'Then why do you keep them about you?'
'Well, to be candid, their presence is of use in keeping the blacks in subordination, and they are worth all they cost me, because I control their votes.'
'I thought the blacks were said to be entirely contented?'
'No, not contented. I do not claim that. I only say that they are unfit for freedom. I might cite a hundred instances in which it has been their ruin.'
'I have never heard of one. It seems strange to me that a man who can support another can not support himself.'
'Oh! no, it's not at all strange. The slave has hands, and when the master gives him brains, he works well enough; but to support himself he needs both hands and brains, and he has only hands. I'll give you a case in point: At Wilmington, N.C., some years ago lived a negro by the name of Jack Campbell. He was a slave, and he was employed, before the river below the town was deepened so as to admit of the passage of large vessels, in lightering cargoes up to the city. He hired his time of his master, and carried on business on his own account. Every one knew him, and his character for honesty, sobriety, and punctuality stood so high that his word was considered among merchants as good as that of the first business-men of the place. Well, Jack's wife and children were free, and he finally took it into his head to be free himself. He arranged with his master to purchase himself within a specified time, at eight hundred dollars, and was to deposit his earnings, till they reached the required sum, in the hands of a certain merchant. He went on, and in three years had accumulated nearly seven hundred dollars, when his master failed. As the slave has no right to property, Jack's earnings belonged by law to his master, and they were attached by the creditors, and taken to pay the master's debts. Jack then 'changed hands,' received a new owner, who also consented to his buying himself, at about the price previously agreed on. Nothing discouraged, he went to work again. Night and day, he toiled, and it surprised every one to see so much energy and fixedness of purpose in a negro. At last, after four more years of labor, he accomplished his purpose, and received his free-papers. He had worked seven years—as long as Jacob toiled for Rachel—for his freedom, and like the old patriarch found himself cheated at last. I was present when he received his papers from his owner, a Mr. William H. Lippitt—who still resides at Wilmington—and I shall never forget the ecstasy of joy which he showed on the occasion; he sung and danced and laughed and wept, till my conscience smote me for holding my own niggers, when freedom might give them so much happiness. Well, he went off that day and treated some friends, and then, for three days afterward, lay in the gutter, the entreaties of his wife and children having no effect on him. He swore he was free, and would do as he 'd——d pleased.' He had previously been a class-leader in his church, but after getting free-papers, he forsook his previous associates, and spent his Sundays and evenings in a bar-room. He neglected his business; people lost confidence in him, and step by step he went down, till in five years he stink into a wretched grave. That was the effect of freedom on him, and it would be so on all his race.'
'It is clear,' I replied, 'he could not bear freedom, but that does not prove he might not have 'endured' it if he had never been a slave. His overjoy at obtaining liberty, after so long a struggle for it, led to his excesses and his ruin. According to your view, neither the black nor the poor white is competent to take care of himself. The Almighty, therefore, has laid upon you a triple burden; you not only have to provide for yourself and your children, but for two races beneath you, the black and the clay-eating white man. The poor nigger has a hard time, but it seems to me you have a harder one.'
'Well, it's a fact, we do. I often think that if it wasn't for the color and the odor, I'd be glad to exchange places with my man Jim.'
The Colonel made this last remark in a half-serious, half-comic way, that excited my risibilities amazingly, but before I could reply, the carriage stopped, and Jim, opening the door, announced: