Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Anthology
by Martin Luther King
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman

Table of Contents
-----------------

Sojourner Truth, the Libyan Sibyl.............Harriet Beecher Stowe
Reconstruction................................Frederick Douglass
An Appeal to Congress for Impartial Suffrage..Frederick Douglas
The Negro Exodus..............................James B. Runnion
My Escape from Slavery........................Frederick Douglass
The Goophered Grapevine.......................Charles W. Chesnutt
Po' Sandy.....................................Charles W. Chesnutt
Dave's Neckliss...............................Charles W. Chesnutt
The Awakening of the Negro....................Booker T. Washington
The Story of Uncle Tom's Cabin................Charles Dudley Warner
Strivings of the Negro People.................W. E. Burghardt Du Bois
The Wife of his Youth.........................Charles W. Chesnutt
The Bouquet...................................Charles W. Chesnutt
The Case of the Negro.........................Booker T. Washington
Hot-Foot Hannibal.............................Charles W. Chesnutt
A Negro Schoolmaster in the New South.........W. E. Burghardt Du Bois
The Capture of a Slaver.......................J. Taylor Wood
Mr. Charles W. Chesnutt's Stories.............W. D. Howells
Paths of Hope for the Negro
Practical Suggestions of a Southerner.........Jerome Dowd
Signs of Progress Among the Negroes...........Booker T. Washington
The March of Progress.........................Charles W. Chesnutt
The Freedmen's Bureau.........................W. E. Burghardt Du Bois
Of the Training of Black Men..................W. E. Burghardt Du Bois
The Fruits of Industrial Training.............Booker T. Washington
The Negro in the Regular Army.................Oswald Garrison Villard
Baxter's Procrustes...........................Charles W. Chesnutt
The Heart of the Race Problem.................Quincy Ewing
Negro Suffrage in a Democracy.................Ray Stannard Baker

Bibliography of Sources

SOJOURNER TRUTH, THE LIBYAN SIBYL
by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Many years ago, the few readers of radical Abolitionist papers
must often have seen the singular name of Sojourner Truth,
announced as a frequent speaker at Anti-Slavery meetings, and as
travelling on a sort of self-appointed agency through the country.
I had myself often remarked the name, but never met the
individual. On one occasion, when our house was filled with
company, several eminent clergymen being our guests, notice was
brought up to me that Sojourner Truth was below, and requested an
interview. Knowing nothing of her but her singular name, I went
down, prepared to make the interview short, as the pressure of
many other engagements demanded.

When I went into the room, a tall, spare form arose to meet me.
She was evidently a full-blooded African, and though now aged and
worn with many hardships, still gave the impression of a physical
development which in early youth must have been as fine a specimen
of the torrid zone as Cumberworth's celebrated statuette of the
Negro Woman at the Fountain. Indeed, she so strongly reminded me
of that figure, that, when I recall the events of her life, as she
narrated them to me, I imagine her as a living, breathing
impersonation of that work of art.

I do not recollect ever to have been conversant with any one who
had more of that silent and subtle power which we call personal
presence than this woman. In the modern Spiritualistic
phraseology, she would be described as having a strong sphere.
Her tall form, as she rose up before me, is still vivid to my
mind. She was dressed in some stout, grayish stuff, neat and
clean, though dusty from travel. On her head, she wore a bright
Madras handkerchief, arranged as a turban, after the manner of her
race. She seemed perfectly self-possessed and at her ease,--in
fact, there was almost an unconscious superiority, not unmixed
with a solemn twinkle of humor, in the odd, composed manner in
which she looked down on me. Her whole air had at times a gloomy
sort of drollery which impressed one strangely.

"So this is YOU," she said.

"Yes," I answered.

"Well, honey, de Lord bless ye! I jes' thought I'd like to come
an' have a look at ye. You's heerd o' me, I reckon?" she added.

"Yes, I think I have. You go about lecturing, do you not?"

"Yes, honey, that's what I do. The Lord has made me a sign unto
this nation, an' I go round a'testifyin', an' showin' on 'em their
sins agin my people."

So saying, she took a seat, and, stooping over and crossing her
arms on her knees, she looked down on the floor, and appeared to
fall into a sort of reverie. Her great gloomy eyes and her dark
face seemed to work with some undercurrent of feeling; she sighed
deeply, and occasionally broke out,--

"O Lord! O Lord! Oh, the tears, an' the groans, an' the moans!
O Lord!"

I should have said that she was accompanied by a little grandson
of ten years,--the fattest, jolliest woolly-headed little specimen
of Africa that one can imagine. He was grinning and showing his
glistening white teeth in a state of perpetual merriment, and at
this moment broke out into an audible giggle, which disturbed the
reverie into which his relative was falling.

She looked at him with an indulgent sadness, and then at me.

"Laws, Ma'am, HE don't know nothin' about it--HE don't. Why, I've
seen them poor critters, beat an' 'bused an' hunted, brought in
all torn,--ears hangin' all in rags, where the dogs been a'bitin'
of 'em!"

This set off our little African Puck into another giggle, in which
he seemed perfectly convulsed.

She surveyed him soberly, without the slightest irritation.

"Well, you may bless the Lord you CAN laugh; but I tell you, 't
wa'n't no laughin' matter."

By this time I thought her manner so original that it might be
worth while to call down my friends; and she seemed perfectly well
pleased with the idea. An audience was what she wanted,--it
mattered not whether high or low, learned or ignorant. She had
things to say, and was ready to say them at all times, and to any
one.

I called down Dr. Beecher, Professor Allen, and two or three other
clergymen, who, together with my husband and family, made a
roomful. No princess could have received a drawing-room with more
composed dignity than Sojourner her audience. She stood among
them, calm and erect, as one of her own native palm-trees waving
alone in the desert. I presented one after another to her, and at
last said,--

"Sojourner, this is Dr. Beecher. He is a very celebrated
preacher."

"IS he?" she said, offering her hand in a condescending manner,
and looking down on his white head. "Ye dear lamb, I'm glad to
see ye! De Lord bless ye! I loves preachers. I'm a kind o'
preacher myself."

"You are?" said Dr. Beecher. "Do you preach from the Bible?"

"No, honey, can't preach from de Bible,--can't read a letter."

"Why, Sojourner, what do you preach from, then?"

Her answer was given with a solemn power of voice, peculiar to
herself, that hushed every one in the room.

"When I preaches, I has jest one text to preach from, an' I always
preaches from this one. MY text is, 'WHEN I FOUND JESUS.'"

"Well, you couldn't have a better one," said one of the ministers.

She paid no attention to him, but stood and seemed swelling with
her own thoughts, and then began this narration:--

"Well, now, I'll jest have to go back, an' tell ye all about it.
Ye see, we was all brought over from Africa, father an' mother an'
I, an' a lot more of us; an' we was sold up an' down, an' hither
an' yon; an' I can 'member, when I was a little thing, not bigger
than this 'ere," pointing to her grandson, "how my ole mammy would
sit out o' doors in the evenin', an' look up at the stars an'
groan. She'd groan an' groan, an' says I to her,--

"'Mammy, what makes you groan so?'

"an' she'd say,--

"'Matter enough, chile! I'm groanin' to think o' my poor
children: they don't know where I be, an' I don't know where they
be; they looks up at the stars, an' I looks up at the stars, but I
can't tell where they be.

"'Now,' she said, 'chile, when you're grown up, you may be sold
away from your mother an' all your ole friends, an' have great
troubles come on ye; an' when you has these troubles come on ye,
ye jes' go to God, an' He'll help ye.'

"An' says I to her,--

"'Who is God, anyhow, mammy?'

"An' says she,--

"'Why, chile, you jes' look up DAR! It's Him that made all DEM!"

"Well, I didn't mind much 'bout God in them days. I grew up
pretty lively an' strong, an' could row a boat, or ride a horse,
or work round, an' do 'most anything.

"At last I got sold away to a real hard massa an' missis. Oh, I
tell you, they WAS hard! 'Peared like I couldn't please 'em,
nohow. An' then I thought o' what my old mammy told me about God;
an' I thought I'd got into trouble, sure enough, an' I wanted to
find God, an' I heerd some one tell a story about a man that met
God on a threshin'-floor, an' I thought, 'Well an' good, I'll have
a threshin'-floor, too.'  So I went down in the lot, an' I
threshed down a place real hard, an' I used to go down there every
day, an' pray an' cry with all my might, a-prayin' to the Lord to
make my massa an' missis better, but it didn't seem to do no good;
an' so says I, one day,--

"'O God, I been a-askin' ye, an' askin' ye, an' askin' ye, for all
this long time, to make my massa an' missis better, an' you don't
do it, an' what CAN be the reason? Why, maybe you CAN'T. Well, I
shouldn't wonder ef you couldn't. Well, now, I tell you, I'll
make a bargain with you. Ef you'll help me to git away from my
massa an' missis, I'll agree to be good; but ef you don't help me,
I really don't think I can be. Now,' says I, 'I want to git away;
but the trouble's jest here: ef I try to git away in the night, I
can't see; an' ef I try to git away in the daytime, they'll see
me, an' be after me.'

"Then the Lord said to me, 'Git up two or three hours afore
daylight, an' start off.'

"An' says I, 'Thank 'ee, Lord! that's a good thought.'

"So up I got, about three o'clock in the mornin', an' I started
an' travelled pretty fast, till, when the sun rose, I was clear
away from our place an' our folks, an' out o' sight. An' then I
begun to think I didn't know nothin' where to go. So I kneeled
down, and says I,--

"'Well, Lord, you've started me out, an' now please to show me
where to go.'

"Then the Lord made a house appear to me, an' He said to me that I
was to walk on till I saw that house, an' then go in an' ask the
people to take me. An' I travelled all day, an' didn't come to
the house till late at night; but when I saw it, sure enough, I
went in, an' I told the folks that the Lord sent me; an' they was
Quakers, an' real kind they was to me. They jes' took me in, an'
did for me as kind as ef I'd been one of 'em; an' after they'd giv
me supper, they took me into a room where there was a great, tall,
white bed; an' they told me to sleep there. Well, honey, I was
kind o' skeered when they left me alone with that great white bed;
'cause I never had been in a bed in my life. It never came into
my mind they could mean me to sleep in it. An' so I jes' camped
down under it, on the floor, an' then I slep' pretty well. In the
mornin', when they came in, they asked me ef I hadn't been asleep;
an' I said, 'Yes, I never slep' better.'  An' they said, 'Why, you
haven't been in the bed!'  An' says I, 'Laws, you didn't think o'
such a thing as my sleepin' in dat 'ar' BED, did you? I never
heerd o' such a thing in my life.'

"Well, ye see, honey, I stayed an' lived with 'em. An' now jes'
look here: instead o' keepin' my promise an' bein' good, as I told
the Lord I would, jest as soon as everything got a'goin' easy, I
FORGOT ALL ABOUT GOD.

"Pretty well don't need no help; an' I gin up prayin.'  I lived
there two or three years, an' then the slaves in New York were all
set free, an' ole massa came to our home to make a visit, an' he
asked me ef I didn't want to go back an' see the folks on the ole
place. An' I told him I did. So he said, ef I'd jes' git into
the wagon with him, he'd carry me over. Well, jest as I was goin'
out to git into the wagon, I MET GOD! an' says I, 'O God, I didn't
know as you was so great!' An' I turned right round an' come into
the house, an' set down in my room; for 't was God all around me.
I could feel it burnin', burnin', burnin' all around me, an' goin'
through me; an' I saw I was so wicked, it seemed as ef it would
burn me up. An' I said, 'O somebody, somebody, stand between God
an' me! for it burns me!'  Then, honey, when I said so, I felt as
it were somethin' like an amberill [umbrella] that came between me
an' the light, an' I felt it was SOMEBODY,--somebody that stood
between me an' God; an' it felt cool, like a shade; an' says I,
'Who's this that stands between me an' God? Is it old Cato?'  He
was a pious old preacher; but then I seemed to see Cato in the
light, an' he was all polluted an' vile, like me; an' I said, 'Is
it old Sally?' an' then I saw her, an' she seemed jes' so. An'
then says I, 'WHO is this?'  An' then, honey, for a while it was
like the sun shinin' in a pail o' water, when it moves up an'
down; for I begun to feel 't was somebody that loved me; an' I
tried to know him. An' I said, 'I know you! I know you! I know
you!'--an' then I said, 'I don't know you! I don't know you! I
don't know you!'  An' when I said, 'I know you, I know you,' the
light came; an' when I said, 'I don't know you, I don't know you,'
it went, jes' like the sun in a pail o' water. An' finally
somethin' spoke out in me an' said, 'THIS IS JESUS!'  An' I spoke
out with all my might, an' says I, 'THIS IS JESUS! Glory be to
God!'  An' then the whole world grew bright, an' the trees they
waved an' waved in glory, an' every little bit o' stone on the
ground shone like glass; an' I shouted an' said, 'Praise, praise,
praise to the Lord!'  An' I begun to feel such a love in my soul
as I never felt before,--love to all creatures. An' then, all of
a sudden, it stopped, an' I said, 'Dar's de white folks, that have
abused you an' beat you an' abused your people,--think o' them!'
But then there came another rush of love through my soul, an' I
cried out loud,--'Lord, Lord, I can love EVEN DE WHITE FOLKS!'

"Honey, I jes' walked round an' round in a dream. Jesus loved me!
I knowed it,--I felt it. Jesus was my Jesus. Jesus would love me
always. I didn't dare tell nobody; 't was a great secret.
Everything had been got away from me that I ever had; an' I
thought that ef I let white folks know about this, maybe they'd
get HIM away,--so I said, 'I'll keep this close. I won't let any
one know.'"

"But, Sojourner, had you never been told about Jesus Christ?"

"No, honey. I hadn't heerd no preachin',--been to no meetin'.
Nobody hadn't told me. I'd kind o' heerd of Jesus, but thought he
was like Gineral Lafayette, or some o' them. But one night there
was a Methodist meetin' somewhere in our parts, an' I went; an'
they got up an' begun for to tell der 'speriences; an' de fust one
begun to speak. I started, 'cause he told about Jesus. 'Why,'
says I to myself, 'dat man's found him, too!'  An' another got up
an' spoke, an I said, 'He's found him, too!'  An' finally I said,
'Why, they all know him!'  I was so happy! An' then they sung
this hymn": (Here Sojourner sang, in a strange, cracked voice, but
evidently with all her soul and might, mispronouncing the English,
but seeming to derive as much elevation and comfort from bad
English as from good):--

          'There is a holy city,
             A world of light above,
           Above the stairs and regions,*
             Built by the God of Love.

          "An Everlasting temple,
             And saints arrayed in white
           There serve their great Redeemer
             And dwell with him in light.

          "The meanest child of glory
             Outshines the radiant sun;
           But who can speak the splendor
             Of Jesus on his throne?

          "Is this the man of sorrows
             Who stood at Pilate's bar,
           Condemned by haughty Herod
             And by his men of war?

          "He seems a mighty conqueror,
             Who spoiled the powers below,
           And ransomed many captives
             From everlasting woe.

          "The hosts of saints around him
             Proclaim his work of grace,
           The patriarchs and prophets,
             And all the godly race,

          "Who speak of fiery trials
             And tortures on their way;
           They came from tribulation
             To everlasting day.

          "And what shall be my journey,
             How long I'll stay below,
           Or what shall be my trials,
             Are not for me to know.

          "In every day of trouble
             I'll raise my thoughts on high,
           I'll think of that bright temple
             And crowns above the sky."

* Starry regions.

I put in this whole hymn, because Sojourner, carried away with her
own feeling, sang it from beginning to end with a triumphant
energy that held the whole circle around her intently listening.
She sang with the strong barbaric accent of the native African,
and with those indescribable upward turns and those deep gutturals
which give such a wild, peculiar power to the negro singing,--but
above all, with such an overwhelming energy of personal
appropriation that the hymn seemed to be fused in the furnace of
her feelings and come out recrystallized as a production of her
own.

It is said that Rachel was wont to chant the "Marseillaise" in a
manner that made her seem, for the time, the very spirit and
impersonation of the gaunt, wild, hungry, avenging mob which rose
against aristocratic oppression; and in like manner, Sojourner,
singing this hymn, seemed to impersonate the fervor of Ethiopia,
wild, savage, hunted of all nations, but burning after God in her
tropic heart, and stretching her scarred hands towards the glory
to be revealed.

"Well, den ye see, after a while, I thought I'd go back an' see de
folks on de ole place. Well, you know, de law had passed dat de
culled folks was all free; an' my old missis, she had a daughter
married about dis time who went to live in Alabama,--an' what did
she do but give her my son, a boy about de age of dis yer, for her
to take down to Alabama? When I got back to de ole place, they
told me about it, an' I went right up to see ole missis, an' says
I,--

"'Missis, have you been an' sent my son away down to Alabama?'

"'Yes, I have,' says she; 'he's gone to live with your young
missis.'

"'Oh, Missis,' says I, 'how could you do it?'

"'Poh!' says she, 'what a fuss you make about a little nigger!
Got more of 'em now than you know what to do with.'

"I tell you, I stretched up. I felt as tall as the world!

"'Missis,' says I, 'I'LL HAVE MY SON BACK AGIN!'

"She laughed.

"'YOU will, you nigger? How you goin' to do it? You ha'n't got
no money."

"'No, Missis,--but GOD has,--an' you'll see He'll help me!'--an' I
turned round an' went out.

"Oh, but I WAS angry to have her speak to me so haughty an' so
scornful, as ef my chile wasn't worth anything. I said to God, 'O
Lord, render unto her double!'  It was a dreadful prayer, an' I
didn't know how true it would come.

"Well, I didn't rightly know which way to turn; but I went to the
Lord, an' I said to Him, 'O Lord, ef I was as rich as you be, an'
you was as poor as I be, I'd help you,--you KNOW I would; and, oh,
do help me!'  An' I felt sure then that He would.

"Well, I talked with people, an' they said I must git the case
before a grand jury. So I went into the town when they was
holdin' a court, to see ef I could find any grand jury. An' I
stood round the court-house, an' when they was a-comin' out, I
walked right up to the grandest-lookin' one I could see, an' says
I to him,--

"'Sir, be you a grand jury?'

"An' then he wanted to know why I asked, an' I told him all about
it; an' he asked me all sorts of questions, an' finally he says to
me,--

"'I think, ef you pay me ten dollars, that I'd agree to git your
son for you.'  An' says he, pointin' to a house over the way, 'You
go 'long an' tell your story to the folks in that house, an' I
guess they'll give you the money.'

"Well, I went, an' I told them, an' they gave me twenty dollars;
an' then I thought to myself, 'Ef ten dollars will git him, twenty
dollars will git him SARTIN.'  So I carried it to the man all out,
an' said,--

"'Take it all,--only be sure an' git him.'

"Well, finally they got the boy brought back; an' then they tried
to frighten him, an' to make him say that I wasn't his mammy, an'
that he didn't know me; but they couldn't make it out. They gave
him to me, an' I took him an' carried him home; an' when I came to
take off his clothes, there was his poor little back all covered
with scars an' hard lumps, where they'd flogged him.

"Well, you see, honey, I told you how I prayed the Lord to render
unto her double. Well, it came true; for I was up at ole missis'
house not long after, an' I heerd 'em readin' a letter to her how
her daughter's husband had murdered her,--how he'd thrown her down
an' stamped the life out of her, when he was in liquor; an' my ole
missis, she giv a screech, an' fell flat on the floor. Then says
I, 'O Lord, I didn't mean all that! You took me up too quick.'

"Well, I went in an' tended that poor critter all night. She was
out of her mind,--a-cryin', an' callin' for her daughter; an' I
held her poor ole head on my arm, an' watched for her as ef she'd
been my babby. An' I watched by her, an' took care on her all
through her sickness after that, an' she died in my arms, poor
thing!"

"Well, Sojourner, did you always go by this name?"

"No, 'deed! My name was Isabella; but when I left the house of
bondage, I left everything behind. I wa'n't goin' to keep nothin'
of Egypt on me, an' so I went to the Lord an' asked Him to give me
a new name. And the Lord gave me Sojourner, because I was to
travel up an' down the land, showin' the people their sins, an'
bein' a sign unto them. Afterwards I told the Lord I wanted
another name, 'cause everybody else had two names; and the Lord
gave me Truth, because I was to declare the truth to the people.

"Ye see some ladies have given me a white satin banner," she said,
pulling out of her pocket and unfolding a white banner, printed
with many texts, such as, "Proclaim liberty throughout all the
land unto all the inhabitants thereof," and others of like nature.
"Well," she said, "I journeys round to camp-meetins, an' wherever
folks is, an' I sets up my banner, an' then I sings, an' then
folks always comes up round me, an' then I preaches to 'em. I
tells 'em about Jesus, an' I tells 'em about the sins of this
people. A great many always comes to hear me; an' they're right
good to me, too, an' say they want to hear me agin."

We all thought it likely; and as the company left her, they shook
hands with her, and thanked her for her very original sermon; and
one of the ministers was overheard to say to another, "There's
more of the gospel in that story than in most sermons."

Sojourner stayed several days with us, a welcome guest. Her
conversation was so strong, simple, shrewd, and with such a droll
flavoring of humor, that the Professor was wont to say of an
evening, "Come, I am dull, can't you get Sojourner up here to talk
a little?"  She would come up into the parlor, and sit among
pictures and ornaments, in her simple stuff gown, with her heavy
travelling-shoes, the central object of attention both to parents
and children, always ready to talk or to sing, and putting into
the common flow of conversation the keen edge of some shrewd
remark.

"Sojourner, what do you think of Women's Rights?"

"Well, honey, I's ben to der meetins, an' harked a good deal. Dey
wanted me for to speak. So I got up. Says I,--'Sisters, I a'n't
clear what you'd be after. Ef women want any rights more 'n dey's
got, why don't dey jes' TAKE 'EM, an' not be talkin' about it?'
Some on 'em came round me, an' asked why I didn't wear Bloomers.
An' I told 'em I had Bloomers enough when I was in bondage. You
see," she said, "dey used to weave what dey called nigger-cloth,
an' each one of us got jes' sech a strip, an' had to wear it
width-wise. Them that was short got along pretty well, but as for
me"--She gave an indescribably droll glance at her long limbs
and then at us, and added,--"Tell YOU, I had enough of Bloomers in
them days."

Sojourner then proceeded to give her views of the relative
capacity of the sexes, in her own way.

"S'pose a man's mind holds a quart, an' a woman's don't hold but a
pint; ef her pint is FULL, it's as good as his quart."

Sojourner was fond of singing an extraordinary lyric, commencing,--

      "I'm on my way to Canada,
          That cold, but happy land;
       The dire effects of Slavery
          I can no longer stand.
       O righteous Father,
          Do look down on me,
       And help me on to Canada,
          Where colored folks are free!"

The lyric ran on to state, that, when the fugitive crosses the
Canada line,

      "The Queen comes down unto the shore,
          With arms extended wide,
       To welcome the poor fugitive
          Safe onto Freedom's side."

In the truth thus set forth she seemed to have the most simple
faith.

But her chief delight was to talk of "glory," and to sing hymns
whose burden was,--

      "O glory, glory, glory,
          Won't you come along with me?"

and when left to herself, she would often hum these with great
delight, nodding her head.

On one occasion, I remember her sitting at a window singing and
fervently keeping time with her head, the little black Puck of a
grandson meanwhile amusing himself with ornamenting her red-and-
yellow turban with green dandelion-curls, which shook and trembled
with her emotions, causing him perfect convulsions of delight.

"Sojourner," said the Professor to her, one day, when he heard her
singing, "you seem to be very sure about heaven."

"Well, I be," she answered, triumphantly.

"What makes you so sure there is any heaven?"

"Well, 'cause I got such a hankerin' arter it in here," she said,--
giving a thump on her breast with her usual energy.

There was at the time an invalid in the house, and Sojourner, on
learning it, felt a mission to go and comfort her. It was curious
to see the tall, gaunt, dusky figure stalk up to the bed with such
an air of conscious authority, and take on herself the office of
consoler with such a mixture of authority and tenderness. She
talked as from above,--and at the same time, if a pillow needed
changing or any office to be rendered, she did it with a strength
and handiness that inspired trust. One felt as if the dark,
strange woman were quite able to take up the invalid in her bosom,
and bear her as a lamb, both physically and spiritually. There
was both power and sweetness in that great warm soul and that
vigorous frame.

At length, Sojourner, true to her name, departed. She had her
mission elsewhere. Where now she is I know not; but she left deep
memories behind her.

To these recollections of my own I will add one more anecdote,
related by Wendell Phillips.

Speaking of the power of Rachel to move and bear down a whole
audience by a few simple words, he said he never knew but one
other human being that had that power, and that other was
Sojourner Truth. He related a scene of which he was witness. It
was at a crowded public meeting in Faneuil Hall, where Frederick
Douglas was one of the chief speakers. Douglas had been
describing the wrongs of the black race, and as he proceeded, he
grew more and more excited, and finally ended by saying that they
had no hope of justice from the whites, no possible hope except in
their own right arms. It must come to blood; they must fight for
themselves, and redeem themselves, or it would never be done.

Sojourner was sitting, tall and dark, on the very front seat,
facing the platform; and in the hush of deep feeling, after
Douglas sat down, she spoke out in her deep, peculiar voice, heard
all over the house,--

"Frederick, IS GOD DEAD?"

The effect was perfectly electrical, and thrilled through the
whole house, changing as by a flash the whole feeling of the
audience. Not another word she said or needed to say; it was
enough.

It is with a sad feeling that one contemplates noble minds and
bodies, nobly and grandly formed human beings, that have come to
us cramped, scarred, maimed, out of the prison-house of bondage.
One longs to know what such beings might have become, if suffered
to unfold and expand under the kindly developing influences of
education.

It is the theory of some writers, that to the African is reserved,
in the later and palmier days of the earth, the full and
harmonious development of the religious element in man. The
African seems to seize on the tropical fervor and luxuriance of
Scripture imagery as something native; he appears to feel himself
to be of the same blood with those old burning, simple souls, the
patriarchs, prophets, and seers, whose impassioned words seem only
grafted as foreign plants on the cooler stock of the Occidental
mind.

I cannot but think that Sojourner with the same culture might have
spoken words as eloquent and undying as those of the African Saint
Augustine or Tertullian. How grand and queenly a woman she might
have been, with her wonderful physical vigor, her great heaving
sea of emotion, her power of spiritual conception, her quick
penetration, and her boundless energy! We might conceive an
African type of woman so largely made and moulded, so much fuller
in all the elements of life, physical and spiritual, that the dark
hue of the skin should seem only to add an appropriate charm,--as
Milton says of his Penseroso, whom he imagines

               "Black, but such as in esteem
          Prince Memnon's sister might beseem,
          Or that starred Ethiop queen that strove
          To set her beauty's praise above
          The sea-nymph's."

But though Sojourner Truth has passed away from among us as a wave
of the sea, her memory still lives in one of the loftiest and most
original works of modern art, the Libyan Sibyl, by Mr. Story,
which attracted so much attention in the late World's Exhibition.
Some years ago, when visiting Rome, I related Sojourner's history
to Mr. Story at a breakfast at his house. Already had his mind
begun to turn to Egypt in search of a type of art which should
represent a larger and more vigorous development of nature than
the cold elegance of Greek lines. His glorious Cleopatra was then
in process of evolution, and his mind was working out the problem
of her broadly developed nature, of all that slumbering weight and
fulness of passion with which this statue seems charged, as a
heavy thunder-cloud is charged with electricity.

The history of Sojourner Truth worked in his mind and led him into
the deeper recesses of the African nature,--those unexplored
depths of being and feeling, mighty and dark as the gigantic
depths of tropical forests, mysterious as the hidden rivers and
mines of that burning continent whose life-history is yet to be.
A few days after, he told me that he had conceived the idea of a
statue which he should call the Libyan Sibyl. Two years
subsequently, I revisited Rome, and found the gorgeous Cleopatra
finished, a thing to marvel at, as the creation of a new style of
beauty, a new manner of art. Mr. Story requested me to come and
repeat to him the history of Sojourner Truth, saying that the
conception had never left him. I did so; and a day or two after,
he showed me the clay model of the Libyan Sibyl. I have never
seen the marble statue; but am told by those who have, that it was
by far the most impressive work of art at the Exhibition.

A notice of the two statues from the London "Athenaeum" must
supply a description which I cannot give.

"The Cleopatra and the Sibyl are seated, partly draped, with the
characteristic Egyptian gown, that gathers about the torso and
falls freely around the limbs; the first is covered to the bosom,
the second bare to the hips. Queenly Cleopatra rests back against
her chair in meditative ease, leaning her cheek against one hand,
whose elbow the rail of the seat sustains; the other is
outstretched upon her knee, nipping its forefinger upon the thumb
thoughtfully, as though some firm, wilful purpose filled her
brain, as it seems to set those luxurious features to a smile as
if the whole woman 'would.'  Upon her head is the coif, bearing in
front the mystic uraeus, or twining basilisk of sovereignty, while
from its sides depend the wide Egyptian lappels, or wings, that
fall upon her shoulders. The Sibilla Libica has crossed her
knees,--an action universally held amongst the ancients as
indicative of reticence or secrecy, and of power to bind. A
secret-keeping looking dame she is, in the full-bloom proportions
of ripe womanhood, wherein choosing to place his figure the
sculptor has deftly gone between the disputed point whether these
women were blooming and wise in youth, or deeply furrowed with age
and burdened with the knowledge of centuries, as Virgil, Livy, and
Gellius say. Good artistic example might be quoted on both sides.
Her forward elbow is propped upon one knee; and to keep her
secrets close, for this Libyan woman is the closest of all the
Sibyls, she rests her shut mouth upon one closed palm, as if
holding the African mystery deep in the brooding brain that looks
out through mournful, warning eyes, seen under the wide shade of
the strange horned (ammonite) crest, that bears the mystery of the
Tetragrammaton upon its upturned front. Over her full bosom,
mother of myriads as she was, hangs the same symbol. Her face has
a Nubian cast, her hair wavy and plaited, as is meet."

We hope to see the day when copies both of the Cleopatra and the
Libyan Sibyl shall adorn the Capitol at Washington.

RECONSTRUCTION
by Frederick Douglass

The assembling of the Second Session of the Thirty-ninth Congress
may very properly be made the occasion of a few earnest words on
the already much-worn topic of reconstruction.

Seldom has any legislative body been the subject of a solicitude
more intense, or of aspirations more sincere and ardent. There
are the best of reasons for this profound interest. Questions of
vast moment, left undecided by the last session of Congress, must
be manfully grappled with by this. No political skirmishing will
avail. The occasion demands statesmanship.

Whether the tremendous war so heroically fought and so
victoriously ended shall pass into history a miserable failure,
barren of permanent results,--a scandalous and shocking waste of
blood and treasure,--a strife for empire, as Earl Russell
characterized it, of no value to liberty or civilization,--an
attempt to re-establish a Union by force, which must be the merest
mockery of a Union,--an effort to bring under Federal authority
States into which no loyal man from the North may safely enter,
and to bring men into the national councils who deliberate with
daggers and vote with revolvers, and who do not even conceal their
deadly hate of the country that conquered them; or whether, on the
other hand, we shall, as the rightful reward of victory over
treason, have a solid nation, entirely delivered from all
contradictions and social antagonisms, based upon loyalty,
liberty, and equality, must be determined one way or the other by
the present session of Congress. The last session really did
nothing which can be considered final as to these questions. The
Civil Rights Bill and the Freedmen's Bureau Bill and the proposed
constitutional amendments, with the amendment already adopted and
recognized as the law of the land, do not reach the difficulty,
and cannot, unless the whole structure of the government is
changed from a government by States to something like a despotic
central government, with power to control even the municipal
regulations of States, and to make them conform to its own
despotic will. While there remains such an idea as the right of
each State to control its own local affairs,--an idea, by the way,
more deeply rooted in the minds of men of all sections of the
country than perhaps any one other political idea,--no general
assertion of human rights can be of any practical value. To
change the character of the government at this point is neither
possible nor desirable. All that is necessary to be done is to
make the government consistent with itself, and render the rights
of the States compatible with the sacred rights of human nature.

The arm of the Federal government is long, but it is far too short
to protect the rights of individuals in the interior of distant
States. They must have the power to protect themselves, or they
will go unprotected, spite of all the laws the Federal government
can put upon the national statute-book.

Slavery, like all other great systems of wrong, founded in the
depths of human selfishness, and existing for ages, has not
neglected its own conservation. It has steadily exerted an
influence upon all around it favorable to its own continuance.
And to-day it is so strong that it could exist, not only without
law, but even against law. Custom, manners, morals, religion, are
all on its side everywhere in the South; and when you add the
ignorance and servility of the ex-slave to the intelligence and
accustomed authority of the master, you have the conditions, not
out of which slavery will again grow, but under which it is
impossible for the Federal government to wholly destroy it, unless
the Federal government be armed with despotic power, to blot out
State authority, and to station a Federal officer at every cross-
road. This, of course, cannot be done, and ought not even if it
could. The true way and the easiest way is to make our government
entirely consistent with itself, and give to every loyal citizen
the elective franchise,--a right and power which will be ever
present, and will form a wall of fire for his protection.

One of the invaluable compensations of the late Rebellion is the
highly instructive disclosure it made of the true source of danger
to republican government. Whatever may be tolerated in
monarchical and despotic governments, no republic is safe that
tolerates a privileged class, or denies to any of its citizens
equal rights and equal means to maintain them. What was theory
before the war has been made fact by the war.

There is cause to be thankful even for rebellion. It is an
impressive teacher, though a stern and terrible one. In both
characters it has come to us, and it was perhaps needed in both.
It is an instructor never a day before its time, for it comes only
when all other means of progress and enlightenment have failed.
Whether the oppressed and despairing bondman, no longer able to
repress his deep yearnings for manhood, or the tyrant, in his
pride and impatience, takes the initiative, and strikes the blow
for a firmer hold and a longer lease of oppression, the result is
the same,--society is instructed, or may be.

Such are the limitations of the common mind, and so thoroughly
engrossing are the cares of common life, that only the few among
men can discern through the glitter and dazzle of present
prosperity the dark outlines of approaching disasters, even though
they may have come up to our very gates, and are already within
striking distance. The yawning seam and corroded bolt conceal
their defects from the mariner until the storm calls all hands to
the pumps. Prophets, indeed, were abundant before the war; but
who cares for prophets while their predictions remain unfulfilled,
and the calamities of which they tell are masked behind a blinding
blaze of national prosperity?

It is asked, said Henry Clay, on a memorable occasion, Will
slavery never come to an end? That question, said he, was asked
fifty years ago, and it has been answered by fifty years of
unprecedented prosperity. Spite of the eloquence of the earnest
Abolitionists,--poured out against slavery during thirty years,--
even they must confess, that, in all the probabilities of the
case, that system of barbarism would have continued its horrors
far beyond the limits of the nineteenth century but for the
Rebellion, and perhaps only have disappeared at last in a fiery
conflict, even more fierce and bloody than that which has now been
suppressed.

It is no disparagement to truth, that it can only prevail where
reason prevails. War begins where reason ends. The thing worse
than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion. What that
thing is, we have been taught to our cost. It remains now to be
seen whether we have the needed courage to have that cause
entirely removed from the Republic. At any rate, to this grand
work of national regeneration and entire purification Congress
must now address Itself, with full purpose that the work shall
this time be thoroughly done. The deadly upas, root and branch,
leaf and fibre, body and sap, must be utterly destroyed. The
country is evidently not in a condition to listen patiently to
pleas for postponement, however plausible, nor will it permit the
responsibility to be shifted to other shoulders. Authority and
power are here commensurate with the duty imposed. There are no
cloud-flung shadows to obscure the way. Truth shines with
brighter light and intenser heat at every moment, and a country
torn and rent and bleeding implores relief from its distress and
agony.

If time was at first needed, Congress has now had time. All the
requisite materials from which to form an intelligent judgment are
now before it. Whether its members look at the origin, the
progress, the termination of the war, or at the mockery of a peace
now existing, they will find only one unbroken chain of argument
in favor of a radical policy of reconstruction. For the omissions
of the last session, some excuses may be allowed. A treacherous
President stood in the way; and it can be easily seen how
reluctant good men might be to admit an apostasy which involved so
much of baseness and ingratitude. It was natural that they should
seek to save him by bending to him even when he leaned to the side
of error. But all is changed now. Congress knows now that it
must go on without his aid, and even against his machinations.
The advantage of the present session over the last is immense.
Where that investigated, this has the facts. Where that walked by
faith, this may walk by sight. Where that halted, this must go
forward, and where that failed, this must succeed, giving the
country whole measures where that gave us half-measures, merely as
a means of saving the elections in a few doubtful districts. That
Congress saw what was right, but distrusted the enlightenment of
the loyal masses; but what was forborne in distrust of the people
must now be done with a full knowledge that the people expect and
require it. The members go to Washington fresh from the inspiring
presence of the people. In every considerable public meeting, and
in almost every conceivable way, whether at court-house, school-
house, or cross-roads, in doors and out, the subject has been
discussed, and the people have emphatically pronounced in favor of
a radical policy. Listening to the doctrines of expediency and
compromise with pity, impatience, and disgust, they have
everywhere broken into demonstrations of the wildest enthusiasm
when a brave word has been spoken in favor of equal rights and
impartial suffrage. Radicalism, so far from being odious, is not
the popular passport to power. The men most bitterly charged with
it go to Congress with the largest majorities, while the timid and
doubtful are sent by lean majorities, or else left at home. The
strange controversy between the President and the Congress, at one
time so threatening, is disposed of by the people. The high
reconstructive powers which he so confidently, ostentatiously, and
haughtily claimed, have been disallowed, denounced, and utterly
repudiated; while those claimed by Congress have been confirmed.

Of the spirit and magnitude of the canvass nothing need be said.
The appeal was to the people, and the verdict was worthy of the
tribunal. Upon an occasion of his own selection, with the advice
and approval of his astute Secretary, soon after the members of
the Congress had returned to their constituents, the President
quitted the executive mansion, sandwiched himself between two
recognized heroes,--men whom the whole country delighted to
honor,--and, with all the advantage which such company could give
him, stumped the country from the Atlantic to the Mississippi,
advocating everywhere his policy as against that of Congress. It
was a strange sight, and perhaps the most disgraceful exhibition
ever made by any President; but, as no evil is entirely unmixed,
good has come of this, as from many others. Ambitious,
unscrupulous, energetic, indefatigable, voluble, and plausible,--a
political gladiator, ready for a "set-to" in any crowd,--he is
beaten in his own chosen field, and stands to-day before the
country as a convicted usurper, a political criminal, guilty of a
bold and persistent attempt to possess himself of the legislative
powers solemnly secured to Congress by the Constitution. No
vindication could be more complete, no condemnation could be more
absolute and humiliating. Unless reopened by the sword, as
recklessly threatened in some circles, this question is now closed
for all time.

Without attempting to settle here the metaphysical and somewhat
theological question (about which so much has already been said
and written), whether once in the Union means always in the
Union,--agreeably to the formula, Once in grace always in grace,--
it is obvious to common sense that the rebellious States stand to-
day, in point of law, precisely where they stood when, exhausted,
beaten, conquered, they fell powerless at the feet of Federal
authority. Their State governments were overthrown, and the lives
and property of the leaders of the Rebellion were forfeited. In
reconstructing the institutions of these shattered and overthrown
States, Congress should begin with a clean slate, and make clean
work of it. Let there be no hesitation. It would be a cowardly
deference to a defeated and treacherous President, if any account
were made of the illegitimate, one-sided, sham governments hurried
into existence for a malign purpose in the absence of Congress.
These pretended governments, which were never submitted to the
people, and from participation in which four millions of the loyal
people were excluded by Presidential order, should now be treated
according to their true character, as shams and impositions, and
supplanted by true and legitimate governments, in the formation of
which loyal men, black and white, shall participate.

