In it there is scarcely
a trace, if indeed there is any trace at all, of such a condition of
affairs as had developed in the Antilles and in Hindustan. The attitude
of the African towards his Confederate owner was submissive and kindly.
Although the armed and masterful domestic protector was at the front and
engaged in deadly, all-absorbing conflict, yet the women and children of
the Southern plantation slept with unbarred doors,--free from
apprehension, much more from molestation.
Moreover, as you here well know, during the old days of slavery there
was hardly a child born, of either sex, who grew up in a Southern
household of substantial wealth without holding immediate and most
affectionate relations with those of the other race. Every typical
Southern man had what he called his "daddy" and his "mammy," his
"uncle" and his "aunty," by him familiarly addressed as such, and who
were to him even closer than are blood relations to most. They had cared
for him in his cradle; he followed them to their graves. Is it needful
for me to ask to what extent such relations still exist? Of those born
thirty years after emancipation, and therefore belonging distinctly to a
later generation, how many thus have their kindly, if humble, kin of the
African blood? I fancy I would be safe in saying not one in twenty.
Here, then, as the outcome of the first great issue I have suggested as
occupying the thought and exciting the passions of that earlier period,
is a problem wholly unanticipated,--a problem which, merely stating,
I dismiss.
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