The negro: the southerner's problem

by Thomas Nelson Page

It is to-day the most portentous as it is the most dangerous problem which confronts the American people.

The question is so misunderstood that even the terminology for it in the two sections varies irreconcilably. The North terms it simply the question of the civil equality of all citizens before the law; the South denominates it the question of Negro domination. More accurately it should be termed the Race Question.

Whatever its proper title may be, upon its correct solution depend the progress and the security, if not the very existence, of the American people.

In order that it may be solved it is necessary, first, that its real gravity shall be understood, and its true difficulties apprehended.

We have lived in quietude so long, and have become so accustomed to the condition of affairs, that we are sensible of no apprehension, but rest in the face of this as of other dangers, content and calm. So rest Alpine dwellers who sleep beneath masses of snow which have accumulated for years, yet which, quiet as they appear upon the mountain-sides above, may at any time without warning, by the mere breaking of a twig or the fall of a pebble, be transformed into the resistless and overwhelming avalanche.

There are signs of impending peril about us.

There is, first, the danger incident to the exigence under which the South has stood, of wresting if not of subverting the written law to what she deems the inexorable exactions of her condition.

It is often charged that the written law is not fully and freely observed at the South in matters relating to the exercise of the elective franchise. The defence is not so much a denial of the charge as it is a confession and avoidance. To the accusation it is replied that the written law, when subverted at all, is so subverted only in obedience to a higher law founded on the instinct of self-protection and self-preservation.

If it be admitted that this is true, is it nothing to us that a condition exists which necessitates the subversion of any law? Is it not an injury to our people that the occasion exists which places them in conflict with the law, and compels them to assert the existence of a higher duty? Can law be overridden without creating a spirit which will override law? a spirit ready to constitute itself the judge of what shall and what shall not be considered law; a spirit which eventually substitutes its will for law and confounds its interest with right? Is it a small matter that our people or any part of them should be compelled, by any exigency whatever, to go armed at any time in any place in defiance of law?

This is a grave matter and is to be considered with due deliberation; for on its right solution much depends. The first step toward cure is ever comprehension of the disease. The first step toward the proper solution of our trouble is to secure a perfect comprehension of it. To do this we must first comprehend it ourselves, then only can we hope to enlighten others.