Year: 1874

SLAVE, AND AS EQUAIS-A GENERATION ihAiN'o


TO IDLENEss-FREEDoM THAT BROUGHT DEMoh-


AIIzATIoN-THE CONDITION OF THE soeih MIS-


UNDERSTOOD AT THE NORTH.


yrRoa THE SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT OF THE rhnoNhl


MoNrGoMrRy Ala Oct. Silt is common re-
mark in the South and especially IN the Cotton
States that reconstruction has proved failure,
ana 70 wba, we witness in Louisiana, Arkansas,
.na Sontb Carolina and In less degree in Ala
hama il the legitimate result of reeonstruc-
t;on IL must be confessed that its success
has been far from fattering to those who
hoped TO see peace, good government, aud
material prosperity return to the South with the
restoration of the Union. But while the errors of
reconstruction and the blunders, or worse, of the
Federal Administration, have undoubtedly aggra-
waited the disease. they are not believe, the sole
causes of the present deporable state of affairs in
many parts of the South. but are themselves the re-
suit on the part of the statesmen and politicians
who devised them, Of a failure to comprehend the
length and the breadth, the hight and the depth of
the great problem they were called upon to solve.


Recent history furnishes no example of so sudden
md violent revolution in the social and material
fortunes of civilized people that which followed
the close of the war in the Cotton Belt The plant
of Alabama were, prior to 1860 among the richest
and most Independent agrcultUrsts in the world.
There is not in the two hemispheres more delight
ful climate than that of this State. During a few
of the Summer months 1t is hot, but the Winter
is mild and Spring and Fall are all that could be
desired.


CoTToN-PLANTING IN SLAVERY TINES
The soil is naturally of wonderful fertility. Here
in the Cotton Belt beautiful praires alternate with
forests of heavy timber thus afordng all the advan-
tages for agriculture offered by the West, with q
much more agreeable climate and an abundance of
wood for fuel and building purposes, the want of
which is severely felt by many of the wheat and
farmers. The planters of this State were gen.
orally the owners of large tracts of this valuable
land, and they raised upon it crop which, in spite
of its vicssiudes, is in many respects superior to
any other that Is produced To make crop of cot
ton requires many months of unremitting labor but
when the harvest comes and the cotton is ready to
pick there is no crop that is so easily handled so
easily marketed, and for which the money is always
90 ready. The labor system was also, believe the
cheapest in the world; it almost selfsupportng
Oh well-managed plantations so that the cost of
making q thousand bales of cotton was often very
little more than the interest on the value of the
land on which it grew. and of the negroes who
worked ii. Before the war ten cents pound was
high price for cotton; now it costs more than that
TO raise it.


Under all these circumstances, it is not strange
that the Alabama cotton planter lived like baron
His annual crop enabled him to surround himself
and his family with every luxury his children
might be educated in the most expensive schools in
the North in Europe and he himself was the best
patron of the fashionable watering-place If at
home he sometimes lived in q rude style, and
knew nothing of many of the comforts that were
considered indispensable in most Northern homes,
there a generosity and a grandeur even in its
rudeness that made it attractive These people
were also growing richer year by year even if they
doll nf Tho ivo1f f1,o,r
CROP the natural increase in the number of their
negroes was a constant source of augmentng
wealth.


GENERATION REARED IN IDLENFss


The majority of the children who were reared un-
der influences like these were, of course, taught
useful occupation. A few of the young who had
literary tastes intended for professional life,
received so-called liberal education, and many of
the young ladies were accomplished" Neither
were accustomed to work people in the North
work. The young men rode. hunted fished gave
little time TO the plantation. which was generally
managed by Overseer, and much time to amuse-
ments and politics, and the young women were
ladies" with little practical knowledge of the du-
ties of household, and entirely dependent upon the
colored servants.


Alabama had an honest and economical Govern
ment before and during the war The bonded debt
of the State when the Ordinance of Secession was
passed was only about S60O0OOO and during the
whole war there failure TO provide for the
interest on this cotton being sent through the
blockade for that purpose. Taxes were low, and
good cotton lands worth from $50 to $50
acre. Nor did Alabama suffer greatly while the war
continued The necessities of the Confederate army
stimulated almost every kind of industry coal and
Iron mines opened and developed some rail-
roads were built, and trade. based though 1t was
npOn an inflated and finally worthless currency. was
always good. The State escaped general military
devastations A month or two before the surrender
Wilson's cavalry made raid through portion of
it, destroyed great number of furnaces, burned
Selma and gobbled up everything movable that
came in its way but previous to that the State had
suffered very little.


THE WHITES STRIPPED AND HFLPLFss.


The war closed in the Spring of 1861 The young
men who were serving in the Confederate army dis
banded in North Carolina and Virginia and made
their way home as best they could. They were not
furnished transportation in comfortable the
Northern soldiers were. nor did the people of the
cities through which they passed greet them with
bands of music prepare feasts in their honor crown
them with laurel, aud strew flowers in their path
way. Ragged. hungry, penniless, reduced by bad
fare and hard service ON horseback or afoOt, they
podded their way wearily home. They found their
plantations neglected, their stock gone, their build
ings falling TO decay, their workshops standing
idle their commerce destroyed and their credit lost.
Consider, for q moment, the real condition of the
South in 1865. fhe actual drain of the war upon its
resources the destruction OF its capital was many
times great il had been III the North. Emanci-
patton alone wiped out the larger portion of the per-
soDal property which the had left in the Cotton