If that be so, they have
no wrongs to avenge. Associated with our army, they would conform to
the stronger and more disciplined race. Nor is this view disproved by
servile insurrections. In those cases, the insurgents, without arms,
without allies, without discipline, but throwing themselves against
society, against government, against everything, saw no other escape
than to devastate and destroy without mercy in order to get a foothold.
If they exterminated, it was because extermination was threatened
against them. In the Revolution, in the army at Cambridge, from the
beginning to the close of the war, against the protests of South
Carolina by the voice of Edward Rutledge, but with the express sanction
of Washington,--ever just, ever grateful for patriotism, whencesoever
it came,--the negroes fought in the ranks with the white men, and they
never dishonored the patriot cause. So also at the defence of New
Orleans they received from General Jackson a noble tribute to their
fidelity and soldier-like bearing. Weighing the question historically
and reflectively, and anticipating the capture of Richmond and New
Orleans, there need be more serious apprehension of the conduct of
some of our own troops recruited in large cities than of a regiment of
contrabands officered and disciplined by white men.
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