Morning journal and courier., 1880-09-28
..BR1cks WITHOUT STRAW"

HBRlCkS WITHOUT STRAW
 In that remarkable book "A Fools Err rand, Judge Tohrgee brought more vividly before the eyes of the nation than any one before him had done the real elements of the problem of reconstruction, its immense difficulties, the inadequacy of the means en- ployed to surmount them and the unsatis- factory results achieved. The same author has written another novel dealing with the reconstruction period, and in some sort se- que1 to "A Fools Brand 5 though the story is complete in itself and has another set of characters. It's title is Bricks Without Straw" and it's purpose, like that of it's pre- decessor, is to illustrate the failure of the reconstruction methods and to show-the req
 son of it. It treats rather of the social than the political aspects of reconstruction.
 In his new book Judge Tourgee describes the prosperous growth of community of freedmen in North Carolina in the period immediately following Lees surrender while the freedmen's bureau afforded protection to the colored people and kept their white neighbors under restraint, and the unhappy fate that befel them afterward when those restraints were removed, and the former own CTS of the soil and the people found to their surprise that the national government had withdrawn it's supervision of their affairs, that the constitutional amendments and the acts based upon them were only paper bar riers against oppression, and that they were absolutely at liberty to deal with the freedmen as their own sense of propriety and justice might suggest. The sickening disappoint- ment of the colored people when they found their recently acquired and highly prized rights only transient illusion, the frightful cruelties they suffered, and the arrogant ex- ultation of their oppressors, described with faithfulness and intensity that make the story as painful as it is fascinating
 We have not room for long or numerous extracts from the book, but we give the fol- lowing to show the fairness and ability with which Judge Tourgee deals with his subject. He says:
 It was not from hatred to the negro, but to destroy his political power and restore again their own insulted and debased supre- macy, that such things were done as have been related. It was to show the conqueror that the bonds in which the sleeping Samson had been bound were green withes which he scornfully snapped asunder in his first waking moment. Pride the most overween- ing, and prejudice of caste the most in- tense and ineradicable, stimulated by the ehagrin of defeat and infamed by the sense of injustice and oppression-both these lay at the bottom of the acts by which the rule of the majorities established by reconstruc- tionary legislation were overthrown. It was these things that so blinded the eyes of whole people that they called this bloody masquera- ding, this midnight warfare upon the weak, this era of unutterable horror, 'tredeeming the South!'
 There was no good man, no honest man, no Christian man of the South who for an instant claimed that it was right to kill, maim, beat, wound and nl-treat the black man, either in his old or his new estate. He did not regard these acts as done to another man, compeer, but only as acts of cruelty to an inferior so infinitely removed from himself as to forbid any comparison of rights or feelings It was not right to do evil to ''nigger"; but it was infinitely less wrong than to do it unto one of their own color. These men did not consider such acts as right in themselves, but only as right in view of their comparative importance and necessity, and the unspeakable inferiority of their victims.
 For generations the South had regarded the uprising of the black, the assertion of his manhood and autonomy, as the ultima thule of possible evil San Domingo and hell were twin horrors in their minds with the odds, however, in favor of San Domingo. To pre- vent negro domination anything was justif- able It was choice of evils, where on one side was placed an evil which they had been taught to believe, and did believe, infinitely outweighed and overmatched all other evils in enormity. Anything, said these men in their hearts; anything, they said to each other; anything, they cried aloud to the world, was better, is better, must be better, than negro rule, than African domination.
 Now, by negro rule they meant the exer- else of authority by majority of citizens of African descent, or a majority of which they constituted any considerable factor. The white man who acted with the negro in any relation of political coordination was deemed even worse than the African himself If he became leader he was mathematical for elf-seekng If he only co-operated with his ballot he was denounced a& coward. In any