CONCLUSIONS.
I made but a brief stay in North Carolina, but passed on homeward, and
reached the beautiful snowy hills and frosted forests of New England
early in February.
It now only remains for me to sum up briefly my answers to certain
questions which are constantly put to me, regarding Southern emigration,
the loyalty of the people, and the future of the country.
The South is in the condition of a man recovering from a dangerous
malady: the crisis is past, appetite is boundless, and only sustenance
and purifying air are needed to bring health and life in fresh waves.
The exhausted country calls for supplies. It has been drained of its
wealth, and of its young men. Capital is eagerly welcomed and absorbed.
Labor is also needed. There is much shallow talk about getting rid of
the negroes, and of filling their places with foreigners. But war and
disease have already removed more of the colored race than can be well
spared; and I am confident that, for the next five or ten years, leaving
the blacks where they are, the strongest tide of emigration that can be
poured into the country will be insufficient to meet the increasing
demand for labor.
Northern enterprise, emancipation, improved modes of culture, and the
high prices of cotton, rice, sugar, and tobacco, cannot fail to bring
about this result. The cotton crop, if no accident happens to it, will
this year reach, I am well satisfied, not less than two million bales,
and bring something like two hundred and fifty million dollars,—as much
as the five million bales of 1859 produced. Next year it will
approximate to its old average standard in bulk, and greatly exceed it
in value; and the year after we shall have the largest cotton crop ever
known. Meanwhile the culture of rice and sugar will have fully revived,
and become enormously profitable. Nor will planting alone flourish.
Burned cities and plantation-buildings must be restored, new towns and
villages will spring up, old losses must be repaired, and a thousand new
wants supplied. Trade, manufactures, the mechanic arts, all are invited
to share in this teeming activity.
Particular location the emigrant must select for himself, according to
his own judgment, tastes, and means. Just now I should not advise
Northern men to settle far back from the main routes of travel, unless
they go in communities, purchasing and dividing large plantations, and
forming societies independent of any hostile sentiment that may be shown
by the native inhabitants. But I trust that in a year or two all danger
of discomfort or disturbance arising from this source will have mostly
passed by.
The loyalty of the people is generally of a negative sort: it is simply
disloyalty subdued. They submit to the power which has mastered them,
but they do not love it; nor is it reasonable to expect that they
should. Many of them lately in rebellion, are, I think, honestly
convinced that secession was a great mistake, and that the preservation
of the Union, even with the loss of slavery, is better for them than any
such separate government as that of which they had a bitter taste. Yet
they do not feel much affection for the hand which corrected their
error. They acquiesce quietly in what cannot be helped, and sincerely
desire to make the best of their altered circumstances.
There is another class which would still be glad to dismember the
country, and whose hatred of the government is radical and intense. But
this class is small.
The poor whites may be divided into three classes: those who, to their
hatred of the negro, join a hatred of the government that has set him
free; those who associate with the negro, and care nothing for any
government; and those who, cherishing more or less Union sentiment,
rejoice to see the old aristocracy overthrown.
Except in certain localities, like East Tennessee, positive
unconditional Union men are an exceedingly small minority. But they are
a leaven which, properly encouraged, should leaven the whole lump of
Southern society. Upon the close of hostilities, these men who, for near
five years suffered unrelenting persecution, rose temporarily to a
position of influence which their conduct had earned. Secession saw with
dismay that to this class the first place in the future government of
the country rightfully belonged. Their old neighbors, who had so long
done evil to them continually, or given them only dark looks, now shrank
sullenly out of their sight, or openly courted their smiles. A professed
Union sentiment blossomed everywhere; lives, that had all along been
thistles, now bore a plentiful harvest of figs. This was a hopeful state
of things. It is better, as an example to a community, that goodness
should receive insincere homage, than none at all; and that men should
assume a virtue if they have it not. But as soon as it was seen that the
muttering thunder-cloud of retribution was passing by with nothing but
sound, and that loyal men were not to have the first, nor even the
second or third or fourth place, in the government of the lately
rebellious States, they sank to their former position. What is needed
now is to cause this class, and the principles they represent, to be
permanently respected.
The mere utterance of disloyal sentiments need not alarm any one. It is
often sincere; but it is sometimes mere cant, easily kept in vogue, by
newspapers and politicians, among a people who delight in vehement and
minatory talk, for the mere talk’s sake.
