IT is strange that during the discussion of the negro question, which
has been wide and pertinent, no one has stood up to speak the mind of
the South. In this discussion there has been much of truth and more of
error—something of perverseness, but more of misapprehension—not a
little of injustice, but perhaps less of mean intention.
Amid it all, the South has been silent.
There has been, perhaps, good reason for this silence. The problem under
debate is a tremendous one. Its right solution means peace, prosperity,
and happiness to the South. A mistake, even in the temper in which it is
approached or the theory upon which its solution is attempted, would
mean detriment, that at best would be serious, and might easily be
worse. Hence the South has pondered over this problem, earnestly seeking
with all her might the honest and the safe way out of its entanglements,
and saying little because there was but little to which she felt safe in
committing herself. Indeed, there was another reason why she did not
feel called upon to obtrude her opinions. The people of the North,
proceeding by the right of victorious arms, had themselves undertaken to
settle the negro question. From the Emancipation Proclamation to the
Civil Rights Bill they hurried with little let or hindrance, holding the
negro in the meanwhile under a sort of tutelage, from part in which his
former masters were practically excluded. Under this state of things the
South had little to do but watch and learn.
We have now passed fifteen years of experiment. Certain broad principles
have been established as wise and just.
The South has something to say which she can say with confidence. There
is no longer impropriety in her speaking or lack of weight in her words.
The people of the United States have, by their suffrages, remitted to
the Southern people, temporarily at least, control of the race question.
The decision of the Supreme Court on the Civil Rights Bill leaves
practically to their adjustment important issues that were, until that
decision was rendered, covered by straight and severe enactment. These
things deepen the responsibility of the South, increase its concern, and
confront it with a problem to which it must address itself promptly and
frankly. Where it has been silent, it now should speak. The interest of
every American in the honorable and equitable settlement of this
question is second only to the interest of those specially—and
fortunately, we believe—charged with its adjustment. “What will you do
with it?” is a question any man may now ask the South, and to which the
South should make frank and full reply.
It is important that this reply shall be plain and straightforward.
Above all things it must carry the genuine convictions of the people it
represents. On this subject and at this time the South cannot afford to
be misunderstood. Upon the clear and general apprehension of her
position and of her motives and purpose everything depends. She cannot
let pass unchallenged a single utterance that, spoken in her name,
misstates her case or her intention. It is to protest against just such
injustice that this article is written.
In a lately printed article, Mr. George W. Cable, writing in the name of
the Southern people, confesses judgment on points that they still
defend, and commits them to a line of thought from which they must
forever dissent. In this article, as in his works, the singular
tenderness and beauty of which have justly made him famous, Mr. Cable is
sentimental rather than practical. But the reader, enchained by the
picturesque style and misled by the engaging candor with which the
author admits the shortcomings of “We of the South,” and the kindling
enthusiasm with which he tells how “We of the South” must make
reparation, is apt to assume that it is really the soul of the South
that breathes through Mr. Cable’s repentant sentences. It is not my
purpose to discuss Mr. Cable’s relations to the people for whom he
claims to speak. Born in the South, of Northern parents, he appears to
have had little sympathy with his Southern environment, as in 1882 he
wrote, “To be in New England would be enough for me. I was there once,—a
year ago,—and it seemed as if I had never been home till then.” It will
be suggested that a man so out of harmony with his neighbors as to say,
even after he had fought side by side with them on the battle-field,
that he never felt at home until he had left them, cannot speak
understandingly of their views on so vital a subject as that under
discussion. But it is with his statement rather than his personality
that we have to deal. Does he truly represent the South? We reply that
he does not! There may be here and there in the South a dreaming
theorist who subscribes to Mr. Cable’s teachings. We have seen no signs
of one. Among the thoughtful men of the South,—the men who felt that all
brave men might quit fighting when General Lee surrendered,—who,
enshrining in their hearts the heroic memories of the cause they had
lost, in good faith accepted the arbitrament of the sword to which they
had appealed,—who bestirred themselves cheerfully amid the ruins of
their homes, and set about the work of rehabilitation,—who have patched
and mended and builded anew, and fashioned out of pitiful resource a
larger prosperity than they ever knew before,—who have set their homes
on the old red hills, and staked their honor and prosperity and the
peace and well-being of the children who shall come after them on the
clear and equitable solution of every social, industrial, or political
problem that concerns the South,—among these men, who control and will
continue to control, I do know, there is general protest against Mr.
Cable’s statement of the case, and universal protest against his
suggestions for the future. The mind of these men I shall attempt to
speak, maintaining my right to speak for them with the pledge that,
having exceptional means for knowing their views on this subject, and
having spared no pains to keep fully informed thereof, I shall write
down nothing in their name on which I have found even a fractional
difference of opinion.
