Daily union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866, 1866-03-23

slaves, not IN their actiOns, lOr III that re-
spect, they appeared to me quiet and orderly,
and the uneasiness TO which l allude, was
| indicated chiefly by the eagerness with
which they enquired the news, at critical
! times. But after the Government of the
United States adopted the policy of eman-
cipation and of recruiting their armies from
the freedmen, it soon appeared that the
presence, or the approach of the Federal
army was the signal of discernable sensa-
ton among the slaves, and that, as soon as 1t
was known that protection would be extended
TO them in the Federal lines, i: was a greater
temptation than many of them could resist,
and many of them, male and female, left
their homes and joined their iberators,
some of them openly, but in my obser-
walton, they generally left quietly and IN
the night, apparently not wishing to hurt
the feelings of their masters and mistresses.
In the rapid march of General Wilson
through Alabama and part of Georgia,
two divisions of his army, one directly from
Columbus, and the other from West Point,
passed by the place where resided, making
a short stop. Colonel Lagrange command
Jag one division, and Gen. McCook the other.
From conversations with them, or with
some of their staff, / learned that while they
felt obliged TO protect the slaves that joined
them on this march, they felt that they were
an incumbrance to them as they moved with
out any baggage train. There were a con-
siderable number of negro men in the army
mounted on horses and mules, gathered
right and left as they passed through the
country. There were also many women so
intoxicated with the idea of freedom that they
were content, jaded and worn as they were,
to drag themselvs along on foot IN the rear of
the army with not a few children struggling
after them-a piteous spectacle. / conjec-
tured that they would sink by the way, and
that few of them would ever reach Macon,
from which they were about two days march.
A few weeks afterwards, many of the negro
men came trudging back, declaring their in
tention to return to their masters, apparently
satisfied with the experiment they had made
of freedom. These were such as | supposed
had no fancy for tie military service, or
perhaps they were such as the officers refused
to receive into the Federal service, but the
women and children saw or heard no more
Of.
am aware that it may be objected that
the great experiment which | represent as
offering the best practicable test of the
equality of the races that ever could be pre-
scented to the world, if still going on, could
afford no fair test of the relative capacity of
the races, because it is said the time and
employment of the African race were by our
system of slavery wholly under the control
of their masters; and it may be enquired
with great pertinancy what attribute of fair
ness can be predicated of any trial of the
capabilities Of the African under such cir
cumstances. The only rational answer that
can be made to such an enquiry, is that in no
other way, under no different or other cir
eumstances, could an experiment be made
upon a large and satisfactory scale, OF the
capacity of a race of people commencing
with them in a state of barbarism. There
would be no light thrown upon the question
by the results of experience in individual
cases, whether taken from a state of nature
or from a race considerably advanced in
civilization. Savages are in proper training
when they are acquiring or practicing the
most simple and useful arts known to
civilization, and in exercising their minds
in taking in the new and simple ideas per-
petually presenting themselves in their new
situation, surrounded as they wonld be by
the works of men Of the higher and more
finished class, more wonderful than even the
works of nature in the minds of savages, be-
cause of their familiar association with the
latter from infancy. The civilization which
masses of men acquire taken from their print
tive barbarian, with no other wants or desires
than such as are common with the beasts of
their native forests, and no higher grade of
reason than the instincts wild beasts mani
fest, is not the work of single or even of
many generations To have attained the
present stage of civilization, by the most en-
lightened people Of Europe of the eau
casian race, has been the work of ages-of
nine centuries, taking the era of the Norman
conquest as the commencement of modern
civilization, having all the advantages
of what remained of the Roman civilization
to start with; and still, all the boosted
improvements of the nineteenth century,
cannot save large proportion of them from
becoming the dupes, and often the victims of
the widest and most preposterous deluslons
and superstitions connected with subjects
that directly concern their Cwn interests and
welfare.
will mention first some of the more in
nocent and harmless of the present day.
Millerism for example, spiritual rappings
and its congeners; second, of the more mis-
chievous class Mormonism, Fourrierism,
and the whole bevy of cognate theories and
inventions intended to remedy the in
CAPABILITIES, the injustice and all the sore
evils of the social system or conventional
organizations of society, eliminating in red
republicanism, each of which in its day,
might boast its victims by the thousands.
These may be set down as belonging to the
close of an experiment which has been in
progress more than thousand years, and
upon subject which a stranger to the whole
scheme of modern civilization or not pro-
foundly versed in its history, would suppose
ought TO have been arranged at the very
threshold of society.
The best explanation that can be given of
its long neglect, is that it was a subject in
volved in such intrinsic difficulties, as
prevented its solution, at the first dawn
ing of light 1t will not appear so mar
vellous that this question was postponed
so long when we remember that so important
question as that of WOntrR's rights, or Bloom
erism, has shared a similar neglect until the
present century has at last acknowledged Its
claim to place in the catalogue of the
great questions of the age pressing for
decision. Before We permit ourselves to be
much amazed at the multitude of what we
may be induced to regard as the light,
frivolous and fleeing questions which only
occupy us at the close of long roll OF
centuries, which occupied our ancestors
in settling the grave and more vital sub
jects lying at the foundation of our modern
civilization, and which only occupy the
public mind now, because from long habit
it Graves some employment though light and
frivolous, as though it feared losing its
activity or perishing altogether from mere
inanity.- Let us see how near we of the pre-
sent generation in the year 1866, have APP
proximated the close of the arduOus task of
civilization, entered upon by our forefathers,
or how soon the watckmen may be author
lied to proclaim to the world that the great
tporE Is accomplished. 1t was only in the
century before the last, or during the seven
teenth century that the most civilizedpeople
of all Europe could boast that they had freed
themselves, If indeed they have entirely done
Sc to this day, from the degrading delrsion
or superstitious belief in witchcraft, next TO
idol worship badge of the lowest grade of
intelligence and the grossest ignorance. 1t is
so long since l examined the statistics con-
nected with the judicial murders and execu-
tions for witchcraft, that | cannot venture to
state the number Of victims to this fatal ne
fusion within any particular period with
accuracy, but | remember enough to
authorize me to state that in England, Scot
land, Germany and France, the whole num-
Der of such murders in the seventeenth CEN
turv, and in the full blaze of christian ciyili-
cation, was not less than two hundred thou
sand. embracing a class of the most helpless
and no doubt in general, the most innocent
members Of society, old men, old women
and often children of tender years; and Of