CHAPTER LXXXV.SOCIAL CONDITION.
Suffering at the South among the Freedmen and Loyal Whites.—Causes.—The Discharge of the Freedmen by their Employers for Voting.—Good Conduct of the Freedmen.—Description of the Scenes at the Polls in Montgomery, Ala.—Negro Suffrage, North and South.—Reasons why it was indispensable that the Freedmen should have the Ballot.—Testimony to the Good Conduct of the Negroes at the South.—Southern White Loyalty.—The Competency of the Negro for the Exercise of Suffrage equal to that of the Poor Whites.—Eloquence of a Negro in Arkansas, a recent Slave.—The Destitution at the South.—Wrongs Inflicted on the Freedmen.—Laziness of the Rebel Whites.—The Advance in Education at the South.—Benevolent Associations.—Freedmen’s Bureau.—Mr. Peabody’s Munificent Gift.—Higher Education.—The Educational Provisions in the New Constitutions.—The Results which must flow from this in the Future.
While the desolated States were thus striving to get into line, and henceforth keep step to the music of loyalty and Union, and, despite the bitter and ingenious opposition of the disloyal and rebellious portion of the population, and the hostility of President Johnson, were meeting with remarkable success, their social condition had, as yet, improved very little. The winter of 1867–68 was one of extensive suffering, especially among the freedmen and the poor whites, from several causes: The crops of the year 1867 had been, for the most part, poor; there had not been a sufficiency of corn or other grain grown in the South for the consumption of the population, and where cotton, sugar, and rice were cultivated, in a majority of cases the crop had not been sufficient to pay the expense incurred by the still thriftless managers, and, as somebody must suffer, they preferred that it should be the freedmen, whom they drove away, without pay, in the depth of winter, alleging that the advances already made to them covered, or more than covered, their entire earnings.In most of the States the freedmen were not, as yet, permitted to either hire or buy land. Where they could do so, and could in any way procure the means of cultivating it, they were industrious and economical, and managed to live comfortably.
One of the measures to which the Rebel planters resorted, most generally, to prevent, if possible, the calling of a constitutional convention, or later, the adoption of a constitution, was to discharge, at once, all in their employ who should dare to vote for either. Their papers openly advocated this outrageous despotism, and their advice was followed very widely.
Under these circumstances, it was certainly remarkable that no larger number of the colored people fell into a condition of dependence and pauperism, and that, ignorant as most of them were, and, as yet, indisposed to extra exertion from the life-long enervating influence of slavery, with the old fear of the lash still lingering in their minds, they should have braved all the threats and persecution of their old masters, and dared to contend so earnestly for their rights.
The polls, in these States, both at the time of voting for the Convention and for the Constitution, presented scenes of mingled pathos and humor, which could not fail to impress deeply every thoughtful mind.
The correspondent of the “Cincinnati Commercial,” himself somewhat inclined to sympathize with the President’s policy, was at Montgomery, Alabama, when the vote was taken on the adoption of the new Constitution, and his account of what he witnessed is so graphic, and tallies so exactly with what was observed in other States, that we cannot do better than to reproduce a portion of it:—
“The influences brought to bear to induce them to coöperate with the late master class have been ingenious and manifold. If good-humoredly reasoned with, they would only nod in reply. Scolding fell on their impassive heads as uselessly as a spitball. Expostulation was of no avail. Threats of proscription have been less fruitless, but many thousands disregarded every motive save the one thatspurred them to vote for the political elevation of their race. It is universally asserted by the Conservatives, that the poor negroes are the dupes of designing white ‘carpet-baggers,’ who desire to be floated into office and emolument. That such designing persons exist is not to be doubted, but the black man, at this election, is trying to pull out of the fire the largest and most succulent chestnuts for himself and his own people. Read the proposed Constitution, and judge for yourself if he be snapping for more shadow than substance. Though often credulous, and by nature always confiding, he has a just apprehension of the stake played for in this deal of the political cards.
