The negro feels himself aggrieved by the petty spites of the men who can no longer hold him enslaved; the master feels himself outraged that one over whom his power had been so absolute should “go to putting on airs this way” in his very face.
Reid reflects on the tensions between former slaves and their former masters in the post-Civil War South.
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Something, however, must be done to disperse this unwholesome gathering at Newbern, or the tumor, thus neglected, may do serious injury.
I would rather give up my crop to the negroes than the lives of my wife and children.
You see, General, this is alarming, and you must acknowledge that we are not safe.
That would be “jumping from the frying-pan into the fire,” indeed.