New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-01-23
THE CONDITION or THE SOUTH.

The casual reader may imbibe very errOne-
GUS impressions of the state of the South from
what he sees in the newspapers. If Ku-Klux
outrage is perpetrated i'll Tennessee or Texas,
it is at once flashed over the whole country;
and so of a negro riot or resistance to legal
process, growing out of quarrel with planter
or planters as to the division of crops grown
on shares or the payment of wages. Few stop
to consider that the South covers million of
square miles, inhabited by twelve mil
lions of people, and that, since every col
lisiOn among these twelve millions
has a quasi partisan character the widely re-
ported and trumpeted crimes of violence bear
an unprecedented proportion to those which
attract only local attention. For instance:
there are ten or twelve counties in Middle and
West Tennessee where the Rebel spirit is still
rampant, and in some of which Ku-Klux out
RACES are fitfully committed: these we are GER
tain to hear from; but the forty or fifty cOun-
ties which are as quiet as any part OF New
England incite no kilograms and rarely at
tract public attention From Virginia and
the two Carolinas, we have heard of
but one collision for weeks, and that
was an evidently magnihed report Of
near Norfolk From Georgia, we have only
the Ogeechee troubles, which were swollen
out of all proportion 10y mutual misconceptions
and palpable effort to drive the Blacks into
rebellion and subject them TO determination.
From Alabama. we hear of but one recent
outrage-the murder of Union officer by Ku-
Klux near Huntsville. Mississippi is very
| quiet; Louisiana almost uniformly so since she
g -, ,1a In, 10 ltrt In
Kilkenny feud among the State officers
vexes the general calm. Arkansas has
been seriously cOnvulsed and agitated;
and there have been wild doings by mpacable
Rebels on the one side and by Gov. Clayton's
Black militia on the other; but, in spite
of the desperate efforts Of the Rebel
journals of Memphis and Little Rock,
it is plain that order, has generally been
restored on the basis of submission to law
Texas is so vast and so remote from the seat
Of Government that a great many of the tur-
bulent and implacable have taken refuge in
her vast solitudes and there do with impunity
deeds that would provoke repression elsewhere;
but, even there, matters have greatly improved
since Gen. Grants election, and are still inn
proving
The fair crops and good prices just realized
have had very soothing influence. Twenty
five hundred thousand bales of Cotton, selling
for an average of 800 per bale, yields Two
Hundred and Fifty Millions of Dollars to the
planters and, though several former crops
were much larger in amount. we doubt that any
one of them ever sold at the gin-houses for
more money. Then the Sugar and Rice crops
of 1868 are much larger than those of 1867, and
are bringing good prices. Add to this that the
South grew more Indian Corn, and we presume
moro Wheat Also in 1868 than in any former
year, and we may fairly congratulate her on
the turn in the tide of her fortunes.
The experiment of Free Labor at the South
was commenced under the least promising
auspices ever known. The planters were con-
quered sullen, respondent, and intensely
preiudiced against Gree niggers.p Having
all their lives had labor without wages the
requirement of pay for the work of their
Blacks seemed to them glazing extortion,
enforced by the bayoncts of their Yankee
masters. But, had they been ever so will
ing to pay, the means were utterly
wanting The war had stripped them
to their bare acres; and even these
were in no condition to produce when, month
too late, they began feebly to plant in 1865.
Short of implements, animals, and food, their
crops would have been poor even had they
not been shortened by drouth but this cut
them down nearly half. They did little bet
ter in 1885, but on constantly, rapidly falling
makct and when their next crop was ready
for sale, Cotton had fallen so low that half Of
them could hardly pay their labor. The year
inst closed was the first since 1860 in which
fair yield has commanded good price, and.
though many are still struggling under
mountain of debt, tens of thousands have been
set on their feet by the crop just marketed.
The Blacks emerged from Slavery and the
War under circumstances most unfavorable
to sobricty and diligence OH their part. TiHy
were sharers in the National triumph; they
were its most palpable beneliciaries; their old
masters were the yanqushed party; and mis-
taken If not bad men had led the Freedmen
to expect distribution of their masters for
teted lands among them as "spOils of
victory" Aud, had they been ever 50 dQcile