A careful reading of Mr. Cable’s article discloses the following
argument: The Southern people have deliberately and persistently evaded
the laws forced on them for the protection of the freedman; this evasion
has been the result of prejudices born of and surviving the institution
of slavery, the only way to remove which is to break down every
distinction between the races; and now the best thought of the South,
alarmed at the withdrawal of the political machinery that forced the
passage of the protective laws, which withdrawal tempts further and more
intolerable evasions, is moving to forbid all further assortment of the
races and insist on their intermingling in all places and in all
relations. The first part of this argument is a matter of record, and,
from the Southern stand-point, mainly a matter of reputation. It can
bide its time. The suggestion held in its conclusion is so impossible,
so mischievous, and, in certain aspects, so monstrous, that it must be
met at once.
It is hard to think about the negro with exactness. His helplessness,
his generations of enslavement, his unique position among the peoples of
the earth, his distinctive color, his simple, lovable traits,—all these
combine to hasten opinion into conviction where he is the subject of
discussion. Three times has this tendency brought about epochal results
in his history. First, it abolished slavery. For this all men are
thankful, even those who, because of the personal injustice and violence
of the means by which it was brought about, opposed its accomplishment.
Second, it made him a voter. This, done more in a sense of reparation
than in judgment, is as final as the other. The North demanded it; the
South expected it; all acquiesced in it, and, wise or unwise, it will
stand. Third, it fixed by enactment his social and civil rights. And
here for the first time the revolution faltered. Up to this point the
way had been plain, the light clear, and the march at quick-step. Here
the line halted. The way was lost; there was hesitation, division, and
uncertainty. Knowing not which way to turn, and enveloped in doubt, the
revolutionists heard the retreat sounded by the Supreme Court with small
reluctance, and, to use Mr. Cable’s words, “bewildered by complication,
vexed by many a blunder,” retired from the field. See, then, the
progress of this work. The first step, right by universal agreement,
would stand if the law that made it were withdrawn. The second step,
though irrevocable, raises doubts as to its wisdom. The third, wrong in
purpose, has failed in execution. It stands denounced as null by the
highest court, as inoperative by general confession, and as unwise by
popular verdict. Let us take advantage of this halt in the too rapid
revolution, and see exactly where we stand and what is best for us to
do. The situation is critical. The next moment may formulate the work of
the next twenty years. The tremendous forces of the revolution, unspent
and still terrible, are but held in arrest. Launch them mistakenly,
chaos may come. Wrong-headedness may be as fatal now as
wrong-heartedness. Clear views, clear statement, and clear understanding
are the demands of the hour. Given these, the common sense and courage
of the American people will make the rest easy.
Let it be understood in the beginning, then, that the South will never
adopt Mr. Cable’s suggestion of the social intermingling of the races.
It can never be driven into accepting it. So far from there being a
growing sentiment in the South in favor of the indiscriminate mixing of
the races, the intelligence of both races is moving farther from that
proposition day by day. It is more impossible (if I may shade a
superlative) now than it was ten years ago; it will be less possible ten
years hence. Neither race wants it. The interest, as the inclination, of
both races is against it. Here the issue with Mr. Cable is made up. He
denounces any assortment of the races as unjust, and demands that white
and black shall intermingle everywhere. The South replies that the
assortment of the races is wise and proper, and stands on the platform
of equal accommodation for each race, but separate.
The difference is an essential one. Deplore or defend it as we may, an
antagonism is bred between the races when they are forced into mixed
assemblages. This sinks out of sight, if not out of existence, when each
race moves in its own sphere. Mr. Cable admits this feeling, but doubts
that it is instinctive. In my opinion it is instinctive—deeper than
prejudice or pride, and bred in the bone and blood. It would make itself
felt even in sections where popular prejudice runs counter to its
manifestation. If in any town in Wisconsin or Vermont there was equal
population of whites and blacks, and schools, churches, hotels, and
theaters were in common, this instinct would assuredly develop; the
races would separate, and each race would hasten the separation. Let me
give an example that touches this supposition closely. Bishop Gilbert
Haven, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, many years ago came to the
South earnestly, and honestly, we may believe, devoted to breaking up
the assortment of the races. He was backed by powerful influences in the
North. He was welcomed by resident Northerners in the South (then in
control of Southern affairs) as an able and eloquent exponent of their
views. His first experiment toward mixing the races was made in the
church—surely the most propitious field. Here the fraternal influence of
religion emphasized his appeals for the brotherhood of the races. What
was the result? After the first month his church was decimated. The
Northern whites and the Southern blacks left it in squads. The dividing
influences were mutual. The stout bishop contended with prayer and
argument and threat against the inevitable, but finally succumbed. Two
separate churches were established, and each race worshiped to itself.
