human
I am right about it, my dear sir, he continued, biting off the end of a cigar and sharing with me the lighted match.
gpt
The negro is infinitely worse off than in the slave days. We never had to hang any one of them then to make the others behave themselves.
human
How do you account for it?
gpt
Account for what?
human
The change that has come over the South--to the negro,
gpt
The negro has become a competitor, sir. The interests of the black man and the white man now lie apart. Once the white man was his friend; now he is his rival.
human
It wasn't so in the old days. We shared what we had with them. One-third of the cabins of the South were filled with the old and helpless. Now these unfortunates are out in the cold; their own people can't help them, and the white man won't.
gpt
Were you a slave-owner?
human
No, sir; but my father was. He had fifty of them on our plantation. He never whipped one of them, and he wouldn't let anybody else strike them, either. There wasn't one of them that wouldn't have come back if we had had a place to put him. The old ones are all dead now, thank God!--all except old Aleck; he's around yet.
gpt
One of your father's slaves, did you say?
human
Yes; he carried me about on his back when I was so high, and he measured the distance with his hand.
gpt
Aleck and I were boys together. I was about eight and he about fifteen when my father got him.