A GLIMPSE OF THE OLD NORTH STATE.
The next day I entered North Carolina.
Almost immediately on crossing the State line, a change of scene was
perceptible. The natural features of the country improved; the
appearance of its farms improved still more. North Carolina farmers use
manures, and work with their own hands. They treat the soil more
generously than their South Carolina neighbors, and it repays them.
That night I passed at the house of a Connecticut man, in a country
village,—a warm and comfortable New-England home transported to a
southern community,—and went on the next day to Raleigh.
At Raleigh I found the Legislature,—composed mostly of a respectable and
worthy-looking yeomanry—battling over the question of negro testimony in
the civil courts; spending day after day in the discussion of a subject
which could be settled in only one way, and which ought to have been
settled at once. One member remarked outside: “I’ll never vote for that
bill unless driven to it by the bayonet.” Another said: “I’m opposed to
giving niggers _any_ privileges.” These men represent a large class of
North Carolina farmers; but fortunately there is another class of more
progressive and liberal ideas, which are sure at last to prevail.
The business of Raleigh was dull, the money in the country being
exhausted. A few Northern men, who had gone into trade there, were
discouraged, and anxious to get away.
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“So great is the impoverishment of our State,” Governor Worth said to
me, “that a tax of any considerable amount would bring real estate at
once into the market.” Among other causes, the repudiation of the entire
State debt contracted during the war, had contributed to destroy the
resources of the people. The middling and poorer classes had invested
nearly all their surplus means in State treasury notes, which became
worthless. The cause of education suffered with everything else. The
University of North Carolina had all its funds invested in the banks;
“Repudiation killed the banks,” said Governor Worth, “and the banks
killed the University.” A million dollars of the common-school fund went
the same way.
North Carolina, like several of her Southern sisters, had passed a stay
law, which threatened a serious injury to her interests. By preventing
the collection of debts, it destroyed credit, of which the people, in
their present condition, stand so much in need. Although
unconstitutional and impolitic, so great was the popularity of this law,
that the ablest politicians feared to make an effort for its repeal.
By one of its provisions, a mortgage inures to the benefit of all the
creditors of the mortgagor. Many large estates were, necessarily, to be
broken up; and the best thing that could happen, for them and for the
community, was, that they should fall into the hands of small farmers;
but, in consequence of this curious law, the owners would not sell to
these men, except for cash, which was lacking.
These Southern stay laws, I may here mention, do not touch the rights of
a Northern creditor, who can bring his suit in United States courts,
which ignore them.
The Northern men in the State were mostly settled on cotton plantations
in the eastern counties. There were also many engaged in the turpentine
and lumber business in the southern part, and along the coast. In the
central and western parts there were almost none.
Of the extensive rice plantations of the tide-water region, but few were
in operation, owing to the great outlay of capital necessary to carry
them on. To seed them alone involves an expense of ten dollars an acre.
Yet, from the representations of Northern men who had gone to rice
planting, I am satisfied that here is an opening for very profitable
investments.
The small farmers of North Carolina are a plain, old-fashioned, upright,
ignorant class of men. Mr. Best, Secretary of State, told me that
forty-five per cent. of those who took the oath of allegiance in Green
County, where he administered it, made their marks. “Yet many of these
are men of as strong sense as any in the State,” he added; “and they
were generally Union men.”
The freedmen throughout the central and northern part of the State, had
very generally made contracts, and were at work. In the southern part,
fewer contracts had been made, in consequence of the inability of the
large planters to pay promptly. “When paid promptly, the freedmen are
everywhere working well,” I was assured by the officers of the Bureau.
The rate of wages varied from five to ten dollars a month.
There were in the State one hundred teachers, supplied by the benevolent
societies of the North. Their schools, scattered throughout the State,
were attended by eight thousand five hundred colored pupils.
Cases of robberies, frauds, assaults, and even murders, in which white
persons were the agents and freed people the sufferers, had been so
numerous, according to the State Commissioner, “that no record of them
could be kept; one officer reporting that he had heard and disposed of
as many as a hundred and eighty complaints in one day.” Owing to the
efforts of the Bureau, however, the number was fast decreasing.
From Governor Worth, I received a rather sorry account of the doings of
Sherman’s “bummers” in this State. Even after the pacification they
continued their lawless marauding. “They visited my place, near Raleigh,
and drove off a fine flock of ewes and lambs. I was State Treasurer at
the time, and having to go away on public business, I gave my negroes
their bacon, which they hid behind the ceiling of the house. The Yankees
came, and held an axe over the head of one of the negroes, and by
threats compelled him to tell where it was. They tore off the ceiling,
and stole all the bacon. They took all my cows. Three cows afterwards
came back; but they recently disappeared again, and I found them in the
possession of a man who says he bought them of these bummers. I had a
grindstone, and as they couldn’t carry it off, they smashed it. There
was on my place a poor, old, blind negro woman,—the last creature in the
world against whom I should suppose any person would have wished to
commit a wrong. She had a new dress; and they stole even that.
“I was known as a peace man,” said the Governor, “and for that reason I
did not suffer as heavily as my neighbors.” He gave this testimony with
regard to that class which served, but did not honor, our cause: “Of all
the malignant wretches that ever cursed the earth, the hangers-on of
Sherman’s army were the worst;” adding: “It can’t be expected that the
people should love a government that has subjugated them in this way.”