Some day, when Georgia has fully recovered, this spot too, will feel the returning tide of her generous, healthy blood. The rank undergrowth will be cleared away, walks will be laid out among the tombs where now are only tangled and serpent-infested paths; shafts will rise up to the green arches to commemorate the names of those most deserving in the State, and the Tillandsia, still waving its witchery of silver, will then seem only like myriad drooping plumes of white, forever tremulously pendant over graves at which the State is weeping.
CHAPTER XIV.
White and Black Georgians—The Savannah Standard of Unionism.
The difference between Savannah and Port Royal negroes is the difference between the child and the man. Young men, fresh from Massachusetts common schools, do not surpass raw Cornish miners more; average Yankees do not surpass average Mexicans as much. Naturally, in listening to the negro delegations that called on Mr. Chase and General Gillmore, I heard the best talkers they have; but there is a general air of intelligence and independence among them, here, which comes only of education and knowledge of the ways of the world. Train the children of the present Port Royal negroes steadily in common schools, and let them mingle, till middle age, with their superiors in life, learning to see for themselves and take care of their own interests, and you will then have about what the Savannah negroes are now. There are eight thousand five hundred of them, who belong to the city proper; and, of these, about a thousand have been free since long before the war, while many of the rest, being sons and daughters of their masters, or, otherwise, house servants, have had advantages not possessed by ordinary slaves. Besides these, there are large numbers here who have escaped from their masters in the interior, and these may always be set down as the most intelligent and enterprising on their respective plantations.
A delegation, headed by one or two preachers and a school-teacher, called on Mr. Chase, by appointment previously sought by one of their number. Some of them were jet black; none of them were lighter than mulattoes. The spokesman was a mulatto preacher, of more than usually intelligent features, and with the quiet bearing of a gentleman. The courtesy with which they approached and addressed the Chief Justice could hardly have been surpassed by any of the accomplished counselors of the Supreme Court; indeed, politeness seems to be a speciality of all negroes, and, among the cultivated ones, it takes on a deferential grace which no Anglo-Saxon may hope to exceed.
The spokesman said they had called partly to pay their respects and express their gratitude to one whom they recognized as foremost and most potential among the living in their deliverance; but mainly to inquire what the Government was likely to do with them, and what they themselves ought to be doing to secure the rights of which they thought they had been unjustly deprived. Especially they desired to know what their prospect was for being permitted to exercise, in common with all other native freemen, the elective franchise.
“Suppose you were permitted to vote,” said the Chief Justice, “what guarantee would the Government have that you would know how to vote, or that your influence would not be cast on the side of bad morals and bad politics?”
“Oh, Mr. Judge,” ejaculated a little black fellow, “we know who our friends are!”
“I am not so sure about that. You don’t know the positions of many of the leading men here, and some of them, by professing to be your friends, might easily deceive you.”
“No, sir; I ’sure you we knows our friends,” responded the same coal-black speaker.
“Perhaps you in the cities may. I am not disposed, myself, to doubt it. But here is a great mass of ignorant field hands from the plantations. They are scattered all over Georgia, and they don’t have the advantages or the opportunities of learning which you have. What is to prevent them from voting just as their old masters may tell them?”