Studies in the South

VI.

NEGRO “BULL-DOZERS.”

AMONG the more intelligent negroes in the towns, the feeling of loyalty to the political party which gave them their liberty is still strong, but I could not find much of this sentiment among the negroes in the great black districts. I was much interested in trying to learn what were the chief influences which still held these masses, incapable of thought, in the ranks of the dominant party. I found the party organization and discipline among them everywhere most careful, vigorous, and repressive. Many of them are influenced, so their own leaders state, by “ free drinks ” during the campaign or electioneering season. There is also, in many places, much violent treatment, by the negroes themselves, of those of their own race who are guilty of defection from the party. They “ bull-doze ” and “ku-kluk ” any “ fool nigger ” that “ votes ag’in hisse’f an’ his own intruss.” “ We ’ll run ’em out, shoah,” they say of negroes who may vote the democratic ticket in the black districts. I could not learn that white men of either party give any attention to this negro “ bull-dozing,” or care anything about it. The “ punishment” administered by the negroes for defection from the republican party is usually, as I was everywhere told by the negroes themselves, whipping or beating ; but when the man to be punished has stock or property of any kind, it is sometimes destroyed, fences are opened, and animals are turned into the fields to destroy his growing crop ; or it is burned after it has been gathered.

NEGROES AND SHEEP VOTING.

If a man who owns a hundred sheep could pin a ballot into the wool of each, drive the flock to the polls, and have the ballots accepted and counted, the process would be “ voting ” on the part of the sheep as truly as is the carrying of tickets to the ballot-box by multitudes of these negroes the exercise of the right of suffrage on their part. Their mental relation to the act of voting differs little from that of the sheep in the case supposed.

Many of the local republican politicians with whom I conversed said that it was not desirable to give these negroes any political education or enlightenment, and that if it were desirable it would not be possible; that no means or effort could ever give them an intelligence or judgment of their own regarding political matters. “ They will never know a thing about politics, if you talk to them till doomsday,” these men say. “ If we do not control them, the democrats will : that’s the long and the short of the matter.” I was everywhere impressed by the fact that the republican politicians of the South are much less hopeful regarding the improvement of the negroes, and their capabilities in the direction of the duties of intelligent citizenship, than are the democrats or “ Bourbons.” A word here regarding these local republican politicians. I do not mean that what I am about to say applies to all the republican managers and office-holders whom I saw in the South ; there are some exceptions ; but it does apply to a very considerable proportion of those whom I met. From all these men — the most objectionable as well as the best — I received uniform courtesy and kindness, and I acknowledge my great indebtedness to most of them for information which nobody else could possibly have given me.

Most of the men whom I am here obliged to describe unfavorably are of Northern origin. Those of them who are postmasters appear to consider it their official business and duty to cause the people about them as much inconvenience and discomfort as they can, by way of punishing them for having been rebels, and for still being “ Southerners " and democrats.

NORTHERN OFFICE-HOLDERS IN THE SOUTH.

Many times I was told, in answer to inquiries about the people of the town and its vicinity, “ If I had my way they should n’t have any facilities for business. They don’t deserve any mail service, nor anything else, from the government they tried to overthrow.” “ But,” I suggested sometimes, “ the war was over a good while ago, and we must some time let the past alone, and begin anew. We whipped the South pretty thoroughly, did n’t we ? We can’t go on forever punishing these people for what was done so long ago.” And the answer was often, “ The Southerners are just as bitter against the government and against the North as they were in ’63. The war is not over yet, and it never will be while these people vote the democratic ticket. It was a great mistake that the government did not hang all the leading rebels at the close of the war.”

I was talking with a man of this type, in an important Southern town, one day, when three or four prominent democratic citizens of the place passed near where we were standing in the street. They saluted us civilly, and one of them asked my republican acquaintance what he thought of a recent friendly utterance, on the part of a distinguished Northern republican politician, regarding the Southern people and their industries and business interests. His reply was, “Yes, damn you, you’ve greased and swallowed him, but you can’t swallow me. You ought to have been hanged when the war was over, and you deserve it now as much as you did then.” The men merely bowed to me in silence, and passed on. This very radical gentleman was the postmaster of the town, and had held that office for several years.

