The Brothers' War

by John C. Reed

It is not our object to give a false impression of the influence of the class of farmers last referred to. They are but few, and their efforts are but the beginnings of the happy coming change. Their courage, power, and numbers are manifestly on the increase; and, as there is no other progressive activity in agriculture, and they meet no opposition save the passive resistance of despondency and inaction, it is almost certain that they will lay deep and sure the foundations of the needed renovation of the south. It is their belief that, to make agriculture generally prosperous, and to school the people to habits of thrift and saving, are the first steps, and that manufactories and trades and heterogeneous industries will naturally follow.

They desire northern settlers, to add useful features to agricultural economy, and diversify planting. A few have come, and they are prospering. It seems rational to expect a steady influx of these for many years, bringing capital and methods better suited to the needs of the changed times, raising the value of landed property out of its impeding prostration, and strengthening the industrial force. The climate; the abundance of cheap, cleared land; the long settlement having demonstrated the country to be healthy; the fact that plowing and other important outdoor work can be done on the farms all the winter round; the many railways, the multiplying towns and growing cities; the variety of products, and easy access to market—now that slavery and the animosity of war are gone, and the misrule of the carpetbagger has ended nearly everywhere—these, and many other advantages daily disclosing themselves, excel most of the new States and the Territories in offering inducements to immigrants; and, in due course of time, a vast number of settlers, both American and foreign, will be added to the population. There are many indications that the immigration of stock-raisers, wool-growers, market-gardeners, orchardists, beekeepers, in fine, small farmers of every kind, adapted to the soil and climate, will soon begin in earnest. When it does, the rebuilding of the south will be rapid.

The coming-in of northern capitalists, to invest in railways, mines, manufactories, and other large moneyed enterprises—most especially to develop the great resources of water-power—may be expected to begin at once, and considerably, upon the close of the centennial year. It seems now that this is the most powerful agency that may be expected to begin immediate work, in introducing the much-needed higher type of industrial organization.

The feelings of the two races toward each other were, for a few years after the war, bitterly hostile. The whites had, all their lives, seen the negroes in slavery, and from their infancy they had heard their preachers defend slavery, not in the abstract, as their phrase was, but in the concrete. The “concrete” meant African slavery, which was justified on the ground that the African was divinely intended in his nature for slavery, which was to him christianization and civilization, so long as he remained a slave; while, the moment he was set free, he would revert to his primitive barbarism. When these God-given slaves were suddenly cut loose from mastership, and the wealth of the capitalist, the portion of the orphan, and the mite of the widow were swept away at once by emancipation, either directly or as a necessary consequence, there was a great shock given to the whites. But when, three years afterwards, a new constituency was created, in which the slaves, just emancipated, outnumbered the whites, in many counties, the storm of passion that burst forth can hardly be described. The whites feared that the old relation was about to be inverted, and that they would be made slaves to the negroes. There was many a deed of violence, and many a poor negro paid his life for a few offensive words.

But a wonderful change has taken place. When the southern States were “reconstructed,” as it is termed, in 1868, a negro school-keeper or preacher, if known to be a republican in politics—as he generally was—was hardly safe anywhere beyond the limits of a city. The negro schools were often broken up by mobs, and sometimes black congregations were attacked at night in their churches and dispersed by armed whites in disguise. Now, the colored children troop securely to school, and the colored churches and their congregations are sternly protected by law everywhere. Seven years ago a colored person could hardly get justice, in even the plainest case, from a jury of the other race. Now, in all of the courts, he has the influence of white men to aid him, and rarely is an unjust verdict rendered against him. He makes better friends of the whites. There is no need for him to legislate or hold office over them; he cannot yet do these things right for himself. He rises, however, and his importance is felt more and more. His labor is a necessity. Learning to use it aright, he will surely win all that he deserves. The healthful sentiment prevails everywhere, at the north as at the south, and with the late slave also, that to force his growth is as unfortunate to him as is misjudged parental assistance, which often keeps adult children from ever becoming self-reliant. The colored race in the south must be educated by the struggle for existence into self-maintenance. This training, like the material recuperation of the south, will require time, with patience and hopefulness.

The negro tends resistlessly to a fixed position in his own class. He does not wish to ride in the same railway-car with fine ladies and gentlemen, nor could you persuade him to send his children to a mixed school to be teased by white scholars. He will not be legislated out of his natural circle, where he feels comfortable, into one where he will be ill at case. He seeks for himself a separate home, school, church, and occupation, in all of which he can, at a distance, imitate the white, to whom he is ever looking up. The statute books may be covered with laws having a different purpose, but they will be as powerless to check the current of separation as prescribed rates of interest are impotent to keep down usury when money is dear. In a domestic world, a company and circle of his own, the negro will make a start for himself.

But the negro is grossly misunderstood. It is too generally forgotten that he is many centuries below the white in evolution. Slavery has elevated him far above the savagery of Africa, and introduced him to perhaps his only chance of civilization.

His future in the south is a mystery. Many of his best friends do not believe that he can hold all the great advantages that he has gained in the last ten years. The whites have been muzzled by hostile government. They were stunned, while the negro was stimulated, by emancipation. Their natural effort to hold on to the ante bellum system has also helped the old slave. But, when small and diversified farming is fully developed, and accumulating capital brings in the higher industries, there may be a general need for more efficient and skilled labor than the average negro can supply. While he is forever safe politically against the white, he may not be economically safe.

In noticing the leading features of the New south, we have merely hinted at her rich natural endowments. We have deemed of more importance the character of her people, the new views and principles beginning to assert themselves, the great economical changes following and to follow the abolition of slavery, and the potent effects soon to be wrought by copious immigration. For upon these the future mainly depends.

The south is in a thorough and long transition. Her fields are to be made fertile and to smile beautifully with an infinite variety of products; her provisional labor is to be gradually supplanted by a permanent system; industries, trades, and manufactories are to be founded and everywhere multiplied; she is to have local organizations which will foster more of self-government; her common schools are to be reconstituted and rendered truly serviceable to all; and she has also her part to do in literature, science, and art, as well as in domestic and national politics. We must not be oversanguine in hope of her immediate progress; but we can certainly take courage, when we find that every one who perceptibly influences society by precept or by example—whether he be prominent like Gordon or Lamar, or only a humble planter leading the fore-row in his fields—is seeking for and finding the right path. These leaders must, in the nature of things, have a larger following every year. In due time, their children and their children’s children will make the south of a piece with the more prosperous portions of our country.