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lying and petty thieving were the common habits if not the very luxury of their existence-so natural are these vices to slaves.
Now their manners, though still generally abject are much less so (especially those of the children) but not less polite. Now they are more settled, industrious, and ambitious. Now they will generally resist when attacked, if not with blows yet with words. Now they receive better wages and take care of them better. Some of them have purchased homes with the proceeds of their labor and most of them aspire to. Families have been gathered together and the relations of Husband and wife and of parent and child are better understood and more faithfully observed. The comforts of home are felt and sought. The value of character is more appreciated and there is beginning to appear something of honest pride and manly integrity among them. There are many schools and sabbath schools all well attended and most promising. Large numbers of adults have learned to read and write, never did children learn faster.  Many have become teachers. Everywhere they do more or less to support their schools. Their preachers give some attention to the enforcement of practiced morality in their churches. Various societies for the promotion of temperance, charity, schools and politics have been established. In short in all respects, benighted as they still are they have advanced wonderfully toward civilization and enlightenment from their condition on my first view of them three years ago.
In 1865 the Slaveholding whites were still maintaining undiminished, their spirit of absolutism toward the blacks.  Whippings in the country if not

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---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-04-01 15:17:32