Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/285

 misery, such as we see in the present villages of free blacks?"

"The present free colored people in the United States," said Mr Mason, "are a poor, persecuted race; placed, especially in the southern states, under very anomalous circumstances; and yet, even among them, I have known some very deserving persons. It would, however, be more reasonable to deduce the position which our supposed emancipated slaves would be likely to assume, from that at present occupied by the mass of our white people who do not own slaves. I must confess, there is not much to boast of in the condition of the poor white people throughout the southern states. It is freedom which makes the chief difference between the slaves and those poor whites. Here in North Carolina, a very great number of them can neither read nor write, nor tell their own age; nor are they, in any intellectual or moral respect, (except that consciousness of being their own masters which goes so far towards making a man,) superior to the generality of the plantation slaves. Yet however there may be some, among our rich planters, who would think it a very good thing to reduce these poor white men to slavery, he would be a bold fellow, indeed, who would dare to propose, much more to undertake it. That, indeed, would seem scarcely necessary, for already the operation of our system is terribly depressing to them, as well as to the slaves. It hangs like a millstone about their necks, since it makes almost every kind of manual labor disgraceful; and apart from manual labor, how few other chances have the poor to acquire that capital necessary to give them a start in the world! And yet, with all these drawbacks and impediments, it is still this class of the poor free whites which forms the substratum and_ basis of our southern civilization, such as it is. My father began life a poor man. He has often told me that he came the first time to Carleton Hall barefooted, not being, in fact, the owner of a pair of shoes. The