The Columbus weekly dispatch., 1908-05-03

! The condition of the free negroes
was worse than that of the slave;
and, to provide for them, a Colonial
ton Society was formed in 1917, of
! which Bushrod Washington was pres
ident. Northern travellers said that
/ the material condition of the South
ern slave was far better than that of
most of the laboring men in North
ern States and in Europe" (White).
To the slave, life in Southern
household usually meant moral and
industrial education and assured sus-
tenance and health. Transformation
from barbarism, fetichism, and per-
haps cannibalism to such a life, often
becoming skilled artisans, and law
abiding, Christian men and women,
certainly cannot justify the charge
of the Abilitionists that slavery at
the South was an atrocious wrong to
the negro; and that the Constitution
which recognized it was "a covenant
with death and an agreement with
hell" Still, it was a burden on the
many recognized, and would have
been glad to find some feasible plan
to remove With such labor, diversi-
fcation of industries was impossible.
and immigration from abroad could
not be expected. The very. year.
1881, that Garrison began his Lib
orator with denuncfation of the
slave-owner as a criminal and de-
mand for the immediate emancipa-
tion of the slaves without compensa-
tion to the holders, the Virginia legis-
lature by a close vote failed to pass
an emancipation act looking toward
the gradual freedom of the slaves
and their colonization abroad Such
movements might later have been
accomplished voluntarily by South
ern States; but calumny and spoila-
tion they resisted to the death As
it was, there were nearly three hun
dred thousand free negroes living in
the South in 1860 and earlier, in
1850, they owned over four million
dollars worth of property in Louisi-
ana. Less than ten thousand men
owned three-fourths of the slaves in
the South when the war began: sew
en- out of every ten of its citizens
were non-slaveholders Yet these
sprang to arms with an aIacrity that
riYaled that of the plantation lords.
Even the slaves gladly went to the
front with their masters, and served
them with a devotion that has COM
manded the admiration of the world
No, not for slavery, nor for its ex-
tension, not for property but for prin-
cipIe: against indignities and en-
croachments that could not be borne
longer, the South rose en- masse, rich
and poor, white and black, and
yielded not the struggle, until arms,
ammunition, bread, and the army it
self was gone; and there was nothing
left to oppose the swelling hosts of
the ruthless invaders, on whom had
been inflicted a loss equal to that of
all the armies mustered into the Con-
federate service. For equality in the
sisterhood of States, for justice in
the partition of the common terri
tory, for the sacredness of contract
rights, for love of the Union as hand
ed down to them from the fathers, /
this unparalleled sacrifice was made;
and, I dare to say here, that there is
not man among those that are left /
who does not reiterate the righteous |
ness of the cause, and wear with |
pride, even over his heart, the Cross /
of the Confederacy
I would not reverse the wheels of /
time, or set aside the verdict of that 1
dread appeal to arms; would not /
thus annul the decree of Providence. /
am glad that slavery is gone: it was i
an incubus upon the South before /
The War. l am glad that we are
back under the old flag: for our +
fathers chiefly made it the glorious +
emblem that it is. Under it, mostly |
on the Southern soil, the Revolution
was fought and won. Virginians car
ried it across the Ohio and, wrench
ing the Northwest Territory from the
British, presented it as a splendid
gift to the young Republic. Jeffer-
son unfurled its starry folds from
the Mississippi to the Rockies In
dependence was won beneath the