In some instances, when I saw that the postmaster was a dissipated man, or in a marked degree uncivil or incompetent, I asked the leading business men of the place how they managed to endure the inconvenience and discourtesy to which they were subjected. They always said that there had been a great improvement within a few years, and that they trusted that time would still further relieve them, as a better class of men came to the South. In cases where a postmaster’s want of adaptation to his position was manifest at once, even to a stranger, the business men, for some reason, showed great reserve and unwillingness to make any considerable criticism. I do not know whether this was because they were not disposed to speak freely to a stranger (they talked to me with wonderful frankness upon almost all other topics), or because they thought I might make trouble for them by reporting their unfavorable utterances ; but I was not able to draw from Southern business men any direct criticism or complaint regarding particular persons connected with government offices in their own community, — that is, not from democrats.

A POSTMASTER COMES TO GRIEF.

In a prominent Southern city I had much talk with the postmaster. He was a young man from the North, and was glad to see a traveler from that region. He spoke very contemptuously of “ society,” and of the leading citizens; but he told me with much vivacity about the “ sporting men ” of the place, and of his adventures with the women of the town. I learned from him that he thought much of his proficiency in play ; that he was “ learning very fast,” and had already won considerable sums in the gambling-houses of the city. I observed that he was rude and dictatorial in his business intercourse with the people, and many persons of his own political party spoke to me of his dissolute habits and character. When I last talked with him I made this entry in my note-book: “ From what this man tells me of himself, it seems almost certain that he will use, or is using, the revenues of his office for the expenses of his way of living.” Since then I have seen in the newspapers an account of his arrest for embezzlement of the money passing through the office or belonging to it.

A CLUMSY METHOD.

But, notwithstanding all the difficulties connected with negro suffrage, and with the unworthiness of many republican politicians in the South, I think the practice of hindering or neutralizing the negro vote, which I have described, a very clumsy method of dealing with these difficulties, — somewhat stupid or unintelligent, and entirely unprofitable and unnecessary so far as Southern interests, even those of the white people of the South, are concerned.

FAILURE OF THE SOUTHERN PLAN.

After much investigation of everything connected with the subject, I conclude that all illegal interference with the right of black men to vote in the Southern States is a mistake and a blunder on the part of those engaged in it. As a method of overcoming the difficulties or counteracting the evils connected with negro suffrage, it is unwise and mischievous. It has fatal defects, and, in practice, does more harm than good. I think it is entirely true, as Southerners so often urge, that the people of the Northern States do not generally appreciate or rightly understand the gravity of the problems involved in this matter of negro suffrage for the people of the South. How to maintain good government, and to secure the honest execution of the laws and the impartial administration of justice ; how to preserve the institutions of civilized society where a great majority of the “ free and sovereign citizens ” are, as I have here described them, incapable of any real or intelligent use of the right of suffrage, is a problem that might well tax to the utmost the wisdom and energies of any people.

It does not seem to me wonderful or unpardonable that the people of some of the Southern States have made mistakes and failures in dealing with this matter. I am not certain that anybody else, in their place and circumstances, would have done much better than they. There are measures taken by them which I should be quite ready to denounce with the greatest severity, if such denunciation appeared to be adapted to produce improvement and reform. My present purpose, however, is to point out the course which, as it seems to me, is most likely to be useful to the Southern people themselves, of both races, in their relations to these questions.

EVADING TIIE DIFFICULTIES.

Some of the Southern States have tried to solve these problems, or rather they have tried to escape the difficulties involved, by means of laws, which, in their practical effect, exclude a large proportion of the negro voters from the polls. This can be done, and this desired object can be attained under the forms of law. It is accomplished in some of the Southern States by poll-tax laws ; by requiring all voters to pay an annual “ capitation tax ” as a condition of admission to the polls. These laws have the effect of disfranchising a great proportion of the negroes; were enacted for this special purpose, as leading Southern men everywhere frankly avow. This is, perhaps, better than violence and murder as a method of “ protecting the ballot-box and preserving civilized society,” but it does not really meet or overcome the difficulties of the situation. It is merely an endeavor to avoid or postpone them.

THE BEAM IN NEW ENGLAND’S EYE.

