this “people” did not include blacks. As for the blacks, Melville had a plan: “paternal guardianship” might be offered the former slaves, although, he warned, any concern for them “should not be allowed to exclude kindliness to communities who stand nearer to us in nature.” We need to be kind to former slaveholders too. “In our natural solicitude to confirm the benefit of liberty to the blacks,” Melville reminded the reader, “let us forbear from measures of dubious constitutional rightfulness toward our white countrymen—measures of a nature to provoke, among other of the last evils,
...more
