The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1891-10-15
THE SOUTH.
New York Ledger. ]

New York Ledger
There are two Cogent reasons why
all Americans should view with SYM
pathy the striking outcome of the eff
forts of the South at self-regeneration.
One is the chronological character Of
the white inhabitants of the Southern
States The other is the unparalleled
difficulty of the social problem imposed
by the emancipation of the blacks.
Nowhere else within the bounds of the
Union are the white people SO homo
geneous and SO distinctively American
as they are in the States which were
formerly slave holding.
This hoInogeneity and intense Amer
icanism was shared by New England
fifty years ago but since the sweeping
emigration of New EnglanderS to the
West and the occupation of the vacat-
ed places by French Canadians, there
is large and growing admixture of
alien and unassimilated elements in
the New England population. South
of the Potomac, on the other hand, the
chronological conditions remain sub
stantially what they were at the be-
ginning of the century. If we except
few descendants of French Protest
ants in South Carolina and of Catho-
lies in Louisiana, all the white people
of the South are of purely English lin
cage, or else are off shoots of that
SCotch-Irish stock to which we owe
Patrick Henry, John c. Calhoun, An
drew Jackson and, let us add, Henry
w. Grady. 1t should be remembered
that the English and Scotch-Irish emf
grants. from whom the Southern whites
are descended, reached this country
almost to man, before the Revolu-
tionary War, very small flood of en-
igration having since that period been
directed south of Mason and DiXon's
line. The result is that if we would
see the so-called native American, the
typical American, the man who best
represents the conjoint effect of English
or SCotch-Irish hereditary aptitudes OF
transatlantic and environment, we
are now most certain to find him in
the South. Whatever triumphs, there
fore, in the evolution of natural re-
sources or in the solution of social
problems, are achieved the Southern
whites have 4 peculiar interest and i'm
portanCe for genuine Americans al
over this broad country.
1t is too often overlooked that in
the black man problem with which ths
Southern whites have to deal, there
are elements of difficulty unparalleled
in history. When the slaves were Sc
free in Jamaica and the smaller pos
sessions of Great Britain in the Yves
Indies, the sum of one hundred million
dollars was voted by Parliament &c
compensate the planters for the loss Q
their capital, which in reliance on ex
isting laws, had been invested in negro
labor. If the holding of human being
in servitude was sin, it was argued
then it was 4 sin in which the British
government had been for centuries ar
accomplice, and it was deemed unjus
to make single generation of slave
owners pay the whole penalty for thu
accumulated wrongs of ages.
Again, when many millions of Rus
Sian serfs were liberated by Alexande
H., they were not cast adrift upon tn,
world to prey upon society, but were
provided with lands which were pur
chased from their former masters witt
funds advanced by the State BY thi
equitable arrangement the ex-master
were shielded from impoverishmen
and the eX-slaves from restitution.
tremendous social revolution was thu
accomplished with scarcely any friction
No such attempts to tighten TIT
hardship of a social cataclysm wer
made in the United States Neithe
were the masters partially indemniheC
as they were in Jamaica, nor were tn
slaves equipped with the means O
earning livelihood. At one strok
the masters were deprived of the labo
with which alone they could turn thei
lands to account, while the slaves re
ceived only the liberty to starve.
We do not hesitate to say that if tn
emancipation problem had been pre-
sented in these terms in Russia, it
solution would have been impossible
No other race but the Anglo-Saxon, q
1t has been tempered and toughene
on this side of the Atlantic could de;
with problem of such stupendou
difficulty. That the Southern white
have grappled with it soberly, yet feal
lessly, with the full appreciation of i
magnitude, yet with an answering IT
solve to solve it, is fact that reflect
singular credit on the American chal
acter, and of which all of us may We
be proud.