On the record
My people all knew well enough that I had been a kind master to them before the war; and you couldn’t have hired any considerable number of them to leave me.
Said by
Whitelaw Reid
Source
gutenberg.orgWhitelaw Reid: “My people all knew well enough that I had been a kind master to them before the war; and you couldn’t have hired any…”
Editor's note · Context
Reid asserts that he was a kind master to his slaves, suggesting a complex relationship shaped by the war.
Share
More from Whitelaw Reid
Let me repeat, that I think it best for all men—white men, black men, and brown men, if you make that distinction, that all men of proper age and unconvicted of crime, should have the right of suffrage.
Never was there a problem more serious or difficult than that which is now before the Nation, as to this race, whose destiny has been confided to the wisdom and honor of our Government.
Ordinarily the simple performance of duty is so blessed of God, that men who live in the doing of it, are the best off, in all respects, even in this world.
They should strive for distinction by economy, by industry, by sobriety, by patient perseverance in well-doing, by constant improvement of religious instruction, and by the constant practice of Christian virtues.