It is a valuable work.

The Argosy Company, Georgetown, British Guiana, has recently published
a work entitled _Black Talk_. This book consists of notes on Negro
dialect compiled by C. G. Cruickshank. It is an interesting and
informing volume.

THE JOURNAL

OF

NEGRO HISTORY

VOL. II--APRIL, 1917--No. 2

I

THE EVOLUTION OF THE SLAVE STATUS IN AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

Slavery and freedom were constituent elements in American institutions
from the very beginning. In the inherent antagonism of the two,
DeTocqueville recognized the most serious menace to the permanence of
the nation.[122] Slavery, which came in time to be known as the
"peculiar institution" of the South, gradually shaped the social,
moral, economic and political ideas of that section to fit its genius.
The more democratic tendencies of the free industrial order of the
North served by contrast to crystallize still more the group
consciousness of the South. In this wise the erstwhile loyal South was
slowly transformed into a section that was prepared to place local and
sectional interests above national, and the result was secession. Just
as it was not loyalty to inalienable human rights in the abstract that
brought about the abolition of slavery in the North, but rather the
gradual expansion of the idea of liberty through the free give and
take of a vigorous democracy in which economic and social conditions
militated against slavery, so it was not loyalty to States' rights in
the abstract that brought about the Civil War but rather the alien
group consciousness of the slave States which was the outgrowth of
totally different economic and social conditions. It is the object of
this paper to trace the influence of these various factors upon the
status of the slave.

Slavery of both Indians and Negroes and white servitude were well
recognized forms of social status in all the colonies, and slavery was
general down to the time of the American Revolution. As early as 1639
we hear of a Negro slave in Pennsylvania. In 1644 Negroes were in
demand to work the lowlands of the Delaware. In 1685 William Penn
directed his steward at Pennsbury to secure blacks for work "since
they might be held for life," which was not true of indentured
servants.[123] Negro slaves were sold in Maryland in 1642.[124]
Negroes are referred to in the Connecticut records as early as
1660.[125] An "act against trading with negro slaves" was passed in
Elizabeth-Town, Ne