Of another armed rebellion not the least apprehension need be
entertained. The South has had enough of war for a long time to come; it
has supped full of horrors. The habiliments of mourning, which one sees
everywhere in its towns and cities, will cast their dark shadow upon any
future attempt at secession, long after they have been put away in the
silent wardrobes of the past. Only in the case of a foreign war might we
expect to see a party of malignant malcontents go over to the side of
the enemy. They would doubtless endeavor to drag their States with them,
but they would not succeed. Fortunately those who are still so anxious
to see the old issue fought out, are not themselves fighting men, and
are dangerous only with their tongues.
Of _unarmed_ rebellion, of continued sectional strife, stirred up by
Southern politicians, there exists very great danger. Their aims are
distinct, and they command the sympathy of the Southern people. To
obtain the exclusive control of the freedmen, and to make such laws for
them as shall embody the prejudices of a late slave-holding society; to
govern not only their own States, but to regain their forfeited
leadership in the affairs of the nation; to effect the repudiation of
the national debt, or to get the Confederate debt and the Rebel State
debts assumed by the whole country; to secure payment for their slaves,
and for all injuries and losses occasioned by the war; these are among
the chief designs of a class who will pursue them with what recklessness
and persistency we know.
How to prevent them from agitating the nation in the future as in the
past, and from destroying its prosperity, is become the most serious of
questions. If you succeed in capturing an antagonist who has made a
murderous assault upon you, common sense, and a regard for your own
safety and the peace of society, require at least that his weapons, or
the power of using them, should be taken from him. These perilous
schemes are the present weapons of the nation’s conquered enemy; and
does not prudent statesmanship demand that they should be laid forever
at rest before he walks again at large in the pride of his power?
All that just and good men can ask, is this security. Vindictiveness, or
a wish to hold the rebellious States under an iron rule, should have no
place in our hearts. But if the blood of our brothers was shed in a
righteous cause,—if for four years we poured out lives and treasures to
purchase a reality, and no mere mockery and shadow,—let us honor our
brothers and the cause by seeing that reality established. If treason is
a crime surely it can receive no more fitting or merciful punishment
than to be deprived of its power to do more mischief. Let peace, founded
upon true principles, be the only retribution we demand. Let justice be
our vengeance.
It was my original intention to speak of the various schemes of
reconstruction claiming the consideration of the country. But they have
become too numerous, and are generally too well known, to be detailed
here. The Southern plan is simple; it is this: that the States, lately
so eager to destroy the Union, are now entitled to all their former
rights and privileges in that Union. Their haste to withdraw their
representatives from Congress, is more than equalled by their anxiety to
get them back in their seats. They consider it hard that, at the end of
the most stupendous rebellion and the bloodiest civil war that ever
shook the planet, they cannot quietly slip back in their places, and,
the sword having failed, take up once more the sceptre of political
power they so rashly flung down. Often, in conversation with candid
Southern men, impatient for this result, I was able to convince them
that it was hardly to be expected, that the government, emerging
victorious from the dust of such a struggle, and finding its foot on
that sceptre, should take it off with very great alacrity. And they were
forced to acknowledge that, had the South proved victorious, its enemies
would not have escaped so easily.
This plan does not tolerate the impediment of any Congressional test
oath. When I said to my Southern friends that I should be glad to see
those representatives, who could take the test oath, admitted to
Congress, this was the usual reply:—
“We would not vote for such men. We had rather have no representatives
at all. We want representatives to _represent_ us, and no man
_represents_ us who can take your test oath. We are Rebels, if you
choose to call us so, and only a good Rebel can properly represent us.”
This is the strongest argument I have heard against the admission of
loyal Southern members to Congress. And if the white masses of the
lately rebellious States are alone, and indiscriminately, to be
recognized as the people of those States, it is certainly a valid
argument.
“It is enough,” they maintained, “that a representative in Congress
takes the ordinary oath to support the government; _that_ is a
sufficient test of his loyalty;”—forgetting that, at the outbreak of the
rebellion, this proved no test at all.
Such is the Southern plan of reconstruction. Opposed to it is the plan
on which I believe a majority of the people of the loyal States are
agreed, namely, that certain guaranties of future national tranquillity
should be required of those who have caused so great a national
convulsion. But as to what those guaranties should be, opinions are
divided, and a hundred conflicting measures are proposed for the
settlement of the difficulty.
