Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1866-08-10
The Social Problem,

Il
perception Of the enormous practical difficult
ties of the problem in which emancipation has
involved the country but Which the Isacl-
calls fancy they can solve by an act Of Con
gress or an amendment to the Constitution,
and require the South to settle at the drop Of
a hat. It says:
The sudden abolition of slavery has sudden
ly forced the people of the South where it
existed into the trial of an experiment which
has never yet peacefully succeeded the ex-
pertinent Of 50 adjusting the laws and modi-
flying the tempers, habits and bearings of
Anglo-Saxons and freed negroes dwelling to-
gether upon terms Of civil equality (social
equality is. out Of the question) in the same
communities as to satisfy both and produce
a condition Of mutual contentment. To
zealots unadvised Of the struggles which have
occurred heretofore under such or similar
circumstances, it appears to be a subject Of
no concern whatever. IA
To the Radicals in and out Of the present
Congress, judging from their hippant meth
cd Of treating it, it appears to be an expert
mcnt which may be resolved by the applica
ton of the dreams Of I'haddeus Stevens an
enforced application of the equality doctrines
Of the Declaration Of Independence But our
best informed and most sagacious and con-
siderate statesmen, whilst they are equally
philanthropic, are painfully apprehensive that
the fauore with which irnpudent reforlners
push their notions upon and into the commu-.
mites where slavery has recently existed, be-
fore their present wounds are cicatrized, will
producea war Of races. Of a very terrible char
acter. The reason for this apprehension are
too numerous for q newspaper article. They
would Eli volume.
The slaves Of the ancients belonged to the
same race as the masters. They were tro-
plies Of war, and frequently, as the cases Of
Hsop and Terence, the superiors of their
masters in intellect and learning. Freedom
was the only distinction between them, and
when this boon was conferred they came up
on common level. And, although it was
found that a. prejudice against those who had
been enslaved lasted long after the period of
their enfranchisement, the freedmen bore so
close a resemblance to the free born that it
became after while impossible to distinguish
one class from the other. Slavery in the
United States has been united with the yisi-
BILE badge of color The negro has been the
subject Of it, Doubly dishonored by color
and the fact that his race has been easlayed
from time to time out of mind, the colored
freedmen is in q far worse condition for en-
joying equal civil rights with his former mas
ter than were the slaves of antiquity. This
led De Tocquevile to remark that g the law
may abolish il form the institution of negro
slavery, but God alone can obliterate the ira
ces of its eS istence.o ga-ea,e III fa1
In attempting to bring our freedmen into
harmony with the white men we have, be-
sides the fact Of former servitude, three sorts
of prejudices to contend with-the instinc-
tive prejudice Of color the prejudice Of the
former masters, and the prejudice Of the race.
These, separately or combined, have, in all
known instances Of negro emancipation, been
fruitful and neyer-ending causes Of discon-
tentment and discord, so that wherever the
whites have been the most numerous they
have found it necessary to their personal
safety to keep the blacks in subordinate
and scryile position; and wherever the ne
groes have been the strongest they either
have, Or have striyen to destroy the whites.
And when we remember how difficult and
slow has been the process in every country,
inclusive of our own, of roofing out the dis
tinctions of arstocracy which we inherited
from the old World, and of preventing the
growth of others, such as aristocracles of
wealth and of sect, scarcely less prejudicial
to everything like equality. and harmony, we
arc compelled to acknowledge that it is not
strange that no experiment of the kind we
are now trying has ever succeeded. There
have been, and yet are, rightful we do not
say, but actually, nevertheless, these intrin-
sic differences hitherto between the two races,
which statesmen, and particularly those in
charge Of our Government, are not at liber-
ty to disregard. It is the full knowledge of
these, and Of the horrid massacres and wars
they have heretofore produced, which adj
monishes the President Of the necessity of
moving in the work of reconstructlng
Southern society according to the altered
condition Of things, with the utmost cir
cumspection.
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