There had been no collision, no harsh words, no discussion even. Each
race simply obeyed its instinct, that spoke above the appeal of the
bishop and dominated the divine influences that pulsed from pew to pew.
Time and again did the bishop force the experiment. Time and again he
failed. At last he was driven to the confession that but one thing could
effect what he had tried so hard to bring about, and that was
miscegenation. A few years of experiment would force Mr. Cable to the
same conclusion.
The same experiment was tried on a larger scale by the Methodist
Episcopal Church (North) when it established its churches in the South
after the war. It essayed to bring the races together, and in its
conferences and its churches there was no color line. Prejudice
certainly did not operate to make a division here. On the contrary, the
whites and blacks of this church were knit together by prejudice, pride,
sentiment, political and even social policy. Underneath all this was a
race instinct, obeying which, silently, they drifted swiftly apart.
While white Methodists of the church North and of the church South,
distant from each other in all but the kinship of race and worship, were
struggling to effect once more a union of the churches that had been
torn apart by a quarrel over slavery, so that in every white conference
and every white church on all this continent white Methodists could
stand in restored brotherhood, the Methodist Church (North) agreed,
without serious protest, to a separation of its Southern branch into two
conferences of whites and of blacks, and into separate congregations
where the proportion of either race was considerable. Was it without
reason—it certainly was not through prejudice—that this Church, while
seeking anew fusion with its late enemies, consented to separate from
its new friends?
It was the race instinct that spoke there. It spoke not with prejudice,
but against it. It spoke there as it speaks always and everywhere—as it
has spoken for two thousand years. And it spoke to the reason of each
race. Millaud, in voting in the French Convention for the beheading of
Louis XVI., said: “If death did not exist, it would be necessary to-day
to invent it.” So of this instinct. It is the pledge of the integrity of
each race, and of peace between the races. Without it, there might be a
breaking down of all lines of division and a thorough intermingling of
whites and blacks. This once accomplished, the lower and the weaker
elements of the races would begin to fuse and the process of
amalgamation would have begun. This would mean the disorganization of
society. An internecine war would be precipitated. The whites, at any
cost and at any hazard, would maintain the clear integrity and dominance
of the Anglo-Saxon blood. They understand perfectly that the debasement
of their own race would not profit the humble and sincere race with
which their lot is cast, and that the hybrid would not gain what either
race lost. Even if the vigor and the volume of the Anglo-Saxon blood
would enable it to absorb the African current, and after many
generations recover its own strength and purity, not all the powers of
earth could control the unspeakable horrors that would wait upon the
slow process of clarification. Easier far it would be to take the
population of central New York, intermingle with it an equal percentage
of Indians, and force amalgamation between the two. Let us review the
argument. If Mr. Cable is correct in assuming that there is no instinct
that keeps the two races separate in the South, then there is no reason
for doubting that if intermingled they would fuse. Mere prejudice would
not long survive perfect equality and social intermingling; and the
prejudice once gone, intermarrying would begin. Then, if there is a race
instinct in either race that resents intimate association with the
other, it would be unwise to force such association when there are easy
and just alternatives. If there is no such instinct, the mixing of the
races would mean amalgamation, to which the whites will never submit,
and to which neither race should submit. So that in either case, whether
the race feeling is instinct or prejudice, we come to but one
conclusion: The white and black races in the South must walk apart.
Concurrent their courses may go—ought to go—will go—but separate. If
instinct did not make this plain in a flash, reason would spell it out
letter by letter.
Now, let us see. We hold that there is an instinct, ineradicable and
positive, that will keep the races apart, that would keep the races
apart if the problem were transferred to Illinois or to Maine, and that
will resist every effort of appeal, argument, or force to bring them
together. We add in perfect frankness, however, that if no such instinct
existed, or if the South had reasonable doubt of its existence, it
would, by every means in its power, so strengthen the race prejudice
that it would do the work and hold the stubbornness and strength of
instinct. The question that confronts us at this point is: Admitted this
instinct, that gathers each race to itself. Then, do you believe it
possible to carry forward on the same soil and under the same laws two
races equally free, practically equal in numbers, and yet entirely
distinct and separate? This is a momentous question. It involves a
problem that, all things considered, is without a precedent or parallel.
Can the South carry this problem in honor and in peace to an equitable
solution? We reply that for ten years the South has been doing this very
thing, and with at least apparent success. No impartial and observant
man can say that in the present aspect of things there is cause for
alarm, or even for doubt. In the experience of the past few years there
is assuredly reason for encouragement. There may be those who discern
danger in the distant future. We do not. Beyond the apprehensions which
must for a long time attend a matter so serious, we see nothing but
cause for congratulation. In the common sense and the sincerity of the
negro, no less than in the intelligence and earnestness of the whites,
we find the problem simplifying. So far from the future bringing
trouble, we feel confident that another decade or so, confirming the
experience of the past ten years, will furnish the solution to be
accepted of all men.
