that has been drawn from this is usually one which is wholly in favor of the colored race. It is, however, rather a tribute to both races. Had slavery at the South been the frightful institution that it has ordinarily been pictured, with the slave-driver and the bloodhound always in the foreground, it is[Pg 24] hardly credible that the failure of the Negroes to avail themselves of the opportunities for freedom so frequently offered them would have been so general and the loyalty to their masters have been so devoted. [Pg 24] One other reason is commonly overlooked. The instinct for command of the white race—at least, of that section to which the whites of this country belong—is a wonderful thing: the serene self-confidence which reckons no opposition, but drives straight for the highest place, is impressive. It made the race in the past; it has preserved it in our time. The Negroes knew the courage and constancy of their masters. They had had abundant proof of them for generations, and their masters were now in arms. The failure of a servile population to rise against their masters in time of war is no new thing. History furnishes many illustrations. Plutarch tells how the besiegers of a certain city offered, not only freedom to the slaves, but added to it the promise of their masters’ property and wives if they would desert them. Yet the offer was rejected with scorn. During the Revolution, freedom on the same terms was offered the slaves in Virginia[Pg 25] and the Carolinas by the British, but with little effect, except to inflame the masters to bitterer resistance.[13] The result was the same during the Civil War. [Pg 25] V The exactions of the war possibly brought the races nearer together than they had ever been before. There had been, in times past, some hostile feeling between the Negroes and the plain whites, due principally to the well-known arrogance of a slave population toward a poor, free, working population. This was largely dispelled during the war, on the one side by the heroism shown by the poor whites, and on the other by the kindness shown by the Negroes to their families while the men were in the army. When the war closed, the friendship between the races was never stronger; the relations were never more closely welded. The fidelity of the Negroes throughout the war was fully appreciated and called forth a warmer affection on the part of the masters and mistresses, and the care and self-denial of the whites were equally recognized by the
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