Let those who would study well this social question, or who in public trusts are charged with its solution, be most careful here.  Every motive in the minds of these people, whether of instinct, desire, or duty, must be addressed.  All the elements of human nature must be appealed to, physical, moral, intellectual, social, and religious.  Imperfect indeed is any system which, like that at New Orleans, offers wages, but does not welcome the teacher.  It is of little moment whether three dollars or thirty per month be paid the laborer, so long as there is no school to bind both parent and child to civil society with new hopes and duties.

There are some vices charged upon these people, or a portion of them, and truth requires that nothing be withheld.  There is said to be a good deal of petty pilfering among them, although they are faithful to trusts.  This is the natural growth of the old system, and is quite likely to accompany the transition-state.  Besides, the present disturbed and unorganized condition of things is not favorable to the rigid virtues.  But inferences from this must not be pressed too far.  When I was a private soldier in Virginia, as one of a three-months’ regiment, we used to bide from each other our little comforts and delicacies, even our dishes and clothing, or they were sure to disappear.  But we should have ridiculed an adventurous thinker upon the characteristics of races and classes, who should have leaped therefrom to the conclusion that all white men or all soldiers are thieves.  And what inferences might not one draw, discreditable to all traders and manufacturers, from the universal adulteration of articles of food!  These people, it is said, are disposed to falsehood in order to get rations and small benefits,—­a natural vice which comes with slavery, and too often attends on poverty without slavery.  Those of most demonstrative piety are rarely better than the rest, not, indeed, hypocritical, but satisfying their consciences by self-depreciation and indulgence in emotion,—­psychological manifestations which one may find in more advanced communities.  They show no special gratitude to us for liberating them from bonds.  Nor do they ordinarily display much exhilaration over their new condition,—­being quite unlike the Italian revolutionist who used to put on his toga, walk in the forum, and personate Brutus and Cassius.  Their appreciation of their better lot is chiefly seen in their dread of a return of their masters, in their excitement when an attack is feared, in their anxious questionings while the assault on Charleston was going on, and in their desire to get their friends and relatives away from the Rebels,—­an appreciation of freedom, if not ostentatious, at least sensible.

But away with such frivolous modes of dealing with the rights of races to self-development!  Because Englishmen may be classified as hard and conceited, Frenchmen as capricious, Austrians as dull, and the people of one other nation are sometimes thought to be vainglorious, shall these therefore be slaves?  And where is that model race which shall sway them all?  A people may have grave defects, but it may not therefore be rightfully disabled.