It was very frequently suggested by Southern men, in talking with me of this subject, that the people of New England employ methods somewhat similar in dealing with difficulties far less serious and pressing than those which beset the course of the people in the great black regions of the South. These gentlemen reminded me that even in New England the laws do not everywhere allow all men to vote ; that “ qualifications ” are imposed, which, in their practical effect, exclude and disfranchise many who would otherwise have a right to vote. I have not thought it necessary, in such cases, to defend everything that is done in the Northern States, or everything belonging to New England. I have, on the contrary, preferred to admit that such qualifications and consequent exclusion and disfranchisement have been found unprofitable and mischievous wherever they have been adopted in the North ; that they foster discontent, beget a feeling of enmity and rebellion against the commonwealth, and furnish opportunity for demagogues to inflame and mislead the working people, especially in times of disturbed and depressed conditions of business and finance.

It is better to meet the difficulties of popular ignorance in the South and in the North fairly and justly than to try to evade them. It is the American political idea, or principle, to distribute sovereignty as widely as possible, and in accordance with this principle all men not criminals or insane should have equal voice in choosing their rulers, no matter what their color or race, or their condition of poverty, misfortune, ignorance, or other disability. Any modification of this principle involves the relinquishment of something which is essential to a system of government by the people.

Men learn faster how to use power rightly by possessing and using it than by being deprived of it and excluded from it; and any manifest inequality or injustice in the exclusion of a particular class always produces various unwholesome effects.

It was doubtless natural and to be expected that the white people of some of the Southern States should try to escape from the difficulties which result from negro suffrage by means of polltax laws, and other legislation having for its object the exclusion of most of the black men from the polls. Probably most of the Northern States would have done the same thing in the same circumstances. Nevertheless, I am certain that such a method cannot be permanently successful in this country ; and even if something of the kind was several years ago inevitable at the South, it is now time to abandon it, and to accept in full the American political principle of universal suffrage. If Southern white men think it unsafe to permit the negroes to exercise or possess the right of suffrage, let them disfranchise them, and then surrender so much of their congressional representation as is based on the black population of their States. This would at least be honest, though I think it would be unwise, because unnecessary.

BETTER TO GIVE EVERYBODY A FAIR CHANCE.

I am convinced that from this time forward it would be better for all the interests of the Southern people, better for the white race, that all men who are citizens of the United States, not insane persons or criminals, should enjoy and exercise the right of suffrage in the Southern States in which they reside, and that their use of this right should not in any way be restricted, interfered with, or neutralized, on account of their color or race, or even of their ignorance or incapacity. We shall be obliged, I think, to include the negroes in the great experiment of democracy.

THE REMEDY.

The first feature of the remedy which I would apply, for all the evils of ignorant negro suffrage, is publicity. Let the negroes vote; arrange everything connected with elections fairly and without discrimination against them on account of race ; and then let Southern writers and newspapers report and describe, fully and accurately, all the actions, proceedings, and characteristics of the negroes in politics and in public and civil life, including their follies and improprieties and the mischiefs that result from their possession of political rights and power. A real acquaintance on the part of the American people in general with the essential facts in the case must be the basis of any method or course of action which is to lead to real improvement in “ the Southern situation,” or to any genuine solution of its difficulties. After studying these matters in every part of the South, I am obliged to conclude that the people of our country have never been adequately informed in regard to the condition of things in that region. There is still need for much more extensive, accurate, and definite knowledge of the state and character of the South than is yet possessed by the Northern people in general ; and it is also true that many of the people of the Southern States, even of the intelligent classes, are very imperfectly acquainted with the real condition of large classes of the people of their own States.

I found everywhere strong reasons for a new study of the facts of the time ; for observations pursued with the sole wish to obtain the truth and the whole truth, with no partial or partisan purpose or interests in view ; and for a report which should be simply accurate and faithful, as the necessary basis for all valuable judgment or opinion. This need of reporting, as distinguished from advocacy or argument, and from novelwriting, cannot be too strongly emphasized. There is excellent opportunity and abundant material for the construction of novels and romances dealing with Southern life and its conditions ; but such works do not furnish the best method for conveying to the Northern people the knowledge which they require to enable them rightly to understand the actual facts of life in the South and of the relations between the two races there. It is knowledge which is needed, wide observation of facts, accurate, photographic reporting, and then such comparison and discussion of the results, of the facts of the situation, as the thoughtful people of our country are abundantly capable of conducting when they are possessed of sufficient information.

SOUTHERN WRITERS.

