Plantations Quotes
This letter was signed by a local white Priest and two other leading planters. This quotation gives us a marvelous feeling for what occurred when parts of the South was occupied by the Union Army shortly after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. Minor and his fellows just did not “get it.” The concept of freedom of the slaves was intellectually so foreign to them, that they wanted the Union Army to “compel” the freed slaves to work. They were horrified that slaves went wherever they wanted, and they were most outraged when former slaves who had enlisted in the Army, would “visit” their old plantation setting such a terrible example. The letter gives us a perspective on how difficult it was to change the mental set of Southern Whites and why Reconstruction was so difficult. The year of the letter is somewhat uncertain as the original letter appears to be dated 1862 but the writing is not clear and that date does not comport with the history of the era and we believe 1863 was the correct year. The photograph is of the first official colored troops mustered into the Union Army. They were called the Louisiana Native Guards and contained the ex slaves who went over to the Union side just before the time this slave owner complained. These ex slaves, in uniform, and with arms would sometimes visit the plantations where they and been enslaved, thrilling the remaining slaves and infuriating owners like Minor.
The perception of the necessity of slavery was evident very early in the South.
Much of the South was so insular that people knew nothing about the notion of abolition and just assumed that no one would ever consider freeing the slaves. Many never knew that it was the South that first fired on the Union troops and flag. If the North won the war, the assumption was that Northerners would then own the plantations and the valuable slaves. In reality, while all slaves were emancipated in the South, very few plantations and farms were confiscated from their Southern owners by Northerners despite the fact that there was political pressure in the North to confiscate the land of all rebels who had committed treason and use the value to repay the Union bonds and care for the wounded Union veterans and the widows of dead Union Soldiers. Eggleston was an accomplished writer who had served in the Confederate army of the Civil War. 20 year after the war he wrote a series of articles for the prestigious Northern Atlantic Monthly trying to convey the war from the Southerner’s point of view.
Clifford was a staunch supporter of Harry Truman’s Executive Order 9981 because just like Truman, Clifford was a formal naval officer who had witnessed military discrimination.
He often spoke in the North to try and explain the virtues of the “New South” with an idea of diminishing the stigma the South has borne every since the founding of the nation. In this particular speech, His audience included J. P. Morgan and H. M. Flagler at New York’s Delmonico's Restaurant at a meeting of the New England Society of New York. He gave a picture of a middle class society, but the reality was there was a very small middle class in the South at that time. Most farmers were tenant farmers and didn’t even own their own land. And the 50 homes for every palace were far below the standard with which the North had become familiar.
When the Union Army had taken Richmond—the Capitol of the Confederacy—the Lieutenant had been invited to dinner at one of the Virginia plantations while slavery was still legal, and slaves served the dinner. The general (but erroneous) belief that Black males were “well hung” as compared with whites tended to make white observers notice the large size Negro penises when they saw them and often to perpetuate that as is the case with this quotation. It seems to be human nature to observe, notice and perpetuate instances of what one believes more often that that which contradicts our beliefs. In actuality Blacks as a groups have an average penis diameter that is very slightly less than whites and an average penis length that is longer than whites—by only one-tenth of an inch. See http://www.penissizes.org/average-penis-size-ethnicity-race-and-country
