The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1874-09-03

tons disgraceful to civilized nation Will be
perused with deep regret by our readers The
baleful influence of the Civil Rights bill upon
the educational system in Tennessee by rails
ing the cry for mixed schools as the proper
method OF elevating the negro to terms OF
social equality with his white brother bids fair
to destroy the public schools in that State. As
might have been anticipated, this attack on
educational institutions and the horrible out
rages-of which our exchanges inform us-are
mainly the handiwork of INSCRIPTIONS dema-
gogues and incendiaries, who try to make
capital by exciting the worst passions Of the
human mind. The mutual repugnance of the
two races is deep and real, and where the
State governments are inadequate to hold such
dangerous elements in check the worst conse-
quences may be feared.
1t was always predicted by our statesmen.
previous to the civil war, that emancipation
would be followed by merciless war Of races.
and the most enlightened foreign observers
adopted the same opinion. The philosophic
De Tocqueville said, in his great work on our
institutions, II am obliged to confess that
do not regard the abolition of slavery as o
means of warding off struggle of the two
races in the United States" He thought there
was no safe intermediate course between
holding the negroes in servitude and inter
mingling with them after emancipation, and
that anything short of perfect social equality
and intermarriages seemed ''likely to termi-
nate in the most horrible of civil wars and,
perhaps, in the extirpation of one or other of
the two races" Of course this opinion had
something to Justify it or it would not have
been held by so many able men. Nine years
of experience since the close of the war has
nearly convinced the world that their view of
the danger was prodigiously exaggerated if not
wholly chimerical. But the recent occurrences
in the South make it necessary to revise this
opinion and inquire if there were not some
real ground for the old fears. If there has
been peace in the South since emancipation it
is undeniable that there has also been deep
and bitter discomfort. There is neither
friendship nor harmony of feeling nor con-
cord OF action between the two races, and the
estrangement has grown with the progress Of
influence. In politics the negroes are all on
one side and the great body of the white citi-
zens on the other; and the latter, in despair
of ever dividing the colored vote, are beginning
to revive the old cry Of white mans party.
The two races stand more widely apart to-day
than they have at any previous time since the
close of the war, and the breach seems more
likely to widen than to be closed.
Whether the former predictions of so many
sagacious men of q war of races as the inevi-
have been so long falsifed if the two races
had been left to themselves it is impossible
to say. The federal government has stood
over the South as the menacng guardian of
the freedmen, maintaining large bodies of
troops there until some time after the work of
reconstruction had been completed, protect
ing the blacks and holding the white inhabi-
tants in fear What would have happened in
their absence is matter Of mere speculation
and conjecture; but certain it is that
quietness has not increased since their
withdrawal. If war of races should arise
and become general it will be the fruit of long
INDUCED animosities breaking out with sudden
violence. The ill-feeling between the North
and South which resulted in our civil war
was thirty years in ripening; but it will not
require thirty years nor half of that period to
fan the hostility of the two races to the point
of general bloodshed if it goes on at it's
present pace. 1t will not do to ignore the
necessary tendency of these growing senti-
ments Of mutual repugnance because it's vio-
lent manifestations are as yet only local and
sporadic. The dangerous passions out of
which they grow pervade the whole South
We wish we could impress the Southern
whites with due sense of the importance of
arresting and controlling these ill-boding ten
denotes. IF they cannot keep peace between
the two races nothing is more certain than
armed interference by the federal government.
which nobody has SO much reason to depre-
cate as the people of the South. They have
had enough of this already, and should not
invite it again The precious right Of self
government SO long impaired in tue South,
can be reacquired only by patient efforts dur
ing period of internal peace. Their expert
ence has taught them how monstrously even
small disturbances are exaggerated by the in
cendiary portion of the Northern press and the
infammatory effect of such exaggerations in
arousing passions of which political partisans
are too ready to take advantage. We appeal
to thoughtful and patriotic Southern citizens
to save their unfortunate section from the hor-
rors and the new federal oppression which
would accompany and follow war of races.