When I suggested this view of the matter to Southern men, they usually lamented their lack of writers of ability who could adequately present the facts of the Southern situation for the consideration of the Northern people; but surely, Southern men can observe, can study, existing conditions and activities in their own country, and can report the facts accurately, without coloring, distorting or suppressing them. If they cannot now do this they must learn, for herein lies their salvation. But they have already shown (or some of their journalists have shown) that they have sufficient ability for such work. It only remains for them to use their powers in the direction here indicated. It cannot be too much insisted upon that no such study or presentation of the facts of Southern life and political and social conditions has yet been made by Southern men, and that the people of the South need such information quite as much as the people of the North, perhaps more.

NORTHERN DESIRE FOR LIGHT.

I observed that Southern men often expressed a feeling of distrust or uncertainty regarding the disposition or willingness of the Northern people to receive, and of Northern editors to publish, the real truth in regard to the South, without partisan manipulation. But I assured them that in this respect they were in error; that the people of the Northern States wished to know the exact truth regarding the whole state of things in the South ; and that the editors of the most influential publications in the North were not only willing to publish the exact truth, but were most desirous to obtain it. The people of the South should present their own case, if they feel that they have one. They may be sure that this work of observing and reporting the facts of Southern political conditions and activities will be taken up more and more extensively, and performed more and more thoroughly, by Northern men ; and it would be an excellent thing for Southern interests if Southern men would lead in this field. There is a desire throughout the North for fuller knowledge of Southern affairs. This desire is certain to increase. There will soon be many workers in this field, and the educated and patriotic young men of the South could not desire opportunity for service more worthy of their best powers, or more important for the welfare of the communities in which they live.

PROGRESSIVE JOURNALISM.

The South needs an independent press; not merely two or three great newspapers in the largest cities, but journals in every State, for the thorough, fearless discussion of political subjects in a truly national and unpartisan spirit. It is also most necessary that Southern men of ability and thoughtfulness should everywhere throw off the feeling of helplessness and depression, in regard to the evils of the political condition of their States, which has characterized so many of them. There should be no incurable evils in this country. However great may be the obstacles in the path of the Southern people, they can be removed, or greatly diminished, by the means which I have here indicated. There is still far too much of a disposition among Southern men to excuse themselves from all effort for improvement in political matters on account of the abuses and wrongs connected with the “carpet-bag governments ” and the enfranchisement of the negroes. But the time for helplessness and for mere complaining is past.

COMING PERILS.

I do not doubt that serious inconveniences will yet, in many instances and in various ways, result from the unrestricted use of the ballot by the ignorant black voters, so many of whom are, as I have pointed out, entirely incapable of any real exercise of the right of suffrage. It may be true that it was a most ill-advised and mischievous proceeding to give the emancipated slaves the ballot, but that is not now a very practical or interesting question. It has been done, and there is not the slightest probability that the ballot will ever be taken from them. There will be no permanent peace or prosperity in the South until the mass of the Southern people, or their leaders, accept equal political rights for the negro as something inevitable. They need not say they like it if they do not, or that they believe “ the reconstruction measures ” were wise, or that Northern politicians are all saints and incorruptible patriots ; but negro suffrage is an accomplished fact. It will be a part of all that the South can do or become in politics. The negro is in the South, and is in her political life, and has come to stay.

If leading Southern men will declare themselves in favor of honesty in political action, of equal political rights for both races, and of the protection of all classes of voters in the unabridged exercise of the right of suffrage, and will work for these ends, they will have the most vital sympathy and assistance of the people of the North, under any evils or abuses that may come upon the South, or any portion of it, as the result of negro suffrage. But the best people of the North, the real North, will never believe that fraud and intimidation are necessary as permanent features of the political life of any community in our country. Northern men who are entirely free from passion and prejudice against the South, — and there are many of them, — and who wish to aid the Southern people to attain the highest possible prosperity, can do little for this end while the practice of suppressing or neutralizing the negro vote is maintained. Any political system which includes and tolerates such practices is a hopeless quicksand, upon which nothing can be made to stand ; a bottomless pit of corruption, which must ultimately swallow up the civil institutions of a people blind enough to believe that injustice can be made a means of security.

THE WORK MUST BE DONE IN THE SOUTH.

Let Southern men everywhere go to work to expel from politics all dishonest and corrupt leaders, whether they are from the North or the South ; let them use all means in their power to increase and diffuse intelligence among the people of both races, to educate and develop public sentiment in accordance with the principles of justice and right; and especially let them inculcate and practice obedience to law. They can then maintain self-respect under whatever temporary evils may still afflict them, and their attitude and course of action will develop such influences and methods as are best adapted to correct and remove all such evils.