“For four days the election has been quietly proceeding. To-day is the last of the term allowed. If ratification fail, it will not be because time enough was not given to muster all who desired to vote. Originally but two days were named, then four. The voting commenced in a raw rain-storm, the creeks became swollen, and it was feared that many negroes would be kept at home by the wretched weather and roads. So another day was added by General Meade, making five in all. The first two days were exceedingly chilly, wet, and gloomy. The second two were mild and sunny. To-day promises to be a lovely one. But, rain or shine, the streets of Montgomery have been thronged with negroes. The curbstone restaurants (ranging in size from a hand-basket to a rickety table) have continued operations on a scale adapted to the crisis. Ebony cobblers on back streets have been pegging away, day and night, at the shocking bad foot-gear of tramping voters from distant plantations. Wooden awnings have sheltered a nightly bivouac. Every hospitable hut has lodged enough darkies to give it a double claim to be called a black hole. The warm sides of the avenues have had their ebony procession lengthened and widened to the election standard; and philanthropic auctioneers have about closed out their stock of goods and stock of conscience, at a fearful sacrifice, of course.
“If the reader now will come with me, and watch for a while how the voting proceeds, I promise him a novel experience. We will not take the first day of the voting, for then it was painful to see the crowd of ragged colored men standing for hours in the pitiless storm, waiting to slip in their tickets, and so fearful of losing theirturns, that one who had deposited his vote found no avenue of egress, save that paved with the heads of those behind. Let us choose the third day, for the air is bland and the sky cloudless. There stand the black pilgrims, you see, ranged (for better order prevails to-day) in a double queue. At the side of the window, where the vote is handed in, are two policemen—one to admit the voter, the other to point the way out. In front of the window is the Conservative challenging committee of four. One of the four keeps tally of the vote; another scans the registration list as the name of each voter is announced; the third writes down the names not found registered, and the fourth makes himself generally watchful. Behind the window three judges are seated around a table, bearing in its centre a large pine ballot-box.
“The column of negroes waiting to vote is jammed together as if by some uncontrollable muscular impulse, but it surges back whenever the barrier of the first policeman threatens to give way. They do not talk to each other, deeming silence, perhaps, to be due to the sacred importance of the occasion. If their eye catches yours (you are a Caucasian, remember), it falls with an expression of embarrassment, as if they felt that you, being white, looked with keen disfavor on the act they had drawn up to perform. Falstaff’s recruits were not greater ragamuffins. Look at the garb of these negroes, and I defy you to point out one unpatched garment in fifty. Gray coats and blue coats, worn out three years ago, still are forced to serve in a tattered sartorial invalid corps. One coat (doubtless for Sunday and elections) is made of cheap ingrain carpeting. The pantaloons are more shred-like than the coats; the hats advanced to all degrees of organic decay. Not one in twenty wears boots, and few shoes retain much of their original homely integrity. In shape, they might inclose either a small ham, or the foot of any human being deformed by toil among the clods of cotton-fields. If you study the heads and the faces, you will find more indications of a gentle, submissive, ease-loving heart, than of active intelligence or ambitious disposition.
“Whatever the natural aptitudes of the African may be, a hundred years of slavery in Alabama have not added anything attractive to his phrenological development. That many of them are very ignorant of the scope and meaning of citizenship, is as plain astheir determination to learn more about it. The hunger to have the same chances as the white man, they feel and comprehend as clearly as they understand a physical craving. That is what brings them here, and not the expectation of getting free lands, free rations, and free mules. Your Conservative friend may tell you that they look for such windfalls; but talk to as many on the subject as I have, and you will accumulate the strongest sort of rebutting evidence. The last one I sounded looked at me with a shade of rebuke, and said: ‘No, sah. I spect to git nuffin but what I works hard for, and when I’se sick I’ll get docked.’
“Enter the first voter. He takes off his hat, and nervously gives his name to the judges. They run over the registration list. So do the Conservative challengers, who, as you see, are afforded every facility to contest and analyze. If the negro has a smooth face they demand that he swear to his age, and he is accordingly sworn. If his name be found, the judges announce the column in which it stands, and the challengers check it off. In vain the voter, seeing his vote glide into the box, and making his own way out, strives to choke down the delight that fills him. If ever you saw an amateur gamester win a heavy stake (which I trust you never have unless it was at charming Baden-Baden, or some place in New York where they go with a clergyman to study vice the better to preach against it—ahem), you watched the same sort of a smile on his face, as on the homely countenance of this happy freedman.
“Enter the second. This middle-aged negro deliberately takes off his mittens, removes his hat, runs one hand under his vest, produces a little package, unwraps the rag around it, and at last hands in the paper treasure.