Let us examine briefly what the South has been doing, and study the
attitude of the races toward each other. Let us do this, not so much to
vindicate the past as to clear the way for the future. Let us see what
the situation teaches. There must be in the experience of fifteen years
something definite and suggestive. We begin with the schools and school
management, as the basis of the rest.
Every Southern State has a common-school system, and in every State
separate schools are provided for the races. Almost every city of more
than five thousand inhabitants has a public-school system, and in every
city the schools for whites and blacks are separate. There is no
exception to this rule that I can find. In many cases the law creating
this system requires that separate schools shall be provided for the
races. This plan works admirably. There is no friction in the
administration of the schools, and no suspicion as to the ultimate
tendency of the system. The road to school is clear, and both races walk
therein with confidence. The whites, assured that the school will not be
made the hot-bed of false and pernicious ideas, or the scene of unwise
associations, support the system cordially, and insist on perfect
equality in grade and efficiency. The blacks, asking no more than this,
fill the schools with alert and eager children. So far from feeling
debased by the separate-school system, they insist that the separation
shall be carried further, and the few white teachers yet presiding over
negro schools supplanted by negro teachers. The appropriations for
public schools are increased year after year, and free education grows
constantly in strength and popularity. Cities that were afraid to commit
themselves to free-schools while mixed schools were a possibility
commenced building school-houses as soon as separate schools were
assured. In 1870 the late Benjamin H. Hill found his matchless eloquence
unable to carry the suggestion of negro education into popular
tolerance. Ten years later nearly one million black children attended
free-schools, supported by general taxation. Though the whites pay
nineteen-twentieths of the tax, they insist that the blacks shall share
its advantages equally. The schools for each race are opened on the same
day and closed on the same day. Neither is run a single day at the
expense of the other. The negroes are satisfied with the situation. I am
aware that some of the Northern teachers of negro high-schools and
universities will controvert this. Touching their opinion, I have only
to say that it can hardly be considered fair or conservative. Under the
forcing influence of social ostracism, they have reasoned impatiently
and have been helped to conclusions by quick sympathies or resentments.
Driven back upon themselves and hedged in by suspicion or hostility,
their service has become a sort of martyrdom, which has swiftly
stimulated opinion into conviction and conviction into fanaticism. I
read in a late issue of _Zion’s Herald_ a letter from one of these
teachers, who declined, on the conductor’s request, to leave the car in
which she was riding, and which was set apart exclusively for negroes.
The conductor, therefore, presumed she was a quadroon, and stated his
presumption in answer to the inquiry of a young negro man who was with
her. She says of this:
“Truly, a glad thrill went through my heart—a thrill of pride.
This great autocrat had pronounced me as not only in sympathy,
but also one in blood, with the truest, tenderest, and noblest
race that dwells on earth.”
If this quotation, which is now before me, over the writer’s name,
suggests that she and those of her colleagues who agree with her have
narrowed within their narrowing environment, and acquired artificial
enthusiasm under their unnatural conditions, so that they must be unsafe
as advisers and unfair as witnesses, the sole purpose for which it is
introduced will have been served. This suggestion does not reach all
Northern teachers of negro schools. Some have taken broader counsels,
awakened wider sympathies, and, as a natural result, hold more moderate
views. The influence of the extremer faction is steadily diminishing.
Set apart, as small and curious communities are set here and there in
populous States, stubborn and stiff for a while, but overwhelmed at last
and lost in the mingling currents, these dissenting spots will be ere
long blotted out and forgotten. The educational problem, which is their
special care, has already been settled, and the settlement accepted with
a heartiness that precludes the possibility of its disturbance. From the
stand-point of either race the experiment of distinct but equal schools
for the white and black children of the South has demonstrated its
wisdom, its policy, and its justice, if any experiment ever made plain
its wisdom in the hands of finite man.
I quote on this subject Gustavus J. Orr, one of the wisest and best of
men, and lately elected, by spontaneous movement, president of the
National Educational Association. He says: “The race question in the
schools is already settled. We give the negroes equal advantages, but
separate schools. This plan meets the reason and satisfies the instinct
of both races. Under it we have spent over five million dollars in
Georgia, and the system grows in strength constantly.” I asked if the
negroes wanted mixed schools. His reply was prompt: “They do not. I have
questioned them carefully on this point, and they make but one reply:
“They want their children in their own schools and under their own
teachers.” I asked what would be the effect of mixed schools. “I could
not maintain the Georgia system one year. Both races would protest
against it. My record as a public-school man is known. I have devoted my
life to the work of education. But I am so sure of the evils that would
come from mixed schools that, even if they were possible, I would see
the whole educational system swept away before I would see them
established. There is an instinct that gathers each race about itself.