I believe that these suggestions embody a practicable and adequate remedy for the " troubles of the South ” so far as they are connected with negro suffrage, or are produced by its results or accompaniments. These things will require time and patience, but they can be done, and must be, if our national experiment of government by the people is to succeed. I think that what cannot be cured in America by honesty, justice, intelligence, and public spirit will have to be endured; for no evil can be removed by injustice, except by substituting a worse evil than the one which is expelled. The day of the old order of things, the time for suppressing or neutralizing the negro vote by illegal or unjust means, has passed away.

SIGNS OF A CRASH.

It was evident to me, throughout the South, that existing conditions in regard to politics and the organization and relations of parties were extremely unstable, and their duration uncertain. Even the leaders and principal supporters of the dominant or successful organizations appeared to be weary of present arrangements, and desirous of change. There was everywhere a sense of hollowness, of the unreality of the issues and grounds of dispute between the parties ; a half-suppressed cry — sometimes almost agonizing in its intensity — for “ new issues,” for some development or combination, which would give opportunity for a change of front on the part of the democratic party. But it did not seem probable that the republican party, as now constituted in the Southern States, would be able, in many instances, to combine the various elements of disaffection and revolt. It appeared to me that in most cases the first successful insurrection against the existing order of things in politics in the South would not be made on the ground of any very elevated or important principles, but would be chiefly a struggle for power and “ the spoils ” on the part of “ new men.” I saw many of these in every part of the South. They were “ waiting for a chance,” to use an expression which one constantly hears from them. I often asked them, “What shall you try to do ? What will be the basis or aim of the new movement in your State?” And the answer nearly always was, “ Don’t know ; we shall go in for anything, for a new deal. That we ’re bound to have.”

THE “ NEW MEN.”

Perhaps it is what we should naturally expect under the circumstances, but nevertheless the evident unscrupulousness of many of these new men, their indifference to the obligations of honesty, their lack of public spirit and of regard for law, are not favorable signs of the times. In personal honor, probity, public spirit, and most of the qualities of good citizenship, they are very commonly inferior to the Bourbon leaders, whom they are likely soon to displace. One cannot help seeing this, however strongly he may be opposed to the political principles and methods of the democratic party in the Southern States. What I have presented regarding the condition and needs of the South has reference to the course which, as it seems to me, should be pursued by the Southern people. But no honest report of the existing state of things in that region can be made which does not recognize those features of the situation which are produced by the agency and character of Northern men holding office in the South. There are many of these, in most or all of the Southern States, who are a source of weakness, and not of strength, to any national administration which appoints them. Their real character and methods of action cannot be known, I think, to the highest authorities in the government, or they would at once be dismissed, and would disappear from political life forever. There is something abnormal and unwholesome, it seems to me, in the practice of rewarding a politician for services rendered to his party in New Hampshire, for instance, by appointing him postmaster in a town in Alabama. There are good, loyal, moderate men, of irreproachable character, everywhere in the South, — enough of them to fill all such offices; and the republican party would, in my judgment, be greatly strengthened by the selection of such men for most of the local offices in the South, which are filled by appointment in Washington.

SOUTHERN EDUCATION.

There is much to encourage all thoughtful and patriotic men in the present attitude and activities of the people of the Southern States relative to education. The increase of popular interest and of accomplished results is everywhere manifest and vital. All educational work in the South, whatever the obstacles and discouragements in this field may be, has the advantage of a constantly rising tide, and of being done on widening lines of advance. It is a time of growth, of new undertakings, more comprehensive plans, and, generally, of increasing revenues and resources of all kinds. The very fact that our educational work has been going on so long, and that our educational institutions are established so firmly and securely, is, in most Northern communities, a reason for a somewhat languid popular feeling in regard to education. “The machinery runs itself.” But in the South there is a newness about much of the educational work now going on, which gives opportunity for personal earnestness and self-sacrifice; and for the development of popular enthusiasm, and thus the situation has its advantages as well as its disadvantages.

MORE PRACTICAL THAN IN THE NORTH.

I observed also, nearly everywhere, a feature of great interest and importance in the fact that the new education in the South is tending to become more practical and industrial than is the education which is obtained in most of the schools of the Northern States. The Southern people are compelled, by the peculiar conditions and circumstances of life in their communities, to inquire more closely than is usually done in the North what kind of knowledge and instruction will be most useful to the young in after-life. The new education in the Southern States is, in many instances, better suited to the needs of the people there than is the average Northern school education to the needs of the masses here.

