The best form of
slavery, even though it may lead toward fitness for freedom, can never
be regarded as a fit school in which to graduate citizens of so
magnificent an empire as the United States.
The slave of 1860 was perhaps, all things considered, the best slave
the world had ever seen, if we except those who served the Hebrews
under the Mosaic statutes. While there was no such thing among them as
legal marriage or legitimate childhood, yet slave "families" were
recognized even on the auction block, and after emancipation legal
family life was erected generally upon relationships which had been
formed in slavery. Bishop Gaines, himself born a slave of slave
parents, says: "The Negro had no civil rights under the codes of the
Southern States. It was often the case, it is true, that the marriage
ceremony was performed, and thousands of couples regarded it, and
observed it as of binding force, and were as true to each other as if
they had been lawfully married." * * * "The colored people
generally," he says, "held their marriage (if such unauthorized union
may be called marriage) sacred, even while they were slaves. Many
instances will be recalled by the older people of the life-long
fidelity which existed between the slave and his concubine" (Wife,
T.G.S.)" ...
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