here white women and
children have had reason to regret having trusted to the black man's
guardianship, sir. In that respect I believe we Southrons hold a
unique place in history. The evils of slavery, perfectly true in many
lands, are not true here. The proofs of it are many. Their dependence
on each other is mutual. Each understands and respects that fact, sir,
and the highest evidence of it is shown when the master marches to
meet their common enemy, and leaves his wife and children to the care
of the oldest or most intelligent of his bondsmen.

"I tell you, sir, the people of Europe cannot comprehend the ties
between those two races, because the world has seen nothing like it.
The Northern people have no understanding of it, because, sir, their
natures are not such as to call forth such loyalty. They are a cold,
unresponsive people, and the only systematic cruelty ever practiced
against the colored folks by Americans has been by the New England
slavers, sir. The slave trade has always been monopolized by the
Northern folks in this country--by the puritanical New Englanders who
used to sell the pickaninnies at so much a pound, as cattle or sheep
are sold.

"They are no longer able to derive a profit from it, hence their
desire to abolish the revenue of the South. I assure you, sir, if the
colored man could endure the climate of their bleak land there would
be no shouting for abolition."

It was only natural that Delaven should receive a good deal of
information those days from the Southern side of the question. Much of
it was an added education to him--the perfect honesty of the speakers,
the way in which they entered heart and soul into the discussion of
their state's rights, the extreme sacrifices offered up, the lives of
their sons, the wealth, the luxury in which they had lived, all given
up without protest for the cause. Women who had lived and ruled like
queens over the wide plantations, were now cutting their living
expenses lower and lower, that the extra portion saved might be
devoted to their boys at the front. The muslins and linens for
household purposes were used as Gertrude Loring was using them now;
everything possible was converted into bandages for hospital use.

"I simply don't dare let the house servants do it," she explained, in
reply to the Judge's query. "They could do the work, of course, but
they never have had to practice economy, and I can't undertake to
teach it to them as well as myse