The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-04-16

TO the Grey and Blue as emblems of
| a kindred honesty of purpose and
| resolute facing of death! 1t is out
| of soil fed with such blood that great
| men spring and the noblest groWths
of national character and ideals arise.
1 These things are now heritage;
| they belong to us as people; what
are we to do with them? To put
them in museum as in a shrine and
worship them is to show them small
honor; for they are not relics of a
dead past; they are achievements
which have created a new age; and
we honor them most truly when we
| lift ourselves in breadth of vision and
| of work, to their level.
There was an Old South and there
| is now a New South; there was also
| an Old North; it needs to be said
| that there is q New North. The Old
North and the Old South were separ-
ated by radical differences of opinion
and by deep and tragic ignorance;
| they drifted apart as the result of di-
vergent conditions which they very
imperfectly recognized, and when the
crisis was upon them they underesti-
mated alike the intensity of honest
| conviction and the resources of the
| two sections Provincial America had
| expanded into Sectional America
without any clear consciousness of
| the significance of the process, and
Sectional America has now become q
nation in the full, rich meaning of the
word and the New South and the
| New North are made up of the men
and women who understand the sig
nificance of this tremendous growth
and are determined to think and act
| in the light of it. These men and wo-
men, cherishing in equal honor the
high memories of the days when their
| fathers lived apart, have been drawn
together not by the watch words of
| the fathers but by their spirit; and,
| above all, by their immense bequest of
heroic service. The more rapidly and
completely they can dispcl the last
| lingering mist of MISUNDERSTANDING
and the more rapidly they can bring
in clear knowledge, the more vital
and fruitful will be the progress of
the real reconstruction which has sue
a reconstruction planned on sectional
instead of national lines.
THE New South has had much to
unlearn and to learn, and so has the
New North A more radical reversal
of opinion and feeling on many points
than that which has taken place in
the North during the past decade is
hardly afforded in any other period
or section 1t would be easy to point
the South, but that has been done
again and again; the country under.
stands in superficial way at least
what the New South stands for. 1T
does not, however. clearly understand
that there is a New North and what
the New North Glands for.
ut stands. in the first place, for n
complete, honest and sincere recogni-
ton that the Old South was as high
minded disinterested, and conscicn-
tious as the Old North; that what ii
believed with kindred integrity of con-
science and fought for with a courage.
self-sacri0ce and at a loss equalled
probably in range and magnitude.
only by the courage, self-sacrificc, and.
loss of the people of the Low Coun-
tries i'm their magnificent struggle
against Spain.
1T believes, in the second place,
that on the great question of the rela-
tive powers of the nation and of the
! States the Old South was technically
right, though historically wrong; that
Calhoun's argument, on strictl&
technical grounds, was unanswerable
In the great debate Hayne spoke au-
thoritatively for the trainers of the
constitution. while Webster spoke au-
thoritativcly for the necessities of the
nation.
1T recognizes, in the third place,
that the initial responsibility for slav-
cry was shared by the North and
South alike, and that in the earlier
stages OF colonial development, slav-
cry disappeared from the North and
strengthened its hold i'm the South as
the result of circumstances rather
than of moral repugnance; and it sees
with increasing clearneSS that to the
isolation of the South, logically
brought by slavery, was largely due
the arrest of the normal movement
of the Southern mind, which, from
the start, revealed a notable aptitude
for dealing with public affairs in a
large and statesmanlike spirit.
It recognizes, in the fourth place,
that the policy OF reconstruction
which subverted the order of society
in the South and placed the duties of
citizenship on the negro without edu-
eating him to bear them was blum
der of tragic magnitude and a gross
injustice to white and black alike;
that to set in inevitable antagonism
class of men with fifteen hundred
years of political education behind
them and class of men who had not
learned the rudiments of that educa-
ton was to invite the bitter and hui
initiating experience through which
he South passed at the close of the
war. 1t believes there were great and
serious MISTAKES OH DOlH SUES, DuI IL
regards those mistakes as part of the
old misunderstanding which made
Sectional America possible. The New
North does not believe that the door
of citizenship should be closed in any
mans face because of race or color;
but it also believes that all the condi-
lions of citizenship, save this, belong
to the States for settlement; that the
South should decide for itself the con-
ditions precedent to the granting of
the franchise; that the South under
stands, as the North does not and
cannot, the actual conditions under
which this problem must be worked
out; and that what the South needs
from the North is the patience which
is born of knowledge, the sympathy
which comes from an old and COM
mon responsibility, and the co-opera
ton which is the fruit of faith.
1.-The men and women of the New
North recognize, finally, the full CO.
partnership of the South with the
North in the shaping of the early his
tory of the nation and the preponder
ance of Southern men among the ear
ly leaders; they honor the breadth
and quality of educational work in
the Old and tba iOSpirippr leadership