It is as strong in the blacks as in the whites, though it has not
asserted itself so strongly. It is making itself manifest, since the
blacks are organizing a social system of their own. It has long
controlled them in their churches, and it is now doing so in their
schools.”
In churches, as in schools, the separation is perfect. The negroes, in
all denominations in which their membership is an appreciable percentage
of the whole, have their own churches, congregations, pastors,
conferences, bishops, and their own missionaries. There is not the
slightest antagonism between them and the white churches of the same
denomination. On the contrary, there is sympathetic interest and the
utmost friendliness. The separation is recognized as not only
instinctive but wise. There is no disposition to disturb it, and least
of all on the part of the negro. The church is with him the center of
social life, and there he wants to find his own people and no others.
Let me quote just here a few sentences from a speech delivered by a
genuine black negro at the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal
Church (South), in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1880. He is himself a pastor of
the African Methodist Church, and came as a fraternal delegate. This
extract from a speech, largely extempore, is a fair specimen of negro
eloquence, as it is a fair evidence of the feeling of that people toward
their white neighbors. He said:
“Mr. Chairman, Bishops, and Brethren in Christ: Let me here
state a circumstance which has just now occurred. When in the
vestry, there we were consulting your committee, among whom is
your illustrious Christian Governor, the Honorable A. H.
Colquitt [applause], feeling an unusual thirst, and expecting in
a few moments to appear before you, thoughtlessly I asked him if
there was water to drink. He, looking about the room, answered,
‘There is none; I will get you some.’ I insisted not; but
presently it was brought by a brother minister, and handed me by
the Governor. I said: ‘Governor, you must allow me to deny
myself this distinguished favor, as it recalls so vividly the
episode of the warrior king of Israel, when, with parched lips,
he cried from the rocky cave of Adullam, ‘Oh! that one would
give me drink of water of the well of Bethlehem that is at the
gate.’ And when three of his valiant captains broke through the
host of the enemy, and returned to him with the water for which
his soul was longing, regarding it as the water of life, he
would not drink it, but poured it out to the Lord.’ [Applause.]
So may this transcendent emblem of purity and love, from the
hand of your most honored co-laborer and friend of the human
race, ever remain as a memorial unto the Lord of the friendship
existing between the Methodist Episcopal Church South and the
African Methodist Episcopal Church upon this the first exchange
of formal fraternal greeting. [Applause.]
“In the name of the African Methodist Episcopal Church,—and I
declare the true sentiments of thousands,—I say, that for your
Church and your race we cherish the kindliest feelings that ever
found a lodgment in the human breast. [Applause.] Of this you
need not be told. Let speak your former missionaries among us,
who now hold seats upon this floor, and whose hearts have so
often burned within them as they have seen the word sown by them
in such humble soil burst forth into abundant prosperity. Ask
the hundred thousand of your laymen who still survive the dead,
how we conducted ourselves as tillers of the soil, as servants
about the dwelling, and as common worshipers in the temple of
God! Ask your battle-scarred veterans, who left their all to the
mercy of relentless circumstances, and went, in answer to the
clarion call of the trumpet, to the gigantic and unnatural
strife of the second revolution! Ask them who looked at their
interests at home [great cheering]; who raised their earthworks
upon the field; who buried the young hero so far away from his
home, or returned his ashes to the stricken hearts which hung
breathless upon the hour; who protected their wives and little
ones from the ravages of wild beasts, and the worse ravages of
famine! And the answer is returned from a million heaving
bosoms, as a monument of everlasting remembrance to the
benevolence of the colored race in America. [Immense applause.]
And these are they who greet you to-day, through their chief
organization, the African Methodist Episcopal Church in the
United States of America. [Loud and continued applause.]
“And now, though the yoke which bound the master and the slave
together in such close and mutual responsibility has been
shivered by the rude shock of war, we find ourselves still
standing by your side as natural allies against an unfriendly
world.” [Applause.]
In their social institutions, as in their churches and schools, the
negroes have obeyed their instinct and kept apart from the whites. They
have their own social and benevolent societies, their own military
companies, their own orders of Masons and Odd Fellows. They rally about
these organizations with the greatest enthusiasm and support them with
the greatest liberality. If it were proposed to merge them with white
organizations of the same character, with equal rights guaranteed in
all, the negroes would interpose the stoutest objection. Their tastes,
associations, and inclinations—their instincts—lead them to gather their
race about social centers of its own. I am tempted into trying to
explain here what I have never yet seen a stranger to the South able to
understand. The feeling that, by mutual action, separates whites and
blacks when they are thrown together in social intercourse is not a
repellent influence in the harsh sense of that word. It is centripetal
rather than centrifugal. It is attractive about separate centers rather
than expulsive from a common center. There is no antagonism, for
example, between white and black military companies. On occasions they
parade in the same street, and have none of the feeling that exists
between Orangemen and Catholics. Of course the good sense of each race
and the mutual recognition of the possible dangers of the situation have
much to do with maintaining the good-will between the distinct races.
