Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1903-07-30
WAS EMANCIPATION A MISTAKE

Now, now, Don't get purple at tn,
very thought OF it. OF course we are
not going to undertake to prove that
human slavery should have continued
and that the black race should have
been held in bondage in this free
country. So that, with this under
stood at the outset, you, the average
reader, born and reared far north Of
Mason and Dixon's line, and naturally
%inheriting all the ideas and p~rejudices.
of this section, may prepare yourself
for a temperate thought or two.
Every daily newspaper that we pick
up contains a report of n OF more
manifestations of the deep and grow
ing animosity between the white and
black races. Sometimes it is the now
familiar story of negro %depravity, fol-
lowed by savage reprisal by the whites.
Sometimes it is outright warfare
that disturbs a town or city and usual
ly ends with a long list of dead and
wounded. Almost everywhere that
the two races undertake TO dwell to-
gether there is a strained relation be-
tween them that only needs some min
or act which would elsewhere pass I'M
noticed to fan the embers into a flame.
This is truer OF the South than of the
North for two reasons; first, because
the blacks are more numerous and
their shortcomings more palpable
there and secondly, because of the
feeling engendered as the result of
the war, which has especially en-
venomed the whites, while it has tend
ed to raise the blacks in their own es-
TEEN and make them particularly ex-
asperating in their conduct.
In old slavery times this race feeling
did not exist. Instead of negro ra-
pists and negro lynehings and bloody
conflicts, the blacks and whites lived
together all through the South in peace
and harmony, so far as outward mani
testations could prove. The whites
were the rulers; the blacks their
slaves. There could be no conflict
then, for there was no comparison be-
tween them. The whites had no rea-
son to be suspicious or jealous of the
blacks, and the latter never had a
thought of negro equality with the
white men. Barring occasional in
stances OF cruelty on the part of white
owners and the inhuman seyering Of
family ties by means of the auction
block, there was little in the slaves
common lot in the South of a specially
distressing nature. So far as most of
the blacks were concerned, they were
probably better of in servitude than
IN newly acquired freedom with its Sc
rious obligations. to which they were
by nature unequal and by training an
prepared. For generations they had
been dependent on the white race for
the food they ate, the clothing they
wore, the shelter that covered them.
Their only rule OF conduct was to
please their Overseer or master. They
knew nothing of the cares and worries
of life, of how to shift for themselves,
of rearing families alone, of husband
ing their resources, of the duties of
citizenship, to all of which they We're
called in a day, almost. They were
like little children lett as orphans. 1t
is not strange that in thousands of
instances, when informed by their
masters that the fortunes of war had
made them free, the slaves mourned as
though bereft of parents and begged
they might keep on in the old
way, and when this had to be refused.
that they went their way amid deep
sorrowing 10 added sorrow. Emanci-