It is not, however, within the scope of this paper to point out
the precise steps to be taken, and the means to be employed. The
people are less concerned about these than the grand end to be
attained. They demand such a reconstruction as shall put an end
to the present anarchical state of things in the late rebellious
States,--where frightful murders and wholesale massacres are
perpetrated in the very presence of Federal soldiers. This
horrible business they require shall cease. They want a
reconstruction such as will protect loyal men, black and white, in
their persons and property; such a one as will cause Northern
industry, Northern capital, and Northern civilization to flow into
the South, and make a man from New England as much at home in
Carolina as elsewhere in the Republic. No Chinese wall can now be
tolerated. The South must be opened to the light of law and
liberty, and this session of Congress is relied upon to accomplish
this important work.

The plain, common-sense way of doing this work, as intimated at
the beginning, is simply to establish in the South one law, one
government, one administration of justice, one condition to the
exercise of the elective franchise, for men of all races and
colors alike. This great measure is sought as earnestly by loyal
white men as by loyal blacks, and is needed alike by both. Let
sound political prescience but take the place of an unreasoning
prejudice, and this will be done.

Men denounce the negro for his prominence in this discussion; but
it is no fault of his that in peace as in war, that in conquering
Rebel armies as in reconstructing the rebellious States, the right
of the negro is the true solution of our national troubles. The
stern logic of events, which goes directly to the point,
disdaining all concern for the color or features of men, has
determined the interests of the country as identical with and
inseparable from those of the negro.

The policy that emancipated and armed the negro--now seen to have
been wise and proper by the dullest--was not certainly more
sternly demanded than is now the policy of enfranchisement. If
with the negro was success in war, and without him failure, so in
peace it will be found that the nation must fall or flourish with
the negro.

Fortunately, the Constitution of the United States knows no
distinction between citizens on account of color. Neither does it
know any difference between a citizen of a State and a citizen of
the United States. Citizenship evidently includes all the rights
of citizens, whether State or national. If the Constitution knows
none, it is clearly no part of the duty of a Republican Congress
now to institute one. The mistake of the last session was the
attempt to do this very thing, by a renunciation of its power to
secure political rights to any class of citizens, with the obvious
purpose to allow the rebellious States to disfranchise, if they
should see fit, their colored citizens. This unfortunate blunder
must now be retrieved, and the emasculated citizenship given to
the negro supplanted by that contemplated in the Constitution of
the United States, which declares that the citizens of each State
shall enjoy all the rights and immunities of citizens of the
several States,--so that a legal voter in any State shall be a
legal voter in all the States.

AN APPEAL TO CONGRESS FOR IMPARTIAL SUFFRAGE
by Frederick Douglas

A very limited statement of the argument for impartial suffrage,
and for including the negro in the body politic, would require
more space than can be reasonably asked here. It is supported by
reasons as broad as the nature of man, and as numerous as the
wants of society. Man is the only government-making animal in the
world. His right to a participation in the production and
operation of government is an inference from his nature, as direct
and self-evident as is his right to acquire property or education.
It is no less a crime against the manhood of a man, to declare
that he shall not share in the making and directing of the
government under which he lives, than to say that he shall not
acquire property and education. The fundamental and unanswerable
argument in favor of the enfranchisement of the negro is found in
the undisputed fact of his manhood. He is a man, and by every
fact and argument by which any man can sustain his right to vote,
the negro can sustain his right equally. It is plain that, if the
right belongs to any, it belongs to all. The doctrine that some
men have no rights that others are bound to respect, is a doctrine
which we must banish as we have banished slavery, from which it
emanated. If black men have no rights in the eyes of white men,
of course the whites can have none in the eyes of the blacks. The
result is a war of races, and the annihilation of all proper human
relations.

But suffrage for the negro, while easily sustained upon abstract
principles, demands consideration upon what are recognized as the
urgent necessities of the case. It is a measure of relief,--a
shield to break the force of a blow already descending with
violence, and render it harmless. The work of destruction has
already been set in motion all over the South. Peace to the
country has literally meant war to the loyal men of the South,
white and black; and negro suffrage is the measure to arrest and
put an end to that dreadful strife.

Something then, not by way of argument, (for that has been done by
Charles Sumner, Thaddeus Stevens, Wendell Phillips, Gerrit Smith,
and other able men,) but rather of statement and appeal.

For better or for worse, (as in some of the old marriage
ceremonies,) the negroes are evidently a permanent part of the
American population. They are too numerous and useful to be
colonized, and too enduring and self-perpetuating to disappear by
natural causes. Here they are, four millions of them, and, for
weal or for woe, here they must remain. Their history is parallel
to that of the country; but while the history of the latter has
been cheerful and bright with blessings, theirs has been heavy and
dark with agonies and curses. What O'Connell said of the history
of Ireland may with greater truth be said of the negro's. It may
be "traced like a wounded man through a crowd, by the blood."  Yet
the negroes have marvellously survived all the exterminating
forces of slavery, and have emerged at the end of two hundred and
fifty years of bondage, not morose, misanthropic, and revengeful,
but cheerful, hopeful, and forgiving. They now stand before
Congress and the country, not complaining of the past, but simply
asking for a better future. The spectacle of these dusky millions
thus imploring, not demanding, is touching; and if American
statesmen could be moved by a simple appeal to the nobler elements
of human nature, if they had not fallen, seemingly, into the
incurable habit of weighing and measuring every proposition of
reform by some standard of profit and loss, doing wrong from
choice, and right only from necessity or some urgent demand of
human selfishness, it would be enough to plead for the negroes on
the score of past services and sufferings. But no such appeal
shall be relied on here. Hardships, services, sufferings, and
sacrifices are all waived. It is true that they came to the
relief of the country at the hour of its extremest need. It is
true that, in many of the rebellious States, they were almost the
only reliable friends the nation had throughout the whole
tremendous war. It is true that, notwithstanding their alleged
ignorance, they were wiser than their masters, and knew enough to
be loyal, while those masters only knew enough to be rebels and
traitors. It is true that they fought side by side in the loyal
cause with our gallant and patriotic white soldiers, and that, but
for their help,--divided as the loyal States were,--the Rebels
might have succeeded in breaking up the Union, thereby entailing
border wars and troubles of unknown duration and incalculable
calamity. All this and more is true of these loyal negroes. Many
daring exploits will be told to their credit. Impartial history
will paint them as men who deserved well of their country. It
will tell how they forded and swam rivers, with what consummate
address they evaded the sharp-eyed Rebel pickets, how they toiled
in the darkness of night through the tangled marshes of briers and
thorns, barefooted and weary, running the risk of losing their
lives, to warn our generals of Rebel schemes to surprise and
destroy our loyal army. It will tell how these poor people, whose
rights we still despised, behaved to our wounded soldiers, when
found cold, hungry, and bleeding on the deserted battle-field; how
they assisted our escaping prisoners from Andersonville, Belle
Isle, Castle Thunder, and elsewhere, sharing with them their
wretched crusts, and otherwise affording them aid and comfort; how
they promptly responded to the trumpet call for their services,
fighting against a foe that denied them the rights of civilized
warfare, and for a government which was without the courage to
assert those rights and avenge their violation in their behalf;
with what gallantry they flung themselves upon Rebel
fortifications, meeting death as fearlessly as any other troops in
the service. But upon none of these things is reliance placed.
These facts speak to the better dispositions of the human heart;
but they seem of little weight with the opponents of impartial
suffrage.

It is true that a strong plea for equal suffrage might be
addressed to the national sense of honor. Something, too, might
be said of national gratitude. A nation might well hesitate
before the temptation to betray its allies. There is something
immeasurably mean, to say nothing of the cruelty, in placing the
loyal negroes of the South under the political power of their
Rebel masters. To make peace with our enemies is all well enough;
but to prefer our enemies and sacrifice our friends,--to exalt our
enemies and cast down our friends,--to clothe our enemies, who
sought the destruction of the government, with all political
power, and leave our friends powerless in their hands,--is an act
which need not be characterized here. We asked the negroes to
espouse our cause, to be our friends, to fight for us, and against
their masters; and now, after they have done all that we asked
them to do,--helped us to conquer their masters, and thereby
directed toward themselves the furious hate of the vanquished,--it
is proposed in some quarters to turn them over to the political
control of the common enemy of the government and of the negro.
But of this let nothing be said in this place. Waiving humanity,
national honor, the claims of gratitude, the precious satisfaction
arising from deeds of charity and justice to the weak and
defenceless,--the appeal for impartial suffrage addresses itself
with great pertinency to the darkest, coldest, and flintiest side
of the human heart, and would wring righteousness from the
unfeeling calculations of human selfishness.

For in respect to this grand measure it is the good fortune of the
negro that enlightened selfishness, not less than justice, fights
on his side. National interest and national duty, if elsewhere
separated, are firmly united here. The American people can,
perhaps, afford to brave the censure of surrounding nations for
the manifest injustice and meanness of excluding its faithful
black soldiers from the ballot-box, but it cannot afford to allow
the moral and mental energies of rapidly increasing millions to be
consigned to hopeless degradation.

Strong as we are, we need the energy that slumbers in the black
man's arm to make us stronger. We want no longer any heavy-
footed, melancholy service from the negro. We want the cheerful
activity of the quickened manhood of these sable millions. Nor
can we afford to endure the moral blight which the existence of a
degraded and hated class must necessarily inflict upon any people
among whom such a class may exist. Exclude the negroes as a class
from political rights,--teach them that the high and manly
privilege of suffrage is to be enjoyed by white citizens only,--
that they may bear the burdens of the state, but that they are to
have no part in its direction or its honors,--and you at once
deprive them of one of the main incentives to manly character and
patriotic devotion to the interests of the government; in a word,
you stamp them as a degraded caste,--you teach them to despise
themselves, and all others to despise them. Men are so
constituted that they largely derive their ideas of their
abilities and their possibilities from the settled judgments of
their fellow-men, and especially from such as they read in the
institutions under which they live. If these bless them, they are
blest indeed; but if these blast them, they are blasted indeed.
Give the negro the elective franchise, and you give him at once a
powerful motive for all noble exertion, and make him a man among
men. A character is demanded of him, and here as elsewhere demand
favors supply. It is nothing against this reasoning that all men
who vote are not good men or good citizens. It is enough that the
possession and exercise of the elective franchise is in itself an
appeal to the nobler elements of manhood, and imposes education as
essential to the safety of society.

To appreciate the full force of this argument, it must be
observed, that disfranchisement in a republican government based
upon the idea of human equality and universal suffrage, is a very
different thing from disfranchisement in governments based upon
the idea of the divine right of kings, or the entire subjugation
of the masses. Masses of men can take care of themselves.
Besides, the disabilities imposed upon all are necessarily without
that bitter and stinging element of invidiousness which attaches  
to disfranchisement in a republic. What is common to all works no
special sense of degradation to any. But in a country like ours,
where men of all nations, kindred, and tongues are freely
enfranchised, and allowed to vote, to say to the negro, You shall
not vote, is to deal his manhood a staggering blow, and to burn
into his soul a bitter and goading sense of wrong, or else work in
him a stupid indifference to all the elements of a manly
character. As a nation, we cannot afford to have amongst us
either this indifference and stupidity, or that burning sense of
wrong. These sable millions are too powerful to be allowed to
remain either indifferent or discontented. Enfranchise them, and
they become self-respecting and country-loving citizens.
Disfranchise them, and the mark of Cain is set upon them less
mercifully than upon the first murderer, for no man was to hurt
him. But this mark of inferiority--all the more palpable because
of a difference of color--not only dooms the negro to be a
vagabond, but makes him the prey of insult and outrage everywhere.
While nothing may be urged here as to the past services of the
negro, it is quite within the line of this appeal to remind the
nation of the possibility that a time may come when the services
of the negro may be a second time required. History is said to
repeat itself, and, if so, having wanted the negro once, we may
want him again. Can that statesmanship be wise which would leave
the negro good ground to hesitate, when the exigencies of the
country required his prompt assistance? Can that be sound
statesmanship which leaves millions of men in gloomy discontent,
and possibly in a state of alienation in the day of national
trouble? Was not the nation stronger when two hundred thousand
sable soldiers were hurled against the Rebel fortifications, than
it would have been without them? Arming the negro was an urgent
military necessity three years ago,--are we sure that another
quite as pressing may not await us? Casting aside all thought of
justice and magnanimity, is it wise to impose upon the negro all
the burdens involved in sustaining government against foes within
and foes without, to make him equal sharer in all sacrifices for
the public good, to tax him in peace and conscript him in war, and
then coldly exclude him from the ballot-box?

Look across the sea. Is Ireland, in her present condition,
fretful, discontented, compelled to support an establishment in
which she does not believe, and which the vast majority of her
people abhor, a source of power or of weakness to Great Britain?
Is not Austria wise in removing all ground of complaint against
her on the part of Hungary? And does not the Emperor of Russia
act wisely, as well as generously, when he not only breaks up the
bondage of the serf, but extends him all the advantages of Russian
citizenship? Is the present movement in England in favor of
manhood suffrage--for the purpose of bringing four millions of
British subjects into full sympathy and co-operation with the
British government--a wise and humane movement, or otherwise? Is
the existence of a rebellious element in our borders--which New
Orleans, Memphis, and Texas show to be only disarmed, but at heart
as malignant as ever, only waiting for an opportunity to reassert
itself with fire and sword--a reason for leaving four millions of
the nation's truest friends with just cause of complaint against
the Federal government? If the doctrine that taxation should go
hand in hand with representation can be appealed to in behalf of
recent traitors and rebels, may it not properly be asserted in
behalf of a people who have ever been loyal and faithful to the
government? The answers to these questions are too obvious to
require statement. Disguise it as we may, we are still a divided
nation. The Rebel States have still an anti-national policy.
Massachusetts and South Carolina may draw tears from the eyes of
our tender-hearted President by walking arm in arm into his
Philadelphia Convention, but a citizen of Massachusetts is still
an alien in the Palmetto State. There is that, all over the
South, which frightens Yankee industry, capital, and skill from
its borders. We have crushed the Rebellion, but not its hopes or
its malign purposes. The South fought for perfect and permanent
control over the Southern laborer. It was a war of the rich
against the poor. They who waged it had no objection to the
government, while they could use it as a means of confirming their
power over the laborer. They fought the government, not because
they hated the government as such, but because they found it, as
they thought, in the way between them and their one grand purpose
of rendering permanent and indestructible their authority and
power over the Southern laborer. Though the battle is for the
present lost, the hope of gaining this object still exists, and
pervades the whole South with a feverish excitement. We have thus
far only gained a Union without unity, marriage without love,
victory without peace. The hope of gaining by politics what they
lost by the sword, is the secret of all this Southern unrest; and
that hope must be extinguished before national ideas and objects
can take full possession of the Southern mind. There is but one
safe and constitutional way to banish that mischievous hope from
the South, and that is by lifting the laborer beyond the
unfriendly political designs of his former master. Give the negro
the elective franchise, and you at once destroy the purely
sectional policy, and wheel the Southern States into line with
national interests and national objects. The last and shrewdest
turn of Southern politics is a recognition of the necessity of
getting into Congress immediately, and at any price. The South
will comply with any conditions but suffrage for the negro. It
will swallow all the unconstitutional test oaths, repeal all the
ordinances of Secession, repudiate the Rebel debt, promise to pay
the debt incurred in conquering its people, pass all the
constitutional amendments, if only it can have the negro left
under its political control. The proposition is as modest as that
made on the mountain: "All these things will I give unto thee if
thou wilt fall down and worship me."

But why are the Southerners so willing to make these sacrifices?
The answer plainly is, they see in this policy the only hope of
saving something of their old sectional peculiarities and power.
Once firmly seated in Congress, their alliance with Northern
Democrats re-established, their States restored to their former
position inside the Union, they can easily find means of keeping
the Federal government entirely too busy with other important
matters to pay much attention to the local affairs of the Southern
States. Under the potent shield of State Rights, the game would
be in their own hands. Does any sane man doubt for a moment that
the men who followed Jefferson Davis through the late terrible
Rebellion, often marching barefooted and hungry, naked and
penniless, and who now only profess an enforced loyalty, would
plunge this country into a foreign war to-day, if they could
thereby gain their coveted independence, and their still more
coveted mastery over the negroes? Plainly enough, the peace not
less than the prosperity of this country is involved in the great
measure of impartial suffrage. King Cotton is deposed, but only
deposed, and is ready to-day to reassert all his ancient
pretensions upon the first favorable opportunity. Foreign
countries abound with his agents. They are able, vigilant,
devoted. The young men of the South burn with the desire to
regain what they call the lost cause; the women are noisily
malignant towards the Federal government. In fact, all the
elements of treason and rebellion are there under the thinnest
disguise which necessity can impose.

What, then, is the work before Congress? It is to save the people
of the South from themselves, and the nation from detriment on
their account. Congress must supplant the evident sectional
tendencies of the South by national dispositions and tendencies.
It must cause national ideas and objects to take the lead and
control the politics of those States. It must cease to recognize
the old slave-masters as the only competent persons to rule the
South. In a word, it must enfranchise the negro, and by means of
the loyal negroes and the loyal white men of the South build up a
national party there, and in time bridge the chasm between North
and South, so that our country may have a common liberty and a
common civilization. The new wine must be put into new bottles.
The lamb may not be trusted with the wolf. Loyalty is hardly safe
with traitors.

Statesmen of America! beware what you do. The ploughshare of
rebellion has gone through the land beam-deep. The soil is in
readiness, and the seed-time has come. Nations, not less than
individuals, reap as they sow. The dreadful calamities of the
past few years came not by accident, nor unbidden, from the
ground. You shudder to-day at the harvest of blood sown in the
spring-time of the Republic by your patriot fathers. The
principle of slavery, which they tolerated under the erroneous
impression that it would soon die out, became at last the dominant
principle and power at the South. It early mastered the
Constitution, became superior to the Union, and enthroned itself
above the law.

Freedom of speech and of the press it slowly but successfully
banished from the South, dictated its own code of honor and
manners to the nation, brandished the bludgeon and the bowie-knife
over Congressional debate, sapped the foundations of loyalty,
dried up the springs of patriotism, blotted out the testimonies of
the fathers against oppression, padlocked the pulpit, expelled
liberty from its literature, invented nonsensical theories about
master-races and slave-races of men, and in due season produced a
Rebellion fierce, foul, and bloody.

This evil principle again seeks admission into our body politic.
It comes now in shape of a denial of political rights to four
million loyal colored people. The South does not now ask for
slavery. It only asks for a large degraded caste, which shall
have no political rights. This ends the case. Statesmen, beware
what you do. The destiny of unborn and unnumbered generations is
in your hands. Will you repeat the mistake of your fathers, who
sinned ignorantly? or will you profit by the blood-bought wisdom
all round you, and forever expel every vestige of the old
abomination from our national borders? As you members of the
Thirty-ninth Congress decide, will the country be peaceful,
united, and happy, or troubled, divided, and miserable.

THE NEGRO EXODUS
by James B. Runnion

A recent sojourn in the South for a few weeks, chiefly in
Louisiana and Mississippi, gave the writer an opportunity to
inquire into what has been so aptly called "the negro exodus."
The emigration of blacks to Kansas began early in the spring of
this year. For a time there was a stampede from two or three of
the river parishes in Louisiana and as many counties opposite in
Mississippi. Several thousand negroes (certainly not fewer than
five thousand, and variously estimated as high as ten thousand)
had left their cabins before the rush could be stayed or the
excitement lulled. Early in May most of the negroes who had quit
work for the purpose of emigrating, but had not succeeded in
getting off, were persuaded to return to the plantations, and from
that time on there have been only straggling families and groups
that have watched for and seized the first opportunity for
transportation to the North. There is no doubt, however, that
there is still a consuming desire among the negroes of the cotton
districts in these two States to seek new homes, and there are the
best reasons for believing that the exodus will take a new start
next spring, after the gathering and conversion of the growing
crop. Hundreds of negroes who returned from the river-banks for
lack of transportation, and thousands of others infected with the
ruling discontent, are working harder in the fields this summer,
and practicing more economy and self-denial than ever before, in
order to have the means next winter and spring to pay their way to
the "promised land."

"We've been working for fourteen long years," said an intelligent
negro, in reply to a question as to the cause of the prevailing
discontent, "and we ain't no better off than we was when we
commenced."  This is the negro version of the trouble, which is
elaborated on occasion into a harrowing story of oppression and
plunder.

"I tell you it's all owing to the radical politicians at the
North," explained a representative of the type known as the
Bourbons; "they've had their emissaries down here, and deluded the
'niggers' into a very fever of emigration, with the purpose of
reducing our basis of representation in Congress and increasing
that of the Northern States."

These are the two extremes of opinion at the South. The first is
certainly the more reasonable and truthful, though it implies that
all the blame rests upon the whites, which is not the case; the
second, preposterous as it will appear to Northern readers, is
religiously believed by large numbers of the "unreconciled."
Between these two extremes there is an infinite variety of
theories, all more or less governed by the political faction to
which the various theorizers belong; there are at least a dozen of
these factions, such as the Bourbons, the conservatives, the
native white republicans, the carpet-bag republicans, the negro
republicans, etc. There is a political tinge in almost everything
in the extreme Southern States. The fact seems to be that the
emigration movement among the blacks was spontaneous to the extent
that they were ready and anxious to go. The immediate notion of
going may have been inculcated by such circulars, issued by
railroads and land companies, as are common enough at emigrant
centres in the North and West, and the exaggeration characteristic
of such literature may have stimulated the imagination of the
negroes far beyond anything they are likely to realize in their
new homes. Kansas was naturally the favorite goal of the negro
emigre, for it was associated in his mind with the names of Jim
Lane and John Brown, which are hallowed to him. The timid learned
that they could escape what they have come to regard as a second
bondage, and they flocked together to gain the moral support which
comes from numbers.

Diligent inquiry among representative men, of all classes and from
all parts of Louisiana, who were in attendance at the
constitutional convention in New Orleans, and careful observation
along the river among the land owners and field hands in both
Louisiana and Mississippi, left a vivid impression of some
material and political conditions which fully account for the
negro exodus. I have dropped the social conditions out of the
consideration, because I became convinced that the race troubles
at the South can be solved to the satisfaction of both whites and
blacks without cultivating any closer social relations than those
which now prevail. The material conditions which I have in mind
are less familiar than the political conditions; they are mainly
the land-tenure and credit systems, and mere modifications
(scarcely for the better) of the peculiar plantation system of
slavery days.

The cotton lands at the South are owned now, as they were before
the war, in large tracts. The land was about all that most of the
Southern whites had left to them after the war, and they kept it
when they could, at the first, in the hope that it would yield
them a living through the labor of the blacks; of late years they
have not been able to sell their plantations at any fair price, if
they desired to do so. The white men with capital who went to the
South from the North after the war seemed to acquire the true
Southern ambition to be large land owners and planters; and when
the ante-bellum owners lost their plantations the land usually
went in bulk to the city factors who had made them advances from
year to year, and had taken mortgages on their crops and broad
acres. As a consequence, the land has never been distributed
among the people who inhabit and cultivate it, and agricultural
labor in the Southern States approaches the condition of the
factory labor in England and the Eastern States more nearly than
it does the farm labor of the North and West. Nearly every
agricultural laborer north of Mason and Dixon's line, if not the
actual possessor of the land he plows, looks forward to owning a
farm some time; at the South such an ambition is rare, and small
ownership still more an exception. The practice of paying day
wages was first tried after the war; this practice is still in
vogue in the sugar and rice districts, where laborers are paid
from fifty to seventy cents per day, with quarters furnished and
living guaranteed them at nine or ten cents a day. In sections
where the wages system prevails, and where there have been no
political disturbances, the negroes seem to be perfectly
contented; at all events, the emigration fever has not spread
among them. But it was found impracticable to maintain the wage
system in the cotton districts. The negroes themselves fought
against it, because it reminded them too much of the slave-gang,
driven out at daybreak and home at sundown. In many cases the
planters were forced to abandon it, because they had not the means
to carry on such huge farming, and they could not secure the same
liberal advances from capitalists as when they were able to
mortgage a growing "crop of niggers."  Then the system of working
on shares was tried. This was reasonably fair, and the negro
laborers were satisfied as long as it lasted. The owners of the
land, under this system, would furnish the indispensable mule and
the farming implements, and take one half the product. The
planters themselves relinquished this system. Some of them
contend that the laziness and indifference of the negro made the
partnership undesirable; many others admit that they were not able
to advance the negro tenant his supplies pending the growth of the
year's crop, as it was necessary they should do under the sharing
system. Now the renting system is almost universal. It yields
the land owner a certainty, endangered only by the death,
sickness, or desertion of the negro tenant; but it throws the
latter upon his own responsibility, and frequently makes him the
victim of his own ignorance and the rapacity of the white man.
The rent of land, on a money basis, varies from six to ten dollars
an acre per year, while the same land can be bought in large
quantities all the way from fifteen to thirty dollars per acre,
according to location, clearing, improvement, richness, etc. When
paid in product, the rent varies from eighty to one hundred pounds
of lint cotton per acre for land that produces from two hundred to
four hundred pounds of cotton per acre; the tenant undertakes to
pay from one quarter to one half--perhaps an average of one third--
of his crop for the use of the land, without stock, tools, or
assistance of any kind. The land owners usually claim that they
make no money even at these exorbitant figures. If they do not,
it is because only a portion of their vast possessions is under
cultivation, because they do no work themselves, and in some cases
because the negroes do not cultivate and gather as large a crop as
they could and ought to harvest. It is very certain that the
negro tenants, as a class, make no money; if they are out of debt
at the end of a season, they have reason to rejoice.

The credit system, which is as universal as the renting system, is
even more illogical and oppressive. The utter viciousness of both
systems in their mutual dependence is sufficiently illustrated by
the single fact that, after fourteen years of freedom and labor on
their own account, the great mass of the negroes depend for their
living on an advance of supplies (as they need food, clothing, or
tools during the year) upon the pledge of their growing crop.
This is a generic imitation of the white man's improvidence during
the slavery times; then the planters mortgaged their crops and
negroes, and where one used the advances to extend his plantation,
ten squandered the money. The negro's necessities have developed
an offensive race, called merchants by courtesy, who keep supply
stores at the cross-roads and steamboat landings, and live upon
extortion. These people would be called sharks, harpies, and
vampires in any Northwestern agricultural community, and they
would not survive more than one season. The country merchant
advances the negro tenant such supplies as the negro wants up to a
certain amount, previously fixed by contract, and charges the
negro at least double the value of every article sold to him.
There is no concealment about the extortion; every store-keeper
has his cash price and his credit price, and in nearly all cases
the latter is one hundred per cent. higher than the former. The
extortion is justified by those who practice it on the ground that
their losses by bad debts, though their advances are always
secured by mortgage on the growing crop, overbalance the profits;
this assertion is scarcely borne out by the comparative opulence
of the "merchant" and the pitiful poverty of the laborer. Some of
the largest and wealthiest planters have sought to protect their
tenants from the merciless clutches of the contrary merchant, who
is more frequently than not an Israelite, by advancing supplies of
necessary articles at reasonable prices. But the necessities of
the planter, if not his greed, often betray him into plundering
the negro. The planter himself is generally a victim to usury.
He still draws on the city factor to the extent of ten dollars a
bale upon his estimated crop. He pays this factor two and one
half per cent. commission for the advance, eight per cent.
interest for the money, two and one half per cent. more for
disposing of the crop when consigned to him, and sometimes still
another commission for the purchase of the supplies. The planter
who furnishes his tenants with supplies on credit is usually
paying an interest of fifteen to eighteen per cent. himself, and
necessarily takes some risk in advancing upon an uncertain crop
and to a laborer whom he believes to be neither scrupulous nor
industrious; these conditions necessitate more than the ordinary
profit, and in many cases suggest exorbitant and unreasonable
charges. But whether the negro deals with the merchant or the
land owner, his extravagance almost invariably exhausts his
credit, even if it be large. The negro is a sensuous creature,
and luxurious in his way. The male is an enormous consumer of
tobacco and whisky; the female has an inordinate love for
flummery; both are fond of sardines, potted meats, and canned
goods generally, and they indulge themselves without any other
restraint than the refusal of their merchant to sell to them. The
man who advances supplies watches his negro customers constantly;
if they are working well and their crop promises to be large, he
will permit and even encourage them to draw upon him liberally; it
is only a partial failure of the crop, or some intimation of the
negro's intention to shirk his obligations, that induces his
country factor to preach the virtue of self-restraint, or moralize
upon the advantages of economy.

The land owner's rent and the merchant's advances are both secured
by a chattel mortgage on the tenant's personal property, and by a
pledge of the growing crop. The hired laborer (for it is common
for negroes to work for wages for other negroes who rent lands)
has also a lien upon the growing crops second only to the land
owner's; but as the law requires that the liens shall be recorded,
which the ignorant laborer usually neglects and the shrewd
merchant never fails to do, the former is generally cheated of his
security. Among those who usually work for hire are the women,
who are expert cotton pickers, and the loss of wages which so many
of them have suffered by reason of the prior lien gained by
landlord and merchant has helped to make them earnest and
effective advocates of emigration. The Western farmer considers
it hard enough to struggle under one mortgage at a reasonable
interest; the negro tenant begins his season with three mortgages,
covering all he owns, his labor for the coming year, and all he
expects to acquire during that period. He pays one third his
product for the use of the land; he pays double the value of all
he consumes; he pays an exorbitant fee for recording the contract
by which he pledges his pound of flesh; he is charged two or three
times as much as he ought to pay for ginning his cotton; and,
finally, he turns over his crop to be eaten up in commissions, if
anything still be left to him. It is easy to understand why the
negro rarely gets ahead in the world. This mortgaging of future
services, which is practically what a pledge of the growing crop
amounts to, is in the nature of bondage. It has a tendency to
make the negro extravagant, reckless, and unscrupulous; he has
become convinced from previous experience that nothing will be
coming to him on the day of settlement, and he is frequently
actuated by the purpose of getting as much as possible and working
as little as possible. Cases are numerous in which the negro
abandons his own crop at picking time, because he knows that he
has already eaten up its full value; and so he goes to picking for
wages on some other plantation. In other cases, where negroes
have acquired mules and farming implements upon which a merchant
has secured a mortgage in the manner described, they are
practically bound to that merchant from year to year, in order to
retain their property; if he removes from one section to another,
they must follow him, and rent and cultivate lands in his
neighborhood. It is only the ignorance, the improvidence, and the
happy disposition of the negro, under the influence of the lazy,
drowsy climate, to which he is so well adapted physically, that
have enabled him to endure these hardships so long. And, though
the negro is the loser, the white man is not often the gainer,
from this false plantation and mercantile system. The incidental
risk may not be so large as the planter and merchant pretend, but
the condition of the people is an evidence that the extortion they
practice yields no better profit in the long run than would be
gained by competition in fair prices on a cash system; and in
leading up to a general emigration of the laboring population the
abuses described will eventually ruin and impoverish those who
have heretofore been the only beneficiaries thereof. The decay of
improvements inevitable under annual rentings, the lack of
sufficient labor to cultivate all the good land, and the universal
idleness of the rural whites have kept the land owners
comparatively poor; the partial failure of crops and the
unscrupulousness of the negro debtor, engendered by the infamous
exactions of his creditor, have prevented the merchants, as a
class, from prospering as much as might be supposed; and, finally,
the uniform injustice to the laborers induces them to fly to ills
they know not of, rather than bear those they have. It is a
blessing to the negro that the laws do not yet provide for a
detention of the person in the case of debt, or escape would be
shut off entirely; as it is, various influences and circumstances
appertaining to the system in vogue have been used to prevent the
easy flight of those who desire to go, and have detained thousands
of blacks for a time who are fretting to quit the country.

Political oppression has contributed largely to the discontent
which is the prime cause of the exodus. "Bulldozing" is the term
by which all forms of this oppression are known. The native
whites are generally indisposed to confess that the negroes are
quitting the country on account of political injustice and
persecution; even those who freely admit and fitly characterize
the abuses already described seek to deny, or at least belittle,
the political abuses. The fact that a large number of negroes
have emigrated from Madison Parish, Louisiana, where there has
never been any bulldozing, and where the negroes are in full and
undisputed political control, is cited as proof that political
disturbances cut no figure in the case. But the town of Delta, in
Madison Parish, is at once on the river and the terminus of a
railroad that runs back through the interior of the State; thus
Madison Parish would furnish the natural exit for the fugitives
from the adjoining counties, where there have been political
disturbances. It would be just as reasonable to contend that the
plundering of the negroes has had no influence in driving them
away, since many of those who have emigrated were among the most
prosperous of the blacks, as to deny the agency of political
persecution. Families that had been able to accumulate a certain
amount of personal property, in spite of the extortionate
practices, sold their mules, their implements, their cows, their
pigs, their sheep, and their household goods for anything they
would bring,--frequently as low as one sixth of their value,--in
order that they might improve an immediate opportunity to go away;
it is evident that there must have been some cause outside of
extortion in their case. There are candid native whites who do
not deny, but justify, the violent methods which have been
employed to disfranchise the negroes, or compel them to vote under
white dictation, in many parts of Louisiana and Mississippi, on
the ground that the men who pay the taxes should vote them and
control the disbursement of the public moneys. The gentlemen who
advance this argument seem to ignore the fact that the very
Northerner whom they are seeking to convert to "the Mississippi
plan" may himself be a taxpayer in some Northern city, where
public affairs are controlled by a class of voters in every way as
ignorant and irresponsible as the blacks, but where bulldozing has
never yet been suggested as a remedy. For the rest, the evidences
of political oppression are abundant and convincing. The
bulldozers as a class are more impecunious and irresponsible than
the negroes, and, unlike the negroes, they will not work. There
has been more of the "night-riding," the whippings, the mysterious
disappearances, the hangings, and the terrorism comprehended in
the term bulldozing than has been reported by those "abstracts and
brief chronicles of the time," the Southern newspapers, which are
now all of one party, and defer to the ruling sentiment among the
whites. The exodus has wrung from two or three of the more candid
and independent journals, however, a virtual confession of the
fiendish practices of bulldozing in their insistance that these
practices must be abandoned. The non-resident land owners and the
resident planters, the city factors and the country merchants of
means and respectability, have taken no personal part in the
terrorizing of the negro, but they have tolerated it, and
sometimes encouraged it, in order to gratify their preference for
"white government."  The negroes have suffered the more because
they have not resisted and defended themselves; now they have
begun to convince those who have persecuted them that, if they
will not strike back, they can and will run away. No one who is
at all familiar with the freedman can doubt that the abridgment of
his political rights has been one of the main causes of the
exodus. Voting is widely regarded at the North as a disagreeable
duty, but the negro looks upon it as the highest privilege in
life; to be frightened out of the exercise of this privilege, or
compelled to exercise it in conflict with his convictions and
preferences, is to suffer from a cruel injustice, which the negro
will now try to escape, since he has learned that escape is
possible. The women, though free from personal assaults, suffer
from the terrorism that prevails in certain districts as much as
the men. "We might as well starve or freeze to death in Kansas,"
they say, "as to be shot-gunned here."  If they talk to you in
confidence, they declare that the ruling purpose is to escape from
the "slaughter-pens" of the South. Political persecution, and
not the extortion they suffer, is the refrain of all the speakers
at negro meetings that are held in encouragement and aid of the
emigration. It is idle to deny that the varied injustice which
the negroes have suffered as voters is accountable for a large
part of their universal yearning for new homes, and it will be
folly for the responsible classes at the South to ignore this
fact.

As it is the negroes who are fleeing from the South, it is natural
to look among the dominant class for the injustice which is
driving them away; but it would be unfair to conclude that the
blame rests entirely upon the whites, and still more so to leave
the impression that there is no extenuation for the mistakes and
abuses for which the whites are responsible. Much of the
intimidation of the blacks has been tolerated, if not suggested,
by a fear of negro uprisings. The apprehension is a legacy from
the days of slavery, and is more unreasonable now than it was
then; but still it exists. This is not an excuse, but an
explanation. The Pharaohs of the time of Moses were in constant
dread lest the Hebrews under their rule should go over to their
enemies, and their dread doubtless increased the cruelty of the
Egyptians; but, while this dread was an extenuation in the eyes of
the persecutors, it did not prevent the Hebrews from fleeing the
persecution. So the blacks are going without regard to the
justification which the whites may set up for their treatment; the
only difference between the old and new exodus is that, as the
writer heard one negro speaker express it, "every black man is his
own Moses in this exodus."  The negro may be lazy; it seems
impossible to be otherwise in the Southern climate. He may not be
willing to work on Saturdays, no matter how urgent the necessity;
the indulgence in holidays is said to be one of the chief
drawbacks to the advancement of the emancipated serfs of Russia.
The blacks are certainly extravagant in their way, though the word
seems to be almost misused in connection with a race who live
largely on pork and molasses, and rarely wear more than half a
dollar's worth of clothes at one time. They have not the instinct
of home as it prevails among the whites, but incline to a crude
and unsystematic communism; the negro quarters of the old
plantations are all huddled together in the centre, and, except
where the land owners have interfered to encourage a different
life, there is still too much promiscuousness in the relation of
the sexes. The negro, as a rule, has no ambition to become a land
owner; he prefers to invest his surplus money, when he has any, in
personal and movable property. In most cases where the blacks
have been given the opportunity of buying land on long time, and
paying yearly installments out of the proceeds of their annual
crops, they have tired of the bargain after a year or two, and
abandoned the contract. The negro politicians and preachers are
not all that reformers and moralists would have them; the
imitative faculty of the African has betrayed the black politician
into many of the vicious ways of the white politician, and the
colored preacher is frequently not above "the pomps and vanity of
this wicked world."  All this is the more unfortunate, as the
blacks have a child-like confidence in their chosen leaders,
founded partly on their primitive character, and partly on their
distrust of the native whites. Both their politicians and their
preachers have given abundant evidence of their insincerity during
the excitement of emigration by blowing hot and blowing cold; by
talking to the negroes one way, and to the whites another; and
even to the extent, in some instances, of taking money to use
their influence for discouraging and impeding emigration. These
are some of the faults and misfortunes on the part of the blacks
which enter into the race troubles. The chief blame which
attaches to the whites is the failure to make a persistent effort,
by education and kind treatment, to overcome the distrust and cure
the faults of the negroes. The whites control, because they
constitute the "property and intelligence" of the South, to use
the words of a democratic statesman; this power should have been
used to gain the confidence of the blacks. Had such a course been
taken, there would not have been the fear of reenslavement, which
actually prevails to a considerable extent among the negroes. So
long as a portion of the whites entertain the conviction that the
war of the sections will be renewed within a few years, as is the
case, the negroes will suspect and dread the class who would treat
them as enemies in case the war should come, and will seek to
escape to a section of the country where they would not be so
treated. Perhaps, too, there would have been a voluntary
political division among the black voters, had the whites used
more pacific means to bring it about, and had they themselves set
the example. And last, but not least, in making up the sum of
blame that the whites must bear, is their own unwillingness to
labor, which gives the rural population too much time for mischief
and too little sympathy with the working classes.

As we have traced the causes that have led to the exodus, and
described the conditions which warrant the belief that there will
be a renewal of the emigration on a more extended scale next
spring, and endeavored to distribute the responsibility for the
troubles equitably among whites and blacks, remedies have
naturally suggested themselves to the reader; in fact, they are
more easily to be thought out than accomplished. A few general
reflections may be added, however, in order to indicate the
probable solution of the race troubles that have brought about the
exodus, if, indeed, the whites and blacks of the South are ever
going to live together in peace.