The fact that in his own church or society the negro has more freedom,
more chance for leadership and for individual development, than he could
have in association with the whites, has more to do with it. But beyond
all this is the fact that, in the segregation of the races, blacks as
well as whites obey a natural instinct, which, always granting that they
get equal justice and equal advantages, they obey without the slightest
ill-nature or without any sense of disgrace. They meet the white people
in all the avenues of business. They work side by side with the white
bricklayer or carpenter in perfect accord and friendliness. When the
trowel or the hammer is laid aside, the laborers part, each going his
own way. Any attempt to carry the comradeship of the day into private
life would be sternly resisted by both parties in interest.
We have seen that in churches, schools, and social organizations the
whites and blacks are moving along separately but harmoniously, and that
the “assortment of the races,” which has been described as shameful and
unjust, is in most part made by the instinct of each race, and commands
the hearty assent of both. Let us now consider the question of public
carriers. On this point the South has been sharply criticised, and not
always without reason. It is manifestly wrong to make a negro pay as
much for a railroad ticket as a white man pays, and then force him to
accept inferior accommodations. It is equally wrong to force a decent
negro into an indecent car, when there is room for him or for her
elsewhere. Public sentiment in the South has long recognized this, and
has persistently demanded that the railroad managers should provide cars
for the negroes equal in every respect to those set apart for the
whites, and that these cars should be kept clean and orderly. In Georgia
a State law requires all public roads or carriers to provide equal
accommodation for each race, and failure to do so is made a penal
offense. In Tennessee a negro woman lately gained damages by proving
that she had been forced to take inferior accommodation on a train. The
railroads have, with few exceptions, come up to the requirements of the
law. Where they fail, they quickly feel the weight of public opinion,
and shock the sense of public justice. This very discussion, I am bound
to say, will lessen such failures in the future. On four roads, in my
knowledge, even better has been done than the law requires. The car set
apart for the negroes is made exclusive. No whites are permitted to
occupy it. A white man who strays into this car is politely told that it
is reserved for the negroes. He has the information repeated two or
three times, smiles, and retreats. This rule works admirably and will
win general favor. There are a few roads that make no separate provision
for the races, but announce that any passenger can ride on any car. Here
the “assortment” of the races is done away with, and here it is that
most of the outrages of which we hear occur. On these roads the negro
has no place set apart for him. As a rule, he is shy about asserting
himself, and he usually finds himself in the meanest corners of the
train. If he forces himself into the ladies’ car, he is apt to provoke a
collision. It is on just one of these trains where the assortment of the
passengers is left to chance that a respectable negro woman is apt to be
forced to ride in a car crowded with negro convicts. Such a thing would
be impossible where the issue is fairly met, and a car, clean, orderly,
and exclusive, is provided for each race. The case could not be met by
grading the tickets and the accommodations. Such a plan would bring
together in the second or third class car just the element of both races
between whom prejudice runs highest, and from whom the least of tact or
restraint might be expected. On the railroads, as elsewhere, the
solution of the race problem is, equal advantages for the same
money,—equal in comfort, safety, and exclusiveness,—but separate.
There remains but one thing further to consider—the negro in the
jury-box. It is assumed generally that the negro has no representation
in the courts. This is a false assumption. In the United States courts
he usually makes more than half the jury. As to the State courts, I can
speak particularly as to Georgia. I assume that she does not materially
differ from the other States. In Georgia the law requires that
commissioners shall prepare the jury-list for each county by selection
from the upright, intelligent, and experienced citizens of the county.
This provision was put into the Constitution by the negro convention of
reconstruction days. Under its terms no reasonable man would have
expected to see the list made up of equal percentage of the races.
Indeed, the fewest number of negroes were qualified under the law.
