The Savannah morning news., 1901-01-17

| will be the negro's determination. IL only
we could have been let alone, slavery
would have been gradually and peacefully
| abolished without ill-feeling quite as fast
! as the race became fitted for freedom.
My father was a large owner of slaves.
| He was an anti-slavery man. In 1881 he
! introduced bill in the Virginia Legisla-
tEre for gradual emancipation. 1t came
| within one vote of adoption, and could
| have easily been Carried, but as ii was a
matter of such importance it was thought
| best to let IL go back to the people for
considerat ton. But in 1892 certain Mr..
Thompson came over from England and
| publicly denounced slavery as a great
moral wrong, which it was not at all; It
was a purely practical question of how to
get along with a semi-barbarous race
with which we had to live. He denounced
shareholders as tyrants and oppressors.
Our people resented the interference. Pub
lie sentiment instantly changed. Never
afterward could emancipation secure a
hearing In the South.
II remember. when a boy continued
old DR.. Randolph, zone occasion when my
father had as his guests, Mr.. Mason.
afterward famous In the Mason and
Slidelr affair. who was intensely pro-
slavery and r. NJ. r. Hunter an ultra
states-itghts man. My father had just
bought from Chicago a Mccormick reap
er, the first ever brought into the state.
A remarkably bright young negro came to
my father. saying: 'Massa, / cannot make
the machine work; 1t gets clogged up
The trouble Is with the eccentric said
my father; you must make II shorter
What Is the eccentric2 asked the ne
gro. Ny father, with his cane. drew on
the ground a plan of the machine. L see
IL now, said the negro. Soon afterward
he returned, saying The machine works
all right, sir. My father turned to his
friends and said: You see that intelli-
gent boy? His grandfather was native
African chief. My father bought him and
gave him a cabin in the negro quarters.
But he never would occupy it at night.
He always slept in a tree. On his death
bed my mother cared for him, and asked
him II there was anything he could fancy
to eat. 4 think l could eat a lizard he
replied; so we caught lizard for the old
darkey Look said my father, at the
transformation in three generations, DO
you think II will be possible to hold the
race in slavery when it becomes educated
and civilized? Impossible! But the
Northern agitation interfered premature-
ly with the civilizing process, and ruin
for both races ensued.'
Here was the Southern view of the anti
slavery movement from the former head
OF the University of Virginia. l felt as IL
! were 5000 miles from the latitude OF
New England. Yet this was only candid
expression of the almost univarsel senti-
ment.
The most encouraging sight / saw was
one evening. in that very Charlottesville.
when / watched the children, white aud
colored fiocking to their separate
schools Many of the colored children
were well-dressed and seemed bright and
Intelligent with their school books I'm their
hands. looking equal TO the average white
children. But when / mentioned the fact
to a Southern lady, she replied 'Ah. yes;
but II you could have gone into the homes
of those very children, you would have
seen filth and saualor. This external inn
provement Is only on the surface