The Silent South; Together with the Freedman.s Case in Equity and the Convict Lease System 12+

📒 This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1885 edition. Excerpt: ... THE FREEDMAN'S CASE IN EQUITY. THE greatest social problem before the Ameri-1 can people to-day is, as it has been for a > hundred years, the presence among us of the negro. No comparable entanglement was ever drawn round itself by any other modern nation with so serene a disregard of its ultimate issue, or with a more distinct national responsibility. The African slave was brought here by cruel force, and with everybody's consent except his own. Everywhere the practice was favored as a measure of common aggrandizement. When a few men and women protested, they were mobbed in the public interest, with the public consent. There rests, therefore, a moral responsibility on the whole nation never to lose sight of the results of AfricanAmerican slavery until they cease to work mischief and injustice. It is true these responsibilities may not fall eveTywTTere with the same weight; but they are nowhere entirely removed. The original seed of trouble was sown with the full knowledge and consent of the nation. The nation was to blame; and so long as evils spring from it, their correction must be the nation's duty. The late Southern slave has within two decades risen from slavery to freedom, from freedom to citizenship, passed on into political ascen...