“’Oh, the devil! be quick,’ says the Judge, rapping irately on the window. ‘Put on your hat, uncle—that humility’s played out,’ says one of the challengers, with a laugh. But the voter has his own views as to the hat. Perhaps he stands uncovered to the ballot and not to men. His ticket drops into the box, and he stumps off, irradiated. The third! ‘Another George Washington.’ Another vote, too, and another chuckle. The fourth! The name of this one cannot be found. ‘Go to head-quarters of registration,’ says the Judge; ‘if your name is there, they will give you a certificateenabling you to vote.’ ‘I’ve been thar,’ sorrowfully rejoins the applicant. ‘’Taint thar.’ ‘Sorry,’ says the Judge; ‘make room, make room.’ Now I ask you to watch this poor fellow. He comes out looking sick at heart. A bright mulatto takes him aside, and inquires into his case. It is hopeless—name not registered at all. The disappointed darkey wanders around for ten minutes, then he quietly falls again into the rear of the line, to be repulsed again and again when he reaches the window. Hope that his name may have been overlooked dies out at last, and not without the sharpest pang his simple, but emotional nature can feel.
“Enter the fifth. ‘My name is Henry Clay.’ ‘All right, Henry, you can vote; you’re registered. But, Henry, where were you born?’ ‘In Kentucky, sir; Henry Clay, of Ashland, was my father.’ And the tall, handsome mulatto, bows and makes his way out. The sixth! This is another of the persevering kind. He gives his name. ‘Be off,’ says the Judge. ‘You have been here already half a dozen times. You say you are not registered.’ ‘Well, sah,’ replies the sorrowful negro, ‘I’se been hyah evah since Tuesday trying to vote at one place or nuther, and I hasn’t had a bite to eat, and I can’t vote, and I’se got to walk twelve miles to git home.’ The red-nosed, cross-looking Judge takes a biscuit from his pocket and hands it to the negro, with ‘Here, make room, now.’ One of the challengers says: ‘Boys, the Conservatives have the name of being generous. Let’s give this hungry nigger a dinner.’ The speaker draws his pocket-book and transfers some currency to the object of this kindly impulse, who takes it with a ‘tankee,’ but a vacant look. It is a vote he wants, not a meal.
“So the strange procession moves slowly on. If you wish to determine how much the negro’s heart is in this election, watch his face as he comes away from that little window. His vote once in, every feature blazes with joy; but his vote rejected, sorrow and dismay are expressed even in his attitudes. Watch the anxious but resolute sooty faces in those waiting their turns. Is all this emotion due to the duplicity of Yankee adventurers? Can the ‘carpet-bagger’ thus sway the very soul of the black man to reach his own selfish ends? Is it for a possible mule and forty acres of land that the negro is thus profoundly stirred; that he braves hardship, the ill-will of his employers, and, may be, starvation itself? No, friendConservative. The slave you once owned, ignorant as he is still, and lowly in social rank, feels, as he casts that ballot, the throes that liberty awakened, and which, unchecked by renewed oppression, will give his manhood a rapid and generous growth. I do not seek to conceal his ignorance about the technical duties of citizenship. An old black fellow came, as I stood near one of the polls, and proffered me his vote, asking: ‘Are you de boss?’ The question is, Does the lack of such technical knowledge unfit him for useful and honest citizenship? There have been periods in the history of our country when a loyal heart, an honest, incorruptible nature, were worth more than ten thousand of the most choicely cultivated intellects on the national roll of the rich, the powerful, and the gifted.”
The question has been often asked, and sometimes in a tone of triumph, as if it were unanswerable, Is it not tyrannical, on the part of the majority in Congress, to insist on giving the ballot to the negro in the desolated States, when the party which they represent refuses to permit the negro to vote in the Northern States? Is it not a positive violation of the golden rule—a placing of burdens upon the South which they themselves will not bear?
