A long chapter might be written upon the dis-likeness of North and South, the difference in education, in training, in mental inheritances, the misapprehensions, radical and very singular to us, of the civilization of the North. We must recognize certain historic facts, not only the effect of the institution of slavery, but other facts in Southern development. Suppose we say that an unreasonable prejudice exists, or did exist, about the people of the North. That prejudice is a historic fact, of which the statesman must take account. It enters into the question of the time needed to effect the revolution now in progress. There are prejudices in the North about the South as well. We admit their existence. But what impresses me is the rapidity with which they are disappearing in the South. Knowing what human nature is, it seems incredible that they could have subsided so rapidly. Enough remain for national variety, and enough will remain for purposes of social badinage, but common interests in the country and in making money are melting them away very fast. So far as loyalty to the Government is concerned, I am not authorized to say that it is as deeply rooted in the South as in the North, but it is expressed as vividly, and felt with a good deal of fresh enthusiasm. The “American” sentiment, pride in this as the most glorious of all lands, is genuine, and amounts to enthusiasm with many who would in an argument glory in their rebellion. “We had more loyalty to our States than you had,” said one lady, “and we have transferred it to the whole country.”
But the negro? Granting that the South is loyal enough, wishes never another rebellion, and is satisfied to be rid of slavery, do not the people intend to keep the negroes practically a servile class, slaves in all but the name, and to defeat by chicanery or by force the legitimate results of the war and of enfranchisement?
This is a very large question, and cannot be discussed in my limits. If I were to say what my impression is, it would be about this: the South is quite as much perplexed by the negro problem as the North is, and is very much disposed to await developments, and to let time solve it. One thing, however, must be admitted in all this discussion. The Southerners will not permit such Legislatures as those assembled once in Louisiana and South Carolina to rule them again. “Will you disfranchise the blacks by management or by force?”
“Well, what would you do in Ohio or in Connecticut? Would you be ruled by a lot of ignorant field-hands allied with a gang of plunderers?”
In looking at this question from a Northern point of view we have to keep in mind two things: first, the Federal Government imposed colored suffrage without any educational qualification—a hazardous experiment; in the second place, it has handed over the control of the colored people in each State to the State, under the Constitution, as completely in Louisiana as in New York. The responsibility is on Louisiana. The North cannot relieve her of it, and it cannot interfere, except by ways provided in the Constitution. In the South, where fear of a legislative domination has gone, the feeling between the two races is that of amity and mutual help. This is, I think, especially true in Louisiana. The Southerners never have forgotten the loyalty of the slaves during the war, the security with which the white families dwelt in the midst of a black population while all the white men were absent in the field; they often refer to this. It touches with tenderness the new relation of the races. I think there is generally in the South a feeling of good-will towards the negroes, a desire that they should develop into true manhood and womanhood. Undeniably there are indifference and neglect and some remaining suspicion about the schools that Northern charity has organized for the negroes. As to this neglect of the negro, two things are to be said: the whole subject of education (as we have understood it in the North) is comparatively new in the South; and the necessity of earning a living since the war has distracted attention from it. But the general development of education is quite as advanced as could be expected. The thoughtful and the leaders of opinion are fully awake to the fact that the mass of the people must be educated, and that the only settlement of the negro problem is in the education of the negro, intellectually and morally. They go further than this. They say that for the South to hold its own—since the negro is there and will stay there, and is the majority of the laboring class—it is necessary that the great agricultural mass of unskilled labor should be transformed, to a great extent, into a class of skilled labor, skilled on the farm, in shops, in factories, and that the South must have a highly diversified industry. To this end they want industrial as well as ordinary schools for the colored people.
It is believed that, with this education and with diversified industry, the social question will settle itself, as it does the world over. Society cannot be made or unmade by legislation. In New Orleans the street-ears are free to all colors; at the Exposition white and colored people mingled freely, talking and looking at what was of common interest.
We who live in States where hotel-keepers exclude Hebrews cannot say much about the exclusion of negroes from Southern hotels. There are prejudices remaining. There are cases of hardship on the railways, where for the same charge perfectly respectable and nearly white women are shut out of cars while there is no discrimination against dirty and disagreeable white people. In time all this will doubtless rest upon the basis it rests on at the North, and social life will take care of itself. It is my impression that the negroes are no more desirous to mingle socially with the whites than the whites are with the negroes. Among the negroes there are social grades as distinctly marked as in white society. What will be the final outcome of the juxtaposition nobody can tell; meantime it must be recorded that good-will exists between the races.
I had one day at the Exposition an interesting talk with the colored woman in charge of the Alabama section of the exhibit of the colored people. This exhibit, made by States, was suggested and promoted by Major Burke in order to show the whites what the colored people could do, and as a stimulus to the latter. There was not much time—only two or three months—in which to prepare the exhibit, and it was hardly a fair showing of the capacity of the colored people. The work was mainly women’s work—embroidery, sewing, household stuffs, with a little of the handiwork of artisans, and an exhibit of the progress in education; but small as it was, it was wonderful as the result of only a few years of freedom. The Alabama exhibit was largely from Mobile, and was due to the energy, executive ability, and taste of the commissioner in charge. She was a quadroon, a widow, a woman of character and uncommon mental and moral quality. She talked exceedingly well, and with a practical good-sense which would be notable in anybody. In the course of our conversation the whole social and political question was gone over. Herself a person of light color, and with a confirmed social prejudice against black people, she thoroughly identified herself with the colored race, and it was evident that her sympathies were with them. She confirmed what I had heard of the social grades among colored people, but her whole soul was in the elevation of her race as a race, inclining always to their side, but with no trace of hostility to the whites. Many of her best friends were whites, and perhaps the most valuable part of her education was acquired in families of social distinction. “I can illustrate,” she said, “the state of feeling between the two races in Mobile by an incident last summer. There was an election coming off in the City Government, and I knew that the reformers wanted and needed the colored vote. I went, therefore, to some of the chief men, who knew me and had confidence in me, for I had had business relations with many of them [she had kept a fashionable boarding-house], and told them that I wanted the Opera-house for the colored people to give an entertainment and exhibition in. The request was extraordinary. Nobody but white people had ever been admitted to the Opera-house. But, after some hesitation and consultation, the request was granted. We gave the exhibition, and the white people all attended. It was really a beautiful affair, lovely tableaux, with gorgeous dresses, recitations, etc., and everybody was astonished that the colored people had so much taste and talent, and had got on so far in education. They said they were delighted and surprised, and they liked it so well that they wanted the entertainment repeated—it was given for one of our charities—but I was too wise for that. I didn’t want to run the chance of destroying the impression by repeating, and I said we would wait a while, and then show them something better. Well, the election came off in August, and everything went all right, and now the colored people in Mobile can have anything they want. There is the best feeling between the races. I tell you we should get on beautifully if the politicians would let us alone. It is politics that has made all the trouble in Alabama and in Mobile.” And I learned that in Mobile, as in many other places, the negroes