Of course there is still a vast amount of popular ignorance and indifference almost everywhere in the South ; there are many incompetent teachers; and there is the general discouragement of inadequate revenues for pressing needs. But, considering the recent extreme impoverishment of the country, and the violent displacement of the old system of social life and of the institutions of all these States, the results actually attained in the establishment and administration of new systems of popular education are remarkable and highly gratifying. The Peabody Fund has produced immeasurable benefits in the Southern States. I visited many of the men who are chiefly concerned in its administration, and it is evident that this work is generally in the hands of gentlemen who are admirably fitted for its management, and that the proceeds of this endowment are distributed with scrupulous fidelity, and with a wise perception of the chief needs of the time.

EDUCATING THE NEGROES.

The foremost men in the Southern States — I mean those who are foremost in business, and in the social and moral life and activities of the local communities — are everywhere taking up the subject of education for the negroes in a serious and business-like spirit. I did not find anywhere, except in Southwestern Texas, any manifestation of prejudice against negro education, or feeling of jealousy regarding the advancement of the colored people in intelligence or capability for self-elevation. The Southern people are divided in opinion regarding the capacity of the negroes for continued or permanent intellectual improvement; some of them holding that, while the negroes readily acquire the rudiments of knowledge on account of their imitative ability, they are much inferior to the white people in whatever requires sustained and complex mental activity. This is probably true, but no such rule can be of universal application, and Southern men say everywhere that many individuals among the colored people are capable of using profitably the best educational facilities that can be placed within their reach, and that it is necessary for the welfare of the white people that the negroes should be educated as fast and as fully as possible.

Many of the Southern people appear to me to be rather sanguine and extravagant in their expectations regarding the results of popular intellectual enlightenment. They talk very much as Horace Mann and his fellow-laborers talked, when they were beginning the intellectual revival which led to the establishment of the New England publicschool system. They will of course find, as has been shown in the Northern States, that even after the public schools have educated the mass of the people, other problems of a serious nature remain.

A CLASS WITH NO FRIENDS.

The negroes are being educated more rapidly, in large portions of the South, than are the people known as “ poor whites.” More interest is felt and greater efforts are made in behalf of the negroes than for this class of white people. The negro has the advantage of being in the world’s eye and mind. He is somewhat picturesque, and occupies a position of historic interest. He has powerful friends. The poor whites have no friends ; there is no picturesqueness, no historic interest, connected with their situation. The leading white men of the Southern States, democrats, seem to me to feel a more kindly interest in the negroes than in this class of poor people of their own race. They know much more about them. Greater effort is likely to be made, for a long time to come, for the education and improvement of the negroes than for the advancement of the poor whites ; and yet the class is not at all so degraded or so worthless as is popularly believed. These people are primitive in character, and in the conditions and methods of their life, but they are not degraded. There is, however, great danger that many of them will be debased under the changed conditions of the new order of things in the South. No other class in that portion of our country is so little understood, or would better repay careful study. It is highly important that the attention of thoughtful, philanthropic and patriotic men, both North and South, should be directed to their position and probable tendencies in relation to the new life of the country in which they live. In blood and inherited qualities they are not, generally, vicious or low. But they have no friends, no sympathy, either North or South.

“ OPEN THE NATIONAL TREASURY ! ”

Leading Southern democrats almost everywhere believe that aid from the national government in the education of the negroes is desirable, and indeed indispensable. To one accustomed in the North to hear democrats oppose all avoidable interference of the general government with the affairs of the States and of local communities, it is startling to hear Southern democrats so generally and so vehemently advocate a national system of education, to be sustained by the national treasury. When I suggested to these gentlemen that many even among republicans in the North think it unwise to make any greater changes than are absolutely necessary, on account of the war, in our institutions and our methods of public administration, they were sometimes almost impatient.

“ Whether anybody likes it or not,” they said, " one of the results of the war is centralization, a great development of the power and functions of the national government. The sphere of state governments and of state activities will decline more and more, and the powers and duties of the state governments will pass, in increasing measure, to the national executive.” And they always went on to urge that just as the people along the Lower Mississippi cannot adequately protect the country from destructive inundations, and therefore the care of the river and the maintenance of a system of levees are properly a work for national subsidies, so the work of the education of the negro race will be so stupendous in its requirements that it will be impossible for the Southern people to provide for its inevitable cost. They also often urge that as the national government freed the slaves, and then gave them the ballot, it is justly under obligation to pay the expense of educating the race.

