Of old, travelers in the South were perpetually regaled by the siren song of the affection between the negro and his master. “Free them all to-morrow, and it would make no difference. They know instinctively that their masters are their best friends. You could no more make them fight against us than you could make them fly.” On all hands one heard of this bond of attachment between the races; was pointed to the devotion of favorite servants; assured that no law was necessary to hold them; reproached with the fanatical prejudices of the North against color. With the downfall of the rebellion there came a change. He would be blind and deaf, who, after a day’s stay anywhere in the interior of Mississippi, failed to discern aright the drift of public opinion toward the negro. The boasted confidence in the slave, and the generous friendship for the helpless freedman were all gone. There were, of course, many individual exceptions, but the prevailing sentiment with which the negro was regarded, was one of blind, baffled, revengeful hatred. “Now, that you’ve got them ruined, take the cursed scoundrels out of the country.” “D——n their black souls, they’re the things that caused the best blood of our sons to flow.” “The infernal sassy niggers had better look out, or they’ll all get their throats cut yet.” “We can drive the niggers out and import coolies that will work better, at less expense, and relieve us from this cursed nigger impudence.” “Let a nigger dare to come into _my_ office, without taking off his hat, and he’ll get a club over it.” Such were the voices I heard on every hand—in the hotels, on the cars, in steamboat cabins, among returned soldiers, grave planters, outspoken members of the “Legislature,” from every party, and from men of all ages and conditions. More or less, the same feeling had been apparent in Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana; but it was in Mississippi that I found its fullest and freest expression. However these men may have regarded the negro slave, they hated the negro freeman. However kind they may have been to negro property, they were virulently vindictive against a property that escaped from their control.