We answer both inquiries with a decided negative. Without stopping to discuss the question of negro suffrage at the North, farther than to say, that a large majority of the Republican party throughout the North are in favor of it, and have carried it in some of the States, and have been defeated in others only by the coalition of Democrats and weak-kneed Republicans, we take the ground that the condition of the two sections is entirely different. At the North the negro citizens had no special claims on us; they had manifested an interest in the war, and some of them had volunteered to serve in the ranks against the South, though hardly so many in proportion to their number as the whites. We should prefer to have them vote, for we do not believe in taxation without representation; but, at the South, the negroes had been our friends throughout the war; they had been steadily and persistentlyloyal, when very few of the whites were so, and many thousands of them had laid down their lives for the national cause. We had emancipated them, both as a military necessity, and as an act of justice to an oppressed race. But the close of the war, and the reinstating of their former disloyal masters in power, as was done often by the pardons of the President, left them like sheep in the midst of wolves. Their old masters hated them for their loyalty, and proceeded at once, under Mr. Johnson’s provisional governments, to oppress them, to refuse them land, education, or employment, except at wages which would not sustain life, and to endeavor to reduce them back to slavery.
To obviate this gross injustice, and to protect these wards of the nation, to whom its honor was solemnly pledged, it was necessary that they should be permitted to share in the government, that loyalty might, at least, have equal rights with disloyalty, the oppressed an equal voice with the oppressor. This must be done, or the other alternative adopted,—that of arming the negro and bringing on a war of races, which would not have ceased till those States should have, indeed, become desolate and without inhabitants.
Congress had no ambition to reënact the bloody scenes of St. Domingo, and they felt that with the kindly and placable nature of the African, peace, quiet, and good order would be sooner secured by giving him the ballot than in any other way, and the event is even now demonstrating the wisdom of their decision.
The same able writer from whom we have already quoted, after spending some months in the South, says:—
“The freedmen have surprised me by their native shrewdness and good sense, their cautious and submissive behavior, and the keen, intelligent interest they take in their new political privileges. If they were one tenth as vindictive and contemptuous in their manner toward the whites as the whites toward them, a war of races would have ensued long ago. From close observation, I believe them to be humbler in deportment than before emancipation. As a classthey are anxious to work and get on in the world. They are more industrious than their late masters. And though the word has been abused, they are as loyal to the government as it is possible for men of their capacities to be. They would respond to a national summons to arms with alacrity and enthusiasm. By their votes in their conventions they have shown that they feel no hatred toward their old oppressors, and ask nothing beyond security for the future.
“Scratch a Southerner, and you find an intolerant. He is not willing to have you vote as your conscience dictates. Defy his local despotisms, and you will be socially ostracized; your name will be published in a black-list; you will be sneered at and insulted. If you are a Northern man, acquire citizenship by the legal period of residence, and get nominated to office, you will be ridiculed as a Yankee adventurer—a ‘carpet-bagger.’ Witness the Alabama election in February: witness the Southern newspaper treatment of all the constitutional conventions.
“How about Southern loyalty?
“About three fourths of the Southern white people are passively disloyal.Could it be otherwise? For four years they rained death on the National flag and the National uniform. They shot at and cursed them. In every church in the Confederacy they prayed and supplicated with fervor and with tears, to have them go down in disgrace. Can it be that their gorge does not rise now at their sight?
“On the boat coming up the Potomac from Aquia Creek, I heard a Southerner confess that though he tried to subdue the emotion, he still felt a hatred of the Stars and Stripes. He had fought under Lee from first to last, and during that time had seen the flag so often in battle when the army of the Potomac swept down upon him and his companions in arms, that he feared he would never again be able to look upon it as his flag.
“The dominant class in the South never was republican in traits, tastes, or habits. The revolution now going on in its industries and system of labor tend to make it so, but as long as this generation lives the change cannot be complete. The Southern man and woman still deem themselves a better order of beings than the Yankees. They will die in that faith. The vanity is ingrain.
“I have been astonished to find how generally the Southerners believe the North to be on the verge of civil convulsion. Reading onlytheir own newspapers and the most violent Copperhead journals in the North, they are firmly convinced that nothing is more likely to happen than the embroilment of the Western with the Middle and New England States. This delusion is shared by thousands of the most intelligent men in the South. That they would delight in such a calamity is as certain as the fact that the next gale that sweeps from the North will not take to them ‘the clash of resounding arms.’ They cannot understand the elastic temper and wholesome tolerance of the North, where elections come and go, crises ripen and decline, with no thought of bloodshed, nor black-lists, nor social disdain, contempt, and persecution.
