The South and the National Government | Page 3

the Canadian
border to the Gulf of Mexico. Congress has representatives from every
part of the country, including the South, whose votes are recorded upon
national legislation. Railroads do not break bulk between North and
South. Interstate commerce goes on unvexed between the one and the
other. The Post-office department distributes its mail with impartiality
on each side of Mason's and Dixon's Line. Prosperity in the North is
accompanied by prosperity in the South, and a halt in the one means a
halt in the other. Northern people meet Southern people, and find them
friendly and charming and full of graceful and grateful companionship.
What is it that sets the South apart and takes from the Southern people
the responsibilities which the members of a republic ought to share in
respect to the conduct of the National Government? Why is it that what
is done at Washington seems to be the work of the North and the West,
and not of the South? Should this state of affairs continue? These are
the questions that force themselves on those of us concerned with the
Government and who are most anxious to have a solid, united country,
of whose will the course of the Government shall be an intelligent
interpretation and expression.

We can answer these questions as the historian would, and we can
explain the situation as it is; but I don't think we can justify or excuse a
continuance of it. Looking back into the past, of course, the explanation
of the difference between the South and the other two sections was in
the institution of slavery. It is of no purpose to point out that early in
the history of the country the North was as responsible for bringing
slaves here as the South. We are not concerned with whose fault it was
that there was such an institution as slavery. Nor are we concerned with
the probability that, had the Northerners been interested in slaves, they
would have viewed the institution exactly as the Southerners viewed it
and would have fought to defend it because as sacred as the institution
of private property itself. It is sufficient to say, as I think we all now
realize, that the institution of slavery was a bad thing and that it is a
good thing to have got rid of it. It doesn't help in the slightest degree in
the present day to stir up the embers of the controversy of the past by
attempting to fix blame on one part of the country or the other, in
respect to an institution which has gone, and happily gone, on the one
hand, or in respect to the consequences of that institution which we still
have with us, on the other. These consequences we are to recognize as a
condition and a fact, and a problem for solution rather than as an
occasion for crimination or recrimination.
Over the question of the extension of slavery the Civil War came, and
that contest developed a heroism on both sides, in the people from the
North and the people from the South, that evokes the admiration of all
Americans for American courage, self-sacrifice, and patriotism. But
when slavery was abolished by the war the excision of the cancer left a
wound that must necessarily be a long time in healing. Nearly
5,000,000 slaves were freed; but 5 per cent. of them could read or write;
a much smaller percentage were skilled laborers. They were but as
children in meeting the stern responsibilities of life as free men. As
such they had to be absorbed into and adjusted to our civilization. It
was a radical change, full of discouragement and obstacles. Their rights
were declared by the war Amendments, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and
Fifteenth. The one established their freedom; the second their
citizenship and their rights to pursue happiness and hold property; and
the third their right not to be discriminated against in their political

privileges on account of their color or previous condition of servitude.
I am not going to rehearse the painful history of reconstruction, or what
followed it. I come at once to the present condition of things, stated
from a constitutional and political standpoint. And that is this: That in
all the Southern States it is possible, by election laws prescribing
proper qualifications for the suffrage, which square with the Fifteenth
Amendment and which shall be equally administered as between the
black and white races, to prevent entirely the possibility of a
domination of Southern state, county, or municipal governments by an
ignorant electorate, white or black. It is further true that the sooner such
laws, when adopted, are applied with exact equality and justice to the
two races, the better for the moral tone of state and community
concerned. Negroes should be