GONE TO THE OTHER EXTREME.

It is evident that the “ subsidy view ” of government is everywhere strongly held in the South, and that henceforth the most determined champions of “ centralization ” will be found in that portion of our country. There is not anywhere in the South such fealty to the traditions or doctrines of the democratic party as to make this change, or any other, in the least difficult or unnatural. This disposition to enlarge the powers and functions of the national government, to make it as strong as possible, and to diminish the scope of the functions and sovereignty of the States has already reached an extreme development in the South. I found very little trace of a healthful, intelligent spirit of respect for the constitutional position and powers of the separate States, except in Texas. The best people in that State are opposed to its division into two or more States, as they wish to make it as strong as possible in the national House of Representatives, and they seem to have a wholesome sense of the importance of maintaining the proper balance and constitutional relations between the spheres of the national and state governments. It would be well for thoughtful men in New England and throughout the Northern States to recognize the need of cultivating a rational and practical doctrine and sentiment of “ state rights,” and of respect for the fundamental provisions of the national constitution relating to this subject, as a corrective to the extravagant and somewhat fantastic advocacy of centralization which has been developed in the South.

THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA.

The University of Virginia is an institution worthy of the interest of cultivated and public-spirited men everywhere, North as well as South. It is doing excellent work. Many of its students are poor, and are struggling hard, with painfully limited means, to acquire an education. It greatly needs additional endowment. I obtained, by personal investigation, the knowledge of several cases of remarkable self-denial, of heroic endurance of hardship, among the students of this university, and of other institutions in the Southern States. They are precisely such as were familiar in so many New England country towns in the old times, where the people were poor; a boy starved, and the whole family starved, that he might go to college.

WHAT HORACE MANN WOULD FEEL.

While visiting the colleges in Mississippi, Texas, Alabama, North Carolina, and Virginia, I was constantly reminded of Horace Mann, and I thought everywhere of the happy enthusiasm which he would feel if he were alive to-day, and could see what I have seen of the work of the friends of popular education in the Southern States. I do not wish, by naming the University of Virginia, to convey the impression that other institutions in the South are not worthy of Northern sympathy and confidence. In all the other States excellent work is done, and the colleges and universities, though sadly crippled by lack of means, are still everywhere centres of light, and of wholesome, vivifying culture. Whatever Bourbonism there may be in other departments of Southern life, I found no signs of evil result from its influence in the work of Southern schools and colleges. Many of the best of these institutions are under the control of men of the class to whom the term Bourbon is always applied by many Northern journals, and it would be well for the interests of education if they could remain under the same management. Many signs in the South indicate that, under the control of the new men who will come into power “ when Bourbon rule is broken up,” educational endowments and trusts are likely to be less secure and less valuable than they are now.

SCHOOLS FOR YOUNG WOMEN.

The female seminaries, or boarding-schools for young women, are doing excellent work throughout the South. The one at Staunton, Virginia, is a good type of the class. I should like to describe a visit to this school, but what is best about it is in so great degree of a personal and domestic nature that I cannot speak of it very fully. But the school, like several others which I visited in different Southern States, is the lifework of a good woman, and everything about it is pervaded and inspired by her personal qualities. The education which is given in these seminaries seems a little old-fashioned to a New England man, a little more feminine than that which is given to the daughters of the North in our day, but it may be none the worse for that. Certainly the spirit of the pupils seems everywhere to be remarkably wholesome and satisfactory, as a visitor is sometimes privileged to see when dining in the great hall with the whole school. In several of these seminaries I observed that the rules forbid all novel-reading during the term.

KEEP WHAT IS GOOD.

Many changes are in progress in the South, and more will doubtless come within a few years; among other things, changes in the education of girls, and in popular taste and sentiment regarding the position, culture, and work of women. But some things which the South has brought down from a former time are good and admirable, and it is to be hoped that the Southern people will not be in haste to relinquish them.

An interesting and valuable book might be written on the history, endowments, character, personal equipment and work of Southern schools, colleges, and universities. Each State in the Union should prepare and publish for the use of its people, and as a part of its system of education, a history of its school system, and of the institutions of learning within its domain.