“The Southerner is generous in some things, and honorable in many; but he is not yet a good citizen for a republic. That is the whole trouble. He must be made so, or stand back for his children. He needs a firm, resolute guidance—not unkindly unless he will have it so—but firm, always firm. The moment we waver, he wavers. When he fully and finally understands that his old undue political importance is irrevocably a thing of the past, he will take the first step on the road to valuable citizenship. But between Andrew Johnson and the ‘Great Democratic Reaction,’ he has come to believe in the speedy overthrow of the Republican party, and in the restoration of the slave dynasty to reign over a dominant party, composed of Southern extremists and Northern doughfaces.”
That among these freedmen till lately slaves, there are many who have very inadequate notions of the value and importance of the ballot, and whose knowledge of our political institutions, is very limited, is undoubtedly true; but they hardly suffer even in these respects by comparison with the ignorant poor whites of the South; a class much slower to learn on these subjects than the most stupid of the negroes, and among the latter there are men who in intellect and eloquence are the peers of any of the white legislators of the South, brilliant as some of them have been. In the report of the debates of the Constitutional Convention in Arkansas, which adjourned in March last, we find a speech of W. H. Gray, a full-blooded negro, and till recently a slave, but at that time a member of the Convention, on this very subject, which may safely be placedby the side of any speech of any white Senator or Representative from that State in either House of Congress. We have read carefully the debates of the fathers of the American Republic on the Declaration of Independence, and we can find in them nothing more manly or statesmanlike in tone, or more logical in argument, than the speech of this negro orator. It is a defense of the right of his people to suffrage which it would be very difficult for any white man to gainsay or refute. The question of Impartial Suffrage was before the Convention, and Mr. Gray said:—
“Now, sir, having stood by the government and the old flag in times of trouble, when the Republic trembled with the throes of civil war, from centre to circumference, from base to cope, for this and other considerations we are here not to ask charity at the hands of the honorable body, but to receive, at the hands of the people of Arkansas in convention assembled, the apportionment of our rights, as assigned by the Reconstruction Acts of Congress. I am here, sir, to see those rights of citizenship engrafted in the organic law of this State. The gentleman from White County does not seem to recognize the fact that the present constitution is not in accordance with the Constitution of the United States, guaranteeing to each State a republican form of government. The gentleman from White says the negro cannot become a citizen. The fact is patent that we have exercised those rights under the constitution in all the States except South Carolina, and voted for that time-honored instrument—the Federal Constitution—by voting for the men that ratified it. As free men, we were not denied the right of suffrage under the State laws on account of color. It seems as though the gentleman had read the history of our country to little purpose, or at least not as I have.... Again the gentleman denies us the right of suffrage on the ground of our ignorance. Why, sir, for every negro vote registered in this State I can duplicate it with the vote of a white man that can neither read or write; and still we are charged with ignorance. I do not deny it, but we are not isolated. If these men can vote, I see no injustice in permitting me to vote also. And in this connection I would say that the colored people of this State met in convention in this city, in 1865, for the purpose of consideringtheir condition and prospects, and then asked simply for the most remote recognition of their rights, but it was unheeded. I then said that I had an unshaken confidence in the eventual justice of the American. Since then we have crossed the Rubicon, as a nation, and cannot recede if we would.... We are told a republican form of government must rest upon the intelligence and virtue of the masses, and that we have not these qualifications; they are qualities that are at least susceptible of improvement. In other races of men—and they were not largely displayed when the Huns, Vandals, and other tribes were laying waste the fair fields of Italy, or when the Danes and Normans were making sad havoc of your ancestral estates—our condition would compare favorably with that of England, as described by Macaulay, at the time of the conquest of the island by the legions of Cæsar, when he says the condition of the people was little better than that of the Sandwich Islanders. We were not far behind those who sold civilized women along the banks of the James for 200 pounds of tobacco, or less. Nor has our intelligence, even in a barbarous state, been much below the level of those who ate the acorns falling from the lofty oak of Dodona, and worshipped the tree from which they fell. The civilization of the nineteenth century is the product of 800 years; and with this start ahead, with all the wealth, intelligence, and power and prestige of a great government, men pretend to believe that they are afraid of negro domination, afraid that 4,000,000 of negroes, scattered over this vast country, will rule 30,000,000 of intelligent white people. They cannot believe it. But they are endeavoring to work on the prejudices of the masses, to produce outrage and bloodshed; and, if possible, what they pretend to deprecate, a war of races. But, sir, this I do not fear, so long as we are led by the best minds of the nation, and count in our ranks those distinguished men of both sections, whose gleaming swords were seen flashing on many a skirmish line and in the smoke of battle. The gentleman says we are not citizens, by the highest judicial decision. That decision, sir, travelled outside of American History, outside of the presence of the courts; and hence I regard Chief Justice Taney as the American Jeffries. Could I afford to trust my dearest rights in the hands of men who hold up such a decision as the measure of my rights, and at the same time profess to be my best friends? I beg respectfully to decline suchfriendship—men who are willing to consign us to a system of peonage worse than slavery, a system that strips us of every right or privilege, and turns us bound hand and foot over to the tender mercies of mob law....
