CHAPTER XVII.
It has been a common belief in the Free States that the slaves in the South were the most ignorant and the most stupid human beings to be found in any country blessed with Christian civilization, and from that idea, mainly, has arisen the fear in the minds of many good people that the Republican doctrine of universal, loyal, manhood suffrage may prove a disastrous experiment. As an offset to such grounds of fear, it may be well to remember that there is a large class of white men living in the midst of the black population in the old slave States, who are even more ignorant, more stupid, and in all respects more degraded than the slaves were, the slaveholders themselves being judges, yet the “poor white trash,” as the aristocracy and even the slaves call them, have equal rights at the ballot box with their rich and intelligent neighbors. Since the slaves were emancipated, schools have been established for the benefit of all classes, black and white, of which the blacks almost universally avail themselves, while the aforesaid class of poor whites, with few exceptions, treat every attempt to educate and elevate them with utmost scorn.