(1.)  It is certain that negro labor is the best the South can
have, and equally certain that the climate and natural conditions
of the South are better suited to the negro than any others on
this continent. The alluvial lands, which many persons believe
the negroes alone can cultivate, on account of climatic
conditions, are so rich that it might literally be said it is only
necessary to tickle them with a hoe to make them laugh back a
harvest. The common prosperity of the country--the agricultural
interests of the South and the commercial interests of the North--
will be best served, therefore, by the continued residence and
labor of the blacks in the cotton States.

(2.)  The fact stated in the foregoing paragraph is so well
understood at the North that the Southern people should dismiss
the idea that there is any scheming among the Northern people,
political or otherwise, to draw the black labor away from its
natural home. The same fact should also influence the people at
the North not to be misled by any professional philanthropists who
may have some self-interest in soliciting aid to facilitate negro
emigration from the South. The duty of the North in this matter
is simply to extend protection and assure safe-conduct to the
negroes, if the Southern whites attempt to impede voluntary
emigration by either law or violence. Any other course might be
cruel to the negro in encouraging him to enter on a new life in a
strange climate, as well as an injustice to the white land owners
of the South.

(3.)  There is danger that the Southern whites will, as a rule,
misinterpret the meaning of the exodus. Many are inclined to
underrate its importance, and those who appreciate its
significance are apt to look for temporary and superficial
remedies. The vague promises made at the Vicksburg convention,
which was controlled by the whites, and called to consider the
emigration movement, have had no influence with the negroes,
because they have heard such promises before. Had the convention
adopted some definite plan of action, such as ex-Governor Foote,
of Mississippi, submitted, its session might not have been in
vain. This plan was to establish a committee in every county,
composed of men who have the confidence of both whites and blacks,
that should be auxiliary to the public authorities, listen to
complaints, and arbitrate, advise, conciliate, or prosecute, as
each case should demand. It is short-sighted for the Southern
people to make mere temporary concessions, such as have been made
in some cases this year, for that course would establish an annual
strike. It is folly for them to suppose they can stem the tide of
emigration by influencing the regular lines of steamboats not to
carry the refugees, for the people of the North will see that the
blacks shall not be detained in the South against their will. It
is unwise for them to devise schemes for importing Chinese, or
encouraging the immigration of white labor as a substitute for
negro labor, when they may much better bestir themselves to make
the present effective labor content.

(4.)  Education will be the most useful agent to employ in the
permanent harmonizing of the two races, and the redemption of both
from the faults and follies which constitute their troubles. It
is not the education of the negro alone, whose ambition for
learning is increasing notably with every new generation, but the
education of the mass of the young whites, that is needed to
inculcate more tolerance of color and opinion, to give them an
aspiration beyond that of riding a horse and hanging a "nigger,"
and to enable them to set a better example to the imitative blacks
in the way of work and frugality. The blacks need the education
to protect them from designing white men; the whites need it to
teach them that their own interests will be best served by
abandoning bulldozing of all kinds.

(5.)  Reform in the land tenure, by converting the plantation
monopolies into small holdings; abolition of the credit system, by
abandoning the laws which sustain it; a diversification of crops;
and attention to new manufacturing, maritime, and commercial
enterprises,--these are the material changes that are most needed.
They can be secured only through the active and earnest efforts of
the whites. The blacks will be found responsive.

(6.)  The hope of the negro exodus at its present stage, or even
if it shall continue another season, is that the actual loss of
the valuable labor that has gone, and the prospective loss of more
labor that is anxious to go, will induce the intelligent and
responsible classes at the South to overcome their own prejudices,
and to compel the extremists, irreconcilables, and politicians
generally, of all parties, to abandon agitation, and give the
South equal peace and equal chance for black and white.

MY ESCAPE FROM SLAVERY
by Frederick Douglass

In the first narrative of my experience in slavery, written nearly
forty years ago, and in various writings since, I have given the
public what I considered very good reasons for withholding the
manner of my escape. In substance these reasons were, first, that
such publication at any time during the existence of slavery might
be used by the master against the slave, and prevent the future
escape of any who might adopt the same means that I did. The
second reason was, if possible, still more binding to silence: the
publication of details would certainly have put in peril the
persons and property of those who assisted. Murder itself was not
more sternly and certainly punished in the State of Maryland than
that of aiding and abetting the escape of a slave. Many colored
men, for no other crime than that of giving aid to a fugitive
slave, have, like Charles T. Torrey, perished in prison. The
abolition of slavery in my native State and throughout the
country, and the lapse of time, render the caution hitherto
observed no longer necessary. But even since the abolition of
slavery, I have sometimes thought it well enough to baffle
curiosity by saying that while slavery existed there were good
reasons for not telling the manner of my escape, and since slavery
had ceased to exist, there was no reason for telling it. I shall
now, however, cease to avail myself of this formula, and, as far
as I can, endeavor to satisfy this very natural curiosity. I
should, perhaps, have yielded to that feeling sooner, had there
been anything very heroic or thrilling in the incidents connected
with my escape, for I am sorry to say I have nothing of that sort
to tell; and yet the courage that could risk betrayal and the
bravery which was ready to encounter death, if need be, in pursuit
of freedom, were essential features in the undertaking. My
success was due to address rather than courage, to good luck
rather than bravery. My means of escape were provided for me by
the very men who were making laws to hold and bind me more
securely in slavery.

It was the custom in the State of Maryland to require the free
colored people to have what were called free papers. These
instruments they were required to renew very often, and by
charging a fee for this writing, considerable sums from time to
time were collected by the State. In these papers the name, age,
color, height, and form of the freeman were described, together
with any scars or other marks upon his person which could assist
in his identification. This device in some measure defeated
itself--since more than one man could be found to answer the same
general description. Hence many slaves could escape by
personating the owner of one set of papers; and this was often
done as follows: A slave, nearly or sufficiently answering the
description set forth in the papers, would borrow or hire them
till by means of them he could escape to a free State, and then,
by mail or otherwise, would return them to the owner. The
operation was a hazardous one for the lender as well as for the
borrower. A failure on the part of the fugitive to send back the
papers would imperil his benefactor, and the discovery of the
papers in possession of the wrong man would imperil both the
fugitive and his friend. It was, therefore, an act of supreme
trust on the part of a freeman of color thus to put in jeopardy
his own liberty that another might be free. It was, however, not
unfrequently bravely done, and was seldom discovered. I was not
so fortunate as to resemble any of my free acquaintances
sufficiently to answer the description of their papers. But I had
a friend--a sailor--who owned a sailor's protection, which
answered somewhat the purpose of free papers--describing his
person, and certifying to the fact that he was a free American
sailor. The instrument had at its head the American eagle, which
gave it the appearance at once of an authorized document. This
protection, when in my hands, did not describe its bearer very
accurately. Indeed, it called for a man much darker than myself,
and close examination of it would have caused my arrest at the
start.

In order to avoid this fatal scrutiny on the part of railroad
officials, I arranged with Isaac Rolls, a Baltimore hackman, to
bring my baggage to the Philadelphia train just on the moment of
starting, and jumped upon the car myself when the train was in
motion. Had I gone into the station and offered to purchase a
ticket, I should have been instantly and carefully examined, and
undoubtedly arrested. In choosing this plan I considered the
jostle of the train, and the natural haste of the conductor, in a
train crowded with passengers, and relied upon my skill and
address in playing the sailor, as described in my protection, to
do the rest. One element in my favor was the kind feeling which
prevailed in Baltimore and other sea-ports at the time, toward
"those who go down to the sea in ships."  "Free trade and sailors'
rights" just then expressed the sentiment of the country. In my
clothing I was rigged out in sailor style. I had on a red shirt
and a tarpaulin hat, and a black cravat tied in sailor fashion
carelessly and loosely about my neck. My knowledge of ships and
sailor's talk came much to my assistance, for I knew a ship from
stem to stern, and from keelson to cross-trees, and could talk
sailor like an "old salt."  I was well on the way to Havre de
Grace before the conductor came into the negro car to collect
tickets and examine the papers of his black passengers. This was
a critical moment in the drama. My whole future depended upon the
decision of this conductor. Agitated though I was while this
ceremony was proceeding, still, externally, at least, I was
apparently calm and self-possessed. He went on with his duty--
examining several colored passengers before reaching me. He was
somewhat harsh in tome and peremptory in manner until he reached
me, when, strange enough, and to my surprise and relief, his whole
manner changed. Seeing that I did not readily produce my free
papers, as the other colored persons in the car had done, he said
to me, in friendly contrast with his bearing toward the others:

"I suppose you have your free papers?"

To which I answered:

"No sir; I never carry my free papers to sea with me."

"But you have something to show that you are a freeman, haven't
you?"

"Yes, sir," I answered; "I have a paper with the American Eagle on
it, and that will carry me around the world."

With this I drew from my deep sailor's pocket my seaman's
protection, as before described. The merest glance at the paper
satisfied him, and he took my fare and went on about his business.
This moment of time was one of the most anxious I ever
experienced. Had the conductor looked closely at the paper, he
could not have failed to discover that it called for a very
different-looking person from myself, and in that case it would
have been his duty to arrest me on the instant, and send me back
to Baltimore from the first station. When he left me with the
assurance that I was all right, though much relieved, I realized
that I was still in great danger: I was still in Maryland, and
subject to arrest at any moment. I saw on the train several
persons who would have known me in any other clothes, and I feared
they might recognize me, even in my sailor "rig," and report me to
the conductor, who would then subject me to a closer examination,
which I knew well would be fatal to me.

Though I was not a murderer fleeing from justice, I felt perhaps
quite as miserable as such a criminal. The train was moving at a
very high rate of speed for that epoch of railroad travel, but to
my anxious mind it was moving far too slowly. Minutes were hours,
and hours were days during this part of my flight. After
Maryland, I was to pass through Delaware--another slave State,
where slave-catchers generally awaited their prey, for it was not
in the interior of the State, but on its borders, that these human
hounds were most vigilant and active. The border lines between
slavery and freedom were the dangerous ones for the fugitives.
The heart of no fox or deer, with hungry hounds on his trail in
full chase, could have beaten more anxiously or noisily than did
mine from the time I left Baltimore till I reached Philadelphia.
The passage of the Susquehanna River at Havre de Grace was at that
time made by ferry-boat, on board of which I met a young colored
man by the name of Nichols, who came very near betraying me. He
was a "hand" on the boat, but, instead of minding his business, he
insisted upon knowing me, and asking me dangerous questions as to
where I was going, when I was coming back, etc. I got away from
my old and inconvenient acquaintance as soon as I could decently
do so, and went to another part of the boat. Once across the
river, I encountered a new danger. Only a few days before, I had
been at work on a revenue cutter, in Mr. Price's ship-yard in
Baltimore, under the care of Captain McGowan. On the meeting at
this point of the two trains, the one going south stopped on the
track just opposite to the one going north, and it so happened
that this Captain McGowan sat at a window where he could see me
very distinctly, and would certainly have recognized me had he
looked at me but for a second. Fortunately, in the hurry of the
moment, he did not see me; and the trains soon passed each other
on their respective ways. But this was not my only hair-breadth
escape. A German blacksmith whom I knew well was on the train
with me, and looked at me very intently, as if he thought he had
seen me somewhere before in his travels. I really believe he knew
me, but had no heart to betray me. At any rate, he saw me
escaping and held his peace.

The last point of imminent danger, and the one I dreaded most, was
Wilmington. Here we left the train and took the steam-boat for
Philadelphia. In making the change here I again apprehended
arrest, but no one disturbed me, and I was soon on the broad and
beautiful Delaware, speeding away to the Quaker City. On reaching
Philadelphia in the afternoon, I inquired of a colored man how I
could get on to New York. He directed me to the William-street
depot, and thither I went, taking the train that night. I reached
New York Tuesday morning, having completed the journey in less
than twenty-four hours.

My free life began on the third of September, 1838. On the
morning of the fourth of that month, after an anxious and most
perilous but safe journey, I found myself in the big city of New
York, a FREE MAN--one more added to the mighty throng which, like
the confused waves of the troubled sea, surged to and fro between
the lofty walls of Broadway. Though dazzled with the wonders
which met me on every hand, my thoughts could not be much
withdrawn from my strange situation. For the moment, the dreams
of my youth and the hopes of my manhood were completely fulfilled.
The bonds that had held me to "old master" were broken. No man
now had a right to call me his slave or assert mastery over me. I
was in the rough and tumble of an outdoor world, to take my chance
with the rest of its busy number. I have often been asked how I
felt when first I found myself on free soil. There is scarcely
anything in my experience about which I could not give a more
satisfactory answer. A new world had opened upon me. If life is
more than breath and the "quick round of blood," I lived more in
that one day than in a year of my slave life. It was a time of
joyous excitement which words can but tamely describe. In a
letter written to a friend soon after reaching New York, I said:
"I felt as one might feel upon escape from a den of hungry lions."
Anguish and grief, like darkness and rain, may be depicted; but
gladness and joy, like the rainbow, defy the skill of pen or
pencil. During ten or fifteen years I had been, as it were,
dragging a heavy chain which no strength of mine could break; I
was not only a slave, but a slave for life. I might become a
husband, a father, an aged man, but through all, from birth to
death, from the cradle to the grave, I had felt myself doomed.
All efforts I had previously made to secure my freedom had not
only failed, but had seemed only to rivet my fetters the more
firmly, and to render my escape more difficult. Baffled,
entangled, and discouraged, I had at times asked myself the
question, May not my condition after all be God's work, and
ordered for a wise purpose, and if so, Is not submission my duty?
A contest had in fact been going on in my mind for a long time,
between the clear consciousness of right and the plausible make-
shifts of theology and superstition. The one held me an abject
slave--a prisoner for life, punished for some transgression in
which I had no lot nor part; and the other counseled me to manly
endeavor to secure my freedom. This contest was now ended; my
chains were broken, and the victory brought me unspeakable joy.

But my gladness was short-lived, for I was not yet out of the
reach and power of the slave-holders. I soon found that New York
was not quite so free or so safe a refuge as I had supposed, and a
sense of loneliness and insecurity again oppressed me most sadly.
I chanced to meet on the street, a few hours after my landing, a
fugitive slave whom I had once known well in slavery. The
information received from him alarmed me. The fugitive in
question was known in Baltimore as "Allender's Jake," but in New
York he wore the more respectable name of "William Dixon."  Jake,
in law, was the property of Doctor Allender, and Tolly Allender,
the son of the doctor, had once made an effort to recapture MR.
DIXON, but had failed for want of evidence to support his claim.
Jake told me the circumstances of this attempt, and how narrowly
he escaped being sent back to slavery and torture. He told me
that New York was then full of Southerners returning from the
Northern watering-places; that the colored people of New York
were not to be trusted; that there were hired men of my own color
who would betray me for a few dollars; that there were hired men
ever on the lookout for fugitives; that I must trust no man with
my secret; that I must not think of going either upon the wharves
or into any colored boarding-house, for all such places were
closely watched; that he was himself unable to help me; and, in
fact, he seemed while speaking to me to fear lest I myself might
be a spy and a betrayer. Under this apprehension, as I suppose,
he showed signs of wishing to be rid of me, and with whitewash
brush in hand, in search of work, he soon disappeared.

This picture, given by poor "Jake," of New York, was a damper to
my enthusiasm. My little store of money would soon be exhausted,
and since it would be unsafe for me to go on the wharves for work,
and I had no introductions elsewhere, the prospect for me was far
from cheerful. I saw the wisdom of keeping away from the ship-
yards, for, if pursued, as I felt certain I should be, Mr. Auld,
my "master," would naturally seek me there among the calkers.
Every door seemed closed against me. I was in the midst of an
ocean of my fellow-men, and yet a perfect stranger to every one.
I was without home, without acquaintance, without money, without
credit, without work, and without any definite knowledge as to
what course to take, or where to look for succor. In such an
extremity, a man had something besides his new-born freedom to
think of. While wandering about the streets of New York, and
lodging at least one night among the barrels on one of the
wharves, I was indeed free--from slavery, but free from food and
shelter as well. I kept my secret to myself as long as I could,
but I was compelled at last to seek some one who would befriend me
without taking advantage of my destitution to betray me. Such a
person I found in a sailor named Stuart, a warm-hearted and
generous fellow, who, from his humble home on Centre street, saw
me standing on the opposite sidewalk, near the Tombs prison. As
he approached me, I ventured a remark to him which at once
enlisted his interest in me. He took me to his home to spend the
night, and in the morning went with me to Mr. David Ruggles, the
secretary of the New York Vigilance Committee, a co-worker with
Isaac T. Hopper, Lewis and Arthur Tappan, Theodore S. Wright,
Samuel Cornish, Thomas Downing, Philip A. Bell, and other true men
of their time. All these (save Mr. Bell, who still lives, and is
editor and publisher of a paper called the "Elevator," in San
Francisco) have finished their work on earth. Once in the hands
of these brave and wise men, I felt comparatively safe. With Mr.
Ruggles, on the corner of Lispenard and Church streets, I was
hidden several days, during which time my intended wife came on
from Baltimore at my call, to share the burdens of life with me.
She was a free woman, and came at once on getting the good news of
my safety. We were married by Rev. J. W. C. Pennington, then a
well-known and respected Presbyterian minister. I had no money
with which to pay the marriage fee, but he seemed well pleased
with our thanks.

Mr. Ruggles was the first officer on the "Underground Railroad"
whom I met after coming North, and was, indeed, the only one with
whom I had anything to do till I became such an officer myself.
Learning that my trade was that of a calker, he promptly decided
that the best place for me was in New Bedford, Mass. He told me
that many ships for whaling voyages were fitted out there, and
that I might there find work at my trade and make a good living.
So, on the day of the marriage ceremony, we took our little
luggage to the steamer JOHN W. RICHMOND, which, at that time, was
one of the line running between New York and Newport, R. I.
Forty-three years ago colored travelers were not permitted in the
cabin, nor allowed abaft the paddle-wheels of a steam vessel.
They were compelled, whatever the weather might be,--whether cold
or hot, wet or dry,--to spend the night on deck. Unjust as this
regulation was, it did not trouble us much; we had fared much
harder before. We arrived at Newport the next morning, and soon
after an old fashioned stage-coach, with "New Bedford" in large
yellow letters on its sides, came down to the wharf. I had not
money enough to pay our fare, and stood hesitating what to do.
Fortunately for us, there were two Quaker gentlemen who were about
to take passage on the stage,--Friends William C. Taber and Joseph
Ricketson,--who at once discerned our true situation, and, in a
peculiarly quiet way, addressing me, Mr. Taber said: "Thee get
in."  I never obeyed an order with more alacrity, and we were soon
on our way to our new home. When we reached "Stone Bridge" the
passengers alighted for breakfast, and paid their fares to the
driver. We took no breakfast, and, when asked for our fares, I
told the driver I would make it right with him when we reached New
Bedford. I expected some objection to this on his part, but he
made none. When, however, we reached New Bedford, he took our
baggage, including three music-books,--two of them collections by
Dyer, and one by Shaw,--and held them until I was able to redeem
them by paying to him the amount due for our rides. This was soon
done, for Mr. Nathan Johnson not only received me kindly and
hospitably, but, on being informed about our baggage, at once
loaned me the two dollars with which to square accounts with the
stage-driver. Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Johnson reached a good old age,
and now rest from their labors. I am under many grateful
obligations to them. They not only "took me in when a stranger"
and "fed me when hungry," but taught me how to make an honest
living. Thus, in a fortnight after my flight from Maryland, I was
safe in New Bedford, a citizen of the grand old commonwealth of
Massachusetts.

Once initiated into my new life of freedom and assured by Mr.
Johnson that I need not fear recapture in that city, a
comparatively unimportant question arose as to the name by which I
should be known thereafter in my new relation as a free man. The
name given me by my dear mother was no less pretentious and long
than Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey. I had, however, while
living in Maryland, dispensed with the Augustus Washington, and
retained only Frederick Bailey. Between Baltimore and New
Bedford, the better to conceal myself from the slave-hunters, I
had parted with Bailey and called myself Johnson; but in New
Bedford I found that the Johnson family was already so numerous as
to cause some confusion in distinguishing them, hence a change in
this name seemed desirable. Nathan Johnson, mine host, placed
great emphasis upon this necessity, and wished me to allow him to
select a name for me. I consented, and he called me by my present
name--the one by which I have been known for three and forty
years--Frederick Douglass. Mr. Johnson had just been reading the
"Lady of the Lake," and so pleased was he with its great character
that he wished me to bear his name. Since reading that charming
poem myself, I have often thought that, considering the noble
hospitality and manly character of Nathan Johnson--black man
though he was--he, far more than I, illustrated the virtues of the
Douglas of Scotland. Sure am I that, if any slave-catcher had
entered his domicile with a view to my recapture, Johnson would
have shown himself like him of the "stalwart hand."

The reader may be surprised at the impressions I had in some way
conceived of the social and material condition of the people at
the North. I had no proper idea of the wealth, refinement,
enterprise, and high civilization of this section of the country.
My "Columbian Orator," almost my only book, had done nothing to
enlighten me concerning Northern society. I had been taught that
slavery was the bottom fact of all wealth. With this foundation
idea, I came naturally to the conclusion that poverty must be the
general condition of the people of the free States. In the
country from which I came, a white man holding no slaves was
usually an ignorant and poverty-stricken man, and men of this
class were contemptuously called "poor white trash."  Hence I
supposed that, since the non-slave-holders at the South were
ignorant, poor, and degraded as a class, the non-slave-holders at
the North must be in a similar condition. I could have landed in
no part of the United States where I should have found a more
striking and gratifying contrast, not only to life generally in
the South, but in the condition of the colored people there, than
in New Bedford. I was amazed when Mr. Johnson told me that there
was nothing in the laws or constitution of Massachusetts that
would prevent a colored man from being governor of the State, if
the people should see fit to elect him. There, too, the black
man's children attended the public schools with the white man's
children, and apparently without objection from any quarter. To
impress me with my security from recapture and return to slavery,
Mr. Johnson assured me that no slave-holder could take a slave out
of New Bedford; that there were men there who would lay down their
lives to save me from such a fate.

The fifth day after my arrival, I put on the clothes of a common
laborer, and went upon the wharves in search of work. On my way
down Union street I saw a large pile of coal in front of the house
of Rev. Ephraim Peabody, the Unitarian minister. I went to the
kitchen door and asked the privilege of bringing in and putting
away this coal. "What will you charge?" said the lady. "I will
leave that to you, madam."  "You may put it away," she said. I
was not long in accomplishing the job, when the dear lady put into
my hand TWO SILVER HALF-DOLLARS. To understand the emotion which
swelled my heart as I clasped this money, realizing that I had no
master who could take it from me,--THAT IT WAS MINE--THAT MY HANDS
WERE MY OWN, and could earn more of the precious coin,--one must
have been in some sense himself a slave. My next job was stowing
a sloop at Uncle Gid. Howland's wharf with a cargo of oil for New
York. I was not only a freeman, but a free working-man, and no
"master" stood ready at the end of the week to seize my hard
earnings.

The season was growing late and work was plenty. Ships were being
fitted out for whaling, and much wood was used in storing them.
The sawing this wood was considered a good job. With the help of
old Friend Johnson (blessings on his memory) I got a saw and
"buck," and went at it. When I went into a store to buy a cord
with which to brace up my saw in the frame, I asked for a "fip's"
worth of cord. The man behind the counter looked rather sharply
at me, and said with equal sharpness, "You don't belong about
here."  I was alarmed, and thought I had betrayed myself. A fip
in Maryland was six and a quarter cents, called fourpence in
Massachusetts. But no harm came from the "fi'penny-bit" blunder,
and I confidently and cheerfully went to work with my saw and
buck. It was new business to me, but I never did better work, or
more of it, in the same space of time on the plantation for Covey,
the negro-breaker, than I did for myself in these earliest years
of my freedom.

Notwithstanding the just and humane sentiment of New Bedford three
and forty years ago, the place was not entirely free from race and
color prejudice. The good influence of the Roaches, Rodmans,
Arnolds, Grinnells, and Robesons did not pervade all classes of
its people. The test of the real civilization of the community
came when I applied for work at my trade, and then my repulse was
emphatic and decisive. It so happened that Mr. Rodney French, a
wealthy and enterprising citizen, distinguished as an anti-slavery
man, was fitting out a vessel for a whaling voyage, upon which
there was a heavy job of calking and coppering to be done. I had
some skill in both branches, and applied to Mr. French for work.
He, generous man that he was, told me he would employ me, and I
might go at once to the vessel. I obeyed him, but upon reaching
the float-stage, where others [sic] calkers were at work, I was
told that every white man would leave the ship, in her unfinished
condition, if I struck a blow at my trade upon her. This uncivil,
inhuman, and selfish treatment was not so shocking and scandalous
in my eyes at the time as it now appears to me. Slavery had
inured me to hardships that made ordinary trouble sit lightly upon
me. Could I have worked at my trade I could have earned two
dollars a day, but as a common laborer I received but one dollar.
The difference was of great importance to me, but if I could not
get two dollars, I was glad to get one; and so I went to work for
Mr. French as a common laborer. The consciousness that I was
free--no longer a slave--kept me cheerful under this, and many
similar proscriptions, which I was destined to meet in New Bedford
and elsewhere on the free soil of Massachusetts. For instance,
though colored children attended the schools, and were treated
kindly by their teachers, the New Bedford Lyceum refused, till
several years after my residence in that city, to allow any
colored person to attend the lectures delivered in its hall. Not
until such men as Charles Sumner, Theodore Parker, Ralph Waldo
Emerson, and Horace Mann refused to lecture in their course while
there was such a restriction, was it abandoned.

Becoming satisfied that I could not rely on my trade in New
Bedford to give me a living, I prepared myself to do any kind of
work that came to hand. I sawed wood, shoveled coal, dug cellars,
moved rubbish from back yards, worked on the wharves, loaded and
unloaded vessels, and scoured their cabins.

I afterward got steady work at the brass-foundry owned by Mr.
Richmond. My duty here was to blow the bellows, swing the crane,
and empty the flasks in which castings were made; and at times
this was hot and heavy work. The articles produced here were
mostly for ship work, and in the busy season the foundry was in
operation night and day. I have often worked two nights and every
working day of the week. My foreman, Mr. Cobb, was a good man,
and more than once protected me from abuse that one or more of the
hands was disposed to throw upon me. While in this situation I
had little time for mental improvement. Hard work, night and day,
over a furnace hot enough to keep the metal running like water,
was more favorable to action than thought; yet here I often nailed
a newspaper to the post near my bellows, and read while I was
performing the up and down motion of the heavy beam by which the
bellows was inflated and discharged. It was the pursuit of
knowledge under difficulties, and I look back to it now, after so
many years, with some complacency and a little wonder that I could
have been so earnest and persevering in any pursuit other than for
my daily bread. I certainly saw nothing in the conduct of those
around to inspire me with such interest: they were all devoted
exclusively to what their hands found to do. I am glad to be able
to say that, during my engagement in this foundry, no complaint
was ever made against me that I did not do my work, and do it
well. The bellows which I worked by main strength was, after I
left, moved by a steam-engine.

THE GOOPHERED GRAPEVINE
by Charles W. Chesnutt

About ten years ago my wife was in poor health, and our family
doctor, in whose skill and honesty I had implicit confidence,
advised a change of climate. I was engaged in grape-culture in
northern Ohio, and decided to look for a locality suitable for
carrying on the same business in some Southern State. I wrote to
a cousin who had gone into the turpentine business in central
North Carolina, and he assured me that no better place could be
found in the South than the State and neighborhood in which he
lived: climate and soil were all that could be asked for, and land
could be bought for a mere song. A cordial invitation to visit
him while I looked into the matter was accepted. We found the
weather delightful at that season, the end of the summer, and were
most hospitably entertained. Our host placed a horse and buggy at
our disposal, and himself acted as guide until I got somewhat
familiar with the country.

I went several times to look at a place which I thought might suit
me. It had been at one time a thriving plantation, but shiftless
cultivation had well-night exhausted the soil. There had been a
vineyard of some extent on the place, but it had not been attended
to since the war, and had fallen into utter neglect. The vines--
here partly supported by decayed and broken-down arbors, there
twining themselves among the branches of the slender saplings
which had sprung up among them--grew in wild and unpruned
luxuriance, and the few scanty grapes which they bore were the
undisputed prey of the first comer. The site was admirably
adapted to grape-raising; the soil, with a little attention, could
not have been better; and with the native grape, the luscious
scuppernong, mainly to rely upon, I felt sure that I could
introduce and cultivate successfully a number of other varieties.

One day I went over with my wife, to show her the place. We drove
between the decayed gate-posts--the gate itself had long since
disappeared--and up the straight, sandy lane to the open space
where a dwelling-house had once stood. But the house had fallen a
victim to the fortunes of war, and nothing remained of it except
the brick pillars upon which the sills had rested. We alighted,
and walked about the place for a while; but on Annie's complaining
of weariness I led the way back to the yard, where a pine log,
lying under a spreading elm, formed a shady though somewhat hard
seat. One end of the log was already occupied by a venerable-
looking colored man. He held on his knees a hat full of grapes,
over which he was smacking his lips with great gusto, and a pile
of grape-skins near him indicated that the performance was no new
thing. He respectfully rose as we approached, and was moving
away, when I begged him to keep his seat.

"Don't let us disturb you," I said. "There's plenty of room for
us all."

He resumed his seat with somewhat of embarrassment.

"Do you live around here?" I asked, anxious to put him at his
ease.

"Yas, suh. I lives des ober yander, behine de nex' san'-hill, on
de Lumberton plank-road."

"Do you know anything about the time when this vineyard was
cultivated?"

"Lawd bless yer, suh, I knows all about it. Dey ain' na'er a man
in dis settlement w'at won' tell yer ole Julius McAdoo 'uz bawn
an' raise' on dis yer same plantation. Is you de Norv'n gemman
w'at's gwine ter buy de ole vimya'd?"

"I am looking at it," I replied; "but I don't know that I shall
care to buy unless I can be reasonably sure of making something
out of it."

"Well, suh, you is a stranger ter me, en I is a stranger ter you,
en we is bofe strangers ter one anudder, but 'f I 'uz in yo'
place, I wouldn' buy dis vimya'd."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Well, I dunner whe'r you b'lieves in cunj'in er not,--some er de
w'ite folks don't, er says dey don't,--but de truf er de matter is
dat dis yer ole vimya'd is goophered."

"Is what?" I asked, not grasping the meaning of this unfamiliar
word.

"Is goophered, cunju'd, bewitch'."

He imparted this information with such solemn earnestness, and
with such an air of confidential mystery, that I felt somewhat
interested, while Annie was evidently much impressed, and drew
closer to me.

"How do you know it is bewitched?" I asked.

"I wouldn' spec' fer you ter b'lieve me 'less you know all 'bout
de fac's. But ef you en young miss dere doan' min' lis'n'in' ter
a ole nigger run on a minute er two w'ile you er restin', I kin
'splain to yer how it all happen'."

We assured him that we would be glad to hear how it all happened,
and he began to tell us. At first the current of his memory--or
imagination--seemed somewhat sluggish; but as his embarrassment
wore off, his language flowed more freely, and the story acquired
perspective and coherence. As he became more and more absorbed in
the narrative, his eyes assumed a dreamy expression, and he seemed
to lose sight of his auditors, and to be living over again in
monologue his life on the old plantation.

"Ole Mars Dugal' McAdoo bought dis place long many years befo' de
wah, en I 'member well w'en he sot out all dis yer part er de
plantation in scuppernon's. De vimes growed monst'us fas', en
Mars Dugal' made a thousan' gallon er scuppernon' wine eve'y year.

"Now, ef dey's an'thing a nigger lub, nex' ter 'possum, en
chick'n, en watermillyums, it's scuppernon's. Dey ain' nuffin dat
kin stan' up side'n de scuppernon' fer sweetness; sugar ain't a
suckumstance ter scuppernon'. W'en de season is nigh 'bout ober,
en de grapes begin ter swivel up des a little wid de wrinkles er
ole age,--w'en de skin git sof' en brown,--den de scuppernon' make
you smack yo' lip en roll yo' eye en wush fer mo'; so I reckon it
ain' very 'stonishin' dat niggers lub scuppernon'.

"Dey wuz a sight er niggers in de naberhood er de vimya'd. Dere
wuz ole Mars Henry Brayboy's niggers, en ole Mars Dunkin McLean's
niggers, en Mars Dugal's own niggers; den dey wuz a settlement er
free niggers en po' buckrahs down by de Wim'l'ton Road, en Mars
Dugal' had de only vimya'd in de naberhood. I reckon it ain' so
much so nowadays, but befo' de wah, in slab'ry times, er nigger
didn' mine goin' fi' er ten mile in a night, w'en dey wuz sump'n
good ter eat at de yuther een.

"So atter a w'ile Mars Dugal' begin ter miss his scuppernon's.
Co'se he 'cuse' de niggers er it, but dey all 'nied it ter de
las'. Mars Dugal' sot spring guns en steel traps, en he en de
oberseah sot up nights once't er twice't, tel one night Mars
Dugal'--he 'uz a monst'us keerless man--got his leg shot full er
cow-peas. But somehow er nudder dey couldn' nebber ketch none er
de niggers. I dunner how it happen, but it happen des like I tell
yer, en de grapes kep' on a-goin des de same.

"But bimeby ole Mars Dugal' fix' up a plan ter stop it. Dey 'uz a
cunjuh 'ooman livin' down mongs' de free niggers on de Wim'l'ton
Road, en all de darkies fum Rockfish ter Beaver Crick wuz feared
uv her. She could wuk de mos' powerfulles' kind er goopher,--
could make people hab fits er rheumatiz, er make 'em des dwinel
away en die; en dey say she went out ridin' de niggers at night,
for she wuz a witch 'sides bein' a cunjuh 'ooman. Mars Dugal'
hearn 'bout Aun' Peggy's doin's, en begun ter 'flect whe'r er no
he couldn' git her ter he'p him keep de niggers off'n de
grapevimes. One day in de spring er de year, ole miss pack' up a
basket er chick'n en poun'-cake, en a bottle er scuppernon' wine,
en Mars Dugal' tuk it in his buggy en driv ober ter Aun' Peggy's
cabin. He tuk de basket in, en had a long talk wid Aun' Peggy.
De nex' day Aun' Peggy come up ter de vimya'd. De niggers seed
her slippin' 'roun', en dey soon foun' out what she 'uz doin'
dere. Mars Dugal' had hi'ed her ter goopher de grapevimes. She
sa'ntered 'roun' mongs' de vimes, en tuk a leaf fum dis one, en a
grape-hull fum dat one, en a grape-seed fum anudder one; en den a
little twig fum here, en a little pinch er dirt fum dere,--en put
it all in a big black bottle, wid a snake's toof en a speckle'
hen's gall en some ha'rs fum a black cat's tail, en den fill' de
bottle wid scuppernon' wine. W'en she got de goopher all ready en
fix', she tuk 'n went out in de woods en buried it under de root
uv a red oak tree, en den come back en tole one er de niggers she
done goopher de grapevimes, en a'er a nigger w'at eat dem grapes
'ud be sho ter die inside'n twel' mont's.

"Atter dat de niggers let de scuppernon's 'lone, en Mars Dugal'
didn' hab no 'casion ter fine no mo' fault; en de season wuz mos'
gone, w'en a strange gemman stop at de plantation one night ter
see Mars Dugal' on some business; en his coachman, seein' de
scuppernon's growin' so nice en sweet, slip 'roun' behine de
smoke-house, en et all de scuppernon's he could hole. Nobody
didn' notice it at de time, but dat night, on de way home, de
gemman's hoss runned away en kill' de coachman. W'en we hearn de
noos, Aun' Lucy, de cook, she up 'n say she seed de strange nigger
eat'n' er de scuppernon's behine de smoke-house; en den we knowed
de goopher had b'en er wukkin. Den one er de nigger chilluns
runned away fum de quarters one day, en got in de scuppernon's, en
died de nex' week. W'ite folks say he die' er de fevuh, but de
niggers knowed it wuz de goopher. So you k'n be sho de darkies
didn' hab much ter do wid dem scuppernon' vimes.

"W'en de scuppernon' season 'uz ober fer dat year, Mars Dugal'
foun' he had made fifteen hund'ed gallon er wine; en one er de
niggers hearn him laffin' wid de oberseah fit ter kill, en sayin'
dem fifteen hund'ed gallon er wine wuz monst'us good intrus' on de
ten dollars he laid out on de vimya'd. So I 'low ez he paid Aun'
Peggy ten dollars fer to goopher de grapevimes.

"De goopher didn' wuk no mo' tel de nex' summer, w'en 'long to'ds
de middle er de season one er de fiel' han's died; en ez dat lef'
Mars Dugal' sho't er han's, he went off ter town fer ter buy
anudder. He fotch de noo nigger home wid 'im. He wuz er ole
nigger, er de color er a gingy-cake, en ball ez a hoss-apple on de
top er his head. He wuz a peart ole nigger, do', en could do a
big day's wuk.

"Now it happen dat one er de niggers on de nex' plantation, one er
ole Mars Henry Brayboy's niggers, had runned away de day befo', en
tuk ter de swamp, en ole Mars Dugal' en some er de yuther nabor
w'ite folks had gone out wid dere guns en dere dogs fer ter he'p
'em hunt fer de nigger; en de han's on our own plantation wuz all
so flusterated dat we fuhgot ter tell de noo han' 'bout de goopher
on de scuppernon' vimes. Co'se he smell de grapes en see de
vimes, an atter dahk de fus' thing he done wuz ter slip off ter de
grapevimes 'dout sayin' nuffin ter nobody. Nex' mawnin' he tole
some er de niggers 'bout de fine bait er scuppernon' he et de
night befo'.

"W'en dey tole 'im 'bout de goopher on de grapevimes, he 'uz dat
tarrified dat he turn pale, en look des like he gwine ter die
right in his tracks. De oberseah come up en axed w'at 'uz de
matter; en w'en dey tole 'im Henry be'n eatin' er de scuppernon's,
en got de goopher on 'im, he gin Henry a big drink er w'iskey, en
'low dat de nex' rainy day he take 'im ober ter Aun' Peggy's, en
see ef she wouldn' take de goopher off'n him, seein' ez he didn'
know nuffin erbout it tel he done et de grapes.

"Sho nuff, it rain de nex' day, en de oberseah went ober ter Aun'
Peggy's wid Henry. En Aun' Peggy say dat bein' ez Henry didn'
know 'bout de goopher, en et de grapes in ign'ance er de
quinseconces, she reckon she mought be able fer ter take de
goopher off'n him. So she fotch out er bottle wid some cunjuh
medicine in it, en po'd some out in a go'd fer Henry ter drink.
He manage ter git it down; he say it tas'e like whiskey wid sump'n
bitter in it. She 'lowed dat 'ud keep de goopher off'n him tel de
spring; but w'en de sap begin ter rise in de grapevimes he ha' ter
come en see her agin, en she tell him w'at e's ter do.

"Nex' spring, w'en de sap commence' ter rise in de scuppernon'
vime, Henry tuk a ham one night. Whar'd he git de ham? I doan
know; dey wa'nt no hams on de plantation 'cep'n' w'at 'uz in de
smoke-house, but I never see Henry 'bout de smoke-house. But ez I
wuz a-sayin', he tuk de ham ober ter Aun' Peggy's; en Aun' Peggy
tole 'im dat w'en Mars Dugal' begin ter prume de grapevimes, he
mus' go en take 'n scrape off de sap whar it ooze out'n de cut
een's er de vimes, en 'n'int his ball head wid it; en ef he do dat
once't a year de goopher wouldn' wuk agin 'im long ez he done it.
En bein' ez he fotch her de ham, she fix' it so he kin eat all de
scuppernon' he want.

