The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-03-18
THE APRIL MAGAZINES.
"LIPPINUOrT,s.o

Whatever else may have been said about Mr..
Pollard. he has never been charged with dis
honesty, and his convictions, however erro-
neous, have undoubtedly boen sincere. In
this straightforward and manly paper he
shows that he is capable of changing his con-
victions and of acknowledging the change
frankly, and his opinions as to the present
status of the negroes at the South, and their
future prospects are therefore worthy of
attention.
The writer has to confess that he was edu-
Gated in that common school of opinion in
the South that always insisted on regarding
the negro as specifically inferior to the white
mana lower order of human being, who
was indebted for what he had of civilization
to the tuition of slavery, and who, taken from
that tuition, was bound to retrograde and to
relapse into barbarism and helplessness. The
writer was even advanced in this school. He
had been fond of writing his opinions on the
subject-that the negro was an inferior species
of humanity; that by the employment O
his initiative faculties he had obtained
his maximum of civilization in the condition
of slavery; and that to emancipate him would
be to put him on the high road to ruin. Edu-
Gated thus to disesteem the negro, yet always
having a compassionate interest in him-ad-
miring in him his extraordinary qualities of
humor and tenderness, indulging q number
of poetic fancies in him, grown by education
and habit sentimental towards him, yet con-
stantly insisting that he was a poor, intel
lectually helpless creature, who never could
get along outside the leading strings of
slavery-the writer was prepared to witness
with pity what the whole South arranged
itself to see-the misfortune and inevitable
decline of the negro from the moment his
emancipation was declared.
The South has seen no such thing. What
ever may be the vanity of opinion which
compels men to persist in error, or yet more
frequently to be silent under conviction, the
writer comes sharply before the public with
this confession, that his former views of the
negro were wrong, that the results of eman-
cipation especially have been the reverse of
his expectations-a surprise the force of
which he can neither resist nor contain.
So keen has been that surprise that
from the very intensity of it the writer
is moved to communicate it to the pub
lie. He feels more like exclaiming, "a dis
covery" than writing in any more deliberate
mood of the proofs he has obtained concern
ing the new condition of the negro. 1t is
that this singularly questionable creature has
shown capacity for education that has as
tonished none more than his former masters
that he has given proofs of good citizenship
which are constantly increasing; that his de-
velopment since emancipation is standing
surprise to candid observers among the South
ern whites themselves; that his condition
since then has been on the whole that of
progress, and in the face of difficulties that
would soon have tested and broken down that
progress had it been Fictitious or dishonest;
and that, SO far from being stationary bar
barian or hopeless retrograde, the formerly
despised black man promises to become
true follower of the highest civilization, a
new object of interest to the world, and an
exemplary citizen of the South.
Every year since the conclusion of the
war / have been in different parts of the
South; I have conversed with all classes of
people there; have enjoyed the conditions
of good observer. have observed the re-
markable good order in civil life which the
negro has maintained since he was
emancipated have seen that he is sober,
aw-abiding-that he has gone into his new
condition with an adaptation little less than
wonderful 1 have witnessed the zeal with
which the black people are availing them
selves of the schools and means of education
have observed in Southern cities the ami
mated daily routes of their children to the
schools; have noticed the industry of the
negro-its steady, undeniable increase in the
South; I have wondered at the remarkable
thrift by whichhe has obtained from his scanty
wages not only livelihood, but degree of COM
fort and decency of dress such as he had
never known before have been pleased to
see his manifestations of self-respect, the
pride shown in dress and manners; and above
all, have found in him sense of Importance
and responsibility conceived from the idea
that he is on trial before the world. The
results of these observations have put against
the weight of theory that had formerly per.
suaded me of the hopeless defect of the
the negro, and his worthlessness as a subject
for intellectual experiment-the old ultra
shareholders theory that negroes without mas
ters are cannibals all; and the consequence is
simply that have decided to follow after the
evidence of my eyes rather than to pursue
farther the ingenuity of speculations.
On the conclusion of the war the emanci
patton of the negro was regarded by the
Southern people as chief among the terrori
that were to be inflicted upon them by the
loss of the struggle. 1t had been habitually
painted as the most dreadful feature in tina,
death's-head of "Subjugation" which fo
years had been held up in Confederate news
papers to nerve to desperation the arms o
the South. The common representation wa
that the negro, wild and intoxicated by
change of condition so sudden and vast
would be no longer manageable; that h
would go through the South numbering an
plundering, taking revenge on his forme
taskmasters; or that, less violent, he woul
die and rot in the byways, nuisance and a
eyesore, until his own vices had consumedhim
or until the animosity of race had expunge
him from the face of the earth. How hav
all these raw-head-and-bloody-bo storie
now disappeared, even from the imaginatio
of the South! The negro has been seen t
accept his great and sudden gift of libert,
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