New-York tribune., 1873-04-09
THE SOUTHERN PROBLEM.

1he picture of prQstrate South Carolina
drawn by the correspondent: whose letters have
recently been laid before our readers Is indeed
a sad one 1t needs some effort of imaginaS
ton to realize the full meaning of the scenes
enacted at the State House of Columbia, where
ignorant field hands and ragged black mechan-
les occupy the seats of the prOudest of Amer
lean slave-owners, and fill the capital with the
racket of burlesque legislation. For ii was in
South Carolina that the aristOcracy of color
asserted itself with the greatest haughtiness.
1t was there that the widest gulf was placed
between the master and his human chattels. 1t
was there that good birth" and "good breed
"ing" were most jealously regarded in public
men, and that culture and social condition were
most highly valued. The old race Of planters and
high strung statesmen has passed out of puDlic
view but it is not extinct. Somewhere in
poverty and seclusion these South Carolina
gentlemen are still watching the progress of
their State, brooding over their broken for
tunes in dilapidated mansions, or working
manfuly for bread in unaccustomed pursuits
or perchance struggling to get a living out of
the remnant of their ancient estates. Most of
them, probably, have gone forever out of
practical politics; they are ruined, diSheart-
ened men, who look out from the closed shut
ters of their silent homes at the new life
which flows on beneath the windows, and
lament for the irreyocable past To such
men, to their families, perhaps above all 9th
ers to the women of the South, Columbia is
the bitterest of conceivable humiliatiOns. They
have brought it upon themselves but there
is nc consolation for them in that thought.
And yet we doubt whether SOHth Carolina
after all is not in more prosperous case than
some of her neighbors. At the close of
long civil war like ours an entire shifting of
political power was inevitable. Where the
black race was strongest the change has
been IN the transfer of authority from the
master to the slave. Where the negro ele-
ment was weaker, the rule has fallen to out
side adventures and camp followers. 1t is
not difficult to decide which is the worse fate.
Louisiana, Arkansas Alabama are laboring
under a curse of misgoyernment which their
honest citizens have little hope of removing.
They are ridden to death by carpet-bag
swndlers as the conquered provinces of Rome
were pillaged by the favorites of the Caesars.
In South Carolina this era of foreign domina-
hands of its ignorant freedmen. How much
it may have yet to suffer before they learn the
art of government we shall not conjecture
but the situation is by no means hope
less. The blacks have discarded their car
pet-bag leaders they have undertaken to rule
without white assistance; thus they have them
selves made broad line of distinction be-
tween the party of the whites and the party
of the blacks, and have established the issue
which is sooner or later to work their political
overthrow. Their preponderance in numbers
may be represented now by about 10000 votes
and it is steadily diminishing Not only is
their natural increase slower than that of the
white population, but they are gaining moth
ing from immigration while the whites are
gaining great deal. Notwithstanding the op-
pressions of the tax xgatherer aud the pecula-
tor, the State is continually enriched by set
tement from tho North. and tho men who