Consequently, but few appeared on the lists. The number, as was to be
expected, is steadily increasing. In Fulton County there are
seventy-four negroes whose names are on the lists, and the
commissioners, I am informed, have about doubled this number for the
present year. These negroes make good jurymen, and are rarely struck by
attorneys, no matter what the client or cause may be. About the worst
that can be charged against the jury system in Georgia is that the
commissioners have made jurors of negroes only when they had qualified
themselves to intelligently discharge a juror’s duties. In few quarters
of the South, however, is the negro unable to get full and exact justice
in the courts, whether the jury be white or black. Immediately after the
war, when there was general alarm and irritation, there may have been
undue severity in sentences and extreme rigor of prosecution. But the
charge that the people of the South have, in their deliberate and later
moments prostituted justice to the oppression of this dependent people,
is as false as it is infamous. There is abundant belief that the very
helplessness of the negro in court has touched the heart and conscience
of many a jury, when the facts should have held them impervious. In the
city in which this is written, a negro, at midnight, on an unfrequented
street, murdered a popular young fellow, over whose grave a monument was
placed by popular subscription. The only witnesses of the killing were
the friends of the murdered boy. Had the murderer been a white man, it
is believed he would have been convicted. He was acquitted by the white
jury, and has since been convicted of a murderous assault on a person of
his own color. Similarly, a young white man, belonging to one of the
leading families of the State, was hanged for the murder of a negro.
Insanity was pleaded in his defense, and so plausibly that it is
believed he would have escaped had his victim been a white man.
I quote on this point Mr. Benjamin H. Hill, who has been prosecuting
attorney of the Atlanta, Ga., circuit for twelve years. He says: “In
cities and towns the negro gets equal and exact justice before the
courts. It is possible that, in remote counties, where the question is
one of a fight between a white man and a negro, there may be a lingering
prejudice that causes occasional injustice. The judge, however, may be
relied on to correct this. As to negro jurors, I have never known a
negro to allow his lawyer to accept a negro juror. For the State I have
accepted a black juror fifty times, to have him rejected by the opposing
lawyer by order of his negro client. This has incurred so invariably
that I have accepted it as a rule. Irrespective of that, the negro gets
justice in the courts, and the last remaining prejudice against him in
the jury-box has passed away. I convicted a white man for voluntary
manslaughter under peculiar circumstances. A negro met him on the street
and cursed him. The white man ordered him off and started home. The
negro followed him to his house and cursed him until he entered the
door. When he came out, the negro was still waiting. He renewed the
abuse, followed him to his store, and there struck him with his fist. In
the struggle that followed, the negro was shot and killed. The jury
promptly convicted the slayer.”
So much for the relation between the races in the South, in churches,
schools, social organizations, on the railroad, and in theaters.
Everything is placed on the basis of equal accommodations, but separate.
In the courts the blacks are admitted to the jury-box as they lift
themselves into the limit of qualification. Mistakes have been made and
injustice has been worked here and there. This was to have been
expected, and it has been less than might have been expected. But there
can be no mistake about the progress the South is making in the
equitable adjustment of the relations between the races. Ten years ago
nothing was settled. There were frequent collisions and constant
apprehensions. The whites were suspicious and the blacks were restless.
So simple a thing as a negro taking an hour’s ride on the cars, or going
to see a play, was fraught with possible danger. The larger
affairs—school, church, and court—were held in abeyance. Now all this is
changed. The era of doubt and mistrust is succeeded by the era of
confidence and good-will. The races meet in the exchange of labor in
perfect amity and understanding. Together they carry on the concerns of
the day, knowing little or nothing of the fierce hostility that divides
labor and capital in other sections. When they turn to social life they
separate. Each race obeys its instinct and congregates about its own
centers. At the theater they sit in opposite sections of the same
gallery. On the trains they ride each in his own car. Each worships in
his own church, and educates his children in his schools. Each has his
place and fills it, and is satisfied. Each gets the same accommodation
for the same money. There is no collision. There is no irritation or
suspicion. Nowhere on earth is there kindlier feeling, closer sympathy,
or less friction between two classes of society than between the whites
and blacks of the South to-day. This is due to the fact that in the
adjustment of their relations they have been practical and sensible.
They have wisely recognized what was essential, and have not sought to
change what was unchangeable. They have yielded neither to the fanatic
nor demagogue, refusing to be misled by the one or misused by the other.
While the world has been clamoring over their differences they have been
quietly taking counsel with each other, in the field, the shop, the
street and cabin, and settling things for themselves. That the result
has not astonished the world in the speediness and the facility with
which it has been reached, and the beneficence that has come with it, is
due to the fact that the result has not been freely proclaimed. It has
been a deplorable condition of our politics that the North has been
misinformed as to the true condition of things in the South. Political
greed and passion conjured pestilential mists to becloud what the
lifting smoke of battle left clear. It has exaggerated where there was a
grain of fact, and invented where there was none. It has sought to
establish the most casual occurrences as the settled habit of the
section, and has sprung endless jeremiades from one single disorder, as
Jenkins filled the courts of Christendom with lamentations over his
dissevered ear. These misrepresentations will pass away with the
occasion that provoked them, and when the truth is known it will come
with the force of a revelation to vindicate those who have bespoken for
the South a fair trial, and to confound those who have borne false
witness against her.
