New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1875-10-26
RECONCILIATION OF RACES.

There must have been o difference be
tween the relations of white and coloret
people in the older States of the Soutl
and those of the Gulf. Dwelling together
for two centuries, watching the gradua
progress from idolatry to civilization, anG
above all moved to entire confidence by
the fidelity of the slave when an army O.
emancipation advanced to his relief, The
older slave States seem to have accepted
the change in the negro condition without
the temper which has manifested itsel
in the cotton States of the Gulf These
last were purchasers Of the surplus Of the
first. and may have been exasperated by
the fact of manumission before the labor
had compensated them for its own pur
chase. Millions of money were due from
citizens of the Gulf cotton States at the
close of the war, while We may suppose
that none at all was owing among the
older States that reared this labor.
Perhaps when the demand for this pur.
chased labor ceased the old slave States
were not averse to throwing upon the ne.
gro the support of himself and family be.
cause the profits of his labor might no
longer justify any one in rearing and car
ing for any other family than his own.
| II is well known that the slave States of
Virginia and Kentucky were at one time
disposed to follow the example of New
York and New England, and emanci-
pate slaves who were no longer worth the
cost of maintenance. The improved profits
of cotton culture gave a new value to
slave labor, and the old slave States had
no further motive of that sort.
The difference between those who had
been reared inthe ownership and domes-
tic association of the negroes, and those
who suddenly acquired them as an ele-
ment of production, may tend to &C.
count for the confidence of the old slave
States and the distrust of the new.
All familiar with Southern society are
aware of the different view with which
an overseer or any other non-slaveholder
regarded the negroes, and that which the
owner and those always accustomed to
domestic association with the slaves
felt toward them. How common it was
for the women and children to interfere
between the discipline Of the overseer and
the slave? A person who had never
owned slaves, suddenly enabled to pur-
chase them, naturally looked only to their
physical capacity to repay the investment;
such persons were inclined to look
upon the negro very much as
npon his ally, the mule. The in
crease of population in the cotton States
between the decades of 1850 and 1860 was
very great. In the district comprised of
Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas and
Texas it was one hundred and twenty per
cent between 1910 and 1850, and eighty
three per cent between 1850 and 1860.
This increase was chiefly in Mississippi
and Louisiana, and was confined prin-
cipally to the importation of slaves. In
Mississippi the slave was double the white
population in 1860.
With this heterogeneous relation be-
tween the whites and blacks, it was natural
that there should have been less confidence
between the races in Mississippi and
Louisiana than in Kentucky, Virginia or
Carolina.
In the cotton States the ties were want
ing which bound the masters and SER
wants by almost ancestral relations. We
have not, then, been surprised to see the
obsequies Of the distinguished Confeder-
ate General Pickett celebrated at Rich
mond by the Virginia Grays, colored, the
Attacks Guard, colored-Attucks was, we
believe, the negro martyr in the revolu-
ton. These colored companies marched
in the same procession with the veterans
of the Army of Northern Virginia.
The same harmony of races has been
shown in many other respects. They
have not found it necessary in the old
slave States to employ force or intimida-
ton toward the negroes.
1t was, we are aware, very fashionable
to reproach those old slave States with un-
due delay in engaging in secession. If they
displayed their courage and constancy in
the war, might it not be as we'll for the
people of the cotton States to accord them
some share of wisdom and courage in har-
monizing the two races? May it not be
barely possible, after all, that the fidelity
to their pledges which has admitted the
negro to the polls and accepts his SYM
pathy for distinguished soldier fighting
against their freedom, is at least as wise
as the race strife Of 1866, of Colfax, and of
Coushatta.