The contrabands.
If the present war has no other effect, it will cure the
North of its negrophobia.
Its madness for
Africa has ran riot in the war, and a sensible coolness upon the subject of sables is already manifest.
So large has been the alleged index of contrabands that the philanthropic
Yankee is already suffering from
embrarras de richese. The ‘"black diamonds"’ have become so abundant that they are depreciating in value.
It is discovered that they are not all Uncle Toms; it is even alleged that they are lady, lying, thieving, treacherous, and ungrateful!
Yes, ungrateful ! What a charge to bring against the ass who no longer knoweth his owner, and the his master's crib, that they are ungrateful to the thieves who have broken them, and are belaboring and starring them!
The true character of Northern anti-slavery has never yet been fully comprehended in the
South.
The Simon Pure Abolitionists are simply fanatics and fools, but the mass of anti-slavery men, or freesoilers, as they may be more properly called, and, indeed, all Northern men, have antipathy to the slave, rather than to slavery.
It is not slavery they wish to abolish, so much as the negro.
Their antagonism to him in every point of view is profound and insurmountable.
They would as soon think of holding social and political interactive with the gorilla or the goat as the African.
They never tire of laughing at those physical peculiarities which have led some of them to contend that he is not a man. They look upon him at best as a cumbrance of the ground, a creature who consumes more of the fruits of the earth, than he produces, and who is in the way of white men who would do more work for less pay!
We should like to see the
Yankee who would dare to deny that we have accurately described the true character of Northern anti- slavery.
It is only in the cotton States that Northern anti slavery will for a moment tolerate existing institutions, and that is because if negro labor is not equal in general to white, the question there is simply between negro labor or none at all. The slaves may change owners in the cotton States, but slavery will never be abolished there, because the abolition of slavery in that section means the abolition of the cotton culture, on which the
North exists.
When
Gen. Hunter proclaimed the abolition of slavery in
Georgia,
South Carolina, &c., he proved himself more a fool than a knave, and was instantly rebuked by his master for his imbecility.
Lincoln, who is the true representative of freesoilism, intends to abolish the negro in the border States, because he believes the soil can be more profitably cultivated by imported white labor.
The slaves of the cotton States will be simply transferred to Yankee masters — that is the programme — who boast already that on the islands they get a good deal more work out of them than they ever rendered to their Southern masters.
It has been a matter of common remark that Yankee masters in the
South are always more exacting and driving than Southern men.--When they find that the negro does not move with the alacrity of the white laborer, and apparently does not accomplish as much, they are disappointed, irritated, and at last enraged, and they whack and whale poor Cutfee as they would a delinquent mule or ox. The way they have worked up the old iron of the contrabands since this war commenced, is a practical exemplification of Northern Abolitionism — i. e, abolishing the negro.
On one occasion a considerable number were shot because they refused to work on Sunday!
We heard of a contraband not long ago, in the neighborhood of
Richmond, who returned from the
Chickahominy with his ears cut off because he could not accomplish as much labor as was required of him!
The negro must work or die!
That is true of every man, except the few who possess wealth, and the negro forms no exemption.
But when he works for a Northern master he will do both; he will work and die; he will, in a short time, be abolished, which is the grand climax and consummation of Northern anti slavery.
There is on one point an entire union of sentiment between the contrabands and the freesoilers.
The latter desire to substitute white labor for slave in the
Border States.--The contrabands think that an admirable arrangement.
Their idea of freedom is freedom from work with plenty to eat and drink.--There are very few people of any color who would not relish that kind of freedom.
But we have never heard of the republic where that desideratum was obtained, nor of any descendant of Shem, Japhet or
Ham who has been able to enjoy it. Least of all is it to be found under Yankee domination.
It is no part of their theory to put white men to work on Southern fields and permit the contrabands to live in idleness.
But what they will do with them, should they multiply to a great extent on their hands, will soon become the most serious problem connected with the war. Their bankrupt Northern Treasury can never colonize the numbers whom
Lincoln desires to emancipate in the
Border States.
The Southern States will bar their doors against them; the
Western have laws already in force refusing them admission.
Is the
Yankee willing to fill his own poor-houses and jails with teeming multitudes of helpless and hopeless lazzaroni?
We could imagine no such retribution for his crimes as to be overrun with emancipated slaves, and impoverished and scourged by their indolence and crimes.
