6 Matching Annotations
  1. Sep 2019
    1. I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy,—the folks call her Mrs. Anderson,—and the children—Milly, Jane, and Grundy—go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes we overhear others saying, “Them colored people were slaves” down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson.

      The Civil War and Emancipation granted not only freedom for Jourdon and his family, but also money for living and opportunities for better life such as education for children and churches. Not to mention, it is surprising how, Jourdon do not look upon his old master as a disgrace and is proud of what they have done for him and it is also sad for me because even though laws were establish to annouce equality for Blacks, people still are in slow progress in accepting the new world .

    2. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin’s to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living.

      Jourdon felt uneasy to his former master because he was capable of committing crime in disbelief that Blacks have gained freedom and that despite the service and love that Jourdon has given, Colonel Anderson had the nerve to shot him twice. It is bittersweet the despite being treated with cruelty and fear, Jourdon still wishes his old master to live well.

    1. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind; from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is, forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics: their conclusions are right if their premises are. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights, with the white man

      In my understanding, Stephens is saying that if you are an anti-slavery "fanatics" is that you are insane because there's a defect in reasoning, that their conclusions may be right but their premises are wrong. Meaning Negros may be entitled for rights but are not equal to whites.

    2. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of a Government built upon it-when the “storm came and the wind blew, it fell.”

      So Stephen disagrees that the government is wrong in believing that equality of race should be the foundation for the laws?

    3. enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature

      I am curious as to how our ancestor have concluded that whites are inferior over Blacks when we are all the same creatures who share similar aspects and features of being a human. It is sad how lives was needed to be sacrificed first and brutality to be embraced before we come to the realization that we are no treating each other they way we are supposed to; that we are wrong.

    4. slavery and white supremacy were not only the cause for secession, but also the “cornerstone” of the Confederate nation.

      This realization that equality will help nurture and build a better society is a very important aspect for patriotism and dignity for one's nation.