“Man cannot prevent it, for God has written it in burning characters across the pages of American History—emblazoned it as upon a sign-board, and hung it on the brows of the Rocky Mountains—‘This is the asylum for the oppressed of all nations, and all people.’ This is according to the original contract, drawn up by those patriotic men of the Revolution, and I believe they were honest when they declared that ‘All men are created equal.’ I believe the hand of an angel guided the pen that wrote those words, and that they were recorded in heaven. God intends you shall keep the original contract. The acting in bad faith by the children of those good men, has cost the country a million lives—the flower of the land—and untold sums of wealth. I believe He intends to demand its fulfillment now, and I plant myself upon the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, as defined by the framers of those documents, and expounded by the leading men of that period, and claim that they secure me my rights, if honestly and faithfully executed. Settle at once and forever the question of human rights by giving us equality before the law. Then, and not till then, will peace come to our borders. Until that is done, capital will not seek investment within our limits, nor will immigration flow to a State that continues to oppress and crush the laborer. Arkansas has tried it for thirty years, and she is still comparatively a vast forest. With an extent of territory sufficient for an empire,—stretching from Missouri on the north to Louisiana and Texas on the south, from the Cherokee territory on the west to where her eastern front looks out on the Father of Waters; with internal streams sufficiently navigable to bear the commerce of an empire to the sea,—thirty years a State and not a railroad worth the name, no means of inter-communication, except that employed in a by-gone age. Not a respectable school-house, and her primeval forests still keeping silent guard along her watercourses: and why? because her soil was desecrated by Slavery. It was here this Moloch of the nineteenth century reared his altars and sacrificed his human victims. God has removed the idol and shattered the altars, and those that opposed it, like the devotees that cast themselvesbefore the Hindoo car of Juggernaut, will be crushed beneath the progress of the age.”
The pictures of the condition of the South in the beginning of the present year were gloomy in the extreme. We have taken in preference the testimony of moderate men who have spent some months in the South during the early part of the present year. One of these, a Mr. D., for a long time, and we believe still, connected with the “Cincinnati Gazette,” gives in January, 1868, the following summary of the condition of affairs from his own personal observation:—
“There is literally ‘no show’ for an outspoken Union man. He is socially ostracized; nobody will trade with him. If he be a farmer, his horses are stolen, his stock dies suddenly, his fences mysteriously disappear, ‘spontaneous combustion’ destroys his out-houses; and if he is still foolish enough to misunderstand these ‘manifestations of Providence,’ he is accidentally shot, or some equally broad hint is given him to leave. To learn these facts, leave the railroad towns and live in the interior for a few months, and you will get your fill. I believe that even Andrew Johnson himself might be reformed, provided he could visit Mississippiincog., and stay at the house of a Union man even a fortnight.
