Been in the Storm So Long_ The Aftermath of Slavery - Leon F. Litwack [386]
Exulting in their freedom, but perceiving at the same time their powerlessness and vulnerability, the black conventions framed their addresses and manifestos for consideration by the state constitutional conventions and legislatures. Invariably, they appealed to the “wisdom, sense of justice, and magnanimous generosity” they expected from those bodies and which they professed to find in the hearts and minds of the white South. The pose they struck of a long-suffering but patient people seemed best calculated to win the approval of their white countrymen, many of whom had only recently come to know the true meaning of suffering, the separation of families, and defeat. The Convention of Colored People that gathered in Charleston in late 1865 grounded its appeal to “the White Inhabitants of South Carolina” in precisely that spirit:
We have not come together in battle array to assume a boastful attitude and to talk loudly of high-sounding principles, or of unmeaning platitudes; nor do we pretend to any great boldness; for we remember your former wealth and greatness, and we know our poverty and weakness; and although we feel keenly our wrongs, still we come together, we trust, in a spirit of meekness and of patriotic good-will toward all the people of the State.22
To emphasize the mutuality of interest upon which a new South would rise, blacks attending the freedmen’s conventions dwelled upon their own southern roots and how their lives, experiences, and destinies were interwoven with those of white Southerners. That kind of appeal would hopefully not only allay white apprehensions but lay to rest any new speculation about blacks expatriating themselves to some distant land. The South was their homeland, not Africa, not Central America, not even the northern United States, and they fully intended to make their homes in the regions they knew intimately and in which they had been born and reared along with their fellow whites.
The dust of our fathers mingle with yours in the same grave yards; you have transmitted into our veins much of the rich blood which course through yours; we talk the same language, and worship the same God; our mothers have nursed you, and satisfied your hunger with our pap; our association with you have taught us to revere you. This is your country, but it is ours too; you were born here, so were we; your fathers fought for it, but our fathers fed them.23
To underscore their regional roots and loyalties, black spokesmen also thought this an appropriate time to remind white Southerners of how the slaves had remained peaceful and faithful “while your greatest trials were upon you” and when any rebellious behavior might have plunged the South into an even more costly bloodbath. Nearly every black convention repeated some variant of this theme, as if to suggest that their wartime conduct provided ample evidence not only of their essentially peaceful nature but of their ability to function responsibly under the most trying conditions.
No race ever served a people more faithfully than we have served them who were our masters. When they were carrying on a war, the object of which was, to rivet our bonds still more firmly, and to make slavery perpetual, we at home conducted ourselves peaceably. We not only protected their wives and children, but tilled their fields and fed their armies. Did we, at any time rise against their helpless families, did we ever offer them insult of