Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1875-03-31
THE PROBLEM OF THE NEGROs
FUTURE.

THE PROBLEM OF THE NEGROS
FUTURE.
St. Louis Republican.
Why is it that all efforts to attract
immigration to the Southern States
have been signal failures? There are
no fairer regions on the continent than
Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee;
there is no place in all the North where
an industrious white man can make
more money, with the same amount of
labor, than on the cotton lands of
Mississippi or in the sugar districts of
Louisiana. But, though choice lands
in Mississippi and Louisiana may be
had from S. to SO per acre, though
farms IN Arkansas, Alabama and South
Carolina may be had for next to MOTH
ing, there is not, and has not been
since the war, any immigration what
ever into the negro States, with
the exception of Missouri. Texas, it
is true, is filling up with new
settlers, but they come from other
Southern States; and all the migra-
ton that Is seen IN the South is
either a movement of whites to the
North, or a transfer Of whites and
blacks from one Southern State to an
other; no influx of population from the
North or from abroad is. observable.
The conclusion which these singular
facts irresistibly force is that the merit
immovable negro population in the
Southern States IS an impossible bar
rier to immigration. If the 5l2, 900
blacks now IN Virginia could be trans
ferred to Iowa, the two States would
change places; immigration wouldpOur
into the white State of Virginia, and
avoid the black State of Iowa, and the
Northern position and character of the
latter State would not avail to change
the current. Indeed, the fact that
whites from the North and abroad re-
fuse to 90 into the South no less now
than before emancipation, proves
that it was not slavery, but the
presence of the black race that has
caused the inferiOrity of those States
to their Northern sisters, In wealth and
power. If the blacks in the South
were assimilable with our composite
race, as other people are, or if they
were as insignificant in numbers as
the are in the Northern States, the
force Of circumstances would settle all
difficulties. But when there are 4,O00,-
900 blacks in the South-when there
are five blacks to seven whites in Vir-
ginia, one black TO every white In Lou
isiana, four blacks to three whites IN
Mississippi, and four blacks to two
whites IN South Carolina; and when 1t |
is reflected that it is the nature of the |
negro race to become sOrooted IN the soil |
that nothing but force can detach him |
fromit-the future of our relations with |
this separate and inferiorrace sfoundtO |
be enveloped in difficulty and uncer-
tainty. On one hand, logic and alb |
stract right require that, IN a republic, |
all men should be equal; but the oppO-
sitiOn which the Republican North pre-
sents TO the civil rights law, and It's
manifest determination to overthrow
it, prove conclusively that whites and /
blacks in this country are not equal, |
and that the whites are resolved they /
shall not be. Whether the two races,
thus socially and legally separate,
should not be geographically separated
it will not become necessary
to surrender a portion of the South to
the negro to save the other portions
indeed, the negro himself is
not now forcing things in this direc-
tion-are questions which, within ten
years, perhaps, we shall have to con-
slider and decide.