
“I have seen something of the world, and traveled somewhat, and I have never yet found on earth a paradise. The Southern States are no exception. Wherever I have been, I have been ready to exclaim with Burns:
“‘But, oh! what crowds in every land
Are wretched and forlorn!
Man’s inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn.’
“It was so at the South. It was so at the North. It is so yet. It is so in every part of the world that I have seen.”
In regard to the future relation of the races in this land, Mr. Stephens speaks cautiously, and not unwisely. With many of the best men of the South, he sees here a problem not easily to be solved, and an outcome not lightly to be prophesied. He denies that any Southern men desire a change back to the old relation of master and slave. We quote again:
“The question of the proper relation of the races is one of the most difficult problems which statesmen or philanthropists, legislators or jurists, ever had to solve. The former polity of the Southern States upon this subject is ended, and I do not think it inappropriate on this occasion to indulge in some remarks with regard to the future. Since the emancipation, since the former ruling race have been relieved of their direct heavy responsibility for the protection and welfare of their dependents, it has been common to speak of the colored race as ‘the wards of the nation.’
“May I not say with appropriateness, in this connection, and due reverence, in the language of Georgia’s greatest intellect (Toombs), ‘They are rather the wards of the Almighty,’ committed now, under a new state of things, to the rulers, the law-makers, the law-expounders and the law-executors throughout this broad land, within their respective constitutional spheres, to take care of, and provide for, in that complicated system of government under which we live? I am inclined, sir, so to regard them, and so to speak of them—not in exceptional cases, but as a mass. In the providence of God, why their ancestors were permitted to be brought over here, it is not for us to say; but they have a location and habitation here, especially in the South, and since the changed condition of their status, though it was the leading cause of the late terrible conflict of arms between the States, yet I think I may venture to affirm there is not one within the circle of my acquaintance, or in the whole Southern country, who would now wish to see the old relation restored.”
Recognizing a national responsibility for the welfare and protection of these freedmen, he closes with this ringing exhortation: