The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1901-09-08
RECONSTRUCTION IN THE SOUTH

most notable series Oh papers tnaI nave
appeared the past six months in this
magazine is THE Reconstruction Pc
riod." The best of the series up to the
lseptember number were contributed by
DR.. Woodrow Wilson and Ex-Governor
Chamberlain, formerly of South Caro-
lima. The article in the September issue
by Thomas Nelson Page is, however,
easily the best of this series of most in
teresting articles upon a subject of deep
Interest Perhaps no man is better fitted
for the work than Mr.. Page, for in the
preparation of Red Rock" he had
studied every phase of the reconstruc-
ton period until he had mastered almost
every incident connected with it. He
writes of course as a Southerner, but not
as one lacking breadth of view and ac-
curacy of information. He points out
that the Northern idea that the South
was peopled by lazy and improvident
people was dissipated early in the war,
but-the real Southern power to labor
played after the war. Upon that point
he says:
What the South really was she gave
no small proof of during the war; she
! gave even stronger proof of after the
| war. Without ships; without money;
| without machinery that could produce a
| knife, blanket, or a tin cup; without
an ally; without even the sympathy of
a single nation; without knowledge of the
/ outside world or indeed of her able and
| determined opponent, she withstood to
the final gasp the vast forces thrown
| against her-enduring all things, hoping
all things, until she was not only over
| thrown, but actually destroyed. When
Sherman marched crosas the South to the
sea, he found it to be an empty she'll. At
| that same time the campaign from the
Rapidan to AppomattoX cost Grant 124,-
| 900 men,-about two men for every man
that Lee had in his army
| but as notable as were the intrepidity
of her soldiery in the field and the en-
| durance of her people at home, they were
not equal to the resolution and courage
that her people displayed in the great
| and unrecorded struggle afterwards. The
one was fight of disciplined armies,
with an open sky and fair field, the en-
| durance of a people animated by hope;
| the other was a long and desperate Strug
| gle, with shackled hands, against foe
| that, in the darkness, unknown to the
| rest of the world, or with a sort of blind
approval on it's part fastened on it's
vitals and slowly Slapped its life blood"
Like most Southerners. Mr. Page holds
the view that the assassination of Presi-
dent Lincoln was a calamity to the
South, and he believes that if he had
lived the awful orgie of recon-
struction would have been mitigated.
He probably puts too high an estimate
upon Mr.. Lincoln as he certainly under
rates the ability. honesty and sincere at
tempt to enforce policy of justice and
| moderation by President Andrew John
| son. MIR Page thinks little of
Observation-Disclosures him, as we think, in.
every way doing him as much injustice
as he -idealizes Lincoln and his
supposed desire to save the South That
Mr.. Lincoln would have advocated a
policy of fairness we have never doubt
ed. That he would have insisted upon
it over the protest of his rabid Cabinet,
is open to great doubt. Mr.. Lincoln
bore no resentment and was the best of
all the leaders of his party, but would
ne have given battle to their determin-
cd policy of vengeance and political
cunning? Mr.. Page evidently thinks
that Mr. Lincoln would have been equal
to the conflict an advocacy of a just
policy of moderation would have brought
about.
No more graphic picture of the condi-
tions in the South under reconstruction
has been drawn than this:
"The white race were disfranchised,
and were not allowed the franchise again
until they had assented to giving the
black race absolute equality in all mat
| ters of civil right. This the leaders of
the other side vainly imagined would
perpetuate their power, and for time
it almost promised to do so. The result
of the new regime thus established in the
| South was such a riot of rapine and raS-
| cality as had never been known in the
| history of this country and hardly ever
| in the history of the world. 1t would
seem incredible to any but those who
have investigated it for themselves. The
States were given over to pillage at the
| hands of former slaves, led largely by
adventures whose only aim was to graf
| ify their vengeance or their cupidty. The
measure of their peculation and dam
| age, as gagged by figures alone, staggers
| belief. ..... Unhappily, the credulity and
| ignorance of the negroes threw them into
| the hands of the worst element among
| the adventurerS who were vying to be-
| come their leaders. The man who was
| bold enough TO bid the highest outstrip-
ped the others Under the teaching and
with the aid of these leaders, the negroes
showed signs of rendering considerable
parts Of the Southern States uninhabita-
| bic by the whites. Had the latter given
the slightest sign of being cowed or of
| yielding, they probably would have been
! lost forever but, fortunately for the
South, they never yielded"
| 1t is to be hoped that when this series
| is completed, the Atlantic Monthly will
in,