p. 79 | Not Cured Yet

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 8, 1865

Not Cured Yet.

A NASHVILLE correspondent who recently had a conversation with an influential citizen of Tennessee, writes as follows:

I asked him if he felt willing to tell me frankly what he thought of the future of slavery in Tennessee?

“Certainly,” he replied, “I have no concealment to make upon that or any other public question.”

“Do you believe there is any possible prospect for its restoration in this State?” I inquired.

“That,” said he, “is still an open question. I consider it no more settled that we shall not again have slavery in Tennessee, than it is whether the institution shall be abolished in Kentucky.”

“Is there any considerable number of the people who would favor such restoration?”

“A large majority would, if all were allowed to express themselves.”

“Would you?”

“Unquestionably I would.”

“But as your amended Constitution forever prohibits it, why is not the question settled?”

“Why,” said he, “even a legal Constitution is not a finality; and of course you are aware that many of us regard the March amendments to the Constitution of Tennessee as utterly illegal and void. Were it not for the presence of military force, the matter would have been brought ere this before the courts, and I doubt not their decision would have confirmed our opinion.”

“But,” said I, “even if the Courts should decide as you say, would it not be impossible to restore the institution on account of the resistance which the blacks would everywhere make to it?”

“Of course,” he replied, “we could not reinstate our authority immediately over the whole of them—perhaps not over one-half of them. But there are many sections of the State where the blacks are not aware that slavery has been abolished at all. Some of these sections are in West Tennessee, where the colored population is most numerous. In other quarters there are many families which the blacks have never attempted to leave, and where the quiet resumption of the masters’ authority would be at once acquiesced in, gradually all resistance would cease, and the colored people, in many cases disgusted with their new found freedom, so different from what they had anticipated, would voluntarily return to bondage, or accept as destiny what they could easily be persuaded was unavoidable. What it required a great army to destroy can easily be restored by the people when that army is removed.—New York Sun.