IN PLAIN BLACK AND WHITE.[[2]]
[2]. Reprinted from The Century, April, 1885.
A REPLY TO MR. CABLE.
IT is strange that during the discussion of the negro question, which has been wide and pertinent, no one has stood up to speak the mind of the South. In this discussion there has been much of truth and more of error—something of perverseness, but more of misapprehension—not a little of injustice, but perhaps less of mean intention.
Amid it all, the South has been silent.
There has been, perhaps, good reason for this silence. The problem under debate is a tremendous one. Its right solution means peace, prosperity, and happiness to the South. A mistake, even in the temper in which it is approached or the theory upon which its solution is attempted, would mean detriment, that at best would be serious, and might easily be worse. Hence the South has pondered over this problem, earnestly seeking with all her might the honest and the safe way out of its entanglements, and saying little because there was but little to which she felt safe in committing herself. Indeed, there was another reason why she did not feel called upon to obtrude her opinions. The people of the North, proceeding by the right of victorious arms, had themselves undertaken to settle the negro question. From the Emancipation Proclamation to the Civil Rights Bill they hurried with little let or hindrance, holding the negro in the meanwhile under a sort of tutelage, from part in which his former masters were practically excluded. Under this state of things the South had little to do but watch and learn.
We have now passed fifteen years of experiment. Certain broad principles have been established as wise and just.
The South has something to say which she can say with confidence. There is no longer impropriety in her speaking or lack of weight in her words. The people of the United States have, by their suffrages, remitted to the Southern people, temporarily at least, control of the race question. The decision of the Supreme Court on the Civil Rights Bill leaves practically to their adjustment important issues that were, until that decision was rendered, covered by straight and severe enactment. These things deepen the responsibility of the South, increase its concern, and confront it with a problem to which it must address itself promptly and frankly. Where it has been silent, it now should speak. The interest of every American in the honorable and equitable settlement of this question is second only to the interest of those specially—and fortunately, we believe—charged with its adjustment. “What will you do with it?” is a question any man may now ask the South, and to which the South should make frank and full reply.
It is important that this reply shall be plain and straightforward. Above all things it must carry the genuine convictions of the people it represents. On this subject and at this time the South cannot afford to be misunderstood. Upon the clear and general apprehension of her position and of her motives and purpose everything depends. She cannot let pass unchallenged a single utterance that, spoken in her name, misstates her case or her intention. It is to protest against just such injustice that this article is written.