and the Carolinas by the British, but with little effect, except to inflame the masters to bitterer resistance.* The result was the same during the Civil War.

V

THE exactions of the war possibly brought the races nearer together than they had ever been before. There had been, in times past, some hostile feeling between the Negroes and the plain whites, due principally to the wellknown arrogance of a slave population toward a poor, free, working population. This was largely dispelled during the war, on the one side by the heroism shown by the poor whites, and on the other by the kindness shown by the Negroes to their families while the men were in the army. When the war closed, the friendship between the races was never stronger; the relations were never more closely welded. The fidelity of the Negroes throughout the war was fully appreciated and called forth a warmer affection on the part of the masters and mistresses, and the care and self-denial of the whites were equally recognized by the Negroes.

*Trevellyan's "History of the American Revolution," Part 2, Vol. I.

Nor did this relation cease with the emancipation of the Negro. The return of the masters was hailed with joy in the quarters as in the mansion. When the worn and disheartened veteran made his last mile on his return from Appomattox, it was often the group of Negroes watching for him at the plantation gate that first caught his dimmed eye and their shouts of welcome that first sounded in his ears.

A singular fact was presented which has not been generally understood. The joy with which the slaves hailed emancipation did not relax the bonds of affection between them and their former masters and mistresses. There was, of course, ex necessitate rei, much disorganization, and no little misunderstanding. The whites, defeated and broken, but unquelled and undismayed, were unspeakably sore; the Negroes, suddenly freed and facing an unknown condition, were naturally in a state of excitement. But the transition was accomplished without an outbreak or an outrage, and, so far as the writer's experience and information go, there were on either side few instances of insolence, rudeness, or ill-temper, incident to the break-up of the old relation. This was reserved for a later time, when a

new poison had been instilled into the Negro's mind and had begun to work. Such disorders as occurred were incident to the passing through the country of disbanded troops, making their way home without the means of subsistence, but even these were sporadic and temporary.

For years after the war the older Negroes, men and women, remained the faithful guardians of the white women and children of their masters' families.* *

One reason which may be mentioned for the good-will that continued to exist during this crisis, and has borne its part in preserving kindly relations ever since, is that, among the slave-owning class, there was hardly a child who had not been rocked in a colored mammy's arms and whose first ride had not been taken with a Negro at his horse's head; not one whose closest playmates in youth had not been the young Negroes of the plantation. The entire generation which grew up during and just after the war grew up with the young Negroes, and preserved for them the feeling and sympathy which their fathers had had before

* During the disorders following the war, the older Negroes at the writer's home were armed and stood guard over the ripened crops.

them. This feeling may hardly be explained to those who have not known it. Those who have known it will need no explanation. It possibly partakes somewhat of a feudal instinct; possibly of a clan instinct. It is not mere affection; for it may exist where affection has perished and even where its object is personally detested. Whatever it is, it exists universally with those who came of the slave-holding class in the South, who knew in their youth the Negroes who belonged to their family, and, no matter what the provocation, they can no more divest themselves of it than they can of any other principle in their lives.

CHAPTER II

SOME OF ITS DIFFICULTIES AND FALLACIES

UCH was the relation between the whites

SU

and the blacks of the South when emancipation came. It remains now to show what changes have taken place since that time; how these changes have come about, and what errors have been committed in dealing with the Race-question which still affect the two

races.

The dissension which has come between the two races has either been sown since the Negro's emancipation or is inherent in the new conditions that have arisen.

When the war closed, and the emancipation of the Negroes became an established fact, the first pressing necessity in the South was to secure the means of living; for in sections where the armies had been the country had been swept clean, and in all sections the entire labor system was disorganized. The internal management of the whole South, from the general gov