Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1874-12-19
UNPREJUDIOED TESTIMONY.
The Southern People Nobly VIM
dicated.

A Member of the British Parlia.
ment Tells the Union
Leauguers What
He Thinks
OF Us.
Last Monday on the eve of his departure
for Europe, the Union League Of New
York gave reception to Hon. w. E. Fors-
ter, who delivered lengthy address, from
which we make the following extract:
doubt whether there ever was a civil
war, or any war which was waged with
greater destruction of life on each side, with
greater suffering, and may say with greater
courage, greater heroism, greaterendurance.
And when say that, 4 don't say on one
side only, For your fellow countrymen of
the South showed that they were Ameri-
cans-showed, might say, that they were
of English descent. CApplause.] We
know the courage with which they fought
was wasted on a wrong side; it was ex-
pended in what was indeed 4 bad cause,
| but they did not think so. They were in
rebellion because Of the circumstances that
surrounded them. There was snch fate
and destiny hanging over them, and these
men who were fighting against the Union
and fighting for slavery thought, as they
| told me in the South, that they were fight
| ing for their 6resideS. But not only was
| the war waged one of the greatest wars in
the world for the valor and heroism with
which il was waged, but there is an
other fact which is brought home
to me by the short visit which l have paid
nd hat - rix
war which, l fully believe, has left less
hatred and less rancor behind it [applausel;
less hatred between the freedmen and their
masters. l don't say that there is abso-
lutely no ill-feeling or ill-will left on the
part Of any Of the men in the South, or
that what happened to the men in the
North has been entirely wiped out of their
memories; but do say this to the credit of
our common race, there was never a con-
test that we can find anywhere but itself,
no civil war for any length Of time prose-
cuted that has left so little of a feeling of
hatred on the part of the csmbatants, and
has made il so easy for them now to unite
together, and TO be, as the President said,
one country, hardly remembering their
difficulties. [Applanse-l Twas introduced
last week by Federal General to a Con-
federate General, on the floor of the House.
heard, as | went through the country,
men who had been fighting in different
camps, talking over the battles in which
they had been opposed to each other, and
in fact | was always told that if there was
any difficulty or disagreement left it was
not between those who fought, but rather
between those who had not fought. "a
Taught
THE MASTER AND THE SLAVE.
Well, sir, then as regards the master and
the slave, l do not deny that you have a
terrible problem most difficult problem
before you-the problem of dealing with
the freedman and considering what the an
tecedenis of slavery are, what slavery made |
him-aye, what slavery made his master. |
The problem of having to deal with these |
men in their new conditions is one that |
may well call for all the forbearance and all |
the wisdom of the government, and poll |
ticians and people. And even then, al |
though do not mean to say that you have |
not difficulties in the present; that you |
have not difficulties perhaps in the imme- |
date future; yet, even then, you ought to |
be full Of hope, for great is the progress Of |
the past. am not here to tell you what |
you yourselves know so much better than l |
do. II would be presumptuous on my part |
TO put before you the little experience / |
have learned in this short and hasty tour 1 |
have made through your country, but l |
must say that going down to the South |
with the most intense interest in the fate |
and condition Of the freedmen, have come |
from it with great feeling Of hOpefulness, |
in spite of every difficulty there may be at |
the present, and in the spite of every dis |
turbance we sometimes hear Of and lament |
Il, h 20 n, |
that problem.
CONDITION OF THE SOUTH.
One or two little things which L noticed |
in the South impressed me very fayorably; |
and though they may not be new TO YOU, /
they were details which very deeply i'm |
pressed me. | went TO a sugar plantation /
near New Orleans, and there found only |
two changes. One change was--the slaves |
were free. But there | saw two women =,
and man working, and a white man |
walking down the canes. He VS. their /
foreman now; he had been their overseer.
He said that the freedmen and the freed |
women whom he had in the times of slavery /
to drive to work with the lash cheerfully |
earned their thirty dollars a month, with /
rationg for the men, and seventy-five cents /
q day for the women, with rations. That /
is fact you may set up against all you
hear from Nicksburg-and the Return /
ing Board Of New Orleans. Laughter. I /
Then again there was another lit
tie fact. I Only mention it
among thousands of such facts. In place
in which, a few years ago, it would have
been a crime to teach any colOred person
10 read, we went to an excellent colored
school, and the parents came with the chill
dren, and we asked how many of these had
Teen slaves, and we ascertained that almost
every one of them had been. And again,
We asked how many had little bits Of land,
and large proportion of them we found
had little bits of land. There again is
progress in the past that shows how really
you are working out the problem, and l
believe, if l may be allowed to say it, that
all that is wanting now is to leave matters
very much to themselves, and YOU will find
the whites and blacks, the masters and
their slaves, will accustom themselves to
the new state of society, to the new posi-
ton of the labOrer. There remains this
most important fact-a fact which is of i'm
pOrtance 10 US as well as to you. Contrary
to the experience of the West Indies, the
actual amount of produce raised in the
South, the actual crops that have been
taken from the soil, including cotton, rice
and tobacco is as great as IL was before the
abolition of slavery. Well, must not de-
tain you with any extended remarks. [Cries
of $50 on, go ONT I viii mention one
other fact that came before me when was
there. Whenever l could, l heard your
oratory-neyer missed a speech, if could
possibly help it, and heard one eloquent
gentleman responding to a welcome which
was conveyed, not as conveyed to me to
night, but in the form ola serenade. cannot
repeat bis speech, but there was one sentence '