The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-03-02
Ante BelIumSouthern States
men Were Right.
is PROGRESS EVERYTHING
Issues Of '61 Were Centralism, I'm
perialism, and Race Question.
ARE THEY TO-DAY LIVE ISSUES OR DEAD
Does Not the Race Problem Stand in Our Way,
Threatening the virity, The Purity,
Of Our Raca, Unless We Can
Answer II?

Answer 1t?
To the Editor: Mr.. B. Boissen Bobbitt |
has recently published an article on the
causes which led up to the war for
Southern independence, in which he
analyzes in admirable temper and with
fairness as he sees it, the merit of the
two sides. His position is, in substance,
that while the South was constitutionally
right the North was right from moral
and practical standpoint. And while he
does not expressly say so, the unavoid-
able inference is that while Northern
craftsmanship of the ante bellum period
was broad precient altrinstic, South
ern craftsmanship was narrow. purb
lind, selfish.
Nor is Mr. Bobbitt alone in the position
he holds He is, | must admit, in ac
cord with the consensus of opinion.
Southern valor and Southern generalship
have been generally admitted. South
ern craftsmanship is still most sadly
discredited. Worst of all it seems to be
in as much discredit at the South as
anywhere else. We have been more
than content to kiss the rod that smote
US, and bless our former foes for having
saved us from our former selves.
From a short sighted and from the
lowest unhistorian standpoint this atti-
tude is APPARENTLY right. There is more
prosperity in the country. more mills,
more railroads. more men in broadcloth
more women in satin; we are burning our
candle faster end at more ends than il
Grant had yielded to Lee, instead of Lee
TO Grant.
II material prosperity were all; if food
and drink and fine raiment were all; if
human happiness or human virtue-and
largely speaking they are SYNONYMOUS
depended on the speed and tonnage OF
ships and cars; if Z increased with the
output of iron at the mines, or the intake
of gold at the banks, then might we be
thankful that Southern arms failed and
that things are as they are. But if ex-
perience teaches anything it is that
riches and luxury lower oftener than they
raise the Individual; if history cons over
to us one lesson with more iteration than
another it is that wealth and luxury have
been the pitfall of nations that man
hood and womanhood decayed as wealth
increased.
We fatter ourselves that being
1.-THE heir of all the ages
Foremost in the files of time
blessed with broader and ripper wis
dom. safeguarded by philosophy and the
printing press, that we can suck the
honey and shun the poison that turks in
the gilded flower Of prosperity. Babylon
and Tyre and every civilization over
whose ruins the bat fits and the liz
gard crawls doubtless had fetiches as po-
tent to save in the eyes of their wor-
shippers the fetch knowledge is in
ours. That ours may not fail us we can
only hope; We cannot know But this is
all, by the way.
Southern craftsmanship in 1861, accept
ed the alternative of war, because as it
solemnly averred two vital issues
were involved. Those issues We're CEN
tralism. Imperialism and the race ques-
ton. Has time justified this averment?
Are they today live issues or dead? Do
they not overshadow every other issue
that now confronts us? Has not CEN
tralism, after dominating the field of
politics, now invaded every other field in
which the Individual can be oppressed?
Does not the race problem stand
sphynx-like, in our way, threatening to
devour the high qualities, the virility
the purity, of our race unless we can
speedily find the right answer? We have
in our midst ten million of negroes a
race that for century of centuries have
stood immovable and immovably on the
lowest rung of the ladder of human de-
velopment, a race whose instincts are
the negative of morality and of all adj
vancement
What will be the result when these ten
million are absorbed by the American
people. when this tide of pollution flows
in upon the clear current of our blood
Miscegenation is a horrible thing TO
contemplate so horrible that we refuse
to cont template it. Yet what thinking
man will deny that the trend is all that
way. The past teaches us that when
two races thrown together on terms of
political equality, that social equality
and finally amalgamation follows surely,
and not slowly, historically speaking
/ repeat that the South drew the
the sword at no chemeras; at
no hobgoblins. the reflection of
its own disordered Imagination in the
mist that shroud the future. 1t sought
TO destroy the hydra centralsm; to fore
stall the race question and hold it IN
allegiance to be solved by the wis
dom, not by the hot passions of tile
country; by the philosopher and the
statesman, not by the fanatic and the
politician.
Till her Just fears for her very exist
'ence aroused by the incendiarism o.
Sortherr~--fapa5ies, the South was not
only fully alive to<the evils of slavery
TO both races. but WIS constantly cast
ing about for some msans to migrate
and finally abolish it. But great as was
the evil of slavery, our statesmen saw
mat UNNECESSARILY vas.er evils would
now from suddenly destroying the bar
Tlers and allowing this alien tide to work
us VIII socially, politically and racially. |
The necessity for dfsunion was a de-