"So Henry 'n'int his head wid de sap out'n de big grapevime des
ha'f way 'twix' de quarters en de big house, en de goopher nebber
wuk agin him dat summer. But de beatenes' thing you eber see
happen ter Henry. Up ter dat time he wuz ez ball ez a sweeten'
'tater, but des ez soon ez de young leaves begun ter come out on
de grapevimes de ha'r begun ter grow out on Henry's head, en by de
middle er de summer he had de bigges' head er ha'r on de
plantation. Befo' dat, Henry had tol'able good ha'r 'roun de
aidges, but soon ez de young grapes begun ter come Henry's ha'r
begun ter quirl all up in little balls, des like dis yer reg'lar
grapy ha'r, en by de time de grapes got ripe his head look des
like a bunch er grapes. Combin' it didn' do no good; he wuk at it
ha'f de night wid er Jim Crow[1], en think he git it straighten'
out, but in de mawnin' de grapes 'ud be dere des de same. So he
gin it up, en tried ter keep de grapes down by havin' his ha'r cut
sho't.

[1] A small card, resembling a curry-comb in construction, and
used by negroes in the rural districts instead of a comb.

"But dat wa'nt de quares' thing 'bout de goopher. When Henry come
ter de plantation, he wuz gittin' a little ole an stiff in de
j'ints. But dat summer he got des ez spry en libely ez any young
nigger on de plantation; fac' he got so biggity dat Mars Jackson,
de oberseah, ha' ter th'eaten ter whip 'im, ef he didn' stop
cuttin' up his didos en behave hisse'f. But de mos' cur'ouses'
thing happen' in de fall, when de sap begin ter go down in de
grapevimes. Fus', when de grapes 'uz gethered, de knots begun ter
straighten out'n Henry's h'ar; en w'en de leaves begin ter fall,
Henry's ha'r begin ter drap out; en w'en de vimes 'uz b'ar,
Henry's head wuz baller 'n it wuz in de spring, en he begin ter
git ole en stiff in de j'ints ag'in, en paid no mo' tention ter de
gals dyoin' er de whole winter. En nex' spring, w'en he rub de
sap on ag'in, he got young ag'in, en so soopl en libely dat none
er de young niggers on de plantation couldn' jump, ner dance, ner
hoe ez much cotton ez Henry. But in de fall er de year his grapes
begun ter straighten out, en his j'ints ter git stiff, en his ha'r
drap off, en de rheumatiz begin ter wrastle wid 'im.

"Now, ef you'd a knowed ole Mars Dugal' McAdoo, you'd a knowed dat
it ha' ter be a mighty rainy day when he couldn' fine sump'n fer
his niggers ter do, en it ha' ter be a mighty little hole he
couldn' crawl thoo, en ha' ter be a monst'us cloudy night w'en a
dollar git by him in de dahkness; en w'en he see how Henry git
young in de spring en ole in de fall, he 'lowed ter hisse'f ez how
he could make mo' money outen Henry dan by wukkin' him in de
cotton fiel'. 'Long de nex' spring, atter de sap commence' ter
rise, en Henry 'n'int 'is head en commence fer ter git young en
soopl, Mars Dugal' up 'n tuk Henry ter town, en sole 'im fer
fifteen hunder' dollars. Co'se de man w'at bought Henry didn'
know nuffin 'bout de goopher, en Mars Dugal' didn' see no 'casion
fer ter tell 'im. Long to'ds de fall, w'en de sap went down,
Henry begin ter git ole again same ez yuzhal, en his noo marster
begin ter git skeered les'n he gwine ter lose his fifteen-hunder'-
dollar nigger. He sent fer a mighty fine doctor, but de med'cine
didn' 'pear ter do no good; de goopher had a good holt. Henry
tole de doctor 'bout de goopher, but de doctor des laff at 'im.

"One day in de winter Mars Dugal' went ter town, en wuz santerin'
'long de Main Street, when who should he meet but Henry's noo
marster. Dey said 'Hoddy,' en Mars Dugal' ax 'im ter hab a
seegyar; en atter dey run on awhile 'bout de craps en de weather,
Mars Dugal' ax 'im, sorter keerless, like ez ef he des thought of
it,--

"'How you like de nigger I sole you las' spring?'

"Henry's marster shuck his head en knock de ashes off'n his
seegyar.

"'Spec' I made a bad bahgin when I bought dat nigger. Henry done
good wuk all de summer, but sence de fall set in he 'pears ter be
sorter pinin' away. Dey ain' nuffin pertickler de matter wid 'im--
leastways de doctor say so--'cep'n' a tech er de rheumatiz; but
his ha'r is all fell out, en ef he don't pick up his strenk mighty
soon, I spec' I'm gwine ter lose 'im."

"Dey smoked on awhile, en bimeby ole mars say, 'Well, a bahgin's a
bahgin, but you en me is good fren's, en I doan wan' ter see you
lose all de money you paid fer dat digger [sic]; en ef w'at you
say is so, en I ain't 'sputin' it, he ain't wuf much now. I
spec's you wukked him too ha'd dis summer, er e'se de swamps down
here don't agree wid de san'-hill nigger. So you des lemme know,
en ef he gits any wusser I'll be willin' ter gib yer five hund'ed
dollars fer 'im, en take my chances on his livin'.'

"Sho nuff, when Henry begun ter draw up wid de rheumatiz en it
look like he gwine ter die fer sho, his noo marster sen' fer Mars
Dugal', en Mars Dugal' gin him what he promus, en brung Henry home
ag'in. He tuk good keer uv 'im dyoin' er de winter,--give 'im
w'iskey ter rub his rheumatiz, en terbacker ter smoke, en all he
want ter eat,--'caze a nigger w'at he could make a thousan'
dollars a year off'n didn' grow on eve'y huckleberry bush.

"Nex' spring, w'en de sap ris en Henry's ha'r commence' ter
sprout, Mars Dugal' sole 'im ag'in, down in Robeson County dis
time; en he kep' dat sellin' business up fer five year er mo'.
Henry nebber say nuffin 'bout de goopher ter his noo marsters,
'caze he know he gwine ter be tuk good keer uv de nex' winter,
w'en Mars Dugal' buy him back. En Mars Dugal' made 'nuff money  
off'n Henry ter buy anudder plantation ober on Beaver Crick.

"But long 'bout de een' er dat five year dey come a stranger ter
stop at de plantation. De fus' day he 'uz dere he went out wid
Mars Dugal' en spent all de mawnin' lookin' ober de vimya'd, en
atter dinner dey spent all de evenin' playin' kya'ds. De niggers
soon 'skiver' dat he wuz a Yankee, en dat he come down ter Norf
C'lina fer ter learn de w'ite folks how to raise grapes en make
wine. He promus Mars Dugal' he cud make de grapevimes b'ar
twice't ez many grapes, en dat de noo wine-press he wuz a-sellin'
would make mo' d'n twice't ez many gallons er wine. En ole Mars
Dugal' des drunk it all in, des 'peared ter be bewitched wit dat
Yankee. W'en de darkies see dat Yankee runnin' 'roun de vimya'd
en diggin' under de grapevimes, dey shuk dere heads, en 'lowed dat
dey feared Mars Dugal' losin' his min'. Mars Dugal' had all de
dirt dug away fum under de roots er all de scuppernon' vimes, an'
let 'em stan' dat away fer a week er mo'. Den dat Yankee made de
niggers fix up a mixtry er lime en ashes en manyo, en po' it roun'
de roots er de grapevimes. Den he 'vise' Mars Dugal' fer ter trim
de vimes close't, en Mars Dugal' tuck 'n done eve'ything de Yankee
tole him ter do. Dyoin' all er dis time, mind yer, 'e wuz libbin'
off'n de fat er de lan', at de big house, en playin' kyards wid
Mars Dugal' eve'y night; en dey say Mars Dugal' los' mo'n a
thousan' dollars dyoin' er de week dat Yankee wuz a runnin' de
grapevimes.

"W'en de sap ris nex' spring, ole Henry 'n'inted his head ez
yuzhal, en his ha'r commence' ter grow des de same ez it done
eve'y year. De scuppernon' vimes growed monst's fas', en de
leaves wuz greener en thicker dan dey eber be'n dyowin my
rememb'ance; en Henry's ha'r growed out thicker dan eber, en he
'peared ter git younger 'n younger, en soopler 'n soopler; en
seein' ez he wuz sho't er han's dat spring, havin' tuk in
consid'able noo groun', Mars Dugal' 'cluded he wouldn' sell Henry
'tel he git de crap in en de cotton chop'. So he kep' Henry on de
plantation.

"But 'long 'bout time fer de grapes ter come on de scuppernon'
vimes, dey 'peared ter come a change ober dem; de leaves wivered
en swivel' up, en de young grapes turn' yaller, en bimeby
eve'ybody on de plantation could see dat de whole vimya'd wuz
dyin'. Mars Dugal' tuck 'n water de vimes en done all he could,
but 't wan' no use: dat Yankee done bus' de watermillyum. One
time de vimes picked up a bit, en Mars Dugal' thought dey wuz
gwine ter come out ag'in; but dat Yankee done dug too close unde'
de roots, en prune de branches too close ter de vime, en all dat
lime en ashes done burn' de life outen de vimes, en dey des kep' a
with'in' en a swivelin'.

"All dis time de goopher wuz a-wukkin'. W'en de vimes commence'
ter wither, Henry commence' ter complain er his rheumatiz, en when
de leaves begin ter dry up his ha'r commence' ter drap out. When
de vimes fresh up a bit Henry 'ud git peart agin, en when de vimes
wither agin Henry 'ud git ole agin, en des kep' gittin' mo' en mo'
fitten fer nuffin; he des pined away, en fine'ly tuk ter his
cabin; en when de big vime whar he got de sap ter 'n'int his head
withered en turned yaller en died, Henry died too,--des went out
sorter like a cannel. Dey didn't 'pear ter be nuffin de matter
wid 'im, 'cep'n de rheumatiz, but his strenk des dwinel' away 'tel
he didn' hab ernuff lef' ter draw his bref. De goopher had got de
under holt, en th'owed Henry fer good en all dat time.

"Mars Dugal' tuk on might'ly 'bout losin' his vimes en his nigger
in de same year; en he swo' dat ef he could git hold er dat Yankee
he'd wear 'im ter a frazzle, en den chaw up de frazzle; en he'd
done it, too, for Mars Dugal' 'uz a monst'us brash man w'en he
once git started. He sot de vimya'd out ober agin, but it wuz
th'ee er fo' year befo' de vimes got ter b'arin' any scuppernon's.

"W'en de wah broke out, Mars Dugal' raise' a comp'ny, en went off
ter fight de Yankees. He saw he wuz mighty glad dat wah come, en
he des want ter kill a Yankee fer eve'y dollar he los' 'long er
dat grape-raisin' Yankee. En I 'spec' he would a done it, too, ef
de Yankees hadn' s'picioned sump'n, en killed him fus'. Atter de
s'render ole miss move' ter town, de niggers all scattered 'way
fum de plantation, en de vimya'd ain' be'n cultervated sence."

"Is that story true?" asked Annie, doubtfully, but seriously, as
the old man concluded his narrative.

"It's des ez true ez I'm a-settin' here, miss. Dey's a easy way
ter prove it: I kin lead de way right ter Henry's grave ober
yander in de plantation buryin'-groun'. En I tell yer w'at,
marster, I wouldn' 'vise yer to buy dis yer ole vimya'd, 'caze de
goopher's on it yit, en dey ain' no tellin' w'en it's gwine ter
crap out."

"But I thought you said all the old vines died."

"Dey did 'pear ter die, but a few ov 'em come out ag'in, en is
mixed in mongs' de yuthers. I ain' skeered ter eat de grapes,
'caze I knows de old vimes fum de noo ones; but wid strangers dey
ain' no tellin' w'at might happen. I wouldn' 'vise yer ter buy
dis vimya'd."

I bought the vineyard, nevertheless, and it has been for a long
time in a thriving condition, and is referred to by the local
press as a striking illustration of the opportunities open to
Northern capital in the development of Southern industries. The
luscious scuppernong holds first rank among our grapes, though we
cultivate a great many other varieties, and our income from grapes
packed and shipped to the Northern markets is quite considerable.
I have not noticed any developments of the goopher in the
vineyard, although I have a mild suspicion that our colored
assistants do not suffer from want of grapes during the season.

I found, when I bought the vineyard, that Uncle Julius had
occupied a cabin on the place for many years, and derived a
respectable revenue from the neglected grapevines. This,
doubtless, accounted for his advice to me not to buy the vineyard,
though whether it inspired the goopher story I am unable to state.
I believe, however, that the wages I pay him for his services are
more than an equivalent for anything he lost by the sale of the
vineyard.

PO' SANDY
by Charles W. Chesnutt

On the northeast corner of my vineyard in central North Carolina,
and fronting on the Lumberton plank-road, there stood a small
frame house, of the simplest construction. It was built of pine
lumber, and contained but one room, to which one window gave light
and one door admission. Its weather-beaten sides revealed a
virgin innocence of paint. Against one end of the house, and
occupying half its width, there stood a huge brick chimney: the
crumbling mortar had left large cracks between the bricks; the
bricks themselves had begun to scale off in large flakes, leaving
the chimney sprinkled with unsightly blotches. These evidences of
decay were but partially concealed by a creeping vine, which
extended its slender branches hither and thither in an ambitious
but futile attempt to cover the whole chimney. The wooden
shutter, which had once protected the unglazed window, had fallen
from its hinges, and lay rotting in the rank grass and jimson-
weeds beneath. This building, I learned when I bought the place,
had been used as a school-house for several years prior to the
breaking out of the war, since which time it had remained
unoccupied, save when some stray cow or vagrant hog had sought
shelter within its walls from the chill rains and nipping winds of
winter.

One day my wife requested me to build her a new kitchen. The
house erected by us, when we first came to live upon the vineyard,
contained a very conveniently arranged kitchen; but for some
occult reason my wife wanted a kitchen in the back yard, apart
from the dwelling-house, after the usual Southern fashion. Of
course I had to build it.

To save expense, I decided to tear down the old school-house, and
use the lumber, which was in a good state of preservation, in the
construction of the new kitchen. Before demolishing the old
house, however, I made an estimate of the amount of material
contained in it, and found that I would have to buy several
hundred feet of new lumber in order to build the new kitchen
according to my wife's plan.

One morning old Julius McAdoo, our colored coachman, harnessed the
gray mare to the rockaway, and drove my wife and me over to the
saw-mill from which I meant to order the new lumber. We drove
down the long lane which led from our house to the plank-road;
following the plank-road for about a mile, we turned into a road
running through the forest and across the swamp to the sawmill
beyond. Our carriage jolted over the half-rotted corduroy road
which traversed the swamp, and then climbed the long hill leading
to the saw-mill. When we reached the mill, the foreman had gone
over to a neighboring farm-house, probably to smoke or gossip, and
we were compelled to await his return before we could transact our
business. We remained seated in the carriage, a few rods from the
mill, and watched the leisurely movements of the mill-hands. We
had not waited long before a huge pine log was placed in position,
the machinery of the mill was set in motion, and the circular saw
began to eat its way through the log, with a loud whirr which
resounded throughout the vicinity of the mill. The sound rose and
fell in a sort of rhythmic cadence, which, heard from where we
sat, was not unpleasing, and not loud enough to prevent
conversation. When the saw started on its second journey through
the log, Julius observed, in a lugubrious tone, and with a
perceptible shudder:--

"Ugh! but dat des do cuddle my blood!"

"What's the matter, Uncle Julius?" inquired my wife, who is of a
very sympathetic turn of mind. "Does the noise affect your
nerves?"

"No, Miss Annie," replied the old man, with emotion, "I ain'
narvous; but dat saw, a-cuttin' en grindin' thoo dat stick er
timber, en moanin', en groanin', en sweekin', kyars my 'memb'ance
back ter ole times, en 'min's me er po' Sandy."  The pathetic
intonation with which he lengthened out the "po' Sandy" touched a
responsive chord in our own hearts."

"And who was poor Sandy?" asked my wife, who takes a deep interest
in the stories of plantation life which she hears from the lips of
the older colored people. Some of these stories are quaintly
humorous; others wildly extravagant, revealing the Oriental cast
of the negro's imagination; while others, poured freely into the
sympathetic ear of a Northern-bred woman, disclose many a tragic
incident of the darker side of slavery.

"Sandy," said Julius, in reply to my wife's question, "was a
nigger w'at useter b'long ter ole Mars Marrabo McSwayne. Mars
Marrabo's place wuz on de yuther side'n de swamp, right nex' ter
yo' place. Sandy wuz a monst'us good nigger, en could do so many
things erbout a plantation, en alluz 'ten ter his wuk so well, dat
w'en Mars Marrabo's chilluns growed up en married off, dey all un
'em wanted dey daddy fer ter gin 'em Sandy fer a weddin' present.
But Mars Marrabo knowed de res' wouldn' be satisfied ef he gin
Sandy ter a'er one un 'em; so w'en dey wuz all done married, he
fix it by 'lowin' one er his chilluns ter take Sandy fer a mont'
er so, en den ernudder for a mont' er so, en so on dat erway tel
dey had all had 'im de same lenk er time; en den dey would all
take him roun' ag'in, 'cep'n oncet in a w'ile w'en Mars Marrabo
would len' 'im ter some er his yuther kinfolks 'roun' de country,
w'en dey wuz short er han's; tel bimeby it go so Sandy didn'
hardly knowed whar he wuz gwine ter stay fum one week's een ter de
yuther.

"One time w'en Sandy wuz lent out ez yushal, a spekilater come
erlong wid a lot er niggers, en Mars Marrabo swap' Sandy's wife
off fer a noo 'oman. W'en Sandy come back, Mars Marrabo gin 'im a
dollar, en 'lowed he wuz monst'us sorry fer ter break up de
fambly, but de spekilater had gin 'im big boot, en times wuz hard
en money skase, en so he wuz bleedst ter make de trade. Sandy tuk
on some 'bout losin' his wife, but he soon seed dey want no use
cryin' ober spilt merlasses; en bein' ez he lacked de looks er de
noo 'ooman, he tuk up wid her atter she b'n on de plantation a
mont' er so.

"Sandy en his noo wife got on mighty well tergedder, en de niggers
all 'mence' ter talk about how lovin' dey wuz. W'en Tenie wuz tuk
sick oncet, Sandy useter set up all night wid 'er, en den go ter
wuk in de mawnin' des lack he had his reg'lar sleep; en Tenie
would 'a done anythin' in de worl' for her Sandy.

"Sandy en Tenie hadn' b'en libbin' tergedder fer mo' d'n two
mont's befo' Mars Marrabo's old uncle, w'at libbed down in Robeson
County, sent up ter fine out ef Mars Marrabo couldn' len' 'im er
hire 'im a good han' fer a mont' er so. Sandy's marster wuz one
er dese yer easy-gwine folks w'at wanter please eve'ybody, en he
says yas, he could len' 'im Sandy. En Mars Marrabo tole Sandy fer
ter git ready ter go down ter Robeson nex' day, fer ter stay a
mont' er so.

"Hit wuz monst'us hard on Sandy fer ter take 'im 'way fum Tenie.
Hit wuz so fur down ter Robeson dat he didn' hab no chance er
comin' back ter see her tel de time wuz up; he wouldn' a' mine
comin' ten er fifteen mile at night ter see Tenie, but Mars
Marrabo's uncle's plantation wuz mo' d'n forty mile off. Sandy
wuz mighty sad en cas' down atter w'at Mars Marrabo tole 'im, en
he says ter Tenie, sezee:--

"'I'm gittin monstus ti'ed er dish yer gwine roun' so much. Here
I is lent ter Mars Jeems dis mont', en I got ter do so-en-so; en
ter Mars Archie de nex' mont', en I got ter do so-en-so; den I got
ter go ter Miss Jinnie's: en hit's Sandy dis en Sandy dat, en
Sandy yer en Sandy dere, tel it 'pears ter me I ain' got no home,
ner no marster, ner no mistiss, ner no nuffin'. I can't eben keep
a wife: my yuther ole 'oman wuz sole away widout my gittin' a
chance fer ter tell her good-by; en now I got ter go off en leab
you, Tenie, en I dunno whe'r I'm eber gwine ter see yer ag'in er
no. I wisht I wuz a tree, er a stump, er a rock, er sump'n w'at
could stay on de plantation fer a w'ile.'

"Atter Sandy got thoo talkin', Tenie didn' say naer word, but des
sot dere by de fier, studyin' en studyin'. Bimeby she up'n says:--

"'Sandy, is I eber tole you I wuz a cunjuh-'ooman?'

"Co'se Sandy hadn' nebber dremp' er nuffin lack dat, en he made a
great miration w'en he hear w'at Tenie say. Bimeby Tenie went
on:--

"'I ain' goophered nobody, ner done no cunjuh-wuk fer fifteen yer
er mo; en w'en I got religion I made up my mine I wouldn' wuk no
mo' goopher. But dey is some things I doan b'lieve it's no sin
fer ter do; en ef you doan wanter be sent roun' fum pillar ter
pos', en ef you doan wanter go down ter Robeson, I kin fix things
so yer won't haf ter. Ef you'll des say de word, I kin turn yer
ter w'ateber yer wanter be, en yer kin stay right whar yer wanter,
ez long ez yer mineter.'

"Sandy say he doan keer; he's willin' fer ter do anythin' fer ter
stay close ter Tenie. Den Tenie ax 'im ef he doan wanter be turnt
inter a rabbit.

"Sandy say, 'No, de dogs mout git atter me.'

"'Shill I turn yer ter a wolf?' sez Tenie.

"'No, eve'ybody's skeered er a wolf, en I doan want nobody ter be
skeered er me.'

"'Shill I turn yer ter a mawkin'-bird?'

"'No, a hawk mout ketch me. I wanter be turnt inter sump'n
w'at'll stay in one place.'

"'I kin turn yer ter a tree,' sez Tenie. 'You won't hab no mouf
ner years, but I kin turn yer back oncet in a w'ile, so yer kin
git sump'n ter eat, en hear w'at's gwine on.'

"Well, Sandy say dat'll do. En so Tenie tuk 'im down by de aidge
er de swamp, not fur fum de quarters, en turnt 'im inter a big
pine-tree, en sot 'im out mongs' some yuther trees. En de nex'
mawnin', ez some er de fiel' han's wuz gwine long dere, dey seed a
tree w'at dey didn' 'member er habbin' seed befo; it wuz monst'us
quare, en dey wuz bleedst ter 'low dat dey hadn' 'membered right,
er e'se one er de saplin's had be'n growin' monst'us fas'.

"W'en Mars Marrabo 'skiver' dat Sandy wuz gone, he 'lowed Sandy
had runned away. He got de dogs out, but de las' place dey could
track Sandy ter wuz de foot er dat pine-tree. En dere de dogs
stood en barked, en bayed, en pawed at de tree, en tried ter climb
up on it; en w'en dey wuz tuk roun' thoo de swamp ter look fer de
scent, dey broke loose en made fer dat tree ag'in. It wuz de
beatenis' thing de w'ite folks eber hearn of, en Mars Marrabo
'lowed dat Sandy must a' clim' up on de tree en jump' off on a
mule er sump'n, en rid fur 'nuff fer ter spile de scent. Mars
Marrabo wanted ter 'cuse some er de yuther niggers er heppin Sandy
off, but dey all 'nied it ter de las'; en eve'ybody knowed Tenie
sot too much by Sandy fer ter he'p 'im run away whar she couldn'
nebber see 'im no mo'.

"W'en Sandy had be'n gone long 'nuff fer folks ter think he done
got clean away, Tenie useter go down ter de woods at night en turn
'im back, en den dey'd slip up ter de cabin en set by de fire en
talk. But dey ha' ter be monst'us keerful, er e'se somebody would
a seed 'em, en dat would a spile de whole thing; so Tenie alluz
turnt Sandy back in de mawnin' early, befo' anybody wuz
a'stirrin'.

"But Sandy didn' git erlong widout his trials en tribberlations.
One day a woodpecker come erlong en 'mence' ter peck at de tree;
en de nex' time Sandy wuz turnt back he had a little roun' hole in
his arm, des lack a sharp stick be'n stuck in it. Atter dat Tenie
sot a sparrer-hawk fer ter watch de tree; en w'en de woodpecker
come erlong nex' mawnin' fer ter finish his nes', he got gobble'
up mos' fo' he stuck his bill in de bark.

"Nudder time, Mars Marrabo sent a nigger out in de woods fer ter
chop tuppentime boxes. De man chop a box in dish yer tree, en
hack' de bark up two er th'ee feet, fer ter let de tuppentime run.
De nex' time Sandy wuz turnt back he had a big skyar on his lef'
leg, des lack it be'n skunt; en it tuk Tenie nigh 'bout all night
fer ter fix a mixtry ter kyo it up. Atter dat, Tenie sot a hawnet
fer ter watch de tree; en w'en de nigger come back ag'in fer ter
cut ernudder box on de yuther side'n de tree, de hawnet stung 'im
so hard dat de ax slip en cut his foot nigh 'bout off.

"W'en Tenie see so many things happenin' ter de tree, she 'cluded
she'd ha' ter turn Sandy ter sump'n e'se; en atter studyin' de
matter ober, en talkin' wid Sandy one ebenin', she made up her
mine fer ter fix up a goopher mixtry w'at would turn herse'f en
Sandy ter foxes, er sump'n, so dey could run away en go some'rs
whar dey could be free en lib lack w'ite folks.

"But dey ain' no tellin' w'at's gwine ter happen in dis worl'.
Tenie had got de night sot fer her en Sandy ter run away, w'en dat
ve'y day one er Mars Marrabo's sons rid up ter de big house in his
buggy, en say his wife wuz monst'us sick, en he want his mammy ter
len' 'im a 'ooman fer ter nuss his wife. Tenie's mistiss say sen
Tenie; she wuz a good nuss. Young mars wuz in a tarrible hurry
fer ter git back home. Tenie wuz washin' at de big house dat day,
en her mistiss say she should go right 'long wid her young
marster. Tenie tried ter make some 'scuse fer ter git away en
hide tel night, w'en she would have eve'ything fix' up fer her en
Sandy; she say she wanter go ter her cabin fer ter git her bonnet.
Her mistiss say it doan matter 'bout de bonnet; her head-hankcher
wuz good 'nuff. Den Tenie say she wanter git her bes' frock; her
mistiss say no, she doan need no mo' frock, en w'en dat one got
dirty she could git a clean one whar she wuz gwine. So Tenie had
ter git in de buggy en go 'long wid young Mars Dunkin ter his
plantation, w'ich wuz mo' d'n twenty mile away; en dey want no
chance er her seein' Sandy no mo' tel she come back home. De po'
gal felt monst'us bad erbout de way things wuz gwine on, en she
knowed Sandy mus' be a wond'rin' why she didn' come en turn 'im
back no mo'.

"W'iles Tenie wuz away nussin' young Mars Dunkin's wife, Mars
Marrabo tuk a notion fer ter buil' 'im a noo kitchen; en bein' ez
he had lots er timber on his place, he begun ter look 'roun' fer a
tree ter hab de lumber sawed out'n. En I dunno how it come to be
so, but he happen fer ter hit on de ve'y tree w'at Sandy wuz turnt
inter. Tenie wuz gone, en dey wa'n't nobody ner nuffin' fer ter
watch de tree.

"De two men w'at cut de tree down say dey nebber had sech a time
wid a tree befo': dey axes would glansh off, en didn' 'pear ter
make no progress thoo de wood; en of all de creakin', en shakin',
en wobblin' you eber see, dat tree done it w'en it commence' ter
fall. It wuz de beatenis' thing!

"W'en dey got de tree all trim' up, dey chain it up ter a timber
waggin, en start fer de saw-mill. But dey had a hard time gittin'
de log dere: fus' dey got stuck in de mud w'en dey wuz gwine
crosst de swamp, en it wuz two er th'ee hours befo' dey could git
out. W'en dey start' on ag'in, de chain kep' a-comin' loose, en
dey had ter keep a-stoppin' en a-stoppin' fer ter hitch de log up
ag'in. W'en dey commence' ter climb de hill ter de saw-mill, de
log broke loose, en roll down de hill en in mongs' de trees, en
hit tuk nigh 'bout half a day mo' ter git it haul' up ter de saw-
mill.

"De nex' mawnin' atter de day de tree wuz haul' ter de saw-mill,
Tenie come home. W'en she got back ter her cabin, de fus' thing
she done wuz ter run down ter de woods en see how Sandy wuz
gittin' on. W'en she seed de stump standin' dere, wid de sap
runnin' out'n it, en de limbs layin' scattered roun', she nigh
'bout went out'n her mine. She run ter her cabin, en got her
goopher mixtry, en den foller de track er de timber waggin ter de
saw-mill. She knowed Sandy couldn' lib mo' d'n a minute er so ef
she turn' him back, fer he wuz all chop' up so he'd a be'n bleedst
ter die. But she wanted ter turn 'im back long ernuff fer ter
'splain ter 'im dat she hadn' went off a-purpose, en lef' 'im ter
be chop' down en sawed up. She didn' want Sandy ter die wid no
hard feelin's to'ds her.

"De han's at de saw-mill had des got de big log on de kerridge, en
wuz startin' up de saw, w'en dey seed a 'oman runnin up de hill,
all out er bref, cryin' en gwine on des lack she wuz plumb
'stracted. It wuz Tenie; she come right inter de mill, en th'owed
herse'f on de log, right in front er de saw, a-hollerin' en cryin'
ter her Sandy ter fergib her, en not ter think hard er her, fer it
wa'n't no fault er hern. Den Tenie 'membered de tree didn' hab no
years, en she wuz gittin' ready fer ter wuk her goopher mixtry so
ez ter turn Sandy back, w'en de mill-hands kotch holt er her en
tied her arms wid a rope, en fasten' her to one er de posts in de
saw-mill; en den dey started de saw up ag'in, en cut de log up
inter bo'ds en scantlin's right befo' her eyes. But it wuz mighty
hard wuk; fer of all de sweekin', en moanin', en groanin', dat log
done it w'iles de saw wuz a-cuttin' thoo it. De saw wuz one er
dese yer ole-timey, up-en-down saws, en hit tuk longer dem days
ter saw a log 'en it do now. Dey greased de saw, but dat didn'
stop de fuss; hit kep' right on, tel finely dey got de log all
sawed up.

"W'en de oberseah w'at run de saw-mill come fum brekfas', de han's
up en tell him 'bout de crazy 'ooman--ez dey s'posed she wuz--
w'at had come runnin' in de saw-mill, a-hollerin' en gwine on, en
tried ter th'ow herse'f befo' de saw. En de oberseah sent two er
th'ee er de han's fer ter take Tenie back ter her marster's
plantation.

"Tenie 'peared ter be out'n her mine fer a long time, en her
marster ha' ter lock her up in de smoke-'ouse tel she got ober her
spells. Mars Marrabo wuz monst'us mad, en hit would a made yo'
flesh crawl fer ter hear him cuss, caze he say de spekilater w'at
he got Tenie fum had fooled 'im by wukkin' a crazy 'oman off on
him. Wiles Tenie wuz lock up in de smoke-'ouse, Mars Marrabo
tuk'n' haul de lumber fum de saw-mill, en put up his noo kitchen.

"W'en Tenie got quiet' down, so she could be 'lowed ter go 'roun'
de plantation, she up'n tole her marster all erbout Sandy en de
pine-tree; en w'en Mars Marrabo hearn it, he 'lowed she wuz de
wuss 'stracted nigger he eber hearn of. He didn' know w'at ter do
wid Tenie: fus' he thought he'd put her in de po'-house; but
finely, seein' ez she didn' do no harm ter nobody ner nuffin', but
des went roun' moanin', en groanin', en shakin' her head, he
'cluded ter let her stay on de plantation en nuss de little nigger
chilluns w'en dey mammies wuz ter wuk in de cotton-fiel'.

"De noo kitchen Mars Marrabo buil' wuzn' much use, fer it hadn'
be'n put up long befo' de niggers 'mence' ter notice quare things
erbout it. Dey could hear sump'n moanin' en groanin' 'bout de
kitchen in de night-time, en w'en de win' would blow dey could
hear sump'n a-hollerin' en sweekin' lack hit wuz in great pain en
sufferin'. En hit got so atter a w'ile dat hit wuz all Mars
Marrabo's wife could do ter git a 'ooman ter stay in de kitchen in
de daytime long ernuff ter do de cookin'; en dey wa'n't naer
nigger on de plantation w'at wouldn' rudder take forty dan ter go
'bout dat kitchen atter dark,--dat is, 'cep'n Tenie; she didn'
pear ter mine de ha'nts. She useter slip 'roun' at night, en set
on de kitchen steps, en lean up agin de do'-jamb, en run on ter
herse'f wid some kine er foolishness w'at nobody couldn' make out;
fer Mars Marrabo had th'eaten' ter sen' her off'n de plantation ef
she say anything ter any er de yuther niggers 'bout de pine-tree.
But somehow er nudder de niggers foun' out all 'bout it, en dey
knowed de kitchen wuz ha'anted by Sandy's sperrit. En bimeby hit
got so Mars Marrabo's wife herse'f wuz skeered ter go out in de
yard atter dark.

"W'en it come ter dat, Mars Marrabo tuk 'n' to' de kitchen down,
en use' de lumber fer ter buil' dat ole school-'ouse w'at youer
talkin' 'bout pullin' down. De school-'ouse wuzn' use' 'cep'n' in
de daytime, en on dark nights folks gwine 'long de road would hear
quare soun's en see quare things. Po' ole Tenie useter go down
dere at night, en wander 'roun' de school-'ouse; en de niggers all
'lowed she went fer ter talk wid Sandy's sperrit. En one winter
mawnin', w'en one er de boys went ter school early fer ter start
de fire, w'at should he fine but po' ole Tenie, layin' on de flo',
stiff, en cole, en dead. Dere didn' 'pear ter be nuffin'
pertickler de matter wid her,--she had des grieve' herse'f ter def
fer her Sandy. Mars Marrabo didn' shed no tears. He thought
Tenie wuz crazy, en dey wa'n't no tellin' w'at she mout do nex';
en dey ain' much room in dis worl' fer crazy w'ite folks, let
'lone a crazy nigger.

"Hit wa'n't long atter dat befo' Mars Marrabo sole a piece er his
track er lan' ter Mars Dugal' McAdoo,--MY ole marster,--en dat's
how de ole school-house happen to be on yo' place. W'en de wah
broke out, de school stop', en de ole school-'ouse be'n stannin'
empty ever sence,--dat is, 'cep'n' fer de ha'nts. En folks sez
dat de ole school-'ouse, er any yuther house w'at got any er dat
lumber in it w'at wuz sawed out'n de tree w'at Sandy wuz turnt
inter, is gwine ter be ha'nted tel de las' piece er plank is
rotted en crumble' inter dus'."

Annie had listened to this gruesome narrative with strained
attention.

"What a system it was," she exclaimed, when Julius had finished,
"under which such things were possible!"

"What things?" I asked, in amazement. "Are you seriously
considering the possibility of a man's being turned into a tree?"

"Oh, no," she replied quickly, "not that;" and then she added
absently, and with a dim look in her fine eyes, "Poor Tenie!"

We ordered the lumber, and returned home. That night, after we
had gone to bed, and my wife had to all appearances been sound
asleep for half an hour, she startled me out of an incipient doze
by exclaiming suddenly,--

"John, I don't believe I want my new kitchen built out of the
lumber in that old school-house."

"You wouldn't for a moment allow yourself," I replied, with some
asperity, "to be influenced by that absurdly impossible yarn which
Julius was spinning to-day?"

"I know the story is absurd," she replied dreamily, "and I am not
so silly as to believe it. But I don't think I should ever be
able to take any pleasure in that kitchen if it were built out of
that lumber. Besides, I think the kitchen would look better and
last longer if the lumber were all new."

Of course she had her way. I bought the new lumber, though not
without grumbling. A week or two later I was called away from
home on business. On my return, after an absence of several days,
my wife remarked to me,--

"John, there has been a split in the Sandy Run Colored Baptist
Church, on the temperance question. About half the members have
come out from the main body, and set up for themselves. Uncle
Julius is one of the seceders, and he came to me yesterday and
asked if they might not hold their meetings in the old school-
house for the present."

"I hope you didn't let the old rascal have it," I returned, with
some warmth. I had just received a bill for the new lumber I had
bought.

"Well," she replied, "I could not refuse him the use of the house
for so good a purpose."

"And I'll venture to say," I continued, "that you subscribed
something toward the support of the new church?"

She did not attempt to deny it.

"What are they going to do about the ghost?" I asked, somewhat
curious to know how Julius would get around this obstacle.

"Oh," replied Annie, "Uncle Julius says that ghosts never disturb
religious worship, but that if Sandy's spirit SHOULD happen to
stray into meeting by mistake, no doubt the preaching would do it
good."

DAVE'S NECKLISS
by Charles W. Chesnutt

"Have some dinner, Uncle Julius?" said my wife.

It was a Sunday afternoon in early autumn. Our two women-
servants had gone to a camp-meeting some miles away, and would not
return until evening. My wife had served the dinner, and we were
just rising from the table, when Julius came up the lane, and,
taking off his hat, seated himself on the piazza.

The old man glanced through the open door at the dinner-table, and
his eyes rested lovingly upon a large sugar-cured ham, from which
several slices had been cut, exposing a rich pink expanse that
would have appealed strongly to the appetite of any hungry
Christian.

"Thanky, Miss Annie," he said, after a momentary hesitation, "I
dunno ez I keers ef I does tas'e a piece er dat ham, ef yer'll cut
me off a slice un it."

"No," said Annie, "I won't. Just sit down to the table and help
yourself; eat all you want, and don't be bashful."

Julius drew a chair up to the table, while my wife and I went out
on the piazza. Julius was in my employment; he took his meals
with his own family, but when he happened to be about our house at
meal-times, my wife never let him go away hungry.

I threw myself into a hammock, from which I could see Julius
through an open window. He ate with evident relish, devoting his
attention chiefly to the ham, slice after slice of which
disappeared in the spacious cavity of his mouth. At first the old
man ate rapidly, but after the edge of his appetite had been taken
off he proceeded in a more leisurely manner. When he had cut the
sixth slice of ham (I kept count of them from a lazy curiosity to
see how much he COULD eat) I saw him lay it on his plate; as he
adjusted the knife and fork to cut it into smaller pieces, he
paused, as if struck by a sudden thought, and a tear rolled down
his rugged cheek and fell upon the slice of ham before him. But
the emotion, whatever the thought that caused it, was transitory,
and in a moment he continued his dinner. When he was through
eating, he came out on the porch, and resumed his seat with the
satisfied expression of countenance that usually follows a good
dinner.

"Julius," I said, "you seemed to be affected by something, a
moment ago. Was the mustard so strong that it moved you to
tears?"

"No, suh, it wa'n't de mustard; I wuz studyin' 'bout Dave."

"Who was Dave, and what about him?" I asked.