One thing further need be said, in perfect frankness. The South must be
allowed to settle the social relations of the races according to her own
views of what is right and best. There has never been a moment when she
could have submitted to have the social status of her citizens fixed by
an outside power. She accepted the emancipation and the enfranchisement
of her slaves as the legitimate results of war that had been fought to a
conclusion. These once accomplished, nothing more was possible. “Thus
far and no farther,” she said to her neighbors, in no spirit of
defiance, but with quiet determination. In her weakest moments, when her
helpless people were hedged about by the unthinking bayonets of her
conquerors, she gathered them for resistance at this point. Here she
defended everything that a people should hold dear. There was little
proclamation of her purpose. Barely did the whispered word that bespoke
her resolution catch the listening ears of her sons; but for all this
the victorious armies of the North, had they been rallied again from
their homes, could not have enforced and maintained among this disarmed
people the policy indicated in the Civil Rights bill. Had she found
herself unable to defend her social integrity against the arms that were
invincible on the fields where she staked the sovereignty of her States,
her people would have abandoned their homes and betaken themselves into
exile. Now, as then, the South is determined that, come what may, she
must control the social relations of the two races whose lots are cast
within her limits. It is right that she should have this control. The
problem is hers, whether or not of her seeking, and her very existence
depends on its proper solution. Her responsibility is greater, her
knowledge of the case more thorough than that of others can be. The
question touches her at every point; it presses on her from every side;
it commands her constant attention. Every consideration of policy, of
honor, of pride, of common sense impels her to the exactest justice and
the fullest equity. She lacks the ignorance or misapprehension that
might lead others into mistakes; all others lack the appalling
alternative that, all else failing, would force her to use her knowledge
wisely. For these reasons she has reserved to herself the right to
settle the still unsettled element of the race problem, and this right
she can never yield.
As a matter of course, this implies the clear and unmistakable
domination of the white race in the South. The assertion of that is
simply the assertion of the right of character, intelligence and
property to rule. It is simply saying that the responsible and steadfast
element in the community shall control, rather than the irresponsible
and the migratory. It is the reassertion of the moral power that
overthrew the scandalous reconstruction governments, even though, to the
shame of the Republic be it said, they were supported by the bayonets of
the General Government. Even the race issue is lost at this point. If
the blacks of the South wore white skins, and were leagued together in
the same ignorance and irresponsibility under any other distinctive mark
than their color, they would progress not one step farther toward the
control of affairs. Or if they were transported as they are to Ohio, and
there placed in numerical majority of two to one, they would find the
white minority there asserting and maintaining control, with less
patience, perhaps, than many a Southern State has shown. Everywhere,
with such temporary exceptions as afford demonstration of the rule,
intelligence, character, and property will dominate in spite of
numerical differences. These qualities are lodged with the white race in
the South, and will assuredly remain there for many generations at
least; so that the white race will continue to dominate the colored,
even if the percentages of race increase deduced from the comparison of
a lame census with a perfect one, and the omission of other
considerations, should hold good and the present race majority be
reversed.
Let no one imagine, from what is here said, that the South is careless
of the opinion or regardless of the counsel of the outside world. On the
contrary, while maintaining firmly a position she believes to be
essential, she appreciates heartily the value of general sympathy and
confidence. With an earnestness that is little less than pathetic she
bespeaks the patience and the impartial judgment of all concerned.
Surely her situation should command this rather than indifference or
antagonism. In poverty and defeat,—with her cities destroyed, her fields
desolated, her labor disorganized, her homes in ruins, her families
scattered, and the ranks of her sons decimated,—in the face of universal
prejudice, fanned by the storm of war into hostility and hatred—under
the shadow of this sorrow and this disadvantage, she turned bravely to
confront a problem that would have taxed to the utmost every resource of
a rich and powerful and victorious people. Every inch of her progress
has been beset with sore difficulties; and if the way is now clearing,
it only reveals more clearly the tremendous import of the work to which
her hands are given. It must be understood that she desires to silence
no criticism, evade no issue, and lessen no responsibility. She
recognizes that the negro is here to stay. She knows that her honor, her
dear name, and her fame, no less than her prosperity, will be measured
by the fulness of the justice she gives and guarantees to this kindly
and dependent race. She knows that every mistake made and every error
fallen into, no matter how innocently, endanger her peace and her
reputation. In this full knowledge she accepts the issue without fear or
evasion. She says, not boldly, but conscious of the honesty and the
wisdom of her convictions: “Leave this problem to my working out. I will
solve it in calmness and deliberation, without passion or prejudice, and
with full regard for the unspeakable equities it holds. Judge me
rigidly, but judge me by my works.” And with the South the matter may be
left—must be left. There it can be left with the fullest confidence that
the honor of the Republic will be maintained, the rights of humanity
guarded, and the problem worked out in such exact justice as the finite
mind can measure or finite agencies administer.
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