Under the lax moral
life of the plantation, where marriage was a farce, laziness a
virtue, and property a theft, a religion of resignation and
submission degenerated easily, in less strenuous minds, into a
philosophy of indulgence and crime. Many of the worst
characteristics of the Negro masses of to-day had their seed in
this period of the slave's ethical growth. Here it was that the
Home was ruined under the very shadow of the Church,
white and black; here habits of shiftlessness took root, and
sullen hopelessness replaced hopeful strife.
With the beginning of the abolition movement and the
gradual growth of a class of free Negroes came a change. We
often neglect the influence of the freedman before the war,
because of the paucity of his numbers and the small weight he
had in the history of the nation. But we must not forget that
his chief influence was internal,--was exerted on the black
world; and that there he was the ethical and social leader.
Huddled as he was in a few centres like Philadelphia, New
York, and New Orleans, the masses of the freedmen sank
into poverty and listlessness; but not all of them.
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