A Just and Lasting Peace: A Documentary History of Reconstruction (36 page)

Then the institutions of the South will spontaneously assimilate to our own. Then we shall have a Union of States, not in form only, but in spirit also. Then shall we see established the reality of the cause that has cost so many priceless lives and such lavish outpouring of treasure. Then will disloyalty die of inanition, and its deeds live only in legend and in story. Then breaks upon America the morning glory of that future which shall behold it the Home of Man, and the Lawgiver among the nations.

(January 1868)

Cornelia Hancock (1840–1927), a New Jersey Quaker, first distinguished herself as a young Civil War nurse after the battle of Gettysburg. She then assisted displaced African-Americans at Washington, D.C.'s Contraband Hospital and worked as a nurse at City Point Hospital, Virginia. Following Appomattox, Hancock moved to South Carolina to care for the freedpeople, establishing, with support from the Freedmen's Bureau and donations from the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends, the Laing School for Negroes in Mount Pleasant, near Charleston. Writing in early 1868 to Philadelphia Friends, Hancock summarized the challenges and opportunities presented by teaching former slaves. Like many other reformers who worked in the South, she regretted that the freedpeople had not received land of their own to cultivate. Hancock considered education the key to uplifting the freedpeople—“the only systematic agency for permanent good.”

 

Mount Pleasant, S. C., January 1868 Philadelphia Friends Association for the Aid and Elevation of the Freedmen

Dear Friends

 

Thinking there may be some among you who still feel an interest in this far-off school, I will note what of interest has transpired since our return.

The school was opened the First of Eleventh month, and continued until the Holidays. New Year's, or “Emancipation Day,” was selected for our anniversary. This seems to me a more fitting time and a more important anniversary than Christmas. Our new school-house was found exceedingly convenient for the occasion, as we could have the grown people too. They repeated the 23rd Psalm and sung two hymns, when the work of distributing was commenced, the generosity of individuals supplying the materials. (It may be well once more to remark that the funds of the Association are never encroached on for these celebrations.) They choose their presents according to their standing in their classes, which we ascertain by keeping a record of marks.

As such anniversaries come round, I always try to note the progress of civilization among these children. In raising any community from the depths of degradation that slavery produces, we cannot expect them to abandon all their old habits, and adopt the customs of cultivated people in a day; so I try to look for changes to take place in years.

And surely great changes have taken place with these children. No one ought to feel discouraged in looking forward to their future, although they have yet no elevating or educating
home
influences, which will, of course, operate much against them in this generation. They have the lessons of extreme poverty and much oppression yet to suffer. The depressed state of business in the South makes it very hard for them to get employment at remunerative rates; and the dense ignorance existing in the grown people's minds makes it extremely difficult for them to settle upon any business that requires forethought or calculation. This affects their interest very much in settling upon land.

Their chief anxiety is to get possession of land; and a very common contract here is to give them possession of land for
two years
, for the sake of clearing. This they accept, and it invariably proves a good bargain for the planter, and a poor one for the colored man. You cannot reason with them, as you could were they possessed of educated intelligence; for anything that is to occur in two years is almost beyond their reckoning. The care the planter extended to them in slavery developed this improvidence for the future, and the present is a much more important time for them than any other. How I wish the Government had apportioned them some confiscated land at the close of the war. Had that been done, by this time thrifty little farms would have been the result; but now they live two years in a place until the land becomes productive, when the planter takes possession again, and another two years' labor must be commenced that will end the same. I hope yet for some liberal legislation, either through General or State Governments; but let what will be done now, —much time has been lost.

I consider the
schools
have been the only systematic agency for permanent good, and I hope every contributor to their support may have the feeling that the money has not been wasted. An
education
bill
is being passed in this State, that, during another year, may get into working order, so as to relieve our friends from the support of this school; but I hope
this school year
may be continued under their auspices, so as to make no break in the continuous training of these children. Some of our best scholars have left this place to live in Charleston, and they have been sufficiently advanced to enter the best classes of the schools in that city. So our school must have kept pace with theirs. We re-opened the schools at the beginning of the new year, and the cotton season being past, they were large, and have continued with a good average. Our unfinished building is being gradually brought nearer to completion. Friends at Kennett Square, through Dr. Mendenhall and H. Darlington, have furnished Mary P. Jacobs with funds to put a good ceiling upon the large room up stairs, and Fanny E. Gauze, with the aid of relatives and friends, has much improved the condition of hers. My contributions have put our class-room in complete school order with black-boards all round the room, etc.; so I feel quite contented with its present appearance, although we still need books. Your school at Rickersville, which Isabella Lenair teaches, has been prosperous, and has given great satisfaction to that neighborhood. The
Sewing School
is of great interest to me still; it is now open every afternoon, and the children are improving rapidly. Several girls have determined to make dresses. We have tried to make the school pay something, by taking in sewing; and some weeks our dividends have gone up as high as
seventeen cents each
. That may not sound large in the
North,
but seventeen cents cash is hard to earn here.

In closing, I desire that
Friends
will support this school
this year out
. Then, if the caterpillars do not attack their crops another year, we will try to get along without their aid, though retaining grateful hearts to them for their help in times of great need, and believing that
they
must feel a consciousness of having done a great work for this community. Personally thanking all who have facilitated my labors here,

I am sincerely their friend,

Cornelia Hancock

(January 14, 1868)

The freeborn, biracial son of a prominent white Charlestonian and a free black woman, Francis Louis Cardozo (1837–1903) ranked as one of South Carolina's most distinguished and influential black leaders during Reconstruction. Educated in Glasgow and London, upon returning to the U.S., he worked as a minister, educator, and politician, also serving as South Carolina's secretary of state (1868–1872) and state treasurer (1872–1877). He was South Carolina's first African-American to hold government office. Elected as a delegate to the state's 1868 constitutional convention, Cardozo proposed the sale and partition of large, debt-ridden plantations in order to provide family farms for poor people broadly defined, both black and white.