The conditions were all favorable to story-telling. There was an
autumnal languor in the air, and a dreamy haze softened the dark
green of the distant pines and the deep blue of the Southern sky.
The generous meal he had made had put the old man in a very good
humor. He was not always so, for his curiously undeveloped nature
was subject to moods which were almost childish in their
variableness. It was only now and then that we were able to
study, through the medium of his recollection, the simple but
intensely human inner life of slavery. His way of looking at the
past seemed very strange to us; his view of certain sides of life
was essentially different from ours. He never indulged in any
regrets for the Arcadian joyousness and irresponsibility which was
a somewhat popular conception of slavery; his had not been the lot
of the petted house-servant, but that of the toiling field-hand.
While he mentioned with a warm appreciation the acts of kindness
which those in authority had shown to him and his people, he would
speak of a cruel deed, not with the indignation of one accustomed
to quick feeling and spontaneous expression, but with a furtive
disapproval which suggested to us a doubt in his own mind as to
whether he had a right to think or to feel, and presented to us
the curious psychological spectacle of a mind enslaved long after
the shackles had been struck off from the limbs of its possessor.
Whether the sacred name of liberty ever set his soul aglow with a
generous fire; whether he had more than the most elementary ideas
of love, friendship, patriotism, religion,--things which are half,
and the better half, of life to us; whether he even realized,
except in a vague, uncertain way, his own degradation, I do not
know. I fear not; and if not, then centuries of repression had
borne their legitimate fruit. But in the simple human feeling,
and still more in the undertone of sadness, which pervaded his
stories, I thought I could see a spark which, fanned by favoring
breezes and fed by the memories of the past, might become in his
children's children a glowing flame of sensibility, alive to every
thrill of human happiness or human woe.

"Dave use' ter b'long ter my ole marster," said Julius; "he wuz
raise' on dis yer plantation, en I kin 'member all erbout 'im, fer
I wuz ole 'nuff ter chop cotton w'en it all happen'. Dave wuz a
tall man, en monst'us strong: he could do mo' wuk in a day dan any
yuther two niggers on de plantation. He wuz one er dese yer
solemn kine er men, en nebber run on wid much foolishness, like de
yuther darkies. He use' ter go out in de woods en pray; en w'en
he hear de han's on de plantation cussin' en gwine on wid dere
dancin' en foolishness, he use' ter tell 'em 'bout religion en
jedgmen'-day, w'en dey would haf ter gin account fer eve'y idle
word en all dey yuther sinful kyarin's-on.

"Dave had l'arn' how ter read de Bible. Dey wuz a free nigger boy
in de settlement w'at wuz monst'us smart, en could write en
cipher, en wuz alluz readin' books er papers. En Dave had hi'ed
dis free boy fer ter l'arn 'im how ter read. Hit wuz 'g'in de
law, but co'se none er de niggers didn' say nuffin ter de w'ite
folks 'bout it. Howsomedever, one day Mars Walker--he wuz de
oberseah--foun' out Dave could read. Mars Walker wa'n't nuffin
but a po' bockrah, en folks said he couldn' read ner write
hisse'f, en co'se he didn' lack ter see a nigger w'at knowed mo'
d'n he did; so he went en tole Mars Dugal'. Mars Dugal' sont fer
Dave, en ax' 'im 'bout it.

"Dave didn't hardly knowed w'at ter do; but he couldn' tell no
lie, so he 'fessed he could read de Bible a little by spellin' out
de words. Mars Dugal' look' mighty solemn.

"'Dis yer is a se'ious matter,' sezee; 'it's 'g'in de law ter
l'arn niggers how ter read, er 'low 'em ter hab books. But w'at
yer l'arn out'n dat Bible, Dave?'

"Dave wa'n't no fool, ef he wuz a nigger, en sezee:--

"'Marster, I l'arns dat it's a sin fer ter steal, er ter lie, er
fer ter want w'at doan b'long ter yer; en I l'arns fer ter love de
Lawd en ter 'bey my marster.'

"Mars Dugal' sorter smile' en laf' ter hisse'f, like he 'uz
might'ly tickle' 'bout sump'n, en sezee:--

"'Doan 'pear ter me lack readin' de Bible done yer much harm,
Dave. Dat's w'at I wants all my niggers fer ter know. Yer keep
right on readin', en tell de yuther han's w'at yer be'n tellin'
me. How would yer lack fer ter preach ter de niggers on Sunday?'

"Dave say he'd be glad fer ter do w'at he could. So Mars Dugal'
tole de oberseah fer ter let Dave preach ter de niggers, en tell
'em w'at wuz in de Bible, en it would he'p ter keep 'em fum
stealin' er runnin' erway.

"So Dave 'mence' ter preach, en done de han's on de plantation a
heap er good, en most un 'em lef' off dey wicked ways, en 'mence'
ter love ter hear 'bout God, en religion, en de Bible; en dey done
dey wuk better, en didn' gib de oberseah but mighty little trouble
fer ter manage 'em.

"Dave wuz one er dese yer men w'at didn' keer much fer de gals,--
leastways he didn' tel Dilsey come ter de plantation. Dilsey wuz
a monst'us peart, good-lookin', gingybread-colored gal,--one er
dese yer high-steppin' gals w'at hol's dey heads up, en won' stan'
no foolishness fum no man. She had b'long' ter a gemman over on
Rockfish, w'at died, en whose 'state ha' ter be sol' fer ter pay
his debts. En Mars Dugal' had b'en ter de oction, en w'en he seed
dis gal a-cryin' en gwine on 'bout bein' sol' erway fum her ole
mammy, Aun' Mahaly, Mars Dugal' bid 'em bofe in, en fotch 'em ober
ter our plantation.

"De young nigger men on de plantation wuz des wil' atter Dilsey,
but it didn' do no good, en none un 'em couldn' git Dilsey fer dey
junesey,[1] 'tel Dave 'mence' fer ter go roun' Aun' Mahaly's
cabin. Dey wuz a fine-lookin' couple, Dave en Dilsey wuz, bofe
tall, en well-shape', en soopl'. En dey sot a heap by one
ernudder. Mars Dugal' seed 'em tergedder one Sunday, en de nex'
time he seed Dave atter dat, sezee:--

[1] Sweetheart.

"Dave, w'en yer en Dilsey gits ready fer ter git married, I ain'
got no rejections. Dey's a poun' er so er chawin'-terbacker up at
de house, en I reckon yo' mist'iss kin fine a frock en a ribbin er
two fer Dilsey. Youer bofe good niggers, en yer neenter be feared
er bein' sol' 'way fum one ernudder long ez I owns dis plantation;
en I 'spec's ter own it fer a long time yit.'

"But dere wuz one man on de plantation w'at didn' lack ter see
Dave en Dilsey tergedder ez much ez ole marster did. W'en Mars
Dugal' went ter de sale whar he got Dilsey en Mahaly, he bought
ernudder han', by de name er Wiley. Wiley wuz one er dese yer
shiny-eyed, double-headed little niggers, sha'p ez a steel trap,
en sly ez de fox w'at keep out'n it. Dis yer Wiley had be'n
pesterin' Dilsey 'fo' she come ter our plantation, en had nigh
'bout worried de life out'n her. She didn' keer nuffin fer 'im,
but he pestered her so she ha' ter th'eaten ter tell her marster
fer ter make Wiley let her 'lone. W'en he come ober to our place
it wuz des ez bad, 'tel bimeby Wiley seed dat Dilsey had got ter
thinkin' a heap 'bout Dave, en den he sorter hilt off aw'ile, en
purten' lack he gin Dilsey up. But he wuz one er dese yer
'ceitful niggers, en w'ile he wuz laffin' en jokin' wid de yuther
han's 'bout Dave en Dilsey, he wuz settin' a trap fer ter ketch
Dave en git Dilsey back fer hisse'f.

"Dave en Dilsey made up dere min's fer ter git married long 'bout
Christmas time, w'en dey'd hab mo' time fer a weddin'. But 'long
'bout two weeks befo' dat time ole mars 'mence' ter lose a heap er
bacon. Eve'y night er so somebody 'ud steal a side er bacon, er a
ham, er a shoulder, er sump'n, fum one er de smoke-'ouses. De
smoke-'ouses wuz lock', but somebody had a key, en manage' ter git
in some way er 'nudder. Dey's mo' ways 'n one ter skin a cat, en
dey's mo' d'n one way ter git in a smoke-'ouse,--leastways dat's
w'at I hearn say. Folks w'at had bacon fer ter sell didn' hab no
trouble 'bout gittin' rid un it. Hit wuz 'g'in' de law fer ter
buy things fum slabes; but Lawd! dat law didn' 'mount ter a hill
er peas. Eve'y week er so one er dese yer big covered waggins
would come 'long de road, peddlin' terbacker en w'iskey. Dey wuz
a sight er room in one er dem big waggins, en it wuz monst'us easy
fer ter swop off bacon fer sump'n ter chaw er ter wa'm yer up in
de winter-time. I s'pose de peddlers didn' knowed dey wuz
breakin' de law, caze de niggers alluz went at night, en stayed on
de dark side er de waggin; en it wuz mighty hard fer ter tell W'AT
kine er folks dey wuz.

"Atter two er th'ee hund'ed er meat had be'n stole', Mars Walker
call all de niggers up one ebenin', en tol' 'em dat de fus' nigger
he cot stealin' bacon on dat plantation would git sump'n fer ter
'member it by long ez he lib'. En he say he'd gin fi' dollars ter
de nigger w'at 'skiver' de rogue. Mars Walker say he s'picion'
one er two er de niggers, but he couldn' tell fer sho, en co'se
dey all 'nied it w'en he 'cuse em un it.

"Dey wa'n't no bacon stole' fer a week er so, 'tel one dark night
w'en somebody tuk a ham fum one er de smoke-'ouses. Mars Walker
des cusst awful w'en he foun' out de ham wuz gone, en say he gwine
ter sarch all de niggers' cabins; w'en dis yer Wiley I wuz tellin'
yer 'bout up'n say he s'picion' who tuk de ham, fer he seed Dave
comin' 'cross de plantation fum to'ds de smoke-'ouse de night
befo'. W'en Mars Walker hearn dis fum Wiley, he went en sarch'
Dave's cabin, en foun' de ham hid under de flo'.

"Eve'ybody wuz 'stonish'; but dere wuz de ham. Co'se Dave 'nied
it ter de las', but dere wuz de ham. Mars Walker say it wuz des
ez he 'spected: he didn' b'lieve in dese yer readin' en prayin'
niggers; it wuz all 'pocrisy, en sarve' Mars Dugal' right fer
'lowin' Dave ter be readin' books w'en it wuz 'g'in de law.

"W'en Mars Dugal' hearn 'bout de ham, he say he wuz might'ly
'ceived en disapp'inted in Dave. He say he wouldn' nebber hab no
mo' conferdence in no nigger, en Mars Walker could do des ez he
wuz a mineter wid Dave er any er de res' er de niggers. So Mars
Walker tuk'n tied Dave up en gin 'im forty; en den he got some er
dis yer wire clof w'at dey uses fer ter make sifters out'n, en
tuk'n wrap' it roun' de ham en fasten it tergedder at de little
een'. Den he tuk Dave down ter de blacksmif-shop, en had Unker
Silas, de plantation black-smif, fasten a chain ter de ham, en den
fasten de yuther een' er de chain roun' Dave's neck. En den he
says ter Dave, sezee:--

"'Now, suh, yer'll wear dat neckliss fer de nex' six mont's; en I
'spec's yer ner none er de yuther niggers on dis plantation won'
steal no mo' bacon dyoin' er dat time.'

"Well, it des 'peared ez if fum dat time Dave didn' hab nuffin but
trouble. De niggers all turnt ag'in' 'im, caze he be'n de 'casion
er Mars Dugal' turnin' 'em all ober ter Mars Walker. Mars Dugal'
wa'n't a bad marster hisse'f, but Mars Walker wuz hard ez a rock.
Dave kep' on sayin' he didn' take de ham, but none un 'em didn'
b'lieve 'im.

"Dilsey wa'n't on de plantation w'en Dave wuz 'cused er stealin'
de bacon. Ole mist'iss had sont her ter town fer a week er so fer
ter wait on one er her darters w'at had a young baby, en she didn'
fine out nuffin 'bout Dave's trouble 'tel she got back ter de
plantation. Dave had patien'ly endyoed de finger er scawn, en all
de hard words w'at de niggers pile' on 'im, caze he wuz sho'
Dilsey would stan' by 'im, en wouldn' b'lieve he wuz a rogue, ner
none er de yuther tales de darkies wuz tellin' 'bout 'im.

"W'en Dilsey come back fum town, en got down fum behine de buggy
whar she be'n ridin' wid ole mars, de fus' nigger 'ooman she met
says ter her,--

"'Is yer seed Dave, Dilsey?'

"No, I ain' seed Dave,' says Dilsey.

"'Yer des oughter look at dat nigger; reckon yer wouldn' want 'im
fer yo' junesey no mo'. Mars Walker cotch 'im stealin' bacon, en
gone en fasten' a ham roun' his neck, so he can't git it off'n
hisse'f. He sut'nly do look quare.'  En den de 'ooman bus' out
laffin' fit ter kill herse'f. W'en she got thoo laffin' she up'n
tole Dilsey all 'bout de ham, en all de yuther lies w'at de
niggers be'n tellin' on Dave.

"W'en Dilsey started down ter de quarters, who should she meet but
Dave, comin' in fum de cotton-fiel'. She turnt her head ter one
side, en purten' lack she didn' seed Dave.

"'Dilsey!' sezee.

"Dilsey walk' right on, en didn' notice 'im.

"'OH, Dilsey!'

"Dilsey didn' paid no 'tention ter 'im, en den Dave knowed some er
de niggers be'n tellin' her 'bout de ham. He felt monst'us bad,
but he 'lowed ef he could des git Dilsey fer ter listen ter 'im
fer a minute er so, he could make her b'lieve he didn' stole de
bacon. It wuz a week er two befo' he could git a chance ter speak
ter her ag'in; but fine'ly he cotch her down by de spring one day,
en sezee:--

"'Dilsey, w'at fer yer won' speak ter me, en purten' lack yer doan
see me? Dilsey, yer knows me too well fer ter b'lieve I'd steal,
er do dis yuther wick'ness de niggers is all layin' ter me,--yer
KNOWS I wouldn' do dat, Dilsey. Yer ain' gwine back on yo' Dave,
is yer?'

"But w'at Dave say didn' hab no 'fec' on Dilsey. Dem lies folks
b'en tellin' her had p'isen' her min' 'g'in' Dave.

"'I doan wanter talk ter no nigger,' says she, 'w'at be'n whip'
fer stealin', en w'at gwine roun' wid sich a lookin' thing ez dat
hung roun' his neck. I's a 'spectable gal, I is. W'at yer call
dat, Dave? Is dat a cha'm fer ter keep off witches, er is it a
noo kine er neckliss yer got?'

"Po' Dave didn' knowed w'at ter do. De las' one he had 'pended on
fer ter stan' by 'im had gone back on 'im, en dey didn' 'pear ter
be nuffin mo' wuf libbin' fer. He couldn' hol' no mo' pra'r-
meetin's, fer Mars Walker wouldn' 'low 'im ter preach, en de
darkies wouldn' 'a' listen' ter 'im ef he had preach'. He didn'
eben hab his Bible fer ter comfort hisse'f wid, fer Mars Walker
had tuk it erway fum 'im en burnt it up, en say ef he ketch any
mo' niggers wid Bibles on de plantation he'd do 'em wuss'n he done
Dave.

"En ter make it still harder fer Dave, Dilsey tuk up wid Wiley.
Dave could see him gwine up ter Aun' Mahaly's cabin, en settin'
out on de bench in de moonlight wid Dilsey, en singin' sinful
songs en playin' de banjer. Dave use' ter scrouch down behine de
bushes, en wonder w'at de Lawd sen' 'im all dem tribberlations
fer.

"But all er Dave's yuther troubles wa'n't nuffin side er dat ham.
He had wrap' de chain roun' wid a rag, so it didn' hurt his neck;
but w'eneber he went ter wuk, dat ham would be in his way; he had
ter do his task, howsomedever, des de same ez ef he didn' hab de
ham. W'eneber he went ter lay down, dat ham would be in de way.
Ef he turn ober in his sleep, dat ham would be tuggin' at his
neck. It wuz de las' thing he seed at night, en de fus' thing he
seed in de mawnin'. W'eneber he met a stranger, de ham would be
de fus' thing de stranger would see. Most un 'em would 'mence'
ter laf, en whareber Dave went he could see folks p'intin' at him,
en year 'em sayin:--

"'W'at kine er collar dat nigger got roun' his neck?' er, ef dey
knowed 'im, 'Is yer stole any mo' hams lately?' er 'W'at yer take
fer yo' neckliss, Dave?' er some joke er 'nuther 'bout dat ham.

"Fus' Dave didn' mine it so much, caze he knowed he hadn' done
nuffin. But bimeby he got so he couldn' stan' it no longer, en
he'd hide hisse'f in de bushes w'eneber he seed anybody comin', en
alluz kep' hisse'f shet up in his cabin atter he come in fum wuk.

"It wuz monst'us hard on Dave, en bimeby, w'at wid dat ham
eberlastin' en etarnally draggin' roun' his neck, he 'mence' fer
ter do en say quare things, en make de niggers wonder ef he wa'n't
gittin' out'n his mine. He got ter gwine roun' talkin' ter
hisse'f, en singin' corn-shuckin' songs, en laffin' fit ter kill
'bout nuffin. En one day he tole one er de niggers he had
'skivered a noo way fer ter raise hams,--gwine ter pick 'em off'n
trees, en save de expense er smoke-'ouses by kyoin' 'em in de sun.
En one day he up'n tole Mars Walker he got sump'n pertickler fer
ter say ter 'im; en he tuk Mars Walker off ter one side, en tole
'im he wuz gwine ter show 'im a place in de swamp whar dey wuz a
whole trac' er lan' covered wid ham-trees.

"W'en Mars Walker hearn Dave talkin' dis kine er fool-talk, en
w'en he seed how Dave wuz 'mencin' ter git behine in his wuk, en
w'en he ax' de niggers en dey tole 'im how Dave be'n gwine on, he
'lowed he reckon' he'd punish' Dave ernuff, en it mou't do mo'
harm dan good fer ter keep de ham on his neck any longer. So he
sont Dave down ter de blacksmif-shop en had de ham tak off. Dey
wa'n't much er de ham lef' by dat time, fer de sun had melt all de
fat, en de lean had all swivel' up, so dey wa'n't but th'ee er fo'
poun's lef'.

"W'en de ham had be'n tuk off'n Dave, folks kinder stopped talkin'
'bout 'im so much. But de ham had be'n on his neck so long dat
Dave had sorter got use' ter it. He look des lack he'd los'
sump'n fer a day er so atter de ham wuz tuk off, en didn' 'pear
ter know w'at ter do wid hisse'f; en fine'ly he up'n tuk'n tied a
lightered-knot ter a string, en hid it under de flo' er his cabin,
en w'en nobody wuzn' lookin' he'd take it out en hang it roun' his
neck, en go off in de woods en holler en sing; en he allus tied it
roun' his neck w'en he went ter sleep. Fac', it 'peared lack Dave
done gone clean out'n his mine. En atter a w'ile he got one er de
quarest notions you eber hearn tell un. It wuz 'bout dat time dat
I come back ter de plantation fer ter wuk,--I had be'n out ter
Mars Dugal's yuther place on Beaver Crick for a mont' er so. I
had hearn 'bout Dave en de bacon, en 'bout w'at wuz gwine on on de
plantation; but I didn' b'lieve w'at dey all say 'bout Dave, fer I
knowed Dave wa'n't dat kine er man. One day atter I come back,
me'n Dave wuz choppin' cotton tergedder, w'en Dave lean' on his
hoe, en motion' fer me ter come ober close ter 'im; en den he
retch' ober en w'ispered ter me.

"'Julius', [sic] sezee, 'did yer knowed yer wuz wukkin' long yer
wid a ham?'

"I couldn 'magine w'at he meant. 'G'way fum yer, Dave,' says I.
'Yer ain' wearin' no ham no mo'; try en fergit 'bout dat; 't ain'
gwine ter do yer no good fer ter 'member it.'

"Look a-yer, Julius,' sezee, 'kin yer keep a secret?'

"'Co'se I kin, Dave,' says I. 'I doan go roun' tellin' people
w'at yuther folks says ter me.'

"'Kin I trus' yer, Julius? Will yer cross yo' heart?'

"I cross' my heart. 'Wush I may die ef I tells a soul,' says I.

"Dave look' at me des lack he wuz lookin' thoo me en 'way on de
yuther side er me, en sezee:--

"'Did yer knowed I wuz turnin' ter a ham, Julius?'

"I tried ter 'suade Dave dat dat wuz all foolishness, en dat he
oughtn't ter be talkin' dat-a-way,--hit wa'n't right. En I tole
'im ef he'd des be patien', de time would sho'ly come w'en
eve'ything would be straighten' out, en folks would fine out who
de rale rogue wuz w'at stole de bacon. Dave 'peared ter listen
ter w'at I say, en promise' ter do better, en stop gwine on dat-a-
way; en it seem lack he pick' up a bit w'en he seed dey wuz one
pusson didn' b'lieve dem tales 'bout 'im.

"Hit wa'n't long atter dat befo' Mars Archie McIntyre, ober on de
Wimbleton road, 'mence' ter complain 'bout somebody stealin'
chickens fum his hen-'ouse. De chickens kip' on gwine, en at las'
Mars Archie tole de han's on his plantation dat he gwine ter shoot
de fus' man he ketch in his hen-'ouse. In less'n a week atter he
gin dis warnin', he cotch a nigger in de hen-'ouse, en fill' 'im
full er squir'l-shot. W'en he got a light, he 'skivered it wuz a
strange nigger; en w'en he call' one er his own sarven's, de
nigger tole 'im it wuz our Wiley. W'en Mars Archie foun' dat out,
he sont ober ter our plantation fer ter tell Mars Dugal' he had
shot one er his niggers, en dat he could sen' ober dere en git
w'at wuz lef' un 'im.

"Mars Dugal' wuz mad at fus'; but w'en he got ober dere en hearn
how it all happen', he didn' hab much ter say. Wiley wuz shot so
bad he wuz sho' he wuz gwine ter die, so he up'n says ter ole
marster:--

"'Mars Dugal',' sezee, 'I knows I's be'n a monst'us bad nigger,
but befo' I go I wanter git sump'n off'n my mine. Dave didn'
steal dat bacon w'at wuz tuk out'n de smoke-'ouse. I stole it
all, en I hid de ham under Dave's cabin fer ter th'ow de blame on
him--en may de good Lawd fergib me fer it.'

"Mars Dugal' had Wiley tuk back ter de plantation, en sont fer a
doctor fer ter pick de shot out'n 'im. En de ve'y nex' mawnin'
Mars Dugal' sont fer Dave ter come up ter de big house; he felt
kinder sorry fer de way Dave had be'n treated. Co'se it wa'n't no
fault er Mars Dugal's, but he wuz gwine ter do w'at he could fer
ter make up fer it. So he sont word down ter de quarters fer Dave
en all de yuther han's ter 'semble up in de yard befo' de big
house at sun-up nex' mawnin'.

"yearly in de mawnin' de niggers all swarm' up in de yard. Mars
Dugal' wuz feelin' so kine dat he had brung up a bairl er cider,
en tole de niggers all fer ter he'p deyselves.

"All dey han's on de plantation come but Dave; en bimeby, w'en it
seem lack he wa'n't comin', Mars Dugal' sont a nigger down ter de
quarters ter look fer 'im. De sun wuz gittin' up, en dey wuz a
heap er wuk ter be done, en Mars Dugal' sorter got ti'ed waitin';
so he up'n says:--

"'Well, boys en gals, I sont fer yer all up yer fer ter tell yer
dat all dat 'bout Dave's stealin' er de bacon wuz a mistake, ez I
s'pose yer all done hearn befo' now, en I's mighty sorry it
happen'. I wants ter treat all my niggers right, en I wants yer
all ter know dat I sets a heap by all er my han's w'at is hones'
en smart. En I want yer all ter treat Dave des lack yer did befo'
dis thing happen', en mine w'at he preach ter yer; fer Dave is a
good nigger, en has had a hard row ter hoe. En de fus' one I
ketch sayin' anythin' 'g'in Dave, I'll tell Mister Walker ter gin
'im forty. Now take ernudder drink er cider all roun', en den git
at dat cotton, fer I wanter git dat Persimmon Hill trac' all pick'
ober ter-day.'

"W'en de niggers wuz gwine 'way, Mars Dugal' tole me fer ter go en
hunt up Dave, en bring 'im up ter de house. I went down ter
Dave's cabin, but couldn' fine 'im dere. Den I look' roun' de
plantation, en in de aidge er de woods, en 'long de road; but I
couldn' fine no sign er Dave. I wuz 'bout ter gin up de sarch,
w'en I happen' fer ter run 'cross a foot-track w'at look' lack
Dave's. I had wukked 'long wid Dave so much dat I knowed his
tracks: he had a monst'us long foot, wid a holler instep, w'ich
wuz sump'n skase 'mongs' black folks. So I follered dat track
'cross de fiel' fum de quarters 'tel I got ter de smoke-'ouse. De
fus' thing I notice' wuz smoke comin' out'n de cracks: it wuz
cu'ous, caze dey hadn' be'n no hogs kill' on de plantation fer six
mont' er so, en all de bacon in de smoke-'ouse wuz done kyoed. I
couldn' 'magine fer ter sabe my life w'at Dave wuz doin' in dat
smoke-'ouse. I went up ter de do' en hollered:--

"'Dave!'

"Dey didn' nobody answer. I didn' wanter open de do', fer w'ite
folks is monst'us pertickler 'bout dey smoke-'ouses; en ef de
oberseah had a-come up en cotch me in dere, he mou't not wanter
b'lieve I wuz des lookin' fer Dave. So I sorter knock at de do'
en call' out ag'in:--

"'O Dave, hit's me--Julius! Doan be skeered. Mars Dugal' wants
yer ter come up ter de big house,--he done 'skivered who stole de
ham.'

"But Dave didn' answer. En w'en I look' roun' ag'in en didn' seed
none er his tracks gwine way fum de smoke-'ouse, I knowed he wuz
in dere yit, en I wuz 'termine' fer ter fetch 'im out; so I push
de do' open en look in.

"Dey wuz a pile er bark burnin' in de middle er de flo', en right
ober de fier, hangin' fum one er de rafters, wuz Dave; dey wuz a
rope roun' his neck, en I didn' haf ter look at his face mo' d'n
once fer ter see he wuz dead.

"Den I knowed how it all happen'. Dave had kep' on gittin' wusser
en wusser in his mine, 'tel he des got ter b'lievin' he wuz all
done turnt ter a ham; en den he had gone en built a fier, en tied
a rope roun' his neck, des lack de hams wuz tied, en had hung
hisse'f up in de smoke-'ouse fer ter kyo.

"Dave wuz buried down by de swamp, in de plantation buryin'-
groun'. Wiley didn' died fum de woun' he got in Mars McIntyre's
hen-'ouse; he got well atter a w'ile, but Dilsey wouldn' hab
nuffin mo' ter do wid 'im, en 't wa'n't long 'fo' Mars Dugal' sol'
'im ter a spekilater on his way souf,--he say he didn' want no
sich a nigger on de plantation, ner in de county, ef he could he'p
it. En w'en de een' er de year come, Mars Dugal' turnt Mars
Walker off, en run de plantation hisse'f atter dat.

"Eber sence den," said Julius in conclusion, "w'eneber I eats ham,
it min's me er Dave. I lacks ham, but I nebber kin eat mo' d'n
two er th'ee poun's befo' I gits ter studyin' 'bout Dave, en den I
has ter stop en leab de res' fer ernudder time."

There was a short silence after the old man had finished his
story, and then my wife began to talk to him about the weather, on
which subject he was an authority. I went into the house. When I
came out, half an hour later, I saw Julius disappearing down the
lane, with a basket on his arm.

At breakfast, next morning, it occurred to me that I should like a
slice of ham. I said as much to my wife.

"Oh, no, John," she responded, "you shouldn't eat anything so
heavy for breakfast."

I insisted.

"The fact is," she said, pensively, "I couldn't have eaten any
more of that ham, and so I gave it to Julius."

THE AWAKENING OF THE NEGRO
by Booker T. Washington

When a mere boy, I saw a young colored man, who had spent several
years in school, sitting in a common cabin in the South, studying
a French grammar. I noted the poverty, the untidiness, the want
of system and thrift, that existed about the cabin,
notwithstanding his knowledge of French and other academic
subjects. Another time, when riding on the outer edges of a town
in the South, I heard the sound of a piano coming from a cabin of
the same kind. Contriving some excuse, I entered, and began a
conversation with the young colored woman who was playing, and who
had recently returned from a boarding-school, where she had been
studying instrumental music among other things. Despite the fact
that her parents were living in a rented cabin, eating poorly
cooked food, surrounded with poverty, and having almost none of
the conveniences of life, she had persuaded them to rent a piano
for four or five dollars per month. Many such instances as these,
in connection with my own struggles, impressed upon me the
importance of making a study of our needs as a race, and applying
the remedy accordingly.

Some one may be tempted to ask, Has not the negro boy or girl as
good a right to study a French grammar and instrumental music as
the white youth? I answer, Yes, but in the present condition of
the negro race in this country there is need of something more.
Perhaps I may be forgiven for the seeming egotism if I mention the
expansion of my own life partly as an example of what I mean. My
earliest recollection is of a small one-room log hut on a large
slave plantation in Virginia. After the close of the war, while
working in the coal-mines of West Virginia for the support of my
mother, I heart in some accidental way of the Hampton Institute.
When I learned that it was an institution where a black boy could
study, could have a chance to work for his board, and at the same
time be taught how to work and to realize the dignity of labor, I
resolved to go there. Bidding my mother good-by, I started out
one morning to find my way to Hampton, though I was almost
penniless and had no definite idea where Hampton was. By walking,
begging rides, and paying for a portion of the journey on the
steam-cars, I finally succeeded in reaching the city of Richmond,
Virginia. I was without money or friends. I slept under a
sidewalk, and by working on a vessel next day I earned money to
continue my way to the institute, where I arrived with a surplus
of fifty cents. At Hampton I found the opportunity--in the way of
buildings, teachers, and industries provided by the generous--to
get training in the class-room and by practical touch with
industrial life, to learn thrift, economy, and push. I was
surrounded by an atmosphere of business, Christian influence, and
a spirit of self-help that seemed to have awakened every faculty
in me, and caused me for the first time to realize what it meant
to be a man instead of a piece of property.

While there I resolved that when I had finished the course of
training I would go into the far South, into the Black Belt of the
South, and give my life to providing the same kind of opportunity
for self-reliance and self-awakening that I had found provided for
me at Hampton. My work began at Tuskegee, Alabama, in 1881, in a
small shanty and church, with one teacher and thirty students,
without a dollar's worth of property. The spirit of work and of
industrial thrift, with aid from the State and generosity from the
North, has enabled us to develop an institution of eight hundred
students gathered from nineteen States, with seventy-nine
instructors, fourteen hundred acres of land, and thirty buildings,
including large and small; in all, property valued at $280,000.
Twenty-five industries have been organized, and the whole work is
carried on at an annual cost of about $80,000 in cash; two fifths
of the annual expense so far has gone into permanent plant.

What is the object of all this outlay? First, it must be borne in
mind that we have in the South a peculiar and unprecedented state
of things. It is of the utmost importance that our energy be
given to meeting conditions that exist right about us rather than
conditions that existed centuries ago or that exist in countries a
thousand miles away. What are the cardinal needs among the seven
millions of colored people in the South, most of whom are to be
found on the plantations? Roughly, these needs may be stated as
food, clothing, shelter, education, proper habits, and a
settlement of race relations. The seven millions of colored
people of the South cannot be reached directly by any missionary
agency, but they can be reached by sending out among them strong
selected young men and women, with the proper training of head,
hand, and heart, who will live among these masses and show them
how to lift themselves up.

The problem that the Tuskegee Institute keeps before itself
constantly is how to prepare these leaders. From the outset, in
connection with religious and academic training, it has emphasized
industrial or hand training as a means of finding the way out of
present conditions. First, we have found the industrial teaching
useful in giving the student a chance to work out a portion of his
expenses while in school. Second, the school furnishes labor that
has an economic value, and at the same time gives the student a
chance to acquire knowledge and skill while performing the labor.
Most of all, we find the industrial system valuable in teaching
economy, thrift, and the dignity of labor, and in giving moral
backbone to students. The fact that a student goes out into the
world conscious of his power to build a house or a wagon, or to
make a harness, gives him a certain confidence and moral
independence that he would not possess without such training.

A more detailed example of our methods at Tuskegee may be of
interest. For example, we cultivate by student labor six hundred
and fifty acres of land. The object is not only to cultivate the
land in a way to make it pay our boarding department, but at the
same time to teach the students, in addition to the practical
work, something of the chemistry of the soil, the best methods of
drainage, dairying, the cultivation of fruit, the care of
livestock and tools, and scores of other lessons needed by a
people whose main dependence is on agriculture. Notwithstanding
that eighty-five per cent of the colored people in the South live
by agriculture in some form, aside from what has been done by
Hampton, Tuskegee, and one or two other institutions practically
nothing has been attempted in the direction of teaching them about
the very industry from which the masses of our people must get
their subsistence. Friends have recently provided means for the
erection of a large new chapel at Tuskegee. Our students have
made the bricks for this chapel. A large part of the timber is
sawed by students at our own sawmill, the plans are drawn by our
teacher of architecture and mechanical drawing, and students do
the brick-masonry, plastering, painting, carpentry work, tinning,
slating, and make most of the furniture. Practically, the whole
chapel will be built and furnished by student labor; in the end
the school will have the building for permanent use, and the
students will have a knowledge of the trades employed in its
construction. In this way all but three of the thirty buildings
on the grounds have been erected. While the young men do the
kinds of work I have mentioned, the young women to a large extent
make, mend, and launder the clothing of the young men, and thus
are taught important industries.

One of the objections sometimes urged against industrial education
for the negro is that it aims merely to teach him to work on the
same plan that he was made to follow when in slavery. This is far
from being the object at Tuskegee. At the head of each of the
twenty-five industrial departments we have an intelligent and
competent instructor, just as we have in our history classes, so
that the student is taught not only practical brick-masonry, for
example, but also the underlying principles of that industry, the
mathematics and the mechanical and architectural drawing. Or he
is taught how to become master of the forces of nature so that,
instead of cultivating corn in the old way, he can use a corn
cultivator, that lays off the furrows, drops the corn into them,
and covers it, and in this way he can do more work than three men
by the old process of corn-planting; at the same time much of the
toil is eliminated and labor is dignified. In a word, the
constant aim is to show the student how to put brains into every
process of labor; how to bring his knowledge of mathematics and
the sciences into farming, carpentry, forging, foundry work; how
to dispense as soon as possible with the old form of ante-bellum
labor. In the erection of the chapel just referred to, instead of
letting the money which was given us go into outside hands, we
make it accomplish three objects: first, it provides the chapel;
second, it gives the students a chance to get a practical
knowledge of the trades connected with building; and third, it
enables them to earn something toward the payment of board while
receiving academic and industrial training.

Having been fortified at Tuskegee by education of mind, skill of
hand, Christian character, ideas of thrift, economy, and push, and
a spirit of independence, the student is sent out to become a
centre of influence and light in showing the masses of our people
in the Black Belt of the South how to lift themselves up. How can
this be done? I give but one or two examples. Ten years ago a
young colored man came to the institute from one of the large
plantation districts; he studied in the class-room a portion of
the time, and received practical and theoretical training on the
farm the remainder of the time. Having finished his course at
Tuskegee, he returned to his plantation home, which was in a
county where the colored people outnumber the whites six to one,
as is true of many of the counties in the Black Belt of the South.
He found the negroes in debt. Ever since the war they had been
mortgaging their crops for the food on which to live while the
crops were growing. The majority of them were living from hand to
mouth on rented land, in small, one-room log cabins, and
attempting to pay a rate of interest on their advances that ranged
from fifteen to forty per cent per annum. The school had been
taught in a wreck of a log cabin, with no apparatus, and had never
been in session longer than three months out of twelve. With as
many as eight or ten persons of all ages and conditions and of
both sexes huddled together in one cabin year after year, and with
a minister whose only aim was to work upon the emotions of the
people, one can imagine something of the moral and religious state
of the community.

But the remedy. In spite of the evil, the negro got the habit of
work from slavery. The rank and file of the race, especially
those on the Southern plantations, work hard, but the trouble is,
what they earn gets away from them in high rents, crop mortgages,
whiskey, snuff, cheap jewelry, and the like. The young man just
referred to had been trained at Tuskegee, as most of our graduates
are, to meet just this condition of things. He took the three
months' public school as a nucleus for his work. Then he
organized the older people into a club, or conference, that held
meetings every week. In these meetings he taught the people in a
plain, simple manner how to save their money, how to farm in a
better way, how to sacrifice,--to live on bread and potatoes, if
need be, till they could get out of debt, and begin the buying of
lands.

Soon a large proportion of the people were in condition to make
contracts for the buying of homes (land is very cheap in the
South), and to live without mortgaging their crops. Not only
this: under the guidance and leadership of this teacher, the first
year that he was among them they learned how, by contributions in
money and labor, to build a neat, comfortable schoolhouse that
replaced the wreck of a log cabin formerly used. The following
year the weekly meetings were continued, and two months were added
to the original three months of school. The next year two more
months were added. The improvement has gone on, until now these
people have every year an eight months' school.

I wish my readers could have the chance that I have had of going
into this community. I wish they could look into the faces of the
people and see them beaming with hope and delight. I wish they
could see the two or three room cottages that have taken the place
of the usual one-room cabin, the well-cultivated farms, and the
religious life of the people that now means something more than
the name. The teacher has a good cottage and a well-kept farm
that serve as models. In a word, a complete revolution has been
wrought in the industrial, educational, and religious life of this
whole community by reason of the fact that they have had this
leader, this guide and object-lesson, to show them how to take the
money and effort that had hitherto been scattered to the wind in
mortgages and high rents, in whiskey and gewgaws, and concentrate
them in the direction of their own uplifting. One community on
its feet presents an object-lesson for the adjoining communities,
and soon improvements show themselves in other places.

Another student who received academic and industrial training at
Tuskegee established himself, three years ago, as a blacksmith and
wheelwright in a community, and, in addition to the influence of
his successful business enterprise, he is fast making the same
kind of changes in the life of the people about him that I have
just recounted. It would be easy for me to fill many pages
describing the influence of the Tuskegee graduates in every part
of the South. We keep it constantly in the minds of our students
and graduates that the industrial or material condition of the
masses of our people must be improved, as well as the
intellectual, before there can be any permanent change in their
moral and religious life. We find it a pretty hard thing to make
a good Christian of a hungry man. No matter how much our people
"get happy" and "shout" in church, if they go home at night from
church hungry, they are tempted to find something before morning.
This is a principle of human nature, and is not confined to the
negro.

The negro has within him immense power for self-uplifting, but for
years it will be necessary to guide and stimulate him. The
recognition of this power led us to organize, five years ago, what
is now known as the Tuskegee Negro Conference,--a gathering that
meets every February, and is composed of about eight hundred
representative colored men and women from all sections of the
Black Belt. They come in ox-carts, mule-carts, buggies, on
muleback and horseback, on foot, by railroad: some traveling all
night in order to be present. The matters considered at the
conferences are those that the colored people have it within their
own power to control: such as the evils of the mortgage system,
the one-room cabin, buying on credit, the importance of owning a
home and of putting money in the bank, how to build schoolhouses
and prolong the school term, and how to improve their moral and
religious condition.

