82 DEGRADED POSITION OF NEGROES. [CHAP. XXV, 



was only carried by a small majority in the Georgian Legislature, 

 that it proves that not a few of the negro race have got on so 

 well in the world in reputation and fortune, and in skill in certain 

 arts, that it was worth while to legislate against them in order 

 to keep them down, and prevent them from entering into success 

 ful rivalry with the whites. It confirms, therefore, most fully the 

 impression which all I saw in Georgia had left on my mind, that 

 the blacks are steadily rising in social importance in spite of slavery ; 

 or, to speak more correctly, by aid of that institution, assuming, 

 as it does, in proportion as the whites become civilized, a more 

 and more mitigated form. In the next place I shall endeavor to 

 explain to the English reader the real meaning of so extraordinary 

 a decree. Mr. R. H. Wilde, formerly senator for Georgia, told me 

 that he once knew a colored freeman who had been brought up as a 

 saddler, and was a good workman. To his surprise he found him 

 one day at Saratoga, in the State of New York, acting as servant at 

 an hotel. &quot; Could you not get higher wages,&quot; he inquired, &quot; as a 

 saddler ?&quot; &quot; Yes,&quot; answered he ; &quot; but no sooner was I engaged by 

 a &amp;lt; boss, than all the other workmen quitted.&quot; They did so, not be 

 cause he was a slave, for he had long been emancipated, but because 

 he was a negro. It is evident, therefore, that it requires in Georgia 

 the force of a positive statute to deprive the negro, whether he be a 

 freeman or slave, of those advantages from which, in a free state like 

 New York, he is excluded, without any legislative interference. 



I have heard apologists in the north endeavoring to account for 

 the degraded position which the negroes hold, socially and polit 

 ically, in the free states, by saying they belong to a race which is 

 kept in a state of slavery in the south. But, if they really desired 

 to accelerate emancipation, they would begin by setting an example 

 to the southern states, and treating the black race with more 

 respect and more on a footing of equality. I once heard some 

 Irish workmen complain in New York, &quot; that the ni ggers shut 

 them out from all the easiest ways of getting a livelihood ;&quot; arid 

 many white mechanics, who had emigrated from the north to the 

 slave states, declared to me that every opening in their trades was 

 closed to them, because black artisans were employed by their 

 owners in preference. Hence, they are now using in Georgia the 