In discussing
this measure, I would say to the gentleman who preceded me, and those who will follow, that they will accomplish their object much sooner and with much more satisfaction by not impugning the motives of those with whom they differ. The gentleman who spoke last made gratuitous assumptions and ascribed mercenary motives that, were it not for personal friendship, might be retorted upon him with perhaps worse effect than he made them. He asserted that the gentlemen who opposed him opposed his race. I intend to show that his race is not at all connected with the matter. In giving my view of the measure, I shall not resort to mere declamations or appeals to passion or prejudice. In the first place, I doubt its legality. It is true, it is said the Convention does not propose to legislate, but I contend that a request from this body carries a certain moral influence. It shows what it would do if it had the power. It is virtually legislation. I regard any stay law as unjust and unconstitutional. It is unjust to the creditors. Let every man who contracts a debt, pay it. If he is an honest man he will pay his debts at any sacrifice. In our country it is unfortunate, as Americans, that we have a character by no means enviable as repudiators. Look at the attempt to repudiate the national debt. As an American, I protest against any further repudiation whatever, either in the form of a stay law or illegal legislation. I deem it inappropriate for us to touch the matter at all. We are sent here to form a Constitution. To travel outside of our proper province will probably be to incur odium, displeasure and dissatisfaction. I wish to confine the action of this Convention to its proper sphere. The first question that arises is, what claim have these debtors on our sympathies more than creditors? Are the debtors greater in number than creditors? If we legislate in favor of any, will it be doing the greatest good to the greatest number? I maintain it will not. It is a class measure. This will be but the beginning. We will be burdened with applications, and the burden will be upon those who introduced this measure, not upon those who refused to legislate for other special favorite classes. I ask not only what are the claims of the debtors, but also what are the nature of these sales? Was it the transfer of real estate? I think everyone here will say no. Nine tenths of the debts were contracted for the sale of slaves. I do not wish we should go one inch out of the way to legislate either for the buyer or seller. They dealt in that kind of property, they knew its precarious tenure, and therefore let them suffer. When the war commenced every rebel sold his property to give money to a common cause. And their slaves were sold for the same object, to maintain a war waged for the purpose of perpetually enslaving a people. That was the object. The ladies of the South stripped themselves of their jewels, and the men sold their lands and their slaves for that object. Now, let them suffer for it. As the gentleman from Charleston very ably said, “they have cast the die, let them take the chances.”

There is also another reason, and one of the strongest, why the Convention should not take any action on the subject, but postpone it indefinitely. One of the greatest bulwarks of slavery was the infernal plantation system, one man owning his thousand, another his twenty, and another fifty thousand acres of land. This is the only way by which we will break up that system, and I maintain that our freedom will be of no effect if we allow it to continue. What is the main cause of the prosperity of the North? It is because every man has his own farm and is free and independent. Let the lands of the South be similarly divided. I would not say for one moment they should be confiscated, but if sold to maintain the war, now that slavery is destroyed, let the plantation system go with it. We will never have true freedom until we abolish the system of agriculture which existed in the Southern states. It is useless to have any schools while we maintain this stronghold of slavery as the agricultural system of the country. The gentleman has said that if these plantations were sold now, they would pass into the hands of a few mercenary speculators. I deny it and challenge a single proof to sustain the assertion. On the contrary I challenge proof to show that if the plantations are not sold, the old plantation masters will part with them. If they are sold, though a few mercenary speculators may purchase some, the chances are that the colored man and the poor man would be the purchasers. I will prove this, not by mere assertion, but by facts. About one hundred poor colored men of Charleston met together and formed themselves into a Charleston Land Company. They subscribed for a number of shares at $10 per share, one dollar payable monthly. They have been meeting for a year. Yesterday they purchased six hundred acres of land for $6,600 that would have sold for $25,000 or $50,000 in better times. They would not have been able to buy it had not the owner through necessity been compelled to sell. This is only one instance of thousands of others that have occurred in this city and state. I look upon it, therefore, as the natural result of the war that this system of large plantations, of no service to the owner or anybody else, should be abolished.

I think Providence has not only smiled upon every effort for abolishing this hideous form of slavery, but that since the war it has given unmistakable signs of disapprobation wherever continued, by blasting the cotton crops in that part of the country. Men are now beginning not to plant cotton but grain for food, and in doing so they are establishing a system of small farms, by which not only my race, but the poor whites and ninety-nine hundredths of the other thousands will be benefited. The real benefit from this legislation would inhere to not more than thirty thousand landholders against the seven hundred thousand poor people of the State. If we are to legislate in favor of a class at all, any honest man, any man who has the interest of the people at heart will legislate in favor of the greater number. In speaking against the landholders, and in taking this position I do not cherish one feeling of enmity against them as a class or individuals. But this question takes a larger range and is one in which the whole country is involved. I can never sacrifice the interests of nine or ten millions to the interests of three hundred thousand, more especially when the three hundred thousand initiated the war and were the very ones who established an infernal Negro code and want to keep their lands until better times. They do not want that a nigger or a Yankee shall ever own a foot of their land. Now is the time to take the advantage. Give them an opportunity, breathing time, and they will reorganize the same old system they had before the war. I say then, just as General Grant said when he had Lee hemmed in around Petersburg, now is the time to strike, and in doing so we will strike for our people and posterity, and the truest interest of our country.