As a single example of the results, one delegate reported that
since the conferences were started five years ago eleven people in
his neighborhood had bought homes, fourteen had got out of debt,
and a number had stopped mortgaging their crops. Moreover, a
schoolhouse had been built by the people themselves, and the
school term had been extended from three to six months; and with a
look of triumph he exclaimed, "We is done stopped libin' in de
ashes!"

Besides this Negro Conference for the masses of the people, we now
have a gathering at the same time known as the Workers'
Conference, composed of the officers and instructors in the
leading colored schools of the South. After listening to the
story of the conditions and needs from the people themselves, the
Workers' Conference finds much food for thought and discussion.

Nothing else so soon brings about right relations between the two
races in the South as the industrial progress of the negro.
Friction between the races will pass away in proportion as the
black man, by reason of his skill, intelligence, and character,
can produce something that the white man wants or respects in the
commercial world. This is another reason why at Tuskegee we push
the industrial training. We find that as every year we put into a
Southern community colored men who can start a brick-yard, a
sawmill, a tin-shop, or a printing-office,--men who produce
something that makes the white man partly dependent upon the
negro, instead of all the dependence being on the other side,--a
change takes place in the relations of the races.

Let us go on for a few more years knitting our business and
industrial relations into those of the white man, till a black man
gets a mortgage on a white man's house that he can foreclose at
will. The white man on whose house the mortgage rests will not
try to prevent that negro from voting when he goes to the polls.
It is through the dairy farm, the truck garden, the trades, and
commercial life, largely, that the negro is to find his way to the
enjoyment of all his rights. Whether he will or not, a white man
respects a negro who owns a two-story brick house.

What is the permanent value of the Tuskegee system of training to
the South in a broader sense? In connection with this, it is well
to bear in mind that slavery taught the white man that labor with
the hands was something fit for the negro only, and something for
the white man to come into contact with just as little as
possible. It is true that there was a large class of poor white
people who labored with the hands, but they did it because they
were not able to secure negroes to work for them; and these poor
whites were constantly trying to imitate the slave-holding class
in escaping labor, and they too regarded it as anything but
elevating. The negro in turn looked down upon the poor whites
with a certain contempt because they had to work. The negro, it
is to be borne in mind, worked under constant protest, because he
felt that his labor was being unjustly required, and he spent
almost as much effort in planning how to escape work as in
learning how to work. Labor with him was a badge of degradation.
The white man was held up before him as the highest type of
civilization, but the negro noted that this highest type of
civilization himself did no labor; hence he argued that the less
work he did, the more nearly he would be like a white man. Then,
in addition to these influences, the slave system discouraged
labor-saving machinery. To use labor-saving machinery
intelligence was required, and intelligence and slavery were not
on friendly terms; hence the negro always associated labor with
toil, drudgery, something to be escaped. When the negro first
became free, his idea of education was that it was something that
would soon put him in the same position as regards work that his
recent master had occupied. Out of these conditions grew the
Southern habit of putting off till to-morrow and the day after the
duty that should be done promptly to-day. The leaky house was not
repaired while the sun shone, for then the rain did not come
through. While the rain was falling, no one cared to expose
himself to stop the leak. The plough, on the same principle, was
left where the last furrow was run, to rot and rust in the field
during the winter. There was no need to repair the wooden chimney
that was exposed to the fire, because water could be thrown on it
when it was on fire. There was no need to trouble about the
payment of a debt to-day, for it could just as well be paid next
week or next year. Besides these conditions, the whole South, at
the close of the war, was without proper food, clothing, and
shelter,--was in need of habits of thrift and economy and of
something laid up for a rainy day.

To me it seemed perfectly plain that here was a condition of
things that could not be met by the ordinary process of education.
At Tuskegee we became convinced that the thing to do was to make a
careful systematic study of the condition and needs of the South,
especially the Black Belt, and to bend our efforts in the
direction of meeting these needs, whether we were following a
well-beaten track, or were hewing out a new path to meet
conditions probably without a parallel in the world. After
fourteen years of experience and observation, what is the result?
Gradually but surely, we find that all through the South the
disposition to look upon labor as a disgrace is on the wane, and
the parents who themselves sought to escape work are so anxious to
give their children training in intelligent labor that every
institution which gives training in the handicrafts is crowded,
and many (among them Tuskegee) have to refuse admission to
hundreds of applicants. The influence of the Tuskegee system is
shown again by the fact that almost every little school at the
remotest cross-roads is anxious to be known as an industrial
school, or, as some of the colored people call it, an "industrus"
school.

The social lines that were once sharply drawn between those who
labored with the hand and those who did not are disappearing.
Those who formerly sought to escape labor, now when they see that
brains and skill rob labor of the toil and drudgery once
associated with it, instead of trying to avoid it are willing to
pay to be taught how to engage in it. The South is beginning to
see labor raised up, dignified and beautified, and in this sees
its salvation. In proportion as the love of labor grows, the
large idle class which has long been one of the curses of the
South disappears. As its members become absorbed in occupations,
they have less time to attend to everybody else's business, and
more time for their own.

The South is still an undeveloped and unsettled country, and for
the next half century and more the greater part of the energy of
the masses will be needed to develop its material opportunities.
Any force that brings the rank and file of the people to a greater
love of industry is therefore especially valuable. This result
industrial education is surely bringing about. It stimulates
production and increases trade,--trade between the races,--and in
this new and engrossing relation both forget the past. The white
man respects the vote of the colored man who does $10,000 worth of
business, and the more business the colored man has, the more
careful he is how he votes.

Immediately after the war, there was a large class of Southern
people who feared that the opening of the free schools to the
freedmen and the poor whites--the education of the head alone--
would result merely in increasing the class who sought to escape
labor, and that the South would soon be overrun by the idle and
vicious. But as the results of industrial combined with academic
training begin to show themselves in hundreds of communities that
have been lifted up through the medium of the Tuskegee system,
these former prejudices against education are being removed. Many
of those who a few years ago opposed general education are now
among its warmest advocates.

This industrial training, emphasizing as it does the idea of
economic production, is gradually bringing the South to the point
where it is feeding itself. Before the war, and long after it,
the South made what little profit was received from the cotton
crop, and sent its earnings out of the South to purchase food
supplies,--meat, bread, canned vegetables, and the like; but the
improved methods of agriculture are fast changing this habit.
With the newer methods of labor, which teach promptness and
system, and emphasize the worth of the beautiful,--the moral value
of the well-painted house, and the fence with every paling and
nail in its place,--we are bringing to bear upon the South an
influence that is making it a new country in industry, education,
and religion.

THE STORY OF UNCLE TOM'S CABIN
by Charles Dudley Warner

On the 29th of June, 1852, Henry Clay died. In that month the two
great political parties, in their national conventions, had
accepted as a finality all the compromise measures of 1850, and
the last hours of the Kentucky statesman were brightened by the
thought that his efforts had secured the perpetuity of the Union.

But on the 20th of March, 1852, there had been an event, the
significance of which was not taken into account by the political
conventions or by Clay, which was to test the conscience of the
nation. This was the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Was this
only an "event," the advent of a new force in politics; was the
book merely an abolition pamphlet, or was it a novel, one of the
few great masterpieces of fiction that the world has produced?
After the lapse of forty-four years and the disappearance of
African slavery on this continent, it is perhaps possible to
consider this question dispassionately.

The compromise of 1850 satisfied neither the North nor the South.
The admission of California as a free State was regarded by
Calhoun as fatal to the balance between the free and the slave
States, and thereafter a fierce agitation sprang up for the
recovery of this loss of balance, and ultimately for Southern
preponderance, which resulted in the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise, the Kansas-Nebraska war, and the civil war. The
fugitive slave law was hateful to the North not only because it
was cruel and degrading, but because it was seen to be a move
formed for nationalizing slavery. It was unsatisfactory to the
South because it was deemed inadequate in its provisions, and
because the South did not believe the North would execute it in
good faith. So unstable did the compromise seem that in less than
a year after the passage of all its measures, Henry Clay and
forty-four Senators and Representatives united in a manifesto
declaring that they would support no man for office who was not
known to be opposed to any disturbance of the settlements of the
compromise. When, in February, 1851, the recaptured fugitive
slave, Burns, was rescued from the United States officers in
Boston, Clay urged the investment of the President with
extraordinary power to enforce the law.

Henry Clay was a patriot, a typical American. The republic and
its preservation were the passions of his life. Like Lincoln, who
was born in the State of his adoption, he was willing to make
almost any sacrifice for the maintenance of the Union. He had no
sympathy with the system of slavery. There is no doubt that he
would have been happy in the belief that it was in the way of
gradual and peaceful extinction. With him, it was always the
Union before state rights and before slavery. Unlike Lincoln, he
had not the clear vision to see that the republic could not endure
half slave and half free. He believed that the South, appealing
to the compromises of the Constitution, would sacrifice the Union
before it would give up slavery, and in fear of this menace he
begged the North to conquer its prejudices. We are not liable to
overrate his influence as a compromising pacificator from 1832 to
1852. History will no doubt say that it was largely due to him
that the war on the Union was postponed to a date when its success
was impossible.

It was the fugitive slave law that brought the North face to face
with slavery nationalized, and it was the fugitive slave law that
produced Uncle Tom's Cabin. The effect of this story was
immediate and electric. It went straight to the hearts of tens of
thousands of people who had never before considered slavery except
as a political institution for which they had no personal
responsibility. What was this book, and how did it happen to
produce such an effect? It is true that it struck into a time of
great irritation and agitation, but in one sense there was nothing
new in it. The facts had all been published. For twenty years
abolition tracts, pamphlets, newspapers, and books had left little
to be revealed, to those who cared to read, as to the nature of
slavery or its economic aspects. The evidence was practically all
in,--supplied largely by the advertisements of Southern newspapers
and by the legislation of the slaveholding States,--but it did not
carry conviction; that is, the sort of conviction that results in
action. The subject had to be carried home to the conscience.
Pamphleteering, convention-holding, sermons, had failed to do
this. Even the degrading requirements of the fugitive slave law,
which brought shame and humiliation, had not sufficed to fuse the
public conscience, emphasize the necessity of obedience to the
moral law, and compel recognition of the responsibility of the
North for slavery. Evidence had not done this, passionate appeals
had not done it, vituperation had not done it. What sort of
presentation of the case would gain the public ear and go to the
heart? If Mrs. Stowe, in all her fervor, had put forth first the
facts in The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin, which so buttressed her
romance, the book would have had no more effect than had followed
the like compilations and arraignments. What was needed? If we
can discover this, we shall have the secret of this epoch-making
novel.

The story of this book has often been told. It is in the nature
of a dramatic incident of which the reader never tires any more
than the son of Massachusetts does of the minutest details of that
famous scene in the Senate Chamber when Webster replied to Hayne.

At the age of twenty-four the author was married and went to live
in Cincinnati, where her husband held a chair in the Lane
Theological Seminary. There for the first time she was brought
into relations with the African race and saw the effects of
slavery. She visited slaveholders in Kentucky and had friends
among them. In some homes she saw the "patriarchal" institution
at its best. The Beecher family were anti-slavery, but they had
not been identified with the abolitionists, except perhaps Edward,
who was associated with the murdered Lovejoy. It was long a
reproach brought by the abolitionists against Henry Ward Beecher
that he held entirely aloof from their movement. At Cincinnati,
however, the personal aspects of the case were brought home to
Mrs. Stowe. She learned the capacities and peculiarities of the
negro race. They were her servants; she taught some of them;
hunted fugitives applied to her; she ransomed some by her own
efforts; every day there came to her knowledge stories of the
hunger for freedom, of the ruthless separation of man and wife and
mother and child, and of the heroic sufferings of those who ran
away from the fearful doom of those "sold down South."  These
things crowded upon her mind and awoke her deepest compassion.
But what could she do against all the laws, the political and
commercial interests, the great public apathy? Relieve a case
here and there, yes. But to dwell upon the gigantic evil, with no
means of making head against it, was to invite insanity.

As late as 1850, when Professor Stowe was called to Bowdoin
College, and the family removed to Brunswick, Maine, Mrs. Stowe
had not felt impelled to the duty she afterwards undertook. "In
fact, it was a sort of general impression upon her mind, as upon
that of many humane people in those days, that the subject was so
dark and painful a one, so involved in difficulty and obscurity,
so utterly beyond human hope or help, that it was of no use to
read, or think, or distress one's self about it."  But when she
reached New England the excitement over the fugitive slave law was
at its height. There was a panic in Boston among the colored
people settled there, who were daily fleeing to Canada. Every
mail brought her pitiful letters from Boston, from Illinois, and
elsewhere, of the terror and despair caused by the law. Still
more was the impressed by the apathy of the Christian world at the
North, and surely, she said, the people did not understand what
the "system" was. Appeals were made to her, who had some personal
knowledge of the subject, to take up her pen. The task seemed
beyond her in every way. She was not strong, she was in the midst
of heavy domestic cares, with a young infant, with pupils to whom
she was giving daily lessons, and the limited income of the family
required the strictest economy. The dependence was upon the small
salary of Professor Stowe, and the few dollars she could earn by
an occasional newspaper or magazine article. But the theme burned
in her mind, and finally took this shape: at least she would write
some sketches and show the Christian world what slavery really
was, and what the system was that they were defending. She wanted
to do this with entire fairness, showing all the mitigations of
the "patriarchal" system, and all that individuals concerned in it
could do to alleviate its misery. While pondering this she came
by chance, in a volume of an anti-slavery magazine, upon the
authenticated account of the escape of a woman with her child on
the ice across the Ohio River from Kentucky. She began to
meditate. The faithful slave husband in Kentucky, who had refused
to escape from a master who trusted him, when he was about to be
sold "down river," came to her as a pattern of Uncle Tom, and the
scenes of the story began to form themselves in her mind. "The
first part of the book ever committed to writing [this is the
statement of Mrs. Stowe] was the death of Uncle Tom. This scene
presented itself almost as a tangible vision to her mind while
sitting at the communion-table in the little church in Brunswick.
She was perfectly overcome by it, and could scarcely restrain the
convulsion of tears and sobbings that shook her frame. She
hastened home and wrote it, and her husband being away, read it to
her two sons of ten and twelve years of age. The little fellows
broke out into convulsions of weeping, one of them saying through
his sobs, 'Oh, mamma, slavery is the most cursed thing in the
world!'  From that time the story can less be said to have been
composed by her than imposed upon her. Scenes, incidents,
conversations rushed upon her with a vividness and importunity
that would not be denied. The book insisted upon getting itself
into being, and would take no denial."

When two or three chapters were written she wrote to her friend,
Dr. Bailey, of Washington, the editor of The National Era, to
which she had contributed, that she was planning a story that
might run through several numbers of the Era. The story was at
once applied for, and thereafter weekly installments were sent on
regularly, in spite of all cares and distractions. The
installments were mostly written during the morning, on a little
desk in a corner of the dining-room of the cottage in Brunswick,
subject to all the interruptions of house-keeping, her children
bursting into the room continually with the importunity of
childhood. But they did not break the spell or destroy her
abstraction. With a smile and a word and a motion of the hand she
would wave them off, and keep on in her magician's work. Long
afterwards they recalled this, dimly understood at the time, and
wondered at her power of concentration. Usually at night the
chapters were read to the family, who followed the story with
intense feeling. The narrative ran on for nine months, exciting
great interest among the limited readers of the Era, and gaining
sympathetic words from the anti-slavery people, but without making
any wide impression on the public.

We may pause here in the narrative to note two things: the story
was not the work of a novice, and it was written out of abundant
experience and from an immense mass of accumulated thought and
material. Mrs. Stowe was in her fortieth year. She had been
using her pen since she was twelve years old, in extensive
correspondence, in occasional essays, in short stories and
sketches, some of which appeared in a volume called The Mayflower,
published in 1843, and for many years her writing for newspapers
and periodicals had added appreciably to the small family income.
She was in the maturity of her intellectual powers, she was
trained in the art of writing, and she had, as Walter Scott had
when he began the Waverley Novels at the age of forty-three,
abundant store of materials on which to draw. To be sure, she was
on fire with a moral purpose, but she had the dramatic instinct,
and she felt that her object would not be reached by writing an
abolition tract.

"In shaping her material the author had but one purpose, to show
the institution of slavery truly, just as it existed. She had
visited in Kentucky; had formed the acquaintance of people who
were just, upright, and generous, and yet slave-holders. She had
heard their views, and appreciated their situation; she felt that
justice required that their difficulties should be recognized and
their virtues acknowledged. It was her object to show that the
evils of slavery were the inherent evils of a bad system, and not
always the fault of those who had become involved in it and were
its actual administrators. Then she was convinced that the
presentation of slavery alone, in its most dreadful forms, would
be a picture of such unrelieved horror and darkness as nobody
could be induced to look at. Of set purpose, she sought to light
up the darkness by humorous and grotesque episodes, and the
presentation of the milder and more amusing phases of slavery, for
which her recollection of the never-failing wit and drollery of
her former colored friends in Ohio gave her abundant material."

This is her own account of the process, years after. But it is
evident that, whether consciously or unconsciously, she did but
follow the inevitable law of all great dramatic creators and true
story-tellers since literature began.

For this story Mrs. Stowe received from the Era the sum of three
hundred dollars. Before it was finished it attracted the
attention of Mr. J. P. Jewett, of Boston, a young and then unknown
publisher, who offered to issue it in book form. His offer was
accepted, but as the tale ran on he became alarmed at its length,
and wrote to the author that she was making the story too long for
a one-volume novel; that the subject was unpopular; that people
would not willingly hear much about it; that one short volume
might possibly sell, but that if it grew to two that might prove a
fatal obstacle to its success. Mrs. Stowe replied that she did
not make the story, that the story made itself, and that she could
not stop it till it was done. The publisher hesitated. It is
said that a competent literary critic to whom he submitted it sat
up all night with the novel, and then reported, "The story has
life in it; it will sell."  Mr. Jewett proposed to Professor Stowe
to publish it on half profits if he would share the expenses.
This offer was declined, for the Stowes had no money to advance,
and the common royalty of ten per cent on the sales was accepted.

Mrs. Stowe was not interested in this business transaction. She
was thinking only of having the book circulated for the effect she
had at heart. The intense absorption in the story held her until
the virtual end in the death of Uncle Tom, and then it seemed as
if the whole vital force had left her. She sank into a profound
discouragement. Would this appeal, which she had written with her
heart's blood, go for nothing, as all the prayers and tears and
strivings had already gone? When the last proof sheets left her
hands, "it seemed to her that there was no hope; that nobody would
read, nobody would pity; that this frightful system, which had
already pursued its victims into the free States, might at last
even threaten them in Canada."  Resolved to leave nothing undone
to attract attention to her cause, she wrote letters and ordered
copies of her novel sent to men of prominence who had been known
for their anti-slavery sympathies,--to Prince Albert, Macaulay,
Charles Dickens, Charles Kingsley, and Lord Carlisle. Then she
waited for the result.

She had not long to wait. The success of the book was immediate.
Three thousand copies were sold the first day, within a few days
ten thousand copies had gone, on the 1st of April a second edition
went to press, and thereafter eight presses running day and night
were barely able to keep pace with the demand for it. Within a
year three hundred thousand copies were sold. No work of fiction
ever spread more quickly throughout the reading community or
awakened a greater amount of public feeling. It was read by
everybody, learned and unlearned, high and low, for it was an
appeal to universal human sympathy, and the kindling of this
spread the book like wildfire. At first it seemed to go by
acclamation. But this was not altogether owing to sympathy with
the theme. I believe that it was its power as a novel that
carried it largely. The community was generally apathetic when it
was not hostile to any real effort to be rid of slavery. This
presently appeared. At first there were few dissenting voices
from the chorus of praise. But when the effect of the book began
to be evident it met with an opposition fiercer and more personal
than the great wave of affectionate thankfulness which greeted it
at first. The South and the defenders and apologists of slavery
everywhere were up in arms. It was denounced in pulpit and in
press, and some of the severest things were said of it at the
North. The leading religious newspaper of the country, published
in New York, declared that it was "anti-Christian."

Mrs. Stowe was twice astonished: first by its extraordinary sale,
and second by the quarter from which the assault on it came. She
herself says that her expectations were strikingly different from
the facts. "She had painted slaveholders as amiable, generous,
and just. She had shown examples among them of the noblest and
most beautiful traits of character; had admitted fully their
temptations, their perplexities, and their difficulties, so that a
friend of hers who had many relatives in the South wrote to her:
'Your book is going to be the great pacificator; it will unite
both North and South.'  Her expectation was that the professed
abolitionists would denounce it as altogether too mild in its
dealings with slaveholders. To her astonishment, it was the
extreme abolitionists who received, and the entire South who rose
up against it."

There is something almost amusing in Mrs. Stowe's honest
expectation that the deadliest blow the system ever suffered
should have been received thankfully by those whose traditions,
education, and interests were all bound up in it. And yet from
her point of view it was not altogether unreasonable. Her
blackest villain and most loathsome agent of the system, Legree,
was a native of Vermont. All her wrath falls upon the slave-
traders, the auctioneers, the public whippers, and the overseers,
and all these persons and classes were detested by the Southerners
to the point of loathing, and were social outcasts. The slave-
traders and the overseers were tolerated as perhaps necessary in
the system, but they were never admitted into respectable society.
This feeling Mrs. Stowe regarded as a condemnation of the system.

Pecuniary reward was the last thing that Mrs. Stowe expected for
her disinterested labor, but it suits the world's notion of the
fitness of things that this was not altogether wanting. For the
millions of copies of Uncle Tom scattered over the world the
author could expect nothing, but in her own country her right
yielded her a moderate return that lifted her out of poverty and
enabled her to pursue her philanthropic and literary career. Four
months after the publication of the book Professor Stowe was in
the publisher's office, and Mr. Jewett asked him how much he
expected to receive. "I hope," said Professor Stowe, with a
whimsical smile, "that it will be enough to buy my wife a silk
dress."  The publisher handed him a check for ten thousand
dollars.

Before Mrs. Stowe had a response to the letters accompanying the
books privately sent to England, the novel was getting known
there. Its career in Great Britain paralleled its success in
America. In April a copy reached London in the hands of a
gentleman who had taken it on the steamer to read. He gave it to
Mr. Henry Vizetelly, who submitted it to Mr. David Bogue, a man
known for his shrewdness and enterprise. He took a night to
consider it, and then declined it, although it was offered to him
for five pounds. A Mr. Gilpin also declined it. It was then
submitted to Mr. Salisbury, a printer. This taster for the public
sat up with the book till four o'clock in the morning, alternately
weeping and laughing. Fearing, however, that this result was due
to his own weakness, he woke up his wife, whom he describes as a
rather strong-minded woman, and finding that the story kept her
awake and made her also laugh and cry, he thought it might safely
be printed. It seems, therefore, that Mr. Vizetelly ventured to
risk five pounds, and the volume was brought out through the
nominal agency of Clarke & Company. In the first week an edition
of seven thousand was worked off. It made no great stir until the
middle of June, but during July it sold at the rate of one
thousand a week. By the 20th of August the demand for it was
overwhelming. The printing firm was then employing four hundred
people in getting it out, and seventeen printing-machines, besides
hand-presses. Already one hundred and fifty thousand copies were
sold. Mr. Vizetelly disposed of his interest, and a new printing
firm began to issue monster editions. About this time the
publishers awoke to the fact that any one was at liberty to
reprint the book, and the era of cheap literature was initiated,
founded on American reprints which cost the publisher no royalty.
A shilling edition followed the one-and-sixpence, and then one
complete for sixpence. As to the total sale, Mr. Sampson Low
reports: "From April to December, 1852, twelve different editions
(not reissues) were published, and within the twelve months of its
first appearance eighteen different London publishing houses were
engaged in supplying the great demand that had set in, the total
number of editions being forty, varying from fine illustrated
editions at 15s., 10s., and 7s. 6d. to the cheap popular editions
of 1s. 9d. and 6d. After carefully analyzing these editions and
weighing probabilities with ascertained facts, I am able pretty
confidently to say that the aggregate number of copies circulated
in Great Britain and the colonies exceeds one and a half
millions."  Later, abridgments were published.

Almost simultaneously with this furor in England the book made its
way on the Continent. Several translations appeared in Germany
and France, and for the authorized French edition Mrs. Stowe wrote
a new preface, which served thereafter for most of the European
editions. I find no record of the order of the translations of
the book into foreign languages, but those into some of the
Oriental tongues did not appear till several years after the great
excitement. The ascertained translations are into twenty-three
tongues, namely: Arabic, Armenian, Chinese, Danish, Dutch,
Finnish, Flemish, French, German, Hungarian, Illyrian, Italian,
Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, modern Greek, Russian, Servian,
Siamese, Spanish, Swedish, Wallachian, and Welsh. Into some of
these languages several translations were made. In 1878 the
British Museum contained thirty-five editions of the original
text, and eight editions of abridgments or adaptations.

The story was dramatized in the United States in August, 1852,
without the consent or knowledge of the author, and was played
most successfully in the leading cities, and subsequently was
acted in every capital in Europe. Mrs. Stowe had neglected to
secure the dramatic rights, and she derived no benefit from the
great popularity of a drama which still holds the stage. From the
phenomenal sale of a book which was literally read by the whole
world, the author received only the ten per cent on the American
editions, and by the laws of her own country her right expired
before her death.

The narrative of the rise and fortunes of this book would be
incomplete without some reference to the response that the author
received from England and the Continent, and of her triumphant
progress through the British Isles. Her letters accompanying the
special copies were almost immediately replied to, generally in
terms of enthusiastic and fervent thankfulness for the book, and
before midsummer her mail contained letters from all classes of
English society. In some of them appeared a curious evidence of
the English sensitiveness to criticism. Lord Carlisle and Sir
Arthur Helps supplemented their admiration by a protest against
the remark in the mouth of one of the characters that "slaves are
better off than a large class of the population of England."  This
occurred in the defense of the institution by St. Clare, but it
was treated by the British correspondents as the opinion of Mrs.
Stowe. The charge was disposed of in Mrs. Stowe's reply: "The
remark on that subject occurs in the dramatic part of the book, in
the mouth of an intelligent Southerner. As a fair-minded person,
bound to state for both sides all that could be said, in the
person of St. Clare, the best that could be said on that point,
and what I know IS in fact constantly reiterated, namely, that the
laboring class of the South are in many respects, as to physical
comfort, in a better condition than the poor in England. This is
the slaveholder's stereo-typed apology; a defense it cannot be,
unless two wrongs make one right."

In April, 1853, Mr. and Mrs. Stowe and the latter's brother,
Charles Beecher, sailed for Europe. Her reception there was like
a royal progress. She was met everywhere by deputations and
addresses, and the enthusiasm her presence called forth was
thoroughly democratic, extending from the highest in rank to the
lowest. At Edinburgh there was presented to her a national penny
offering, consisting of a thousand golden sovereigns on a
magnificent silver salver, an unsolicited contribution in small
sums by the people.

At a reception in Stafford House, London, the Duchess of
Sutherland presented her with a massive gold bracelet, which has
an interesting history. It is made of ten oval links in imitation
of slave fetters. On two of the links were the inscriptions
"March 25, 1807," the date of the abolition of the slave-trade,
and "August 1, 1838," the date of the abolition of slavery in all
British territory. The third inscription is "562,848--March 19,
1853," the date of the address of the women of England to the
women of America on slavery, and the number of the women who
signed. It was Mrs. Stowe's privilege to add to these
inscriptions the following: "Emancipation D. C. Apl. 16, '62;"
"President's Proclamation Jan. 1, '63;" "Maryland free Oct. 13,
'64;" "Missouri free Jan. 11, '65;" and on the clasp link,
"Constitution amended by Congress Jan. 31, '65. Constitutional
Amendment ratified."  Two of the links are vacant. What will the
progress of civilization in America offer for the links nine and
ten?

One of the most remarkable documents which resulted from Uncle Tom
was an address from the women of England to the women of America,
acknowledging the complicity in slavery of England, but praying
aid in removing from the world "our common crimes and common
dishonor," which was presented to Mrs. Stowe in 1853. It was the
result of a meeting at Stafford House, and the address, composed
by Lord Shaftesbury, was put into the hands of canvassers in
England and on the Continent, and as far as Jerusalem. The
signatures of 562,848 women were obtained, with their occupations
and residences, from the nobility on the steps of the throne down
to maids in the kitchen. The address is handsomely engrossed on
vellum. The names are contained in twenty-six massive volumes,
each fourteen inches high by nine in breadth and three inches
thick, inclosed in an oak case. It is believed that this is the
most numerously signed address in existence. The value of the
address, with so many names collected in haphazard fashion, was
much questioned, but its use was apparent in the height of the
civil war, when Mrs. Stowe replied to it in one of the most
vigorous and noble appeals that ever came from her pen. This
powerful reply made a profound impression in England.

This is in brief the story of the book. It is still read, and
read the world over, with tears and with laughter; it is still
played to excited audiences. Is it a great novel, or was it only
an event of an era of agitation and passion? Has it the real
dramatic quality--the poet's visualizing of human life--that makes
works of fiction, of imagination, live? Till recently, I had not
read the book since 1852. I feared to renew acquaintance with it
lest I should find only the shell of an exploded cartridge. I
took it up at the beginning of a three-hours' railway journey. To
my surprise the journey did not seem to last half an hour, and
half the time I could not keep back the tears from my eyes. A
London critic, full of sympathy with Mrs. Stowe and her work,
recently said, "Yet she was not an artist, she was not a great
woman."  What is greatness? What is art? In 1862 probably no one
who knew General Grant would have called him a great man. But he
took Vicksburg. This woman did something with her pen,--on the
whole, the most remarkable and effective book in her generation.
How did she do it? Without art? George Sand said, "In matters of
art there is but one rule, to paint and to move. And where shall
we find conditions more complete, types more vivid, situations
more touching, more original, than in Uncle Tom?"  If there is not
room in our art for such a book, I think we shall have to stretch
our art a little. "Women, too, are here judged and painted with a
master hand."  This subtle critic, in her overpoweringly tender
and enthusiastic review, had already inquired about the capacity
of this writer. "Mrs. Stowe is all instinct; it is the very
reason that she appears to some not to have talent. Has she not
talent? What is talent? Nothing, doubtless, compared to genius;
but has she genius? I cannot say that she has talent as one
understands it in the world of letters, but she has genius as
humanity feels the need of genius,--the genius of goodness, not
that of the man of letters, but of the saint."  It is admitted
that Mrs. Stowe was not a woman of letters in the common
acceptation of that term, and it is plain that in the French
tribunal, where form is of the substance of the achievement, and
which reluctantly overlooked the crudeness of Walter Scott, in
France where the best English novel seems a violation of
established canons, Uncle Tom would seem to belong where some
modern critics place it, with works of the heart, and not of the
head. The reviewer is, however, candid: "For a long time we have
striven in France against the prolix explanations of Walter Scott.
We have cried out against those of Balzac, but on consideration
have perceived that the painter of manners and character has never
done too much, that every stroke of the pencil was needed for the
general effect. Let us learn then to appreciate all kinds of
treatment, where the effect is good, and where they bear the seal
of a master hand."

It must be admitted to the art critic that the book is defective
according to the rules of the modern French romance; that Mrs.
Stowe was possessed by her subject, and let her fervid interest in
it be felt; that she had a definite purpose. That purpose was to
quicken the sense of responsibility of the North by showing the
real character of slavery, and to touch the South by showing that
the inevitable wrong of it lay in the system rather than in those
involved in it. Abundant material was in her hands, and the
author burned to make it serviceable. What should she do? She
might have done what she did afterwards in The Key, presented to
the public a mass of statistics, of legal documents. The evidence
would have been unanswerable, but the jury might not have been
moved by it; they would have balanced it by considerations of
political and commercial expediency. I presume that Mrs. Stowe
made no calculation of this kind. She felt her course, and went
on in it. What would an artist have done, animated by her purpose
and with her material? He would have done what Cervantes did,
what Tourgenieff did, what Mrs. Stowe did. He would have
dramatized his facts in living personalities, in effective scenes,
in vivid pictures of life. Mrs. Stowe exhibited the system of
slavery by a succession of dramatized pictures, not always
artistically welded together, but always effective as an
exhibition of the system. Cervantes also showed a fading feudal
romantic condition by a series of amusing and pathetic adventures,
grouped rather loosely about a singularly fascinating figure.

Tourgenieff, a more consummate artist, in his hunting scenes
exhibited the effect of serfdom upon society, in a series of
scenes with no necessary central figure, without comment, and with
absolute concealment of any motive. I believe the three writers
followed their instincts, without an analytic argument as to the
method, as the great painter follows his when he puts an idea upon
canvas. He may invent a theory about it afterwards; if he does
not, some one else will invent it for him. There are degrees of
art. One painter will put in unnecessary accessories, another
will exhibit his sympathy too openly, the technique or the
composition of another can be criticised. But the question is, is
the picture great and effective?

Mrs. Stowe had not Tourgenieff's artistic calmness. Her mind was
fused into a white heat with her message. Yet, how did she begin
her story? Like an artist, by a highly dramatized scene, in which
the actors, by a few strokes of the pen, appear as distinct and
unmistakable personalities, marked by individual peculiarities of
manner, speech, motive, character, living persons in natural
attitudes. The reader becomes interested in a shrewd study of
human nature, of a section of life, with its various refinement,
coarseness, fastidiousness and vulgarity, its humor and pathos.
As he goes on he discovers that every character has been perfectly
visualized, accurately limned from the first; that a type has been
created which remains consistent, which is never deflected from
its integrity by any exigencies of plot. This clear conception of
character (not of earmarks and peculiarities adopted as labels),
and faithful adhesion to it in all vicissitudes, is one of the
rarest and highest attributes of genius. All the chief characters
in the book follow this line of absolutely consistent development,
from Uncle Tom and Legree down to the most aggravating and
contemptible of all, Marie St. Clare. The selfish and hysterical
woman has never been so faithfully depicted by any other author.

Distinguished as the novel is by its character-drawing and its
pathos, I doubt if it would have captivated the world without its
humor. This is of the old-fashioned kind, the large humor of
Scott, and again of Cervantes, not verbal pleasantry, not the
felicities of Lamb, but the humor of character in action, of
situations elaborated with great freedom, and with what may be
called a hilarious conception. This quality is never wanting in
the book, either for the reader's entertainment by the way, or to
heighten the pathos of the narrative by contrast. The
introduction of Topsy into the New Orleans household saves us in
the dangerous approach to melodrama in the religious passages
between Tom and St. Clare. Considering the opportunities of the
subject, the book has very little melodrama; one is apt to hear
low music on the entrance of little Eva, but we are convinced of
the wholesome sanity of the sweet child. And it is to be remarked
that some of the most exciting episodes, such as that of Eliza
crossing the Ohio River on the floating ice (of which Mr. Ruskin
did not approve), are based upon authentic occurrences. The want
of unity in construction of which the critics complain is
partially explained by the necessity of exhibiting the effect of
slavery in its entirety. The parallel plots, one running to
Louisiana and the other to Canada, are tied together by this
consideration, and not by any real necessity to each other.

There is no doubt that Mrs. Stowe was wholly possessed by her
theme, rapt away like a prophet in a vision, and that, in her
feeling at the time, it was written through her quite as much as
by her. This idea grew upon her mind in the retrospective light
of the tremendous stir the story made in the world, so that in her
later years she came to regard herself as a providential
instrument, and frankly to declare that she did not write the
book; "God wrote it."  In her own account, when she reached the
death of Uncle Tom, "the whole vital force left her."  The
inspiration there left her, and the end of the story, the weaving
together of all the loose ends of the plot, in the joining
together almost by miracle the long separated, and the discovery
of the relationships, is the conscious invention of the novelist.

It would be perhaps going beyond the province of the critic to
remark upon what the author considered the central power of the
story, and its power to move the world, the faith of Uncle Tom in
the Bible. This appeal to the emotion of millions of readers
cannot, however, be overlooked. Many regard the book as effective
in regions remote from our perplexities by reason of this grace.
When the work was translated into Siamese, the perusal of it by
one of the ladies of the court induced her to liberate all her
slaves, men, women, and children, one hundred and thirty in all.
"Hidden Perfume," for that was the English equivalent of her name,
said she was wishful to be good like Harriet Beecher Stowe. And
as to the standpoint of Uncle Tom and the Bible, nothing more
significant can be cited than this passage from one of the latest
writings of Heinrich Heine:--

"The reawakening of my religious feelings I owe to that holy book
the Bible. Astonishing that after I have whirled about all my
life over all the dance-floors of philosophy, and yielded myself
to all the orgies of the intellect, and paid my addresses to all
possible systems, without satisfaction like Messalina after a
licentious night, I now find myself on the same standpoint where
poor Uncle Tom stands,--on that of the Bible! I kneel down by my
black brother in the same prayer! What a humiliation! With all
my science I have come no further than the poor ignorant negro who
has scarce learned to spell. Poor Tom, indeed, seems to have seen
deeper things in the holy book than I. . . . Tom, perhaps,
understands them better than I, because more flogging occurs in
them; that is to say, those ceaseless blows of the whip which have
aesthetically disgusted me in reading the Gospels and the Acts.
But a poor negro slave reads with his back, and understands better
than we do. But I, who used to make citations from Homer, now
begin to quote the Bible as Uncle Tom does."

The one indispensable requisite of a great work of imaginative
fiction is its universality, its conception and construction so
that it will appeal to universal human nature in all races and
situations and climates. Uncle Tom's Cabin does that.
Considering certain artistic deficiencies, which the French
writers perceived, we might say that it was the timeliness of its
theme that gave it currency in England and America. But that
argument falls before the world-wide interest in it as a mere
story, in so many languages, by races unaffected by our own
relation to slavery.

It was the opinion of James Russell Lowell that the anti-slavery
element in Uncle Tom and Dred stood in the way of a full
appreciation, at least in her own country, of the remarkable
genius of Mrs. Stowe. Writing in 1859, he said, "From my habits
and the tendency of my studies I cannot help looking at things
purely from an aesthetic point of view, and what I valued in Uncle
Tom was the genius, and not the moral."  This had been his
impression when he read the book in Paris, long after the whirl of
excitement produced by its publication had subsided, and far
removed by distance from local influences. Subsequently, in a
review, he wrote, "We felt then, and we believe now, that the
secret of Mrs. Stowe's power lay in that same genius by which the
great successes in creative literature have always been achieved,--
the genius that instinctively goes to the organic elements of
human nature, whether under a white skin or a black, and which
disregards as trivial the conventions and fictitious notions which
make so large a part both of our thinking and feeling. . . . The
creative faculty of Mrs. Stowe, like that of Cervantes in Don
Quixote and of Fielding in Joseph Andrews, overpowered the narrow
specialty of her design, and expanded a local and temporary theme
with the cosmopolitanism of genius."

A half-century is not much in the life of a people; it is in time
an inadequate test of the staying power of a book. Nothing is
more futile than prophecy on contemporary literary work. It is
safe, however, to say that Uncle Tom's Cabin has the fundamental
qualities, the sure insight into human nature, and the fidelity to
the facts of its own time which have from age to age preserved
works of genius.

STRIVINGS OF THE NEGRO PEOPLE
by W. E. Burghardt Du Bois

Berween me and the other world there is ever an unasked question:
unasked by some through feelings of delicacy; by others through
the difficulty of rightly framing it. All, nevertheless, flutter
round it. They approach me in a half-hesitant sort of way, eye me
curiously or compassionately, and then, instead of saying
directly, How does it feel to be a problem? they say, I know an
excellent colored man in my town; or, I fought at Mechanicsville;
or, Do not these Southern outrages make your blood boil? At these
I smile, or am interested, or reduce the boiling to a simmer, as
the occasion may require. To the real question, How does it feel
to be a problem? I answer seldom a word.

