No other measure so aroused the indignation
of the border-state men. Loyalty to the Union could not change their
opinion of the negro. To put arms into the hands of slaves, or
ex-slaves, was a terrible proposition to men who had too often vividly
conceived the dread picture of slave insurrection. To set black men
about the business of killing white men, to engage the inferior race to
destroy the superior race, seemed a blasphemy against Nature. A few
also of the Northerners warmly sympathized with this feeling. Black men
shooting down white men was a spectacle which some who were friends of
the black men could not contemplate without a certain shudder. Also many
persons believed that the white soldiers of the North would feel
degraded by having regiments of ex-slaves placed beside them in camp and
in battle. Doubts were expressed as to whether negroes would fight,
whether they would not be a useless charge, and even a source of peril
to those who should depend upon them. Language could go no farther in
vehemence of protest and denunciation than the words of some of the
slave-state men in the House and Senate. Besides this, Garrett Davis of
Kentucky made a very effective argument when he said: "There is not a
rebel in all Secessia whose heart will not leap when he hears that the
Senate of the United States is originating such a policy. It will
strengthen his hopes of success by an ultimate union of all the slave
States to fight such a policy to the death.
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