Part 32 (2/2)

12. What female schools are mentioned? What is said of St.

Mary's School? What is said of other schools?

CHAPTER XLIX.

SLAVERY AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT.

A. D. 1842 TO 1844.

1. When the year of our Lord 1842 had come, peace and prosperity were in all portions of North Carolina. Society was still divided into three cla.s.ses. These were: the white people, the slaves and the free negroes. The latter cla.s.s had originated by manumission, and were numerous in some of the eastern counties.

They had lost the right of suffrage by the action of the State Convention of 1835.

2. This action on the part of the Convention was due in some degree, doubtless, to the constant agitation of the slavery question, though by no means due to that alone; but to the further fact, as well, that during the time they voted by sufferance they had plainly demonstrated their utter unfitness to appreciate or exercise the great right of suffrage.

3. As a cla.s.s they were unthrifty and dishonest, and each year becoming more useless as members of the community; their a.s.sociation with the slaves was regarded as an evil to be avoided if possible; therefore, they were discriminated against in the legislation of the period. Virginia and Ohio had both enacted statutes which forbade them access to their borders. North Carolina provided by law that in case of their removal from the State they lost their residence, and were forbidden to return.

4. The right of the States to pa.s.s such laws for the protection of their slave property cannot be denied, unless the right of property in slaves be also denied. Nor can they properly be called unjust. The right of property in their slaves the people of North Carolina regarded as settled by the Const.i.tution of the State and that of the United States. Theorists might speculate whether African slavery was consistent with the American Declaration of Independence as they pleased, but the right of property in slaves was undisputably recognized and secured in the fundamental laws of the land. As to the moral question involved, if any such there was, the Southern slave-owner regarded it as one between himself and his G.o.d, and not between himself and his Northern brother.

5. As a matter of course, slavery and intellectual culture are incompatible, and education was therefore denied the slaves. The right to testify in the courts against a white man, and even the right to defend himself from the a.s.saults of white men, except in defence of life in the last extremity, were also necessarily denied him. These restrictions were necessary to the maintenance of the legal relations between the dominant and subject races.

6. Of course there were those who studied the slavery problem from every possible standpoint, except the const.i.tutional legality of it. That, at least, was fixed. Some doubted the morality of it and others questioned the policy of it, and it is quite possible, had time and opportunity for gradual manumission and exportation offered, North Carolina would have been a free State, in the course of events, of her own accord.

7. The Northern States had sold their slaves rather than free them under their acts of manumission. It was not possible for this to be further repeated by the Commonwealths still retaining the inst.i.tution; so in a blind ignorance of the future and in utter hopelessness of any practicable solution of their difficulty, except in remaining as they were, the statesmen of the South contented themselves with a simple policy of resistance to change.

1844.

8. Among the white people of North Carolina were found all who partic.i.p.ated in the conduct of public affairs. The means of popular education had been too recently adopted to show effects upon the community. The labors of a few wise men were just being crowned with success, and the children of the poor were receiving the rudiments of education in every portion of the State.

9. In religion, the great ma.s.s of the people belonged to country churches. These rural congregations, as a general thing, met on one Sat.u.r.day and the succeeding Sabbath of each month, to attend the preaching of a minister who often served other churches as pastor the remaining Sundays. Beyond the Sunday schools and annual protracted meetings, there were no other religious observances except occasional funerals and prayer meetings at private houses.

10. The b.a.l.l.s and horse-races of former days in the eastern counties had, in a large measure, ceased. In the growth of the Methodist and Baptist Churches in that section, such amus.e.m.e.nts had been so discouraged that festivities of this kind became rare. In the western sections of North Carolina they had never been countenanced by the Presbyterians.

11. The summers became more or less marked by great a.s.semblages in the protracted or ”camp-meetings.” They were, to the devout, seasons of religious devotion, but to the young and thoughtless, opportunities for courts.h.i.+p and social enjoyment.

QUESTIONS.

1. What three cla.s.ses of society existed in North Carolina in 1842?

2. What action was taken by the Convention of 1835 in regard to free negroes?

3. What is said of this cla.s.s of our population?

4. How did our people view the question of slavery?

5. What privileges were denied the slaves? Why?

6. What would probably have been the final result in North Carolina?

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