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To this ex-master it seemed impossible that the education of the Negro could produce any other results. And so, last of all, did he expect help or encouragement from an educated black man; but it was just from this source that help came. Soon after the process of decay began in this white man's estate, the education of a certain black man began, and began on a logical, sensible basis.
The government may have argued that the ex-master should no more be paid for his slave than the ex-slave recover back pay for his labor; and that, after all, a general emancipation was only a moderate raising of wages unjustly low and uniform. Both kings and congresses will at times do the easy thing instead of the fair one and let two wrongs offset each other.
Garnet was wearily turning his head from side to side as if in unspeakable pain; a sudden movement of his free arm caused the mulatto to flinch, but the ex-master said, quietly: "Go on, Cornelius." "Yass. You see, Major, sence dis waugh done put us all on a sawt of equality " The speaker flinched again. "Great Heaven!" groaned the Major.
I'll 'tend the office, make the beds, and keep the fires goin'. You you " He gazed at the Cap'n, faltering in his speech and fingering his nose apprehensively. "Well, me what?" snapped the ex-master of the Jefferson P. Benn. But his sparkling eyes showed that he realized what was coming. "You've allus been braggin'," gulped Hiram, "what a dabster you was at cookin', havin' been to sea and "
But it is not in a brave people to humiliate a fallen enemy, and the order to break ranks is given, and the ex-slave and ex-master mingle together, and depart to work out a destiny common to both. In the preceding pages we have briefly tried to show that Confiscation is the only peaceable way that is now open to us by which the people can again obtain possession of their country.
She now wheeled upon the stool, and struck some chords. "I wish you'd thought to bring your fiddle, Millicent. I should like to try this piece." The piece lay on the music-rest before her. "I will go and get it for her," said the ex-master of ceremonies. "Do," said Miss Desmond. "No, no," Gaites protested. "I brought Miss Axewright, and I have the first claim to bring her fiddle."
"I'm afraid you couldn't either of you find it," Miss Axewright began. "We'll both try," said the ex-master of ceremonies. "Where do you think it is?" "Well, it's in the case on the piano." "That doesn't sound very intricate," said Gaites, and they all laughed. As soon as the two men were out of the house, the ex-master of ceremonies confided: "That name is a very tender spot with Miss Desmond.
At the close of the war both the Southern white man and the Negro found themselves in the midst of poverty. The ex-master returned from the war to find his slave property gone, his farms and other industries in a state of collapse, and the whole industrial or economic system upon which he had depended for years entirely disorganised.
A telegram came next morning, "Incompatibility of temper." Whereat the new master chuckled, and dismissed the lugubrious ex-master and his friendly warnings from his mind. But although the gloomy prognostications of his Job's comforters failed in the least to depress his spirits, one very small cloud hovered occasionally on the horizon.
I will not stop here to inquire whose duty it was whether that of the white ex-master who had profited by unpaid toil, or the Northern philanthropist whose persistence brought on the crisis, or the National Government whose edict freed the bondmen; I will not stop to ask whose duty it was, but I insist it was the duty of some one to see that these workingmen were not left alone and unguided, without capital, without land, without skill, without economic organization, without even the bald protection of law, order, and decency, left in a great land, not to settle down to slow and careful internal development, but destined to be thrown almost immediately into relentless and sharp competition with the best of modern workingmen under an economic system where every participant is fighting for himself, and too often utterly regardless of the rights or welfare of his neighbor.
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