Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1878-04-05
Geo. william Curtis in Harper's Wcchly.l
THE south"

The actual situation in the Southern States
is always so obscure that any intelligent and
impartial account deserves the most attentive
consideration. and such an account we have
from Mr. L. w. Higginson, who is well known
as an old abolitionist of the straitest sect and
as an observer of the truest Republican SYM
pathy. He has been recently in that part of
the country, and a brief paper by him in the
Woman's journal gives clear and interest
ing statement of his general impressions. Mr.
Hlgginson was the colonel of a colored regi-
ment, and served during the war in South
Carolina. No man is more careful of the
rights of the new citizens than he. and his
testimony is entirely free from all merely DO
ltical or interested pur ose. The first thing
that he remarked was the fact, so often for
gotten, that slavery has now been abolished
for large part of a generation, having been
abolished by proclamation sixteen wears ago
and having practically ceased to exist from
thirteen to sixteen years ago according to To-
cality. The young colored generation know
1t only as tradition, so that the practical
problems of life present themselves as they do
to white youth of the same condition with
the disadvantage, in the South as in the North.
of complexion.
The precise truth is. as Mr. Alexander H.
Stephens has said in Congress, that there rs n
universal recognition of the fact of the impos-
slDlHty OF the restoration OF slavery. 1t may
be i'll some cases regretted, but it is a fact alb
solutely and every where accepted. THE
negro question" as such, therefore, no longer
exists, and it is nowhere a subject of discus.
sion There is, indeed, the same grumblinp
about the ignorant vote that there is at the
North, and that there should be every where
and there is the same kind of feeling toward
the colored race as voters with which we are
familiar in this part of the country toward the
Ignorant immigrant vote. In all his travel
lng-and travelling manners show the real
character-in street cars and elsewhere. he
saw no sign of violence or hostility. Nor did
he hear complaints that they would not work,
although there is very little money to pay
them or other laborers and indeed. in
Charleston n leading colored man told him
that he thought his people had more money
there than the whites, and the white Young
men are compelled to work although they
must often go elsewhere to find something TO
do.
The most intelligent Republicans in South
Carolina, of either color. admitted that the
frauds of the ''carpet-bag" governments and
the outrages of the Ku-KluX had not been ex
aggerated. Each skept the other alive, but
both are now stopped Naturally, as each
State is left to itself, wherever the dominant
or Democratic party begins to divide upon in
'N''N'A "a ipNhA 'lht0ilOlA' thCll wing IS ready
to conciliate, and consequently to defend. the
colored vote as Northern politicians conciliate
the Irish vote while they denounce it. The
Democratic Legislature of Mississippi passed
vote of thanks to the colored Senator from
the State, Mr.. Bruce, which was an indirect
censure upon Mr.. Lamar; and Gov. Hamp-
ton, of South Carolina, gladly relies upon col
ored members of the Legislature to pass GER
tam measures against a part of his own party
All this, saS Mr. Higginson, may not be a
sufficient ground of security, but it shows a
healthy tendency. 1t is the natural and nor
mai development of TIE situation and it
would have been indefinitely postponed and
perpleXed if the old system of national suspi-
cion and armed repression had continues
and since it was concusively proved that the
old system could not retain those States as Re-
publican, even from a party point of view
patriotic Republicans must be glad that a pol
icy which merely aggravated the difficulties
and dangers of that part of the country has
given place to one that restores the normal
condition of political society.