ked
upon as dangerous to slave-holders' interests, the fear seems to have
been prophetic in a large measure. It was not until the war had lasted
far longer than originally anticipated that Lincoln definitely
threatened to liberate the colored slaves. That threat he carried into
execution on January 1st, 1863, when 3,000,000 slaves became free. The
cause of the Confederacy had not yet become the "lost cause," and the
leaders on the Southern side were inclined to ridicule the decree, and
to regard it rather as a "bluff" than anything of a serious order. But
it was emancipation in fact as well as in deed, as the colored orator
never tired of explaining.

Such in outline is the history of the colored man during the days of
enforced servitude. Of his condition during that period volumes have
been written. Few works printed in the English language have been more
widely circulated than "Uncle Tom's Cabin," which has been read in every
English-speaking country in the world, and in many other countries
besides. It has been dramatized and performed upon thousands of stages
before audiences of every rank and class. As a descriptive work it
rivals in many passages the very best ever written. Much controversy has
taken place as to how much of the book is history--how much of it is
founded upon fact and how much is pure fiction. The ground is a rather
dangerous one to touch. It is safest to say that while the brutality
held up to scorn and contempt in this book was not general in the slave
States or on plantations in the South, what is depicted might have taken
place under existing laws, and the book exposed iniquities which were
certainly perpetrated in isolated cases.

That all negroes were not treated badly, or that slavery invariably
meant misery, can be easily proved by any one who takes the trouble to
investigate, even in the most superficial manner. When the news of
emancipation gradually spread through the remote regions of the South,
there were hundreds and probably thousands of negroes who declined
absolutely to take advantage of the freedom given them. Many most
pathetic cases of devotion and love were made manifest. Even to-day
there are numbers of aged colored men and women who are remaining with
their old-time owners and declining to regard emancipation as logical or
reasonable.

Not long ago, a Northern writer while traveling through the South found
an aged negro, whom he approached with a view to getting some
inte