For my own part, I see but one plain rule by which our troubles can be
finally and satisfactorily adjusted; and that is, the enactment of
simple justice for all men. Anything that falls short of this falls
short of the solution of the problem.
The “Civil Rights Bill,”—enacted since the greater portion of these
pages were written,—is a step in the direction in which this country is
inevitably moving. The principles of the Declaration of Independence,
supposed to be our starting-point in history, are in reality the goal
towards which we are tending. Far in advance of our actual civilization,
the pioneers of the Republic set up those shining pillars. Not until all
men are equal before the law, and none is hindered from rising or from
sinking by any impediment which does not exist in his own constitution
and private circumstances, will that goal be reached.
Soon or late the next step is surely coming. That step is universal
suffrage. It may be wise to make some moral or intellectual
qualification a test of a man’s fitness for the franchise; but anything
which does not apply alike to all classes, and which all are not invited
to attain, is inconsistent with the spirit of American nationality.
But will the Southern people ever submit to negro suffrage? They will
submit to it quite as willingly as they submitted to negro emancipation.
They fought against that as long as any power of resistance was in them;
then they accepted it; they are now becoming reconciled to it; and soon
they will rejoice over it. Such is always the history of progressive
ideas. The first advance is opposed with all the might of the world
until its triumph is achieved; then the world says, “Very well,” and
employs all its arts and energies to defeat the next movement, which
triumphs and is finally welcomed in its turn.
At the close of the war, the South was ready to accept any terms which
the victorious government might have seen fit to enforce. The ground was
thoroughly broken; it was fresh from the harrow; and then was the time
for the sowing of the new seed, before delay had given encouragement and
opportunity to the old rank weeds. The States had practically dissolved
their relations to the general government. Their chief men were
traitors, their governors and legislators were entitled to no
recognition, and a new class of free citizens, composing near half the
population, had been created. If, in these changed circumstances, all
the people of those States had been called upon to unite in restoring
their respective governments, and their relations to the general
government, we should have had a simple and easy solution of the main
question at issue. Our allies on the battle-field would have become our
allies at the ballot-box, and by doing justice to them we should have
gained security for ourselves.
But are the lately emancipated blacks prepared for the franchise? They
are, by all moral and intellectual qualifications, as well prepared for
it as the mass of poor whites in the South. Although ignorant, they
possess, as has been said, a strong instinct which stands them in the
place of actual knowledge. That instinct inspires them with loyalty to
the government, and it will never permit them to vote so unwisely and
mischievously as the white people of the South voted in the days of
secession. Moreover, there are among them men of fine intelligence and
leading influence, by whom, and not by their old masters, as has been
claimed, they will be instructed in their duty at the polls. And this
fact is most certain,—that they are far better prepared to have a hand
in making the laws by which they are to be governed, than the whites are
to make those laws for them.
How this step is now to be brought about, is not easy to determine; and
it may not be brought about for some time to come. In the mean while it
is neither wise nor just to allow the representation of the Southern
States in Congress to be increased by the emancipation of a race that
has no voice in that representation; and some constitutional remedy
against this evil is required. And in the mean while the protection of
the government must be continued to the race to which its faith is
pledged. Let us hope not long.
The present high price of cotton, and the extraordinary demand for
labor, seem providential circumstances, designed to teach both races a
great lesson. The freedmen are fast learning the responsibilities of
their new situation, and gaining a position from which they cannot
easily be displaced. Their eagerness to acquire knowledge is a bright
sign of hope for their future. By degrees the dominant class must learn
to respect those who, as chattels, could only be despised. Respect for
labor rises with the condition of the laborer. The whites of the South
are not by choice ignorant or unjust, but circumstances have made them
so. Teach them that the laborer is a man, and that labor is manly,—a
truth that is now dawning upon them,—and the necessity of mediation
between the two races will no longer exist.
Then the institutions of the South will spontaneously assimilate to our
own. Then we shall have a Union of States, not in form only, but in
spirit also. Then shall we see established the reality of the cause that
has cost so many priceless lives and such lavish outpouring of treasure.
Then will disloyalty die of inanition, and its deeds live only in legend
and in story. Then breaks upon America the morning glory of that future
which shall behold it the Home of Man, and the Lawgiver among the
nations.