Year: 1874




In little town on the Mississippi River
there are events on foot which are chiefly I'M
portant as indicating tho condition Of society
everywhere In the reconstructed States. Two
races OF men whom their respective claims to
superiority and to equality have placed in an
attitude Of hostility to one another on funda-
mental facts are in such an exctable condi-
ton that any occurrence may provoke q col
lision, which collision may become battle !;
and when the battle shall spread ont and
generalize itself and assume the dimensions
of civil war, though this may depend some
! what on the wisdom Of government II VIII
depend far more upon the capacity OF eitner
! side to prepare for the conflict Reconstruc-
] ton, which would have been sufficiently
difficult and delicate labor if treated legiti-
mately in the best light of political science,
was treated by that monstrous agglomeration
of ignoramuses and knaves the national
! Congress- as a scheme for the propagation
of partisan successes and the robbery
of State treasures. It eventually made
the South Tree enough to give the South
ern people all their political power, but
kept them under foot sufficiently to make them
bitter and to incite them to make the worst use
they possibly could of the power so given;
and the attitude of the Southern white men is
the consequence they are hostile and have
all the power to do harm They naturally
are badly disposed towards the negroes, 80 far
as these are inclined to assert any of their
recently bestowed rights; and the negroes,
even little less wise than other human crea-
lures, misunderstood the position in which
the changed condition of the country has
placed them, and are certainly too much in
clined to self-assertion for their own good 1t
may not be longer possible to ultimately avoid
the collision which tends to generalize itself
from these elements Of hostility. They are like
the superficial evidences of disease; repress
them in one place. and they break out in an
other; Or if you succeed apparently in the
labor of repression, you merely hide from
your eyes the workings of the poison, which
gathers in secret channels an accumu-
lated force, to be spent in q more furious and
even less comfortable manifestation. Collis-
ions like this at Austin, and like others
before it in different places, will continue to
trouble us from time to time, and we can
not justly complain for we have prepared
and stored the elements of such trouble. But
it is out of the laws that will be made by
these collisions that the new social fabric OF
the South is to take shape. The relations Of
the races in the Southern States must be
fought out and the position of the negro
must be won in conflict that has in great
degree been made necessary by his own acts
under the bad advice of men who pretended
friendship that they might use him. So far as
yet appears the general government has no
function but to look on and try to aid the
average OF justice where it may


Candid Sou.herners must admit, however,
that they have many reasons to think we'll OF
the forbearance and fidelity Of the negroes.
During the war they took no advantage of the
absence of their masters and of their oppor-
tunity for combination to assist an enemy
who was fighting in their interest to achieve
their freedom. From the beginning Of the
| war to its end there was not 8 negro insurrec-
! ton in the whole South. If blazing buildings
1 Threw bncIF HitTc uPVA thc Ahhh1Sht ohy ehC
fires were lighted by the federal soldiers and
not by the Southern slaves. II Southern
matrons and children were put in peril and
| terror it was not by their blacks servant but
by the invading foe. Throughout the war
the negroes toiled as faithfully in the pianta-
tions, and obeyed as submissiveiy their
defenceless mistresses, as if nearly all
! the adult white males had not been
absent for military duty on the from
/ tiers The unbroken internal quiet of the
! South during the war is one of the most won
/ derful facts in human history, especially
when we consider that the war was wsged by
| the South to retain these slaves and that the
success Of the absent masters would have
riveted their chains for generations. This
astonishing fidelity of the negroes cannot be
accounted for on the theory that they are nat
ural towards Negroes fought well enough
in the Northern armies. The South is under
strong Obligations of justice aud gratitude to
recognize the industry, forbearance and good
order exhibited by the colored population
during the war, and for the sake Of it they
should make some allowance for the insolent
pretensions with which the negroes have been
inspired by white political party in the
North Fairness to the negroes also requires
that some allowance be made for the sudden
ness of their emancipation and the headlong
impulsiye haste with which they were elevated
by their white friends in the North to full po
litical equality. They were like mechanics
set to practise trade they had never learned
Of course they do much worse at first thar
they are likely to do afterwards. With time
experience and education they may improve
and it would be wrong to condemn then
utterly until they shall have had reasonable
trial.


But aside from these considerations ad
dressed 10 Southern Justice and magnanimitY