“But to know Rebeldom in its truest character, you must leave its dealings with white men, and view its dealings with the negro. It could not be expected that the relations existing between the whites and their late chattels would be very decidedly cordial, for it will be years ere former owners can calmly view what was once their property and source of wealth now toiling for themselves; but still common humanity would dictate a treatment toward the negroes fully as generous as that usually extended to brutes. Villainy of the whites is the cause of three fourths of the destitution among the negroes. In four cases in five where he has worked for a white man, either on shares or wages, the negro has been defrauded out of his earnings. If a crop has been raised on shares, it is disposed of by the land-owner, and if the laborer receives one half his dues he is most fortunate; if he is employed by the year, he is turned adrift as soon as crops are gathered, and he is given but a moiety of his wages; when he asks for the balance due, he is cursed and threatened, and,if he persists in his demand, he is knocked down, or, more often, shot; if he resents the blow, his death is certain, for no negro dare strike a white man here, unless there be a company of soldiers present. To kill a negro is no crime here, and I have heard men talk of their exploits in this line with the utmost complacency. The only protection that the colored man now has in the South is the Freedmen’s Bureau, backed up by Federal bayonets. Break up the Bureau before reconstruction is effected, and the colored race will be exterminated in ten years, unless a ‘war of races’ ensues, and the whites be brought to their senses thereby. It appears to be the policy of not a few leaders to bring about such a conflict. The excessive tyranny practiced upon the poor blacks, and the appeals to the prejudices and baser passions of the whites, tend to that end, and certainly must have that object.
“Great destitution prevails in the interior of Alabama and Mississippi, but it is by no means so severe as has been represented. Here again is another fiendish device of the opponents of reconstruction. The colored laborer is defrauded out of most of his earnings. As a consequence, he is in want, and his family are nigh to starvation. This is heralded forth to the world as an evidence of the negro’s natural laziness and disability to take care of himself. If the whites had dealt justly and generously by their colored laborers, they would not now be asking alms of the North, nor begging relief of government. It makes me mourn for the white race when I witness their oppression of the negro. A just Providence cannot permit such iniquities to be perpetrated.
“The prime cause of Southern want is the laziness of the whites. The Southern climate is notoriously enervating, and is made the excuse for not working by the ‘privileged classes.’ At every cross-roads doggery, every shop, and every store in every town and village, is to be found a crowd of long-haired, stalwart fellows engaged in whittling sticks, chewing tobacco, and cursing the negro—three things which they do well and industriously follow up. Without a dollar, save what they make or defraud their laborers out of, they spend their time, week in and week out, in idleness, regretting ‘old times,’ instead of turning to work and industriously striving to retrieve their fallen fortunes. They have land in abundance, but this few only will sell, lest the negroes get a foothold and become propertyowners. The South is by no means as impoverished as has been represented. The Southern people still have in abundance all the elements of wealth, and it only requires industry among the whites, and encouragement and fair dealing toward the colored laborers, to raise the late Rebel States to even a higher state of prosperity than they ever before enjoyed.”
Still amid all this gloom and darkness there were some gleams of light.Educationis and has been, for the past two years, advancing in the South with a rapidity hitherto unknown. Heretofore in most of the Southern States, everywhere except in the large towns, education was only the boon of the wealthy, and the poor white had almost as little chance of learning to read and write as the slave, to whom all knowledge of books was prohibited by law under the severest penalties. But now, thanks to the efforts of the philanthropic citizens of the North, the Missionary Associations, Home Missionary Societies, Freedmen’s Aid Societies and Commissions, and to the Freedmen’s Bureau, there were thousands of schools where the negro and the child of the poor white were taught the elements of knowledge, and an intense rivalry, in which truth compels us to say the negro child oftenest came out winner, ensued between the two in regard to the rapid acquisition of knowledge.
This laudable enterprise for the general diffusion of education in the South was powerfully aided and will continue to be so by the munificent gift by George Peabody, Esq., of the sum of more than two millions of dollars, the income of which is to be distributed annually to southern schools and institutions of learning, without distinction of color or race. Several institutions have been founded in Washington, D. C., Wilmington, N. C., New Orleans, and Pittsburgh for the higher education of colored young men, with a view to qualify them for teachers and preachers among their own people.
The constitutional conventions of the desolated States have wisely incorporated into their bills of rights and their constitutions the right and the provision for universal education,and the legislatures elected are manifesting a willingness to tax themselves for this purpose, to an extent which, in their present impoverished condition, is highly creditable to them.
The result of this will be that in a few years the mass of voters in the Southern States will be equal in intelligence to the people of any other section of the country, or to any nation in the world, and with that intelligence they may safely be trusted to govern themselves. In all countries and states, and at all times, ignorance, which brings in its train all other vices, has been the worst foe of good government. But with an intelligent and enterprising people no form of despotism, neither autocracy, oligarchy, or mob law, can prevail. Hence dark as may be the clouds which now overhang the South, we look confidently for a brighter future, when its despotic aristocracy shall no longer hold sway.