And yet, being a problem is a strange experience,--peculiar even
for one who has never been anything else, save perhaps in babyhood
and in Europe. It is in the early days of rollicking boyhood that
the revelation first bursts upon one, all in a day, as it were. I
remember well when the shadow swept across me. I was a little
thing, away up in the hills of New England, where the dark
Housatonic winds between Hoosac and Taghanic to the sea. In a wee
wooden schoolhouse, something put it into the boys' and girls'
heads to buy gorgeous visiting-cards--ten cents a package--and
exchange. The exchange was merry, till one girl, a tall newcomer,
refused my card,--refused it peremptorily, with a glance. Then it
dawned upon me with a certain suddenness that I was different from
the others; or like, mayhap, in heart and life and longing, but
shut out from their world by a vast veil. I had thereafter no
desire to tear down that veil, to creep through; I held all beyond
it in common contempt, and lived above it in a region of blue sky
and great wandering shadows. That sky was bluest when I could
beat my mates at examination-time, or beat them at a foot-race, or
even beat their stringy heads. Alas, with the years all this fine
contempt began to fade; for the world I longed for, and all its
dazzling opportunities, were theirs, not mine. But they should
not keep these prizes, I said; some, all, I would wrest from them.
Just how I would do it I could never decide: by reading law, by
healing the sick, by telling the wonderful tales that swam in my
head,--some way. With other black boys the strife was not so
fiercely sunny: their youth shrunk into tasteless sycophancy, or
into silent hatred of the pale world about them and mocking
distrust of everything white; or wasted itself in a bitter cry.
Why did God make me an outcast and a stranger in mine own house?
The "shades of the prison-house" closed round about us all: walls
strait and stubborn to the whitest, but relentlessly narrow, tall,
and unscalable to sons of night who must plod darkly on in
resignation, or beat unavailing palms against the stone, or
steadily, half hopelessly watch the streak of blue above.

After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and
Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil,
and gifted with second-sight in this American world,--a world
which yields him no self-consciousness, but only lets him see
himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a
peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of
always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of
measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in
amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness,--an
American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled
strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged
strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. The history of
the American Negro is the history of this strife,--this longing to
attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a
better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the
older selves to be lost. He does not wish to Africanize America,
for America has too much to teach the world and Africa; he does
not wish to bleach his Negro blood in a flood of white
Americanism, for he believes--foolishly, perhaps, but fervently--
that Negro blood has yet a message for the world. He simply
wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an
American without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows,
without losing the opportunity of self-development.

This is the end of his striving: to be a co-worker in the kingdom
of culture, to escape both death and isolation, and to husband and
use his best powers. These powers, of body and of mind, have in
the past been so wasted and dispersed as to lose all
effectiveness, and to seem like absence of all power, like
weakness. The double-aimed struggle of the black artisan, on the
one hand to escape white contempt for a nation of mere hewers of
wood and drawers of water, and on the other hand to plough and
nail and dig for a poverty-stricken horde, could only result in
making him a poor craftsman, for he had but half a heart in either
cause. By the poverty and ignorance of his people the Negro
lawyer or doctor was pushed toward quackery and demagogism, and by
the criticism of the other world toward an elaborate preparation
that overfitted him for his lowly tasks. The would-be black
savant was confronted by the paradox that the knowledge his people
needed was a twice-told tale to his white neighbors, while the
knowledge which would teach the white world was Greek to his own
flesh and blood. The innate love of harmony and beauty that set
the ruder souls of his people a-dancing, a-singing, and a-laughing
raised but confusion and doubt in the soul of the black artist;
for the beauty revealed to him was the soul-beauty of a race which
his larger audience despised, and he could not articulate the
message of another people.

This waste of double aims, this seeking to satisfy two
unreconciled ideals, has wrought sad havoc with the courage and
faith and deeds of eight thousand thousand people, has sent them
often wooing false gods and invoking false means of salvation, and
has even at times seemed destined to make them ashamed of
themselves. In the days of bondage they thought to see in one
divine event the end of all doubt and disappointment; eighteenth-
century Rousseauism never worshiped freedom with half the
unquestioning faith that the American Negro did for two centuries.
To him slavery was, indeed, the sum of all villainies, the cause
of all sorrow, the root of all prejudice; emancipation was the key
to a promised land of sweeter beauty than ever stretched before
the eyes of wearied Israelites. In his songs and exhortations
swelled one refrain, liberty; in his tears and curses the god he
implored had freedom in his right hand. At last it came,--
suddenly, fearfully, like a dream. With one wild carnival of
blood and passion came the message in his own plaintive cadences:--

         "Shout, O children!
            Shout, you're free!
          The Lord has bought your liberty!"

Years have passed away, ten, twenty, thirty. Thirty years of
national life, thirty years of renewal and development, and yet
the swarthy ghost of Banquo sits in its old place at the national
feast. In vain does the nation cry to its vastest problem,--

"Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves  Shall never
tremble!"

The freedman has not yet found in freedom his promised land.
Whatever of lesser good may have come in these years of change,
the shadow of a deep disappointment rests upon the Negro people,--
a disappointment all the more bitter because the unattained ideal
was unbounded save by the simple ignorance of a lowly folk.

The first decade was merely a prolongation of the vain search for
freedom, the boom that seemed ever barely to elude their grasp,--
like a tantalizing will-o'-the-wisp, maddening and misleading the
headless host. The holocaust of war, the terrors of the Kuklux
Klan, the lies of carpet-baggers, the disorganization of industry,
and the contradictory advice of friends and foes left the
bewildered serf with no new watchword beyond the old cry for
freedom. As the decade closed, however, he began to grasp a new
idea. The ideal of liberty demanded for its attainment powerful
means, and these the Fifteenth Amendment gave him. The ballot,
which before he had looked upon as a visible sign of freedom, he
now regarded as the chief means of gaining and perfecting the
liberty with which war had partially endowed him. And why not?
Had not votes made war and emancipated millions? Had not votes
enfranchised the freedmen? Was anything impossible to a power
that had done all this? A million black men started with renewed
zeal to vote themselves into the kingdom. The decade fled away,--
a decade containing, to the freedman's mind, nothing but
suppressed votes, stuffed ballot-boxes, and election outrages that
nullified his vaunted right of suffrage. And yet that decade from
1875 to 1885 held another powerful movement, the rise of another
ideal to guide the unguided, another pillar of fire by night after
a clouded day. It was the ideal of "book-learning;" the
curiosity, born of compulsory ignorance, to know and test the
power of the cabalistic letters of the white man, the longing to
know. Mission and night schools began in the smoke of battle, ran
the gauntlet of reconstruction, and at last developed into
permanent foundations. Here at last seemed to have been
discovered the mountain path to Canaan; longer than the highway of
emancipation and law, steep and rugged, but straight, leading to
heights high enough to overlook life.

Up the new path the advance guard toiled, slowly, heavily,
doggedly; only those who have watched and guided the faltering
feet, the misty minds, the dull understandings of the dark pupils
of these schools know how faithfully, how piteously, this people
strove to learn. It was weary work. The cold statistician wrote
down the inches of progress here and there, noted also where here
and there a foot had slipped or some one had fallen. To the tired
climbers, the horizon was ever dark, the mists were often cold,
the Canaan was always dim and far away. If, however, the vistas
disclosed as yet no goal, no resting-place, little but flattery
and criticism, the journey at least gave leisure for reflection
and self-examination; it changed the child of emancipation to the
youth with dawning self-consciousness, self-realization, self-
respect. In those sombre forests of his striving his own soul
rose before him, and he saw himself,--darkly as through a veil;
and yet he saw in himself some faint revelation of his power, of
his mission. He began to have a dim feeling that, to attain his
place in the world, he must be himself, and not another. For the
first time he sought to analyze the burden he bore upon his back,
that dead-weight of social degradation partially masked behind a
half-named Negro problem. He felt his poverty; without a cent,
without a home, without land, tools, or savings, he had entered
into competition with rich, landed, skilled neighbors. To be a
poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is
the very bottom of hardships. He felt the weight of his
ignorance,--not simply of letters, but of life, of business, of
the humanities; the accumulated sloth and shirking and awkwardness
of decades and centuries shackled his hands and feet. Nor was his
burden all poverty and ignorance. The red stain of bastardy,
which two centuries of systematic legal defilement of Negro women
had stamped upon his race, meant not only the loss of ancient
African chastity, but also the hereditary weight of a mass of
filth from white whoremongers and adulterers, threatening almost
the obliteration of the Negro home.

A people thus handicapped ought not to be asked to race with the
world, but rather allowed to give all its time and thought to its
own social problems. But alas! while sociologists gleefully count
his bastards and his prostitutes, the very soul of the toiling,
sweating black man is darkened by the shadow of a vast despair.
Men call the shadow prejudice, and learnedly explain it as the
natural defense of culture against barbarism, learning against
ignorance, purity against crime, the "higher" against the "lower"
races. To which the Negro cries Amen! and swears that to so much
of this strange prejudice as is founded on just homage to
civilization, culture, righteousness, and progress he humbly bows
and meekly does obeisance. But before that nameless prejudice
that leaps beyond all this he stands helpless, dismayed, and well-
nigh speechless; before that personal disrespect and mockery, the
ridicule and systematic humiliation, the distortion of fact and
wanton license of fancy, the cynical ignoring of the better and
boisterous welcoming of the worse, the all-pervading desire to
inculcate disdain for everything black, from Toussaint to the
devil,--before this there rises a sickening despair that would
disarm and discourage any nation save that black host to whom
"discouragement" is an unwritten word.

They still press on, they still nurse the dogged hope,--not a hope
of nauseating patronage, not a hope of reception into charmed
social circles of stock-jobbers, pork-packers, and earl-hunters,
but the hope of a higher synthesis of civilization and humanity, a
true progress, with which the chorus

        "Peace, good will to men,"
        "May make one music as before,
         But vaster."

Thus the second decade of the American Negro's freedom was a
period of conflict, of inspiration and doubt, of faith and vain
questionings, of Sturm and Drang. The ideals of physical freedom,
of political power, of school training, as separate all-
sufficient panaceas for social ills, became in the third decade
dim and overcast. They were the vain dreams of credulous race
childhood; not wrong, but incomplete and over-simple. The
training of the schools we need to-day more than ever,--the
training of deft hands, quick eyes and ears, and the broader,
deeper, higher culture of gifted minds. The power of the ballot
we need in sheer self-defense, and as a guarantee of good faith.
We may misuse it, but we can scarce do worse in this respect than
our whilom masters. Freedom, too, the long-sought, we still
seek,--the freedom of life and limb, the freedom to work and
think. Work, culture, and liberty,--all these we need, not
singly, but together; for to-day these ideals among the Negro
people are gradually coalescing, and finding a higher meaning in
the unifying ideal of race,--the ideal of fostering the traits and
talents of the Negro, not in opposition to, but in conformity
with, the greater ideals of the American republic, in order that
some day, on American soil, two world races may give each to each
those characteristics which both so sadly lack. Already we come
not altogether empty-handed: there is to-day no true American
music but the sweet wild melodies of the Negro slave; the American
fairy tales are Indian and African; we are the sole oasis of
simple faith and reverence in a dusty desert of dollars and
smartness. Will America be poorer if she replace her brutal,
dyspeptic blundering with the light-hearted but determined Negro
humility; or her coarse, cruel wit with loving, jovial good humor;
or her Annie Rooney with Steal Away?

Merely a stern concrete test of the underlying principles of the
great republic is the Negro problem, and the spiritual striving of
the freedmen's sons is the travail of souls whose burden is almost
beyond the measure of their strength, but who bear it in the name
of an historic race, in the name of this land of their fathers'
fathers, and in the name of human opportunity.

THE WIFE OF HIS YOUTH
by Charles W. Chesnutt

I.

Mr. Ryder was going to give a ball. There were several reasons
why this was an opportune time for such an event.

Mr. Ryder might aptly be called the dean of the Blue Veins. The
original Blue Veins were a little society of colored persons
organized in a certain Northern city shortly after the war. Its
purpose was to establish and maintain correct social standards
among a people whose social condition presented almost unlimited
room  for improvement. By accident, combined perhaps with some
natural affinity, the society consisted of individuals who were,
generally speaking, more white than black. Some envious outsider
made the suggestion that no one was eligible for membership who
was not white enough to show blue veins. The suggestion was
readily adopted by those who were not of the favored few, and
since that time the society, though possessing a longer and more
pretentious name, had been known far and wide as the "Blue Vein
Society," and its members as the "Blue Veins."

The Blue Veins did not allow that any such requirement existed for
admission to their circle, but, on the contrary, declared that
character and culture were the only things considered; and that if
most of their members were light-colored, it was because such
persons, as a rule, had had better opportunities to qualify
themselves for membership. Opinions differed, too, as to the
usefulness of the society. There  were those who had been known
to assail it violently as a glaring example of the very prejudice
from which the colored race had suffered most; and later, when
such critics had succeeded in getting on the inside, they had been
heard to maintain with zeal and earnestness that the society was a
life-boat, an anchor, a bulwark and a shield, a pillar of cloud by
day and of fire by night, to guide their people through the social  
wilderness. Another alleged prerequisite for Blue Vein membership
was that of free birth; and while there was really no such
requirement,  it is doubtless true that very few of the members
would have been unable to meet it if there had been. If there
were one or two of the older members who had come up from the
South and from slavery, their history presented enough romantic
circumstances to rob their servile origin of its grosser aspects.  
While there were no such tests of eligibility, it is true that the
Blue Veins had their notions on these subjects, and that not all
of them were equally liberal in regard to the things they
collectively disclaimed. Mr. Ryder was one of the most
conservative. Though he had not been among the founders of the
society, but had come in some years later, his genius for social
leadership was such that he had speedily become its recognized
adviser and head, the custodian of its standards, and the
preserver of its traditions. He shaped its social policy, was
active in providing for its entertainment, and when the interest
fell off, as it sometimes did, he  fanned the embers until they
burst again into a cheerful flame.    There were still other
reasons for his popularity. While he was not as white as some of
the Blue Veins, his appearance was such as to confer distinction
upon them. His features were of a refined type, his hair was
almost straight; he was always neatly dressed; his manners were
irreproachable, and his morals above suspicion. He had come to
Groveland a young man, and obtaining employment in the office of a
railroad company as messenger had in time worked himself up to the
position of stationery clerk, having charge of the distribution of
the office supplies for the whole company. Although the lack of
early training had hindered the orderly development of a naturally
fine mind, it had not prevented him from doing a great deal of
reading or from forming decidedly literary tastes. Poetry was his
passion. He could repeat whole pages of the great English poets ;
and if his pronunciation was sometimes faulty, his eye, his voice,
his gestures, would respond to the changing sentiment with a
precision that revealed a poetic soul, and disarm criticism. He
was economical, and had saved money; he owned and occupied a very
comfortable house on a respectable street. His residence was
handsomely furnished, containing among other things a good
library, especially rich in poetry, a piano, and some choice
engravings. He generally shared his house with some young couple,
who looked after his wants and were company for him; for Mr. Ryder
was a single man. In the early days of his connection with the
Blue Veins he had been regarded as quite a catch, and ladies and
their mothers had manoeuvred with much ingenuity to capture him.
Not, however, until Mrs. Molly Dixon visited Groveland had any
woman ever made him wish to change his condition to that of a
married man.

Mrs. Dixon had come to Groveland from Washington in the spring,
and before the summer was over she had won Mr. Ryder's heart. She
possessed many attractive qualities. She was much younger than
he; in  fact, he was old enough to have been her father, though no
one knew exactly how old he was. She was whiter than he, and
better educated. She had moved in the best colored society of the
country, at Washington, and had taught in the schools of that
city. Such a superior person had been eagerly welcomed to the
Blue Vein Society, and had taken a leading part in its activities.
Mr. Ryder had at first been attracted by her charms of person, for
she was very good looking and not over twenty-five; then by her
refined manners and by the vivacity of her wit. Her husband had
been a government clerk, and at his death had left a considerable
life insurance. She was visiting friends in Groveland, and,
finding the town and the people to her liking, had prolonged her
stay indefinitely. She had not seemed displeased at Mr. Ryder's
attentions, but on the contrary had given him every proper
encouragement; indeed, a younger and less cautious man would long
since have spoken. But he had made up his mind, and had only to
determine the time when he would ask her to be his wife. He
decided to give a ball in her honor, and at some time during the
evening of the ball to offer her his heart and hand. He had no
special fears about the outcotme, but, with a little touch of
romance, he wanted the surroundings to be in harmony with his own
feelings when he should have received the answer he expected.

Mr. Ryder resolved that this ball should mark an epoch in the
social history of Groveland. He knew, of course,--no one could
know better,--the entertainments that had taken place in past
years, and what must be done to surpass them. His ball must be
worthy of the lady in whose honor it was to be given, and must, by
the quality of its guests, set an example for the future. He had
observed of late a growing liberality, almost a laxity, in social
matters, even among members of his own set, and had several times
been forced to meet in a social way persons whose complexions and
callings in life were hardly up to the standard which he
considered proper for the society to maintain. He had a theory of
his own.

"I have no race prejudice," he would say, "but we people of mixed
blood are ground between the upper and the nether millstone. Our
fate lies between absorption by the white race and extinction in
the black. The one doesn't want us yet, but may take us in time.
The other would welcome us, but it would be for us a backward
step. 'With malice towards none, with charity for all,' we must
do the best we can for ourselves and those who are to follow us.
Self-preservation is the first law of nature."

His ball would serve by its exclusiveness to counteract leveling
tendencies, and his marriage with Mrs. Dixon would help to further
the upward process of absorption he had been wishing and waiting
for.  

II.

The ball was to take place on Friday night. The house had been
put in order, the carpets covered with canvas, the halls and
stairs decorated with palms and potted plants; and in the
afternoon Mr. Ryder sat on his front porch, which the shade of a
vine running up over a wire netting made a cool and pleasant
lounging-place. He expected to respond to the toast "The Ladies,"
at the supper, and from a volume of Tennyson--his favorite poet
--was fortifying himself with apt quotations. The volume was
open at A Dream of Fair Women. His eyes fell on these lines, and
he read them aloud to judge better of their effect:--

"At length I saw a lady within call.   Stiller than chisell'd
marble, standing there; A daughter of the gods, divinely tall,   
And most divinely fair."

He marked the verse, and turning the page read the stanza
beginning,--

     "O sweet pale Margaret,
        O rare pale Margaret."

He weighed the passage a moment, and decided that it would not do.
Mrs. Dixon was the palest lady he expected at the ball, and she
was of a rather ruddy complexion, and of lively disposition and
buxom build. So he ran over the leaves until his eye rested on
the description of Queen Guinevere:--

        "She seem'd a part of joyous Spring:
     A gown of grass-green silk she wore,
     Buckled with golden clasps before;
     A light-green tuft of plumes she bore
         Closed in a golden ring.

     .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

    "She look'd so lovely, as she sway'd
         The rein with dainty finger-tips,
     A man had given all other bliss,
     And all his worldly worth for this,
     To waste his whole heart in one kiss
         Upon her perfect lips."

As Mr. Ryder murmured these words audibly, with an appreciative
thrill, he heard the latch of his gate click, and a light footfall
sounding on the steps. He turned his head, and saw a woman
standing before the door.

She was a little woman, not five feet tall, and proportioned to
her height. Although she stood erect, and looked around her with
very bright and restless eyes, she seemed quite old; for her face
was crossed and recrossed with a hundred wrinkles, and around the
edges of her bonnet could be seen protruding here and there a tuft
of short gray wool. She wore a blue calico gown of ancient cut, a
little red shawl fastened around her shoulders with an old-
fashioned brass brooch, and a large bonnet profusely ornamented
with faded red and yellow artificial flowers. And she was very
black--so black that her toothless gums, revealed when she
opened her mouth to speak, were not red, but blue. She looked
like a bit of the old plantation life, summoned up from the past
by the wave of a magician's wand, as the poet's fancy had called
into being the gracious shapes of which Mr. Ryder had just been
reading.

He rose from his chair and came over to where she stood.

"Good-afternoon, madam," he said.

"Good-evenin', suh," she answered, ducking suddenly with a quaint
curtsy. Her voice was shrill and piping, but softened somewhat by
age. "Is dis yere whar Mistuh Ryduh lib, suh?" she asked, looking
around her doubtfully, and glancing into the open windows, through
which some of the preparations for the evening were visible.

"Yes," he replied, with an air of kindly patronage, unconsciously
flattered by her manner, "I am Mr. Ryder. Did you want to see
me?"

"Yas, suh, ef I ain't 'sturbin' of you too much."

"Not at all. Have a seat over here behind the vine, where it is
cool. What can I do for you?"

"'Scuse me, suh," she continued, when she had sat down on the edge
of a chair, "'scuse me, suh, I's lookin' for my husban'. I heerd
you wuz a big man an' had libbed heah a long time, an' I 'lowed
you wouldn't min' ef I'd come roun' an' ax you ef you'd eber heerd
of a merlatter man by de name er Sam Taylor 'quirin' roun' in de
chu'ches ermongs' de people fer his wife 'Liza Jane?"

Mr. Ryder seemed to think for a moment.

"There used to be many such cases right after the war," he said,
"but it has been so long that I have forgotten them. There are
very few now. But tell me your story, and it may refresh my
memory."

She sat back farther in her chair so as to be more comfortable,
and folded her withered hands in her lap.

"My name's 'Liza," she began, "'Liza Jane. Wen I wuz young I
us'ter b'long ter Marse Bob Smif, down in old Missourn. I wuz
bawn down dere. W'en I wuz a gal I wuz married ter a man named
Jim. But Jim died, an' after dat I married a merlatter man named
Sam Taylor. Sam wuz free-bawn, but his mammy and daddy died, an'
de w'ite folks 'prenticed him ter my marster fer ter work fer 'im
'tel he wuz growed up. Sam worked in de fiel', an' I wuz de cook.
One day Ma'y Ann, ole miss's maid, come rushin' out ter de
kitchen, an' says she, ''Liza Jane, ole marse gwine sell yo' Sam
down de ribber.'

"'Go way f'm yere,' says I; 'my husban's free!'

"'Don' make no diff'ence. I heerd ole marse tell ole miss he wuz
gwine take yo' Sam 'way wid 'im ter-morrow, fer he needed money,
an' he knowed whar he could git a t'ousan' dollars fer Sam an' no
questions axed.'

"W'en Sam come home f'm de fiel', dat night, I tole him 'bout ole
marse gwine steal 'im, an' Sam run erway. His time wuz mos' up,
an' he swo' dat w'en he wuz twenty-one he would come back an' he'p
me run erway, er else save up de money ter buy my freedom. An' I
know he'd 'a' done it, fer he thought a heap er me, Sam did. But
w'en he come back he didn' fin' me, fer I wuzn' dere. Ole marse
had heerd dat I warned Sam, so he had me whip' an' sol' down de
ribber.

"Den de wah broke out, an' w'en it wuz ober de cullud folks wuz
scattered. I went back ter de ole home; but Sam wuzn' dere, an' I
couldn' l'arn nuffin' 'bout 'im. But I knowed he'd be'n dere to
look fer me an' hadn' foun' me, an' had gone erway ter hunt fer
me.

"I's be'n lookin' fer 'im eber sence," she added simply, as though
twenty-five years were but a couple of weeks, "an' I knows he's
be'n lookin' fer me. Fer he sot a heap er sto' by me, Sam did,
an' I know he's be'n huntin' fer me all dese years,--'less'n he's
be'n sick er sump'n, so he couldn' work, er out'n his head, so he
couldn' 'member his promise. I went back down de ribber, fer I
'lowed he'd gone down dere lookin' fer me. I's be'n ter Noo
Orleens, an' Atlanty, an' Charleston, an' Richmon'; an' w'en I'd
be'n all ober de Souf I come ter de Norf. Fer I knows I'll fin'
'im some er dese days," she added softly, "er he'll fin' me, an'
den we'll bofe be as happy in freedom as we wuz in de ole days
befo' de wah."  A smile stole over her withered countenance as she
paused a moment, and her bright eyes softened into a far-away
look.

This was the substance of the old woman's story. She had wandered
a little here and there. Mr. Ryder was looking at her curiously
when she finished.

"How have you lived all these years?" he asked.

"Cookin', suh. I's a good cook. Does you know anybody w'at needs
a good cook, suh? I's stoppin' wid a cullud fam'ly roun' de
corner yonder 'tel I kin fin' a place."

"Do you really expect to find your husband? He may be dead long
ago."

She shook her head emphatically. "Oh no, he ain' dead. De signs
an' de tokens tells me. I dremp three nights runnin' on'y dis
las' week dat I foun' him."

"He may have married another woman. Your slave marriage would not
have prevented him, for you never lived with him after the war,
and without that your marriage doesn't count."

"Wouldn' make no diff'ence wid Sam. He wouldn' marry no yuther
'ooman 'tel he foun' out 'bout me. I knows it," she added.
"Sump'n's be'n tellin' me all dese years dat I's gwine fin' Sam
'fo I dies."

"Perhaps he's outgrown you, and climbed up in the world where he
wouldn't care to have you find him."

"No, indeed, suh," she replied, "Sam ain' dat kin' er man. He wuz
good ter me, Sam wuz, but he wuzn' much good ter nobody e'se, fer
he wuz one er de triflin'es' han's on de plantation. I 'spec's
ter haf ter suppo't 'im w'en I fin' 'im, fer he nebber would work
'less'n he had ter. But den he wuz free, an' he didn' git no pay
fer his work, an' I don' blame 'im much. Mebbe he's done better
sence he run erway, but I ain' 'spectin' much."

"You may have passed him on the street a hundred times during the
twenty-five years, and not have known him; time works great
changes."

She smiled incredulously. "I'd know 'im 'mongs' a hund'ed men.
Fer dey wuzn' no yuther merlatter man like my man Sam, an' I
couldn' be mistook. I's toted his picture roun' wid me twenty-
five years."

"May I see it?" asked Mr. Ryder. "It might help me to remember
whether I have seen the original."

As she drew a small parcel from her bosom, he saw that it was
fastened to a string that went around her neck. Removing several
wrappers, she brought to light an old-fashioned daguerreotype in a
black case. He looked long and intently at the portrait. It was
faded with time, but the features were still distinct, and it was
easy to see what manner of man it had represented.

He closed the case, and with a slow movement handed it back to
her.

"I don't know of any man in town who goes by that name," he said,
"nor have I heard of any one making such inquiries. But if you
will leave me your address, I will give the matter some attention,
and if I find out anything I will let you know."

She gave him the number of a house in the neighborhood, and went
away, after thanking him warmly.

He wrote down the address on the flyleaf of the volume of
Tennyson, and, when she had gone, rose to his feet and stood
looking after her curiously. As she walked down the street with
mincing step, he saw several persons whom she passed turn and look
back at her with a smile of kindly amusement. When she had turned
the corner, he went upstairs to his bedroom, and stood for a long
time before the mirror of his dressing-case, gazing thoughtfully
at the reflection of his own face.  

III.

At eight o'clock the ballroom was a blaze of light and the guests
had begun to assemble; for there was a literary programme and some
routine business of the society to be gone through with before the
dancing. A black servant in evening dress waited at the door and
directed the guests to the dressing-rooms.

The occasion was long memorable among the colored people of the
city; not alone for the dress and display, but for the high
average of intelligence and culture that distinguished the
gathering as a whole. There were a number of school-teachers,
several young doctors, three or four lawyers, some professional
singers, an editor, a lieutenant in the United States army
spending his furlough in the city, and others in various polite
callings; these were colored, though most of them would not have
attracted even a casual glance because of any marked difference
from white people. Most of the ladies were in evening costume,
and dress coats and dancing-pumps were the rule among the men. A
band of string music, stationed in an alcove behind a row of
palms, played popular airs while the guests were gathering.

The dancing began at half past nine. At eleven o'clock supper was
served. Mr. Ryder had left the ballroom some little time before
the intermission, but reappeared at the supper-table. The spread
was worthy of the occasion, and the guests did full justice to it.
When the coffee had been served, the toastmaster, Mr. Solomon
Sadler, rapped for order. He made a brief introductory speech,
complimenting host and guests, and then presented in their order
the toasts of the evening. They were responded to with a very
fair display of after-dinner wit.

"The last toast," said the toast-master, when he reached the end
of the list, "is one which must appeal to us all. There is no one
of us of the sterner sex who is not at some time dependent upon
woman,--in infancy for protection, in manhood for companionship,
in old age for care and comforting. Our good host has been trying
to live alone, but the fair faces I see around me to-night prove
that he too is largely dependent upon the gentler sex for most
that makes life worth living,--the society and love of friends,--
and rumor is at fault if he does not soon yield entire subjection
to one of them. Mr. Ryder will now respond to the toast,--The
Ladies."

There was a pensive look in Mr. Ryder's eyes as he took the floor
and adjusted his eyeglasses. He began by speaking of woman as the
gift of Heaven to man, and after some general observations on the
relations of the sexes he said: "But perhaps the quality which
most distinguishes woman is her fidelity and devotion to those she
loves. History is full of examples, but has recorded none more
striking than one which only to-day came under my notice."

He then related, simply but effectively, the story told by his
visitor of the afternoon. He told it in the same soft dialect,
which came readily to his lips, while the company listened
attentively and sympathetically. For the story had awakened a
responsive thrill in many hearts. There were some present who had
seen, and others who had heard their fathers and grandfathers
tell, the wrongs and sufferings of this past generation, and all
of them still felt, in their darker moments, the shadow hanging
over them. Mr. Ryder went on:--

"Such devotion and such confidence are rare even among women.
There are many who would have searched a year, some who would have
waited five years, a few who might have hoped ten years; but for
twenty-five years this woman has retained her affection for and
her faith in a man she has not seen or heard of in all that time.

"She came to me to-day in the hope that I might be able to help
her find this long-lost husband. And when she was gone I gave my
fancy rein, and imagined a case I will put to you.

"Suppose that this husband, soon after his escape, had learned
that his wife had been sold away, and that such inquiries as he
could make brought no information of her whereabouts. Suppose
that he was young, and she much older than he; that he was light,
and she was black; that their marriage was a slave marriage, and
legally binding only if they chose to make it so after the war.
Suppose, too, that he made his way to the North, as some of us
have done, and there, where he had larger opportunities, had
improved them, and had in the course of all these years grown to
be as different from the ignorant boy who ran away from fear of
slavery as the day is from the night. Suppose, even, that he had
qualified himself, by industry, by thrift, and by study, to win
the friendship and be considered worthy the society of such people
as these I see around me to-night, gracing my board and filling my
heart with gladness; for I am old enough to remember the day when
such a gathering would not have been possible in this land.
Suppose, too, that, as the years went by, this man's memory of the
past grew more and more indistinct, until at last it was rarely,
except in his dreams, that any image of this bygone period rose
before his mind. And then suppose that accident should bring to
his knowledge the fact that the wife of his youth, the wife he had
left behind him,--not one who had walked by his side and kept pace
with him in his upward struggle, but one upon whom advancing years
and a laborious life had set their mark,--was alive and seeking
him, but that he was absolutely safe from recognition or
discovery, unless he chose to reveal himself. My friends, what
would the man do? I will suppose that he was one who loved honor,
and tried to deal justly with all men. I will even carry the case
further, and suppose that perhaps he had set his heart upon
another, whom he had hoped to call his own. What would he do, or
rather what ought he to do, in such a crisis of a lifetime?

"It seemed to me that he might hesitate, and I imagined that I was
an old friend, a near friend, and that he had come to me for
advice; and I argued the case with him. I tried to discuss it
impartially. After we had looked upon the matter from every point
of view, I said to him, in words that we all know:

     'This above all: to thine own self be true,
      And it must follow, as the night the day,
      Thou canst not then be false to any man.'

Then, finally, I put the question to him, 'Shall you acknowledge
her?'

"And now, ladies and gentlemen, friends and companions, I ask you,
what should he have done?"

There was something in Mr. Ryder's voice that stirred the hearts
of those who sat around him. It suggested more than mere sympathy
with an imaginary situation; it seemed rather in the nature of a
personal appeal. It was observed, too, that his look rested more
especially upon Mrs. Dixon, with a mingled expression of
renunciation and inquiry.

She had listened, with parted lips and streaming eyes. She was
the first to speak: "He should have acknowledged her."

"Yes," they all echoed, "he should have acknowledged her."

"My friends and companions," responded Mr. Ryder, "I thank you,
one and all. It is the answer I expected, for I knew your
hearts."

He turned and walked toward the closed door of an adjoining room,
while every eye followed him in wondering curiosity. He came back
in a moment, leading by the hand his visitor of the afternoon, who
stood startled and trembling at the sudden plunge into this scene
of brilliant gayety. She was neatly dressed in gray, and wore the
white cap of an elderly woman.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "this is the woman, and I am the
man, whose story I have told you. Permit me to introduce to you
the wife of my youth."

THE BOUQUET
by Charles W. Chesnutt

Mary Myrover's friends were somewhat surprised when she began to
teach a colored school. Miss Myrover's friends are mentioned
here, because nowhere more than in a Southern town is public
opinion a force which cannot be lightly contravened. Public
opinion, however, did not oppose Miss Myrover's teaching colored
children; in fact, all the colored public schools in town--and
there were several--were taught by white teachers, and had been so
taught since the state had undertaken to provide free public
instruction for all children within its boundaries. Previous to
that time there had been a Freedman's Bureau school and a
Presbyterian missionary school, but these had been withdrawn when
the need for them became less pressing. The colored people of the
town had been for some time agitating their right to teach their
own schools, but as yet the claim had not been conceded.

The reason Miss Myrover's course created some surprise was not,
therefore, the fact that a Southern white woman should teach a
colored school; it lay in the fact that up to this time no woman
of just her quality had taken up such work. Most of the teachers
of colored schools were not of those who had constituted the
aristocracy of the old regime; they might be said rather to
represent the new order of things, in which labor was in time to
become honorable, and men were, after a somewhat longer time, to
depend, for their place in society, upon themselves rather than
upon their ancestors. But Mary Myrover belonged to one of the
proudest of the old families. Her ancestors had been people of
distinction in Virginia before a collateral branch of the main
stock had settled in North Carolina. Before the war they had been
able to live up to their pedigree. But the war brought sad
changes. Miss Myrover's father--the Colonel Myrover who led a
gallant but desperate charge at Vicksburg--had fallen on the
battlefield, and his tomb in the white cemetery was a shrine for
the family. On the Confederate Memorial Day no other grave was so
profusely decorated with flowers, and in the oration pronounced
the name of Colonel Myrover was always used to illustrate the
highest type of patriotic devotion and self-sacrifice. Miss
Myrover's brother, too, had fallen in the conflict; but his bones
lay in some unknown trench, with those of a thousand others who
had fallen on the same field. Ay, more, her lover, who had hoped
to come home in the full tide of victory and claim his bride as a
reward for gallantry, had shared the fate of her father and
brother. When the war was over, the remnant of the family found
itself involved in the common ruin,--more deeply involved, indeed,
than some others; for Colonel Myrover had believed in the ultimate
triumph of his cause, and had invested most of his wealth in
Confederate bonds, which were now only so much waste paper.

There had been a little left. Mrs. Myrover was thrifty, and had
laid by a few hundred dollars, which she kept in the house to meet
unforeseen contingencies. There remained, too, their home, with
an ample garden and a well-stocked orchard, besides a considerable
tract of country land, partly cleared, but productive of very
little revenue.

With their shrunken resources, Miss Myrover and her mother were
able to hold up their heads without embarrassment for some years
after the close of the war. But when things were adjusted to the
changed conditions, and the stream of life began to flow more
vigorously in the new channels, they saw themselves in danger of
dropping behind, unless in some way they could add to their meagre
income. Miss Myrover looked over the field of employment, never
very wide for women in the South, and found it occupied. The only
available position she could be supposed prepared to fill, and
which she could take without distinct loss of caste, was that of a
teacher, and there was no vacancy except in one of the colored
schools. Even teaching was a doubtful experiment; it was not what
she would have preferred, but it was the best that could be done.

"I don't like it, Mary," said her mother. "It's a long step from
owning such people to teaching them. What do they need with
education? It will only make them unfit for work."

"They're free now, mother, and perhaps they'll work better if
they're taught something. Besides, it's only a business
arrangement, and doesn't involve any closer contact than we have
with our servants."

"Well, I should say not!" sniffed the old lady. "Not one of them
will ever dare to presume on your position to take any liberties
with us. I'll see to that."

Miss Myrover began her work as a teacher in the autumn, at the
opening of the school year. It was a novel experience at first.
Though there always had been negro servants in the house, and
though on the streets colored people were more numerous than her
own people, and though she was so familiar with their dialect that
she might almost be said to speak it, barring certain
characteristic grammatical inaccuracies, she had never been
brought in personal contact with so many of them at once as when
she confronted the fifty or sixty faces--of colors ranging from a
white almost as clear as her own to the darkest livery of the sun--
which were gathered in the schoolroom on the morning when she
began her duties. Some of the inherited prejudice of her caste,
too, made itself felt, though she tried to repress any outward
sign of it; and she could perceive that the children were not
altogether responsive; they, likewise, were not entirely free from
antagonism. The work was unfamiliar to her. She was not
physically very strong, and at the close of the first day she went
home with a splitting headache. If she could have resigned then
and there without causing comment or annoyance to others, she
would have felt it a privilege to do so. But a night's rest
banished her headache and improved her spirits, and the next
morning she went to her work with renewed vigor, fortified by the
experience of the first day.

Miss Myrover's second day was more satisfactory. She had some
natural talent for organization, though she had never known it,
and in the course of the day she got her classes formed and
lessons under way. In a week or two she began to classify her
pupils in her own mind, as bright or stupid, mischievous or well
behaved, lazy or industrious, as the case might be, and to
regulate her discipline accordingly. That she had come of a long
line of ancestors who had exercised authority and mastership was
perhaps not without its effect upon her character, and enabled her
more readily to maintain good order in the school. When she was
fairly broken in she found the work rather to her liking, and
derived much pleasure from such success as she achieved as a
teacher.

It was natural that she should be more attracted to some of her
pupils than to others. Perhaps her favorite--or rather, the one
she liked best, for she was too fair and just for conscious
favoritism--was Sophy Tucker. Just the ground for the teacher's
liking for Sophy might not at first be apparent. The girl was far
from the whitest of Miss Myrover's pupils; in fact, she was one of
the darker ones. She was not the brightest in intellect, though
she always tried to learn her lessons. She was not the best
dressed, for her mother was a poor widow, who went out washing and
scrubbing for a living. Perhaps the real tie between them was
Sophy's intense devotion to the teacher. It had manifested itself
almost from the first day of the school, in the rapt look of
admiration Miss Myrover always saw on the little black face turned
toward her. In it there was nothing of envy, nothing of regret;
nothing but worship for the beautiful white lady--she was not
especially handsome, but to Sophy her beauty was almost divine--
who had come to teach her. If Miss Myrover dropped a book, Sophy
was the first to spring and pick it up; if she wished a chair
moved, Sophy seemed to anticipate her wish; and so of all the
numberless little services that can be rendered in a school-room.

Miss Myrover was fond of flowers, and liked to have them about
her. The children soon learned of this taste of hers, and kept
the vases on her desk filled with blossoms during their season.
Sophy was perhaps the most active in providing them. If she could
not get garden flowers, she would make excursions to the woods in
the early morning, and bring in great dew-laden bunches of bay, or
jasmine, or some other fragrant forest flower which she knew the
teacher loved.

"When I die, Sophy," Miss Myrover said to the child one day, "I
want to be covered with roses. And when they bury me, I'm sure I
shall rest better if my grave is banked with flowers, and roses
are planted at my head and at my feet."

