They were mostly born members of the household, grew up with the children of each family, were companions and playmates, and naturally an attachment was formed, which is always stronger in the protecting than the protected party.  It was a rare instance to find a master whose guardian protection did not extend with the same intensity and effect over his slave as over his child:  this, not from any motive of pecuniary interest, but because he was estopped by law from self-defence; and, too, because of the attachment and the moral obligation on the master to protect his dependants.  Besides, the community exacted it as a paramount duty.  It is human to be attached to whatever it protects and controls; out of this feeling grows the spirit of true chivalry and of lofty intent—­that magnanimity, manliness, and ennobling pride which has so long characterized the gentlemen of the Southern States.

Caste, in society, may degrade, but, at the same time, it elevates.  Where this caste was distinguished by master and slave, the distinction was most marked, because there was no intermediate gradation.  It was the highest and the lowest.  It was between the highest and purest of the races of the human family, and the lowest and most degraded; and this relation was free from the debasing influences of caste in the same race.  An improper appreciation of this fact has gone far to create with those unacquainted with negro character the prejudices against the institution of African slavery, and which have culminated in its abolition in the Southern States.

The negro is incapacitated by nature from acquiring the high intelligence of the Caucasian.  His sensibilities are extremely dull, his perceptive faculties dim, and the entire organization of his brain forbids and rejects the cultivation necessary to the elimination of mind.  With a feeble moral organization, and entirely devoid of the higher attributes of mind and soul so prominent in the instincts of the Caucasian, his position was never, as a slave, oppressive to his mind or his sense of wrong.  He felt, and to himself acknowledged his inferiority, and submitted with alacrity to the control of his superior.  Under this control, his moral and intellectual cultivation elevated him:  not simply to a higher position socially, but to a higher standard in the scale of being, and this was manifested to himself at the same time it demonstrated to him the natural truth of his inferiority.  This gratified him, promoted his happiness, and he was contented.  The same effect of the relation of master and servant can never follow when the race is the same, or even when the race is but one or two degrees inferior to the dominant one.