The South and the National Government | Page 3

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 given an opportunity equally with whites, by education and thrift, to meet the requirements of eligibility which the State Legislatures in their wisdom shall lay down in order to secure the safe exercise of the electoral franchise. The Negro should