Miss Myrover was at first amused at Sophy's devotion; but when she
grew more accustomed to it, she found it rather to her liking. It
had a sort of flavor of the old regime, and she felt, when she
bestowed her kindly notice upon her little black attendant, some
of the feudal condescension of the mistress toward the slave. She
was kind to Sophy, and permitted her to play the role she had
assumed, which caused sometimes a little jealousy among the other
girls. Once she gave Sophy a yellow ribbon which she took from
her own hair. The child carried it home, and cherished it as a
priceless treasure, to be worn only on the greatest occasions.

Sophy had a rival in her attachment to the teacher, but the
rivalry was altogether friendly. Miss Myrover had a little dog, a
white spaniel, answering to the name of Prince. Prince was a dog
of high degree, and would have very little to do with the children
of the school; he made an exception, however, in the case of
Sophy, whose devotion for his mistress he seemed to comprehend.
He was a clever dog, and could fetch and carry, sit up on his
haunches, extend his paw to shake hands, and possessed several
other canine accomplishments. He was very fond of his mistress,
and always, unless shut up at home, accompanied her to school,
where he spent most of his time lying under the teacher's desk,
or, in cold weather, by the stove, except when he would go out now
and then and chase an imaginary rabbit round the yard, presumably
for exercise.

At school Sophy and Prince vied with each other in their
attentions to Miss Myrover. But when school was over, Prince went
away with her, and Sophy stayed behind; for Miss Myrover was white
and Sophy was black, which they both understood perfectly well.
Miss Myrover taught the colored children, but she could not be
seen with them in public. If they occasionally met her on the
street, they did not expect her to speak to them, unless she
happened to be alone and no other white person was in sight. If
any of the children felt slighted, she was not aware of it, for
she intended no slight; she had not been brought up to speak to
negroes on the street, and she could not act differently from
other people. And though she was a woman of sentiment and capable
of deep feeling, her training had been such that she hardly
expected to find in those of darker hue than herself the same
susceptibility--varying in degree, perhaps, but yet the same in
kind--that gave to her own life the alternations of feeling that
made it most worth living.

Once Miss Myrover wished to carry home a parcel of books. She had
the bundle in her hand when Sophy came up.

"Lemme tote yo' bundle fer yer, Miss Ma'y?" she asked eagerly.
"I'm gwine yo' way."

"Thank you, Sophy," was the reply. "I'll be glad if you will."

Sophy followed the teacher at a respectful distance. When they
reached Miss Myrover's home Sophy carried the bundle to the
doorstep, where Miss Myrover took it and thanked her.

Mrs. Myrover came out on the piazza as Sophy was moving away. She
said, in the child's hearing, and perhaps with the intention that
she should hear: "Mary, I wish you wouldn't let those little
darkies follow you to the house. I don't want them in the yard.
I should think you'd have enough of them all day."

"Very well, mother," replied her daughter. "I won't bring any
more of them. The child was only doing me a favor."

Mrs. Myrover was an invalid, and opposition or irritation of any
kind brought on nervous paroxysms that made her miserable, and
made life a burden to the rest of the household; so that Mary
seldom crossed her whims. She did not bring Sophy to the house
again, nor did Sophy again offer her services as porter.

One day in spring Sophy brought her teacher a bouquet of yellow
roses.

"Dey come off'n my own bush, Miss Ma'y," she said proudly, "an' I
didn' let nobody e'se pull 'em, but saved 'em all fer you, 'cause
I know you likes roses so much. I'm gwine bring 'em all ter you
as long as dey las'."

"Thank you, Sophy," said the teacher; "you are a very good girl."

For another year Mary Myrover taught the colored school, and did
excellent service. The children made rapid progress under her
tuition, and learned to love her well; for they saw and
appreciated, as well as children could, her fidelity to a trust
that she might have slighted, as some others did, without much
fear of criticism. Toward the end of her second year she
sickened, and after a brief illness died.

Old Mrs. Myrover was inconsolable. She ascribed her daughter's
death to her labors as teacher of negro children. Just how the
color of the pupils had produced the fatal effects she did not
stop to explain. But she was too old, and had suffered too deeply
from the war, in body and mind and estate, ever to reconcile
herself to the changed order of things following the return of
peace; and with an unsound yet not unnatural logic, she visited
some of her displeasure upon those who had profited most, though
passively, by her losses.

"I always feared something would happen to Mary," she said. "It
seemed unnatural for her to be wearing herself out teaching little
negroes who ought to have been working for her. But the world has
hardly been a fit place to live in since the war, and when I
follow her, as I must before long, I shall not be sorry to go."

She gave strict orders that no colored people should be admitted
to the house. Some of her friends heard of this, and
remonstrated. They knew the teacher was loved by the pupils, and
felt that sincere respect from the humble would be a worthy
tribute to the proudest. But Mrs. Myrover was obdurate.

"They had my daughter when she was alive," she said, "and they've
killed her. But she's mine now, and I won't have them come near
her. I don't want one of them at the funeral or anywhere around."

For a month before Miss Myrover's death Sophy had been watching
her rosebush--the one that bore the yellow roses--for the first
buds of spring, and when these appeared had awaited impatiently
their gradual unfolding. But not until her teacher's death had
they become full-blown roses. When Miss Myrover died, Sophy
determined to pluck the roses and lay them on her coffin.
Perhaps, she thought, they might even put them in her hand or on
her breast. For Sophy remembered Miss Myrover's thanks and praise
when she had brought her the yellow roses the spring before.

On the morning of the day set for the funeral Sophy washed her
face until it shone, combed and brushed her hair with painful
conscientiousness, put on her best frock, plucked her yellow
roses, and, tying them with the treasured ribbon her teacher had
given her, set out for Miss Myrover's home.

She went round to the side gate--the house stood on a corner--and
stole up the path to the kitchen. A colored woman, whom she did
not know, came to the door.

"W'at yer want, chile?" she inquired.

"Kin I see Miss Ma'y?" asked Sophy timidly.

"I don' know, honey. Ole Miss Myrover say she don' want no cullud
folks roun' de house endyoin' dis fun'al. I'll look an' see if
she's roun' de front room, whar de co'pse is. You sed-down heah
an' keep still, an' ef she's upstairs maybe I kin git yer in dere
a minute. Ef I can't, I kin put yo' bokay 'mongs' de res', whar
she won't know nuthin' erbout it."

A moment after she had gone there was a step in the hall, and old
Mrs. Myrover came into the kitchen.

"Dinah!" she said in a peevish tone. "Dinah!"

Receiving no answer, Mrs. Myrover peered around the kitchen, and
caught sight of Sophy.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded.

"I--I'm-m waitin' ter see de cook, ma'am," stammered Sophy.

"The cook isn't here now. I don't know where she is. Besides, my
daughter is to be buried to-day, and I won't have any one visiting
the servants until the funeral is over. Come back some other day,
or see the cook at her own home in the evening."

She stood waiting for the child to go, and under the keen glance
of her eyes Sophy, feeling as though she had been caught in some
disgraceful act, hurried down the walk and out of the gate, with
her bouquet in her hand.

"Dinah," said Mrs. Myrover, when the cook came back, "I don't want
any strange people admitted here to-day. The house will be full
of our friends, and we have no room for others."

"Yas'm," said the cook. She understood perfectly what her
mistress meant; and what the cook thought about her mistress was a
matter of no consequence.

The funeral services were held at St. John's Episcopal Church,
where the Myrovers had always worshiped. Quite a number of Miss
Myrover's pupils went to the church to attend the services. The
church was not a large one. There was a small gallery at the
rear, to which colored people were admitted, if they chose to
come, at ordinary services; and those who wished to be present at
the funeral supposed that the usual custom would prevail. They
were therefore surprised, when they went to the side entrance, by
which colored people gained access to the gallery stairs, to be
met by an usher who barred their passage.

"I'm sorry," he said, "but I have had orders to admit no one until
the friends of the family have all been seated. If you wish to
wait until the white people have all gone in, and there's any room
left, you may be able to get into the back part of the gallery.
Of course I can't tell yet whether there'll be any room or not."

Now the statement of the usher was a very reasonable one; but,
strange to say, none of the colored people chose to remain except
Sophy. She still hoped to use her floral offering for its
destined end, in some way, though she did not know just how. She
waited in the yard until the church was filled with white people,
and a number who could not gain admittance were standing about the
doors. Then she went round to the side of the church, and,
depositing her bouquet carefully on an old mossy gravestone,
climbed up on the projecting sill of a window near the chancel.
The window was of stained glass, of somewhat ancient make. The
church was old, had indeed been built in colonial times, and the
stained glass had been brought from England. The design of the
window showed Jesus blessing little children. Time had dealt
gently with the window; but just at the feet of the figure of
Jesus a small triangular piece of glass had been broken out. To
this aperture Sophy applied her eyes, and through it saw and heard
what she could of the services within.

Before the chancel, on trestles draped in black, stood the sombre
casket in which lay all that was mortal of her dear teacher. The
top of the casket was covered with flowers; and lying stretched
out underneath it she saw Miss Myrover's little white dog, Prince.
He had followed the body to the church, and, slipping in unnoticed
among the mourners, had taken his place, from which no one had the
heart to remove him.

The white-robed rector read the solemn service for the dead, and
then delivered a brief address, in which he spoke of the
uncertainty of life, and, to the believer, the certain blessedness
of eternity. He spoke of Miss Myrover's kindly spirit, and, as an
illustration of her love and self-sacrifice for others, referred
to her labors as a teacher of the poor ignorant negroes who had
been placed in their midst by an all-wise Providence, and whom it
was their duty to guide and direct in the station in which God had
put them. Then the organ pealed, a prayer was said, and the long
cortege moved from the church to the cemetery, about half a mile
away, where the body was to be interred.

When the services were over, Sophy sprang down from her perch,
and, taking her flowers, followed the procession. She did not
walk with the rest, but at a proper and respectful distance from
the last mourner. No one noticed the little black girl with the
bunch of yellow flowers, or thought of her as interested in the
funeral.

The cortege reached the cemetery and filed slowly through the
gate; but Sophy stood outside, looking at a small sign in white
letters on a black background:--

"NOTICE. This cemetery is for white people only. Others please
keep out."

Sophy, thanks to Miss Myrover's painstaking instruction, could
read this sign very distinctly. In fact, she had often read it
before. For Sophy was a child who loved beauty, in a blind,
groping sort of way, and had sometimes stood by the fence of the
cemetery and looked through at the green mounds and shaded walks
and blooming flowers within, and wished that she could walk among
them. She knew, too, that the little sign on the gate, though so
courteously worded, was no mere formality; for she had heard how a
colored man, who had wandered into the cemetery on a hot night and
fallen asleep on the flat top of a tomb, had been arrested as a
vagrant and fined five dollars, which he had worked out on the
streets, with a ball-and-chain attachment, at twenty-five cents a
day. Since that time the cemetery gate had been locked at night.

So Sophy stayed outside, and looked through the fence. Her poor
bouquet had begun to droop by this time, and the yellow ribbon had
lost some of its freshness. Sophy could see the rector standing
by the grave, the mourners gathered round; she could faintly
distinguish the solemn words with which ashes were committed to
ashes, and dust to dust. She heard the hollow thud of the earth
falling on the coffin; and she leaned against the iron fence,
sobbing softly, until the grave was filled and rounded off, and
the wreaths and other floral pieces were disposed upon it. When
the mourners began to move toward the gate, Sophy walked slowly
down the street, in a direction opposite to that taken by most of
the people who came out.

When they had all gone away, and the sexton had come out and
locked the gate behind him, Sophy crept back. Her roses were
faded now, and from some of them the petals had fallen. She stood
there irresolute, loath to leave with her heart's desire
unsatisfied, when, as her eyes fell upon the teacher's last
resting place, she saw lying beside the new-made grave what looked
like a small bundle of white wool. Sophy's eyes lighted up with a
sudden glow.

"Prince! Here, Prince!" she called.

The little dog rose, and trotted down to the gate. Sophy pushed
the poor bouquet between the iron bars. "Take that ter Miss Ma'y,
Prince," she said, "that's a good doggie."

The dog wagged his tail intelligently, took the bouquet carefully
in his mouth, carried it to his mistress's grave, and laid it
among the other flowers. The bunch of roses was so small that
from where she stood Sophy could see only a dash of yellow against
the white background of the mass of flowers.

When Prince had performed his mission he turned his eyes toward
Sophy inquiringly, and when she gave him a nod of approval lay
down and resumed his watch by the graveside. Sophy looked at him
a moment with a feeling very much like envy, and then turned and
moved slowly away.

THE CASE OF THE NEGRO
by Booker T. Washington

All attempts to settle the question of the Negro in the South by
his removal from this country have so far failed, and I think that
they are likely to fail. The next census will probably show that
we have nearly ten million black people in the United States,
about eight millions of whom are in the Southern states. In fact,
we have almost a nation within a nation. The Negro population in
the United States lacks but two millions of being as large as the
whole population of Mexico, and is nearly twice as large as that
of Canada. Our black people equal in number the combined
populations of Switzerland, Greece, Honduras, Nicaragua, Cuba,
Uraguay [sic], Santo Domingo, Paraguay, and Costa Rica. When we
consider, in connection with these facts, that the race has
doubled itself since its freedom, and is still increasing, it
hardly seems possible for any one to take seriously any scheme of
emigration from America as a method of solution. At most, even if
the government were to provide the means, but a few hundred
thousand could be transported each year. The yearly increase in
population would more than likely overbalance the number
transported. Even if it did not, the time required to get rid of
the Negro by this method would perhaps be fifty or seventy-five
years.

Some have advised that the Negro leave the South, and take up his
residence in the Northern states. I question whether this would
make him any better off than he is in the South, when all things
are considered. It has been my privilege to study the condition
of our people in nearly every part of America; and I say without
hesitation that, with some exceptional cases, the Negro is at his
best in the Southern states. While he enjoys certain privileges
in the North that he does not have in the South, when it comes to
the matter of securing property, enjoying business advantages and
employment, the South presents a far better opportunity than the
North. Few colored men from the South are as yet able to stand up
against the severe and increasing competition that exists in the
North, to say nothing of the unfriendly influence of labor
organizations, which in some way prevents black men in the North,
as a rule, from securing occupation in the line of skilled labor.

Another point of great danger for the colored man who goes North
is the matter of morals, owing to the numerous temptations by
which he finds himself surrounded. More ways offer in which he
can spend money than in the South, but fewer avenues of employment
for earning money are open to him. The fact that at the North the
Negro is almost confined to one line of occupation often tends to
discourage and demoralize the strongest who go from the South, and
makes them an easy prey for temptation. A few years ago, I made
an examination into the condition of a settlement of Negroes who
left the South and went into Kansas about twenty years since, when
there was a good deal of excitement in the South concerning
emigration from the West, and found it much below the standard of
that of similar communities in the South. The only conclusion
which any one can reach, from this and like instances, is that the
Negroes are to remain in the Southern states. As a race they do
not want to leave the South, and the Southern white people do not
want them to leave. We must therefore find some basis of
settlement that will be constitutional, just, manly; that will be
fair to both races in the South and to the whole country. This
cannot be done in a day, a year, or any short period of time. We
can, however, with the present light, decide upon a reasonably
safe method of solving the problem, and turn our strength and
effort in that direction. In doing this, I would not have the
Negro deprived of any privilege guaranteed to him by the
Constitution of the United States. It is not best for the Negro
that he relinquish any of his constitutional rights; it is not
best for the Southern white man that he should, as I shall attempt
to show in this article.

In order that we may concentrate our forces upon a wise object,
without loss of time or effort, I want to suggest what seems to me
and many others the wisest policy to be pursued. I have reached
these conclusions not only by reason of my own observations and
experience, but after eighteen years of direct contact with
leading and influential colored and white men in most parts of our
country. But I wish first to mention some elements of danger in
the present situation, which all who desire the permanent welfare
of both races in the South should carefully take into account.

First. There is danger that a certain class of impatient
extremists among the Negroes in the North, who have little
knowledge of the actual conditions in the South, may do the entire
race injury by attempting to advise their brethren in the South to
resort to armed resistance or the use of the torch, in order to
secure justice. All intelligent and well-considered discussion of
any important question, or condemnation of any wrong, whether in
the North or the South, from the public platform and through the
press, is to be commended and encouraged; but ill-considered and
incendiary utterances from black men in the North will tend to add
to the burdens of our people in the South rather than to relieve
them. We must not fall into the temptation of believing that we
can raise ourselves by abusing some one else.

Second. Another danger in the South which should be guarded
against is that the whole white South, including the wise,
conservative, law-abiding element, may find itself represented
before the bar of public opinion by the mob or lawless element,
which gives expression to its feelings and tendency in a manner
that advertises the South throughout the world; while too often
those who have no sympathy with such disregard of law are either
silent, or fail to speak in a sufficiently emphatic manner to
offset in any large degree the unfortunate reputation which the
lawless have made for many portions of the South.

Third. No race or people ever got upon its feet without severe
and constant struggle, often in the face of the greatest
discouragement. While passing through the present trying period
of its history, there is danger that a large and valuable element
of the Negro race may become discouraged in the effort to better
its condition. Every possible influence should be exerted to
prevent this.

Fourth. There is a possibility that harm may be done to the South
and to the Negro by exaggerated newspaper articles which are
written near the scene or in the midst of specially aggravating
occurrences. Often these reports are written by newspaper men,
who give the impression that there is a race conflict throughout
the South, and that all Southern white people are opposed to the
Negro's progress; overlooking the fact that though in some
sections there is trouble, in most parts of the South, if matters
are not yet in all respects as we would have them, there is
nevertheless a very large measure of peace, good will, and mutual
helpfulness. In the same relation, much can be done to retard the
progress of the Negro by a certain class of Southern white people,
who in the midst of excitement speak or write in a manner that
gives the impression that all Negroes are lawless, untrustworthy,
and shiftless. For example, a Southern writer said, not long ago,
in a communication to the New York Independent: "Even in small
towns the husband cannot venture to leave his wife alone for an
hour at night. At no time, in no place, is the white woman safe
from the insults and assaults of these creatures."  These
statements, I presume, represented the feelings and the conditions
that existed, at the time of the writing, in one community or
county in the South; but thousands of Southern white men and women
would be ready to testify that this is not the condition
throughout the South, nor throughout any Southern state.

Fifth. Owing to the lack of school opportunities for the Negro in
the rural districts of the South, there is danger that ignorance
and idleness may increase to the extent of giving the Negro race a
reputation for crime, and that immorality may eat its way into the
fibre of the race so as to retard its progress for many years. In
judging the Negro we must not be too harsh. We must remember that
it has been only within the last thirty-four years that the black
father and mother have had the responsibility, and consequently
the experience, of training their own children. That perfection
has not been reached in one generation, with the obstacles that
the parents have been compelled to overcome, is not to be wondered
at.

Sixth. Finally, I would mention my fear that some of the white
people of the South may be led to feel that the way to settle the
race problem is to repress the aspirations of the Negro by
legislation of a kind that confers certain legal or political
privileges upon an ignorant and poor white man, and withholds the
same privileges from a black man in a similar condition. Such
legislation injures and retards the progress of both races. It is
an injustice to the poor white man, because it takes from him
incentive to secure education and property as prerequisites for
voting. He feels that because he is a white man, regardless of
his possessions, a way will be found for him to vote. I would
label all such measures "laws to keep the poor white man in
ignorance and poverty."

The Talladega News Reporter, a Democratic newspaper of Alabama,
recently said: "But it is a weak cry when the white man asks odds
on intelligence over the Negro. When nature has already so
handicapped the African in the race for knowledge, the cry of the
boasted Anglo-Saxon for still further odds seems babyish. What
wonder that the world looks on in surprise, if not disgust? It
cannot help but say, If our contention be true that the Negro is
an inferior race, then the odds ought to be on the other side, if
any are to be given. And why not? No; the thing to do--the only
thing that will stand the test of time--is to do right, exactly
right, let come what will. And that right thing, as it seems to
us, is to place a fair educational qualification before every
citizen,--one that is self-testing, and not dependent on the
wishes of weak men,--letting all who pass the test stand in the
proud ranks of American voters, whose votes shall be counted as
cast, and whose sovereign will shall be maintained as law by all
the powers that be. Nothing short of this will do. Every
exemption, on whatsoever ground, is an outrage that can only rob
some legitimate voter of his rights."

Such laws have been made,--in Mississippi, for example,--with the
"understanding" clause, hold out a temptation for the election
officer to perjure and degrade himself by too often deciding that
the ignorant white man does understand the Constitution when it is
read to him, and that the ignorant black man does not. By such a
law, the state not only commits a wrong against its black
citizens; it injures the morals of its white citizens by
conferring such a power upon any white man who may happen to be a
judge of elections.

Such laws are hurtful, again, because they keep alive in the heart
of the black man the feeling that the white man means to oppress
him. The only safe way out is to set a high standard as a test of
citizenship, and require blacks and whites alike to come up to it.
When this is done, both will have a higher respect for the
election laws, and for those who make them. I do not believe
that, with his centuries of advantage over the Negro in the
opportunity to acquire property and education as prerequisites for
voting, the average white man in the South desires that any
special law be passed to give him further advantage over one who
has had but a little more than thirty years in which to prepare
himself for citizenship. In this relation, another point of
danger is that the Negro has been made to feel that it is his duty
continually to oppose the Southern white man in politics, even in
matters where no principle is involved; and that he is only loyal
to his own race and acting in a manly way in thus opposing the
white man. Such a policy has proved very hurtful to both races.
Where it is a matter of principle, where a question of right or
wrong is involved, I would advise the Negro to stand by principle
at all hazards. A Southern white man has no respect for or
confidence in a Negro who acts merely for policy's sake; but there
are many cases, and the number is growing, where the Negro has
nothing to gain, and much to lose, by opposing the Southern white
man in matters that relate to government.

Under the foregoing six heads I believe I have stated some of the
main points which, all high-minded white men and black men, North
and South, will agree, need our most earnest and thoughtful
consideration, if we would hasten, and not hinder, the progress of
our country.

Now as to the policy that should be pursued. On this subject I
claim to possess no superior wisdom or unusual insight. I may be
wrong; I may be in some degree right.

In the future we want to impress upon the Negro, more than we have
done in the past, the importance of identifying himself more
closely with the interests of the South; of making himself part of
the South, and at home in it. Heretofore, for reasons which were
natural, and for which no one is especially to blame, the colored
people have been too much like a foreign nation residing in the
midst of another nation. If William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell
Phillips, or George L. Stearns were alive to-day, I feel sure that
he would advise the Negroes to identify their interests as closely
as possible with those of their white neighbors,--always
understanding that no question of right and wrong is involved. In
no other way, it seems to me, can we get a foundation for peace
and progress. He who advises against this policy will advise the
Negro to do that which no people in history, who have succeeded,
have done. The white man, North or South, who advises the Negro
against it advises him to do that which he himself has not done.
The bed rock upon which every individual rests his chances for
success in life is the friendship, the confidence, the respect, of
his next-door neighbor in the little community in which he lives.
The problem of the Negro in the South turns on whether he can make
himself of such indispensable service to his neighbor and the
community that no one can fill his place better in the body
politic. There is at present no other safe course for the black
man to pursue. If the Negro in the South has a friend in his
white neighbor, and a still larger number of friends in his own
community, he has a protection and a guarantee of his rights that
will be more potent and more lasting than any our Federal Congress
or any outside power can confer.

The London Times, in a recent editorial discussing affairs in the
Transvaal, where Englishmen have been denied certain privileges by
the Boers, says: "England is too sagacious not to prefer a gradual
reform from within, even should it be less rapid than most of us
might wish, to the most sweeping redress of grievances imposed
from without. Our object is to obtain fair play for the
Outlanders, but the best way to do it is to enable them to help
themselves."  This policy, I think, is equally safe when applied
to conditions in the South. The foreigner who comes to America
identifies himself as soon as possible, in business, education,
and politics, with the community in which he settles. We have a
conspicuous example of this in the case of the Jews, who in the
South, as well as in other parts of our country, have not always
been justly treated; but the Jews have so woven themselves into
the business and patriotic interests of the communities in which
they live, have made themselves so valuable as citizens, that they
have won a place in the South which they could have obtained in no
other way. The Negro in Cuba has practically settled the race
question there, because he has made himself a part of Cuba in
thought and action.

What I have tried to indicate cannot be accomplished by any sudden
revolution of methods, but it does seem that the tendency should
be more and more in this direction. Let me emphasize this by a
practical example. The North sends thousands of dollars into the
South every year for the education of the Negro. The teachers in
most of the Southern schools supported by the North are Northern
men and women of the highest Christian culture and most unselfish
devotion. The Negro owes them a debt of gratitude which can never
be paid. The various missionary societies in the North have done
a work which to a large degree has proved the salvation of the
South, and the results of it will appear more in future
generations than in this. We have now reached the point, in the
South, where, I believe, great good could be accomplished in
changing the attitude of the white people toward the Negro, and of
the Negro toward the whites, if a few Southern white teachers, of
high character, would take an active interest in the work of our
higher schools. Can this be done? Yes. The medical school
connected with Shaw University at Raleigh, North Carolina, has
from the first had as instructors and professors almost
exclusively Southern white doctors who reside in Raleigh, and they
have given the highest satisfaction. This gives the people of
Raleigh the feeling that the school is theirs, and not something
located in, but not a part of, the South. In Augusta, Georgia,
the Payne Institute, one of the best colleges for our people, is
officered and taught almost wholly by Southern white men and
women. The Presbyterian Theological School at Tuscaloosa,
Alabama, has only Southern white men as instructors. Some time
ago, at the Calhoun School in Alabama, one of the leading white
men in the county was given an important position; since then the
feeling of the white people in the county has greatly changed
toward the school.

We must admit the stern fact that at present the Negro, through no
choice of his own, is living in the midst of another race, which
is far ahead of him in education, property, and experience; and
further, that the Negro's present condition makes him dependent
upon the white people for most of the things necessary to sustain
life, as well as, in a large measure, for his education. In all
history, those who have possessed the property and intelligence
have exercised the greatest control in government, regardless of
color, race, or geographical location. This being the case, how
can the black man in the South improve his estate? And does the
Southern white man want him to improve it? The latter part of
this question I shall attempt to answer later in this article.

The Negro in the South has it within his power, if he properly
utilizes the forces at land, to make of himself such a valuable
factor in the life of the South that for the most part he need not
seek privileges, but they will be conferred upon him. To bring
this about, the Negro must begin at the bottom and lay a sure
foundation, and not be lured by any temptation into trying to rise
on a false footing. While the Negro is laying this foundation, he
will need help and sympathy and justice from the law. Progress by
any other method will be but temporary and superficial, and the
end of it will be worse than the beginning. American slavery was
a great curse to both races, and I should be the last to apologize
for it; but in the providence of God I believe that slavery laid
the foundation for the solution of the problem that is now before
us in the South. Under slavery, the Negro was taught every trade,
every industry, that furnishes the means of earning a living. Now
if on this foundation, laid in a rather crude way, it is true, but
a foundation nevertheless, we can gradually grow and improve, the
future for us is bright. Let me be more specific. Agriculture is
or has been the basic industry of nearly every race or nation that
has succeeded. The Negro got a knowledge of this under slavery:
hence in a large measure he is in possession of this industry in
the South to-day. Taking the whole South, I should say that
eighty per cent of the Negroes live by agriculture in some form,
though it is often a very primitive and crude form. The Negro can
buy land in the South, as a rule, wherever the white man can buy
it, and at very low prices. Now, since the bulk of our people
already have a foundation in agriculture, are at their best when
living in the country engaged in agricultural pursuits, plainly,
the best thing, the logical thing, is to turn the larger part of
our strength in a direction that will put the Negroes among the
most skilled agricultural people in the world. The man who has
learned to do something better than any one else, has learned to
do a common thing in an uncommon manner, has power and influence
which no adverse surroundings can take from him. It is better to
show a man how to make a place for himself than to put him in one
that some one else has made for him. The Negro who can make
himself so conspicuous as a successful farmer, a large taxpayer, a
wise helper of his fellow men, as to be placed in a position of
trust and honor by natural selection, whether the position be
political or not, is a hundredfold more secure in that position
than one placed there by mere outside force or pressure. I know a
Negro, Hon. Isaiah T. Montgomery, in Mississippi, who is mayor of
a town; it is true that the town is composed almost wholly of
Negroes. Mr. Montgomery is mayor of this town because his genius,
thrift, and foresight have created it; and he is held and
supported in his office by a charter granted by the state of
Mississippi, and by the vote and public sentiment of the community
in which he lives.

Let us help the Negro by every means possible to acquire such an
education in farming, dairying, stock-raising, horticulture, etc.,
as will place him near the top in these industries, and the race
problem will in a large part be settled, or at least stripped of
many of its most perplexing elements. This policy would also tend
to keep the Negro in the country and smaller towns, where he
succeeds best, and stop the influx into the large cities, where he
does not succeed so well. The race, like the individual, which
produces something of superior worth that has a common human
interest, wins a permanent place, and is bound to be recognized.

At a county fair in the South, not long ago, I saw a Negro awarded
the first prize, by a jury of white men, over white competitors,
for the production of the best specimen of Indian corn. Every
white man at the fair seemed to be proud of the achievement of the
Negro, because it was apparent that he had done something that
would add to the wealth and comfort of the people of both races in
that county. At the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, in
Alabama, we have a department devoted to training men along the
lines of agriculture that I have named; but what we are doing is
small when compared with what should be done in Tuskegee, and at
other educational centres. In a material sense the South is still
an undeveloped country. While in some other affairs race
prejudice is strongly marked, in the matter of business, of
commercial and industrial development, there are few obstacles in
the Negro's way. A Negro who produces or has for sale something
that the community wants finds customers among white people as
well as black. Upon equal security, a Negro can borrow money at
the bank as readily as a white man can. A bank in Birmingham,
Alabama, which has existed ten years, is officered and controlled
wholly by Negroes. This bank has white borrowers and white
depositors. A graduate of the Tuskegee Institute keeps a well-
appointed grocery store in Tuskegee, and he tells me that he sells
about as many goods to one race as to the other. What I have said
of the opening that awaits the Negro in the business of
agriculture is almost equally true of mechanics, manufacturing,
and all the domestic arts. The field is before him and right
about him. Will he seize upon it? Will he "cast down his bucket  
where he is"? Will his friends, North and South, encourage him
and prepare him to occupy it? Every city in the South, for
example, would give support to a first-class architect or
housebuilder or contractor of our race. The architect or
contractor would not only receive support, but through his example
numbers of young colored men would learn such trades as carpentry,
brickmasonry, plastering, painting, etc., and the race would be
put into a position to hold on to many of the industries which it
is now in danger of losing, because in too many cases brain,
skill, and dignity are not imparted to the common occupations.
Any individual or race that does not fit itself to occupy in the
best manner the field or service that is right about it will
sooner or later be asked to move on and let another take it.

But I may be asked, Would you confine the Negro to agriculture,
mechanics, the domestic arts, etc.? Not at all; but just now and
for a number of years the stress should be laid along the lines
that I have mentioned. We shall need and must have many teachers
and ministers, some doctors and lawyers and statesmen, but these
professional men will have a constituency or a foundation from
which to draw support just in proportion as the race prospers
along the economic lines that I have pointed out. During the
first fifty or one hundred years of the life of any people, are
not the economic occupations always given the greater attention?
This is not only the historic, but, I think, the common-sense
view. If this generation will lay the material foundation, it
will be the quickest and surest way for enabling later generations
to succeed in the cultivation of the fine arts, and to surround
themselves with some of the luxuries of life, if desired. What
the race most needs now, in my opinion, is a whole army of men and
women well-trained to lead, and at the same time devote
themselves to agriculture, mechanics, domestic employment, and
business. As to the mental training that these educated leaders
should be equipped with, I should say, give them all the mental
training and culture that the circumstances of individuals will
allow,--the more the better. No race can permanently succeed
until its mind is awakened and strengthened by the ripest thought.
But I would constantly have it kept in the minds of those who are
educated in books that a large proportion of those who are
educated should be so trained in hand that they can bring this
mental strength and knowledge to bear upon the physical conditions
in the South, which I have tried to emphasize.

Frederick Douglass, of sainted memory, once, in addressing his
race, used these words: "We are to prove that we can better our
own condition. One way to do this is to accumulate property.
This may sound to you like a new gospel. You have been accustomed
to hear that money is the root of all evil, etc.; on the other
hand, property, money, if you please, will purchase for us the
only condition by which any people can rise to the dignity of
genuine manhood; for without property there can be no leisure,
without leisure there can be no thought, without thought there can
be no invention, without invention there can be no progress."

The Negro should be taught that material development is not an
end, but merely a means to an end. As professor W. E. B. Du Bois
puts it, the idea should not be simply to make men carpenters, but
to make carpenters men. The Negro has a highly religious
temperament; but what he needs more and more is to be convinced of
the importance of weaving his religion and morality into the
practical affairs of daily life. Equally does he need to be
taught to put so much intelligence into his labor that he will see
dignity and beauty in the occupation, and love it for its own
sake. The Negro needs to be taught to apply more of the religion
that manifests itself in his happiness in prayer meeting to the
performance of his daily task. The man who owns a home, and is in
the possession of the elements by which he is sure of a daily
living, has a great aid to a moral and religious life. What
bearing will all this have upon the Negro's place in the South, as
a citizen and in the enjoyment of the privileges which our
government confers?

To state in detail just what place the black man will occupy in
the South as a citizen, when he has developed in the direction
named, is beyond the wisdom of any one. Much will depend upon the
sense of justice which can be kept alive in the breast of the
American people; almost as much will depend upon the good sense of
the Negro himself. That question, I confess, does not give me the
most concern just now. The important and pressing question is,
Will the Negro, with his own help and that of his friends, take
advantage of the opportunities that surround him? When he has
done this, I believe, speaking of his future in general terms,
that he will be treated with justice, be given the protection of
the law and the recognition which his usefulness and ability
warrant. If, fifty years ago, one had predicted that the Negro
would receive the recognition and honor which individuals have
already received, he would have been laughed at as an idle
dreamer. Time, patience, and constant achievement are great
factors in the rise of a race.

I do not believe that the world ever takes a race seriously, in
its desire to share in the government of a nation, until a large
number of individual members of that race have demonstrated beyond
question their ability to control and develop their own business
enterprises. Once a number of Negroes rise to the point where
they own and operate the most successful farms, are among the
largest taxpayers in their county, are moral and intelligent, I do
not believe that in many portions of the South such men need long
be denied the right of saying by their votes how they prefer their
property to be taxed, and who are to make and administer the laws.

I was walking the street of a certain town in the South lately in
company with the most prominent Negro there. While we were
together, the mayor of the town sought out the black man, and
said, "Next week we are going to vote on the question of issuing
bonds to secure water-works; you must be sure to vote on the day
of election."  The mayor did not suggest whether he should vote
yes or no; but he knew that the very fact of this Negro's owning
nearly a block of the most valuable property in the town was a
guarantee that he would cast a safe, wise vote on this important
proposition. The white man knew that because of this Negro's
property interests he would cast his vote in the way he thought
would benefit every white and black citizen in the town, and not
be controlled by influences a thousand miles away. But a short
time ago I read letters from nearly every prominent white man in
Birmingham, Alabama, asking that the Rev. W. R. Pettiford, a
Negro, be appointed to a certain important federal office. What
is the explanation of this? For nine years Mr. Pettiford has been
the president of the Negro bank in Birmingham, to which I have
alluded. During these nine years, the white citizens have had the
opportunity of seeing that Mr. Pettiford can manage successfully a
private business, and that he has proved himself a conservative,
thoughtful citizen, and they are willing to trust him in a public
office. Such individual examples will have to be multiplied, till
they become more nearly the rule than the exception they now are.
While we are multiplying these examples, the Negro must keep a
strong and courageous heart. He cannot improve his condition by
any short-cut course or by artificial methods. Above all, he must
not be deluded into believing that his condition can be
permanently bettered by a mere battledoor [sic] and shuttlecock of
words, or by any process of mere mental gymnastics or oratory.
What is desired along with a logical defense of his cause are
deeds, results,--continued results, in the direction of building
himself up, so as to leave no doubt in the mind of any one of his
ability to succeed.

An important question often asked is, Does the white man in the
South want the Negro to improve his present condition? I say yes.
From the Montgomery (Alabama) Daily Advertiser I clip the
following in reference to the closing of a colored school in a
town in Alabama:--

"EUFALA, May 25, 1899. The closing exercises of the city colored
public school were held at St. Luke's A. M. E. Church last night,
and were witnessed by a large gathering, including many whites.
The recitations by the pupils were excellent, and the music was
also an interesting feature. Rev. R. T. Pollard delivered the
address, which was quite an able one, and the certificates were
presented by Professor T. L. McCoy, white, of the Sanford Street
School. The success of the exercises reflects great credit on
Professor S. M. Murphy, the principal, who enjoys a deserved good
reputation as a capable and efficient educator."

I quote this report, not because it is the exception, but because
such marks of interest in the education of the Negro on the part
of the Southern white people may be seen almost every day in the
local papers. Why should white people, by their presence, words,
and actions, encourage the black man to get education, if they do
not desire him to improve his condition?

The Payne Institute, an excellent college, to which I have already
referred, is supported almost wholly by the Southern white
Methodist church. The Southern white Presbyterians support a
theological school for Negroes at Tuscaloosa. For a number of
years the Southern white Baptists have contributed toward Negro
education. Other denominations have done the same. If these
people do not want the Negro educated to a higher standard, there
is no reason why they should pretend they do.

Though some of the lynchings in the South have indicated a
barbarous feeling toward Negroes, Southern white men here and
there, as well as newspapers, have spoken out strongly against
lynching. I quote from the address of the Rev. Mr. Vance, of
Nashville, Tennessee, delivered before the National Sunday School
Union, in Atlanta, not long since, as an example:--

"And yet, as I stand here to-night, a Southerner speaking for my
section and addressing an audience from all sections, there is one
foul blot upon the fair fame of the South, at the bare mention of
which the heart turns sick and the cheek is crimsoned with shame.
I want to lift my voice to-night in loud and long and indignant
protest against the awful horror of mob violence, which the other
day reached the climax of its madness and infamy in a deed as
black and brutal and barbarous as can be found in the annals of
human crime.

"I have a right to speak on the subject, and I propose to be
heard. The time has come for every lover of the South to set the
might of an angered and resolute manhood against the shame and
peril of the lynch demon. These people whose fiendish glee taunts
their victim as his flesh crackles in the flames do not represent
the South. I have not a syllable of apology for the sickening
crime they meant to avenge. But it is high time we were learning
that lawlessness is no remedy for crime. For one, I dare to
believe that the people of my section are able to cope with crime,
however treacherous and defiant, through their courts of justice;
and I plead for the masterful sway of a righteous and exalted
public sentiment that shall class lynch law in the category with
crime."

It is a notable and encouraging fact that no Negro educated in any
of our larger institutions of learning in the South has been
charged with any of the recent crimes connected with assaults upon
women.

If we go on making progress in the directions that I have tried to
indicate, more and more the South will be drawn to one course. As  
I have already said, it is not to the best interests of the white
race of the South that the Negro be deprived of any privilege
guaranteed him by the Constitution of the United States. This
would put upon the South a burden under which no government could
stand and prosper. Every article in our Federal Constitution was
placed there with a view of stimulating and encouraging the
highest type of citizenship. To continue to tax the Negro without
giving him the right to vote, as fast as he qualifies himself in
education and property for voting, would insure the alienation of
the affections of the Negro from the state in which he lives, and
would be the reversal of the fundamental principles of government
for which our states