The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1878-04-24
Education The Need Of The South.
APaper Read Before the American
Social Science Association, seplem-
nor 1877 Nv Dexter A. Hawkluy.

A Paper Read Before the American
Social Science Association, Seplem-
Der, 1877. BY Dexter A. Hawkins.
Mn. PRESIDENT, LADIES, AND GEN
TLEMEN: One of the most beneiicent-
problems that can engage our attention is
the restoration of tho Southern States TO
permanent peace and prosperity, rs equal
members of y great and free Democratic
Republic and the qualifying them for our
system of government, and harmonizing
them with it.
In order to effect this, without waste of
time and Of money, it Is necessary, first,
to diagnose their present conditions; to
look q little into its cause, no as to deter
mine how far this condition is the result
of social disease, and how far of injury,
and to apply, in proper proportions, the
wisdom Of the physician to the disease,
and the skill of the surgeon to the In
jury.
But, above all, We must bear in mind
that it il the Uis medicdtr11 ndturde, the
healing power Of time, supplemented
simply by human action, hat will work
enduring restoration. .
The social state, whether formed Of
EQUALS or of castles, and whether thriving
or growing poor, is of slow growth.
Generations are required to effect a radi-
cal change in it for good or for evil.
Let us take for examination and Illus
tration the nine cotton States: North
Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Geor-
gia, Alabama, Mississippi. Louisiana,
Texas, and Arkansas. They contain,
according to the census Of 1870, a poputa-
ton over ten years Of age OF q little moro
than five millions, of whom hfty.one per
cent. or 1855 ISL, cannot e dnd aD'7te !
| mi l. = 1,,o. tr,arfy-nnn NyAnrl
of age are 3,070, 900; Of these ffty-one and
one-auarter per cent, or l,572, l0l, cannot
read and write! .
This state of things is the result of
social disease of long standing, and calls
for the aid of the physician, whose pre-:
scriptions must be wise laws and careful
administration. .
The assessed valuation for taxation Of
property, both real and personal, in these
nine States in 1860, was S3,244,23 9, 4O6.
This was reduced in 1870 to the sum of
81, $3.50, 1853, 100, In other words, in the ten
years including the Rebellion their taxa,
Bile property had shrunk forty-three AND
o%ne-quarter per cent. This shrinkage
was the result partly of social disease,
slavery; and partly of injury inflicted
during the Rebellion, both by themselves
and by us.
Their ability to raise money by taxa
ton was thus in ten years reduced nearly
one half, while the immediate necessity
that is upon them, in order to fit hem
selves for free government based upon
universal suffrage, of changing nearly
three millions OF human cattle, late
Slaves, that formerly required nothing
but food and the lash, into three millions
of human beings, welding the ballot and
demanding education and protection, has
,norl, lnf1lo6 tho nOhlin
burdens to be borne by taxation. Here
is Just where the surgeons skill in the
shape of pecuniary splints, plasters, and
bandages,. that is, financial help, Is re-
quired.
This additional annual burden, to make
intelligent human beings out of these
late human cattle, must he borne, and be
borne now. It cannot be thrown of and
left for the next generation, without
causing aeocial and political disease
worse and more fatal to the nation than
hospital gangrene to tho wounded soldier,
or scrofula to the individual. The dense
ignorance Of these three millions OF full
iedged citizens either will be the death
Of free government, or it will generate a
distorted and diseased form Of it, worse
for the nation than Intelligent despot-
ism. u
We, as a nation, have Just experienced
a striking example Of the danger of de-
ferring or neglecting a great public moral
duty.
Ahundredy years ago we were afflicted
with a national malady, human slavery,
that Washington, Jefferson, and Frank
lin, and all history, taught us must be
uprooted, or it would strangle the Re-
public. we put off its e~xtirpation for a
century, and it cost as ten billions Of
money and a half million lives to repair
our neglect. Pc
Before prescribing a remedy for the
misfortunes that exist in the Southern
States, we must ask ourselves, "What is
to-day the condition of society there;
for what is feasible in one state of society
may be wholly impracticable in another:
what a homogeneous people may receive
gladly, o heterogeneous n may reject
utterly"
Their whole population is e,ss7,475. of
whom fifty-six and one half per cent, or
1896, 800, are white, and were born under
d system Of caste hat had Of necessity to
make right, and to hold q white. skin to
be a sortof patent Of nobility, q proof of
hereditary right to rule. This ttty-six
and one half per cent. cannot, so long rs
they live, help feeling that they still have
or ought to have, this right. We cannot
expect them to feel otherwise; for, like
ourselves, they are subject to the laws of
habit and carly training. We should feel
and think as they do, had we been
brought up and educated as they have.
Forty-three and one half per cent. Of
the population, or 1891, l55, are colored,
and came out of bondage; born to obey,
not to think; tn serve, no to rule.
All, both white and colored, grew up
in a state of society that held manual
labor degrading-the occupation OF
slaves; hence, the poor white, unable to
own slaves himself, became q loafer and
q hanger-on upon those who did own
them; and the freedman's first idea Of
liberty was chronic idleness. The slim
illus to industry and economy that intel
ligence gives was wanting.
Their politics and governments werc
in name democratic republican, but in
fact tyrannical and despotic oligarchies;
and, however free in theory, were in
practice intolerant and truculent. Ours
would have been the same if we had been
similarly situated. They were not to
social state of masters and slaves, from
which they have now just emerged. The
system Of slavery, and the training of the
whole body of inhabitants under it, both
masters and slaves, was in perpetual n
i~rreconcilable ~antagonism with any
government based on equal civil rights Of
all inhabitants. That training remains,
and must remain, till this generation
passes away.
The five years struggle Of the Rebel
lion did not ameliorate the evils OF this
state of society; it rather intensified and
embittered them. And it is not at all
strange that, when peace was restored,
the Southern whites, instead of giving
their hands to the colorcd man, and ask
ing him to buy some of their untitled
acres, felt more like giving him a kick,
as, somehow, the cause of their misfor-
tunes. In many localities they resolved
that, come what may, they would not sell
him an acre Of their soil. Every attempt
from the North to educate the freedmen
was naturally looked upon at first by the
Southern whites not as q philanthropic
effort to transform those idle human cat
tie into intelligent, Industrious, and pro-
ductive human beings, but as a scheme
of outsiders to transfer political power
and Office from the white race to the
colored.
The Southern whites, from prejudice
and wrong education, and the Southern
blacks, from ignorance and inexperience,
were unfit at the close of the civil war to
rule a State where each human being has
equal civil rights.
A difficult problem, then, was twelve
years ago presented to the national
Government. If it followed historical
precedents, it would establish military